David Ray Griffin - 9/11, the Cover-up and the Exposé
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David Ray Griffin - 9/11, the Cover-up and the Exposé
Filling in for a Somnolent Press Corps, Pressing the Case for 9/11 Truth
Here are details of David Ray Griffin's forthcoming new book. The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-up and the Expose. It is available for order at Amazon.com here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Pearl-Harbo ... 844370763/
The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé
David Ray Griffin
“Citizens in many countries are waging a war on the cover-up of the basis for the so-called war on terror---this basis being the official interpretation of the 9/11 attacks. Along with the Internet, which has equipped both public figures and ordinary citizens to wage this war on the cover-up, David Ray Griffin has revealed dozens of omissions, distortions, and contradictions in the official story in a way that provides undeniable evidence of its falsity. The New Pearl Harbor Revisited presents a powerful exposé of the false narrative that has been driving the mainstream political agenda since 9/11. It is now up to politicians and journalists around the world to expose this truth to our peoples.”---Yukihisa Fujita, member of the House of Councilors, the Diet of Japan
“With this work, Dr. Griffin cements his place as the preeminent spokesperson for the growing number of people who demand answers to an expanding list of questions about 9/11. . . . Even those members of the 9/11 Truth Movement who have immersed themselves thoroughly in the subject will find new information here, presented in the precise and very readable style Dr. Griffin has brought to each of his books. . . . Absent a revival of investigative journalism---a dim prospect at best, in view of the media ownership concentration---books like this one, arming the informed citizen with solid information and providing a basis for demanding direct action, appear to be our best hope.”---Shelton F. Lankford, Lt. Col. US Marine Corps (Ret.)
“In The New Pearl Harbor, Dr. Griffin raised serious questions about the destruction of the World Trade Center---the part of the official conspiracy theory about 9/11 with which I have been especially concerned. Now, in The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, he continues to pierce the heart of the official story with his signature penetrating research, this time sharpened with arguments provided by physical scientists, architects, and engineers. He definitely delivers the technical goods. Message to authors of the NIST Report: The charade is over!”---Richard Gage, member of American Institute of Architects, founder of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth
PUBLISHER'S BOOK DESCRIPTION
In 2004, David Ray Griffin published The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11. Translated into several languages, it helped spark a worldwide movement demanding “9/11 truth.” Even as it became increasingly outdated, it continued to be widely cited as the best introduction to the issues.
Griffin has now written The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, which provides a chapter-by-chapter updating of the information provided in that earlier book. It shows that the case against the official account constructed by independent researchers---who now include architects, engineers, physicists, pilots, politicians, and former military officers---is far stronger than it was in 2004, leaving no doubt that 9/11 was a false-flag operation, designed to give the Bush-Cheney administration a pretext to attack oil-rich Muslim nations.
Taken together, these two books provide everything one needs to make an informed decision about 9/11---whether one is a journalist, a political leader, a religious leader, or an ordinary citizen concerned about truth, democracy, and the rule of law.
MORE ENDORSEMENTS
"David Ray Griffin stands at the center of one of the most impressive citizen research projects in history. In this superb new volume, he draws together a great quantity of recent evidence and demonstrates
beyond question the fraudulent nature of the official account of 9/11."---Dr. Graeme MacQueen, Founder of McMaster University's Center for Peace Studies
“Nowhere is it clearer that truth is now considered quaint, obsolete here in Washington, than in the disingenuous non-answers to questions about the cavernous holes in the official version of 9/11—-and the flippant attempts to marginalize intrepid souls like David Ray Griffin, branded “blasphemous” by the likes of Tucker Carlson. Facing straight into this rancid wind, Griffin now provides a definitive account that updates and integrates his earlier findings. Will Congress ever authorize an honest investigation of the seminal event of our time?”---Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and presidential briefer
“President Bush and Vice President Cheney have many questions to answer in light of this book. This time they should have to testify separately and under oath. Unlike their testimony at the 9/11 Commission, behind closed doors, this should be open testimony.”---Jesse Ventura, Governor of Minnesota, 1999-2003
“This latest book by David Ray Griffin is scholarly research at its best. Meticulous empirical investigation and painstaking analysis are combined to refute the official 9/11 narrative. Every event surrounding the tragic events of September 11, 2001, is subjected to close scrutiny, ultimately with a view to revealing the lies and upholding the truth. In this fascinating and skillfully researched exposé, Griffin demonstrates unequivocally that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job.”---Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics and author of America’s War on Terrorism
BOOK'S OUTLINE
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
1. Flight 11, Flight 175, and the World Trade Center: New Developments
2. Flight 77 and the Pentagon: New Developments
3. Flight 93: Additional Evidence against the Official Story
4. Bush at the School in Sarasota: Cover-Up Attempts
5. Evidence of Advance Information: The 9/11 Commission’s Treatment
6. Continuing Obstructions and New Doubts about Hijackers
7. Motives of US Officials: The Silence of the 9/11 Commission
8. 9/11 Commission Falsehoods about Bin Laden, al-Qaeda, Pakistanis, and Saudis
9. Complicity by US Officials: A Summary of the Evidence
10. New Revelations about the 9/11 Commission and the Strengthened Case for a New Investigation
Notes
Index
MORE ENDORSEMENTS
“You and I, along with all citizens of the world, are victims of a heinous crime. The conspiracy that generated the Twin Tower photo-op, blamed the 9/11 attacks on Arab Muslims, and misdirected truth-seekers by destruction of evidence and willful misrepresentation is masterfully exposed in this book. Who had the motive, means and opportunity to demolish three skyscrapers, including Building 7, which was not even attacked by a mere airplane? Who could penetrate the Earth’s most heavily defended air space and fortress—-the Pentagon? What was their motive? Greed to concentrate power, to control access to the last drop of Gaia's reserve hydrocarbon energy? But, alas, who thinks of our children? David Ray Griffin, apolitical scholar and theologian, was transformed by the coup d'etat into a superb scientist-journalist. By documenting the tragic 9/11 crime, this consummate educator has done us victims a profound service.”–-Lynn Margulis, Distinguished University Professor, Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and National Medal of Science recipient
“Circuses use people to clean up their elephants---a dirty job, but someone has to do it. The 9/11 Commissioners evidently likened themselves to circus workers, cleaning up after the (Republican) elephant. They did a very sloppy job, making it easy to see that 9/11 was an inside job. The contrary view---that the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by Arab Muslims---has been the source of innumerable evils, which threaten to destroy our country and the world itself. David Griffin’s New Pearl Harbor Revisited contains everything needed by Congress and the press to see through the most massive crime and cover-up in our history.”---Edward Asner, actor and citizen
“David Ray Griffin has again painstakingly laid bare the many lingering questions and inconsistencies of the official story regarding the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001. Sadly, millions of taxpayer dollars have been squandered on investigations that yielded no accountability, few answers, and fewer reforms. Yet, the attacks of September 11, 2001 have been wantonly used as political and policy fodder. Without truth, there can be no accountability. Without accountability, there can be no real change. Without change, we remain at risk.”---Monica Gabrielle, widow of Richard Gabrielle, who was killed at WTC2 on 9/11/01, and member of the Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Commission
ORDERING INFORMATION
The New Pearl Harbor Revisited can be purchased for $20 at bookstores or Interlink Books (1-800-238-LINK) or for $13.60 at Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/New-Pearl-Harbor- ... 840&sr=1-6). It should be available at Amazon by September 11.
Here are details of David Ray Griffin's forthcoming new book. The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-up and the Expose. It is available for order at Amazon.com here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Pearl-Harbo ... 844370763/
The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé
David Ray Griffin
“Citizens in many countries are waging a war on the cover-up of the basis for the so-called war on terror---this basis being the official interpretation of the 9/11 attacks. Along with the Internet, which has equipped both public figures and ordinary citizens to wage this war on the cover-up, David Ray Griffin has revealed dozens of omissions, distortions, and contradictions in the official story in a way that provides undeniable evidence of its falsity. The New Pearl Harbor Revisited presents a powerful exposé of the false narrative that has been driving the mainstream political agenda since 9/11. It is now up to politicians and journalists around the world to expose this truth to our peoples.”---Yukihisa Fujita, member of the House of Councilors, the Diet of Japan
“With this work, Dr. Griffin cements his place as the preeminent spokesperson for the growing number of people who demand answers to an expanding list of questions about 9/11. . . . Even those members of the 9/11 Truth Movement who have immersed themselves thoroughly in the subject will find new information here, presented in the precise and very readable style Dr. Griffin has brought to each of his books. . . . Absent a revival of investigative journalism---a dim prospect at best, in view of the media ownership concentration---books like this one, arming the informed citizen with solid information and providing a basis for demanding direct action, appear to be our best hope.”---Shelton F. Lankford, Lt. Col. US Marine Corps (Ret.)
“In The New Pearl Harbor, Dr. Griffin raised serious questions about the destruction of the World Trade Center---the part of the official conspiracy theory about 9/11 with which I have been especially concerned. Now, in The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, he continues to pierce the heart of the official story with his signature penetrating research, this time sharpened with arguments provided by physical scientists, architects, and engineers. He definitely delivers the technical goods. Message to authors of the NIST Report: The charade is over!”---Richard Gage, member of American Institute of Architects, founder of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth
PUBLISHER'S BOOK DESCRIPTION
In 2004, David Ray Griffin published The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11. Translated into several languages, it helped spark a worldwide movement demanding “9/11 truth.” Even as it became increasingly outdated, it continued to be widely cited as the best introduction to the issues.
Griffin has now written The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, which provides a chapter-by-chapter updating of the information provided in that earlier book. It shows that the case against the official account constructed by independent researchers---who now include architects, engineers, physicists, pilots, politicians, and former military officers---is far stronger than it was in 2004, leaving no doubt that 9/11 was a false-flag operation, designed to give the Bush-Cheney administration a pretext to attack oil-rich Muslim nations.
Taken together, these two books provide everything one needs to make an informed decision about 9/11---whether one is a journalist, a political leader, a religious leader, or an ordinary citizen concerned about truth, democracy, and the rule of law.
MORE ENDORSEMENTS
"David Ray Griffin stands at the center of one of the most impressive citizen research projects in history. In this superb new volume, he draws together a great quantity of recent evidence and demonstrates
beyond question the fraudulent nature of the official account of 9/11."---Dr. Graeme MacQueen, Founder of McMaster University's Center for Peace Studies
“Nowhere is it clearer that truth is now considered quaint, obsolete here in Washington, than in the disingenuous non-answers to questions about the cavernous holes in the official version of 9/11—-and the flippant attempts to marginalize intrepid souls like David Ray Griffin, branded “blasphemous” by the likes of Tucker Carlson. Facing straight into this rancid wind, Griffin now provides a definitive account that updates and integrates his earlier findings. Will Congress ever authorize an honest investigation of the seminal event of our time?”---Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and presidential briefer
“President Bush and Vice President Cheney have many questions to answer in light of this book. This time they should have to testify separately and under oath. Unlike their testimony at the 9/11 Commission, behind closed doors, this should be open testimony.”---Jesse Ventura, Governor of Minnesota, 1999-2003
“This latest book by David Ray Griffin is scholarly research at its best. Meticulous empirical investigation and painstaking analysis are combined to refute the official 9/11 narrative. Every event surrounding the tragic events of September 11, 2001, is subjected to close scrutiny, ultimately with a view to revealing the lies and upholding the truth. In this fascinating and skillfully researched exposé, Griffin demonstrates unequivocally that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job.”---Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics and author of America’s War on Terrorism
BOOK'S OUTLINE
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
1. Flight 11, Flight 175, and the World Trade Center: New Developments
2. Flight 77 and the Pentagon: New Developments
3. Flight 93: Additional Evidence against the Official Story
4. Bush at the School in Sarasota: Cover-Up Attempts
5. Evidence of Advance Information: The 9/11 Commission’s Treatment
6. Continuing Obstructions and New Doubts about Hijackers
7. Motives of US Officials: The Silence of the 9/11 Commission
8. 9/11 Commission Falsehoods about Bin Laden, al-Qaeda, Pakistanis, and Saudis
9. Complicity by US Officials: A Summary of the Evidence
10. New Revelations about the 9/11 Commission and the Strengthened Case for a New Investigation
Notes
Index
MORE ENDORSEMENTS
“You and I, along with all citizens of the world, are victims of a heinous crime. The conspiracy that generated the Twin Tower photo-op, blamed the 9/11 attacks on Arab Muslims, and misdirected truth-seekers by destruction of evidence and willful misrepresentation is masterfully exposed in this book. Who had the motive, means and opportunity to demolish three skyscrapers, including Building 7, which was not even attacked by a mere airplane? Who could penetrate the Earth’s most heavily defended air space and fortress—-the Pentagon? What was their motive? Greed to concentrate power, to control access to the last drop of Gaia's reserve hydrocarbon energy? But, alas, who thinks of our children? David Ray Griffin, apolitical scholar and theologian, was transformed by the coup d'etat into a superb scientist-journalist. By documenting the tragic 9/11 crime, this consummate educator has done us victims a profound service.”–-Lynn Margulis, Distinguished University Professor, Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and National Medal of Science recipient
“Circuses use people to clean up their elephants---a dirty job, but someone has to do it. The 9/11 Commissioners evidently likened themselves to circus workers, cleaning up after the (Republican) elephant. They did a very sloppy job, making it easy to see that 9/11 was an inside job. The contrary view---that the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by Arab Muslims---has been the source of innumerable evils, which threaten to destroy our country and the world itself. David Griffin’s New Pearl Harbor Revisited contains everything needed by Congress and the press to see through the most massive crime and cover-up in our history.”---Edward Asner, actor and citizen
“David Ray Griffin has again painstakingly laid bare the many lingering questions and inconsistencies of the official story regarding the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001. Sadly, millions of taxpayer dollars have been squandered on investigations that yielded no accountability, few answers, and fewer reforms. Yet, the attacks of September 11, 2001 have been wantonly used as political and policy fodder. Without truth, there can be no accountability. Without accountability, there can be no real change. Without change, we remain at risk.”---Monica Gabrielle, widow of Richard Gabrielle, who was killed at WTC2 on 9/11/01, and member of the Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Commission
ORDERING INFORMATION
The New Pearl Harbor Revisited can be purchased for $20 at bookstores or Interlink Books (1-800-238-LINK) or for $13.60 at Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/New-Pearl-Harbor- ... 840&sr=1-6). It should be available at Amazon by September 11.
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Griffin debunks Muslims dunnit myth
World renowned 9/11 Researcher, David Ray Griffin has written this article debunking the theory, widely held among those who doubt the US government's account of what happened, that Muslims nevertheless carried out the massacre by hijacking passenger planes and flying them into buildings.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e20722.htm
Was America Attacked by Muslims on 9/11?
By David Ray Griffin
09/09/08 "ICH" -- - Much of America's foreign policy since 9/11 has been based on the assumption that it was attacked by Muslims on that day. This assumption was used, most prominently, to justify the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is now widely agreed that the use of 9/11 as a basis for attacking Iraq was illegitimate: none of the hijackers were Iraqis, there was no working relation between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, and Iraq was not behind the anthrax attacks. But it is still widely believed that the US attack on Afghanistan was justified. For example, the New York Times, while referring to the US attack on Iraq as a "war of choice," calls the battle in Afghanistan a "war of necessity." Time magazine has dubbed it "the right war." And Barack Obama says that one reason to wind down our involvement in Iraq is to have the troops and resources to "go after the people in Afghanistan who actually attacked us on 9/11."
The assumption that America was attacked by Muslims on 9/11 also lies behind the widespread perception of Islam as an inherently violent religion and therefore of Muslims as guilty until proven innocent. This perception surely contributed to attempts to portray Obama as a Muslim, which was lampooned by a controversial cartoon on the July 21, 2008, cover of The New Yorker.
As could be illustrated by reference to many other post-9/11 developments, including as spying, torture, extraordinary rendition, military tribunals, America's new doctrine of preemptive war, and its enormous increase in military spending, the assumption that the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked by Muslim hijackers has had enormous negative consequences for both international and domestic issues.1
Is it conceivable that this assumption might be false? Insofar as Americans and Canadians would say "No," they would express their belief that this assumption is not merely an "assumption" but is instead based on strong evidence. When actually examined, however, the proffered evidence turns out to be remarkably weak. I will illustrate this point by means of 16 questions.
1. Were Mohamed Atta and the Other Hijackers Devout Muslims?
The picture of the hijackers conveyed by the 9/11 Commission is that they were devout Muslims. Mohamed Atta, considered the ringleader, was said to have become very religious, even "fanatically so."2 Being devout Muslims, they could be portrayed as ready to meet their Maker---as a "cadre of trained operatives willing to die."3
But this portrayal is contradicted by various newspaper stories. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Atta and other hijackers had made "at least six trips" to Las Vegas, where they had "engaged in some decidedly un-Islamic sampling of prohibited pleasures." These activities were "un-Islamic" because, as the head of the Islamic Foundation of Nevada pointed out: "True Muslims don't drink, don't gamble, don't go to strip clubs."4
One might, to be sure, rationalize this behavior by supposing that these were momentary lapses and that, as 9/11 approached, these young Muslims had repented and prepared for heaven. But in the days just before 9/11, Atta and others were reported to be drinking heavily, cavorting with lap dancers, and bringing call girls to their rooms. Temple University Professor Mahmoud Ayoub said: "It is incomprehensible that a person could drink and go to a strip bar one night, then kill themselves the next day in the name of Islam. . . . Something here does not add up."5
In spite of the fact that these activities were reported by mainstream newspapers and even the Wall Street Journal editorial page,6 the 9/11 Commission wrote as if these reports did not exist, saying: "we have seen no credible evidence explaining why, on [some occasions], the operatives flew to or met in Las Vegas."7
2. Do Authorities Have Hard Evidence of Osama bin Laden's Responsibility for 9/11?
Whatever be the truth about the devoutness of the hijackers, one might reply, there is certainly no doubt about the fact that they were acting under the guidance of Osama bin Laden. The attack on Afghanistan was based on the claim that bin Laden was behind the attacks, and the 9/11 Commission's report was written as if there were no question about this claim. But neither the Bush administration nor the Commission provided any proof for it.
Two weeks after 9/11, Secretary of State Colin Powell, speaking to Tim Russert on "Meet the Press," said he expected "in the near future . . . to put out . . . a document that will describe quite clearly the evidence that we have linking [bin Laden] to this attack."8 But at a press conference with President Bush the next morning, Powell reversed himself, saying that although the government had information that left no question of bin Laden's responsibility, "most of it is classified."9 According to Seymour Hersh, citing officials from both the CIA and the Department of Justice, the real reason for the reversal was a "lack of solid information."10
That same week, Bush had demanded that the Taliban turn over bin Laden. But the Taliban, reported CNN, "refus[ed] to hand over bin Laden without proof or evidence that he was involved in last week's attacks on the United States." The Bush administration, saying "[t]here is already an indictment of Osama bin Laden" [for the attacks in Tanzania, Kenya, and elsewhere]," rejected the demand for evidence with regard to 9/11.11
The task of providing such evidence was taken up by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who on October 4 made public a document entitled "Responsibility for the Terrorist Atrocities in the United States." Listing "clear conclusions reached by the government," it stated: "Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, the terrorist network which he heads, planned and carried out the atrocities on 11 September 2001."12
Blair's report, however, began by saying: "This document does not purport to provide a prosecutable case against Osama Bin Laden in a court of law." This weakness was noted the next day by the BBC, which said: "There is no direct evidence in the public domain linking Osama Bin Laden to the 11 September attacks. At best the evidence is circumstantial."13
After the US had attacked Afghanistan, a senior Taliban official said: "We have asked for proof of Osama's involvement, but they have refused. Why?"14 The answer to this question may be suggested by the fact that, to this day, the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorist" webpage on bin Laden, while listing him as wanted for bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, makes no mention of 9/11.15
When the FBI's chief of investigative publicity was asked why not, he replied: "The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden's Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11."16
It is often claimed that bin Laden's guilt is proved by a video, reportedly found by US intelligence officers in Afghanistan in November 2001, in which bin Laden appears to report having planned the attacks. But critics, pointing out various problems with this "confession video," have called it a fake.17 General Hamid Gul, a former head of Pakistan's ISI, said: "I think there is an Osama Bin Laden look-alike."18 Actually, the man in the video is not even much of a look-alike, being heavier and darker than bin Laden, having a broader nose, wearing jewelry, and writing with his right hand.19 The FBI, in any case, obviously does not consider this video hard evidence of bin Laden's responsibility for 9/11.
What about the 9/11 Commission? I mentioned earlier that it gave the impression of having had solid evidence of bin Laden's guilt. But Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, the Commission's co-chairs, undermined this impression in their follow-up book subtitled "the inside story of the 9/11 Commission."20
Whenever the Commission had cited evidence for bin Ladin's responsibility, the note in the back of the book always referred to CIA-provided information that had (presumably) been elicited during interrogations of al-Qaeda operatives. By far the most important of these operatives was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), described as the "mastermind" of the 9/11 attacks. The Commission, for example, wrote:
Bin Ladin . . . finally decided to give the green light for the 9/11 operation sometime in late 1998 or early 1999. . . . Bin Ladin also soon selected four individuals to serve as suicide operatives. . . . Atta---whom Bin Ladin chose to lead the group---met with Bin Ladin several times to receive additional instructions, including a preliminary list of approved targets: the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the U.S. Capitol.21
The note for each of these statements says "interrogation of KSM."22
Kean and Hamilton, however, reported that they had no success in "obtaining access to star witnesses in custody . . . , most notably Khalid Sheikh Mohammed."23 Besides not being allowed to interview these witnesses, they were not permitted to observe the interrogations through one-way glass or even to talk to the interrogators.24 Therefore, they complained: "We . . . had no way of evaluating the credibility of detainee information. How could we tell if someone such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed . . . was telling us the truth?"25
An NBC "deep background" report in 2008 pointed out an additional problem: KSM and the other al-Qaeda leaders had been subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques," i.e., torture, and it is now widely acknowledged that statements elicited by torture lack credibility. "At least four of the operatives whose interrogation figured in the 9/11 Commission Report," this NBC report pointed out, "have claimed that they told interrogators critical information as a way to stop being "-tortured.'" NBC then quoted Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, as saying: "Most people look at the 9/11 Commission Report as a trusted historical document. If their conclusions were supported by information gained from torture, . . . their conclusions are suspect."26
Accordingly, neither the White House, the British government, the FBI, nor the 9/11 Commission has provided solid evidence that Osama bin Laden was behind 9/11.
3. Was Evidence of Muslim Hijackers Provided by Phone Calls from the Airliners?
Nevertheless, many readers may respond, there can be no doubt that the airplanes were taken over by al-Qaeda hijackers, because their presence and actions on the planes were reported on phone calls by passengers and flight attendants, with cell phone calls playing an especially prominent role.
The most famous of the reported calls were from CNN commentator Barbara Olson to her husband, US Solicitor General Ted Olson. According to CNN, he reported that his wife had "called him twice on a cell phone from American Airlines Flight 77," saying that "all passengers and flight personnel, including the pilots, were herded to the back of the plane by . . . hijackers [armed with] knives and cardboard cutters."27
Although these reported calls, as summarized by Ted Olson, did not describe the hijackers so as to suggest that they were members of al-Qaeda, such descriptions were supplied by calls from other flights, especially United 93, from which about a dozen cell phone calls were reportedly received before it crashed in Pennsylvania. According to a Washington Post story of September 13,
[P]assenger Jeremy Glick used a cell phone to tell his wife, Lyzbeth, . . . that the Boeing 757's cockpit had been taken over by three Middle Eastern-looking men. . . . The terrorists, wearing red headbands, had ordered the pilots, flight attendants and passengers to the rear of the plane.28
A story about a "cellular phone conversation" between flight attendant Sandra Bradshaw and her husband gave this report:
She said the plane had been taken over by three men with knives. She had gotten a close look at one of the hijackers. . . . "He had an Islamic look," she told her husband. 29
From these calls, therefore, the public was informed that the hijackers looked Middle Eastern and even Islamic.
Still more specific information was reportedly conveyed during a 12-minute cell phone call from flight attendant Amy Sweeney on American Flight 11, which was to crash into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.30 After reaching American Airlines employee Michael Woodward and telling him that men of "Middle Eastern descent" had hijacked her flight, she then gave him their seat numbers, from which he was able to learn the identity of Mohamed Atta and two other hijackers.31 Amy Sweeney's call was critical, ABC News explained, because without it "the plane might have crashed with no one certain the man in charge was tied to al Qaeda."32
There was, however, a big problem with these reported calls: Given the technology available in 2001, cell phone calls from airliners at altitudes of more than a few thousand feet, especially calls lasting more than a few seconds, were not possible, and yet these calls, some of which reportedly lasted a minute or more, reportedly occurred when the planes were above 30,000 or even 40,000 feet. This problem was explained by some credible people, including scientist A.K. Dewdney, who for many years had written a column for Scientific American.33
Although some defenders of the official account, such as Popular Mechanics, have disputed the contention that high-altitude calls from airliners were impossible,34 the fact is that the FBI, after having at first supported the claims that such calls were made, withdrew this support a few years later.
With regard to the reported 12-minute call from Amy Sweeney to Michael Woodward, an affidavit signed by FBI agent James Lechner and dated September 12 (2001) stated that, according to Woodward, Sweeney had been "using a cellular telephone."35 But when the 9/11 Commission discussed this call in its Report, which appeared in July 2004, it declared that Sweeney had used an onboard phone.36
Behind that change was an implausible claim made by the FBI earlier in 2004: Although Woodward had failed to mention this when FBI agent Lechner interviewed him on 9/11, he had repeated Sweeney's call verbatim to a colleague in his office, who had in turn repeated it to another colleague at American headquarters in Dallas, who had recorded it; and this recording---which was discovered only in 2004---indicated that Sweeney had used a passenger-seat phone, thanks to "an AirFone card, given to her by another flight attendant."37
This claim is implausible because, if this relayed recording had really been made on 9/11, we cannot believe that Woodward would have failed to mention it to FBI agent Lechner later that same day. While Lechner was taking notes, Woodward would surely have said: "You don't need to rely on my memory. There is a recording of a word-for-word repetition of Sweeney's statements down in Dallas." It is also implausible that Woodward, having repeated Sweeney's statement that she had used "an AirFone card, given to her by another flight attendant," would have told Lechner, as the latter's affidavit says, that Sweeney had been "using a cellular telephone."
