Rendition is a grotesque crime

Doctor supervising official CIA torture

The Geneva Conventions(16) prohibit torture and inhuman, cruel or degrading treatment with respect to certain categories of protected persons (including civilians and protected prisoners of war) in times of armed conflict or in post-conflict occupied territories. Breach of this prohibition is considered a war crime and states parties have an obligation to investigate such breaches and prosecute or extradite perpetrators regardless of the nationality of the victim or the perpetrator, or where the act took place.

Lets hear the perverse "educated" elite talk about torture, waterboarding and psychological abuse:

from http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R711061000

Tue, Nov 6, 2007 -- 10:00 AM

Extraordinary Rendition

Forum examines the U.S. government's rendition program under which the CIA transfers terrorism suspects to foreign countries to be held and interrogated.

Download audio (MP3)
http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/forum/2007/11/2007-11-06b-forum.mp3

Host: Michael Krasny

Guests:

* Stephen Grey, investigative journalist, director of the PBS Frontline - World program "Extraordinary Rendition" and author of "Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Rendition and Torture Program"

* Trevor Paglen, co-author of "Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights."








Amy Goodman and Antonia Juhasz, Arundhati Roy and Noam Chomsky. About the Iraq oil law and rendition.


United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees

The Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees(15) provides an explicit prohibition against transfer to torture. Article 33 prohibits the refoulement of a refugee to any place where his or her life or freedom would be threatened on account of his or her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion. However, unlike CAT and the ICCPR, this provision is not non-derogable.



Gulfstream V Turbo, tailfin number N379P was owned by Premier Executive Transport Services, incorporated in Delaware, a brass plaque company with nonexistent directors, hired by American agents to revive an old CIA tactic from the 1970s, when agency men had kidnapped South Americans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N379P


United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

The United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)(10) provides another explicit prohibition against torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Article 7 states that:

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In particular, no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation.

The UN Human Rights Committee is the treaty body responsible for monitoring implementation of the ICCPR, like the Committee Against Torture. Again, states parties must submit regular reports to this Committee, usually every four years. The Committee has been called upon a number of times to interpret the Convention’s prohibition of torture. In its General Comment on article 7, the Committee emphasizes that the prohibition of torture is non-derogable, stating that:

The text of article 7 allows of no limitation. The Committee also reaffirms that, even in situations of public emergency… no derogation from the provision of article 7 is allowed and its provisions must remain in force. The Committee likewise observes that no justification or extenuating circumstances may be invoked to excuse a violation of article 7 for any reasons, including those based on an order from a superior officer or public authority.

This General Comment also explicitly extends the article 7 prohibition against torture to include transfers to torture, stating that “States parties must not expose individuals to the danger of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment upon return to another country by way of their extradition, expulsion or refoulement.” It is important to note that, unlike under CAT, the Human Rights Committee has interpreted article 7 to include transfers to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in its prohibition of refoulement.

The Human Rights Committee has issued another General Comment on the general legal obligation imposed on states parties to the ICCPR, stating that

[T]he article 2 obligation requiring that States Parties respect and ensure the Covenant rights for all persons in their territory and all persons under their control entails an obligation not to extradite, deport, expel or otherwise remove a person from their territory, where there are substantial grounds for believing that there is a real risk of irreparable harm, such as that contemplated by articles 6 and 7 of the Covenant, either in the country to which removal is to be effected or in any country to which the person may subsequently be removed.

Finally, the Human Rights Committee has interpreted article 7 as requiring states to prohibit acts of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment committed within the physical territory of a state; that may be imputed to a state if the perpetrator was in power or effective control of the state; committed within a state’s territory where the acts’ effects occur outside that territory; and those acts were committed by state actors, regardless of where, if the state fails to exercise due diligence obligations in relation to violations.


United States killing approximately 10,000 Iraqis every month

International Law Prohibitions Against Torture and Extraordinary Rendition
A. Jus Cogens and the Non-Derogable Nature of the Prohibition of Torture

A number of international conventions outline the explicit prohibition of torture, cruel inhuman and degrading treatment, and rendition to torture. Numerous United Nations monitoring bodies have also declared the practice of extraordinary rendition to be a violation of the international law prohibition against torture.(3)

However, before delving into the individual conventions, it is important to note that the prohibition against torture is universally recognized as a principle of customary international law. The international community understands the prohibition of torture to be jus cogens – a peremptory norm of international law from which no derogation is permitted, and which binds even states that have not ratified the conventions enumerated below. Thus, the international law prohibition of torture is absolute and non-derogable – no exceptional circumstances or emergencies may be used to justify torture, including terrorism and national security concerns.


Waterboarding was not done by backroom operators, it was officially ordered with supervision by doctors (to tell when to stop) BY THE PRESIDENT (evidence Bush is a war criminal!)

Reinforcing this view, soon after 11 September 2001, the United Nations Committee Against Torture issued a statement condemning the terrorist attacks but reminding states of the non-derogable nature of their obligations under the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The UN Committee expressed confidence that no matter what responses to the threat of international terrorism were adopted, they would be in conformity with a state party’s obligations under the Convention.(5)

Ultimately, international law stipulates that states have an obligation to bring their domestic laws into line with the international prohibition against torture and to interpret all treaties they have ratified in context and in good faith – outsourcing torture beyond a nation’s borders is not consistent with these obligations.
B. United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

Foremost among the international law prohibitions against torture is the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT).(6) Article 1 of this Convention sets out the definition of torture, which includes conduct undertaken by state actors or persons acting with the consent or acquiescence of a state for the purposes of obtaining information:

Art. 1(1) For the purposes of this Convention, the term “torture” means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

Beyond this definition there is no internationally agreed-upon threshold for what specific acts constitute torture. In the context of CAT, such determinations are made on a case-by-case basis by the UN Committee Against Torture, the treaty body responsible for monitoring implementation of the convention. Other forms of mistreatment involving less severe physical or mental pain or where the necessary intention to torture is not present are also prohibited under article 16 of CAT: the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment.

