This story mentions Ted Gunderson, who, back in the 1980′s and early 1990′s, was also a major proponent of the “Satanic Ritual Abuse” scare.

• Fake whistleblowers?
• The “Patriot movement” — what is it?

Fake whistleblowers?

According to the McClatchy story:

… Retired FBI agent Ted Gunderson says the government has prepared 1,000 camps for its own citizens. He also says the government has stored 30,000 guillotines to murder its critics, and has stashed 500,000 caskets in Georgia and Montana for the remains.

Why guillotines? “Because,” he wrote in a report obtained by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, “beheading is the most efficient means of harvesting body parts.”

Unfortunately, this kind of nuttiness implies that not all FBI whistleblowers are credible. Ditto, all the more so, for CIA whistleblowers. Indeed, one has to wonder whether some alleged “whistleblowers” may in fact still be working for the agencies they allegedly left, spouting disinfo with the aim of discrediting real whistleblowers. Or perhaps some fake whistleblowers are genuinely off their rocker. Either way, they contribute to a climate that makes life much more difficult for real whistleblowers.

Still, it is vitally important to support protections for whistleblowers, and to ensure that their complaints are heard and investigated by some appropriate independent body.

The “Patriot movement” — what is it?

The McClatchy story also refers to an interesting article on the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center, SPLC Report: Return of the Militias, August 12, 2009. This article also discusses the recent revival of the larger Patriot movement. Page 3 contains the following brief mention of what I call grand conspiracy ideology:

Increasingly, Minutemen are giving credence to the sort of fringe conspiracy theories that have long typified militia and other so-called Patriot groups. …

At several eastern San Diego County vigilante camps in mid-May, there were serious discussions about the global banking system being controlled by an ancient secret society called the Illuminati. Another theory floated involved a cult devoted to the Egyptian god of the afterlife, Osiris, operating within the NASA space agency and perhaps arranging with extraterrestrials for a hostile takeover of Earth.

The “Patriot movement,” it should be noted, consists of a motley assortment of groups. The SPLC article describes it as being “made up of paramilitary militias, tax defiers and so-called ‘sovereign citizens.’” I would say that it includes other groups too. Not everyone in We Are Change, for example, is a militia member, a tax resister, or a so-called “sovereign citizen.” Most members of We Are Change probably aren’t any of these, as far as I can tell. Ditto, I would suspect, most members of Oathkeepers.

What, then, does define the “Patriot movement”? As far as I can tell, the two things nearly everyone in the “Patriot movement” has in common are (1) belief in conservative/libertarian economics, e.g. pure laissez-faire plus a desire to return to the gold standard, and (2) grand conspiracy ideology, e.g. belief in “the Illuminati” and fear of “the New World Order.”

I’ll have more to say about Oathkeepers later. In the meantime, here are (1) their main website, (2) their Ten Orders We Will Not Obey, and (3) Retired Sheriff Richard Mack’s response to the SPLC report.

I got some rather rude replies which I won’t discuss, except to mention that Pat Curley needs to remind his fans again to clean up their “potty mouth,” as he and/or James have put it in the past.

Now to some more substantive replies, by one “Patrick from Cincinnati”:

Diane: is it my understanding that you believe that one of the lawyers helping to prepare the filing is someone you believe might be working for Pakistani intelligence? Did I read that right?

I’m not making any specific allegation about William Pepper or his current relationship with the government of Pakistan. But I’m concerned about the possibility that he may have a conflict of interest.

Today I watched the relevant part of 9/11: Press for Truth again.

In the section titled “The Money Trail,” William Pepper is described as “an international lawyer and consultant to the Pakistani government.” He is presented as an informed source about India’s investigation into the money transfer from Omar Saeed Sheikh to Mohammed Atta.

If indeed this is accurate, then it sounds like he should be called to testify before a commission investigating 9/11. But I question whether he should, himself, be on the commission.

(P.S., 9/9/2009: I should clarify that I hope this issue turns out not to be such a big deal after all. “Consultant” sounds like it could be just very brief temporary employment of some kind. Still, it would be desirable to find out the specifics of his exact dates of employment, what part of the Pakistani government he worked for, and in what capacity. I’ve asked someone active in NYC-CAN to find this out for me.)

Later, Patrick from Cincinnati posted another comment:

It looks like you have too much faith in your attorneys. I’m an attorney, and I’ve known some shitty lawyers in NYC.

Point taken. I don’t claim to know for sure that Pepper is going to win against the NYC government’s challenges to the ballot initiative. The points I intended to make here are:

1. At least one of the NYC government’s objections, i.e. the claim that there’s no provision for funding, is just not true.
2. However good or bad a lawyer William Pepper is, he did indeed look into NYC’s election law, as did other people in New York 9/11 Truth, contrary to Pat Curley’s assumption that they didn’t.
3. In general, legal issues are not necessarily as straightforward as they might at first glance appear. Pat Curley should not assume he knows for sure that the NYC government’s objections are valid and irrefutable.

Then, later, Patrick from Cincinnati wrote:

Also, do you really believe that William Pepper has a connection with Pakistani intelligence because Press for Truth told you so? Doesn’t that make you a crazy person?

Press for Truth didn’t say, nor do I claim, that he worked for Pakistani “intelligence,” specifically. He was identified as a “consultant” to the Pakistani government, without specifying which branch. I assume this means a consultant on international law issues, since he’s also identified as an “international lawyer.”

9/11: Press for Truth is one of the better 9/11 documentaries. Mostly it focusses on things like the 9/11 Commission and the coverups that have been acknowledged even by official sources. It also features the work of Paul Thompson, who does make an effort to be accurate and whose Cooperative Research website has been recommended as a “useful 9/11 resoruce” even by some “9/11 debunkers,” such as by Mike W. on the 9/11 Myths site. 9/11: Press for Truth does not advocate WTC demolition theories or anything similar. (It does contain a brief, somewhat ambiguous section which many viewers have interpreted as a nod to the WTC demolition crowd, but which isn’t really, at least if you know what the Skyscraper Safety Campaign was.) While it does contain some minor factual errors and editing glitches, on the whole it seems to strive for accuracy. (See some more detailed comments about it by me here.)

Of course it’s possible that Press for Truth is mistaken about who/what William Pepper. However, if it’s true, then indeed he might have a conflict of interest. In any case, it is something he should be asked about.

In fact, the ballot initiative was originally written by Carl E. Person, a lawyer, and then later revised by William Pepper, another lawyer. In both cases, the NYC election law was looked at carefully. I remember quite a bit of discussion about it back in the days when I attended meetings of New York 9/11 Truth in late 2007 and early 2008.

I’m no lawyer myself, but I suspect that Pepper knows what he’s doing and does have a viable strategy for responding to the NYC government’s legal challenges. I’m no lawyer myself, but here’s my guess as to how he might go about it:

First off, last I heard, the ballot initiative does indeed deal with the funding question, about which I heard lots of discussion back in 2007/2008. The funding is to be accomplished by raising money from private sources. And, from what I remember hearing last year, Pepper has claimed that he already has a bunch of rich donors lined up. So the funding may be a non-issue.

If the funding is to come from private sources, this also implies that the commissioners aren’t, properly speaking, government officials. Hence Pepper might be able to argue that some aspects of New York State election law, such as the residency requirement, are not applicable. (I have no inside info on whether Pepper actually intends to make such an argument, nor do I have any idea how well it might hold up in court. I’m just guessing here.)

The commission will be in a legally unprecedented grey area between being a public and private institution. Well, not totally unprecedented. Sort of like the Federal Reserve System, only on a much smaller scale. A better analogy might be the many small towns that have all-volunteer fire departments and police forces that don’t receive public funds.

As for the jurisdiction issue, well, some important aspects of the crime did take place in New York. NYC is where the largest number of people were murdered, after all. So 9/11 is arguably a local concern, as well as a federal concern. And there have been many crimes that have been prosecuted on both a local level [b][i]and[/i][/b] a federal level. I suspect that Pepper will be able to win easily on the jurisdiction issue.

I should mention that I personally do have some other concerns about the ballot initiative. For example, I question the qualifications of some of the proposed commissioners. Also, since we don’t know who Pepper’s rich donors are, we don’t know what hidden agendas they might have. I also wonder whether Pepper himself might have a conflict of interest, since he apparently worked for the government of Pakistan at one point, at least according to 9/11: Press for Truth.

But I don’t think the election law issues are anywhere nearly as cut-and-dried as the Screw Loose Change folks seem to imagine. And, despite its flaws and potential flaws, I still hope it can succeed at getting a bunch of hidden truths revealed.