Lechner's affidavit shows that the FBI at first supported the claim that Sweeney had made a 12-minute cell phone call from a high-altitude airliner. Does not the FBI's change of story, after its first version had been shown to be technologically impossible, create the suspicion that the entire story was a fabrication?
This suspicion is reinforced by the FBI's change of story in relation to United Flight 93. Although we were originally told that this flight had been the source of about a dozen cell phone calls, some of them when the plane was above 40,000 feet, the FBI gave a very different report at the 2006 trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker. The FBI spokesman said: "13 of the terrified passengers and crew members made 35 air phone calls and two cell phone calls."38 Instead of there having been about a dozen cell phone calls from Flight 93, the FBI declared in 2005, there were really only two.
Why were two calls still said to have been possible? They were reportedly made at 9:58, when the plane was reportedly down to 5,000 feet.39 Although that was still pretty high for successful cell phone calls in 2001, these calls, unlike calls from 30,000 feet or higher, would have been at least arguably possible.
If the truth of the FBI's new account is assumed, how can one explain the fact that so many people had reported receiving cell phone calls? In most cases, it seems, these people had been told by the callers that they were using cell phones. For example, a Newsweek story about United 93 said: "Elizabeth Wainio, 27, was speaking to her stepmother in Maryland. Another passenger, she explains, had loaned her a cell phone and told her to call her family."40 In such cases, we might assume that the people receiving the calls had simply mis-heard, or mis-remembered, what they had been told. But this would mean positing that about a dozen people had made the same mistake.
An even more serious difficulty is presented by the case of Deena Burnett, who said that she had received three to five calls from her husband, Tom Burnett. She knew he was using his cell phone, she reported to the FBI that very day and then to the press and in a book, because she had recognized his cell phone number on her phone's Caller ID.41 We cannot suppose her to have been mistaken about this. We also, surely, cannot accuse her of lying.
Therefore, if we accept the FBI's report, according to which Tom Burnett did not make any cell phone calls from Flight 93, we can only conclude that the calls were faked---that Deena Burnett was duped. Although this suggestion may at first sight seem outlandish, there are three facts that, taken together, show it to be more probable than any of the alternatives.
First, voice morphing technology was sufficiently advanced at that time to make faking the calls feasible. A 1999 Washington Post article described demonstrations in which the voices of two generals, Colin Powell and Carl Steiner, were heard saying things they had never said.42
Second, there are devices with which you can fake someone's telephone number, so that it will show up on the recipient's Caller ID.43
Third, the conclusion that the person who called Deena Burnett was not her husband is suggested by various features of the calls. For example, when Deena told the caller that "the kids" were asking to talk to him, he said: "Tell them I'll talk to them later." This was 20 minutes after Tom had purportedly realized that the hijackers were on a suicide mission, planning to "crash this plane into the ground," and 10 minutes after he and other passengers had allegedly decided that as soon as they were "over a rural area" they must try to gain control of the plane. Also, the hijackers had reportedly already killed one person.44 Given all this, the real Tom Burnett would have known that he would likely die, one way or another, in the next few minutes. Is it believable that, rather than taking this probably last opportunity to speak to his children, he would say that he would "talk to them later"? Is it not more likely that "Tom" made this statement to avoid revealing that he knew nothing about "the kids," perhaps not even their names?
Further evidence that the calls were faked is provided by timing problems in some of them. According to the 9/11 Commission, Flight 93 crashed at 10:03 as a result of the passenger revolt, which began at 9:57. However, according to Lyzbeth Glick's account of the aforementioned cell phone call from her husband, Jeremy Glick, she told him about the collapse of the South Tower, and that did not occur until 9:59, two minutes after the alleged revolt had started. After that, she reported, their conversation continued for several more minutes before he told her that the passengers were taking a vote about whether to attack. According to Lyzbeth Glick's account, therefore, the revolt was only beginning by 10:03, when the plane (according to the official account) was crashing.45
A timing problem also occurred in the aforementioned call from flight attendant Amy Sweeney. While she was describing the hijackers, according to the FBI's account of her call, they stormed and took control of the cockpit.46 However, although the hijacking of Flight 11 "began at 8:14 or shortly thereafter," the 9/11 Commission said, Sweeney's call did not go through until 8:25.47 Her alleged call, in other words, described the hijacking as beginning over 11 minutes after it, according to the official timeline, had been successfully carried out.
Multiple lines of evidence, therefore, imply that the cell phone calls were faked. This fact has vast implications, because it implies that all the reported calls from the planes, including those from onboard phones, were faked. Why? Because if the planes had really been taken over in surprise hijackings, no one would have been ready to make fake cell phone calls.
Moreover, the FBI, besides implying, most clearly in the case of Deena Burnett, that the phone calls reporting the hijackings had been faked, comes right out and says, in its report about calls from Flight 77, that no calls from Barbara Olson occurred. It does mention her. But besides attributing only one call to her, not two, the FBI report refers to it as an "unconnected call," which (of course) lasted "0 seconds."48 In 2006, in other words, the FBI, which is part of the Department of Justice, implied that the story told by the DOJ's former solicitor general was untrue. Although not mentioned by the press, this was an astounding development.
This FBI report leaves only two possible explanations for Ted Olson's story: Either he made it up or else he, like Deena Burnett and several others, was duped. In either case, the story about Barbara Olson's calls, with their reports of hijackers taking over Flight 77, was based on deception.
The opening section of The 9/11 Commission Report is entitled "Inside the Four Flights." The information contained in this section is based almost entirely on the reported phone calls. But if the reported calls were faked, we have no idea what happened inside these planes. Insofar as the idea that the planes were taken over by hijackers who looked "Middle Eastern," even "Islamic," has been based on the reported calls, this idea is groundless.
4. Was the Presence of Hijackers Proved by a Radio Transmission "from American 11"?
It might be objected, in reply, that this is not true, because we know that American Flight 11, at least, was hijacked, thanks to a radio transmission in which the voice of one of its hijackers is heard. According to the 9/11 Commission, the air traffic controller for this flight heard a radio transmission at 8:25 AM in which someone---widely assumed to be Mohamed Atta---told the passengers: "We have some planes. Just stay quiet, and you'll be okay. We are returning to the airport." After quoting this transmission, the Commission wrote: "The controller told us that he then knew it was a hijacking."49 Was this transmission not indeed proof that Flight 11 had been hijacked?
It might provide such proof if we knew that, as the Commission claimed, the "transmission came from American 11."50 But we do not. According to the FAA's "Summary of Air Traffic Hijack Events," published September 17, 2001, the transmission was "from an unknown origin."51 Bill Peacock, the FAA's air traffic director, said: "We didn't know where the transmission came from."52 The Commission's claim that it came from American 11 was merely an inference. The transmission could have come from the same room from which the calls to Deena Burnett originated.
Therefore, the alleged radio transmission from Flight 11, like the alleged phone calls from the planes, provides no evidence that the planes were taken over by al-Qaeda hijackers.
5. Did Passports and a Headband Provide Evidence that al-Qaeda Operatives Were on the Flights?
However, the government's case for al-Qaeda hijackers on also rested in part on claims that passports and a headband belonging to al-Qaeda operatives were found at the crash sites. But these claims are patently absurd.
A week after the attacks, the FBI reported that a search of the streets after the destruction of the World Trade Center had discovered the passport of one of the Flight 11 hijackers, Satam al-Suqami.53 But this claim did not pass the giggle test. "[T]he idea that [this] passport had escaped from that inferno unsinged," wrote one British reporter, "would [test] the credulity of the staunchest supporter of the FBI's crackdown on terrorism."54
By 2004, when the 9/11 Commission was discussing the alleged discovery of this passport, the story had been modified to say that "a passer-by picked it up and gave it to a NYPD detective shortly before the World Trade Center towers collapsed."55 So, rather than needing to survive the collapse of the North Tower, the passport merely needed to escape from the plane's cabin, avoid being destroyed or even singed by the instantaneous jet-fuel fire, and then escape from the building so that it could fall to the ground! Equally absurd is the claim that the passport of Ziad Jarrah, the alleged pilot of Flight 93, was found at this plane's crash site in Pennsylvania.56 This passport was reportedly found on the ground even though there was virtually nothing at the site to indicate that an airliner had crashed there. The reason for this absence of wreckage, we were told, was that the plane had been headed downward at 580 miles per hour and, when it hit the spongy Pennsylvania soil, buried itself deep in the ground. New York Times journalist Jere Longman, surely repeating what he had been told by authorities, wrote: "The fuselage accordioned on itself more than thirty feet into the porous, backfilled ground. It was as if a marble had been dropped into water."57 So, we are to believe, just before the plane buried itself in the earth, Jarrah's passport escaped from the cockpit and landed on the ground. Did Jarrah, going 580 miles per hour, have the window open?58 Also found on the ground, according to the government's evidence presented to the Moussaoui trial, was a red headband.59 This was considered evidence that al-Qaeda hijackers were on Flight 93 because they were, according to some of the phone calls, wearing red headbands. But besides being absurd for the same reason as was the claim about Jarrah's passport, this claim about the headband was problematic for another reason. Former CIA agent Milt Bearden, who helped train the Mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan, has pointed out that it would have been very unlikely that members of al-Qaeda would have worn such headbands:
[The red headband] is a uniquely Shi'a Muslim adornment. It is something that dates back to the formation of the Shi'a sect. . . . t represents the preparation of he who wears this red headband to sacrifice his life, to murder himself for the cause. Sunnis are by and large most of the people following Osama bin Laden [and they] do not do this.60
We learned shortly after the invasion of Iraq that some people in the US government did not know the difference between Shi'a and Sunni Muslims. Did such people decide that the hijackers would be described as wearing red headbands?
6. Did the Information in Atta's Luggage Prove the Responsibility of al-Qaeda Operatives?
I come now to the evidence that is said to provide the strongest proof that the planes had been hijacked by Mohamed Atta and other members of al-Qaeda. This evidence was reportedly found in two pieces of Atta's luggage that were discovered inside the Boston airport after the attacks. The luggage was there, we were told, because although Atta was already in Boston on September 10, he and another al-Qaeda operative, Abdul al-Omari, rented a blue Nissan and drove up to Portland, Maine, and stayed overnight. They caught a commuter flight back to Boston early the next morning in time to get on American Flight 11, but Atta's luggage did not make it.
This luggage, according to the FBI affidavit signed by James Lechner, contained much incriminating material, including a handheld flight computer, flight simulator manuals, two videotapes about Boeing aircraft, a slide-rule flight calculator, a copy of the Koran, and Atta's last will and testament.61 This material was widely taken as proof that al-Qaeda and hence Osama bin Laden were behind the 9/11 attacks.
When closely examined, however, the Atta-to-Portland story loses all credibility.
One problem is the very idea that Atta would have planned to take all these things in baggage that was to be transferred to Flight 11. What good would a flight computer and other flying aids do inside a suitcase in the plane's luggage compartment? Why would he have planned to take his will on a plane he planned to crash into the World Trade Center?
A second problem involves the question of why Atta's luggage did not get transferred onto Flight 11. According to an Associated Press story that appeared four days after 9/11, Atta's flight "arrived at Logan . . . just in time for him to connect with American Airlines flight 11 to Los Angeles, but too late for his luggage to be loaded."62 The 9/11 Commission had at one time evidently planned to endorse this claim.63 But when The 9/11 Commission Report appeared, it said: "Atta and Omari arrived in Boston at 6:45" and then "checked in and boarded American Airlines Flight 11," which was "scheduled to depart at 7:45."64 By thus admitting that there was almost a full hour for the luggage to be transferred to Flight 11, the Commission was left with no explanation as to why it was not.
Still another problem with the Atta-to-Portland story was the question why he would have taken this trip. If the commuter flight had been late, Atta, being the ringleader of the hijackers as well as the intended pilot for Flight 11, would have had to call off the whole operation, which he had reportedly been planning for two years. The 9/11 Commission, like the FBI before it, admitted that it had no answer to this question.65
The fourth and biggest problem with the story, however, is that it did not appear until September 16, five days after 9/11, following the collapse of an earlier story.
According to news reports immediately after 9/11, the incriminating materials, rather than being found in Atta's luggage inside the airport, were found in a white Mitsubishi, which Atta had left in the Boston airport parking lot. Two hijackers did drive a blue Nissan to Portland and then take the commuter flight back to Boston the next morning, but their names were Adnan and Ameer Bukhari.66 This story fell apart on the afternoon of September 13, when it was discovered that the Bukharis, to whom authorities had reportedly been led by material in the Nissan at the Portland Jetport, had not died on 9/11: Adnan was still alive and Ameer had died the year before.67
The next day, September 14, an Associated Press story said that it was Atta and a companion who had driven the blue Nissan to Portland, stayed overnight, and then taken the commuter flight back to Boston. The incriminating materials, however, were still said to have been found in a car in the Boston airport, which was now said to have been rented by "additional suspects."68 Finally, on September 16, a Washington Post story, besides saying that the Nissan had been taken to Portland by Atta and al-Omari, specified that the incriminating material had been found in Atta's luggage inside the Boston airport.69
Given this history of the Atta-to-Portland story, how can we avoid the conclusion that it was a fabrication?
7. Were al-Qaeda Operatives Captured on Airport Security Videos?
Still another type of evidence for the claim that al-Qaeda operatives were on the planes consisted of frames from videos, purportedly taken by airport security cameras, said to show hijackers checking into airports. Shortly after the attacks, for example, photos showing Atta and al-Omari at an airport "were flashed round the world."70 However, although it was widely assumed that these photos were from the airport at Boston, they were really from the airport at Portland. No photos showing Atta or any of the other alleged hijackers at Boston's Logan Airport were ever produced. We at best have photographic evidence that Atta and al-Omari were at the Portland airport.
Moreover, in light of the fact that the story of Atta and al-Omari going to Portland was apparently a late invention, we might expect the photographic evidence that they were at the Portland Jetport on the morning of September 11 to be problematic. And indeed it is. It shows Atta and Omari without either jackets or ties on, whereas the Portland ticket agent said that they had been wearing jackets and ties.71 Also, a photo showing Atta and al-Omari passing through the security checkpoint is marked both 05:45 and 05:53.72
Another airport video was distributed on the day in 2004 that The 9/11 Commission Report was published. The Associated Press, using a frame from it as corroboration of the official story, provided this caption:
Hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar . . . passes through the security checkpoint at Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Va., Sept. 11 2001, just hours before American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon in this image from a surveillance video.73
However, as Rowland Morgan and Ian Henshall have pointed out,
a normal security video has time and date burned into the integral video image by proprietary equipment according to an authenticated pattern, along with camera identification and the location that the camera covered. The video released in 2004 contained no such data.74
The Associated Press notwithstanding, therefore, this video contains no evidence that it was taken at Dulles on September 11.
Another problem with this so-called Dulles video is that, although one of the men on it was identified by the 9/11 Commission as Hani Hanjour, 75 he "does not remotely resemble Hanjour." Whereas Hanjour was thin and had a receding hairline (as shown by a photo taken six days before 9/11), the man in the video had a somewhat muscular build and a full head of hair, with no receding hairline.76
In sum: Video proof that the named hijackers checked into airports on 9/11 is nonexistent. Besides the fact that the videos purportedly showing hijackers for Flights 11 and 77 reek of inauthenticity, there are no videos even purportedly showing the hijackers for the other two flights. If these 19 men had really checked into the Boston and Dulles airports that day, there should be authentic security videos to prove this.
8. Were the Names of the "Hijackers" on the Passenger Manifests?
What about the passenger manifests, which list all the passengers on the flights? If the alleged hijackers purchased tickets and boarded the flights, their names would have been on the manifests for these flights. And we were told that they were. According to counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke, the FBI told him at about 10:00 that morning that it recognized the names of some al-Qaeda operatives on passenger manifests it had received from the airlines.77 As to how the FBI itself acquired its list, Robert Bonner, the head of Customs and Border Protection, said to the 9/11 Commission in 2004:
On the morning of 9/11, through an evaluation of data related to the passenger manifest for the four terrorist hijacked aircraft, Customs Office of Intelligence was able to identify the likely terrorist hijackers. Within 45 minutes of the attacks, Customs forwarded the passenger lists with the names of the victims and 19 probable hijackers to the FBI and the intelligence community.78
Under questioning, Bonner added:
We were able to pull from the airlines the passenger manifest for each of the four flights. We ran the manifest through [our lookout] system. . . . y 11:00 AM, I'd seen a sheet that essentially identified the 19 probable hijackers. And in fact, they turned out to be, based upon further follow-up in detailed investigation, to be the 19.79
Bonner's statement, however, is doubly problematic. In the first place, the initial FBI list, as reported by CNN on September 13 and 14, contained only 18 names.80 Why would that be if 19 men had already been identified on 9/11?
Second, several of the names on the FBI's first list, having quickly become problematic, were replaced by other names. For example, the previously discussed men named Bukhari, thought to be brothers, were replaced on American 11's list of hijackers by brothers named Waleed and Wail al-Shehri. Two other replacements for this flight were Satam al-Suqami, whose passport was allegedly found at Ground Zero, and Abdul al-Omari, who allegedly went to Portland with Atta the day before 9/11. Also, the initial list for American 77 did not include the name of Hani Hanjour, who would later be called the pilot of this flight. Rather, it contained a name that, after being read aloud by a CNN correspondent, was transcribed "Mosear Caned."81 All in all, the final list of 19 hijackers contained six names that were not on the original list of 18---a fact that contradicts Bonner's claim that by 11:00 AM on 9/11 his agency had identified 19 probable hijackers who, in fact, "turned out to be. . . the 19."
These replacements to the initial list also undermine the claim that Amy Sweeney, by giving the seat numbers of three of the hijackers to Michael Woodward of American Airlines, allowed him to identify Atta and two others. This second claim is impossible because the two others were Abdul al-Omari and Satam al-Suqami,82 and they were replacements for two men on the original list---who, like Adnan Bukhari, turned up alive after 9/11.83 Woodward could not possibly have identified men who were not added to the list until several days later.84
For all these reasons, the claim that the names of the 19 alleged hijackers were on the airlines' passenger manifests must be considered false.
This conclusion is supported by the fact that the passenger manifests that were released to the public included no names of any of the 19 alleged hijackers and, in fact, no Middle Eastern names whatsoever.85 These manifests, therefore, support the suspicion that there were no al-Qaeda hijackers on the planes.
It might appear that this conclusion is contradicted by the fact that passenger manifests with the names of the alleged hijackers have appeared. A photocopy of a portion of an apparent passenger manifest for American Flight 11, with the names of three of the alleged hijackers, was published in a 2005 book by Terry McDermott, Perfect Soldiers: The 9/11 Hijackers.86 McDermott reportedly said that he received these manifests from the FBI.87 But the idea that these were the original manifests is problematic.
For one thing, they were not included in the evidence presented by the FBI to the Moussaoui trial in 2006.88 If even the FBI will not cite them as evidence, why should anyone think they are genuine?
Another problem with these purported manifests, copies of which can be viewed on the Internet,89 is that they show signs of being late creations. One such sign is that Ziad Jarrah's last name is spelled correctly, whereas in the early days after 9/11, the FBI was referring to him as "Jarrahi," as news reports from the time show.90 A second sign is that the manifest for American Flight 77 contains Hani Hanjour's name, even though its absence from the original list of hijackers had led the Washington Post to wonder why Hanjour's "name was not on the American Airlines manifest for the flight."91 A third sign is that the purported manifest for American Flight 11 contains the names of Wail al-Shehri, Waleed al-Shehri, Satam al-Suqami, and Abdul al-Omari, all of whom were added some days after 9/11.
In sum, no credible evidence that al-Qaeda operatives were on the flights is provided by the passenger manifests.
9. Did DNA Tests Identify Five Hijackers among the Victims at the Pentagon?
Another type of evidence that the alleged hijackers were really on the planes could have been provided by autopsies. But no such evidence has been forthcoming. In its book defending the official account of 9/11, to be sure, Popular Mechanics claims that, according to a report on the victims of the Pentagon attack by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology: "The five hijackers were positively identified."92 But this claim is false.
According to a summary of this pathology report by Andrew Baker, M.D., the remains of 183 victims were subjected to DNA analysis, which resulted in "178 positive identifications." Although Baker says that "[s]ome remains for each of the terrorists were recovered," this was merely an inference from the fact that there were "five unique postmortem profiles that did not match any antemortem material provided by victims' families."93
A Washington Post story made even clearer the fact that this conclusion---that the unmatched remains were those of "the five hijackers"---was merely an inference. It wrote: "The remains of the five hijackers have been identified through a process of exclusion, as they did not match DNA samples contributed by family members of all 183 victims who died at the site" (emphasis added).94 All the report said, in other words, was that there were five bodies whose DNA did not match that of any of the known Pentagon victims or any of the regular passengers or crew members on Flight 77.
We have no way of knowing where these five bodies came from. For the claim that they came from the attack site at the Pentagon, we have only the word of the FBI and the military, which insisted on taking charge of the bodies of everyone killed at the Pentagon and transporting them to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.95
In any case, the alleged hijackers could have been positively identified only if samples had been obtained from their relatives, and there is no indication that this occurred. Indeed, one can wonder why not. The FBI had lots of information about the men identified as the hijackers. They could easily have located relatives. And these relatives, most of whom reportedly did not believe that their own flesh and blood had been involved in the attacks, would have surely been willing to supply the needed DNA. Indeed, a story about Ziad Jarrah, the alleged pilot of Flight 93, said: "Jarrah's family has indicated they would be willing to provide DNA samples to US researchers, . . . [but] the FBI has shown no interest thus far."96
The lack of positive identification of the alleged hijackers is consistent with the autopsy report, which was released to Dr. Thomas Olmsted, who had made a FOIA request for it. Like the flight manifest for Flight 77, he revealed, this report also contains no Arab names.97
10. Has the Claim That Some of the "Hijackers" Are Still Alive Been Debunked?
Another problem with the claim that the 19 hijackers were correctly identified on 9/11, or at least a few days later, is that some of the men on the FBI's final list reportedly turned up alive after 9/11. Although Der Spiegel and the BBC claim to have debunked these reports, I will show this is untrue by examining the case of one of the alleged hijackers, Waleed al-Shehri---who, we saw earlier, was a replacement for Adnan Bukhari, who himself had shown up alive after 9/11.
In spite of the fact that al-Shehri was a replacement, the 9/11 Commission revealed no doubts about his presence on Flight 11, speculating that he and his brother Wail---another replacement---stabbed two of the flight attendants.98 But the Commission certainly should have had doubts.
On September 22, 2001, the BBC published an article by David Bamford entitled "Hijack "-Suspect' Alive in Morocco." It showed that the Waleed al-Shehri identified by the FBI as one of the hijackers was still alive. Explaining why the problem could not be dismissed as a case of mistaken identity, Bamford wrote:
His photograph was released by the FBI, and has been shown in newspapers and on television around the world. That same Mr Al-Shehri has turned up in Morocco, proving clearly that he was not a member of the suicide attack. He told Saudi journalists in Casablanca that . . . he has now been interviewed by the American authorities, who apologised for the misunderstanding.99
The following day, September 23, the BBC published another story, "Hijack "-Suspects' Alive and Well." Discussing several alleged hijackers who had shown up alive, it said of al-Shehri in particular: "He acknowledges that he attended flight training school at Daytona Beach. . . . But, he says, he left the United States in September last year, became a pilot with Saudi Arabian airlines and is currently on a further training course in Morocco."100
In 2003, an article in Der Spiegel tried to debunk these two BBC stories, characterizing them as "nonsense about surviving terrorists." It claimed that the reported still-alive hijackers were all cases of mistaken identity, involving men with "coincidentally identical names." This claim by Der Spiegel depended on its assertion that, at the time of the reports, the FBI had released only a list of names: "The FBI did not release photographs until four days after the cited reports, on September 27th."101 But that was not true. Bamford's BBC story of September 22, as we saw, reported that Waleed al-Shehri's photograph had been "released by the FBI" and "shown in newspapers and on television around the world."
In 2006, nevertheless, the BBC used the same claim to withdraw its support for its own stories. Steve Herrmann, the editor of the BBC News website, claimed that confusion had arisen because "these were common Arabic and Islamic names." Accordingly, he said, the BBC had changed its September 23 story in one respect: "Under the FBI picture of Waleed al Shehri we have added the words "-A man called Waleed Al Shehri...' to make it as clear as possible that there was confusion over the identity."102 But Bamford's BBC story of September 22, which Herrmann failed to mention, had made it "as clear as possible" that there could not have been any confusion.
These attempts by Der Spiegel and the BBC, in which they tried to discredit the reports that Waleed al-Shehri was still alive after 9/11, have been refuted by Jay Kolar, who shows that FBI photographs had been published by Saudi newspapers as early as September 19. Kolar thereby undermines the only argument against Bamford's assertion, according to which there could have been no possibility of mistaken identity because al-Shehri had seen his published photograph prior to September 22, when Bamford's story appeared.103
The fact that al-Shehri, along with several other alleged hijackers,104 was alive after 9/11 shows unambiguously that at least some of the men on the FBI's final list were not on the planes. It would appear that the FBI, after replacing some of its first-round candidates because of their continued existence, decided not to replace any more, in spite of their exhibition of the same defect.
11. Is There Positive Evidence That No Hijackers Were on the Planes?
At this point, defenders of the official story might argue: The fact that some of the men labeled hijackers were still alive after 9/11 shows only that the FBI list contained some errors; it does not prove that there were no al-Qaeda hijackers on board. And although the previous points do undermine the evidence for such hijackers, absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence.
Evidence of absence, however, is implicit in the prior points in two ways. First, the lack of Arab names on the Pentagon autopsy report and on any of the issued passenger manifests does suggest the absence of al-Qaeda operatives. Second, if al-Qaeda hijackers really were on the flights, why was evidence to prove this fact fabricated?
