Terrorism | 08.09.2008
Filmmaker Urges International Tribunal to Probe 9/11
The Sept. 11 attacks have provided fertile ground for conspiracy theories
Italian film-maker Giulietto Chiesa, who was in Berlin for a screening of his documentary which questions the official US version of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has called for an international tribunal to probe events.
Chiesa was in Berlin at the weekend for a screening of his film which features, among others, novelist Gore Vidal and playwright Dario Fo as well as retired American professor of philosophy David Ray Griffin who advances conspiracy theories that contradict mainstream accounts of events of 11 September, 2001.
Federal Aviation Administration controllers, US Air Force pilots, military commanders and physicists also appear in the critical documentary, which the director hopes will create "political awareness" of the "faulty" official investigation into the events by the 9/11 Commission.
"Some of the individuals appearing in the film are former FBI and CIA agents, people who have in a sense taken a very big risk in speaking out. I am very grateful to them because they have done a big job," said Chiesa.
"The film would not have been possible without them," he said, adding that ZERO had been seen in France and Belgium at individual screenings, and by more than 20,000 people in Italy. But the film so far has not gained a distributor in Europe.
Pushing for an international tribunal
Chiesa, one of Italy's most respected journalists and a La Stampa foreign correspondent for more than 20 years, told his Berlin audience an 9/11 international tribunal could serve a useful purpose.
Alternative theories abound about what actually happened at the site of the twin towers
"If feelings were strong enough a positive result could be obtained, but it would not happen immediately. So far it's been the US administration that has won the information fight and obtained their result -- unfortunately," Chiesa said. "Our task is to inform millions of people of the true situation.
Everybody should be involved in this struggle with a tribunal or commission helping once we win approval for the idea," he said.
In an interview with German news agency dpa, Chiesa, a European parliamentary deputy, said Russian television is to give prime time airing to his film on the eve of this week's seventh anniversary of the attacks in New York and Washington.
"That means that some 30 million Russian citizens will learn the truth about what happened, which is a very big result for me."
Chiesa, whose documentary was first screened to a large German audience at the Goethe Institute in Munich in May, was clearly delighted at his reception in Berlin. "It's important that so many people have shown up," he said.
One of a panel of six experts debating the 9/11 topic in Berlin, Chiesa said he was eager for his film to gain more public support and become a "multiplicator" across Germany. "If that happens it means we are making politics in the right sense of the word."
Critics question government version of attacks
Andreas von Buelow, a controversial former German minister of technology, and ex-state secretary in the Defense Ministry, was among the Berlin participants who said further investigation was needed into 9/11.
He told dpa it was "one of life's characteristics that governments are prone to lie in order to achieve their agendas. The Americans told us that in Iraq, Saddam Hussein had something to do with al-Qaeda, which was absolutely untrue. Even the CIA knew this," he said.
Some say the US invasion of Iraq on a false pretext is proof of government lies of international events
"Then, they told us that Saddam Hussein was preparing weapons of mass destruction, which was also untrue, so they have been lying all over the place and are still fighting there. Meanwhile a million people have been killed."
Asked if there was any prospect of a policy change once the next US president was elected, he replied bluntly "No!"
Juergen Elsaesser, 51, a Berlin-based journalist and author whose latest book is titled "Terror Target Europe: The Dangerous Double Game of the Secret Services," spoke of the huge contradictions in the official US version of the 9/11 events.
"Critics find themselves accused of conspiracy theories, but the biggest conspiracy is to be found in the official 9/11 version of the US government which maintains that Osama bin Laden, from a cave in Afghanistan, along with 19 young Arabs, combined to carry out the most perfidious attack in the history of mankind," he said.
"That just doesn't add up. For me the most important contradiction is how the air defences of the greatest military power on the planet failed to prevent such attacks occurring and that no interceptor fighter planes or rocket systems were ever activated."
On September 11th 2001 two airplanes piloted by terrorists hit the twin towers causing them to both collapse. Is this the whole story?
ZERO: An Investigation into 9/11, has one central thesis - that the official version of the events surrounding the attacks on 9/11 can not be true. This brand new feature documentary from Italian production company Telemaco explores the latest scientific evidence and reveals dramatic new witness testimony, which directly conflicts with the US Government's account.
Featuring presentations from intellectual heavy weights; Gore Vidal, and Noble Prize winner Dario Fo, the film challenges assumptions surrounding the attacks. In the words of the Italian daily newspaper, Il Corriere de da Sera, "What results is a sequence of contradictions, gaps, and omissions of stunning gravity."
The importance of this film can not be overstated. If its thesis is correct, the justification for going to war in Iraq is built on a series of outrageous lies.
You can watch the extended trailer
(the first 14 minutes of the film) below.
ZERO : Europe for an Independent Inquiry into 9/11
BRUSSELS, European Parliament, 26th February 2008.Mark Dermul reporting.