Article 2 of CAT requires states parties to take measures to prevent torture in any territory under their jurisdiction. It also clearly states that torture is never justified – there can be no derogation from a state’s obligation to prevent and prohibit torture, even in times of war, threat of war, internal political instability, or when facing any other public emergency such as terrorism.(7)

Article 3 sets out the prohibition against “refoulement,” which most clearly prohibits extraordinary rendition:

Art. 3(1) No State Party shall expel, return (“refouler”) or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.

(2) For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.

The UN Committee Against Torture has stated that article 3 requires a state considering transferring an individual to another state to conduct an objective assessment of the conditions in the state to which an individual will be transferred, and a subjective assessment of the danger particular to the individual. An individual must not be transferred where these assessments lead to a finding of a substantial likelihood of danger of torture that is greater than mere suspicion. There need not be a high probability of torture for the prohibition to apply.(8) It is important to note that the prohibition against refoulement extends only to transfers to torture, and not to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

Articles 4 to 7 of CAT require states parties to ensure that all acts of torture are offences under domestic criminal law, to investigate and prosecute all acts of torture, and to assert jurisdiction over torture offences where such offences are

1. committed in a territory under the state’s jurisdiction,
2. committed by a national of the state, or
3. perpetrated against a national of the state.

The UN Committee Against Torture was established under CAT as a monitoring body to both provide interpretations of the Convention for all states parties and to monitor the individual actions of states parties. Those states who have ratified the Convention must submit reports to the Committee every four years outlining their progress in implementing the Convention. The Committee examines these reports, hears from the states parties, and then issues Concluding Observations with recommendations for how the state party can improve its compliance with the Convention. The Committee’s pronouncements are non-binding in law, but are a significant source of moral suasion in the international community.



"September 17, 2007: Wafaa Hussein mourns her son, Thaer, 6, at a Baqouba morgue, northeast of Baghdad. The boy was shot by a sniper while he was riding with his family in a bus from Baghdad to Baqouba. A new survey suggests the civilian death toll from the war in Iraq could be more than one million.


====== USA DOES NOT OUTLAW TORTURE?? ====

The United States has ratified most of the primary conventions prohibiting torture, as well as the civil aviation convention. However, it has effectively withdrawn its ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and has resisted all progress by that Court, and has not yet signed the Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. It is important to note that the United States ratified CAT subject to a declaration that the Convention was not self-executing and needed domestic implementing legislation to take effect. The government also included a reservation,(26) clarifying that to the United States, article 3 refers to situations where it is more likely than not that an individual would be tortured if transferred to another country:

That the United States understands the phrase, ‘where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture,’ as used in article 3 of the Convention, to mean ‘if it is more likely than not that he would be tortured.’

This position is in contrast with the standard established in CAT, which refers to substantial grounds for believing that an individual would be subject to torture.

There is no one piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits torture – this is an offence that is dealt with primarily through state law. However, a number of laws and regulations at the federal level implement CAT and other international law on torture domestically.

The Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act 1998 sets out a significant portion of this legal framework. Section 2242 of that Act states that the United States has a policy such that the government cannot

expel, extradite, or otherwise effect the involuntary return of any person to a country in which there are substantial grounds for believing the person would be in danger of being subjected to torture, regardless of whether the person is physically present in the United States.

All appropriate agencies were to promulgate regulations to implement this policy. The Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the State Department have issued regulations in the context of removal and extradition proceedings, but it is unclear as to whether such regulations have been developed by the Central Intelligence Agency or the Department of Defense.(27)

Section 235.8(b)(4) of the regulations under the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act states that although the Immigration and Nationality Act(28) allows an immigration officer who suspects an individual arriving in the United States of terrorism-related activities to begin proceedings for his or her summary removal, the Immigration and Naturalization Service shall not execute the removal order under circumstances that violate article 3 of CAT. However, the Act also emphasizes that, to the extent consistent with the United States’ obligations under CAT, regulations implementing article 3 can nevertheless exclude aliens described in section 241(b)(3)(B) of Immigration and Nationality Act. This would mean that the following individuals could be excluded from the non-refoulement to torture prohibition – those who:

* Assisted in Nazi persecutions or engaged in genocide;
* Ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in the persecution of an individual because of the individual’s race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion;
* Having been convicted of a particularly serious crime, are a danger to the community of the United States;
* Are strongly suspected to have committed a serious non-political crime outside the United States prior to arrival; and
* Are believed, on the basis of reasonable grounds, to be a danger to the security of the United States.

However, despite this provision, to date, all United States regulations concerning the removal of aliens have prohibited the removal of all persons to states where they would more likely than not be tortured.(29)

With regard to removal decisions, regulations(30) implementing article 3 of CAT permit the consideration of diplomatic assurances that an individual will not be tortured in receiving states. The regulations state that the Secretary of State may secure assurances that the person subject to return would not be tortured. These assurances must then be deemed “sufficiently reliable” by the Attorney General. This reliability assessment cannot be reviewed in court, and individuals facing removal orders have no procedural opportunity to challenge the credibility of diplomatic assurances.

Sections 2340 and 2340A of the United States Code on Crimes and Criminal Procedure(31) criminalize acts of torture occurring outside United States territorial jurisdiction. The American government has jurisdiction over such offences where the offender is a United States national or is present in the United States. Those found guilty of such offences are liable to a fine or up to 20 years’ imprisonment. Where death results, the offender is liable to imprisonment or death. Conspiracy to commit torture is accompanied by similar penalties, excluding the death penalty.

The War Crimes Act, as amended by the Military Commissions Act, is the United States legislation implementing the Geneva Conventions. This Act imposes criminal penalties on United States nationals or Armed Forces members who commit one of the listed offences violating the laws of war already discussed in the context of the Geneva Conventions.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice 2000(32) also regulates the conduct of individuals serving in the United States Armed Forces, as well as the behaviour of certain civilians accompanying such personnel. This Code applies wherever such individuals may be in the world, and contains a number of criminal laws for offences such as cruelty, maltreatment, assault, rape, murder, and dereliction of duty (for those who know of offences committed by others but fail to report them). The Code outlines procedures for courts martial and for matters relating to the detention and interrogation of persons subject to the Act, such as prisoners of war. In particular, Article 55 states that

Art. 55 Punishment by flogging, or by branding, marking, or tattooing on the body, or any other cruel or unusual punishment, may not be adjudged by any court-martial or inflicted upon any person subject to this chapter. The use of irons, single or double, except for the purpose of safe custody, is prohibited.