Beyond those two points, moreover, there is a feature of the reported events that contradicts the claim that hijackers broke into the pilots' cabins. This feature can be introduced by reference to Conan Doyle's short story "Silver Blaze," which is about a famous race horse that had disappeared the night before a big race. Although the local Scotland Yard detective believed that Silver Blaze had been stolen by an intruder, Sherlock Holmes brought up "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." When the inspector pointed out that "[t]he dog did nothing in the night-time," Holmes replied: "That was the curious incident."105 Had there really been an intruder, in other words, the dog would have barked. This has become known as the case of "the dog that didn't bark."
A similar curious incident occurred on each of the four flights. In the event of a hijacking, pilots are trained to enter the standard hijack code (7500) into their transponders to alert controllers on the ground. Using the transponder to send a code is called "squawking." One of the big puzzles about 9/11 was why none of the pilots squawked the hijack code.
CNN provided a good treatment of this issue, saying with regard to the first flight:
Flight 11 was hijacked apparently by knife-wielding men. Airline pilots are trained to handle such situations by keeping calm, complying with requests, and if possible, dialing in an emergency four digit code on a device called a transponder. . . . The action takes seconds, but it appears no such code was entered.106
The crucial issue was indicated by the phrase "if possible": Would it have been possible for the pilots of Flight 11 to have performed this action? A positive answer was suggested by CNN's next statement:
n the cabin, a frantic flight attendant managed to use a phone to call American Airlines Command Center in Dallas. She reported the trouble. And according to "The Christian Science Monitor," a pilot apparently keyed the microphone, transmitting a cockpit conversation.107
If there was time for both of those actions to be taken, there would have been time for one of the pilots to enter the four-digit hijack code.
That would have been all the more true of the pilots on United Flight 93, given the (purported) tapes from this flight. A reporter at the Moussaoui trial, where these tapes had been played, wrote:
In those tapes, the pilots shouted as hijackers broke into the cockpit. "Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!" a pilot screamed in the first tape. In the second tape, 30 seconds later, a pilot shouted: "Mayday! Get out of here! Get out of here!"108
According to these tapes, therefore, the pilots were still alive and coherent 30 seconds after realizing that hijackers were breaking into the cockpit. And yet in all that time, neither of them did the most important thing they had been trained to do---turn the transponder to 7500.
In addition to the four pilots on Flights 11 and 93, furthermore, the four pilots on Flights 175 and 77 failed to do this as well.
In "Silver Blaze," the absence of an intruder was shown by the dog that didn't bark. On 9/11, the absence of hijackers was shown by the pilots who didn't squawk.
12. Were bin Laden and al-Qaeda Capable of Orchestrating the Attacks?
For prosecutors to prove that defendants committed a crime, they must show that they had the ability (as well as the motive and opportunity) to do so. But several political and military leaders from other countries have stated that bin Laden and al-Qaeda simply could not have carried out the attacks. General Leonid Ivashov, who in 2001 was the chief of staff for the Russian armed forces, wrote:
Only secret services and their current chiefs---or those retired but still having influence inside the state organizations---have the ability to plan, organize and conduct an operation of such magnitude. . . . . Osama bin Laden and "Al Qaeda" cannot be the organizers nor the performers of the September 11 attacks. They do not have the necessary organization, resources or leaders.
Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, the former foreign minister of Egypt, wrote:
Bin Laden does not have the capabilities for an operation of this magnitude. When I hear Bush talking about al-Qaida as if it was Nazi Germany or the communist party of the Soviet Union, I laugh because I know what is there.
Similar statements have been made by Andreas von Bülow, the former state secretary of West Germany's ministry of defense, by General Mirza Aslam Beg, former chief of staff of Pakistan's army, and even General Musharraf, the president of Pakistan until recently.109
This same point was also made by veteran CIA agent Milt Bearden. Speaking disparagingly of "the myth of Osama bin Laden" on CBS News the day after 9/11, Bearden said: "I was there [in Afghanistan] at the same time bin Laden was there. He was not the great warrior." With regard to the widespread view that bin Laden was behind the attacks, he said: "This was a tremendously sophisticated operation against the United States---more sophisticated than anybody would have ascribed to Osama bin Laden." Pointing out that a group capable of such a sophisticated attack would have had a way to cover their tracks, he added: "This group who was responsible for that, if they didn't have an Osama bin Laden out there, they'd invent one, because he's a terrific diversion."110
13. Could Hani Hanjour Have Flown Flight 77 into the Pentagon?
The inability of al-Qaeda to have carried out the operation can be illustrated in terms of Hani Hanjour, the al-Qaeda operative said to have flown Flight 77 into the Pentagon.
On September 12, before it was stated that Hanjour had been the pilot of American 77, the final minutes of this plane's trajectory had been described as one requiring great skill. A Washington Post story said:
[J]ust as the plane seemed to be on a suicide mission into the White House, the unidentified pilot executed a pivot so tight that it reminded observers of a fighter jet maneuver. . . . Aviation sources said the plane was flown with extraordinary skill, making it highly likely that a trained pilot was at the helm.111
But Hani Hanjour was not that. Indeed, a CBS story reported, an Arizona flight school said that Hanjour's "flying skills were so bad . . . they didn't think he should keep his pilot's license." The manager stated: "I couldn't believe he had a commercial license of any kind with the skills that he had."112 A New York Times story, entitled "A Trainee Noted for Incompetence," quoted one of his instructors as saying that Hanjour "could not fly at all."113
The 9/11 Commission even admitted that in the summer of 2001, just months before 9/11, a flight instructor in New Jersey, after going up with Hanjour in a small plane, "declined a second request because of what he considered Hanjour's poor piloting skills."114 The Commission failed to address the question of how Hanjour, incapable of flying a single-engine plane, could have flown a giant 757 through the trajectory reportedly taken by Flight 77: descending 8,000 feet in three minutes and then coming in at ground level to strike Wedge 1 of the Pentagon between the first and second floors, without even scraping the lawn.
Several pilots have said this would have been impossible. Russ Wittenberg, who flew large commercial airliners for 35 years after serving as a fighter pilot in Vietnam, says it would have been "totally impossible for an amateur who couldn't even fly a Cessna" to fly that downward spiral and then "crash into the Pentagon's first floor wall without touching the lawn."115 Ralph Omholt, a former 757 pilot, has bluntly said: "The idea that an unskilled pilot could have flown this trajectory is simply too ridiculous to consider."116 Ralph Kolstad, who was a US Navy "top gun" pilot before becoming a commercial airline pilot for 27 years, has said: "I have 6,000 hours of flight time in Boeing 757's and 767's and I could not have flown it the way the flight path was described. . . . Something stinks to high heaven!"117
The authors of the Popular Mechanics book about 9/11 offered to solve this problem. While acknowledging that Hanjour "may not have been highly skilled," they said that he did not need to be, because all he had to do was, using a GPS unit, put his plane on autopilot.118 "He steered the plane manually for only the final eight minutes of the flight," they state triumphantly119---ignoring the fact that it was precisely during those minutes that Hanjour had allegedly performed the impossible.
14. Would an al-Qaeda Pilot Have Executed that Maneuver?
A further question is: Even if one of the al-Qaeda operatives on that flight could have executed that maneuver, would he have done so? This question arises out of the fact that the plane could easily have crashed into the roof on the side of the Pentagon that housed Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and all the top brass. The difficult maneuver would have been required only by the decision to strike Wedge 1 on the side.
But this was the worst possible place, given the assumed motives of the al-Qaeda operatives: They would have wanted to kill Rumsfeld and the top brass, but Wedge 1 was as far removed from their offices as possible. They would have wanted to cause as much destruction as possible, but Wedge 1---and only it---had been renovated to make it less vulnerable to attack. Al-Qaeda operatives would have wanted to kill as many Pentagon employees as possible, but because the renovation was not quite complete, Wedge 1 was only sparsely occupied. The attack also occurred on the only part of the Pentagon that would have presented physical obstacles to an attacking airplane. All of these facts were public knowledge. So even if an al-Qaeda pilot had been capable of executing the maneuver to strike the ground floor of Wedge 1, he would not have done so.
15. Could al-Qaeda Operatives Have Brought Down the World Trade Center Buildings?
Returning to the issue of competence, another question is whether al-Qaeda operatives could have brought down the Twin Towers and WTC 7?
With regard to the Twin Towers, the official theory is that they were brought down by the impact of the airplanes plus the ensuing fires. But this theory cannot explain why the towers, after exploding outwards at the top, came straight down, because this type of collapse would have required all 287 of each building's steel columns---which ran from the basement to the roof---to have failed simultaneously; it cannot explain why the top parts of the buildings came straight down at virtually free-fall speed, because this required that the lower parts of the building, with all of their steel and concrete, offered no resistance; it cannot explain why sections of steel beams, weighing thousands of tons, were blown out horizontally more than 500 feet; it cannot explain why some of the steel had melted, because this melting required temperatures far hotter than the fires in the buildings could possibly have been; and it cannot explain why many firefighters and WTC employees reported massive explosions in the buildings long after all the jet-fuel had burned up. But all of these phenomena are easily explainable by the hypothesis that the buildings were brought down by explosives in the procedure known as controlled demolition.120
This conclusion now constitutes the consensus of independent physicists, chemists, architects, engineers, and demolition experts who have studied the facts.121 For example, Edward Munyak, a mechanical and fire protection engineer who worked in the US departments of energy and defense, says: "The concentric nearly freefall speed exhibited by each building was identical to most controlled demolitions. . . . Collapse [was] not caused by fire effects."122 Dwain Deets, the former director of the research engineering division at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, mentions the "massive structural members being hurled horizontally" as one of the factors leaving him with "no doubt [that] explosives were involved."123
Given the fact that WTC 7 was not even hit by a plane, its vertical collapse at virtually free-fall speed, which also was preceded by explosions and involved the melting of steel, was still more obviously an example of controlled demolition.124 For example, Jack Keller, emeritus professor of engineering at Utah State University, who has been given special recognition by Scientific American, said: "Obviously it was the result of controlled demolition."125 Likewise, when Danny Jowenko---a controlled demolition expert in the Netherlands who had not known that WTC 7 had collapsed on 9/11---was asked to comment on a video of its collapse, he said: "They simply blew up columns, and the rest caved in afterwards. . . . t's been imploded. . . . A team of experts did this."126
If the Twin Towers and WTC 7 were brought down by explosives, the question becomes: Who would have had the ability to place the explosives? This question involves two parts: First, who could have obtained access to the buildings for all the hours it would have taken to plant the explosives? The answer is: Only someone with connections to people in charge of security for the World Trade Center.
The second part of the question is: Who, if they had such access, would have had the expertise to engineer the controlled demolition of these three buildings? As Jowenko's statement indicated, the kind of controlled demolition to which these buildings were subjected was implosion, which makes the building come straight down. According to ImplosionWorld.com, an implosion is "by far the trickiest type of explosive project, and there are only a handful of blasting companies in the world that possess enough experience . . . to perform these true building implosions."127
Both parts of the question, therefore, rule out al-Qaeda operatives.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e20722.htm
Was America Attacked by Muslims on 9/11?
By David Ray Griffin
09/09/08 "ICH" -- - Much of America's foreign policy since 9/11 has been based on the assumption that it was attacked by Muslims on that day. This assumption was used, most prominently, to justify the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is now widely agreed that the use of 9/11 as a basis for attacking Iraq was illegitimate: none of the hijackers were Iraqis, there was no working relation between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, and Iraq was not behind the anthrax attacks. But it is still widely believed that the US attack on Afghanistan was justified. For example, the New York Times, while referring to the US attack on Iraq as a "war of choice," calls the battle in Afghanistan a "war of necessity." Time magazine has dubbed it "the right war." And Barack Obama says that one reason to wind down our involvement in Iraq is to have the troops and resources to "go after the people in Afghanistan who actually attacked us on 9/11."
The assumption that America was attacked by Muslims on 9/11 also lies behind the widespread perception of Islam as an inherently violent religion and therefore of Muslims as guilty until proven innocent. This perception surely contributed to attempts to portray Obama as a Muslim, which was lampooned by a controversial cartoon on the July 21, 2008, cover of The New Yorker.
As could be illustrated by reference to many other post-9/11 developments, including as spying, torture, extraordinary rendition, military tribunals, America's new doctrine of preemptive war, and its enormous increase in military spending, the assumption that the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked by Muslim hijackers has had enormous negative consequences for both international and domestic issues.1
Is it conceivable that this assumption might be false? Insofar as Americans and Canadians would say "No," they would express their belief that this assumption is not merely an "assumption" but is instead based on strong evidence. When actually examined, however, the proffered evidence turns out to be remarkably weak. I will illustrate this point by means of 16 questions.
1. Were Mohamed Atta and the Other Hijackers Devout Muslims?
The picture of the hijackers conveyed by the 9/11 Commission is that they were devout Muslims. Mohamed Atta, considered the ringleader, was said to have become very religious, even "fanatically so."2 Being devout Muslims, they could be portrayed as ready to meet their Maker---as a "cadre of trained operatives willing to die."3
But this portrayal is contradicted by various newspaper stories. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Atta and other hijackers had made "at least six trips" to Las Vegas, where they had "engaged in some decidedly un-Islamic sampling of prohibited pleasures." These activities were "un-Islamic" because, as the head of the Islamic Foundation of Nevada pointed out: "True Muslims don't drink, don't gamble, don't go to strip clubs."4
One might, to be sure, rationalize this behavior by supposing that these were momentary lapses and that, as 9/11 approached, these young Muslims had repented and prepared for heaven. But in the days just before 9/11, Atta and others were reported to be drinking heavily, cavorting with lap dancers, and bringing call girls to their rooms. Temple University Professor Mahmoud Ayoub said: "It is incomprehensible that a person could drink and go to a strip bar one night, then kill themselves the next day in the name of Islam. . . . Something here does not add up."5
In spite of the fact that these activities were reported by mainstream newspapers and even the Wall Street Journal editorial page,6 the 9/11 Commission wrote as if these reports did not exist, saying: "we have seen no credible evidence explaining why, on [some occasions], the operatives flew to or met in Las Vegas."7
2. Do Authorities Have Hard Evidence of Osama bin Laden's Responsibility for 9/11?
Whatever be the truth about the devoutness of the hijackers, one might reply, there is certainly no doubt about the fact that they were acting under the guidance of Osama bin Laden. The attack on Afghanistan was based on the claim that bin Laden was behind the attacks, and the 9/11 Commission's report was written as if there were no question about this claim. But neither the Bush administration nor the Commission provided any proof for it.
Two weeks after 9/11, Secretary of State Colin Powell, speaking to Tim Russert on "Meet the Press," said he expected "in the near future . . . to put out . . . a document that will describe quite clearly the evidence that we have linking [bin Laden] to this attack."8 But at a press conference with President Bush the next morning, Powell reversed himself, saying that although the government had information that left no question of bin Laden's responsibility, "most of it is classified."9 According to Seymour Hersh, citing officials from both the CIA and the Department of Justice, the real reason for the reversal was a "lack of solid information."10
That same week, Bush had demanded that the Taliban turn over bin Laden. But the Taliban, reported CNN, "refus[ed] to hand over bin Laden without proof or evidence that he was involved in last week's attacks on the United States." The Bush administration, saying "[t]here is already an indictment of Osama bin Laden" [for the attacks in Tanzania, Kenya, and elsewhere]," rejected the demand for evidence with regard to 9/11.11
The task of providing such evidence was taken up by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who on October 4 made public a document entitled "Responsibility for the Terrorist Atrocities in the United States." Listing "clear conclusions reached by the government," it stated: "Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, the terrorist network which he heads, planned and carried out the atrocities on 11 September 2001."12
Blair's report, however, began by saying: "This document does not purport to provide a prosecutable case against Osama Bin Laden in a court of law." This weakness was noted the next day by the BBC, which said: "There is no direct evidence in the public domain linking Osama Bin Laden to the 11 September attacks. At best the evidence is circumstantial."13
After the US had attacked Afghanistan, a senior Taliban official said: "We have asked for proof of Osama's involvement, but they have refused. Why?"14 The answer to this question may be suggested by the fact that, to this day, the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorist" webpage on bin Laden, while listing him as wanted for bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, makes no mention of 9/11.15
When the FBI's chief of investigative publicity was asked why not, he replied: "The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden's Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11."16
It is often claimed that bin Laden's guilt is proved by a video, reportedly found by US intelligence officers in Afghanistan in November 2001, in which bin Laden appears to report having planned the attacks. But critics, pointing out various problems with this "confession video," have called it a fake.17 General Hamid Gul, a former head of Pakistan's ISI, said: "I think there is an Osama Bin Laden look-alike."18 Actually, the man in the video is not even much of a look-alike, being heavier and darker than bin Laden, having a broader nose, wearing jewelry, and writing with his right hand.19 The FBI, in any case, obviously does not consider this video hard evidence of bin Laden's responsibility for 9/11.
What about the 9/11 Commission? I mentioned earlier that it gave the impression of having had solid evidence of bin Laden's guilt. But Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, the Commission's co-chairs, undermined this impression in their follow-up book subtitled "the inside story of the 9/11 Commission."20
Whenever the Commission had cited evidence for bin Ladin's responsibility, the note in the back of the book always referred to CIA-provided information that had (presumably) been elicited during interrogations of al-Qaeda operatives. By far the most important of these operatives was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), described as the "mastermind" of the 9/11 attacks. The Commission, for example, wrote:
Bin Ladin . . . finally decided to give the green light for the 9/11 operation sometime in late 1998 or early 1999. . . . Bin Ladin also soon selected four individuals to serve as suicide operatives. . . . Atta---whom Bin Ladin chose to lead the group---met with Bin Ladin several times to receive additional instructions, including a preliminary list of approved targets: the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the U.S. Capitol.21
The note for each of these statements says "interrogation of KSM."22
Kean and Hamilton, however, reported that they had no success in "obtaining access to star witnesses in custody . . . , most notably Khalid Sheikh Mohammed."23 Besides not being allowed to interview these witnesses, they were not permitted to observe the interrogations through one-way glass or even to talk to the interrogators.24 Therefore, they complained: "We . . . had no way of evaluating the credibility of detainee information. How could we tell if someone such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed . . . was telling us the truth?"25
An NBC "deep background" report in 2008 pointed out an additional problem: KSM and the other al-Qaeda leaders had been subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques," i.e., torture, and it is now widely acknowledged that statements elicited by torture lack credibility. "At least four of the operatives whose interrogation figured in the 9/11 Commission Report," this NBC report pointed out, "have claimed that they told interrogators critical information as a way to stop being "-tortured.'" NBC then quoted Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, as saying: "Most people look at the 9/11 Commission Report as a trusted historical document. If their conclusions were supported by information gained from torture, . . . their conclusions are suspect."26
Accordingly, neither the White House, the British government, the FBI, nor the 9/11 Commission has provided solid evidence that Osama bin Laden was behind 9/11.
3. Was Evidence of Muslim Hijackers Provided by Phone Calls from the Airliners?
Nevertheless, many readers may respond, there can be no doubt that the airplanes were taken over by al-Qaeda hijackers, because their presence and actions on the planes were reported on phone calls by passengers and flight attendants, with cell phone calls playing an especially prominent role.
The most famous of the reported calls were from CNN commentator Barbara Olson to her husband, US Solicitor General Ted Olson. According to CNN, he reported that his wife had "called him twice on a cell phone from American Airlines Flight 77," saying that "all passengers and flight personnel, including the pilots, were herded to the back of the plane by . . . hijackers [armed with] knives and cardboard cutters."27
Although these reported calls, as summarized by Ted Olson, did not describe the hijackers so as to suggest that they were members of al-Qaeda, such descriptions were supplied by calls from other flights, especially United 93, from which about a dozen cell phone calls were reportedly received before it crashed in Pennsylvania. According to a Washington Post story of September 13,
[P]assenger Jeremy Glick used a cell phone to tell his wife, Lyzbeth, . . . that the Boeing 757's cockpit had been taken over by three Middle Eastern-looking men. . . . The terrorists, wearing red headbands, had ordered the pilots, flight attendants and passengers to the rear of the plane.28
A story about a "cellular phone conversation" between flight attendant Sandra Bradshaw and her husband gave this report:
She said the plane had been taken over by three men with knives. She had gotten a close look at one of the hijackers. . . . "He had an Islamic look," she told her husband. 29
From these calls, therefore, the public was informed that the hijackers looked Middle Eastern and even Islamic.
Still more specific information was reportedly conveyed during a 12-minute cell phone call from flight attendant Amy Sweeney on American Flight 11, which was to crash into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.30 After reaching American Airlines employee Michael Woodward and telling him that men of "Middle Eastern descent" had hijacked her flight, she then gave him their seat numbers, from which he was able to learn the identity of Mohamed Atta and two other hijackers.31 Amy Sweeney's call was critical, ABC News explained, because without it "the plane might have crashed with no one certain the man in charge was tied to al Qaeda."32
There was, however, a big problem with these reported calls: Given the technology available in 2001, cell phone calls from airliners at altitudes of more than a few thousand feet, especially calls lasting more than a few seconds, were not possible, and yet these calls, some of which reportedly lasted a minute or more, reportedly occurred when the planes were above 30,000 or even 40,000 feet. This problem was explained by some credible people, including scientist A.K. Dewdney, who for many years had written a column for Scientific American.33
Although some defenders of the official account, such as Popular Mechanics, have disputed the contention that high-altitude calls from airliners were impossible,34 the fact is that the FBI, after having at first supported the claims that such calls were made, withdrew this support a few years later.
With regard to the reported 12-minute call from Amy Sweeney to Michael Woodward, an affidavit signed by FBI agent James Lechner and dated September 12 (2001) stated that, according to Woodward, Sweeney had been "using a cellular telephone."35 But when the 9/11 Commission discussed this call in its Report, which appeared in July 2004, it declared that Sweeney had used an onboard phone.36
Behind that change was an implausible claim made by the FBI earlier in 2004: Although Woodward had failed to mention this when FBI agent Lechner interviewed him on 9/11, he had repeated Sweeney's call verbatim to a colleague in his office, who had in turn repeated it to another colleague at American headquarters in Dallas, who had recorded it; and this recording---which was discovered only in 2004---indicated that Sweeney had used a passenger-seat phone, thanks to "an AirFone card, given to her by another flight attendant."37
This claim is implausible because, if this relayed recording had really been made on 9/11, we cannot believe that Woodward would have failed to mention it to FBI agent Lechner later that same day. While Lechner was taking notes, Woodward would surely have said: "You don't need to rely on my memory. There is a recording of a word-for-word repetition of Sweeney's statements down in Dallas." It is also implausible that Woodward, having repeated Sweeney's statement that she had used "an AirFone card, given to her by another flight attendant," would have told Lechner, as the latter's affidavit says, that Sweeney had been "using a cellular telephone."
Lechner's affidavit shows that the FBI at first supported the claim that Sweeney had made a 12-minute cell phone call from a high-altitude airliner. Does not the FBI's change of story, after its first version had been shown to be technologically impossible, create the suspicion that the entire story was a fabrication?
This suspicion is reinforced by the FBI's change of story in relation to United Flight 93. Although we were originally told that this flight had been the source of about a dozen cell phone calls, some of them when the plane was above 40,000 feet, the FBI gave a very different report at the 2006 trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker. The FBI spokesman said: "13 of the terrified passengers and crew members made 35 air phone calls and two cell phone calls."38 Instead of there having been about a dozen cell phone calls from Flight 93, the FBI declared in 2005, there were really only two.
Why were two calls still said to have been possible? They were reportedly made at 9:58, when the plane was reportedly down to 5,000 feet.39 Although that was still pretty high for successful cell phone calls in 2001, these calls, unlike calls from 30,000 feet or higher, would have been at least arguably possible.
If the truth of the FBI's new account is assumed, how can one explain the fact that so many people had reported receiving cell phone calls? In most cases, it seems, these people had been told by the callers that they were using cell phones. For example, a Newsweek story about United 93 said: "Elizabeth Wainio, 27, was speaking to her stepmother in Maryland. Another passenger, she explains, had loaned her a cell phone and told her to call her family."40 In such cases, we might assume that the people receiving the calls had simply mis-heard, or mis-remembered, what they had been told. But this would mean positing that about a dozen people had made the same mistake.
An even more serious difficulty is presented by the case of Deena Burnett, who said that she had received three to five calls from her husband, Tom Burnett. She knew he was using his cell phone, she reported to the FBI that very day and then to the press and in a book, because she had recognized his cell phone number on her phone's Caller ID.41 We cannot suppose her to have been mistaken about this. We also, surely, cannot accuse her of lying.
Therefore, if we accept the FBI's report, according to which Tom Burnett did not make any cell phone calls from Flight 93, we can only conclude that the calls were faked---that Deena Burnett was duped. Although this suggestion may at first sight seem outlandish, there are three facts that, taken together, show it to be more probable than any of the alternatives.
First, voice morphing technology was sufficiently advanced at that time to make faking the calls feasible. A 1999 Washington Post article described demonstrations in which the voices of two generals, Colin Powell and Carl Steiner, were heard saying things they had never said.42
Second, there are devices with which you can fake someone's telephone number, so that it will show up on the recipient's Caller ID.43
Third, the conclusion that the person who called Deena Burnett was not her husband is suggested by various features of the calls. For example, when Deena told the caller that "the kids" were asking to talk to him, he said: "Tell them I'll talk to them later." This was 20 minutes after Tom had purportedly realized that the hijackers were on a suicide mission, planning to "crash this plane into the ground," and 10 minutes after he and other passengers had allegedly decided that as soon as they were "over a rural area" they must try to gain control of the plane. Also, the hijackers had reportedly already killed one person.44 Given all this, the real Tom Burnett would have known that he would likely die, one way or another, in the next few minutes. Is it believable that, rather than taking this probably last opportunity to speak to his children, he would say that he would "talk to them later"? Is it not more likely that "Tom" made this statement to avoid revealing that he knew nothing about "the kids," perhaps not even their names?