Time will tell.

(See also my posts about the ballot initiative in the Truth Action forum, ihere and ihere.)

I wrote:

It seems to me that the label “conspiracy theory,” by being applied so broadly, has been used to discredit reasonable suspicions of government wrongdoing. That’s bad for democracy, because a willingness to suspect government wrongdoing — or at least to suspect the possibility of government wrongdoing — is essential to any fight for government transparency.

Let me elaborate:

Some people in the “9/11 debunker” crowd do agree that we need an independent investigation, with subpoena power, into the events before, during, and after 9/11. For example, Chip Berlet voiced his support for an investigation in his reply to a post of mine back in 2007. Also, in the spring or summer of 2008, I participated for a while in the Democratic Underground forum, where pretty much everyone in the “9/11 debunker” crowd agreed that a new investigation would be desirable.

However, I’m not aware of any writing of Chip Berlet’s in which he actually focused on making the case for an independent investigation, as distinct from just opposing “9/11 conspiracy theories” while conceding that an independent investigation would be desirable. (To Chip Berlet: If indeed you have actually written something that focused on making the case for an independent investigation, please let me know.)

Likewise, amongst the “9/11 debunkers” on Democratic Underground, when I suggested that they set a positive example of how to write a call for an independent investigation without advocating “inside job” theories, all of them either refused or ignored my suggestion. Usually I made this suggestion in response to complaints, by the “9/11 debunkers,” about how acrimonious the 9/11 debates were, or when they complained about being seen as “OCTers.” I suggested that if at least some of the “debunkers” were to show active support for the cause of an independent investigation, by actively making the case for it on their own terms, this would probably do a lot to cut down on the acrimony of the debates. But, for one reason or another, none of them were willing to do that. Hence, despite their claimed support for an independent investigation, all of them functioned de facto as nothing more than defenders of the official story.

I tentatively conclude that people who don’t suspect serious criminal wrongdoing, of some kind, are unlikely to have the political will to call actively for an independent investigation. That’s why I wrote that “a willingness to suspect government wrongdoing — or at least to suspect the possibility of government wrongdoing — is essential to any fight for government transparency.”

Hence “conspiracy theory,” to at least a limited degree, is essential to any fight for government transparency, which in turn is essential to democracy. Hence a blanket condemnation of all “conspiracy theory” is, in effect, anti-democratic.

At the same time, there are important lines to be drawn, beyond which “conspiracy theory” itself becomes a threat to human rights.

For example, though we may suspect criminal wrongdoing, we must keep in mind the principle of “innocent until proven guilty” regarding accusations against any specific person. We must draw a clear distinction between (1) regarding someone as a possible suspect and (2) having real evidence that the person has actually committed a crime. We should not make accusations against anyone without strong, documented evidence.

Some people believe that, in order to understand a situation, it is sufficient to ask, “who benefits?” In fact, the question “who benefits?” is a good source of preliminary clues, but no more than that. Were it more than that, then anyone who inherits some money would be automatically guilty of murdering one’s parents. The question of motive is an important part of a criminal case, but it’s only one of many parts.

In general, I think it is best to understate one’s suspicions in public — as the Jersey Girls did when they successfully lobbied for the creation of the 9/11 Commission.

Also, we must be willing to listen to people who disagree with what we believe to be evidence. We must be willing not only to listen, but to seek out their strongest counterevidence and counterarguments, to make sure our own arguments and evidence are on solid ground. Too many believers in CD of the WTC, for example, have simply not bothered to read anything by the more studious critics of WTC CD theory, nor have they bothered to have serious dialogue with their critics. They just assume that anyone who disagrees with what they consider to be blatantly obvious “evidence” of CD must be lying, end of story.

(On the other hand, when I began studying WTC CD theories back in the summer of 2007, I made a point of studying what people on both sides had to say, and I welcomed comments from “debunkers” here ont this blog, as long as they behaved themselves and focussed on the issues rather than on attacking people.)

Also, as I said to Chip Berlet back in October 2007, I agree with his critique of “conspiracism” as he defines it. I just think he mis-applies the term to things irrelevant to his definition. Chip Berlet has yet to reply to me on the specific issue of my distinction between (1) grand conspiracy ideology and (2) controversial allegations of government wrongdoing.

Ongoing U.S. support for Islamist terrorism?

Whatever was covered up, a new investigation would most likely shed light not only on counter-terrorism policy, but also on the strange love-hate relationship that the U.S. government has long had with Islamist regimes and Islamist terrorism.

Islamism is the political doctrine that governments should be subject to Islamic law. (Islamism is not to be confused with Islam itself, the religion, which can be practiced within a modern secular society too.) Both Islamism and the more sexist, puritanical, and religiously bigoted forms of Islam are, in today’s world, far more prevalent than they would otherwise be, thanks to Saudi oil money plus U.S. government support for Islamist regimes and Islamist terrorist groups overseas.

In the 1980′s, the U.S. supported Islamist terrorists fighting a Soviet-allied government in Afghanistan. Not only did the U.S. give them military aid, but the CIA, with help from USAID and the University of Nebraska, spent millions of dollars on violently militant textbooks for Afghan schoolchildren. That war became the Soviet Union’s “Vietnam” and spurred the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The extreme Islamists also killed many of the more moderate Muslim leaders. Cheryl Benard, a RAND Corporation expert on Islam and the wife of future US ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, has admitted that U.S policy favored “the worst crazies … we can find”and “allowed them to get rid of, just kill all the moderate leaders” (Robert Dreyfuss, Devil’s Game, 2005, as cited on the History Commons website)..

In the early 1980′s, there was the Iran/Contra affair, in which the U.S. government secretly sent arms to the radical Shi’ite government in Iran. Incredibly, this occurred soon after the embassy hostage crisis, which ended with the U.S. government sending billions of dollars in ransom money to Iran.

In Yugoslavia in the 1990′s, the U.S. and NATO helped Islamist Bosnian leader Alija Izetbegovic, at the expense of the more moderate and more popular Bosnian Muslim leader Fikret Abdic. Islamist terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, were active in the Balkan wars, with support from Western countries, helping to provoke the anti-Muslim panics and massacres that were the stated justification for U.S. bombing of Yugoslavia.

Even after 9/111/2001, U.S. foreign policy has still tended to favor Islamist regimes (such as Saudi Arabia) over more secular Muslim regimes. And Bush’s so-called “war on terror” had the net effect of strengthening – not weakening – both Islamism and terrorism overseas.

In Afghanistan, the new, U.S.-installed government was another Islamist government, though not as extreme as the Taliban. Osama bin Laden and much of Al Qaeda escaped into Pakistan and were not even pursued there (until recently), let alone caught.

And then the U.S. invaded Iraq. Saddam Hussein, though a tyrant, was not an Islamist; he ran a relatively secular government. But now, thanks to the war, Iraq has become a stronghold of Islamism and Islamist terrorism. There was no Al Qaeda in Iraq before the war, but there is now. And the new, U.S.-installed government in Iraq has an Islamist constitution.

Despite the alleged “war on terror,” it is possible that the U.S. foreign policy establishment may still see Islamist terrorism as a useful weapon against Russia and China. There has been lots of terrorism in Russia, e.g. in Chechnya and Dagestan. And the U.S. foreign policy establishment seems to have both the goal of encircling Russia and China and a tendency to downplay that goal in public (e.g. the U.S. missiles in Poland, allegedly aimed at Iran).

To whatever extent a pro-Islamist U.S. foreign policy still exists, it is very harmful to all non-Muslims, and to women, and to gays. It is also very harmful to politically moderate Muslims, both by killing them directly and by sparking bigotry, on the part of non-Muslims, against all Muslims including moderates.

But first, here’s a little about me and my more general point of view, and the evolution of my views on 9/11. I’ll also say a little about my views on “conspiracy theories” and what I call grand conspiracy ideology.

WTC CD theories

In the summer of 2007, I became convinced of the likelihood of some sort of controlled demolition, or at least some sort of assisted collapse, of the WTC towers and especially WTC 7. I was never 100% convinced, though. I explored carefully the arguments of both sides. All along, I realized that many of the usual mechanical arguments for CD were weak. But one of those arguments (the almost straight-down nature of the collapse of WTC 7) seemed to me to be very strong, and I was unable to find an adequate response to it on any of the “9/11 debunker” sites I looked at.

Eventually, though, I did come to understand how WTC 7 might have fallen the way it did without deliberate human intervention. Having looked carefully at the arguments of the more studious people on both sides — and having done some computations of my own, based on my two years of physics in college — I no longer see any strong reason to believe in CD of the WTC.