Finally, the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act 2000(33) provides a jurisdictional basis for the prosecution of individuals in the military, as well as certain civilian personnel, for acts committed outside the United States that would be criminal offences if committed in the United States.

http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/library/PRBpubs/prb0748-e.htm


Originally N581GA, it became N379P in 2000 when it was acquired by Premier Executive Transport Services. In December 2003, it became N8068V. On 1 December 2004 it was reregistered N44982, and ownership was transferred to Bayard Foreign Marketing, an apparent shell company registered in Portland, Oregon. Its registration was changed once more on January 20, 2006 as N126CH to XXXXX, 2930 Biscayne Blvd, Miami, FL 33137-4122. It was sold and reregistered to Wilmington Trust Company, 1100 N Market St, Wilmington, Delaware on August 18, 2006

Business daily Handelsblatt reported November 24, 2005, that the CIA still uses an American military base in Germany to transport terrorism suspects without informing the German government. The Berliner Zeitung reported the following day there was documentation of 85 takeoffs and landings by planes with a "high probability" of being operated by the CIA, at Ramstein, the Rhein-Main Air Base and others. The newspaper cited experts and "plane-spotters" who observed the planes as responsible for the tally


The executive jet with the tail number N44982 (the registration is no longer current; it was also formerly N8068V, N379P and originally N581GA) has been reported in several press sources as a U.S. Department of Defense prisoner transport, also known as "Guantánamo Bay Express".



The executive jet with the tail number N379P was again brought to public attention by Swedish TV4's documentary, Det brutna löftet ("The broken promise"), aired 17 May 2004. The documentary claimed that the expulsion of two men, Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad al-Zery - ordered by the Cabinet - to Egypt on December 18, 2001 was carried out by hooded U.S. agents. The plane booked by the Swedish Security Police (SÄPO) was cancelled when another plane arrived - N379P - a Gulfstream V executive jet supplied by the firm (Premier Executive Transport Services, Inc.) which works exclusively for the U.S. Defense Department.

Hobbyist plane spotters reporting the plane's whereabouts somewhat confirm the flight logs. On September 22, 2003 the plane flew directly from Kabul, Afghanistan to the Szczytno-Szymany International Airport in Poland, which is close to a Polish secret service training base located near the town of Stare Kiejkuty.[13] The following day it arrived Mihail Kogălniceanu Airfield, Romania, from whence it departed to Morocco and ultimately Guantanamo Bay, Cuba



On September 24, 2007 N987SA crashed in the Yucatan, Mexico, carrying 3.2 tons of cocaine. The Gulfstream II business jet was registered to Donna Blue Aircraft, Inc.

The Gulfstream with tail number N987SA has been involved in the transport of extraordinary rendition victims to Guantanamo Bay. Logs also show that the plane flew twice between Washington and Guantanamo and once between Oxford, Connecticut and Guantanamo. The American flights would have been CIA and Pentagon interrogators being ferried to interrogations at Guantanamo. At the time of the Guantanamo flights, the plane was managed by Air Rutter International, a California-based air charter service. It was then sold on August 30 to Donna Blue Aircraft, owned by two Brazilians and sold on to two Florida men on September 16.

CIA drug importing agency

European Parliament investigating CIA torture flights

u2r2h blog: MUST WATCH Documentaries

USA Law ...

The French army systematically used torture and murder in Algeria against its opponents. For several months now this topic has been openly discussed in France, since two high-ranking retired generals admitted last November that in the 1954-62 Algeria war members of the Algerian liberation movement (FLN) were tortured, abused and executed.

This was confirmed in the French daily Le Monde by 92-year old general Jacques Massu, who in 1957 was in charge of the notorious "Paras" (10th Parachute Division), and his deputy, the 82-year old general Paul Aussaresses, then director of the French secret service in Algiers, who admitted that over 3,000 prisoners considered to have "disappeared" at that time had in reality been executed. Aussaresses explained that in 1957, torture and murder were an integral part of France's war policy. He boasted that methods were employed that were not covered by the conventions of war , that he had given his subordinates orders to kill and had personally liquidated 24 FLN members, telling Le Monde, "I do not regret it."

An earlier report in Le Monde by one of the torture victims had set the ball rolling. The then twenty-year-old Algerian partisan Louisetta Ighil Ahgiz, who fell into the hands of the torturers in September 1957, still suffers today from the physical and psychological consequences of the torture at the age of 64. Together with an FLN group, she fell into an ambush by general Massu and was taken, seriously wounded, to his headquarters. Here she was subjected to almost continuous torture for three months. Louisetta reported how Massu and General Marcel Bigeard insulted and degraded her, before they gave the instruction for the torture to begin with a hand movement. "It was as if a secret code existed", she said. She only survived thanks to an army doctor, who discovered her in December 1957 and took her to a military hospital, hiding her from the torturers. Louisetta said she hoped to find the doctor through the article published in Le Monde and thank him.

The report about Louisetta Ighil Ahgiz unleashed a tide of readers' letters and articles throughout the French media. Another former FLN fighter, Noui M'Hidi Abdelkader, who had been arrested in Paris in 1958 and was then imprisoned in Versailles, confirmed that torture was also used in the French capital. He is convinced that unopened archives still contain the statements of thousands of torture victims.

The Algerian war 1954-62

In 1954, Algeria's smouldering independence struggle erupted into a war. Just before, the French army had been forced to withdraw from Vietnam following its historical defeat at Dien Bien Phu. France moved the largest part of the Foreign Legion to Algeria, its largest and oldest colony. As the attacks mounted by the FLN increased during 1954, the French government decided it would not abandon Algeria, which had been a French colony since 1830. For the first time conscripts were despatched to a colony, and by mid 1956 half a million French soldiers were stationed on Algerian soil.