Further evidence that the calls were faked is provided by timing problems in some of them. According to the 9/11 Commission, Flight 93 crashed at 10:03 as a result of the passenger revolt, which began at 9:57. However, according to Lyzbeth Glick's account of the aforementioned cell phone call from her husband, Jeremy Glick, she told him about the collapse of the South Tower, and that did not occur until 9:59, two minutes after the alleged revolt had started. After that, she reported, their conversation continued for several more minutes before he told her that the passengers were taking a vote about whether to attack. According to Lyzbeth Glick's account, therefore, the revolt was only beginning by 10:03, when the plane (according to the official account) was crashing.45
A timing problem also occurred in the aforementioned call from flight attendant Amy Sweeney. While she was describing the hijackers, according to the FBI's account of her call, they stormed and took control of the cockpit.46 However, although the hijacking of Flight 11 "began at 8:14 or shortly thereafter," the 9/11 Commission said, Sweeney's call did not go through until 8:25.47 Her alleged call, in other words, described the hijacking as beginning over 11 minutes after it, according to the official timeline, had been successfully carried out.
Multiple lines of evidence, therefore, imply that the cell phone calls were faked. This fact has vast implications, because it implies that all the reported calls from the planes, including those from onboard phones, were faked. Why? Because if the planes had really been taken over in surprise hijackings, no one would have been ready to make fake cell phone calls.
Moreover, the FBI, besides implying, most clearly in the case of Deena Burnett, that the phone calls reporting the hijackings had been faked, comes right out and says, in its report about calls from Flight 77, that no calls from Barbara Olson occurred. It does mention her. But besides attributing only one call to her, not two, the FBI report refers to it as an "unconnected call," which (of course) lasted "0 seconds."48 In 2006, in other words, the FBI, which is part of the Department of Justice, implied that the story told by the DOJ's former solicitor general was untrue. Although not mentioned by the press, this was an astounding development.
This FBI report leaves only two possible explanations for Ted Olson's story: Either he made it up or else he, like Deena Burnett and several others, was duped. In either case, the story about Barbara Olson's calls, with their reports of hijackers taking over Flight 77, was based on deception.
The opening section of The 9/11 Commission Report is entitled "Inside the Four Flights." The information contained in this section is based almost entirely on the reported phone calls. But if the reported calls were faked, we have no idea what happened inside these planes. Insofar as the idea that the planes were taken over by hijackers who looked "Middle Eastern," even "Islamic," has been based on the reported calls, this idea is groundless.
4. Was the Presence of Hijackers Proved by a Radio Transmission "from American 11"?
It might be objected, in reply, that this is not true, because we know that American Flight 11, at least, was hijacked, thanks to a radio transmission in which the voice of one of its hijackers is heard. According to the 9/11 Commission, the air traffic controller for this flight heard a radio transmission at 8:25 AM in which someone---widely assumed to be Mohamed Atta---told the passengers: "We have some planes. Just stay quiet, and you'll be okay. We are returning to the airport." After quoting this transmission, the Commission wrote: "The controller told us that he then knew it was a hijacking."49 Was this transmission not indeed proof that Flight 11 had been hijacked?
It might provide such proof if we knew that, as the Commission claimed, the "transmission came from American 11."50 But we do not. According to the FAA's "Summary of Air Traffic Hijack Events," published September 17, 2001, the transmission was "from an unknown origin."51 Bill Peacock, the FAA's air traffic director, said: "We didn't know where the transmission came from."52 The Commission's claim that it came from American 11 was merely an inference. The transmission could have come from the same room from which the calls to Deena Burnett originated.
Therefore, the alleged radio transmission from Flight 11, like the alleged phone calls from the planes, provides no evidence that the planes were taken over by al-Qaeda hijackers.
5. Did Passports and a Headband Provide Evidence that al-Qaeda Operatives Were on the Flights?
However, the government's case for al-Qaeda hijackers on also rested in part on claims that passports and a headband belonging to al-Qaeda operatives were found at the crash sites. But these claims are patently absurd.
A week after the attacks, the FBI reported that a search of the streets after the destruction of the World Trade Center had discovered the passport of one of the Flight 11 hijackers, Satam al-Suqami.53 But this claim did not pass the giggle test. "[T]he idea that [this] passport had escaped from that inferno unsinged," wrote one British reporter, "would [test] the credulity of the staunchest supporter of the FBI's crackdown on terrorism."54
By 2004, when the 9/11 Commission was discussing the alleged discovery of this passport, the story had been modified to say that "a passer-by picked it up and gave it to a NYPD detective shortly before the World Trade Center towers collapsed."55 So, rather than needing to survive the collapse of the North Tower, the passport merely needed to escape from the plane's cabin, avoid being destroyed or even singed by the instantaneous jet-fuel fire, and then escape from the building so that it could fall to the ground! Equally absurd is the claim that the passport of Ziad Jarrah, the alleged pilot of Flight 93, was found at this plane's crash site in Pennsylvania.56 This passport was reportedly found on the ground even though there was virtually nothing at the site to indicate that an airliner had crashed there. The reason for this absence of wreckage, we were told, was that the plane had been headed downward at 580 miles per hour and, when it hit the spongy Pennsylvania soil, buried itself deep in the ground. New York Times journalist Jere Longman, surely repeating what he had been told by authorities, wrote: "The fuselage accordioned on itself more than thirty feet into the porous, backfilled ground. It was as if a marble had been dropped into water."57 So, we are to believe, just before the plane buried itself in the earth, Jarrah's passport escaped from the cockpit and landed on the ground. Did Jarrah, going 580 miles per hour, have the window open?58 Also found on the ground, according to the government's evidence presented to the Moussaoui trial, was a red headband.59 This was considered evidence that al-Qaeda hijackers were on Flight 93 because they were, according to some of the phone calls, wearing red headbands. But besides being absurd for the same reason as was the claim about Jarrah's passport, this claim about the headband was problematic for another reason. Former CIA agent Milt Bearden, who helped train the Mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan, has pointed out that it would have been very unlikely that members of al-Qaeda would have worn such headbands:
[The red headband] is a uniquely Shi'a Muslim adornment. It is something that dates back to the formation of the Shi'a sect. . . . t represents the preparation of he who wears this red headband to sacrifice his life, to murder himself for the cause. Sunnis are by and large most of the people following Osama bin Laden [and they] do not do this.60
We learned shortly after the invasion of Iraq that some people in the US government did not know the difference between Shi'a and Sunni Muslims. Did such people decide that the hijackers would be described as wearing red headbands?
6. Did the Information in Atta's Luggage Prove the Responsibility of al-Qaeda Operatives?
I come now to the evidence that is said to provide the strongest proof that the planes had been hijacked by Mohamed Atta and other members of al-Qaeda. This evidence was reportedly found in two pieces of Atta's luggage that were discovered inside the Boston airport after the attacks. The luggage was there, we were told, because although Atta was already in Boston on September 10, he and another al-Qaeda operative, Abdul al-Omari, rented a blue Nissan and drove up to Portland, Maine, and stayed overnight. They caught a commuter flight back to Boston early the next morning in time to get on American Flight 11, but Atta's luggage did not make it.
This luggage, according to the FBI affidavit signed by James Lechner, contained much incriminating material, including a handheld flight computer, flight simulator manuals, two videotapes about Boeing aircraft, a slide-rule flight calculator, a copy of the Koran, and Atta's last will and testament.61 This material was widely taken as proof that al-Qaeda and hence Osama bin Laden were behind the 9/11 attacks.
When closely examined, however, the Atta-to-Portland story loses all credibility.
One problem is the very idea that Atta would have planned to take all these things in baggage that was to be transferred to Flight 11. What good would a flight computer and other flying aids do inside a suitcase in the plane's luggage compartment? Why would he have planned to take his will on a plane he planned to crash into the World Trade Center?
A second problem involves the question of why Atta's luggage did not get transferred onto Flight 11. According to an Associated Press story that appeared four days after 9/11, Atta's flight "arrived at Logan . . . just in time for him to connect with American Airlines flight 11 to Los Angeles, but too late for his luggage to be loaded."62 The 9/11 Commission had at one time evidently planned to endorse this claim.63 But when The 9/11 Commission Report appeared, it said: "Atta and Omari arrived in Boston at 6:45" and then "checked in and boarded American Airlines Flight 11," which was "scheduled to depart at 7:45."64 By thus admitting that there was almost a full hour for the luggage to be transferred to Flight 11, the Commission was left with no explanation as to why it was not.
Still another problem with the Atta-to-Portland story was the question why he would have taken this trip. If the commuter flight had been late, Atta, being the ringleader of the hijackers as well as the intended pilot for Flight 11, would have had to call off the whole operation, which he had reportedly been planning for two years. The 9/11 Commission, like the FBI before it, admitted that it had no answer to this question.65
The fourth and biggest problem with the story, however, is that it did not appear until September 16, five days after 9/11, following the collapse of an earlier story.
According to news reports immediately after 9/11, the incriminating materials, rather than being found in Atta's luggage inside the airport, were found in a white Mitsubishi, which Atta had left in the Boston airport parking lot. Two hijackers did drive a blue Nissan to Portland and then take the commuter flight back to Boston the next morning, but their names were Adnan and Ameer Bukhari.66 This story fell apart on the afternoon of September 13, when it was discovered that the Bukharis, to whom authorities had reportedly been led by material in the Nissan at the Portland Jetport, had not died on 9/11: Adnan was still alive and Ameer had died the year before.67
The next day, September 14, an Associated Press story said that it was Atta and a companion who had driven the blue Nissan to Portland, stayed overnight, and then taken the commuter flight back to Boston. The incriminating materials, however, were still said to have been found in a car in the Boston airport, which was now said to have been rented by "additional suspects."68 Finally, on September 16, a Washington Post story, besides saying that the Nissan had been taken to Portland by Atta and al-Omari, specified that the incriminating material had been found in Atta's luggage inside the Boston airport.69
Given this history of the Atta-to-Portland story, how can we avoid the conclusion that it was a fabrication?
7. Were al-Qaeda Operatives Captured on Airport Security Videos?
Still another type of evidence for the claim that al-Qaeda operatives were on the planes consisted of frames from videos, purportedly taken by airport security cameras, said to show hijackers checking into airports. Shortly after the attacks, for example, photos showing Atta and al-Omari at an airport "were flashed round the world."70 However, although it was widely assumed that these photos were from the airport at Boston, they were really from the airport at Portland. No photos showing Atta or any of the other alleged hijackers at Boston's Logan Airport were ever produced. We at best have photographic evidence that Atta and al-Omari were at the Portland airport.
Moreover, in light of the fact that the story of Atta and al-Omari going to Portland was apparently a late invention, we might expect the photographic evidence that they were at the Portland Jetport on the morning of September 11 to be problematic. And indeed it is. It shows Atta and Omari without either jackets or ties on, whereas the Portland ticket agent said that they had been wearing jackets and ties.71 Also, a photo showing Atta and al-Omari passing through the security checkpoint is marked both 05:45 and 05:53.72
Another airport video was distributed on the day in 2004 that The 9/11 Commission Report was published. The Associated Press, using a frame from it as corroboration of the official story, provided this caption:
Hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar . . . passes through the security checkpoint at Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Va., Sept. 11 2001, just hours before American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon in this image from a surveillance video.73
However, as Rowland Morgan and Ian Henshall have pointed out,
a normal security video has time and date burned into the integral video image by proprietary equipment according to an authenticated pattern, along with camera identification and the location that the camera covered. The video released in 2004 contained no such data.74
The Associated Press notwithstanding, therefore, this video contains no evidence that it was taken at Dulles on September 11.
Another problem with this so-called Dulles video is that, although one of the men on it was identified by the 9/11 Commission as Hani Hanjour, 75 he "does not remotely resemble Hanjour." Whereas Hanjour was thin and had a receding hairline (as shown by a photo taken six days before 9/11), the man in the video had a somewhat muscular build and a full head of hair, with no receding hairline.76
In sum: Video proof that the named hijackers checked into airports on 9/11 is nonexistent. Besides the fact that the videos purportedly showing hijackers for Flights 11 and 77 reek of inauthenticity, there are no videos even purportedly showing the hijackers for the other two flights. If these 19 men had really checked into the Boston and Dulles airports that day, there should be authentic security videos to prove this.
8. Were the Names of the "Hijackers" on the Passenger Manifests?
What about the passenger manifests, which list all the passengers on the flights? If the alleged hijackers purchased tickets and boarded the flights, their names would have been on the manifests for these flights. And we were told that they were. According to counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke, the FBI told him at about 10:00 that morning that it recognized the names of some al-Qaeda operatives on passenger manifests it had received from the airlines.77 As to how the FBI itself acquired its list, Robert Bonner, the head of Customs and Border Protection, said to the 9/11 Commission in 2004:
On the morning of 9/11, through an evaluation of data related to the passenger manifest for the four terrorist hijacked aircraft, Customs Office of Intelligence was able to identify the likely terrorist hijackers. Within 45 minutes of the attacks, Customs forwarded the passenger lists with the names of the victims and 19 probable hijackers to the FBI and the intelligence community.78
Under questioning, Bonner added:
We were able to pull from the airlines the passenger manifest for each of the four flights. We ran the manifest through [our lookout] system. . . . y 11:00 AM, I'd seen a sheet that essentially identified the 19 probable hijackers. And in fact, they turned out to be, based upon further follow-up in detailed investigation, to be the 19.79
Bonner's statement, however, is doubly problematic. In the first place, the initial FBI list, as reported by CNN on September 13 and 14, contained only 18 names.80 Why would that be if 19 men had already been identified on 9/11?
Second, several of the names on the FBI's first list, having quickly become problematic, were replaced by other names. For example, the previously discussed men named Bukhari, thought to be brothers, were replaced on American 11's list of hijackers by brothers named Waleed and Wail al-Shehri. Two other replacements for this flight were Satam al-Suqami, whose passport was allegedly found at Ground Zero, and Abdul al-Omari, who allegedly went to Portland with Atta the day before 9/11. Also, the initial list for American 77 did not include the name of Hani Hanjour, who would later be called the pilot of this flight. Rather, it contained a name that, after being read aloud by a CNN correspondent, was transcribed "Mosear Caned."81 All in all, the final list of 19 hijackers contained six names that were not on the original list of 18---a fact that contradicts Bonner's claim that by 11:00 AM on 9/11 his agency had identified 19 probable hijackers who, in fact, "turned out to be. . . the 19."
These replacements to the initial list also undermine the claim that Amy Sweeney, by giving the seat numbers of three of the hijackers to Michael Woodward of American Airlines, allowed him to identify Atta and two others. This second claim is impossible because the two others were Abdul al-Omari and Satam al-Suqami,82 and they were replacements for two men on the original list---who, like Adnan Bukhari, turned up alive after 9/11.83 Woodward could not possibly have identified men who were not added to the list until several days later.84
For all these reasons, the claim that the names of the 19 alleged hijackers were on the airlines' passenger manifests must be considered false.
This conclusion is supported by the fact that the passenger manifests that were released to the public included no names of any of the 19 alleged hijackers and, in fact, no Middle Eastern names whatsoever.85 These manifests, therefore, support the suspicion that there were no al-Qaeda hijackers on the planes.
It might appear that this conclusion is contradicted by the fact that passenger manifests with the names of the alleged hijackers have appeared. A photocopy of a portion of an apparent passenger manifest for American Flight 11, with the names of three of the alleged hijackers, was published in a 2005 book by Terry McDermott, Perfect Soldiers: The 9/11 Hijackers.86 McDermott reportedly said that he received these manifests from the FBI.87 But the idea that these were the original manifests is problematic.
For one thing, they were not included in the evidence presented by the FBI to the Moussaoui trial in 2006.88 If even the FBI will not cite them as evidence, why should anyone think they are genuine?
Another problem with these purported manifests, copies of which can be viewed on the Internet,89 is that they show signs of being late creations. One such sign is that Ziad Jarrah's last name is spelled correctly, whereas in the early days after 9/11, the FBI was referring to him as "Jarrahi," as news reports from the time show.90 A second sign is that the manifest for American Flight 77 contains Hani Hanjour's name, even though its absence from the original list of hijackers had led the Washington Post to wonder why Hanjour's "name was not on the American Airlines manifest for the flight."91 A third sign is that the purported manifest for American Flight 11 contains the names of Wail al-Shehri, Waleed al-Shehri, Satam al-Suqami, and Abdul al-Omari, all of whom were added some days after 9/11.
In sum, no credible evidence that al-Qaeda operatives were on the flights is provided by the passenger manifests.
9. Did DNA Tests Identify Five Hijackers among the Victims at the Pentagon?
Another type of evidence that the alleged hijackers were really on the planes could have been provided by autopsies. But no such evidence has been forthcoming. In its book defending the official account of 9/11, to be sure, Popular Mechanics claims that, according to a report on the victims of the Pentagon attack by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology: "The five hijackers were positively identified."92 But this claim is false.
According to a summary of this pathology report by Andrew Baker, M.D., the remains of 183 victims were subjected to DNA analysis, which resulted in "178 positive identifications." Although Baker says that "[s]ome remains for each of the terrorists were recovered," this was merely an inference from the fact that there were "five unique postmortem profiles that did not match any antemortem material provided by victims' families."93
A Washington Post story made even clearer the fact that this conclusion---that the unmatched remains were those of "the five hijackers"---was merely an inference. It wrote: "The remains of the five hijackers have been identified through a process of exclusion, as they did not match DNA samples contributed by family members of all 183 victims who died at the site" (emphasis added).94 All the report said, in other words, was that there were five bodies whose DNA did not match that of any of the known Pentagon victims or any of the regular passengers or crew members on Flight 77.
We have no way of knowing where these five bodies came from. For the claim that they came from the attack site at the Pentagon, we have only the word of the FBI and the military, which insisted on taking charge of the bodies of everyone killed at the Pentagon and transporting them to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.95
In any case, the alleged hijackers could have been positively identified only if samples had been obtained from their relatives, and there is no indication that this occurred. Indeed, one can wonder why not. The FBI had lots of information about the men identified as the hijackers. They could easily have located relatives. And these relatives, most of whom reportedly did not believe that their own flesh and blood had been involved in the attacks, would have surely been willing to supply the needed DNA. Indeed, a story about Ziad Jarrah, the alleged pilot of Flight 93, said: "Jarrah's family has indicated they would be willing to provide DNA samples to US researchers, . . . [but] the FBI has shown no interest thus far."96
The lack of positive identification of the alleged hijackers is consistent with the autopsy report, which was released to Dr. Thomas Olmsted, who had made a FOIA request for it. Like the flight manifest for Flight 77, he revealed, this report also contains no Arab names.97
10. Has the Claim That Some of the "Hijackers" Are Still Alive Been Debunked?
Another problem with the claim that the 19 hijackers were correctly identified on 9/11, or at least a few days later, is that some of the men on the FBI's final list reportedly turned up alive after 9/11. Although Der Spiegel and the BBC claim to have debunked these reports, I will show this is untrue by examining the case of one of the alleged hijackers, Waleed al-Shehri---who, we saw earlier, was a replacement for Adnan Bukhari, who himself had shown up alive after 9/11.
In spite of the fact that al-Shehri was a replacement, the 9/11 Commission revealed no doubts about his presence on Flight 11, speculating that he and his brother Wail---another replacement---stabbed two of the flight attendants.98 But the Commission certainly should have had doubts.
On September 22, 2001, the BBC published an article by David Bamford entitled "Hijack "-Suspect' Alive in Morocco." It showed that the Waleed al-Shehri identified by the FBI as one of the hijackers was still alive. Explaining why the problem could not be dismissed as a case of mistaken identity, Bamford wrote:
His photograph was released by the FBI, and has been shown in newspapers and on television around the world. That same Mr Al-Shehri has turned up in Morocco, proving clearly that he was not a member of the suicide attack. He told Saudi journalists in Casablanca that . . . he has now been interviewed by the American authorities, who apologised for the misunderstanding.99
The following day, September 23, the BBC published another story, "Hijack "-Suspects' Alive and Well." Discussing several alleged hijackers who had shown up alive, it said of al-Shehri in particular: "He acknowledges that he attended flight training school at Daytona Beach. . . . But, he says, he left the United States in September last year, became a pilot with Saudi Arabian airlines and is currently on a further training course in Morocco."100
In 2003, an article in Der Spiegel tried to debunk these two BBC stories, characterizing them as "nonsense about surviving terrorists." It claimed that the reported still-alive hijackers were all cases of mistaken identity, involving men with "coincidentally identical names." This claim by Der Spiegel depended on its assertion that, at the time of the reports, the FBI had released only a list of names: "The FBI did not release photographs until four days after the cited reports, on September 27th."101 But that was not true. Bamford's BBC story of September 22, as we saw, reported that Waleed al-Shehri's photograph had been "released by the FBI" and "shown in newspapers and on television around the world."
In 2006, nevertheless, the BBC used the same claim to withdraw its support for its own stories. Steve Herrmann, the editor of the BBC News website, claimed that confusion had arisen because "these were common Arabic and Islamic names." Accordingly, he said, the BBC had changed its September 23 story in one respect: "Under the FBI picture of Waleed al Shehri we have added the words "-A man called Waleed Al Shehri...' to make it as clear as possible that there was confusion over the identity."102 But Bamford's BBC story of September 22, which Herrmann failed to mention, had made it "as clear as possible" that there could not have been any confusion.
These attempts by Der Spiegel and the BBC, in which they tried to discredit the reports that Waleed al-Shehri was still alive after 9/11, have been refuted by Jay Kolar, who shows that FBI photographs had been published by Saudi newspapers as early as September 19. Kolar thereby undermines the only argument against Bamford's assertion, according to which there could have been no possibility of mistaken identity because al-Shehri had seen his published photograph prior to September 22, when Bamford's story appeared.103
The fact that al-Shehri, along with several other alleged hijackers,104 was alive after 9/11 shows unambiguously that at least some of the men on the FBI's final list were not on the planes. It would appear that the FBI, after replacing some of its first-round candidates because of their continued existence, decided not to replace any more, in spite of their exhibition of the same defect.
11. Is There Positive Evidence That No Hijackers Were on the Planes?
At this point, defenders of the official story might argue: The fact that some of the men labeled hijackers were still alive after 9/11 shows only that the FBI list contained some errors; it does not prove that there were no al-Qaeda hijackers on board. And although the previous points do undermine the evidence for such hijackers, absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence.
Evidence of absence, however, is implicit in the prior points in two ways. First, the lack of Arab names on the Pentagon autopsy report and on any of the issued passenger manifests does suggest the absence of al-Qaeda operatives. Second, if al-Qaeda hijackers really were on the flights, why was evidence to prove this fact fabricated?
Beyond those two points, moreover, there is a feature of the reported events that contradicts the claim that hijackers broke into the pilots' cabins. This feature can be introduced by reference to Conan Doyle's short story "Silver Blaze," which is about a famous race horse that had disappeared the night before a big race. Although the local Scotland Yard detective believed that Silver Blaze had been stolen by an intruder, Sherlock Holmes brought up "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." When the inspector pointed out that "[t]he dog did nothing in the night-time," Holmes replied: "That was the curious incident."105 Had there really been an intruder, in other words, the dog would have barked. This has become known as the case of "the dog that didn't bark."
A similar curious incident occurred on each of the four flights. In the event of a hijacking, pilots are trained to enter the standard hijack code (7500) into their transponders to alert controllers on the ground. Using the transponder to send a code is called "squawking." One of the big puzzles about 9/11 was why none of the pilots squawked the hijack code.
CNN provided a good treatment of this issue, saying with regard to the first flight:
Flight 11 was hijacked apparently by knife-wielding men. Airline pilots are trained to handle such situations by keeping calm, complying with requests, and if possible, dialing in an emergency four digit code on a device called a transponder. . . . The action takes seconds, but it appears no such code was entered.106
The crucial issue was indicated by the phrase "if possible": Would it have been possible for the pilots of Flight 11 to have performed this action? A positive answer was suggested by CNN's next statement:
n the cabin, a frantic flight attendant managed to use a phone to call American Airlines Command Center in Dallas. She reported the trouble. And according to "The Christian Science Monitor," a pilot apparently keyed the microphone, transmitting a cockpit conversation.107
If there was time for both of those actions to be taken, there would have been time for one of the pilots to enter the four-digit hijack code.
That would have been all the more true of the pilots on United Flight 93, given the (purported) tapes from this flight. A reporter at the Moussaoui trial, where these tapes had been played, wrote:
In those tapes, the pilots shouted as hijackers broke into the cockpit. "Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!" a pilot screamed in the first tape. In the second tape, 30 seconds later, a pilot shouted: "Mayday! Get out of here! Get out of here!"108
According to these tapes, therefore, the pilots were still alive and coherent 30 seconds after realizing that hijackers were breaking into the cockpit. And yet in all that time, neither of them did the most important thing they had been trained to do---turn the transponder to 7500.
In addition to the four pilots on Flights 11 and 93, furthermore, the four pilots on Flights 175 and 77 failed to do this as well.
In "Silver Blaze," the absence of an intruder was shown by the dog that didn't bark. On 9/11, the absence of hijackers was shown by the pilots who didn't squawk.
12. Were bin Laden and al-Qaeda Capable of Orchestrating the Attacks?
For prosecutors to prove that defendants committed a crime, they must show that they had the ability (as well as the motive and opportunity) to do so. But several political and military leaders from other countries have stated that bin Laden and al-Qaeda simply could not have carried out the attacks. General Leonid Ivashov, who in 2001 was the chief of staff for the Russian armed forces, wrote:
Only secret services and their current chiefs---or those retired but still having influence inside the state organizations---have the ability to plan, organize and conduct an operation of such magnitude. . . . . Osama bin Laden and "Al Qaeda" cannot be the organizers nor the performers of the September 11 attacks. They do not have the necessary organization, resources or leaders.
Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, the former foreign minister of Egypt, wrote:
Bin Laden does not have the capabilities for an operation of this magnitude. When I hear Bush talking about al-Qaida as if it was Nazi Germany or the communist party of the Soviet Union, I laugh because I know what is there.