I still don’t rule out the possibility that Steven Jones might be onto something with his red/grey chips, and with the thermite hypothesis in general. But I’m taking a wait-and-see attitude on that. In the meantime, I’m not inclined to believe in CD of the WTC.

A more detailed account of my personal journey, on this topic, can be found by reading past posts on my blog.

Other aspects of 9/11

During late 2007, I also began to learn about other aspects of 9/11 that I had not paid much attention to before. It soon became obvious to me that there were coverups, and that we need an independent investigation, of various matters having nothing to do with WTC CD theories.

I don’t currently have any strong belief about the degree or kind of U.S. government involvement in the 9/11 attacks, other than to reject the more extreme and improbable kinds of “inside job” theories. Thus, for example, I reject “no planes” theories and the idea that the Pentagon was hit by anything other than a 757. I also reject scenarios involving remote-controlled planes and faked phone calls, which strike me as logistically way too complicated, even though they might be possible from a purely technological point of view.

I nevertheless consider the idea that “9/11 was an inside job” to be a reasonable suspicion, as long as (1) it is recognized to be only a suspicion, not a proven historical fact, and (2) it involves only reasonable possibilities, such as the idea of the hijackers having been recruited by an agent provocateur.

I would also say that there are many other possibilities in between the extremes of “inside job” and “nothing worse than incompetence.” I’m inclined to suspect criminal wrongdoing of some sort — at least criminal negligence, and probably at least a little bit worse. But this is all just speculation, with no strong direct evidence for any particular hypothesis, as far as I am aware at the present time.

What we do have lots of strong direct evidence of is coverups. That alone is just cause for an independent investigation, even if no one in the U.S. government is guilty of anything worse than incompetence. As I say in my pamphlet draft, excessive secrecy is toxic to democracy. We need to hold our elected officials accountable.

Besides my draft pamphlet, please see also my recent post About the warnings. Hopefully I’ll have time to write more about other issues later.

“Conspiracy theory”

A pet peeve of mine is the term “conspiracy theory,” which refers to two very different kinds of things: (1) controversial or nonmainstream allegations of government wrongdoing, and (2) what I now call grand conspiracy ideology, i.e. the idea that some secretive elite cabal, usually defined in religious terms, is masterminding and micromanaging world events. I am strongly opposed to grand conspiracy ideology. As for “conspiracy theories” in the sense of controversial or nonmainstream allegations of government wrongdoing, they cover a wide range, from obvious nonsense to reasonable suspicions.

It seems to me that the label “conspiracy theory,” by being applied so broadly, has been used to discredit reasonable suspicions of government wrongdoing. That’s bad for democracy, because a willingness to suspect government wrongdoing — or at least to suspect the possibility of government wrongdoing — is essential to any fight for government transparency. (P.S.: Please see also my post On “conspiracy theory” and democracy — Important P.S. to “To debunkers”.)

And the “conspiracy theory” label can all too easily be used to dismiss accusations that are in fact justified. (For an example, see FO Paper reveals British knowledge of torture flights, The Guardian (U.K.), Thursday 19 January 2006.)

Grand conspiracy ideology

As I said, I am strongly opposed to grand conspiracy ideology. Although it theoretically targets an evil elite, the accompanying religion-based paranoia has a long history of harming mostly ordinary middle-class and working-class folks. For example, the vast majority of Jews killed in the Holocaust, or in earlier pogroms inflamed by the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, were not elite. In the 1980′s and early 1990′s, the vast majority of the falsely accused in the “Satanic ritual abuse” scare were ordinary middle-class and working-class folks.

And I suspect, though I’m not yet sure, that religiously bigoted “New World Order” paranoia may be playing a key role in today’s resurgence of witchhunts in Africa and elsewhere. What I do know is that one of Sarah Palin’s pastors, Thomas Muthee, is both a witchhunter and a believer in “New World Order” grand conspiracy ideology. Also I know that “New World Order” paranoia and the harassment, or worse, of suspected “witches” are both relatively common within the growing “non-denominational” neo-Pentecostal movement. I have not yet seen any actual African witchhunt propaganda, but I expect it to contain allegations that evil Satanist cults, under the auspices of the Illuminati, are out to lure your kids into witchcraft and lure them into putting horrible curses on their parents.

In my opinion, the recent growth of grand conspiracy ideology is a real and very dangerous threat to the well-being of religious minorities and gays, and to any rational policy on issues like environmentalism. It may even be (if my suspicions about today’s witchhunts are correct) a direct threat to the well-being of lots of ordinary children. But, so far, not many people are as worried about it as I am. Time will tell if my fears about it turn out to be correct.

In the meantime, I am interested in hearing from people with an interest in debunking grand conspiracy ideology.

P.S., 9/9/2009: I should clarify that I don’t mean to accuse all or most grand conspiracy ideologists of being violent. I’m sure there are lots of peaceful, law-abiding believers in grand conspiracy ideology. However, bigotry is bad news, in general — and is, obviously, one of the factors that may predispose someone to commit a violent hate crime.

Why we need a new investigation of 9/11

Why should anyone still care about 9/11, now that Bush is no longer President?

• Because Obama is continuing the wars that were justified by 9/11, and is letting the torturers get away with it.
• Because excessive secrecy and lack of accountability are toxic to democracy. Even if no one in the U.S. government was guilty of anything worse than incompetence, it is our right and duty, as citizens and as taxpayers, to hold them accountable.

After 9/11/2001, many people had questions about how and why the attacks were able to succeed.

• Why did the Bush administration ignore warnings?
• Why wasn’t there any effective air defense?
• Why were some of the 9/11 hijackers, already known to be terrorists, even allowed into this country?

Bush opposed calls for an investigation into these questions. Eventually the 9/11 Families movement, led by four 9/11 widows known as the “Jersey Girls,” did succeed in pressuring Congress and Bush to create the 9/11 Commission.

But there is lots of evidence of coverups. For example:

• Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, the chair and vice chair of the 9/11 Commisstion, have said they were “stonewalled by the C.I.A.” (New York Times, January 2, 2008). In their book Without Precedent (2006), they charge that the 9/11 Commission was “set up to fail.” They have voiced these complaints despite their own widely perceived go-easy attitude.
• Thomas H. Kean has said that NORAD (the North American Aerospace Command) made blatantly false statements “so far from the truth” that the 9/11 Commission considered criminal charges (Washington Post, August 2, 2006).
• Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has said that there is evidence of involvement by foreign governments – evidence that remains highly classified. Graham has alleged that the information remains classified not for any genuine national security reason, but merely to avoid embarrassing some people. (PBS interview, July 24, 2003)

Many people regard the 9/11 Commission itself as part of the coverup, for many reasons including the following:

• The 9/11 Commission Report, dismisses the question of the financing of the 9/11 attacks as being “of little practical significance” (Chapter 5).
• Many whistleblowers were not interviewed.
• The 9/11 Commission had subpoena power but rarely used it.
• The 9/11 Commission’s research staff was directed by Philip Zelikow, who had strong ties to the Bush administration. (He had been a member of Bush’s transition team, and he had cc-authored a book with Condoleeza Rice). Thus the investigation was not truly independent of the Bush administration, as it should have been.

It is clear to many people that there have been coverups. But coverups of what? Among people who talk about 9/11, debate is now polarized between people who insist that “9/11 was an inside job” and people who insist that whatever might have been covered up, it couldn’t possibly be anything worse than incompetence. But there are many other possibilities between the extremes of “inside job” and “nothing worse than incompetence.” Other possibilities include criminal negligence, corruption, and treason. Due to the coverups, we simply don’t know all the facts.

Chapters 5 and 7 of the 9/11 Commission Report, which deal with Al Qaeda and the hijackers, are based largely on CIA reports about interrogations of people who were tortured. Torture is not only a severe violation of human rights, but also results in notoriously unreliable confessions The commissioners were not allowed to interview the detainees themselves, nor were they even allowed to view direct transcripts of interrogations.

Whatever the U.S. government did or didn’t do on or before 9/11, what’s important is that those responsible for its failures be held accountable — even if no one in the U.S. government was guilty of anything worse than incompetence. And it is important to know what really went wrong in terms of counter-terrorism policy, so that we can know what’s really needed to protect us from terrorism, without undue sacrifice of our privacy and civil liberties. (The “PATRIOT act” was probably overkill.) To that end, we need a new, more truly independent follow-up investigation, similar to what the 9/11 Commission was supposed to be.