By 1962, 1.7 million French soldiers had fought in the Algerian war. Over 25,000 of these were killed and 60,000 wounded, while on the Algerian side, over half a million died. Despite these enormous numbers, for a long time no one was officially allowed to use the word "war". One spoke only of the "events in Algeria" or of “preserving order” in the three Algerian provinces. Only in October 1999 did the French National Assembly (parliament) decided to officially permit the term "Algerian War".

It was the social-democratic government of Guy Mollet that had given a free hand to the occupying forces in Algeria to carry out torture. In June 1956, shortly before the notorious battle for Algiers, the National Assembly accepted Mollet's proposal to set aside individual freedoms in Algeria and permit the gendarmes and soldiers stationed there to use "extended questioning," "coercive measures" or "special treatment". General Aussaresses now confirms, "We were given a free hand to do what we considered necessary."

The French Prefect in Algeria at that time, Robert Lacoste, was also a social democrat. The social democratic Interior Minister François Mitterrand, who later became president, said in parliament on November 5, 1954: "The Algerian rebellion can lead to only one conclusion, that is, war." He declared that Algeria was part of France: the Mediterranean separates Algeria from France just as the river Seine separates the two halves of Paris. When he became Justice Minister two years later, he rejected the clemency request of the Algerian communist Fernand Iveton made on February 10, 1957, thus assuring his death.

France's colonial policy won the support of the Stalinists, when the Communist Party under the leadership of Jacques Duclos supported the state budget in 1954 and in 1956 voted for the special measures proposed by the government, at a time when there were already mass demonstrations taking place in Paris against the Algerian war.

The eyewitness reports and recently published documents leave no doubt about the brutality, extent and systematic use of torture in Algeria. Part of the daily practice included mass rapes, submerging victims in freezing water or excrement, and repeated use of electric shocks. Even in the Algerian hinterland where there was no electricity, electric shock torture was carried out using the so-called " Gégène", utilising the pedal-powered generation system used for the radio stations.

Command over Algeria was exercised by a group of top generals, who had fought under Charles de Gaulle against Nazi Germany during the Second World War. De Gaulle became president of France in 1958, following a putsch by French settlers and the military in Algeria. In 1959, when de Gaulle tentatively moved towards allowing self-determination for Algeria, these same generals organised a second putsch attempt in April 1961; under the battle cry "Algeria must stay French!" After it failed, they created the terrorist Organization Armée Secrète (OAS—Secret Army Organisation), which carried out numerous killings of civilians in Algeria and also in France. Thanks to the amnesty announced in the declaration of independence signed at Evian in July 1962, as well as a further amnesty at the end of the 1960s, these generals have never faced any criminal charges for the attempted coup or for the systematic use of torture.

Some of these military figures, such as general Marcel Bigeard, who achieved the highest military honours in the post-war period, continue to resist any uncovering of the crimes committed in Algeria. Bigeard, the Algerian Commander and a former OAS member, is today the spokesman of a parliamentary group of yesterday's men who dispute all accusations of torture in the public debate. In agreement with people such as Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of the extreme right-wing National Front and a former paratrooper who served in Algeria, Bigeard speaks of the "network of lies", which in his opinion is "destroying everything that remains decent in France".

Bigeard, Le Pen and a number of old stalwarts from the Algerian war polemicised sharply in le Figaro against the "slandering of the French army." They were joined by Philippe Séguin, the failed Gaullist candidate of the Rassemblement Pour la Republique (Assembly for the Republic) for Paris mayor and an opponent of French integration into the European Union, who vehemently opposed any new debate about France's activities in Algeria. Charles Pasqua, the former Gaullist Interior Minister, who belongs to the Euro-sceptic Rassemblement pour la France (Assembly for France), harshly condemned an initiative by the Communist Party calling for an official committee of inquiry into the Algerian war.

Background to the present discussion

In the 1950s, numerous accounts already testified to the systematic use of torture in Algeria. Even before the outbreak of open war, the newspaper L'Observateur reported in December 1951 on torture practices in Algeria. In 1958, the book " La Question " (The Question) by Henri Alleg was published, in which he exposed his own torture at the hands of the French. In 1960, a group of intellectuals around Jean Jean-Paul Sartre, including Simone de Beauvoir, André Breton, Simone Signoret and many others protested against the war with a "Manifesto of the 121". The historian Pierre Vidal Naquet attacked the use of torture as a break with France's liberal traditions in his book, " Torture dans la République " (Torture in the Republic).

Nevertheless, after the 1962 amnesty the topic was generally regarded as a social taboo. When the satirical weekly Le Canard enchaîne reported in the 1980s that Jean-Marie Le Pen had participated actively in carrying out torture as a second lieutenant in the paras stationed in Algeria, the paper was hauled before the courts, eventually losing the case before the appeal court.

It is only more recently that there has been any open talk about this chapter of French history. A number of people directly affected by the events have now spoken out: primarily of course, the torture victims, who have yet to receive any compensation. A number of veterans have also come forward, who have had to endure the trauma that they experienced as young soldiers in Algeria for forty years without being able to speak about it. Others now speaking out include the Pieds Noirs, the white Algeria settlers who had to flee the land in 1962; as well as the Harkis, Algerians who fought on the side of the French army, and who can neither return to Algeria nor find recognition in France.

Almost all the French press are taking part in this debate, films are being shown, and in December 2000 a seminar took place at the Sorbonne university with French and Algerian historians chaired by the president, Jacques Chirac.

9/11 truth is sexy

9/11/2008 Truther Beach Protest (San Diego, CA)


911 truth

Besides a bunch of Marines showing up on the beach next to our beach tent (See video below), the locals and tourists were quite receptive. We gave away a couple hundred DVDs and had many interesting and constructive conversations.

Intellectuals Wanted
(Back)

Buy these cards in bulk in the Truther store and distribute!

