Alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction?

In a comment after a post titled Some People Will Believe Anything, about the Iranian president Ahmadinejad’s recent visit to Columbia University, blog author muzeuterpe claims:

I could give you the names and addresses of at 5 soldiers who were part of George W’s initial invasion who are suffering from neurological damage caused by the ‘non-existent’ chemical weapons.

A very startling claim, to say the least.

muzeuterpe, are you sure that your friends were injured by chemical weapons and not by bombs or depleted uranium? Bomb blasts can cause quite a bit of hidden neurological damage to people with no visible injuries.

Googling “neurological damage Iraq war” has led me to this news story, and a bunch of similar stories, about neurological damage from bomb blasts, not from chemical weapons. I also found some articles about the use of depleted uranium by the U.S. forces. The only article I found about neurological damage due to chemical weapons is this New York Times article, about veterans of the first Gulf War, not the most recent Iraq war. I then tried Googling “Iraq war neurological damage chemical weapons” and again found such reports pertaining only to the first Gulf war.

Are you a paleoconservative? Find out!

Are you a paleoconservative? You might be a paleoconservative without knowing it. Many paleoconservatives, especially within the 9/11 Truth movement apparently, are unaware that their political stance has a name.

Some paleoconservatives think of themselves as “neither left nor right,” because they agree with the left about some things, such as the war in Iraq and the Bush administration’s attacks on constitutional rights, while they agree with the right about other things, such as income tax.

Some youthful paleoconservatives like to believe not only that they themselves are “neither left nor right,” but also that “left” and “right” are nothing but artificial constructs set up by the powers-that-be as some sort of deliberate top-down scheme to divide people and distract people from the alleged “real issues,” whereas these young folks fancy that they themselves have broken out of the “Matrix” and found the Real Truth. Of course, young folks are always omniscient…. As far as I can tell, most of these kids have delved into the history (or, at least, the alleged history) of secret societies but not the history of political movements or the history of political thought. But I digress.

The term “paleoconservative” was coined and adopted by conservatives who opposed the neoconservatives. Far from being “neither left nor right,” paleoconservatives can arguably claim to be more genuinely conservative than neocons like Bush and Cheney.

So, what is paleoconservativism, exactly?

The 9/11 Truth movement needs a more visible, better organized left wing!

If indeed a cabal within the U.S. government orchestrated or was at least somehow complicit in the 9/11 attacks, this shouldn’t be just a left wing issue or a right wing issue. It should be a matter of concern to all Americans, regardless of our political views on other matters. A healthy 9/11 Truth movement should include people and groups with a wide range of opinions about this country’s problems in general and how they might be solved, and who disagree on many different issues, yet who are able and willing to work together on the few goals we can all agree on: (1) finding the real perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks and bringing them to justice, and (2) opposing the things that 9/11 has been used as an excuse for, namely the wars, torture, imperialism, the attacks on civil liberties, and the attacks on the constitutional separation of powers. And indeed the 9/11 Truth movement does include people of many different political persuasions, including quite a few left wingers.

But the 9/11 Truth movement today is dominated by several flavors of paleoconservative ideology. For example, I’ve seen a lot more support for Ron Paul than for Dennis Kucinich. There’s also a lot of focus on the Federal Reserve System – an important concern in its own right, but probably of only marginal relevance to 9/11, unless you happen to believe in an ideology which blames all or most of the world’s ills on a conspiracy of the big bankers. (I’ll be writing more about this later. For now, see my blog entry on Some of the rhetoric against the Federal Reserve System.) There’s also a lot of talk about that bugaboo of the religious right wing, the “New World Order.” Also the 9/11 Truth movement has attracted more than its share of global warming deniers (e.g. Alex Jones), Holocaust deniers, and outright Jew-haters (e.g. Eric Hufschmid, Christopher Bollyn, and American Free Press). As far as I can tell, only a small minority of people in the 9/11 Truth movement agree with the Jew-haters, but they are a highly visible minority, some of whose writings and videos are referenced in the better-known videos such as Loose Change and even 9/11 Mysteries.