Patty Casazza, one of the “Jersey girls” who lobbied successfully for the creation of the 9/11 Commission, said at a conference in 2007 that she was approached by many whistleblowers, some of whom claimed to have known the exact date, the method, and the targets of the attack. Since we don’t know who these whistleblowers are, of course, we don’t know how credible they are. They aren’t among the 9/11 whistleblowers listed on Sibel Edmonds’ website, none of whom claimed to have had knowledge quite that specific. However, surely these whistleblowers should be interviewed as part of any real investigation. The 9/11 Commission ignored them, apparently.

As for the many, many other warnings that were received during what the 9/11 Commission report calls “The Summer of Threat,” during which “The system was blinking red” (Chapter 8), I don’t know enough about intelligence agencies and their procedures to know for sure what they would consider to be “actionable intelligence.” However, it’s clear that Bush himself ignored the overall trend of the warnings, in favor of his Iraq obsession.

As an aside: If indeed “9/11 was an inside job,” I would be inclined to suspect not Bush himself as the main culprit, but rather someone in either the CIA or the foreign policy establishment with a strong interest in Central Asia and its geopolitical role. If indeed “9/11 was an inside job,” I would be inclined to suspect that one of its main purposes might have been to convince Bush, as well as the American people, to devote more money and resources to projects in Central Asia. 9/11 did give the U.S. government a perfect excuse to put military bases in some former Soviet republics in Central Asia — surely a geostrategic prize, if the ultimate aim is to thwart Russia and China as possible rival superpowers. On the other hand, if Bush were the mastermind of 9/11, I would expect the blame to have been pinned more directly on Iraq.

This is all speculation, of course. No one really knows what really happened — except the culprits themselves, of course, whoever they might be.

What’s important here is these points: (1) warnings were indeed ignored, at least in a general sense, if not a more specific sense, and (2) the warnings — and the would-be whistleblowers who have not yet been heard — are still a topic worthy of investigation by some independent body with subpeona power.

Looking back again now at some of those threads ….

• About 9/11 itself, Hundreds of Documents Prove Saudi Backing.
• A recent example of U.S. government infiltration of political movements, with the infiltrators even playing a leading role and advocating nasty extremes: White power rally leader was FBI snitch: law center.
• About CIA covert operations: Stockwell: ‘Several thousand covert actions since 1961′.
• About Nigerian witchhunts: The Child Witches of Nigeria. (I personally happen to be very concerned about the issue of witchhunts and am now collectiing info on it.)

I was glad to see a growing awareness of the difference between (1) controversial suspicion of possible government wrongdoing and (2) grand conspiracy ideology (e.g. the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and paranoia about “the Illuminati” and “the New World Order”) and of the need for 9/11 Truth activists to dis-associate themselves from the latter.

• Truthmover posted a thread titled Looking beyond the hype – Bilderberg docs on Wikileaks. In response, “diktater” posted some stuff from David Icke, to which I and others objected. I was glad to see Truthmover distinguish between “the usual NWO paranoia” and a “more literate” approach to examining what the ruling elite are up to. (I think Truthmover has been aware of this distinction all along, but is voicing it more articulately now.)
• Snowflake posted Idiot Defaces Georgia Guidestones. The thread evolved into a thoughtful discussion about “NWO” right wing paranoia concerning “population control.” Nicholas Levis posted some very incisive comments.

Glad to see a rising awareness of what’s wrong with “NWO” paranoia, I posted a thread about The “patriot movement”. Among other things, I dug up an online page, Dualist receivers, showing that some of the popular stereotypes of right wing extremists are wrong.

However, I have mixed feelings about the Truth Action crowd’s emphasis on image-consciousness. Concern about the movement’s image is indeed valid and important up to a point. And indeed I share their concerns to a large extent. But I think it should be secondary to other principles, as discussed in my responses in the thread A Lesbian Comes Out of the Closet About 9/11.

Why we need a new investigation of 9/11

After 9/11/2001, many people had questions about how and why the attacks were able to succeed. Why did the U.S. government do nothing to stop the attacks?

• Why did the Bush administration ignore warnings?
• Why was there no effective air defense?
• Why were some of the 9/11 hijackers, already known to be terrorists, even allowed into this country?

Bush opposed calls for an investigation into these questions. Eventually the 9/11 Families movement, led by four 9/11 widows known as the “Jersey Girls,” did succeed in pressuring Congress and Bush to create the 9/11 Commission.

But there is lots of evidence of coverups. For example:

• Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, the chair and vice chair of the 9/11 Commisstion, have said they were “stonewalled by the C.I.A.” (New York Times, January 2, 2008). They have voiced this complaint despite their widely perceived go-easy attitude.
• Thomas H. Kean has said that NORAD (the North American Aerospace Command) made blatantly false statements “so far from the truth” that the 9/11 Commission considered criminal charges (Washington Post, August 2, 2006).
• Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has said that there is evidence of involvement by foreign governments – evidence that remains highly classified. Graham has alleged that the information remains classified not for any genuine national security reason, but merely to avoid embarrassing some people. (PBS interview, July 24, 2003)

Many people regard the 9/11 Commission itself as part of the coverup, for many reasons including the following:

• The 9/11 Commission Report dismisses the question of the financing of the 9/11 attacks as being “of little practical significance” (Chapter 5).
• Quite a few whistleblowers were not interviewed.
• The 9/11 Commission had subpoena power but rarely used it, preferring a gentler approach.
• The 9/11 Commission’s research staff was directed by Philip Zelikow, who had strong ties to the Bush administration (such as having co-authored a book with Condoleeza Rice). Thus the investigation was not truly independent of the Bush administration, as it should have been.

Chapters 5 and 7 of the 9/11 Commission Report, which deal with Al Qaeda and the hijackers, are based largely on CIA reports about interrogations of people who were tortured. Torture is not only a severe violation of human rights, but also results in notoriously unreliable confessions The commissioners were not allowed to interview the detainees themselves, nor were they even allowed to view direct transcripts of interrogations.

It is clear to many people that there have been coverups. But coverups of what? Among people who talk about 9/11, debate is now polarized between people who insist that “9/11 was an inside job” and people who insist that whatever might have been covered up, it couldn’t possibly be anything worse than incompetence. But there are many other possibilities between the extremes of “inside job” and “nothing worse than incompetence.” Other possibilities include criminal negligence, corruption, and treason. Due to the coverups, we simply don’t know all the facts.

Whatever the U.S. government did or didn’t do on or before 9/11, what’s important is that those responsible for its failures be held accountable — even if no one in the U.S. government was guilty of anything worse than incompetence. And it is important to know what really went wrong in terms of counter-terrorism policy, so that we can know what’s really needed to protect us from terrorism, without undue sacrifice of our privacy and civil liberties. (The “PATRIOT act” was probably overkill.) To that end, we need a new, more truly independent follow-up investigation, similar to what the 9/11 Commission was supposed to be.

But then “dicktater” chimed in with quotes from David Icke and links to sites such as “Conspiracy Central.” Several of us objected.

Eventually “dicktater” responded with a totally off-topic post about WTC demolition claims, apparently in an effort to claim that I am more of a “kook” than David Icke because I’m not inclined to believe in the WTC demolition hypotheses. I’ve decided to respond here, rather than in the Truth Action forum itself, (1) to avoid further derailing the thread, and (2) because I’m not sure whether YT would welcome debate about WTC demolition theories in the Truth Action forum.

Unfortunately, I cannot watch streaming video, so I can’t respond to the videos he posted. But, below one of the videos, “dicktater” posted the following:

The roofline of WTC1 (The North Tower of the World Trade Center) begins dropping with sudden onset and accelerates uniformly downward at about 64% of the acceleration of gravity (g) until it disappears into the dust. This means it is meeting resistance equal to about 36% of its weight. The implication of this, however, is that the force it is exerting on the lower section of the building is also only 36% of the weight of the falling section. This is much less than the force it would exert if it were at rest. The acceleration data thus prove that the falling top section of the building cannot be responsible for the destruction of the lower section of the building. [I want to acknowledge the work of Graeme MacQueen and Tony Szamboti who have been engaged in similar measurements by other means and have reached similar conclusions.]

What??? “The force it is exerting on the lower section of the building is also only 36% of the weight of the falling section?” The force that the falling section exerts on the lower part is one heck of a lot more, not less, than its weight. Try the following two experiments:

1. Gently rest a brick on top of your foot.
2. Break the brick up into small pieces, then drop the pieces on you foot, all at once, from a height.

Which hurts more?

I suspect that “dicktater” may be misrepresenting whatever Tony Szamboti might have actually said. Szamboti is a mechanical engineer, and I cannot imagine him making such an obviously ridiculous claim, although he might be mistaken on other things.