New RussiaToday Poll has 87% Distrusting 9/11 Story

By ewing2001

New RussiaToday Poll has 87% Distrusting 9/11 Story picked up at: http://www.russiatoday.com/poll/vote/377 September 14, 2008 Poll results question: Do you believe the report of the official commission on 9/11? Yes, they did great job collecting evidence No, they are deliberately hiding the truth

don't forget -- 9/11 was done by high-tech illusion, the rocket that was carrying a hologramm of a 76 boeing passenger aeroplane was still illuminated when it exited the other side, therefore the NOSE OUT that is visible from MULTIPLE CAMERA LOCATIONS.

http://u2r2h-documents.blogspot.com/2008/01/luc-courchesne-911-ua-175-hologram.html

http://u2r2h-documents.blogspot.com/2007/10/911-hologram-theory.html

German foreign Radio 9/11 CONSPIRACY FILM

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."

DPA News Agency (sp)

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3626100,00.html

==================

On September 11th 2001 two airplanes piloted by terrorists hit the twin towers causing them to both collapse. Is this the whole story?

April 28th, 2008

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 26^th 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 1^st June 2001, slowing down response, only to be changed back on 12^th 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.’

The distributor of the film, a UK-based company led by Mr Tim Sparke, has said that he will try to get it a theatrical release, but feels this may be very difficult indeed. He told the attendees at the European Parliament debate that they should contact their local cinema's and television stations to get them to order the film. So, I'm not sure if it will indeed ever be projected on the silver screen (in Belgium). But a DVD release will probably not be long in coming.

Barack Obama faces a problem...

07 Sep 2008

An Interview with David Ray Griffin

On September 11, I entertained a couple of house guests, senior journalists from Scandinavia. I remember watching in horror and disbelief the unfolding drama, as the United States was being subjected to multiple deadly attacks on-screen. I turned to the international affairs editor of a major Danish paper and told her "This could not have been done by al-Qaida." I am an Israeli and, as such, I have a fair "sixth sense" as to the capabilities of terrorists and their potential reach.

Enter David Ray Griffin. I was introduced to him by a mutual acquaintance. He is emeritus professor of philosophy of religion and theology at Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University. He has published over 30 books, including eight about 9/11, the best known of which is “The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé.”

On the face of it, his credentials with regards to intelligence analysis are hardly relevant, let alone impressive. But, to underestimate him would be a grave error. Being a philosopher, he is highly trained and utterly qualified to assess the credibility of data; the validity and consistency of theories (including conspiracy theories); and the rationality and logic of hypotheses. These qualifications made him arguably the most visible and senior member of what came to be known as the 9/11 Truth Movement.

In our exchange, he proved to be tolerant of dissenting views, open to debate, and invariably possessed of rigorous thinking. Still, while the 9/11 Truth Movement has succeeded to cast doubts on the official version of the events of September 11 (correctly labeled by Griffin: "the official conspiracy theory"), it failed, in my view, to present a compelling case in support of the alternative conspiracy theory much favored by many of its members: that the Bush administration was behind the attacks, one way or the other. Judge for yourselves.

The Incompetence Theory

A. This administration demonstrated incredible incompetence with Hurricane Katrina, the governing of occupied Iraq, and the subprime mortgage crisis. Why should September 11 and the months leading to that fateful day be any exception?

DRG: It was not an exception: The planning and the execution were terribly flawed, resulting in so many problems in the official story, including both internal contradictions and the obvious contravening of basic laws of physics, that if Congress and the press had carried out even the most superficial investigation, the fact that 9/11 was an inside job would have been quickly exposed. I will give nine examples (in giving these, I cite places in my books where the issues are discussed more fully):

First, President Bush was in a classroom in Florida when the second of the Twin Towers was struck. Although the first strike had been dismissed as an accident, this second one was taken as evidence that America was “under attack,” as Andrew Card, Bush’s chief of staff, reportedly whispered in his ear. Back in the White House, the Secret Service took Vice President Cheney down to the bunker under the White House. But the Secret Service agents with Bush allowed him to stay in the classroom for another 10 minutes, as shown by a video that was included in Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11.” If the attacks had really been, as they seemed, surprise attacks by terrorists going after high-value targets, the Secret Service agents would have feared that a hijacked airliner was bearing down on the school at that very minute. Their failure to hustle Bush away thereby implied that they knew that Bush was in no danger because they knew who was in control of the planes. The White House’s apparently belated recognition of this implication was manifested a year later (before the video had emerged on the Internet), when it started telling a different story, claiming that Bush left the classroom within seconds after being told about the second strike on the Twin Towers (“9/11 Contradictions,” Ch. 1).

Second, the White House and the Pentagon also later found it necessary to distort the truth about where Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and General Richard Myers were between 9 and 10 AM that morning. Richard Clarke reported in his book, “Against All Enemies” that Myers and Rumsfeld were in the Pentagon’s teleconferencing studio participating in his White House video conference, but Myers and Rumsfeld both claimed that they were elsewhere. Although Clarke and Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta reported that Cheney was down in the bunker before 9:20, the 9/11 Commission claimed that he didn’t enter it until almost 10:00 (20 minutes after the attack on the Pentagon and just before the crash of Flight 93). And although Clarke reported that he received the shootdown order from Cheney by 9:50 (at least 13 minutes before Flight 93 went down), the Commission claimed that Cheney did not issue this authorization until after 10:15 (“9/11 Contradictions,” Chs. 2-7).

Third, much of the evidence that the planes had been hijacked was provided by people who reported that they had received cell phone calls from relatives or crew members on board the planes. About a dozen cell phone calls were reported from Flight 93 alone. But after the 9/11 Truth Movement publicized the fact that cell phone calls from high-altitude airliners had not been technologically possible in 2001, the FBI changed its report, saying that the only cell phone calls from any of the four airliners were two that occurred when Flight 93 had descended to 5,000 feet (at which altitude they would have been at least arguably possible). This change of story meant, among other things, that the FBI, having stated in an affidavit in 2001 that American 11 flight attendant Amy Sweeney had made a 12-minute cell phone call, needed to fabricate a very implausible tale to support its revised claim that she had actually used an onboard phone (“The New Pearl Harbor Revisited” [henceforth NPHR], Chs. 3 & 6).