Richard W. Behan’s “War on Terror” article, Mikkelina’s blog, and income tax

Thanks to Mikkeluna’s thoughts for calling attention to The Mega-Lie Called the “War on Terror”: A Masterpiece of Propaganda by Richard W. Behan, AlterNet, September 27, 2007. This article contains a concise history of Bush’s and Cheney’s pre-9/11 plans to invade both Afghanistan and Iraq, for which 9/11 then provided a convenient excuse.

“Mikkelina’s thoughts” is a blog here on WordPress which contains posts in support of the 9/11 Truth movement. I was glad to see that it also contains posts that appear to be somewhat left-leaning, including When will the American people yell: ENOUGH!, in which Mikkelina endorses Michael Moore’s call for universal healthcare, and Governor Schwarzenegger: Sie sollten sich schämen!

Two 9/11 Truth blogs here on WordPress

In my opinion, the 9/11 Truth movement is way too dominated by the right wing alternative media, such as Prison Planet. Mostly this is by default: The “left gatekeepers” have for too long imposed a blackout on the 9/11 Truth movement in most of the left wing alternative media. But it means that the 9/11 Truth movement is, to a large degree, dominated by paleoconservative ideology. To help counterbalance this, I’ll be on the lookout for left-leaning blogs that support the 9/11 Truth movement.

So far, most of the 9/11 Truth blogs I’ve found here on WordPress are decidedly right-wing. Below are two exceptions.

WTC 7 – witnesses heard countdown?

As I pointed out in my blog entry Straight-down collapse of WTC 7 – what do “debunkers” say?, there are good reasons to believe that WTC 7 was brought down by controlled demolition. However, we need to be careful to present a strong case. Some of the evidence that some people have presented for controlled demolition is not very strong.

One example I mentioned was the evidence of foreknowledge of WTC 7’s collapse (as discussed, for example, on 9-11 Research). According to this interview with Deputy Fire Chief Peter Hayden, from the April 2002 Firehouse Magazine, firefighters had legitimate reasons to fear that Building 7 might collapse. So, evidence that a bunch of people expected WTC 7 to collapse is not good evidence of demolition. Even the premature BBC report that WTC 7 “has collapsed” is not good evidence of demolition, but only of a misunderstood prediction that WTC 7 would soon collapse.

But there are also many eye-witness accounts by first responders who say they heard that Building 7 was going to be “brought down,” supposedly for safety reasons.

At first glance, this sounds like stronger evidence of demolition. But even that could easily be dismissed, by supporters of the official story, as having been nothing more than a garbled rumor — a simple, honestly mistaken, widely-circulated misunderstanding of official concerns that the building might spontaneously collapse. (Furthermore, even from the point of view of one who does believe that WTC 7 was deliberately demolished, it doesn’t make much sense for the conspirators to have broadcasted their intent.)

Harder to dismiss might be a bunch of testimonies by people who had overheard a countdown just before WTC 7 came down.

Some of the rhetoric against the Federal Reserve System

In the right wing anti-establishment alternative media, there’s a lot of focus on the Federal Reserve System as the alleged root of many of this country’s ills.

I’m inclined to agree that the Federal Reserve System puts too much power in the hands of bankers and that that’s probably a bad idea. However, some of the anti-Fed rhetoric I’ve been reading lately strikes me as greatly exaggerated.

It is alleged by some people that the Federal Reserve System is, in reality, nothing but a private banking cartel, “as federal as Federal Express.” (See, for example, JFK vs. The Federal Reserve by Anthony Wayne and Proof of the Banking Conspiracy: A Message from the Past by Randy Lavello.) Some have alleged, further, that the Fed’s sole real purpose is to make money for the banks by putting the government and all the rest of us deeper and deeper in debt. And it is alleged that at least some of the big bankers, in order to maintain their deadly grip via the Fed, are the main conspirators behind various crimes such as the JFK assassination, 9/11, etc.