Similar statements have been made by Andreas von Bülow, the former state secretary of West Germany's ministry of defense, by General Mirza Aslam Beg, former chief of staff of Pakistan's army, and even General Musharraf, the president of Pakistan until recently.109
This same point was also made by veteran CIA agent Milt Bearden. Speaking disparagingly of "the myth of Osama bin Laden" on CBS News the day after 9/11, Bearden said: "I was there [in Afghanistan] at the same time bin Laden was there. He was not the great warrior." With regard to the widespread view that bin Laden was behind the attacks, he said: "This was a tremendously sophisticated operation against the United States---more sophisticated than anybody would have ascribed to Osama bin Laden." Pointing out that a group capable of such a sophisticated attack would have had a way to cover their tracks, he added: "This group who was responsible for that, if they didn't have an Osama bin Laden out there, they'd invent one, because he's a terrific diversion."110
13. Could Hani Hanjour Have Flown Flight 77 into the Pentagon?
The inability of al-Qaeda to have carried out the operation can be illustrated in terms of Hani Hanjour, the al-Qaeda operative said to have flown Flight 77 into the Pentagon.
On September 12, before it was stated that Hanjour had been the pilot of American 77, the final minutes of this plane's trajectory had been described as one requiring great skill. A Washington Post story said:
[J]ust as the plane seemed to be on a suicide mission into the White House, the unidentified pilot executed a pivot so tight that it reminded observers of a fighter jet maneuver. . . . Aviation sources said the plane was flown with extraordinary skill, making it highly likely that a trained pilot was at the helm.111
But Hani Hanjour was not that. Indeed, a CBS story reported, an Arizona flight school said that Hanjour's "flying skills were so bad . . . they didn't think he should keep his pilot's license." The manager stated: "I couldn't believe he had a commercial license of any kind with the skills that he had."112 A New York Times story, entitled "A Trainee Noted for Incompetence," quoted one of his instructors as saying that Hanjour "could not fly at all."113
The 9/11 Commission even admitted that in the summer of 2001, just months before 9/11, a flight instructor in New Jersey, after going up with Hanjour in a small plane, "declined a second request because of what he considered Hanjour's poor piloting skills."114 The Commission failed to address the question of how Hanjour, incapable of flying a single-engine plane, could have flown a giant 757 through the trajectory reportedly taken by Flight 77: descending 8,000 feet in three minutes and then coming in at ground level to strike Wedge 1 of the Pentagon between the first and second floors, without even scraping the lawn.
Several pilots have said this would have been impossible. Russ Wittenberg, who flew large commercial airliners for 35 years after serving as a fighter pilot in Vietnam, says it would have been "totally impossible for an amateur who couldn't even fly a Cessna" to fly that downward spiral and then "crash into the Pentagon's first floor wall without touching the lawn."115 Ralph Omholt, a former 757 pilot, has bluntly said: "The idea that an unskilled pilot could have flown this trajectory is simply too ridiculous to consider."116 Ralph Kolstad, who was a US Navy "top gun" pilot before becoming a commercial airline pilot for 27 years, has said: "I have 6,000 hours of flight time in Boeing 757's and 767's and I could not have flown it the way the flight path was described. . . . Something stinks to high heaven!"117
The authors of the Popular Mechanics book about 9/11 offered to solve this problem. While acknowledging that Hanjour "may not have been highly skilled," they said that he did not need to be, because all he had to do was, using a GPS unit, put his plane on autopilot.118 "He steered the plane manually for only the final eight minutes of the flight," they state triumphantly119---ignoring the fact that it was precisely during those minutes that Hanjour had allegedly performed the impossible.
14. Would an al-Qaeda Pilot Have Executed that Maneuver?
A further question is: Even if one of the al-Qaeda operatives on that flight could have executed that maneuver, would he have done so? This question arises out of the fact that the plane could easily have crashed into the roof on the side of the Pentagon that housed Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and all the top brass. The difficult maneuver would have been required only by the decision to strike Wedge 1 on the side.
But this was the worst possible place, given the assumed motives of the al-Qaeda operatives: They would have wanted to kill Rumsfeld and the top brass, but Wedge 1 was as far removed from their offices as possible. They would have wanted to cause as much destruction as possible, but Wedge 1---and only it---had been renovated to make it less vulnerable to attack. Al-Qaeda operatives would have wanted to kill as many Pentagon employees as possible, but because the renovation was not quite complete, Wedge 1 was only sparsely occupied. The attack also occurred on the only part of the Pentagon that would have presented physical obstacles to an attacking airplane. All of these facts were public knowledge. So even if an al-Qaeda pilot had been capable of executing the maneuver to strike the ground floor of Wedge 1, he would not have done so.
15. Could al-Qaeda Operatives Have Brought Down the World Trade Center Buildings?
Returning to the issue of competence, another question is whether al-Qaeda operatives could have brought down the Twin Towers and WTC 7?
With regard to the Twin Towers, the official theory is that they were brought down by the impact of the airplanes plus the ensuing fires. But this theory cannot explain why the towers, after exploding outwards at the top, came straight down, because this type of collapse would have required all 287 of each building's steel columns---which ran from the basement to the roof---to have failed simultaneously; it cannot explain why the top parts of the buildings came straight down at virtually free-fall speed, because this required that the lower parts of the building, with all of their steel and concrete, offered no resistance; it cannot explain why sections of steel beams, weighing thousands of tons, were blown out horizontally more than 500 feet; it cannot explain why some of the steel had melted, because this melting required temperatures far hotter than the fires in the buildings could possibly have been; and it cannot explain why many firefighters and WTC employees reported massive explosions in the buildings long after all the jet-fuel had burned up. But all of these phenomena are easily explainable by the hypothesis that the buildings were brought down by explosives in the procedure known as controlled demolition.120
This conclusion now constitutes the consensus of independent physicists, chemists, architects, engineers, and demolition experts who have studied the facts.121 For example, Edward Munyak, a mechanical and fire protection engineer who worked in the US departments of energy and defense, says: "The concentric nearly freefall speed exhibited by each building was identical to most controlled demolitions. . . . Collapse [was] not caused by fire effects."122 Dwain Deets, the former director of the research engineering division at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, mentions the "massive structural members being hurled horizontally" as one of the factors leaving him with "no doubt [that] explosives were involved."123
Given the fact that WTC 7 was not even hit by a plane, its vertical collapse at virtually free-fall speed, which also was preceded by explosions and involved the melting of steel, was still more obviously an example of controlled demolition.124 For example, Jack Keller, emeritus professor of engineering at Utah State University, who has been given special recognition by Scientific American, said: "Obviously it was the result of controlled demolition."125 Likewise, when Danny Jowenko---a controlled demolition expert in the Netherlands who had not known that WTC 7 had collapsed on 9/11---was asked to comment on a video of its collapse, he said: "They simply blew up columns, and the rest caved in afterwards. . . . t's been imploded. . . . A team of experts did this."126
If the Twin Towers and WTC 7 were brought down by explosives, the question becomes: Who would have had the ability to place the explosives? This question involves two parts: First, who could have obtained access to the buildings for all the hours it would have taken to plant the explosives? The answer is: Only someone with connections to people in charge of security for the World Trade Center.
The second part of the question is: Who, if they had such access, would have had the expertise to engineer the controlled demolition of these three buildings? As Jowenko's statement indicated, the kind of controlled demolition to which these buildings were subjected was implosion, which makes the building come straight down. According to ImplosionWorld.com, an implosion is "by far the trickiest type of explosive project, and there are only a handful of blasting companies in the world that possess enough experience . . . to perform these true building implosions."127
Both parts of the question, therefore, rule out al-Qaeda operatives.
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Griffin continued
Griffin continued
16. Would al-Qaeda Operatives Have Imploded the Buildings?
Finally, we can also ask whether, even if al-Qaeda operatives had possessed the ability to cause the World Trade Center buildings to implode so as to come straight down, they would have done so? The answer to this question becomes obvious once we reflect upon the purpose of this kind of controlled demolition, which is to avoid damaging near-by buildings. Had the 110-story Twin Towers fallen over sideways, they would have caused massive destruction in lower Manhattan, destroying dozens of other buildings and killing tens of thousands of people. Would al-Qaeda have had the courtesy to make sure that the buildings came straight down?
Conclusion
All the proffered evidence that America was attacked by Muslims on 9/11, when subjected to critical scrutiny, appears to have been fabricated. If that is determined indeed to be the case, the implications would be enormous. Discovering and prosecuting the true perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks would obviously be important. The most immediate consequence, however, should be to reverse those attitudes and policies that have been based on the assumption that America was attacked by Muslims on 9/11.
Continued
16. Would al-Qaeda Operatives Have Imploded the Buildings?
Finally, we can also ask whether, even if al-Qaeda operatives had possessed the ability to cause the World Trade Center buildings to implode so as to come straight down, they would have done so? The answer to this question becomes obvious once we reflect upon the purpose of this kind of controlled demolition, which is to avoid damaging near-by buildings. Had the 110-story Twin Towers fallen over sideways, they would have caused massive destruction in lower Manhattan, destroying dozens of other buildings and killing tens of thousands of people. Would al-Qaeda have had the courtesy to make sure that the buildings came straight down?
Conclusion
All the proffered evidence that America was attacked by Muslims on 9/11, when subjected to critical scrutiny, appears to have been fabricated. If that is determined indeed to be the case, the implications would be enormous. Discovering and prosecuting the true perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks would obviously be important. The most immediate consequence, however, should be to reverse those attitudes and policies that have been based on the assumption that America was attacked by Muslims on 9/11.
Continued
- truthseeker john
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Re: Griffin debunks Muslims dunnit myth
Go back down the tree a step ..\ You have duplicated this.xmasdale wrote:World renowned 9/11 Researcher, David Ray Griffin has written this article debunking the theory, widely held among those who doubt the US government's account of what happened, that Muslims nevertheless carried out the massacre by hijacking passenger planes and flying them into buildings.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e20722.htm
Was America Attacked by Muslims on 9/11?
"Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish." - Euripides
"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." - Albert Einstein
"To find yourself, think for yourself" - Socrates
"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." - Albert Einstein
"To find yourself, think for yourself" - Socrates
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Griffin article notes
Notes
1. On the ways in which torture, extraordinary rendition, government spying, and the military tribunals have undermined US constitutional principles, see Louis Fisher, The Constitution and 9/11: Recurring Threats to America's Freedoms (Lawrence: Kansas University Press, 2008).
2. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, authorized edition (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), 160 (henceforth 9/11CR).
3. 9/11CR 154.
4. Kevin Fagan, "Agents of Terror Leave Their Mark on Sin City," San Francisco Chronicle, 4 October 2001 (click here
5. See ibid.; David Wedge, "Terrorists Partied with Hooker at Hub-Area Hotel," Boston Herald, 10 October, 2001 (click here and Jody A. Benjamin, "Suspects' Actions Don't Add Up," South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 16 September 2001 (click here
6. "Terrorist Stag Parties," Wall Street Journal, 10 October 2001 (http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001298).
7. 9/11CR 248.
8. "Meet the Press," NBC, 23 September, 2001 (click here
9. "Remarks by the President, Secretary of the Treasury O'Neill and Secretary of State Powell on Executive Order," White House, 24 September 2001 (click here
10. Seymour M. Hersh, "What Went Wrong: The C.I.A. and the Failure of American Intelligence," New Yorker, 1 October 2001 (http://cicentre.com/Documents/DOC_Hersch_OCT_01.htm).
11. "White House Warns Taliban: "-We Will Defeat You,'" CNN, 21 September 2001 (click here
12. Office of the Prime Minister, "Responsibility for the Terrorist Atrocities in the United States," BBC News, 4 October 2001 (click here
13. "The Investigation and the Evidence," BBC News, 5 October 2001 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1581063.stm).
14. Kathy Gannon, "Taliban Willing to Talk, But Wants U.S. Respect," Associated Press, 1 November 2001 (click here
15. Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Most Wanted Terrorists: Usama bin Laden" (http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm).
16. Ed Haas, "FBI says, "-No Hard Evidence Connecting Bin Laden to 9/11'" Muckraker Report, 6 June 2006 (http://www.teamliberty.net/id267.html).
17. See my discussion in The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2008), 208-11.
18. BBC News, "Tape "-Proves Bin Laden's Guilt,'" 14 December 2001 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1708091.stm).
19. See "The Fake 2001 bin Laden Video Tape" (http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/osamatape.html).
20. Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, with Benjamin Rhodes, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006).
21. 9/11CR 149, 155, 166.
22. See 9/11CR Ch. 5, notes 16, 41, and 92.
23. Kean and Hamilton, Without Precedent, 118.
24. Ibid., 122-24.
25. Ibid., 119.
26. Robert Windrem and Victor Limjoco, "The 9/11 Commission Controversy," Deep Background: NBC News Investigations, 30 January 2008 (click here
27. Tim O'Brien, "Wife of Solicitor General Alerted Him of Hijacking from Plane," CNN, 11 September 2001 (http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/pentagon.olson).
28. Charles Lane and John Mintz, "Bid to Thwart Hijackers May Have Led to Pa. Crash," Washington Post, 13 September 2001 (click here
29. Kerry Hall, "Flight Attendant Helped Fight Hijackers," News & Record (Greensboro, N.C.), 21 September 2001 (click here
30. 9/11CR 6.
31. Gail Sheehy, "Stewardess ID'd Hijackers Early, Transcripts Show," New York Observer, 15 February 2004 (http://www.observer.com/node/48805).
32. "Calm Before the Crash: Flight 11 Crew Sent Key Details Before Hitting the Twin Towers," ABC News, 18 July 2002 (click here
33. A. K. Dewdney, "The Cellphone and Airfone Calls from Flight UA93," Physics 911, 9 June 2003 (http://physics911.net/cellphoneflight93.htm). For discussion of this issue, see The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, 112-14.
34. See Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts: An In-Depth Investigation by Popular Mechanics, ed. David Dunbar and Brad Reagan (New York: Hearst Books, 2006), 83-86.
35. Lechner FBI Affidavit; available at Four Corners: Investigative TV Journalism (click here Woodward and Sweeney are not identified by name in the affidavit, which refers simply to the former as "an employee of American Airlines at Logan" and to the latter as "a flight attendant on AA11." But their names were revealed in an "investigative document compiled by the FBI" to which Eric Lichtblau referred in "Aboard Flight 11, a Chilling Voice," Los Angeles Times, 20 September 2001 (click here
36. 9/11CR 453n32.
37. Gail Sheehy, "9/11 Tapes Reveal Ground Personnel Muffled Attacks," New York Observer, 24 June, 2004 (http://www.observer.com/node/49415).
38. Greg Gordon, "Prosecutors Play Flight 93 Cockpit Recording," McClatchy Newspapers, KnoxNews.com, 12 April 2006 (click here The quoted statement is Gordon's paraphrase of the testimony of "a member of the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force."
39. See United States v. Zacarias Moussaoui, Exhibit Number P200054 (click here This graphics presentation can be more easily viewed in "Detailed Account of Phone Calls from September 11th Flights" at 9-11 Research (click here
40. "The Final Moments of United Flight 93," Newsweek, 22 September 2001 (click here See "Interview with Deena Lynne Burnett (re: phone call from hijacked flight)," 9/11 Commission, FBI Source Documents, Chronological, September 11, 2001, Intelfiles.com, 14 March 2008 (click here Greg Gordon, "Widow Tells of Poignant Last Calls," Sacramento Bee, 11 September 2002 (click here and Deena L. Burnett (with Anthony F. Giombetti), Fighting Back: Living Beyond Ourselves (Longwood, Florida: Advantage Inspirational Books, 2006), where she wrote: "I looked at the caller ID and indeed it was Tom's cell phone number" (61).
42. William M. Arkin, "When Seeing and Hearing Isn't Believing," Washington Post, 1 February 1999 (click here Although Brickhouse Security's advertisement for Telephone Voice Changers (click here has been modified in recent years, it previously included a device called "FoneFaker," the ad for which said: "Record any call you make, fake your Caller ID and change your voice, all with one service you can use from any phone."
44. For Deena Burnett's reconstruction of the calls, see click here
45. See The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, 122.
46. Lichtblau, "Aboard Flight 11, a Chilling Voice" (see note 34, above).
47. 9/11CR 4, 6.
48. See note 38, above.
49. 9/11CR 19.
50. Ibid.
51. "Summary of Air Traffic Hijack Events: September 11, 2001," FAA, 17 September 2001 (click here
52. Frank J. Murray, "Americans Feel Touch of Evil; Fury Spurs Unity," Washington Times, 11 September 2002 (click here
53. "Ashcroft Says More Attacks May Be Planned," CNN, 18 September 2001 (click here "Terrorist Hunt," ABC News (click here
54. Anne Karpf, "Uncle Sam's Lucky Finds," Guardian, 19 March 2002 (click here Like some others, this article mistakenly said the passport belonged to Mohamed Atta.
55. Statement by Susan Ginsburg, senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission, at the 9/11 Commission Hearing, 26 January 2004 (click here The Commission's account reflected a CBS report that the passport had been found "minutes after" the attack, which was stated by the Associated Press, 27 January 2003.
56. Sheila MacVicar and Caroline Faraj, "September 11 Hijacker Questioned in January 2001," CNN, 1 August 2002 (click here 9/11 Commission Hearing, 26 January 2004.
57. 9/11CR 14; Jere Longman, Among the Heroes: United 93 and the Passengers and Crew Who Fought Back (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), 215.
58. In light of the absurdity of the claims about the passports of al-Suqami and Jarrah, we can safely assume that the ID cards of Majed Moqed, Nawaf al-Hazmi, and Salem al-Hazmi, said to have been discovered at the Pentagon crash site (see "9/11 and Terrorist Travel," 9/11 Commission Staff Report [click here 27, 42), were also planted.
59. For a photograph of the headband, see 9-11 Research, "The Crash of Flight 93" (click here
60. Quoted in Ross Coulthart, "Terrorists Target America," Ninemsn, September 2001 (click here
61. Lechner FBI Affidavit (see note 34, above).
62. Sydney Morning Herald, 15 September 2001; Boston Globe, 18 September, 2001.
63. The 9/11 Commission's Staff Statement No. 16, dated 16 June 2004 (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5224099), said: "The Portland detour almost prevented Atta and Omari from making Flight 11 out of Boston. In fact, the luggage they checked in Portland failed to make it onto the plane."
64. 9/11CR 1-2.
65. 9/11CR 451n1; FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, "Statement for the Record," Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry, 26 September 2002 (click here
66. "Two Brothers among Hijackers," CNN Report, 13 September 2001 (click here
67. "Feds Think They've Identified Some Hijackers," CNN, 13 September 2001 (click here
68. "Portland Police Eye Local Ties," Associated Press, Portsmouth Herald, 14 September 2001 (click here
69. Joel Achenbach, "'You Never Imagine' A Hijacker Next Door," Washington Post, 16 September 2001 (click here Rowland Morgan and Ian Henshall, 9/11 Revealed: The Unanswered Questions (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005), 181.
71. David Hench, "Ticket Agent Haunted by Brush with 9/11 Hijackers," Portland Press Herald, 6 March 2005 (http://www.spartacus.blogs.com/ticketagent.htm).
72. This photo can be seen at click here
73. Associated Press, 22 July 2004. The photo with this caption can be seen in Morgan and Henshall, 9/11 Revealed, 117-18, along with a genuine security video (with identification data), or at http://killtown.911review.org/flight77/hijackers.html (scroll half-way down).
74. Rowland and Henshall, 9/11 Revealed, 118.
75. 9/11CR 452n11.
76. Jay Kolar, "What We Now Know about the Alleged 9-11 Hijackers," in Paul Zarembka, ed., The Hidden History of 9-11 (New York: Seven Stories, 2008), 3-44, at 8 (emphasis Kolar's).
77. Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror (New York: Free Press, 2004), 13.
78. "Statement of Robert C. Bonner to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States," 26 January 2004 (click here
79. Ibid.
80. "FBI: Early Probe Results Show 18 Hijackers Took Part," CNN, 13 September 2001 (click here "List of Names of 18 Suspected Hijackers," CNN, 14 September 2001 (click here
81. "List of Names of 18 Suspected Hijackers."
82. Gail Sheehy, "Stewardess ID'd Hijackers Early, Transcripts Show," New York Observer, 15 February 2004 (http://www.observer.com/node/48805).
83. Satam al-Suqami replaced a man named Amer Kamfar, and Abdulaziz al-Omari replaced a man with a similar name, Abdulrahman al-Omari; see Kolar, "What We Now Know," 12-15.
84. Another problem with the claim that Woodward had identified these three men is that the seat numbers reportedly used to identify Atta and al-Omari (see Gail Sheehy, "Stewardess ID'd Hijackers Early") did not match the numbers of the seats assigned to these two men (9/11CR 2).
85. All four passenger manifests can be found at click here
86. Terry McDermott, Perfect Soldiers: The 9/11 Hijackers: Who They Were, Why They Did It (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), photo section after p. 140.
87. This is stated at "The Passengers," 911myths.com (http://911myths.com/html/the_passengers.html).
88. Although discussions on the Internet have often claimed that these manifests were included in the FBI's evidence for the Moussaoui trial, several researchers failed to find them. See Jim Hoffman's discussion at click here
89. To view them, see "Passenger Lists," 9-11 Research (click here To download them and/or read cleaned-up versions, see "The Passengers," 911myths.com (http://911myths.com/html/the_passengers.html).
90. "Hijackers Linked to USS Cole Attack? Investigators Have Identified All the Hijackers; Photos to Be Released," CBS News, 14 September 2001 (click here Elizabeth Neuffer, "Hijack Suspect Lived a Life, or a Lie," Boston Globe, 25 September 2001 (click here
91. "Four Planes, Four Coordinated Teams," Washington Post, 16 September 2001 (click here
92. David Dunbar and Brad Reagan, eds., Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts (New York: Hearst Books, 2006), 63.
93. Andrew M. Baker, M.D., "Human Identification in a Post-9/11 World: Attack on American Airlines Flight 77 and the Pentagon Identification and Pathology" (click here
94. Steve Vogel, "Remains Unidentified for 5 Pentagon Victims," Washington Post, 21 November 2001 (click here See my discussion in Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory, revised & updated edition (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2007), 268-69.
96. "Ziad Jarrah," Wikipedia, as the article existed prior to September 8, 2006. On that date, that passage was removed. However, the earlier version of the article, containing the passage, is available at http://www.wanttoknow.info/articles/ziad_jarrah.
97. Thomas R. Olmsted, M.D. "Still No Arabs on Flight 77," Rense.com, 23 June 2003 (http://www.rense.com/general38/77.htm).
98. 9/11CR 5.
99. David Bamford, "Hijack "-Suspect' Alive in Morocco," BBC, 22 September 2001 (click here
100. "Hijack "-Suspects' Alive and Well," BBC News, 23 September 2001 (click here "Panoply of the Absurd," Der Spiegel, 8 September 2003 [click here
102. Steve Herrmann, "9/11 Conspiracy Theory," The Editors, BBC News, 27 October 2006 (click here
103. Jay Kolar, "Update: What We Now Know about the Alleged 9-11 Hijackers," Zarembka, ed., The Hidden History of 9-11: 293-304, at 293-94.
104. For discussion of some of these other men, see ibid., 295-98.
105. The story "Silver Blaze" is available at Wikisource (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Silver_Blaze).
106. "America Under Attack: How could It Happen?" CNN Live Event, 12 September 2001 (click here
107. Ibid. This was the "radio transmission" discussed earlier.
108. Richard A. Serrano, "Heroism, Fatalism Aboard Flight 93," Los Angeles Times, 12 April 2006 (click here
109. All of these statements are contained in the section headed "Senior Military, Intelligence, Law Enforcement, and Government Officials" at Patriots Question 9/11 (http://www.patriotsquestion911.com).
110. "9/12/2001: CIA Veteran Doubts Bin Laden Capable of 9/11 Attacks, Suspects Larger Plot," Aidan Monaghan's Blog, 11 March 2008 (http://www.911blogger.com/blog/2074).
111. Marc Fisher and Don Phillips, "On Flight 77: "-Our Plane Is Being Hijacked,'" Washington Post, 12 September 2001 (click here
112. "FAA Was Alerted To Sept. 11 Hijacker," CBS News, 10 May 2002 (click here
113. Jim Yardley, "A Trainee Noted for Incompetence," New York Times, 4 May 2002 (click here 9/11CR 242.
115. Greg Szymanski, "Former Vietnam Combat and Commercial Pilot Firm Believer 9/11 Was Inside Government Job," Arctic Beacon, 17 July 2005 (click here Email from Ralph Omholt, 27 October 2006.
117. Alan Miller, "U.S. Navy 'Top Gun' Pilot Questions 911 Pentagon Story," OpedNews.com, 5 September 2007 (click here Dunbar and Reagan, eds., Debunking 9/11 Myths, 6.
119. Ibid.
120. These problems and more are discussed in The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, Ch. 1.
121. For such people who have been willing to go public, see Patriots Question 9/11 (http://PatriotsQuestion911.com).
122. Patriots Question 9/11 (http://PatriotsQuestion911.com/engineers.html#Munyak).
123. Stated at Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (http://www.ae911truth.org/profile.php?uid=998819).
124. For anyone aware of the facts, NIST's report on the collapse of WTC 7, issued August 22, 2008, is laughable. For one thing, as I had predicted (Ch. 1 of The New Pearl Harbor Revisited), NIST simply ignored all the facts to which its fire theory cannot do justice, such as the melted steel, the thermite residue, and the reports of explosions in the building.
125. Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (click here This interview can be seen at "Controlled Demolition Expert and WTC7" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3DRhwRN06I). A portion is contained in the film Loose Change Final Cut.
127. "The Myth of Implosion" (http://www.implosionworld.com/dyk2.html).
David Ray Griffin is professor emeritus at Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University, where he taught philosophy of religion and theology, with special emphases on the problem of evil and the relations between science and religion, theology and ecology, religion and politics, and modernity and postmodernity. He has published 34 books, including seven about 9/11, most recently The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, The Cover-Up, and the Exposé (Olive Branch, 2008).
Dr. Griffin's previous books about 9/11 include The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11 (2004),
The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions (2005),
The American Empire and the Commonwealth of God (2005, co-authored with John B. Cobb, Jr., Richard Falk, and Catherine Keller),
Christian Faith and the Truth about 9/11: A Call to Reflection and Action (2006), 9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out (2006, co-edited with Peter Dale Scott),
Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory (2007),
and 9/11 Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress and the Press (2008).
1. On the ways in which torture, extraordinary rendition, government spying, and the military tribunals have undermined US constitutional principles, see Louis Fisher, The Constitution and 9/11: Recurring Threats to America's Freedoms (Lawrence: Kansas University Press, 2008).
2. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, authorized edition (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), 160 (henceforth 9/11CR).
3. 9/11CR 154.
4. Kevin Fagan, "Agents of Terror Leave Their Mark on Sin City," San Francisco Chronicle, 4 October 2001 (click here
5. See ibid.; David Wedge, "Terrorists Partied with Hooker at Hub-Area Hotel," Boston Herald, 10 October, 2001 (click here and Jody A. Benjamin, "Suspects' Actions Don't Add Up," South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 16 September 2001 (click here
6. "Terrorist Stag Parties," Wall Street Journal, 10 October 2001 (http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001298).
7. 9/11CR 248.
8. "Meet the Press," NBC, 23 September, 2001 (click here
9. "Remarks by the President, Secretary of the Treasury O'Neill and Secretary of State Powell on Executive Order," White House, 24 September 2001 (click here
10. Seymour M. Hersh, "What Went Wrong: The C.I.A. and the Failure of American Intelligence," New Yorker, 1 October 2001 (http://cicentre.com/Documents/DOC_Hersch_OCT_01.htm).
11. "White House Warns Taliban: "-We Will Defeat You,'" CNN, 21 September 2001 (click here
12. Office of the Prime Minister, "Responsibility for the Terrorist Atrocities in the United States," BBC News, 4 October 2001 (click here
13. "The Investigation and the Evidence," BBC News, 5 October 2001 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1581063.stm).
14. Kathy Gannon, "Taliban Willing to Talk, But Wants U.S. Respect," Associated Press, 1 November 2001 (click here
15. Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Most Wanted Terrorists: Usama bin Laden" (http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm).
16. Ed Haas, "FBI says, "-No Hard Evidence Connecting Bin Laden to 9/11'" Muckraker Report, 6 June 2006 (http://www.teamliberty.net/id267.html).
17. See my discussion in The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2008), 208-11.
18. BBC News, "Tape "-Proves Bin Laden's Guilt,'" 14 December 2001 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1708091.stm).
19. See "The Fake 2001 bin Laden Video Tape" (http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/osamatape.html).
20. Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, with Benjamin Rhodes, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006).
21. 9/11CR 149, 155, 166.
22. See 9/11CR Ch. 5, notes 16, 41, and 92.
23. Kean and Hamilton, Without Precedent, 118.
24. Ibid., 122-24.
25. Ibid., 119.
26. Robert Windrem and Victor Limjoco, "The 9/11 Commission Controversy," Deep Background: NBC News Investigations, 30 January 2008 (click here
27. Tim O'Brien, "Wife of Solicitor General Alerted Him of Hijacking from Plane," CNN, 11 September 2001 (http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/pentagon.olson).
28. Charles Lane and John Mintz, "Bid to Thwart Hijackers May Have Led to Pa. Crash," Washington Post, 13 September 2001 (click here
29. Kerry Hall, "Flight Attendant Helped Fight Hijackers," News & Record (Greensboro, N.C.), 21 September 2001 (click here
30. 9/11CR 6.
31. Gail Sheehy, "Stewardess ID'd Hijackers Early, Transcripts Show," New York Observer, 15 February 2004 (http://www.observer.com/node/48805).
32. "Calm Before the Crash: Flight 11 Crew Sent Key Details Before Hitting the Twin Towers," ABC News, 18 July 2002 (click here
33. A. K. Dewdney, "The Cellphone and Airfone Calls from Flight UA93," Physics 911, 9 June 2003 (http://physics911.net/cellphoneflight93.htm). For discussion of this issue, see The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, 112-14.
34. See Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts: An In-Depth Investigation by Popular Mechanics, ed. David Dunbar and Brad Reagan (New York: Hearst Books, 2006), 83-86.
35. Lechner FBI Affidavit; available at Four Corners: Investigative TV Journalism (click here Woodward and Sweeney are not identified by name in the affidavit, which refers simply to the former as "an employee of American Airlines at Logan" and to the latter as "a flight attendant on AA11." But their names were revealed in an "investigative document compiled by the FBI" to which Eric Lichtblau referred in "Aboard Flight 11, a Chilling Voice," Los Angeles Times, 20 September 2001 (click here
36. 9/11CR 453n32.
37. Gail Sheehy, "9/11 Tapes Reveal Ground Personnel Muffled Attacks," New York Observer, 24 June, 2004 (http://www.observer.com/node/49415).
38. Greg Gordon, "Prosecutors Play Flight 93 Cockpit Recording," McClatchy Newspapers, KnoxNews.com, 12 April 2006 (click here The quoted statement is Gordon's paraphrase of the testimony of "a member of the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force."
39. See United States v. Zacarias Moussaoui, Exhibit Number P200054 (click here This graphics presentation can be more easily viewed in "Detailed Account of Phone Calls from September 11th Flights" at 9-11 Research (click here
40. "The Final Moments of United Flight 93," Newsweek, 22 September 2001 (click here See "Interview with Deena Lynne Burnett (re: phone call from hijacked flight)," 9/11 Commission, FBI Source Documents, Chronological, September 11, 2001, Intelfiles.com, 14 March 2008 (click here Greg Gordon, "Widow Tells of Poignant Last Calls," Sacramento Bee, 11 September 2002 (click here and Deena L. Burnett (with Anthony F. Giombetti), Fighting Back: Living Beyond Ourselves (Longwood, Florida: Advantage Inspirational Books, 2006), where she wrote: "I looked at the caller ID and indeed it was Tom's cell phone number" (61).
42. William M. Arkin, "When Seeing and Hearing Isn't Believing," Washington Post, 1 February 1999 (click here Although Brickhouse Security's advertisement for Telephone Voice Changers (click here has been modified in recent years, it previously included a device called "FoneFaker," the ad for which said: "Record any call you make, fake your Caller ID and change your voice, all with one service you can use from any phone."
44. For Deena Burnett's reconstruction of the calls, see click here
45. See The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, 122.
46. Lichtblau, "Aboard Flight 11, a Chilling Voice" (see note 34, above).
47. 9/11CR 4, 6.
48. See note 38, above.
49. 9/11CR 19.
50. Ibid.
51. "Summary of Air Traffic Hijack Events: September 11, 2001," FAA, 17 September 2001 (click here
52. Frank J. Murray, "Americans Feel Touch of Evil; Fury Spurs Unity," Washington Times, 11 September 2002 (click here
53. "Ashcroft Says More Attacks May Be Planned," CNN, 18 September 2001 (click here "Terrorist Hunt," ABC News (click here
54. Anne Karpf, "Uncle Sam's Lucky Finds," Guardian, 19 March 2002 (click here Like some others, this article mistakenly said the passport belonged to Mohamed Atta.
55. Statement by Susan Ginsburg, senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission, at the 9/11 Commission Hearing, 26 January 2004 (click here The Commission's account reflected a CBS report that the passport had been found "minutes after" the attack, which was stated by the Associated Press, 27 January 2003.
56. Sheila MacVicar and Caroline Faraj, "September 11 Hijacker Questioned in January 2001," CNN, 1 August 2002 (click here 9/11 Commission Hearing, 26 January 2004.
57. 9/11CR 14; Jere Longman, Among the Heroes: United 93 and the Passengers and Crew Who Fought Back (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), 215.
58. In light of the absurdity of the claims about the passports of al-Suqami and Jarrah, we can safely assume that the ID cards of Majed Moqed, Nawaf al-Hazmi, and Salem al-Hazmi, said to have been discovered at the Pentagon crash site (see "9/11 and Terrorist Travel," 9/11 Commission Staff Report [click here 27, 42), were also planted.
59. For a photograph of the headband, see 9-11 Research, "The Crash of Flight 93" (click here
60. Quoted in Ross Coulthart, "Terrorists Target America," Ninemsn, September 2001 (click here
61. Lechner FBI Affidavit (see note 34, above).
62. Sydney Morning Herald, 15 September 2001; Boston Globe, 18 September, 2001.
63. The 9/11 Commission's Staff Statement No. 16, dated 16 June 2004 (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5224099), said: "The Portland detour almost prevented Atta and Omari from making Flight 11 out of Boston. In fact, the luggage they checked in Portland failed to make it onto the plane."
64. 9/11CR 1-2.
65. 9/11CR 451n1; FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, "Statement for the Record," Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry, 26 September 2002 (click here
66. "Two Brothers among Hijackers," CNN Report, 13 September 2001 (click here
67. "Feds Think They've Identified Some Hijackers," CNN, 13 September 2001 (click here
68. "Portland Police Eye Local Ties," Associated Press, Portsmouth Herald, 14 September 2001 (click here
69. Joel Achenbach, "'You Never Imagine' A Hijacker Next Door," Washington Post, 16 September 2001 (click here Rowland Morgan and Ian Henshall, 9/11 Revealed: The Unanswered Questions (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005), 181.
71. David Hench, "Ticket Agent Haunted by Brush with 9/11 Hijackers," Portland Press Herald, 6 March 2005 (http://www.spartacus.blogs.com/ticketagent.htm).
72. This photo can be seen at click here
73. Associated Press, 22 July 2004. The photo with this caption can be seen in Morgan and Henshall, 9/11 Revealed, 117-18, along with a genuine security video (with identification data), or at http://killtown.911review.org/flight77/hijackers.html (scroll half-way down).
74. Rowland and Henshall, 9/11 Revealed, 118.
75. 9/11CR 452n11.
76. Jay Kolar, "What We Now Know about the Alleged 9-11 Hijackers," in Paul Zarembka, ed., The Hidden History of 9-11 (New York: Seven Stories, 2008), 3-44, at 8 (emphasis Kolar's).
77. Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror (New York: Free Press, 2004), 13.
78. "Statement of Robert C. Bonner to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States," 26 January 2004 (click here
79. Ibid.
80. "FBI: Early Probe Results Show 18 Hijackers Took Part," CNN, 13 September 2001 (click here "List of Names of 18 Suspected Hijackers," CNN, 14 September 2001 (click here
81. "List of Names of 18 Suspected Hijackers."
82. Gail Sheehy, "Stewardess ID'd Hijackers Early, Transcripts Show," New York Observer, 15 February 2004 (http://www.observer.com/node/48805).
83. Satam al-Suqami replaced a man named Amer Kamfar, and Abdulaziz al-Omari replaced a man with a similar name, Abdulrahman al-Omari; see Kolar, "What We Now Know," 12-15.
84. Another problem with the claim that Woodward had identified these three men is that the seat numbers reportedly used to identify Atta and al-Omari (see Gail Sheehy, "Stewardess ID'd Hijackers Early") did not match the numbers of the seats assigned to these two men (9/11CR 2).
85. All four passenger manifests can be found at click here
86. Terry McDermott, Perfect Soldiers: The 9/11 Hijackers: Who They Were, Why They Did It (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), photo section after p. 140.
87. This is stated at "The Passengers," 911myths.com (http://911myths.com/html/the_passengers.html).
88. Although discussions on the Internet have often claimed that these manifests were included in the FBI's evidence for the Moussaoui trial, several researchers failed to find them. See Jim Hoffman's discussion at click here
89. To view them, see "Passenger Lists," 9-11 Research (click here To download them and/or read cleaned-up versions, see "The Passengers," 911myths.com (http://911myths.com/html/the_passengers.html).
90. "Hijackers Linked to USS Cole Attack? Investigators Have Identified All the Hijackers; Photos to Be Released," CBS News, 14 September 2001 (click here Elizabeth Neuffer, "Hijack Suspect Lived a Life, or a Lie," Boston Globe, 25 September 2001 (click here
91. "Four Planes, Four Coordinated Teams," Washington Post, 16 September 2001 (click here
92. David Dunbar and Brad Reagan, eds., Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts (New York: Hearst Books, 2006), 63.
93. Andrew M. Baker, M.D., "Human Identification in a Post-9/11 World: Attack on American Airlines Flight 77 and the Pentagon Identification and Pathology" (click here
94. Steve Vogel, "Remains Unidentified for 5 Pentagon Victims," Washington Post, 21 November 2001 (click here See my discussion in Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory, revised & updated edition (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2007), 268-69.
96. "Ziad Jarrah," Wikipedia, as the article existed prior to September 8, 2006. On that date, that passage was removed. However, the earlier version of the article, containing the passage, is available at http://www.wanttoknow.info/articles/ziad_jarrah.
97. Thomas R. Olmsted, M.D. "Still No Arabs on Flight 77," Rense.com, 23 June 2003 (http://www.rense.com/general38/77.htm).
98. 9/11CR 5.
99. David Bamford, "Hijack "-Suspect' Alive in Morocco," BBC, 22 September 2001 (click here
100. "Hijack "-Suspects' Alive and Well," BBC News, 23 September 2001 (click here "Panoply of the Absurd," Der Spiegel, 8 September 2003 [click here
102. Steve Herrmann, "9/11 Conspiracy Theory," The Editors, BBC News, 27 October 2006 (click here
103. Jay Kolar, "Update: What We Now Know about the Alleged 9-11 Hijackers," Zarembka, ed., The Hidden History of 9-11: 293-304, at 293-94.
104. For discussion of some of these other men, see ibid., 295-98.
105. The story "Silver Blaze" is available at Wikisource (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Silver_Blaze).
106. "America Under Attack: How could It Happen?" CNN Live Event, 12 September 2001 (click here
107. Ibid. This was the "radio transmission" discussed earlier.
108. Richard A. Serrano, "Heroism, Fatalism Aboard Flight 93," Los Angeles Times, 12 April 2006 (click here
109. All of these statements are contained in the section headed "Senior Military, Intelligence, Law Enforcement, and Government Officials" at Patriots Question 9/11 (http://www.patriotsquestion911.com).
110. "9/12/2001: CIA Veteran Doubts Bin Laden Capable of 9/11 Attacks, Suspects Larger Plot," Aidan Monaghan's Blog, 11 March 2008 (http://www.911blogger.com/blog/2074).
111. Marc Fisher and Don Phillips, "On Flight 77: "-Our Plane Is Being Hijacked,'" Washington Post, 12 September 2001 (click here
112. "FAA Was Alerted To Sept. 11 Hijacker," CBS News, 10 May 2002 (click here
113. Jim Yardley, "A Trainee Noted for Incompetence," New York Times, 4 May 2002 (click here 9/11CR 242.
115. Greg Szymanski, "Former Vietnam Combat and Commercial Pilot Firm Believer 9/11 Was Inside Government Job," Arctic Beacon, 17 July 2005 (click here Email from Ralph Omholt, 27 October 2006.
117. Alan Miller, "U.S. Navy 'Top Gun' Pilot Questions 911 Pentagon Story," OpedNews.com, 5 September 2007 (click here Dunbar and Reagan, eds., Debunking 9/11 Myths, 6.
119. Ibid.
120. These problems and more are discussed in The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, Ch. 1.
121. For such people who have been willing to go public, see Patriots Question 9/11 (http://PatriotsQuestion911.com).
122. Patriots Question 9/11 (http://PatriotsQuestion911.com/engineers.html#Munyak).
123. Stated at Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (http://www.ae911truth.org/profile.php?uid=998819).
124. For anyone aware of the facts, NIST's report on the collapse of WTC 7, issued August 22, 2008, is laughable. For one thing, as I had predicted (Ch. 1 of The New Pearl Harbor Revisited), NIST simply ignored all the facts to which its fire theory cannot do justice, such as the melted steel, the thermite residue, and the reports of explosions in the building.
125. Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (click here This interview can be seen at "Controlled Demolition Expert and WTC7" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3DRhwRN06I). A portion is contained in the film Loose Change Final Cut.
127. "The Myth of Implosion" (http://www.implosionworld.com/dyk2.html).
David Ray Griffin is professor emeritus at Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University, where he taught philosophy of religion and theology, with special emphases on the problem of evil and the relations between science and religion, theology and ecology, religion and politics, and modernity and postmodernity. He has published 34 books, including seven about 9/11, most recently The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, The Cover-Up, and the Exposé (Olive Branch, 2008).
Dr. Griffin's previous books about 9/11 include The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11 (2004),
The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions (2005),
The American Empire and the Commonwealth of God (2005, co-authored with John B. Cobb, Jr., Richard Falk, and Catherine Keller),
Christian Faith and the Truth about 9/11: A Call to Reflection and Action (2006), 9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out (2006, co-edited with Peter Dale Scott),
Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory (2007),
and 9/11 Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress and the Press (2008).
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THE NEW PEARL HARBOR REVISITED by David Ray Griffin, in tandem with its famous predecessor, is the most effective presentation of this now-total exposé. It's time now to put the perpetrators away in perpetuity.
The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: The Definitive Treatment of 9/11
A Review of David Ray Griffin's book
by Tod Fletcher
Global Research, September 12, 2008
In THE NEW PEARL HARBOR REVISITED, David Ray Griffin provides a brilliant and much-needed companion to his path-breaking and movement-building book on 9/11, The New Pearl Harbor (NPH; 2004). Now, on the occasion of the seventh anniversary of those horrific events, Griffin surveys in detail all the main lines of evidence against the official account of 9/11 to have emerged during the last four years. THE NEW PEARL HARBOR REVISITED (NPHR) has been designed as volume 2 of a two-volume set with NPH as volume 1; together they provide a thorough and up-to-date case against the official conspiracy theory (they can be bought separately, of course).
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... &aid=10166
Griffin has already published four other books that provide in-depth analysis of most of the evidence to have emerged since 2004. NPHR's main purpose is to provide an easily accessible survey of all of the new evidence, so that it is now possible for a beginner to the subject (including journalists and members of Congress) to master its enormous complexity simply by reading two books. NPHR is structured identically to NPH; each chapter in NPHR comments and builds on the corresponding chapter in NPH. Much of the content is entirely new; there are many facts and analyses in NPHR which Griffin presents for the first time, and which literally make the book an up-to-the-minute statement of the case.
In the Preface, Griffin explains why he undertook to "update" The New Pearl Harbor. In the Introduction he outlines the continued failure of the press to investigate any of the questions raised against the official account, and the lame attempts, especially by the main "progressive" or "left" appendages of the press, to portray such questioning as lunacy. He provides a brief overview of the history of "false-flag" operations, including the Pentagon's Operation Northwoods, halted by President Kennedy. Griffin then argues that the term "conspiracy theory" is used dishonestly to prevent investigation of the claims of critics (and never to describe the government's theory about 19 Arab hijackers controlled from a cave in Afghanistan).
The very substantial first chapter tackles two major issues, the timing of events related to flights AA 11 and UA 175 and the collapses of the WTC buildings. Griffin shows that the 9/11 Commission's new timeline is contradicted by much solid evidence and is inherently unbelievable. The Commission claims that the military was not notified by the FAA of the flight emergencies on flights AA 11 and UA 175 until much later than the times the military itself had claimed during the years between 9/11 and the publication of the Commission's Report in 2004. The Commission based its new claim on the "NORAD Tapes," a set of purportedly genuine tapes of telephone communications between the FAA and NORAD on the morning of 9/11. But these tapes were never produced until 2004, after the glaring holes in the Pentagon's defense against the charge of a standdown had become evident, and are probable fakes, which Griffin shows would have been easy to produce. The strongest indication that they are indeed fakes is that they contradict mountains of highly diverse independent lines of evidence.
Then he treats the new official story about how the Twin Towers collapsed, as presented in the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) Report of 2005. He thoroughly deconstructs NIST's five "crucial claims": (i) that designers of the buildings had not anticipated the possibility of airliner impacts; (ii) that many core and peripheral columns were severed by the plane impacts, and that fire-proofing material was stripped off many other core columns; (iii) that the now-unprotected core columns were then weakened by fire to the point of buckling; (iv) that the floors then sagged and pulled the perimeter columns inward; and (v) that the downward momentum of the upper portions of the buildings was so great that they collapsed "essentially in free fall," i.e. that there was virtually no resistance at all to the fall through the undamaged lower portions of the buildings. For each of these claims Griffin is easily able to show that NIST in fact provides no supporting evidence for them!
He then proceeds to demonstrate that NIST ignored vast amounts of relevant evidence for controlled demolition of the buildings: explosions witnessed by first responders; horizontal ejections of huge sections of steel perimeter columns; melting of steel, indicating temperatures far higher than can be reached by jet-fuel and office-materials fires; and residues indicating explosives were used, including iron and aluminum microspheres in dust from the WTC (a typical product of thermite reactions) and "red chips" in the dust with thermite's chemical signature.
Griffin concludes Chapter 1 with a survey of the strong evidence for controlled demolition of WTC 7, the 47-story skyscraper that was not struck by a plane, had only minor fires inside, and yet collapsed into its footprint late in the afternoon at free-fall speed (in under six seconds). Although tasked with an explanation, NIST had still not provided one when Griffin's book went to press. Griffin lays out in detail the many explanatory challenges still ahead for the agency, including the vertical, symmetrical collapse; the pool of melted steel underneath the debris pile for weeks afterwards; the free-fall speed of collapse; the similarity of the collapse to classic controlled demolition; the testimony by NYC officials Barry Jennings and Michael Hess reporting explosions inside hours before the building collapsed; the foreknowledge, hours before, that the building was going to fall; the array of evidence that the building was intended to fall in the morning at about the same time as the Towers; the media's premature announcement of its collapse; and Larry Silverstein's evident admission that the building was demolished. (Now that NIST's report on WTC 7 has finally appeared, one can see that it fulfilled Griffin's expectation that it would simply ignore all the evidence that is inconsistent with its fire theory of the collapse.)
In Chapter 2, Griffin takes up the many developments since 2004 with respect to Flight 77 and the events that occurred at the Pentagon. He shows that Solicitor General Ted Olson's claim to have received phone calls from his wife Barbara on Flight 77 cannot be true: it is self-contradictory (sometimes he claimed she called on a cell phone, and at other times on a seat-back phone), and it has even been abandoned by the FBI in its summary evidence of all phone calls from all the flights submitted at the Zacarias Moussaoui trial in 2006, which said that no connected call was made by her. These claimed calls from Barbara Olson were the principal "evidence" put forward to substantiate the assertion that the Flight 77 was still in the air and headed toward Washington D.C., and that it was hijacked by Arab Muslims.
Griffin then presents a detailed analysis of a broad array of physical evidence indicating that the Pentagon was not struck by a Boeing 757: photos of the damage to the outside of the building; lack of suitable debris; lack of video evidence; lack of time-change parts from the planes; no flight data recorder with the correct serial number has ever been produced; lack of a seismic signal of such an impact; the inexplicable C-Ring hole inside the Pentagon; the contradictory eye-witness evidence; the implausibility of terrorists striking the West Wing, farthest away from the offices of the top brass; and the known inability of Hani Hanjour to fly an airliner with the skill required by the claimed 330-degree downward spiral at high speed.
Again Griffin shows that the 9/11 Commission has distorted and suppressed evidence for the evident standdown of the air defense system, principally by creating a new timeline of events (based again on the dubious "NORAD Tapes") of Flight 77 and thereby claiming the FAA did not notify the Pentagon of the flight emergency in time to intercept the plane. This claim falls for the same reason it does in the cases of flights 11 and 175: it contradicts reams of evidence from multiple independent sources, and is supported only by the Pentagon's and the Commission's claim that the tapes are genuine. In addition Griffin shows that the Commission's claims that no interceptor aircraft were available at Andrews Air Base, and that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers were unavailable to coordinate a defensive response, are false.
Griffin also surveys witness accounts of bombs inside the Pentagon, considers the question why there was no evacuation of the building (even under the Commission's claimed timeline there was ample time for evacuation), asks why Wedges 1 and 2 might have been selected by the real perpetrators, shows that the Commission suppressed the account of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta that is most plausibly interpreted as indicating that a standdown order had been given by Vice President Dick Cheney to prevent interception of a craft approaching the Pentagon, and several other important lines of evidence.
The many mysteries of Flight 93 over Pennsylvania are the subject of Chapter 3. Griffin's analysis of the evidence developed since the publication of NPH in 2004 has led to a fundamental shift in his perspective on Flight 93. He no longer assumes, as he did at the time of the earlier book, that phone calls from the plane provide any evidence for what occurred onboard. This is because it is now clear that cell phone calls from planes at high altitude were technologically impossible on 9/11. And yet, family members and others evidently received cell phone calls that morning from people on the flight. As there is no basis to imagine all the recipients are lying, they must have been deceived. Griffin shows that voice morphing technology existed at the time, as well as freely-available devices to fake caller identification numbers, so that it was possible to place calls to family members which would appear to be genuine cell phone calls, as they reported to the press.
Perhaps in response to the growing awareness of these technological facts, in 2006 the FBI abandoned its earlier claims that a large number of cell phone calls were placed from UA 93. The agency reduced the number to just two, purportedly from below 5000 feet in elevation, and claimed that the other calls were all from seat-back phones. This late reversal, however, does not explain away the detailed claims by call recipients to have received cell phone calls. Those calls had to have been faked, and if they were, then the purported seat-back calls had to have been faked too.
Griffin also surveys new evidence regarding the alleged crash site, principally the lack of substantial debris of any kind at the site itself, while debris rained down over a wide area, several miles in diameter, including clothing, books, papers, and human remains. He destroys the 9/11 Commission's claim, based again on the spurious "NORAD Tapes," that the military was not notified of the emergency on Flight 93 in time to have responded, quoting military personnel who claimed they were notified and ready. He shows that the Commission's claim that there was no time for Cheney to issue a shootdown order is also false. He concludes that the case for Flight 93 having been shot down by the US military is quite strong, and that the official account is false in virtually every respect.
In the very short chapters 4 and 5 Griffin provides brief additional arguments relating to President Bush's strange behavior in the classroom in Florida on the morning of 9/11, and the many indications that the US government had long envisioned the possibility of such attacks and had trained for them (despite post-9/11 denials). In addition he shows the 9/11 Commission's dismissal of the possibility of insider trading in the "put options" on airlines and other stocks the week before 9/11 to be based on circular reasoning and therefore unreliable.