Now, Diane, I thought you claimed in the past to be scientific or that using a scientific approach was the way forward. How can you claim to be a 9/11 truth activist for a few years and thoroughly familiarize yourself with the scientific evidence of controlled demolition

I’ve pointed out for a long time that a lot of the more popular presentations of this evidence, including Richard Gage’s, are either mistaken or incomplete on various points. See, for example, my post Demolition of WTC: Let’s not overstate the case, please, written back in November 2007.

At the time I wrote that post, I nevertheless believed that a few of the popular arguments for WTC demolition were very strong, including: (1) the almost straight-down nature of the collapse of WTC 7, and (2) the iron-rich spherules as evidence of thermite.

In early 2008 I concluded that the close-to straight-down collapse wasn’t valid evidence for demolition after all, for reasons that can be found in relevant posts and comment threads elsewhere on this blog, and which I plan to explain in a more coherent fashion in a future post. As for the spherules, there are other possible sources of those, including torches used by iron-workers who arrived on the scene almost immediately after the towers came down, to assist rescue workers by moving debris.

More recently, Dr. Steven Jones has come out with papers about the red and grey chips. Right now I’m taking a wait-and-see attitude on those. I don’t feel qualified to evaluate his evidence myself. (I took only one semester of chemistry in college, whereas I had two years of physics and subsequently tutored students in basic physics.) So, I’m going to wait and see if Jones manages to convince any significant number of chemists, fire experts, etc.

An objection to the explosive demolition hypothesis that I find convincing is that the collapses were not accompanied by explosive sounds loud enough to be demolition charges. Witnesses did hear explosions. However, were any of these explosions loud enough to be demolition charges going off? I would expect demolition charges to make unmistakably loud sounds in the videos. Instead, all we hear in the videos I’ve seen is the roar of the collapse.

On that basis I’m inclined to rule out explosive demolition. Note that this does not rule out the possible use of thermite as an incendiary. So, as far as I’m concerned, the only question is how strong the evidence for the latter is. On that question, the jury is out.

In my opinion, the 9/11 Truth movement should not be emphasizing demolition. There’s plenty of other kinds of evidence of coverups — evidence which truly can be evaluated based just on common sense, not requiring any specialized knowledge.

and then suddenly claim that you no longer see any evidence of controlled demolition

This isn’t sudden at all. My opinion has shifted only slightly since early 2008.

because you are now pushing the Pakistan/Saudi Arabia angle on 9/11?

Unfortunately, as I’ll explain in future posts, the “Pakistan/Saudi Arabia angle” happens to be where some of the strongest evidence can be found, especially when coupled with the 9/11 Commission’s ridiculous excuse for non-curiosity about the sources of funding of the attacks. Of course, this evidence may well be a limited hangout. But it’s an obvious smoking gun that needs to be investigated thoroughly, without necessarily assuming that it’s the end of the story. I think it’s important to emphasize the history of U.S. and NATO support for Islamist terrorism, not just in Afghanistan back in the 1980′s, but subsequently in Eastern Europe as well.

More about this in a future blog post.

Another thing that needs further investigation is what happened with the FAA and NORAD, and why did they lie. I don’t regard this whole area as quite as much of a smoking gun as some people in the 9/11 Truth movement think it is, but it is an area where it has been officially admitted that there were lies and coverups. Hence we clearly need an independent investigation of why all these lies and coverups. I don’t think we should just let the relevant inspector generals have the last word.

Also, any truly independent investigation should listen to the testimonies of the various whistleblowers who approached the Jersey Girls, but who were ignored by the 9/11 Commission. Of course, we don’t know who all these whistleblowers are, and we don’t know how credible they all are, but they should at least be listened to.

So, Diane, you now cover your eyes and don’t see all the hundreds of explosives in the videos

“Explosions,” yes. Explosives, no. The question is, what caused those “explosions”?

Perhaps you have allowed JREFers and other phony sophists to bamboozle you with talk about “buckling columns” and “failing welded connections” and “horizontal members becoming unshored” and blah blah blah…when none of that can explain why the LOWER portions of the towers that were UNDAMAGED and built to hold up 20 times the weight of the tops of the buildings stood for almost 30 years before 9/11 and held up not only the top of the buildings just fine, but held up just fine in the face of hurricane force windstorms that had put way more stress on the buildings than anything on 9/11

The towers were designed to withstand hurricane winds. They weren’t designed to withstand an avalanche being dropped on them from above.

Hello? Hello? The mainstream of the 9/11 Truth movement does NOT believe in killing people, or threatening people, to further its cause. ALL of the 9/11 Truth activists I’ve known personally have been (as far as I can tell) strictly law-abiding and nonviolent.

Occasionally in the Truth Action forum, I’ve seen complaints by relatively mainstream 9/11 Truth activists about being harassed or threatened by some of the fringier folks in the movement. So, apparently there are some people in the movement who do resort to unsavory tactics – and who are suspected, by others in the movement, to be agent provocateurs. But they certainly are not at all representative of the movement as a whole.

If the JREFers wish to take a stand for scientific methodology, they should set an example by avoiding hasty overgeneralizations about any group of people.

P.S., July 14, 2009: Please see also the following:

• Statements Against Violence and Racism by the Scholars for 9/11 Truth
• The Truth Action forum’s Mission Statement and Guiding Principles

I’ve been busy with other things over the past year, such as a new job. Also, my views and priorities have changed somewhat. But, over the next few weeks, I will now take the time to post updates on my views, and to do some further research.

Briefly: I still believe that we need a more independent follow-up to the 9/11 Commission, which was compromised by conflicts of interest such as Philip Zelikow’s ties to the Bush administration. And it is clear to me that something is being covered up, for reasons I’ll spell out in future posts. But I don’t claim to know what has been covered up, and my opinions on what is most likely have changed over the past couple of years.

I’m no longer inclined to believe in WTC demolition theories, for reasons I’ll explain in another future post. Also I’m no longer inclined to believe that “9/11 was an inside job” in general.

I don’t rule out certain limited kinds of “inside job” hypotheses as possibilities, but I now think other possibilities are more likely, such as a possible coverup of involvement by officials of one or more “allied” foreign governments such as Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, to which the U.S. government has deliberately turned a blind eye for whatever reason – possibly just diplomatic reasons, although I suspect there may be more to it than that. Also I think we should take a good hard look at the past history of U.S. government support for Islamist terrorists, which continued after the well-known example of the Soviet-Afghan war. (See US Intelligence Links to Islamic Militancy and Al-Qaeda in the Balkans on the History Commons site.)

In any case, I think we need to demand accountability from our government regarding its handling of the 9/11 attacks.

During the period when I was intensely involved in the 9/11 Truth movement (summer 2007 to spring 2008), I always opposed what I now call grand conspiracy ideology, e.g. claims about overarching, world-micromanaging cabals such as “the Illuminati” and “the New World Order.” Grand conspiracy ideology, which is promoted by some though by no means all people in the 9/11 Truth movement, is historically rooted in religion-based bigotry of one kind or another. The original “Illuminati” scares were rooted in a fear of atheists. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were rooted in a hatred of Jews. The 1980′s version of the “Illuminati” scare vilified primarily Pagans, occultists, and Satanists, plus also Freemasons, as well as atheists and sometimes Jews, plus also feminists, gay rights activists, and environmentalists. The current version is an elaboration on the 1980′s version. And, although grand conspiracy ideology features an alleged evil “Elite,” it has harmed a lot of people who were not elite. The vast majority of the victims of anti-Jewish pogroms were anything but elite. Likewise, the vast majority of the falsely accused in the “Satanic Ritual Abuse” scare were ordinary folks.

I still oppose grand conspiracy ideology and regard it as very dangerous. I would like very much to hear from others who oppose it and who are interested in debunking it.

I also believe that the debunking of grand conspiracy ideology — and debunking of the more outlandish 9/11 inside-job theories too, for that matter — can be a lot more effective when combined with credible calls for government accountability regarding 9/11. Some debunkers, such as Chip Berlet, have said that they agree with the call for an independent investigation of 9/11, on the grounds that the government should be held accountable even if no one in the government was guilty of anything worse than incompetence. But I haven’t yet seen Chip Berlet spell out, in detail, the reasons why he thinks a new investigation is necessary, or the particular questions he thinks should be investigated. In my opinion, debunkers such as Berlet would be more effective — i.e., more likely to be taken seriously by people who believe in 9/11 inside-job theories — if, in addition to debunking whatever they wish to debunk, they would also devote some significant amount of time and space (at least one full page) to making the case for a new investigation, thereby establishing some common ground with those people whom they wish to influence. Doing so would also set a positive example, which is more likely to be effective than just raining on someone’s parade.