On Tuesday 26th February, Europarlementarian Guilietto Chiesa invited his colleagues and the press to attend the screening and debate of the Italian-produced documentary named ‘ZERO, an investigation into the events of 9/11’. Object of the screening was to create political awareness of the faulty official investigation into the events by the 9/11 Commission.
Besides Mr Chiesa, the panel consisted of Japanese parlementarian Fujita, Dr David Ray Griffin, film distributor Tim Sparke & the director and producers of the film.
After his opening statements, Mr Chiesa welcomed his guest speakers, including the producers, director and distributor of the documentary. Mr Chiesa pointed out that he was unable to find any distributor in his native country of Italy and was happy to find a company in the UK, led by Mr Tim Sparke, to handle worldwide distribution of this important film. ‘It is important to realize,’ he emphasized ‘that the movie was made thanks to contribution and donations of hundreds of citizens who feel a new investigation is more than warranted.’ No less than 450 people worked on this documentary on a voluntary basis. They never received any kind of payment. Their reward is the movie itself, which they feel is an instrument to create awareness and a means to provoke a political debate in Europe
Since the movie projector didn’t work, Mr Chiesa invited the public to ask questions until the technical problems were solved and we could start watching the movie
- Question: ‘Why did you make this film?’
Chiesa: ‘It is obvious that we are now cast in an infinite war, based on lies. And as long as there is no new and independent investigation, we will never have security. There are too many lies for the official narrative to be true. Our film is an instrument to request the re-opening of the 9/11 investigation.’
Question: ‘How do you propose to reopen the investigation?’
Chiesa: ‘The film is the primary instrument to get the debate going. It is a collection of discoveries, by many respected researches from around the globe (the film features, among others, Gore Vidal, Sibel Edmonds, Dario Fo, David Ray Griffin, Dr Steven Jones, Dr Kevin Ryan, Webster Tarpley, Barbara Honegger, FAA-controllers, USAF pilots, military commanders, physicists – ed. note). But they are still questions. The movie doesn’t provide the answers. It only lays bare the questions that remain, that were left unanswered by the official investigation and need to be answered by the US government.’
Question: ‘Mr Fujita, how did you become involved?’
Fujita: ‘I work for several Japanese NGO’s and one of those people showed me some videos and books. At first I couldn’t believe it. So I saw Loose Change and read Dr Griffin’s books. And last year a good friend of mine who has a very high position at the German national bank told me about the put options that were placed on American Airlines and United Airlines. I believed him. And reading Dr Griffin’s book, looking at his reputation, I have every reason to believe him. That’s when I realised that every truth finding effort has to be continued. So I gave a presentation in the Japanese parliament (which is extensively covered on YouTube – ed. note). But I feel the truthers find their information mostly by internet. The truth should not only go by internet. It should now go political! Networking is very important. We must all work together.’
Question: ‘But what can we, regular citizens who go about their daily lives, trying to make a living for them and their families, what can we do?’
Griffin: ‘As in any movement, the 9/11 Truth Movement is a minority movement. We must continue to use our networks to make this minority into a majority. We have the upper hand to find the truth, for we have the conscience of the people. And I know that’s not an easy feat. I have now written six books on the subject, which is getting good reviews – go check it on Amazon. I had a good reputation as an author before as well and now I’ve just written my sixth book on the subject. But I have yet to get a review in any mainstream publication.’
Question: ‘Do you, in your new book, take the same stance, saying that 9/11 was an inside job?’
Griffin: ‘My new book is called 9/11 Contradictions. In this book I do not take any position, actually. Reporters have hidden in the past saying either the books were too technical and they’re not engineers, so they couldn’t comment on the book. In other cases they felt the official story was the only story they could report about, for the risk of being labelled a conspiracy theorist or even worse, getting fired. But with my new book, reporters will not be able to hide behind these excuses. These are only contradictions that they can verify and ask questions about.’
Question: ‘What kind of contradictions?’
Griffin: ‘Well, one very important one is the alleged Barbara Olsen phone call. Ted Olsen at the time claimed he had been called by his wife twice on 9/11, thus establishing the fact that American Airlines 77 was in fact hijacked by men with Middle Eastern looks. First he claimed it was a cell phone call. Later he changed his story to seatback phone. But when a German journalist got Boeing to confirm that on this type of flight there were no seatback phones, Olsen changed his story back to call phone. Now, you might think ‘oh, so he got it right the first time’, but… At the Moussaoui trial an FBI-report showed that there was never any connection between Barbara Olsen and her husband. No cell phone calls were ever made from that flight (Dr Griffin gave three more examples, contradiction with regards to the whereabouts of General Meyers, the highest ranking military officer on 9/11, the timeline of Dick Cheney’s activities and the question about why the Pentagon was not evacuated when the Doomsday plane, shown on CNN, was actually in the air over Washington – ed. note)
Question: ‘Many people, even today, are still baffled about WTC-7. When can we expect NIST to publish its final report on this collapse?’