Fourth, the military’s original explanation as to why it was unable to intercept the first three flights before they hit their targets was so obviously problematic that it needed to be changed. Members of the 9/11 Truth Movement had shown that, even if the FAA had been as slow in notifying the military as NORAD claimed in 2001, there had still been sufficient time for the flights to have been intercepted, especially Flights 175 and 77. So the 9/11 Commission in 2004 simply created a new timeline, claiming, wholly implausibly, that the FAA had not notified the military at all about those two flights (“9/11 Contradictions,” Chs. 10 & 11).

Fifth, after considerable evidence was publicized by the 9/11 Truth Movement that Flight 93 had been shot down, the 9/11 Commission created a completely new story about it. Although the military had stated that the FAA had notified it about this flight and even that fighter jets were tracking it, the 9/11 Commission claimed that the FAA had not notified the military about Flight 93 until after it had crashed. Also, as I pointed out above, the 9/11 Commission claimed that Cheney did not issue the shootdown order until about 10:15, even though Richard Clarke reported that he had received this order at about 9:50 (“9/11 Contradictions,” Chs 12-13).

Sixth, the FBI first told reporters that proof of al-Qaeda’s responsibility for the attacks was incriminating material, including Mohamed Atta’s last will and testament, that was found in a Mitsubishi rented by Atta and left in the parking lot at the Boston airport. The FBI also reported that two other members of al-Qaeda who were on Flight 11, Adnan and Ameer Bukhari, drove a rented Nissan on September 10 from Boston to Portland, where they stayed overnight and then took a commuter flight back to Boston the next morning in time to catch Flight 11. On September 13, however, the FBI realized that neither of the Bukhari brothers had died on 9/11: one was still alive and the other had died the year before. So the FBI simply changed the story, saying that Atta and another al-Qaeda operative, Abdul al-Omari, had driven the Nissan to Portland. The incriminating materials were now said not to have been found in the Mitsubishi in the parking lot but in Atta’s luggage, which had failed to make the transfer from the commuter plane to Flight 11. One problem with this new story, besides the fact that it did not get fully formed until September 16, is that it made no sense, because it implied that Atta had planned to take his will on a plane that he intended to fly into the World Trade Center (“9/11 Contradictions,” Ch. 16).

Seventh, the official story about the attack on the Pentagon said that the pilot of Flight 77, which was a Boeing 757, executed an amazing maneuver in order to strike the first floor of Wedge 1. But the authorities also claimed that this pilot was Hani Hanjour, who could not, as was reported by several stories in the mainstream press, safely fly even a single-engine plane. The identification of the incompetent Hanjour as the pilot was evidently a last-minute decision, because his name was even not on the FBI’s first list of al-Qaeda operatives on Flight 77 (NPHR Chs. 2 & 6).

Eighth, eyewitness accounts by journalists and Pentagon employees, along with photographs and videos taken right after the attack on the Pentagon, reveal that there was no sign that the Pentagon had been hit by a giant airliner. Although about 30 people claimed to see an airliner strike the Pentagon, their testimonies were often in contradiction with each other and the physical facts (“NPHR Ch. 2).

Ninth, WTC 7 was evidently supposed to come down at about 10:45 in the morning, shortly after the collapses of the Twin Towers. A massive explosion occurred in the basement at about 9:15, which would have been 90 minutes before the explosions that were supposed to bring the building down (which would have been the same time-interval as that between the 8:46 explosion in the basement of the North Tower, as reported by janitor William Rodriguez, and the explosions that brought the building down at 10:28). But evidently most of the explosives that were supposed to go off at 10:45 failed to do so. As a result, the building did not come down until late in the afternoon, at which time the collapse was captured on several videos, which show the collapse to have been identical to typical implosions caused by pre-set explosives. This fact necessitated trying to keep most people in the dark about the collapse of WTC 7 as long as possible: Videos of WTC 7’s collapse were never again (after 9/11 itself) shown on mainstream television; the 9/11 Commission did not even mention this collapse; and the National Institute of Standards and Technology repeatedly delayed its report on this building, finally issuing it only late in 2008, shortly before the Bush administration was to leave office.

As shown by these and many other problems, almost every aspect of the 9/11 operation revealed incompetence. If any of the resulting problems had been pursued by Congress or the press, the 9/11 hoax would have been quickly exposed.

WTC7

Q: Did the US Government possess in-house the expertise necessary to control-demolish WTC 7? Surely they didn't sub-contract or farm out the demolition?

DRG: Apart from an investigation, we have no way to know for certain. But the planners probably did hire someone: As explained by ImplosionWorld.com, true implosions, which cause a building to come straight down into its own footprint (as WTC 7 clearly did), are “by far the trickiest type of explosive project, and there are only a handful of blasting companies in the world that possess enough experience . . . to perform these true building implosions" (“Debunking 9/11 Debunking,” Ch. 3). If the point of your statement that they “surely” would not have farmed out the demolition is that they would have feared that doing so would result in someone spilling the beans, this is an unrealistic assumption. No one would have been brought into the operation who could not be trusted to keep quiet. And why would someone confess to having participated in a project that killed thousands of fellow citizens?

Q: Why didn't the conspirators wait until a few hours after the attacks and then publicly demolish all three buildings as hazards to the public and for public safety reasons?

DRG: Again, apart from an investigation, in which people are induced to talk by subpoenas and threats of prison, we cannot know why they made the various decisions they made. We can, however, make reasonable guesses in some cases. In this case, the desire to demolish these particular buildings was surely a secondary motive, important to only a few of the conspirators. The main purpose was surely to create a traumatizing spectacle---the planes hitting the buildings and then the buildings coming down shortly thereafter, killing thousands of people---in order to get the American people and Congress psychologically prepared to support attacks on Muslim countries, starting with Afghanistan (against which a war had already been planned), and to accept restrictions on our constitutional rights (the PATRIOT Act). This spectacle could then be replayed endlessly on television to reinforce the public’s fury and readiness to support the Bush administration’s “war on terror,” which could be morphed to attack Iraq (a war against which had also been planned in advance) and, assuming that the wars in those first two countries would go well, some of the other countries on the administration’s “hit list,” which has been reported by General Wesley Clark and neocon Michael Ledeen (NPHR Ch. 7).