More generally, I would like to see more civil discussion of 9/11-related issues by people on all sides. People in the 9/11 Truth movement need to slow down on jumping to the conclusion that people who disagree with them are disinfo agents. On the other hand, people in the debunker camp need to cut out the amateur psychoanalysis. People on all sides need to realize that insults, name-calling, and other ad hominems just make one’s own side look dogmatic and unreasonable.

An example of what I mean by amateur psychoanalysis, on the part of some debunkers, is the claim that inside-job theory believers somehow find that belief “comforting.” Hello? Most people do NOT find it at all “conforting” to believe that one’s own government has murdered thousands of its own citizens! The only people who might find this “comforting” would be people who already believed in a grand conspiracy ideology before being introduced to 9/11 inside job theories. In my experience, people in general do tend to be “conforted” by having their own worldview confirmed, whatever their worldview might be. But, for most other people, the process of being convinced of 9/11 inside job theories is anything but comforting.

I’ve rambled a bit. Over the next few days, I plan to write some posts which will:

1) Make the case for an independent investigation of 9/11 without advocating inside job theories.

2) Explain why I’m no longer inclined to believe in WTC demolition theories

3) Do some debunking of grand conspiracy ideologies.

I hope I can find some people interested in joining me in #3. I consider grand conspiracy ideology to be extremely dangerous, being the type of “conspiracy theory” which has, historically, caused the most harm to the most people.

I’ll have more to say about it after I see it.

The relevant articles are:

Article II
Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression.

…

Article XXXIII
Repeatedly Ignored and Failed to Respond to High Level Intelligence Warnings of Planned Terrorist Attacks in the US, Prior to 911.

Article XXXIV
Obstruction of the Investigation into the Attacks of September 11, 2001.

Article XXXV
Endangering the Health of 911 First Responders.

Of these, the most relevant for our purposes are Article XXXIII and Article XXXIV.

The page begins with a summary of the articles, followed by more detailed versions of each of them. The more detailed version of Article XXXIII says:

ARTICLE XXXIII

REPEATEDLY IGNORED AND FAILED TO RESPOND TO HIGH LEVEL INTELLIGENCE WARNINGS OF PLANNED TERRORIST ATTACKS IN THE US, PRIOR TO 911

In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice President, failed in his Constitutional duties to take proper steps to protect the nation prior to September 11, 2001.

The White House’s top counter-terrorism adviser, Richard A. Clarke, has testified that from the beginning of George W. Bush’s presidency until September 11, 2001, Clarke attempted unsuccessfully to persuade President Bush to take steps to protect the nation against terrorism. Clarke sent a memorandum to then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice on January 24, 2001, “urgently” but unsuccessfully requesting “a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with the impending al Qaeda attack.”

In April 2001, Clarke was finally granted a meeting, but only with second-in-command department representatives, including Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who made light of Clarke’s concerns.

Clarke confirms that in June, July, and August, 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) warned the president in daily briefings of unprecedented indications that a major al Qaeda attack was going to happen against the United States somewhere in the world in the weeks and months ahead. Yet, Clarke was still unable to convene a cabinet-level meeting to address the issue.

Condoleezza Rice has testified that George Tenet met with the president 40 times to warn him that a major al-Qaeda attack was going to take place, and that in response the president did not convene any meetings of top officials. At such meetings, the FBI could have shared information on possible terrorists enrolled at flight schools. Among the many preventive steps that could have been taken, the Federal Aviation Administration, airlines, and airports might have been put on full alert.

According to Condoleezza Rice, the first and only cabinet-level meeting prior to 9/11 to discuss the threat of terrorist attacks took place on September 4, 2001, one week before the attacks in New York and Washington.

On August 6, 2001, President Bush was presented a President’s Daily Brief (PDB) article titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” The lead sentence of that PDB article indicated that Bin Laden and his followers wanted to “follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and ‘bring the fighting to America.’” The article warned: “Al-Qa’ida members–including some who are US citizens–have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.”

The article cited a “more sensational threat reporting that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a US aircraft,” but indicated that the CIA had not been able to corroborate such reporting. The PDB item included information from the FBI indicating “patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.” The article also noted that the CIA and FBI were investigating “a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Laden supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.”

The president spent the rest of August 6, and almost all the rest of August 2001 on vacation. There is no evidence that he called any meetings of his advisers to discuss this alarming report. When the title and substance of this PDB article were later reported in the press, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice began a sustained campaign to play down its significance, until the actual text was eventually released by the White House.

New York Times writer Douglas Jehl put it this way: “In a single 17-sentence document, the intelligence briefing delivered to President Bush in August 2001 spells out the who, hints at the what and points towards the where of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington that followed 36 days later.”

Eleanor Hill, Executive Director of the joint congressional committee investigating the performance of the US intelligence community before September 11, 2001, reported in mid-September 2002 that intelligence reports a year earlier “reiterated a consistent and constant theme: Osama bin Laden’s intent to launch terrorist attacks inside the United States.”

That joint inquiry revealed that just two months before September 11, an intelligence briefing for “senior government officials” predicted a terrorist attack with these words: “The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning.”

Given the White House’s insistence on secrecy with regard to what intelligence was given to President Bush, the joint-inquiry report does not divulge whether he took part in that briefing. Even if he did not, it strains credulity to suppose that those “senior government officials” would have kept its alarming substance from the president.

Again, there is no evidence that the president held any meetings or took any action to deal with the threats of such attacks.

In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.

The more detailed version of Article XXXIV says:

ARTICLE XXXIV

OBSTRUCTION OF INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice President, obstructed investigations into the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

Following September 11, 2001, President Bush and Vice President Cheney took strong steps to thwart any and all proposals that the circumstances of the attack be addressed. Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell was forced to renege on his public promise on September 23 that a “White Paper” would be issued to explain the circumstances. Less than two weeks after that promise, Powell apologized for his “unfortunate choice of words,” and explained that Americans would have to rely on “information coming out in the press and in other ways.”

On Sept. 26, 2001, President Bush drove to Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters in Langley, Virginia, stood with Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet and said: “My report to the nation is, we’ve got the best intelligence we can possibly have thanks to the men and women of the C.I.A.” George Tenet subsequently and falsely claimed not to have visited the president personally between the start of Bush’s long Crawford vacation and September 11, 2001.

Testifying before the 9/11 Commission on April 14, 2004, Tenet answered a question from Commission member Timothy Roemer by referring to the president’s vacation (July 29-August 30) in Crawford and insisting that he did not see the president at all in August 2001. “You never talked with him?” Roemer asked. “No,” Tenet replied, explaining that for much of August he too was “on leave.” An Agency spokesman called reporters that same evening to say Tenet had misspoken, and that Tenet had briefed Bush on August 17 and 31. The spokesman explained that the second briefing took place after the president had returned to Washington, and played down the first one, in Crawford, as uneventful.

In his book, At the Center of the Storm, (2007) Tenet, refers to what is almost certainly his August 17 visit to Crawford as a follow-up to the “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US” article in the CIA-prepared President’s Daily Brief of August 6. That briefing was immortalized in a Time Magazine photo capturing Harriet Myers holding the PDB open for the president, as two CIA officers sit by. It is the same briefing to which the president reportedly reacted by telling the CIA briefer, “All right, you’ve covered your ass now.” (Ron Suskind, The One-Percent Doctrine, p. 2, 2006). In At the Center of the Storm, Tenet writes: “A few weeks after the August 6 PDB was delivered, I followed it to Crawford to make sure that the president stayed current on events.”

A White House press release suggests Tenet was also there a week later, on August 24. According to the August 25, 2001, release, President Bush, addressing a group of visitors to Crawford on August 25, told them: “George Tenet and I, yesterday, we piled in the new nominees for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Vice Chairman and their wives and went right up the canyon.”

In early February, 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney warned then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle that if Congress went ahead with an investigation, administration officials might not show up to testify. As pressure grew for an investigation, the president and vice president agreed to the establishment of a congressional joint committee to conduct a “Joint Inquiry.” Eleanor Hill, Executive Director of the Inquiry, opened the Joint Inquiry’s final public hearing in mid-September 2002 with the following disclaimer: “I need to report that, according to the White House and the Director of Central Intelligence, the president’s knowledge of intelligence information relevant to this inquiry remains classified, even when the substance of the intelligence information has been declassified.”