In Chapter 6 Griffin discusses developments in the evidence of hidden connections between the Bush, bin Laden and Saudi royal families. He then explores new revelations concerning US government obstruction of investigations into the activities of al-Qaeda prior to 9/11, including blocking FBI investigations in Phoenix, Minneapolis and Chicago. And he treats in detail the suppression of the testimony of Sibel Edmonds regarding this blocking of investigations and its significant connection to the Valerie Plame Wilson case and other indications of illegal trafficking in nuclear weapons technologies. He then presents much new evidence regarding the true identities and characteristics of the "hijackers," and examines the question whether there is in fact any solid evidence for the existence of Arab Muslim hijackers. Not surprisingly, it all dissipates into thin air when closely examined, leading Griffin to conclude, "it now appears that there is no good evidence for hijackers at all." He then reviews in detail the information derived from Operation Able Danger, concluding that it, along with other evidence, suggests "reason to suspect that the `hijackers' were really paid assets."
Griffin surveys evidence for the motives that the highest levels of the US government would have had for orchestrating the 9/11 attacks in Chapter 7. He examines the pre-9/11 planning to attack Afghanistan (to control oil and natural gas flows from Central Asia and to secure new military bases in the region), and comparable planning to attack Iraq (to seize Iraqi oil, control its export, and establish military bases in another key geostrategic area). He then shows that the 9/11 Commission suppressed all mention of such motives, as well as of the discourse used by key Bush administration personnel, while members of PNAC (The Project for a New American Century) before his election (such as the idea of "a New Pearl Harbor") and on the day itself and in its immediate aftermath (such as "opportunity"). Griffin shows that the Commission never mentioned Operation Northwoods or well-known false-flag operations that the US instigated such as Operation Gladio, and never examined the possibility that the attacks were orchestrated by the Bush-Cheney administration as a pretext to launch its pre-established agenda.
Chapter 8 illustrates, Griffin says, "especially clearly the extent to which the production of The 9/11 Commission Report was a cover-up operation." He surveys the lack of hard evidence that Osama bin Laden was really involved in the attacks; the admitted failure by the Commission to verify the veracity of the information obtained by torture from Khalid Sheik Mohammed (the principal source for the "facts" presented by the Commission regarding the planning of the attacks by al-Qaeda); the criminal travesty of justice at the Military Commissions trials at Guantanamo; the expert opinion of military and intelligence professionals from all over the world who strongly dispute that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda had the capability to orchestrate the attacks; and the concealment by the Commission of the history of secret payments to al-Qaeda by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Chapter 9 presents a succinct summary of the main evidence of complicity by the Bush-Cheney administration in the 9/11 attacks. Griffin shows that the Commission never asked the most fundamental question about the crime, "who benefits?" It simply asserted that al-Qaeda had a motive, while ignoring massive evidence that top-level members of the US government had numerous powerful motivations. Griffin then lists 32 new items of evidence for official complicity to add to the list of 24 he provided in NPH.
In the final chapter, Griffin makes an overpowering case for a new investigation into the crimes of 9/11, because the 9/11 Commission, nominally under the control of Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, was in reality controlled by a White House insider, Philip Zelikow, and utterly failed to fulfill its official mandate "to provide the fullest possible account" of the attacks. Griffin presents a devastating exposé of Zelikow's methodical construction of a cover-up to protect his superiors in the Bush administration. A special treat is a very long footnote providing a withering critique of Philip Shenon's book on the 9/11 Commission.
This powerful chapter is a fitting conclusion to Griffin's critique of the 9/11 Commission Report, begun in 2004 immediately after the publication of NPH, and developed and deepened year by year since. Thanks substantially to his own extraordinary personal dedication, Griffin is able to conclude that, "The 9/11 truth movement's exposé of the cover-up of the truth about what happened on 9/11 is now complete -- in the sense that this exposé has shown, to those who have paid attention, virtually every dimension of the official account of 9/11 to be false beyond a reasonable doubt."
THE NEW PEARL HARBOR REVISITED by David Ray Griffin, in tandem with its famous predecessor, is the most effective presentation of this now-total exposé. It's time now to put the perpetrators away in perpetuity.[/i]
The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: The Definitive Treatment of 9/11
A Review of David Ray Griffin's book
by Tod Fletcher
Global Research, September 12, 2008
In THE NEW PEARL HARBOR REVISITED, David Ray Griffin provides a brilliant and much-needed companion to his path-breaking and movement-building book on 9/11, The New Pearl Harbor (NPH; 2004). Now, on the occasion of the seventh anniversary of those horrific events, Griffin surveys in detail all the main lines of evidence against the official account of 9/11 to have emerged during the last four years. THE NEW PEARL HARBOR REVISITED (NPHR) has been designed as volume 2 of a two-volume set with NPH as volume 1; together they provide a thorough and up-to-date case against the official conspiracy theory (they can be bought separately, of course).
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... &aid=10166
Griffin has already published four other books that provide in-depth analysis of most of the evidence to have emerged since 2004. NPHR's main purpose is to provide an easily accessible survey of all of the new evidence, so that it is now possible for a beginner to the subject (including journalists and members of Congress) to master its enormous complexity simply by reading two books. NPHR is structured identically to NPH; each chapter in NPHR comments and builds on the corresponding chapter in NPH. Much of the content is entirely new; there are many facts and analyses in NPHR which Griffin presents for the first time, and which literally make the book an up-to-the-minute statement of the case.
In the Preface, Griffin explains why he undertook to "update" The New Pearl Harbor. In the Introduction he outlines the continued failure of the press to investigate any of the questions raised against the official account, and the lame attempts, especially by the main "progressive" or "left" appendages of the press, to portray such questioning as lunacy. He provides a brief overview of the history of "false-flag" operations, including the Pentagon's Operation Northwoods, halted by President Kennedy. Griffin then argues that the term "conspiracy theory" is used dishonestly to prevent investigation of the claims of critics (and never to describe the government's theory about 19 Arab hijackers controlled from a cave in Afghanistan).
The very substantial first chapter tackles two major issues, the timing of events related to flights AA 11 and UA 175 and the collapses of the WTC buildings. Griffin shows that the 9/11 Commission's new timeline is contradicted by much solid evidence and is inherently unbelievable. The Commission claims that the military was not notified by the FAA of the flight emergencies on flights AA 11 and UA 175 until much later than the times the military itself had claimed during the years between 9/11 and the publication of the Commission's Report in 2004. The Commission based its new claim on the "NORAD Tapes," a set of purportedly genuine tapes of telephone communications between the FAA and NORAD on the morning of 9/11. But these tapes were never produced until 2004, after the glaring holes in the Pentagon's defense against the charge of a standdown had become evident, and are probable fakes, which Griffin shows would have been easy to produce. The strongest indication that they are indeed fakes is that they contradict mountains of highly diverse independent lines of evidence.
Then he treats the new official story about how the Twin Towers collapsed, as presented in the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) Report of 2005. He thoroughly deconstructs NIST's five "crucial claims": (i) that designers of the buildings had not anticipated the possibility of airliner impacts; (ii) that many core and peripheral columns were severed by the plane impacts, and that fire-proofing material was stripped off many other core columns; (iii) that the now-unprotected core columns were then weakened by fire to the point of buckling; (iv) that the floors then sagged and pulled the perimeter columns inward; and (v) that the downward momentum of the upper portions of the buildings was so great that they collapsed "essentially in free fall," i.e. that there was virtually no resistance at all to the fall through the undamaged lower portions of the buildings. For each of these claims Griffin is easily able to show that NIST in fact provides no supporting evidence for them!
He then proceeds to demonstrate that NIST ignored vast amounts of relevant evidence for controlled demolition of the buildings: explosions witnessed by first responders; horizontal ejections of huge sections of steel perimeter columns; melting of steel, indicating temperatures far higher than can be reached by jet-fuel and office-materials fires; and residues indicating explosives were used, including iron and aluminum microspheres in dust from the WTC (a typical product of thermite reactions) and "red chips" in the dust with thermite's chemical signature.
Griffin concludes Chapter 1 with a survey of the strong evidence for controlled demolition of WTC 7, the 47-story skyscraper that was not struck by a plane, had only minor fires inside, and yet collapsed into its footprint late in the afternoon at free-fall speed (in under six seconds). Although tasked with an explanation, NIST had still not provided one when Griffin's book went to press. Griffin lays out in detail the many explanatory challenges still ahead for the agency, including the vertical, symmetrical collapse; the pool of melted steel underneath the debris pile for weeks afterwards; the free-fall speed of collapse; the similarity of the collapse to classic controlled demolition; the testimony by NYC officials Barry Jennings and Michael Hess reporting explosions inside hours before the building collapsed; the foreknowledge, hours before, that the building was going to fall; the array of evidence that the building was intended to fall in the morning at about the same time as the Towers; the media's premature announcement of its collapse; and Larry Silverstein's evident admission that the building was demolished. (Now that NIST's report on WTC 7 has finally appeared, one can see that it fulfilled Griffin's expectation that it would simply ignore all the evidence that is inconsistent with its fire theory of the collapse.)
In Chapter 2, Griffin takes up the many developments since 2004 with respect to Flight 77 and the events that occurred at the Pentagon. He shows that Solicitor General Ted Olson's claim to have received phone calls from his wife Barbara on Flight 77 cannot be true: it is self-contradictory (sometimes he claimed she called on a cell phone, and at other times on a seat-back phone), and it has even been abandoned by the FBI in its summary evidence of all phone calls from all the flights submitted at the Zacarias Moussaoui trial in 2006, which said that no connected call was made by her. These claimed calls from Barbara Olson were the principal "evidence" put forward to substantiate the assertion that the Flight 77 was still in the air and headed toward Washington D.C., and that it was hijacked by Arab Muslims.
Griffin then presents a detailed analysis of a broad array of physical evidence indicating that the Pentagon was not struck by a Boeing 757: photos of the damage to the outside of the building; lack of suitable debris; lack of video evidence; lack of time-change parts from the planes; no flight data recorder with the correct serial number has ever been produced; lack of a seismic signal of such an impact; the inexplicable C-Ring hole inside the Pentagon; the contradictory eye-witness evidence; the implausibility of terrorists striking the West Wing, farthest away from the offices of the top brass; and the known inability of Hani Hanjour to fly an airliner with the skill required by the claimed 330-degree downward spiral at high speed.
Again Griffin shows that the 9/11 Commission has distorted and suppressed evidence for the evident standdown of the air defense system, principally by creating a new timeline of events (based again on the dubious "NORAD Tapes") of Flight 77 and thereby claiming the FAA did not notify the Pentagon of the flight emergency in time to intercept the plane. This claim falls for the same reason it does in the cases of flights 11 and 175: it contradicts reams of evidence from multiple independent sources, and is supported only by the Pentagon's and the Commission's claim that the tapes are genuine. In addition Griffin shows that the Commission's claims that no interceptor aircraft were available at Andrews Air Base, and that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers were unavailable to coordinate a defensive response, are false.
Griffin also surveys witness accounts of bombs inside the Pentagon, considers the question why there was no evacuation of the building (even under the Commission's claimed timeline there was ample time for evacuation), asks why Wedges 1 and 2 might have been selected by the real perpetrators, shows that the Commission suppressed the account of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta that is most plausibly interpreted as indicating that a standdown order had been given by Vice President Dick Cheney to prevent interception of a craft approaching the Pentagon, and several other important lines of evidence.
The many mysteries of Flight 93 over Pennsylvania are the subject of Chapter 3. Griffin's analysis of the evidence developed since the publication of NPH in 2004 has led to a fundamental shift in his perspective on Flight 93. He no longer assumes, as he did at the time of the earlier book, that phone calls from the plane provide any evidence for what occurred onboard. This is because it is now clear that cell phone calls from planes at high altitude were technologically impossible on 9/11. And yet, family members and others evidently received cell phone calls that morning from people on the flight. As there is no basis to imagine all the recipients are lying, they must have been deceived. Griffin shows that voice morphing technology existed at the time, as well as freely-available devices to fake caller identification numbers, so that it was possible to place calls to family members which would appear to be genuine cell phone calls, as they reported to the press.
Perhaps in response to the growing awareness of these technological facts, in 2006 the FBI abandoned its earlier claims that a large number of cell phone calls were placed from UA 93. The agency reduced the number to just two, purportedly from below 5000 feet in elevation, and claimed that the other calls were all from seat-back phones. This late reversal, however, does not explain away the detailed claims by call recipients to have received cell phone calls. Those calls had to have been faked, and if they were, then the purported seat-back calls had to have been faked too.
Griffin also surveys new evidence regarding the alleged crash site, principally the lack of substantial debris of any kind at the site itself, while debris rained down over a wide area, several miles in diameter, including clothing, books, papers, and human remains. He destroys the 9/11 Commission's claim, based again on the spurious "NORAD Tapes," that the military was not notified of the emergency on Flight 93 in time to have responded, quoting military personnel who claimed they were notified and ready. He shows that the Commission's claim that there was no time for Cheney to issue a shootdown order is also false. He concludes that the case for Flight 93 having been shot down by the US military is quite strong, and that the official account is false in virtually every respect.
In the very short chapters 4 and 5 Griffin provides brief additional arguments relating to President Bush's strange behavior in the classroom in Florida on the morning of 9/11, and the many indications that the US government had long envisioned the possibility of such attacks and had trained for them (despite post-9/11 denials). In addition he shows the 9/11 Commission's dismissal of the possibility of insider trading in the "put options" on airlines and other stocks the week before 9/11 to be based on circular reasoning and therefore unreliable.
In Chapter 6 Griffin discusses developments in the evidence of hidden connections between the Bush, bin Laden and Saudi royal families. He then explores new revelations concerning US government obstruction of investigations into the activities of al-Qaeda prior to 9/11, including blocking FBI investigations in Phoenix, Minneapolis and Chicago. And he treats in detail the suppression of the testimony of Sibel Edmonds regarding this blocking of investigations and its significant connection to the Valerie Plame Wilson case and other indications of illegal trafficking in nuclear weapons technologies. He then presents much new evidence regarding the true identities and characteristics of the "hijackers," and examines the question whether there is in fact any solid evidence for the existence of Arab Muslim hijackers. Not surprisingly, it all dissipates into thin air when closely examined, leading Griffin to conclude, "it now appears that there is no good evidence for hijackers at all." He then reviews in detail the information derived from Operation Able Danger, concluding that it, along with other evidence, suggests "reason to suspect that the `hijackers' were really paid assets."
Griffin surveys evidence for the motives that the highest levels of the US government would have had for orchestrating the 9/11 attacks in Chapter 7. He examines the pre-9/11 planning to attack Afghanistan (to control oil and natural gas flows from Central Asia and to secure new military bases in the region), and comparable planning to attack Iraq (to seize Iraqi oil, control its export, and establish military bases in another key geostrategic area). He then shows that the 9/11 Commission suppressed all mention of such motives, as well as of the discourse used by key Bush administration personnel, while members of PNAC (The Project for a New American Century) before his election (such as the idea of "a New Pearl Harbor") and on the day itself and in its immediate aftermath (such as "opportunity"). Griffin shows that the Commission never mentioned Operation Northwoods or well-known false-flag operations that the US instigated such as Operation Gladio, and never examined the possibility that the attacks were orchestrated by the Bush-Cheney administration as a pretext to launch its pre-established agenda.
Chapter 8 illustrates, Griffin says, "especially clearly the extent to which the production of The 9/11 Commission Report was a cover-up operation." He surveys the lack of hard evidence that Osama bin Laden was really involved in the attacks; the admitted failure by the Commission to verify the veracity of the information obtained by torture from Khalid Sheik Mohammed (the principal source for the "facts" presented by the Commission regarding the planning of the attacks by al-Qaeda); the criminal travesty of justice at the Military Commissions trials at Guantanamo; the expert opinion of military and intelligence professionals from all over the world who strongly dispute that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda had the capability to orchestrate the attacks; and the concealment by the Commission of the history of secret payments to al-Qaeda by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Chapter 9 presents a succinct summary of the main evidence of complicity by the Bush-Cheney administration in the 9/11 attacks. Griffin shows that the Commission never asked the most fundamental question about the crime, "who benefits?" It simply asserted that al-Qaeda had a motive, while ignoring massive evidence that top-level members of the US government had numerous powerful motivations. Griffin then lists 32 new items of evidence for official complicity to add to the list of 24 he provided in NPH.
In the final chapter, Griffin makes an overpowering case for a new investigation into the crimes of 9/11, because the 9/11 Commission, nominally under the control of Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, was in reality controlled by a White House insider, Philip Zelikow, and utterly failed to fulfill its official mandate "to provide the fullest possible account" of the attacks. Griffin presents a devastating exposé of Zelikow's methodical construction of a cover-up to protect his superiors in the Bush administration. A special treat is a very long footnote providing a withering critique of Philip Shenon's book on the 9/11 Commission.
This powerful chapter is a fitting conclusion to Griffin's critique of the 9/11 Commission Report, begun in 2004 immediately after the publication of NPH, and developed and deepened year by year since. Thanks substantially to his own extraordinary personal dedication, Griffin is able to conclude that, "The 9/11 truth movement's exposé of the cover-up of the truth about what happened on 9/11 is now complete -- in the sense that this exposé has shown, to those who have paid attention, virtually every dimension of the official account of 9/11 to be false beyond a reasonable doubt."
THE NEW PEARL HARBOR REVISITED by David Ray Griffin, in tandem with its famous predecessor, is the most effective presentation of this now-total exposé. It's time now to put the perpetrators away in perpetuity.[/i]
www.lawyerscommitteefor9-11inquiry.org
www.rethink911.org
www.patriotsquestion911.com
www.actorsandartistsfor911truth.org
www.mediafor911truth.org
www.pilotsfor911truth.org
www.mp911truth.org
www.ae911truth.org
www.rl911truth.org
www.stj911.org
www.v911t.org
www.thisweek.org.uk
www.abolishwar.org.uk
www.elementary.org.uk
www.radio4all.net/index.php/contributor/2149
http://utangente.free.fr/2003/media2003.pdf
"The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic poison which alienates the possessor from the community" Carl Jung
https://37.220.108.147/members/www.bild ... rg/phpBB2/
www.rethink911.org
www.patriotsquestion911.com
www.actorsandartistsfor911truth.org
www.mediafor911truth.org
www.pilotsfor911truth.org
www.mp911truth.org
www.ae911truth.org
www.rl911truth.org
www.stj911.org
www.v911t.org
www.thisweek.org.uk
www.abolishwar.org.uk
www.elementary.org.uk
www.radio4all.net/index.php/contributor/2149
http://utangente.free.fr/2003/media2003.pdf
"The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic poison which alienates the possessor from the community" Carl Jung
https://37.220.108.147/members/www.bild ... rg/phpBB2/
TRUTH, here is a link to the 911 story for real http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=D9FeUNOhkQs (Note :LINK NO LONGER WORKING)
Also try and remember that the real truth does not copy, unlike many men I know nowadays or in the past. I have many more proofs about all terrorists acts in Europe but I won't talk about them in here unless you take me seriously (my copy has a penis for brain, yes and that's really unfortunate for direct talks).
Enjoy Erin Brokovitch, she is NOT me.
Also try and remember that the real truth does not copy, unlike many men I know nowadays or in the past. I have many more proofs about all terrorists acts in Europe but I won't talk about them in here unless you take me seriously (my copy has a penis for brain, yes and that's really unfortunate for direct talks).
Enjoy Erin Brokovitch, she is NOT me.
- outsider
- Trustworthy Freedom Fighter
- Posts: 6087
- Joined: Sun Jul 30, 2006 10:02 pm
- Location: East London
Kevin Barrett to host David Ray Griffin on his radio show:
Just letting you know I'll be back on the radio as of next week, Tuesday Feb. 17th, with a new show called "Fair and Balanced with Kevin Barrett." It will run every Tuesday, 11 a.m. - noon Central (9-10 a.m. Pacific, noon-1 p.m. Eastern) at http://www.noliesradio.org. My first guest will be the "Dean of 9/11 Studies" himself, Dr. David Ray Griffin.
"Fair and Balanced" runs immediately after "Democracy Now," which will give me the opportunity to spend the first five minutes commenting on the news in general, and DN's version in particular. (I have challenged Amy Goodman's version of the news before -- see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2yC4xgeVMM )
There will be only one break, a five minute pause for music and refreshment halfway through the show. That means 55 minutes of talk per hour, and no obnoxious ads!
NoLiesRadio.org is a Pacifica affiliate, and my show will be available to any Pacifica station that chooses to pick it up.
Also, Truth Jihad Radio (yes, I like radio show titles with self-deprecating humor) is coming back on http://www.wfuradio.com soon -- stay tuned for details.
Thanks for paying attention!
Kevin Barrett
http://www.truthjihad.com
PS According to Wayne Madsen Reports, Rabbi Michael Lerner, whose courageous contribution to 9/11 and American Empire v.2 was, for me, the highlight of my work editing that volume, has been diagnosed with a rare and treatable form of lung cancer. Please pray for Rabbi Lerner's quick recovery.
PPS My latest: feel free to distribute and re-post.
Will the Dumbocrats Wise Up
and Drive a Stake Through Cheney's Heart?
Why Their Only Hope Is a War Crimes Tribunal
By Kevin Barrett, http://www.truthjihad.blogspot.com/
There are many good reasons to drive a stake through Dick Cheney's heart, assuming he has one.
First, Cheney's hypothetical heart is so black and oily that the penetration of a sharpened stake-tip might release a spurting gusher of oil sufficient to meet America's energy needs for the rest of the century.
But more importantly, busting Cheney for war crimes, including the 9/11 inside job, would help Obama avoid the mistake John F. Kennedy made in the early years of his presidency.
Obama--whose Irish-American heritage, youthful good looks, and vapidly inspirational speechifying make him seem the second coming of Kennedy--is already clashing with the same forces that removed JFK from office with extreme prejudice. Those forces, of course, are the extremist wing of the military-industrial complex and its representatives in the military and intelligence communities.
In 1960, John F. Kennedy fired CIA chief Allan Dulles, who had lied to Kennedy about the real objective of the Bay of Pigs operation. Outraged by such duplicity, JFK threatened to tear up the CIA and scatter it to the winds--a project he was working on at the time of his assassination. Then in 1962, JFK fired another imperial extremist, Gen. Lyman Lemnitzer, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Lemnitzer had drafted a document, subsequently signed by every member of the Joint Chiefs, calling for U.S. forces to covertly murder hundreds of Americans in false-flag "terrorist" bombings, including the sinking of a U.S. ship, to be blamed on Cuba. That plan, called Operation Northwoods, was intended to prepare the American public for an invasion of Cuba. As this official document put it, casualty lists published in American newspapers would create "a helpful wave of indignation." The plan was rejected by President Kennedy.
Kennedy's mistake was to simply fire Dulles and Lemnitzer, without publicly revealing their crimes and prosecuting them to the full extent of the law. Even out of office, Dulles and Lemnitzer were able to work with their fellow psychopaths in the secret government of the National Security State and effect the removal of an elected president. Had JFK revealed that the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff was conspiring to murder hundreds of innocent American citizens in a false-flag war-trigger event, and demanded the prosecution of the conspirators, history might have unfolded in a different and more positive direction.
Fast-forward half a century: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Obama is currently taking heat from today's version of Lemnitzer -- a nasty little man named Richard Cheney.
Since the FBI cleared Osama Bin Laden, Cheney has become the leading suspect in the 9/11 attacks. Peter Dale Scott's The Road to 9/11, the first 9/11 truth book published by a top-shelf American university press, shows, by way of meticulous scholarship, that the 9/11 Commission Report systematically distorted its findings in order to conceal evidence suggestive of Cheney's complicity; and that Cheney has, since the 1970s, been at the heart of a secret government that has been undermining American democratic institutions and carefully preparing for the State of Emergency that was declared on 9/11 and never rescinded.
Cheney, the top suspect in the 9/11 crimes against humanity, has a disturbing habit of threatening to commit even bigger crimes. In the final phase of the 2004 presidential election, you may recall, Cheney announced that if John Kerry won, the U.S. would be in danger of another, bigger 9/11. Ironically, the satirical newspaper The Onion ("Cheney Vows To Attack U.S. If Kerry Elected") was the only American newspaper that got it right.
And now Cheney is predicting (threatening?) more catastrophic terrorism. In an article headlined "Cheney warns of new attacks," we learn: "Former Vice President Dick Cheney warned that there is a 'high probability' that terrorists will attempt a catastrophic nuclear or biological attack in coming years, and said he fears the Obama administration’s policies will make it more likely the attempt will succeed."
As long as Dick Cheney is on the loose, and the rogue network responsible for 9/11 is still at large, there will indeed be a "high probability" of another massive false-flag attack. Such an attack could, as Tommy Franks predicted, lead to martial law, with the President and Congress sidelined in favor of the secret government of military and intelligence hardliners that Peter Dale Scott describes in The Road to 9/11.
What makes this even more likely is the dispute between Obama and his top military chiefs about the timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. One of my favorite radio guests, Dave Lindorff, recently published a warning headlined "Generals' Revolt Threatens Obama Presidency." According to Lindorff, the Pentagon pushback against a quick Iraq withdrawal represents a "dangerous act of insubordination" that could doom Obama's presidency. The best way to nip the military hardliners' revolt in the bud, as Lindorff advocates, would be to prosecute former Bush Administration officials and top military commanders for war crimes, including the supreme war crime of aggression as well as the act of mass murder on 9/11 that triggered the aggression.
Alongside the foreign-policy pushback by military hardliners and Cheniacs, Obama is facing a wave of deceptive attacks by Republicans out to make political hay from the economic collapse they created with their insanely expensive, criminal wars. Since the Democrats are in power, they are in a position to be blamed for the coming years of continuously unfolding economic doom. Obama, who was elected on a platform of "hope" for a "change" in the terrible economic situation, will not be able to fulfill his implicit promises, and the Democrats will be massacred in the 2010 midterm elections--assuming that those elections have not been cancelled due to martial law--unless they expose and prosecute the worst crimes of the Bush Administration.
For their own survival--political and perhaps even physical--Obama and the Democrats must re-open the 9/11 investigation, instigate war crimes tribunals, and prosecute the Bush Administration war criminals.
Just letting you know I'll be back on the radio as of next week, Tuesday Feb. 17th, with a new show called "Fair and Balanced with Kevin Barrett." It will run every Tuesday, 11 a.m. - noon Central (9-10 a.m. Pacific, noon-1 p.m. Eastern) at http://www.noliesradio.org. My first guest will be the "Dean of 9/11 Studies" himself, Dr. David Ray Griffin.