Q: Why was WTC7 targeted and not other WTC buildings which suffered worse damage from debris and fires?

DRG: Again, we could learn the answer to this question easily enough through a genuine investigation, in which the usual types of inducements are used to get people to talk. Because that has not happened, some people have offered theories. One theory is that the building contained records that some authorities wanted destroyed. Another theory is that Giuliani’s Emergency Operations Center on the 23rd floor had equipment for drawing the two planes into the Twin Towers, which meant that the building needed to be totally demolished in order to destroy all the evidence. I myself do not speculate about this, as I do not try to develop a complete theory as to what happened that day. I concentrate instead on the various types of evidence that the official story is false, which is all that is needed to point out that another---a real---investigation is in order.

United 93

Q: The conspiracy at the government level, according to the 9/11 Truth Movement, involved a stand-down order: an instruction to the military not to interfere with the hijacked aircraft and to allow them to crash into their targets. If so, why was UA 93 the exception? Why was it shot down (according to the Truth Movement)?

DRG: Let me begin by correcting your first statement. Many, perhaps most, people in the 9/11 Truth Movement do not believe there were any hijackers on board and hence do not believe that there were any “hijacked aircraft” that were simply “allowed” strike their targets. I at least do not believe this (I’ve explained why at great length in NPHR) and assume, instead, that the whole operation was carried out by the White House and the Pentagon, with Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Myers being three of the central figures.

As to what happened to Flight 93, we will probably never know unless there is an investigation. There is indeed strong evidence that a plane was shot down near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. And this could have been the original plan, in order to have a basis for fabricating the story about the heroic passengers foiling the intention of the evil Arab Muslims to strike another target (such as the White House or the US Capitol building), so that this story could be used by Bush as the beginning of the “war on terror,” in which the American victims would strike back against the Muslim terrorists and “the countries that harbor them.” But we have no way of knowing for sure.

We can, however, say one thing with certainty: that the official story---according to which there was no wreckage at the site because the plane, headed down at 580 miles per hour, buried itself completely in the ground, although a red headband (like those allegedly worn by the hijackers) and the passport of the al-Qaeda pilot were found on the ground---is not true. For one thing, that description of the plane’s descent does not fit what any of the eyewitnesses reported. Also, different eyewitnesses of an airliner flying over the area reported it as going in two different directions, and then two crash sites were cordoned off. From the evidence, therefore, it’s very hard to figure out much beyond the fact that the official story is a lie (NPHR Ch. 3).

Q: In your book, "9/11 Contradictions", you accept a purported phone call from the aircraft to a fixed line as a fact (pp. 116-7). Why, then, do you reject the veracity and existence of the other phone calls, allegedly made from other aircraft?

DRG: Actually, you misunderstood. I did not accept the purported call from Tom Burnett as a fact. What I accepted is that Deena Burnett “received a phone call that she believed to be from” her husband, Tom Burnett. The passage to which you refer is from Chapter 12 of “9/11 Contradictions.” If you look at Chapter 17, you’ll see that I used the calls received by Deena Burnett as a central part of the evidence that the calls were faked. Here’s why: She reported that she was certain that the calls were from Tom, because she had recognized his cell phone number on her Caller ID. But when the FBI changed its story to get rid of all claims about high-altitude cell phone calls, it said that the calls from Tom Burnett were made on an onboard phone (even though the FBI report written on 9/11 had cited Deena’s assertion that Tom had used his cell phone to make the calls). If one accepts this new FBI report (which was presented at the Moussaoui trial in 2006), how does one explain the fact that Deena reported seeing his cell phone number on her caller ID? Surely, given the fact that she reported this to the FBI that very day, we cannot assume that she was mistaken. And surely we cannot accuse her of lying. But an explanation becomes possible once we become aware of technology that can fake people’s phone numbers as well as their voices. The conclusion that these calls were faked is also supported by internal problems in the statements purportedly made by Tom Burnett.

Once we realize that the cell phone calls were faked, moreover, we must assume that calls reportedly made using onboard phones were also faked: If hijackers really surprised everyone by taking over the planes, why would have people been ready to make fake cell phone calls reporting the existence of hijackers on the planes? (NPHR Chs. 3 & 6).

Al-Qaida and Atta

Q: Why would the FBI and the 9/11 Commission endorse a fallacious timeline regarding Atta's whereabouts and activities throughout 2001? They admit that they cannot explain his movements. They do not use this timeline to support the official history.

DRG: I explained above that the FBI did have a reason for giving a false account of Atta’s movements on September 10 and 11: The story about two Flight 11 hijackers having driven a Nissan to Portland had become so well known that, when the FBI discovered that the Bukharis had not died on 9/11, it evidently felt that the best solution was to say that Atta had taken the Nissan to Portland. This revised account did become part of the official story.

With regard to the FBI’s timeline for Atta in the early months of 2001, part of the motive for saying that he had left Venice, Florida, never to return, was evidently to cover up the fact that during March and April of 2001 he had lived with a stripper, Amanda Keller, which many people in Venice knew (especially the people who rented the apartment to them). Another motive, suggested by investigative reporter Daniel Hopsicker, is that Atta---who, according to Keller, took cocaine, which he would obtain from Huffman Aviation, where he was supposedly taking flight lessons (although Keller reported that he was already an expert pilot)---was perhaps involved in a drug-smuggling operation headquartered at Huffman. In these respects, therefore, the denial that Atta was in Venice in 2001 evidently did serve to support the official story.

In NPHR, incidentally, I reported still more evidence that the FBI timeline on Atta is false. Although this timeline claimed that Atta first arrived in the United States in June 2000, several credible individuals, including a Justice Department official, reported that Atta was in the country much earlier in 2000, as did the military intelligence operation known as Able Danger. It was clearly very important to the authorities to maintain otherwise, as shown by the fact that the Pentagon’s inspector general went to great lengths to get Able Danger members to change their stories or, when they would not, to defame them (NPHR Ch. 6). But why it was so important, I do not know. Perhaps the FBI and Pentagon simply felt that, having strongly insisted that Atta did not arrive in the United States until June 3, 2000, they had to stick with it. But it may have also been motivated by the concern to keep his real activities during that period secret.