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was created on November 27, 2002, following the passage of congressional legislation signed into law by President Bush. The President was asked to testify before the Commission. He refused to testify except for one hour in private with only two Commission members, with no oath administered, with no recording or note taking, and with the Vice President at his side. Commission Co-Chair Lee Hamilton has written that he believes the commission was set up to fail, was underfunded, was rushed, and did not receive proper cooperation and access to information.

A December 2007 review of classified documents by former members of the Commission found that the commission had made repeated and detailed requests to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 for documents and other information about the interrogation of operatives of Al Qaeda, and had been told falsely by a top C.I.A. official that the agency had “produced or made available for review” everything that had been requested.

In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.

At some point I should dig up primary sources for various details mentioned above. Hopefully Dennis Kucinich’s website will soon be providing supporting documentation, as it did for H.Res. 333 last year.

It doesn’t seem likely that impeachment effort will go anywhere, given non-support by leading Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi, and given that Bush’s term is almost over anyway.

What I do hope is that Bush, Cheney, et al can be tried for various crimes after they leave office. If/when Kucinich provides supporting documents for his articles of impeachment, he will thereby aid subsequent efforts to push for a criminal indictment of Bush, Cheney, et al.

I looked up some relevant threads in the JREF forum:

• Kucinich Introduces 35 Articles of Impeachment
• The Conspiracy According to Dennis Kucinich

In the first of the above two threads, a post by Pardalis contains a link to a page on Mark Roberts’s site claiming that “The EPA’s assurances that the air was safe to breathe applied the neighborhoods near Ground Zero, not at Ground Zero.” [sic] At some point I should look further into this claim.

Jon Gold posted about Kucinich’s articles of impeachment on 911blogger. Gold wrote:

Dennis Kucinich just introduced 35 articles of impeachment. Number 33 had to do with criminal negligence with regard to 9/11. Number 34 had to do with obstruction of justice with regard to 9/11. Number 35 had to do with how this administration has treated the 9/11 First Responders.

Thank you Dennis Kucinich!

Pat at Screw Loose Change responds:

You know how it is, the Troofers believe the government pulled off 9-11. Negligence implies that the government did not pull it off. But they’ll take it anyway.

Not everyone in the 9/11 Truth movement advocates the idea that “the government pulled off 9-11.” In particular, I don’t think Jon Gold does.

The central aim of the 9/11 Truth movement is not to promote any specific theory of what happened, but simply to call for an independent investigation, with subpoena power, of possible government wrongdoing in connection with 9/11. People in the 9/11 Truth movement vary quite a bit in their perception of what kinds of wrongdoing are likely.

• The beginning of the UFO/ET discussion
• Comment by realitydesign — May 10, 2008 @ 5:39 am
• Comment by patricksmcnally — May 10, 2008 @ 6:13 pm
• Comment by realitydesign — May 10, 2008 @ 6:38 pm
• Comment by patricksmcnally — May 10, 2008 @ 8:08 pm
• Comment by realitydesign — May 11, 2008 @ 11:26 am
• Comment by patricksmcnally — May 11, 2008 @ 6:15 pm
• Comment by realitydesign — May 12, 2008 @ 8:56 am
• My view

The beginning of the UFO/ET discussion:

The ET discussion was sparked by Patrick S. McNally’s reply to this earlier comment, in which realitydesign wrote, as an argument for the advantages of videos over written communication:

You get to see the person’s behavior as they speak and look at them which allows your intuition to kick in as a tool to help decipher the nature of the information or the credibility of the person- on a gut level.

To which Pagrick S. McNally replied:

My gut level response to anyone who starts off about UFOs is that they sound like a hoaxer. Maybe that gut level intuition is wrong, but this is precisely why one attaches some significance to cross-references.

(referring back to my earlier pointing out of the ability to cross-reference as an advantage of print media).

Below are complete copies of all the subsequent comments, which I’ll delete from their original position.

Comment by realitydesign — May 10, 2008 @ 5:39 am:

“My gut level response to anyone who starts off about UFOs is that they sound like a hoaxer. Maybe that gut level intuition is wrong, but this is precisely why one attaches some significance to cross-references.”

I see.

Do you think that all mention of UFOs from astronauts to pilots to military to CIA to civilians across the globe over 60+ years are hoax based?

Comment by patricksmcnally — May 10, 2008 @ 6:13 pm:

I’m not certain that there is any one sinlge explanation for all reports of UFOs in the last century. Literally, UFO just means “unidentified flying object” and such could be a bird in some cases. I do think that the development of military technology after 1945 saw a rise in the number of reported incidents of unidentified flying objects, and I doubt that such is an accident. Some proportion of the incidents in this time-frame almost certainly are the result of secret military technology being tested on the sly. But the exact percentage of such cases is impossible to determine. Even so, nothing about the reports of such UFOs within the last 6 decades or so has really compellingly supported the ET thesis. More likely we have a mixture of bird-sightings and military tests combined in some proportion which can’t be determined.

Comment by realitydesign — May 10, 2008 @ 6:38 pm:

“Even so, nothing about the reports of such UFOs within the last 6 decades or so has really compellingly supported the ET thesis.”

I don’t know how you could conclude something like this- totally false. There are now hundreds of military and high level government people worldwide who have gone on record saying ETs are real and they are/have been here. Even Astronauts have gone on record saying this. Then you get into eye witness testimony from hundreds of countries, mass sightings, abductions which have been seriously studied by highly respected Dr.s from around the world.

The phenomenon is real, as real as galileos finding about heliocentrism which was suppressed for 200 years.

P.S. sorry Diane, I imagine this isn’t the place for UFO stuff so I’m done.

Patick you might want to start with the disclosure project- Dr. Steven Greer has collected over 400 professionals testimony about ufos many of them military.

Comment by patricksmcnally — May 10, 2008 @ 8:08 pm:

> There are now hundreds of military and high level government people worldwide who have gone on record saying ETs are real and they are/have been here.

That’s one of the features which makes it smell like disinformation. John Lear was with the CIA for 17 years:

LINK

Since at least 2003 Lear has been circulating the story that “we have not been going back to the moon because we were told to stay away. That’s why Nasa abruptly canceled the program.” Coming from a “former” CIA man, this story stinks of sensationalized disinfo.

Comment by realitydesign — May 11, 2008 @ 11:26 am:

“Coming from a “former” CIA man, this story stinks of sensationalized disinfo.”

But the VAST majority of sightings and info come from regular folks. So these high level people are just corroborating. There are many genuine whistleblowers coming from high levels as well- they are not all disinfo that’s ridiculous. John was a UFO researcher back in the 1980’s and has done a lot and worked with many people- he is very well respected and if anything- colors up things when telling stories, but his basic premises, which are shared by many others in the field are solid if you ask me.

Comment by patricksmcnally — May 11, 2008 @ 6:15 pm:

The vast majority of sightings and info which come from regular folks are compatible with the likelihood of secret military technology experimentation, carried out by earthlings without any need for assuming the presence of ETs. The ET yarn reads like a deflection exercise meant to protect domestic military secrets.

Comment by realitydesign — May 12, 2008 @ 8:56 am:

“The vast majority of sightings and info which come from regular folks are compatible with the likelihood of secret military technology experimentation, carried out by earthlings without any need for assuming the presence of ETs. The ET yarn reads like a deflection exercise meant to protect domestic military secrets.”

That response was feasible 50 years ago- but is profoundly insufficient today- in light of all the people who have come forward since then with repsect to all the different aspects of the UFO/ET field.

My view:

The topic of UFO’s and ET’s is not one I’ve studied in-depth, so I don’t have a strong opinion. Offhand, I’m not inclined to believe that UFO’s are alien spacecraft. I believe that one should look for other possible explanations before concluding that they definitely are alien spacecraft.

One thing I do consider extremely unlikely is some folks’ belief in some sort of longstanding secret deal between ET’s and human elites, complete with interbreeding, a la David Icke.

One essential ingredient that you need to do all kinds of good deeds in this world is MONEY. There are probably easily 100 million Americans who believe in at least LIHOP, one can just imagine the number of individuals across the globe who also believe this way. Why, oh why, in this day and age of the internet and paypal, can’t we get 100 million people to chip in $1 per month or, say, $10 per year, to fund 911 research and activism? To put this in perspective, the NIST report cost $20 million. 100 million people dipping into their pockets and pulling out 1 measely dollar would fund 5 NIST reports, per month! And they wouldn’t have to even think about it. Once they sign up, the money is deducted from their personal accounts automatically.

More to the point, I suppose, is why is nobody trying to first create such an organization and functionality, and then sign people up for such a program? Not everybody is in a position to pass out CD’s or confront elected officials, e.g., or maybe they’re just not inclined to do so. But there’s VERY, VERY few people who can’t afford $10 / year.