9/11 family groups vs. Giuliani

Thanks to Rudy Watcher for calling attention to the New York Daily News article 9/11 coalition set to ‘Swift-boat’ Rudy Giuliani today by Jordan Lite, Monday, September 24th 2007.

A coalition of 9/11 families and rescue workers plans to continue efforts to derail former Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s bid for President at a midtown fund-raiser today.

…

“[Giuliani] wasn’t a hero on 9/11. He was a failure on 9/11,” Riches said.

“On the body of my dead son, he’s running for President.”

Giuliani’s handling of the terrorist attack and its aftermath has become a flash point as he campaigns for the GOP presidential nomination. Critics say his reputation as “America’s Mayor” glosses over pre-9/11 policies that cost lives in the twin towers and on The Pile.

Riches’ group, 9/11 Parents and Families of Firefighters and WTC Victims, claims faulty radios and a lack of communication between firefighters and police officers prevented responders from escaping from the buildings when they were about to fall. It also charges that Giuliani’s statements about air quality at the site allowed workers there to get sick.

Looking for more information about this group, I found the following:

• Some 9/11 groups want Giuliani silent at ceremony by Daniel Trotta, Reuters, Wed. Aug. 29, 2007
• The Legacy of Shame at Ground Zero: Where Are Our Loved Ones? by 9/11 Parents & Families of Firefighters & WTC Victims & The Skyscraper Safety Campaign, July 3, 2007, on Voices of September 11
• Links to various family group sites and other 9/11-related sites on the website of the Marriott WTC Survivors Group
• Coalition of 9/11 Families, which seems to have re-named itself the “World Trade Center United Family Group”
• Skyscraper Safety Campaign

The organization “9/11 Parents and Families of Firefighters and WTC Victims” does not seem to have a website.

NIST Review

I just now came across nistreview.org, “A review of the NIST WTC investigation.” This site contains papers mostly by supporters of the official story, but also Steven Jones’s paper, plus a bunch of interesting primary source material that had been obtained via FOIA requests, including the original plans for the WTC towers, report of WTC fire code compliance, and interviews with fire fighters and EMS workers.

Straight-down collapse of WTC 7 – what do “debunkers” say?

In my opinion, one of the strongest pieces of evidence against the official story of 9/11 is the straight-down vertical collapse of World Trade Center Building 7, which was located north of the main World Trade Center complex. See Jim Hoffman’s collection of WTC 7 Collapse videos (downloadable MPG files). It is extremely unlikely that a building could collapse in such a symmetrical, straight-down manner due to any cause other than controlled demolition. A building collapsing for any other reason would almost certainly tilt toward whichever side or corner had been weakened the most.

WTC 7 was hit by debris from the North Tower. It then caught fire, for reasons unknown, although not surprising, since WTC 7 contained fuel tanks and was built over an electrical substation. The fires were not fought, presumably due to a lack of sufficient water pressure. The extent of the fire has been disputed, but there were at least a few small fires in the building for seven hours before the building finally came down in the late afternoon.

According to the official story as explained in Chapter 5 of the FEMA report, WTC 7 collapsed primarily due to fire. However, as even the FEMA report itself admitted, “the best hypothesis” along these lines “has only a low probability of occurrence.” For more about the FEMA report, see this HTML copy of Chapter 5, annotated in red by an advocate of the controlled demolition hypothesis. (P.S., 10/19/2007: Please note that I do not necessarily agree with or endorse all the annotations in red.)

Since the straight-down collapse of WTC 7 seems to be such strong evidence against the official story, how have defenders of the official story tried to refute it? Let’s take a look.

First post

This blog will eventually discuss various different political issues of interest to New Yorkers, including local, national, and world issues. For now I’ll be focussing mainly on 9/11-related issues.