Griffin: ‘NIST has delayed the publication time after time. In 2004 they said it would be released in 2005, in 2005 they said it would be released in 2006 and so on. Now we are expecting the report in August 2008, but I feel we may yet get another delay until at least the end of November, after the current administration has – hopefully – left office.’
At this point, people start joking about the fact that the US-government has probably sabotaged the screening of the documentary, since the projector cannot be fixed. We change rooms a few minutes later and the screening of the film begins.
The documentary is probably the most important film made so far on 9/11 as it is very accessible; it is obviously created for ‘9/11 newbies’. If you want to get a crash course into the 9/11 event and the failures of the commission’s investigation, this is the movie you need to see. Some of the highlights for me were the interviews with an FAA-air controller who explained how the hijacking procedures were changed on 1st June 2001, slowing down response, only to be changed back on 12th September 2001. And the very important discovery that the CCTV-images that were released by the FBI of Atta and his companion boarding Flight AA11 in Boston were actually taken by a CCTV at the airport in Portland, where they took a plane to arrive in Boston! It has also a lot of footage that I had never seen before, including videos taken at the Pentagon shortly after the attack. A must see and clearly a labour of love. Impressive.
After the film, after the several minute long applause finally died away, Chiesa re-opened the debate.
- Question: ‘Why do we put op with this? Surely the United States are not all that powerful?’
Chiesa: ‘But they are. The fact that this group of about 300 people has only 6 Europarlementarians and 2 journalists among them shows that the US is controlling everything. They are all powerful. No politician in the European Parliament can ignore the power – or wrath! – of the US.’
(True to form, the Belgian media didn’t publish or broadcast any of this debate on this or the following day, even thought this debate took place inside the European Parliament – ed. note)
- Tim Sparke: ‘But it’s up to you now, the general public. You have to help the politicians to by telling people about this film and talking to your local cinema’s and TV-stations. Get the word out. Only then can we create the momentum to get the debate to the political level.’
Question (from myself) : ‘In the aftermath of 9/11 and in the period leading up to the war in the Middle East, the Bush administration; President Bush, Condoleezza Rice and particularly Vice President Dick Cheney; have repeatedly lied to the American people and, by extension, to the world. The crimes they have committed are much worse than those in the Watergate scandal. So why are the American people not in an uproar? Why are these people still in power and not in jail? Is it a lack of political will?
Griffin: ‘Many people simply are misinformed and kept misinformed by the government and the mainstream media. As for political will, we live in a plutocracy, not a democracy.’
Chiesa: ‘For many people 9/11 is simply too controversial. There is a very strong psychological opposition to 9/11 truth. For most people, considering a conspiracy theory…’ ‘…other than the official theory, which is – obviously – also a conspiracy theory.’
Chiesa: ‘Yes, indeed – so considering another conspiracy theory about 9/11 is taboo. We must overcome this taboo and we must overcome this total lack of information. We must break this wall of silence. We must break free from the web and fight the mainstream media. This film is an instrument to do that. We need voices of different levels of society. We need not convince them that we are right. We need to convince them there is a problem that must be investigated… re-investigated. But you have to show them what happened. You cannot convince people by telling them about 9/11. They need to see it – hence the film.
At this moment, there is one person in the room who gives criticism on the film, claiming that the feels there are incorrect theories in the documentary. He feels the wing damage in the Pentagon is clearly visible and that Steven Jones’ claims about the thermite/thermate are not proven. He also claims that a response by jet fighters during the attack was in fact ordered. He gave no explanation as to where he got his information. He said he was a muslim and at the European Parliament as an independent, ready to defend himself against the reaction of the public who had started ‘boo’ing. One person’s behaviour was unbecoming in my opinion when she shouted ‘Who paid you?’ While I do not agree with the person’s assertions, I do respect his opinion. The director of the movie went on to explain that in the movie they were not able to show everything in detail (the movie would become too long) and that – again – it was an instrument to provoke action on the part of the viewer. A few more – and rather interesting questions and remarks – came from the audience and were addressed by the panel.
By now it was getting very late (partly because of the delay of the movie screening) and Mr Chiesa wanted to wrap up the event by making a closing statement.
- Chiesa: ‘A new American commission is inconceivable. But a European commission is inconceivable too. We have no jurisdiction. The US-government would never allow it. It would have to be an international group of ‘Wise Men & Women’ such as previous heads of state, engineers, artists, scholars, first responders, survivors, witnesses and so forth. We realize we still have a long road ahead. But we can create change!’
Griffin: ‘I’ve always said that the truth will come out of friendly countries. If Iran or Korea were to tell us 9/11 was an inside job, we would not believe it. They’re just saying that, because they’re our enemies. But if Japan, Europe or even an individual European country would say ‘We have examined the evidence… The war on terror is a hoax!’, then the American press would no longer be able to ignore it. They would have to publish it and then the US-government would be forced to respond.’
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