Part of the problem is that there just hasn’t been a critical mass of mindshare (for lack of a better phrase) within the public consciousness for this sort of thing in general. Well, glory be, NOW THERE IS AT LEAST A ‘ROLE MODEL’, IN POLITICS. Thanks to Howard Dean 4 years ago, and principally Ron Paul and Barack Obama this year, we have seen how ‘crowd funding’ has finally come of age in politics. I’m not sure what the best place is to begin studying this, but dailykos.com is a good place to start. dailykos.com is not just about polls and candidates, it’s also about ASKING PEOPLE TO CHIP IN TO FUND CANDIDATES.

So, to you and any other 911 activists out there, if you want 911 activism to be self sustaining, you need to study the application of crowd funding in politics, and apply the lessons. Somehow or other, you need to set up a legal organization that can take donations, and bill people’s credit cards at $1/month, $5/quarter, $10/year, whatever. And you further need to allow them some latitude in how that money is used. Of course, you need a web site, also. Maybe 911blogger, itself, could be the sort of portal web site that the activist/financial organization mostly “lives” on, but a distinct, dedicated web site exists mostly to conduct business – explaining the concepts, presenting the projects, registration, functionality for directing funds, etc. In a sense, 911blogger.com could become the dailykos.com of 911 activism.

I will refer to the new, activist/financial organization that I call for, just for ease of communication, as 911kos, and it’s website as 911kos.com. (No, those are NOT good names, but they’ll do for the purpose of this post, especially since they’ll remind people of the dailykos.com angle.)

If you can throw this together quickly enough, you could start the ball rolling with appeals for people to sign up and dedicate the lion’s share of their first year’s donation to the ballot initiative. As the Jersey girls have had national exposure, and most people still remember them, if they could make a brief video explaining A) what 911kos is all about and why it’s necessary B) how crowd-funding has revolutionized politics C) what the ballot initiative is and D) asking people to contribute at least $10/year on a recurring basis, with an extra 1 time donation if they can afford it for a ‘ballot initiative money bomb’ , then I think this could go viral and be extremely successful.

I don’t have a head for business, but the initial appeal for funds might have a suggested (and default) funding division amongst 3 911 projects that I can think of off the top of my head, that I consider important, viz.,

Project 1 – Ballot Initative (mostly to pay workers to collect signatures, I suppose), $5.00
Project 2 – Laboratory work on WTC dust sample, $2.00 (Professor Stephen Jones has mentioned that some of the research would go more quickly if some of the people working on this had funding.)
Project 3 – Verification of claims made by Daniel Hopsicker re associates of Mohammed Atta, $2.00

(The extra dollar would go for overhead, such as web hosting fees.)

I’m sure the founders of such a program can think of additional worthy projects, but you want to keep it simple in terms of an initial appeal, and having a simple set of default values.

I’ve long been fascinated by just how ineffective activists of many stripes are – 911 activists really aren’t that different, in this regard. (If we judge the success of 911 activism by how many members of Congress are willing to admit that, as Max Cleland told us, the 911 commission report was a “whitewash”, and furthermore that we need a re-investigation, we can only honestly conclude that the 911 movement has, so far, failed.) The meager results of activists, in general, is not simply by (repeated) accident, it also has to do with deliberate actions taken to sabotage the activists’ efforts. I don’t know a whole lot about this subject, but I know that you can read Chomsky, in various books of his on the subject of propaganda and “control of the public mind”, to start grokking it from some perspectives.

Chomsky often remarks about the disempowerment that results from the sense of feeling isolated – even when polls shows that, on a given issue, your attitude can be the majority one! One thing that crowd-funding, and cyberspace ‘gathering places’ like dailykos accomplish is that people realize that a) they are not alone and b) by combing their efforts, however humble individually, they can have a HUGE effect

I think the least we can do for our country, for the memory of those Americans who died on 911, and for memory of the 100′s of thousands of Iraqis who have died, directly or indirectly, in a war fraudulently justified by 911, is to get a 911kos and 911kos.com going.

If we do so, I think we’ll find that not only we Americans who suspect the worst regarding 911 aren’t alone, but millions of our brothers and sisters throughout the world will join us.

But first, we need to get organized. Correct?

http://www.pdamerica.org

http://www.change-congress.org

I’ll be emailing some members of New York 9/11 Truth.

I just now replied, belatedly, to the following comments of yours:

• Two comments of yours starting here beneath my post 9/11 Truth movement goals and strategy?
• Two comments of yours starting here beneath my post My current views on 9/11 – brief summary

My replies are in the threads linked above. Sorry about the delay in replying.

Please see also my earlier reply to this comment of yours here beneath my post “9/11 Guide” page about Richard Gage.

• Complete copy of a comment by realitydesign
• Complete copy of a comment by Patrick S. McNally
• Complete copy of another comment by realitydesign
• My response to realitydesign

Complete copy of a comment by realitydesign

realitydesign wrote, on May 7, 2008 @ 8:50 pm:

Wow, I just watched partof a new interview by Camelot of John Lear (lear jet) telling basically all he knows about ‘what’s really going on’ in our world. Mind-blowing to say the least considering who he is and his reputation. He mentioned 911 though and that was fascinating. He said for example:

1. There were no planes on 911 that crashed into buildings it was all holograph tech done from the E4B that was in the skies that day. He said the holograph tech is so advanced that people simply have no idea what level the playing field is actually on. He said you can literally have perfect hologram people walking around and no one can see the difference, hologram ufos in the sky and tech that cloaks and can make vehicles appear at like 10X their size- he says it’s all for future psyops like 911.

2. He also said the towers were brought down by DEW from space sites although there were explosions in the towers- some of which made the ‘plane’ impacts etc. He said the concrete was disassociated and that’s how it got down to 80 microns or whatever in size.

3. He also said that the shanksville flight was supposed to hit wtc7 but they messed something up but decided to drop wtc7 anyway and he said that’s the part that is so obvious- the fact that they dropped it and hoped no one would notice.

4. He also said Above Top Secret.com is CIA run, to gauge public opinion on such matters.

I need to watch the whole interview it’s 4 hours!

Complete copy of a comment by Patrick S. McNally

patricksmcnally wrote, on May 7, 2008 @ 10:21 pm:

> He also said Above Top Secret.com is CIA run, to gauge public opinion on such matters

I got a similar impression of John Lear himself, running around with UFO theories he has all the potential markings of either a disinformationist or else simply a prankster. On what basis does Lear claim to know the intent towards WTC 7? Personal intuition, or something else?

Complete copy of another comment by realitydesign

realitydesign wrote, on May 8, 2008 @ 3:39 am:

‘On what basis does Lear claim to know the intent towards WTC 7? Personal intuition, or something else?’

It seemed like personal speculation on his part-maybe discussions he’s had with friends or whatever- didn’t seem like he had inside info.

I think his biggest gripe about 911 is that he claims flying into manhattan at 500 mph at that altitude and hitting the towers would be an amazing feat- impossible to do- he claims he couldn’t do it- same with the pentagon. Plus he and I’ve heard others also say, 767s CANNOT fly at those speeds at those low 0-700 ft) altitudes- they’d become super (VISIBLY) unstable. There is a guy from pilots for truth who called boeing (youtube) and asked if a 767 could do 500 mph at 700 feet- they lady from boeing started laughing out loud.

My response to realitydesign

realitydesign wrote:

Plus he and I’ve heard others also say, 767s CANNOT fly at those speeds at those low 0-700 ft) altitudes- they’d become super (VISIBLY) unstable.

This is a claim that can and should be checked. Not sure how best to check it, though, since I don’t personally know anyone in the aviation biz.

There is a guy from pilots for truth who called boeing (youtube) and asked if a 767 could do 500 mph at 700 feet- they lady from boeing started laughing out loud.

This by itself doesn’t tell us much. What, exactly, was she laughing about? For all we know, based on the above sentence, could have been “hee hee hee, another nutty conspiracy theorist.”

Anyhow, you keep referring us to videos. Brief (and necessarily very incomplete) references to stuff you’ve heard on videos aren’t very helpful here. If you have the time and patience to sit down and write a complete transcript of at least key portions of a video (maybe not the whole thing), that would be more helpful.

More generally, though, I’m leery of videos as a source of information. A big disadvantage of videos (and TV) over text sources is that, with text sources, it’s much easier to go at your own pace, think critically about the information, and double-check stuff as you go along (at least by Googling to see what the other side has to say, if nothing else).