"Fair and Balanced" runs immediately after "Democracy Now," which will give me the opportunity to spend the first five minutes commenting on the news in general, and DN's version in particular. (I have challenged Amy Goodman's version of the news before -- see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2yC4xgeVMM )
There will be only one break, a five minute pause for music and refreshment halfway through the show. That means 55 minutes of talk per hour, and no obnoxious ads!
NoLiesRadio.org is a Pacifica affiliate, and my show will be available to any Pacifica station that chooses to pick it up.
Also, Truth Jihad Radio (yes, I like radio show titles with self-deprecating humor) is coming back on http://www.wfuradio.com soon -- stay tuned for details.
Thanks for paying attention!
Kevin Barrett
http://www.truthjihad.com
PS According to Wayne Madsen Reports, Rabbi Michael Lerner, whose courageous contribution to 9/11 and American Empire v.2 was, for me, the highlight of my work editing that volume, has been diagnosed with a rare and treatable form of lung cancer. Please pray for Rabbi Lerner's quick recovery.
PPS My latest: feel free to distribute and re-post.
Will the Dumbocrats Wise Up
and Drive a Stake Through Cheney's Heart?
Why Their Only Hope Is a War Crimes Tribunal
By Kevin Barrett, http://www.truthjihad.blogspot.com/
There are many good reasons to drive a stake through Dick Cheney's heart, assuming he has one.
First, Cheney's hypothetical heart is so black and oily that the penetration of a sharpened stake-tip might release a spurting gusher of oil sufficient to meet America's energy needs for the rest of the century.
But more importantly, busting Cheney for war crimes, including the 9/11 inside job, would help Obama avoid the mistake John F. Kennedy made in the early years of his presidency.
Obama--whose Irish-American heritage, youthful good looks, and vapidly inspirational speechifying make him seem the second coming of Kennedy--is already clashing with the same forces that removed JFK from office with extreme prejudice. Those forces, of course, are the extremist wing of the military-industrial complex and its representatives in the military and intelligence communities.
In 1960, John F. Kennedy fired CIA chief Allan Dulles, who had lied to Kennedy about the real objective of the Bay of Pigs operation. Outraged by such duplicity, JFK threatened to tear up the CIA and scatter it to the winds--a project he was working on at the time of his assassination. Then in 1962, JFK fired another imperial extremist, Gen. Lyman Lemnitzer, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Lemnitzer had drafted a document, subsequently signed by every member of the Joint Chiefs, calling for U.S. forces to covertly murder hundreds of Americans in false-flag "terrorist" bombings, including the sinking of a U.S. ship, to be blamed on Cuba. That plan, called Operation Northwoods, was intended to prepare the American public for an invasion of Cuba. As this official document put it, casualty lists published in American newspapers would create "a helpful wave of indignation." The plan was rejected by President Kennedy.
Kennedy's mistake was to simply fire Dulles and Lemnitzer, without publicly revealing their crimes and prosecuting them to the full extent of the law. Even out of office, Dulles and Lemnitzer were able to work with their fellow psychopaths in the secret government of the National Security State and effect the removal of an elected president. Had JFK revealed that the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff was conspiring to murder hundreds of innocent American citizens in a false-flag war-trigger event, and demanded the prosecution of the conspirators, history might have unfolded in a different and more positive direction.
Fast-forward half a century: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Obama is currently taking heat from today's version of Lemnitzer -- a nasty little man named Richard Cheney.
Since the FBI cleared Osama Bin Laden, Cheney has become the leading suspect in the 9/11 attacks. Peter Dale Scott's The Road to 9/11, the first 9/11 truth book published by a top-shelf American university press, shows, by way of meticulous scholarship, that the 9/11 Commission Report systematically distorted its findings in order to conceal evidence suggestive of Cheney's complicity; and that Cheney has, since the 1970s, been at the heart of a secret government that has been undermining American democratic institutions and carefully preparing for the State of Emergency that was declared on 9/11 and never rescinded.
Cheney, the top suspect in the 9/11 crimes against humanity, has a disturbing habit of threatening to commit even bigger crimes. In the final phase of the 2004 presidential election, you may recall, Cheney announced that if John Kerry won, the U.S. would be in danger of another, bigger 9/11. Ironically, the satirical newspaper The Onion ("Cheney Vows To Attack U.S. If Kerry Elected") was the only American newspaper that got it right.
And now Cheney is predicting (threatening?) more catastrophic terrorism. In an article headlined "Cheney warns of new attacks," we learn: "Former Vice President Dick Cheney warned that there is a 'high probability' that terrorists will attempt a catastrophic nuclear or biological attack in coming years, and said he fears the Obama administration’s policies will make it more likely the attempt will succeed."
As long as Dick Cheney is on the loose, and the rogue network responsible for 9/11 is still at large, there will indeed be a "high probability" of another massive false-flag attack. Such an attack could, as Tommy Franks predicted, lead to martial law, with the President and Congress sidelined in favor of the secret government of military and intelligence hardliners that Peter Dale Scott describes in The Road to 9/11.
What makes this even more likely is the dispute between Obama and his top military chiefs about the timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. One of my favorite radio guests, Dave Lindorff, recently published a warning headlined "Generals' Revolt Threatens Obama Presidency." According to Lindorff, the Pentagon pushback against a quick Iraq withdrawal represents a "dangerous act of insubordination" that could doom Obama's presidency. The best way to nip the military hardliners' revolt in the bud, as Lindorff advocates, would be to prosecute former Bush Administration officials and top military commanders for war crimes, including the supreme war crime of aggression as well as the act of mass murder on 9/11 that triggered the aggression.
Alongside the foreign-policy pushback by military hardliners and Cheniacs, Obama is facing a wave of deceptive attacks by Republicans out to make political hay from the economic collapse they created with their insanely expensive, criminal wars. Since the Democrats are in power, they are in a position to be blamed for the coming years of continuously unfolding economic doom. Obama, who was elected on a platform of "hope" for a "change" in the terrible economic situation, will not be able to fulfill his implicit promises, and the Democrats will be massacred in the 2010 midterm elections--assuming that those elections have not been cancelled due to martial law--unless they expose and prosecute the worst crimes of the Bush Administration.
For their own survival--political and perhaps even physical--Obama and the Democrats must re-open the 9/11 investigation, instigate war crimes tribunals, and prosecute the Bush Administration war criminals.
'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
DRG speaking in London next week
details
9/11 Time for a Second Look by David Ray Griffin
14th April 2009
City University
Oliver Thompson Lecture Theatre
The Tait Building
Northampton Square
EC1V 0HB
6:30 doors, starts at 7pm
Tickets are £5.50 and can be purchased via www.timeforasecondlook.com/london
“David Ray Griffin establishes himself, alongside Seymour Hersh, as America’s number one bearer of unpleasant, yet necessary, public truths.” - Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law, Princeton University; United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories, United Nations Human Rights Council
Griffin makes a compelling case that the imperial practices of the American government have become a destructive force in the world. And he clarifies the biblical and theological basis for Christians to challenge the resurgent American imperialism that often claims divine blessing on its destructive actions.” - Richard A. Horsley, Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and the Study of Religion, University of Massachusetts, and author of Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder
“Never in modern history has an event of such cataclysmic significance been shrouded in such mystery. So many of the key facts remain unexplained on any plausible basis, and so many of the key actors have put forward contradictory accounts, only to be forced to retract or cover up later. David Griffin is a good person to guide skeptical readers through the miasma of spin and pretence that has clouded the truth.” - Michael Meacher MP, Minister of state for the Environment 1997-2003
For more quotes visit www.timeforasecondlook.com/quotes
details
9/11 Time for a Second Look by David Ray Griffin
14th April 2009
City University
Oliver Thompson Lecture Theatre
The Tait Building
Northampton Square
EC1V 0HB
6:30 doors, starts at 7pm
Tickets are £5.50 and can be purchased via www.timeforasecondlook.com/london
“David Ray Griffin establishes himself, alongside Seymour Hersh, as America’s number one bearer of unpleasant, yet necessary, public truths.” - Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law, Princeton University; United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories, United Nations Human Rights Council
Griffin makes a compelling case that the imperial practices of the American government have become a destructive force in the world. And he clarifies the biblical and theological basis for Christians to challenge the resurgent American imperialism that often claims divine blessing on its destructive actions.” - Richard A. Horsley, Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and the Study of Religion, University of Massachusetts, and author of Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder
“Never in modern history has an event of such cataclysmic significance been shrouded in such mystery. So many of the key facts remain unexplained on any plausible basis, and so many of the key actors have put forward contradictory accounts, only to be forced to retract or cover up later. David Griffin is a good person to guide skeptical readers through the miasma of spin and pretence that has clouded the truth.” - Michael Meacher MP, Minister of state for the Environment 1997-2003
For more quotes visit www.timeforasecondlook.com/quotes
- outsider
- Trustworthy Freedom Fighter
- Posts: 6087
- Joined: Sun Jul 30, 2006 10:02 pm
- Location: East London
And try 'Gladio' (just search 'Gladio + BBC + video'); I woudn't talk about them either, if I were smart; Allan Francovitch, the producer, died of a 'heart attack' at Houston Airport whilst visiting the States.....1mean1 wrote:TRUTH, here is a link to the 911 story for real http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=D9FeUNOhkQs (Note :LINK NO LONGER WORKING)
Also try and remember that the real truth does not copy, unlike many men I know nowadays or in the past. I have many more proofs about all terrorists acts in Europe but I won't talk about them in here unless you take me seriously (my copy has a penis for brain, yes and that's really unfortunate for direct talks).
Enjoy Erin Brokovitch, she is NOT me.
'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
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- Contact:
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- Angel - now passed away
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- Location: UEMS
Re: Poll: Osama bin Laden is....
bin Forgotten?James Madison wrote:Poll: Osama bin Laden is....
Isn't this poll of yours designed to show up the complete irrelevancy of JREF when it comes to promulgating truth about 9/11? ;-)
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/fugitives/laden.htm
So nobody has yet claimed the $25mil ? Odd, that...MURDER OF U.S. NATIONALS OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES; CONSPIRACY TO MURDER U.S. NATIONALS OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES; ATTACK ON A FEDERAL FACILITY RESULTING IN DEATH
USAMA BIN LADEN
Photograph of Usama Bin Laden
Date of Photograph Unknown
Aliases: Usama Bin Muhammad Bin Ladin, Shaykh Usama Bin Ladin, the Prince, the Emir, Abu Abdallah, Mujahid Shaykh, Hajj, the Director
DESCRIPTION
Date of Birth: 1957 Hair: Brown
Place of Birth: Saudi Arabia Eyes: Brown
Height: 6' 4" to 6' 6" Complexion: Olive
Weight: Approximately 160 pounds Sex: Male
Build: Thin Nationality: Saudi Arabian
Occupation: Unknown
Remarks: Bin Laden is the leader of a terrorist organization known as Al-Qaeda, "The Base". He is left-handed and walks with a cane.
Scars and Marks: None
CAUTION
USAMA BIN LADEN IS WANTED IN CONNECTION WITH THE AUGUST 7, 1998, BOMBINGS OF THE UNITED STATES EMBASSIES IN DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA, AND NAIROBI, KENYA. THESE ATTACKS KILLED OVER 200 PEOPLE. IN ADDITION, BIN LADEN IS A SUSPECT IN OTHER TERRORIST ATTACKS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.
CONSIDERED ARMED AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS
IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION CONCERNING THIS PERSON, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR LOCAL FBI OFFICE OR THE NEAREST U.S. EMBASSY OR CONSULATE.
REWARD
The Rewards For Justice Program, United States Department of State, is offering a reward of up to $25 million for information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction of Usama Bin Laden. An additional $2 million is being offered through a program developed and funded by the Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association.
June 1999
Poster Revised November 2001
"We will lead every revolution against us!" - attrib: Theodor Herzl
"Timely Demise to All Oppressors - at their Convenience!" - 'Interesting Times', Terry Pratchett
"Timely Demise to All Oppressors - at their Convenience!" - 'Interesting Times', Terry Pratchett
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- Angel - now passed away
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Re: Poll: Osama bin Laden is....
This would save a poster some effort IF youtube ist nicht verboten on JREF:-
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMaQ8cUFUMI[/youtube]
"We will lead every revolution against us!" - attrib: Theodor Herzl
"Timely Demise to All Oppressors - at their Convenience!" - 'Interesting Times', Terry Pratchett
"Timely Demise to All Oppressors - at their Convenience!" - 'Interesting Times', Terry Pratchett
- QuitTheirClogs
- Trustworthy Freedom Fighter
- Posts: 630
- Joined: Fri Feb 09, 2007 5:02 pm
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- Contact:
David Ray Griffin Interview from Switzerland
Part 1:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpDyoGpVRQ0[/youtube]
Part 2:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg0tk3zoMjk[/youtube]
Part 1:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpDyoGpVRQ0[/youtube]
Part 2:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg0tk3zoMjk[/youtube]
Simon - http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/
David Ray Griffin - 9/11: the Myth & the Reality
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 6688213413
David Ray Griffin - 9/11: the Myth & the Reality
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 6688213413
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- Angel - now passed away
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Here's Dr.Griffin being kind to Chumpsy et al:-
http://sydwalker.info/blog/2009/07/16/fearful-thinking/
commenting upon this October 2008 clip:-
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKB52zNILm0[/youtube]
http://sydwalker.info/blog/2009/07/16/fearful-thinking/
commenting upon this October 2008 clip:-
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKB52zNILm0[/youtube]
"We will lead every revolution against us!" - attrib: Theodor Herzl
"Timely Demise to All Oppressors - at their Convenience!" - 'Interesting Times', Terry Pratchett
"Timely Demise to All Oppressors - at their Convenience!" - 'Interesting Times', Terry Pratchett
-
- Angel - now passed away
- Posts: 1452
- Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2007 9:27 pm
- Location: UEMS
He doesn't let up, yet 'teaching by example' doesn't seem to have caught on in 'elevated circles':-
http://www.examiner.com/x-18425-LA-Coun ... ies-1-of-2
http://www.examiner.com/x-18425-LA-Coun ... ies-1-of-2
I chose this particular link because it is still a US outlet for 'free expression' (although, as Douglas Adams put it when approaching Magrathea; "Your deaths may be monitored for training purposes") and the author, Carl Herman, assiduously keeps it so.... There are many other questions that have been, and should be, asked about this war, but in this essay, I focus on only one: Did the 9/11 attacks justify the war in Afghanistan?
This question has thus far been considered off-limits, not to be raised in polite company, and certainly not in the mainstream media. It has been permissible, to be sure, to ask whether the war during the past several years has been justified by those attacks so many years ago. But one has not been allowed to ask whether the original invasion was justified by the 9/11 attacks.
However, what can be designated the "McChrystal Moment" the probably brief period during which the media are again focused on the war in Afghanistan in the wake of the Rolling Stone story about General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, which led to his resignation provides the best opportunity for some time to raise fundamental questions about this war. ...
"We will lead every revolution against us!" - attrib: Theodor Herzl
"Timely Demise to All Oppressors - at their Convenience!" - 'Interesting Times', Terry Pratchett
"Timely Demise to All Oppressors - at their Convenience!" - 'Interesting Times', Terry Pratchett
- outsider
- Trustworthy Freedom Fighter
- Posts: 6087
- Joined: Sun Jul 30, 2006 10:02 pm
- Location: East London
Such a thing! You should check out altrnative sites, by entering title info; in this case I just entered 'David Ray Griffin + Switzerland + video', and up pops:redadare wrote:The videos in the last two posts by Quittheirclogs and Thermqte911 are all showing as "This video has been removed by the user"
You Tube censorship at work?
Pt 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_Ww-r5g ... re=related
Pt. 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHT3-agL ... re=related
Video '9/11 Contradictions':
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/200 ... ons-video/
Plus: DRG + Chomsky + video:
Clip DRG v Chomsky:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQPG3QxXy98
But download fast, 'cos they too might be eaten up by the 'stablishment'.
'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
- TonyGosling
- Editor
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- Joined: Mon Jul 25, 2005 2:03 pm
- Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
- Contact:
more on these lines
Laura Tyco ~ Former Head Of Star Wars Program Says Cheney Main 9/11 Suspect
Posted on June 20, 2012 by Gillian
2012 Indy Info | June 20 2012
http://shiftfrequency.com/laura-tyco-fo ... more-11302
Official version of events a conspiracy theory, says drills were cover for attacks
The former head of the Star Wars missile defense program under Presidents Ford and Carter has gone public to say that the official version of 9/11 is a conspiracy theory and his main suspect for the architect of the attack is Vice President Dick Cheney.
Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Lt. Col., USAF, ret. flew 101 combat missions in Vietnam. He is the recipient of the Eisenhower Medal, the George F. Kennan Peace Prize, the President’s Medal of Veterans for Peace, the Society of Military Engineers Gold Medal (twice), six Air Medals, and dozens of other awards and honors. His Ph.D. is in Aeronautics and Nuclear Engineering from Caltech. He chaired 8 major international conferences, and is one of the country’s foremost experts on National Security.
Bowman worked secretly for the US government on the Star Wars project and was the first to coin the very term in a 1977 secret memo. After Bowman realized that the program was only ever intended to be used as an aggressive and not defensive tool, as part of a plan to initiate a nuclear war with the Soviets, he left the program and campaigned against it.
In an April 4, 2006 interview with The Alex Jones Show aired nationally on the GCN Radio Network, Bowman (pictured below right) stated that at the bare minimum if Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were involved in 9/11 then the government stood down and allowed the attacks to happen. He said it is plausible that the entire chain of military command were unaware of what was taking place and were used as tools by the people pulling the strings behind the attack.
Bowman outlined how the drills on the morning of 9/11 that simulated planes crashing into buildings on the east coast were used as a cover to dupe unwitting air defense personnel into not responding quickly enough to stop the attack.
“The exercises that went on that morning simulating the exact kind of thing that was happening so confused the people in the FAA and NORAD….that they didn’t they didn’t know what was real and what was part of the exercise,” said Bowman
“I think the people who planned and carried out those exercises, they’re the ones that should be the object of investigation.”
Asked if he could name a prime suspect who was the likely architect behind the attacks, Bowman stated, “If I had to narrow it down to one person….I think my prime suspect would be Dick Cheney.”
Bowman said that privately his military fighter pilot peers and colleagues did not disagree with his sentiments about the real story behind 9/11.
Bowman agreed that the US was in danger of slipping into a dictatorship and stated, “I think there’s been nothing closer to fascism than what we’ve seen lately from this government.”
Bowman slammed the Patriot Act as having, “Done more to destroy the rights of Americans than all of our enemies combined.”
Bowman trashed the 9/11 Commission as a politically motivated cover-up with abounding conflicts of interest, charging, “The 9/11 Commission omitted anything that might be the least bit suspicious or embarrassing or in any way detract from the official conspiracy so it was a total whitewash.”
“There needs to be a true investigation, not the kind of sham investigations we have had with the 9/11 omission and all the rest of that junk,” said Bowman.
Asked if the perpetrators of 9/11 were preparing to stage another false-flag attack to reinvigorate their agenda Bowman agreed that, “I can see that and I hope they can’t pull it off, I hope they are prevented from pulling it off but I know darn good and well they’d like to have another one.”
A mainstay of the attack pieces against Charlie Sheen have been that he is not credible enough to speak on the topic of 9/11. These charges are ridiculed by the fact that Sheen is an expert on 9/11 who spends hours a day meticulously researching the topic, something that the attack dogs have failed to do, aiming their comments solely at Sheen’s personal life and ignoring his invitation to challenge him on the facts.
In addition, from the very start we have put forth eminently credible individuals only for them to be ignored by the establishment media. Physics Professors, former White House advisors and CIA analysts, the father of Reaganomics, German Defense Ministers and Bush’s former Secretary of the Treasury, have all gone public on 9/11 but have been uniformly ignored by the majority of the establishment press.
Will Robert Bowman also be blackballed as the mainstream continue to misrepresent the 9/11 truth movement as an occupation of the fringe minority?
Bowman is currently running for Congress in Florida’s 15th District.
Laura Tyco ~ Former Head Of Star Wars Program Says Cheney Main 9/11 Suspect
Posted on June 20, 2012 by Gillian
2012 Indy Info | June 20 2012
http://shiftfrequency.com/laura-tyco-fo ... more-11302
Official version of events a conspiracy theory, says drills were cover for attacks
The former head of the Star Wars missile defense program under Presidents Ford and Carter has gone public to say that the official version of 9/11 is a conspiracy theory and his main suspect for the architect of the attack is Vice President Dick Cheney.
Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Lt. Col., USAF, ret. flew 101 combat missions in Vietnam. He is the recipient of the Eisenhower Medal, the George F. Kennan Peace Prize, the President’s Medal of Veterans for Peace, the Society of Military Engineers Gold Medal (twice), six Air Medals, and dozens of other awards and honors. His Ph.D. is in Aeronautics and Nuclear Engineering from Caltech. He chaired 8 major international conferences, and is one of the country’s foremost experts on National Security.
Bowman worked secretly for the US government on the Star Wars project and was the first to coin the very term in a 1977 secret memo. After Bowman realized that the program was only ever intended to be used as an aggressive and not defensive tool, as part of a plan to initiate a nuclear war with the Soviets, he left the program and campaigned against it.
In an April 4, 2006 interview with The Alex Jones Show aired nationally on the GCN Radio Network, Bowman (pictured below right) stated that at the bare minimum if Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were involved in 9/11 then the government stood down and allowed the attacks to happen. He said it is plausible that the entire chain of military command were unaware of what was taking place and were used as tools by the people pulling the strings behind the attack.
Bowman outlined how the drills on the morning of 9/11 that simulated planes crashing into buildings on the east coast were used as a cover to dupe unwitting air defense personnel into not responding quickly enough to stop the attack.
“The exercises that went on that morning simulating the exact kind of thing that was happening so confused the people in the FAA and NORAD….that they didn’t they didn’t know what was real and what was part of the exercise,” said Bowman
“I think the people who planned and carried out those exercises, they’re the ones that should be the object of investigation.”
Asked if he could name a prime suspect who was the likely architect behind the attacks, Bowman stated, “If I had to narrow it down to one person….I think my prime suspect would be Dick Cheney.”
Bowman said that privately his military fighter pilot peers and colleagues did not disagree with his sentiments about the real story behind 9/11.
Bowman agreed that the US was in danger of slipping into a dictatorship and stated, “I think there’s been nothing closer to fascism than what we’ve seen lately from this government.”
Bowman slammed the Patriot Act as having, “Done more to destroy the rights of Americans than all of our enemies combined.”
Bowman trashed the 9/11 Commission as a politically motivated cover-up with abounding conflicts of interest, charging, “The 9/11 Commission omitted anything that might be the least bit suspicious or embarrassing or in any way detract from the official conspiracy so it was a total whitewash.”
“There needs to be a true investigation, not the kind of sham investigations we have had with the 9/11 omission and all the rest of that junk,” said Bowman.
Asked if the perpetrators of 9/11 were preparing to stage another false-flag attack to reinvigorate their agenda Bowman agreed that, “I can see that and I hope they can’t pull it off, I hope they are prevented from pulling it off but I know darn good and well they’d like to have another one.”
A mainstay of the attack pieces against Charlie Sheen have been that he is not credible enough to speak on the topic of 9/11. These charges are ridiculed by the fact that Sheen is an expert on 9/11 who spends hours a day meticulously researching the topic, something that the attack dogs have failed to do, aiming their comments solely at Sheen’s personal life and ignoring his invitation to challenge him on the facts.
In addition, from the very start we have put forth eminently credible individuals only for them to be ignored by the establishment media. Physics Professors, former White House advisors and CIA analysts, the father of Reaganomics, German Defense Ministers and Bush’s former Secretary of the Treasury, have all gone public on 9/11 but have been uniformly ignored by the majority of the establishment press.
Will Robert Bowman also be blackballed as the mainstream continue to misrepresent the 9/11 truth movement as an occupation of the fringe minority?
Bowman is currently running for Congress in Florida’s 15th District.
www.lawyerscommitteefor9-11inquiry.org
www.rethink911.org
www.patriotsquestion911.com
www.actorsandartistsfor911truth.org
www.mediafor911truth.org
www.pilotsfor911truth.org
www.mp911truth.org
www.ae911truth.org
www.rl911truth.org
www.stj911.org
www.v911t.org
www.thisweek.org.uk
www.abolishwar.org.uk
www.elementary.org.uk
www.radio4all.net/index.php/contributor/2149
http://utangente.free.fr/2003/media2003.pdf
"The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic poison which alienates the possessor from the community" Carl Jung
https://37.220.108.147/members/www.bild ... rg/phpBB2/
www.rethink911.org
www.patriotsquestion911.com
www.actorsandartistsfor911truth.org
www.mediafor911truth.org
www.pilotsfor911truth.org
www.mp911truth.org
www.ae911truth.org
www.rl911truth.org
www.stj911.org
www.v911t.org
www.thisweek.org.uk
www.abolishwar.org.uk
www.elementary.org.uk
www.radio4all.net/index.php/contributor/2149
http://utangente.free.fr/2003/media2003.pdf
"The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic poison which alienates the possessor from the community" Carl Jung
https://37.220.108.147/members/www.bild ... rg/phpBB2/
- Whitehall_Bin_Men
- Trustworthy Freedom Fighter
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- Contact:
Think ordinary airliners hit the World Trade Centre?
David Von Kleist & pilot guests blast through the 9/11 lies
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpSQ_KzXcbI[/youtube]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpSQ_KzXcbI
David Von Kleist & pilot guests blast through the 9/11 lies
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpSQ_KzXcbI[/youtube]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpSQ_KzXcbI
--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com
http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com
http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
First Responders 9/11 investigation — SEPT. 11, 2019
https://www.bitchute.com/video/Am32Ua98zS4H/
First Responders Urge 9/11 Investigation — Sept. 11, 2019 Press Conference
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLW0_wCYyqY[/youtube]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLW0_wCYyqY&app=desktop
First Responders Urge 9/11 Investigation — Sept. 11, 2019 Press Conference
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLW0_wCYyqY[/youtube]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLW0_wCYyqY&app=desktop