Q: If al-Qaida were not involved, how do you explain Project Bojinka as well as multiple warnings (by the foreign minister of Afghanistan, various agents, and the intelligence services of countries from Russia to Israel), all of them pointing the finger at Usama bin-Laden? How do you account for multiple intercepted communications that clearly point the finger at al-Qaida and bin-Laden?

DRG: I have never claimed that al-Qaeda was “not involved” at all. I claim only that there is no evidence that al-Qaeda operatives hijacked the planes. They appear to have been involved as paid assets to provide plausible people on whom to blame the “hijackings.” The White House and the 9/11 Commission, for example, went to great lengths to cover up the fact that both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia funneled money to them (NPHR Chs. 6, 8).

Q: Everyone al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah mentioned in his testimony had died shortly thereafter. Why has Abu Zubaydah survived? How come he hasn't been liquidated as well?

DRG: I would not presume to know. And perhaps this is a good time to respond explicitly to your apparent assumption that, to challenge the official conspiracy theory, one must have an alternative theory of equal specificity, with answers to all the questions that could conceivably be raised about it. But this is not true. Let’s say that you were accused by the authorities of murdering Bill Jones. You would assume that, to get the case dismissed, all you and your lawyer had to do was to prove that you could not possibly have killed Jones. But imagine that, after you had done so, the judge then declared: “Sorry, that’s not good enough. You must also tell us who did kill Jones, how the murder was committed, and why.” You would surely consider that unreasonable. By analogy, the 9/11 Truth Movement has provided abundant evidence that the 9/11 attacks could not have been carried out by al-Qaeda terrorists. We need not also specify exactly who did organize and carry out the attacks, all their motives, and why they handled each part of the operation and the cover-up as they did. So there is simply no need for us to try to explain why Zubaydah was not liquidated.

Q: The removal of Mahmoud Ahmad from office (as head of Pakistan's ISI) - ostensibly in order to silence him - could have actually provoked him to spill the beans and reveal what he knows. Alternatively, if he were being punished, at the behest of the CIA, for his collaboration with the 9/11 hijackers, this would seem to prove that the Bush Administration has not been complicit in the attacks.

DRG: I do not find it plausible that because Ahmad was removed, he would have been likely to spill the beans. People, especially long-time professionals like Ahmad, usually do not, out of spite, confess to participation in mass murder. And he was probably rewarded handsomely to resign quietly.

Government and Other Institutions

Q: Americans are prone to distrust their government and to attribute to it the worst motives, intentions, and conduct (consider, for instance, the conspiracy theories whirling around the Kennedy Assassination). Isn't the Truth Movement another instance of this brand of "anti-establishment" paranoia?

DRG: Like other a priori charges against the 9/11 Truth Movement, this one fails to fit the facts. If this characterization, according to which we joined the movement because we suspected the worst of the Bush administration (rather than because we became convinced by good evidence), were true, most of us would have started calling 9/11 an inside job the very first week. But if you look at the histories of most of the leading members of the movement, they joined much later. I myself first heard the inside-job theory near the end of 2002 and, when the advocate of this theory sent me what he considered good evidence, I did not find it convincing. It was not until I learned of Paul Thompson’s “9/11 Timeline” in March 2003 that I started moving in that direction. To give two more examples, Steven Jones, our leading physicist, did not become involved until 2005, and Richard Gage, who started Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, until 2006.

Another consideration is that paranoid people are usually not very good at weighing evidence carefully. If you look at the writings of people such as Kevin Ryan (a chemist formerly employed at Underwriters Laboratories), Rob Balsamo (founder of Pilots for 9/11 Truth), A. K. Dewdney (former columnist for Scientific American), Robert Bowman (former head of the “Star Wars” program), as well as Jones and Gage, you will see that they exemplify careful, empirical observations, not paranoid thinking. The claim that the leading members of the 9/11 Truth Movement are paranoid is a purely a priori charge, not supported by empirical observation.

Q: Previous false flag operations did not take place on American soil and involved a minimal number of casualties. Not so September 11. Why the change in MO? Wouldn't the mere destruction of the Twin Towers (at night, let's say and with explosives) been enough? Why the enormous - and easily avoidable - toll in lives (for instance, in the Pentagon)?

DRG: My answer to this would be much the same as my response to your second question under the WTC 7 (which actually dealt with the Twin Towers as well), namely, that the spectacle of the planes hitting the buildings and then the buildings collapsing (which would be replayed endlessly on television), along with the toll in lives, was surely considered essential to get the American people, and our representatives in Congress, fired up to give the administration carte blanche to do as it wanted.

With regard to your observation that no previous false-flag operation had taken place on American soil, that is true only because President Kennedy vetoed Operation Northwoods. The Pentagon’s joint chiefs of staff all signed off on plans to kill American citizens in 1962 in order to have a pretext for a war to regain control of Cuba (“The New Pearl Harbor,” Ch. 7).

Q: If not al-Qaida operatives, then who flew the planes? Who were the suicide pilots? Surely not Americans?

DRG: I doubt if anyone was flying the planes that struck the Twin Towers and whatever it was that hit the Pentagon. They were most likely all flown remotely. The evidence suggests that the Pentagon, besides having bombs go off inside, was struck by a missile or some small airplane (which could have been flown by remote control). And the planes that hit the Twin Towers might have been taken out of the pilots’ control by means of a technological override. Or, more likely, drones may have been substituted for them when their transponders went off near the Air Force base at Rome, New York (hence exemplifying one of the scenarios suggested in Operation Northwoods). In any case, I do not assume that there were any American pilots who volunteered to commit suicide.

Q: If a missile hit the Pentagon, then where is or was flight 77?

DRG: I have never argued that a missile hit the Pentagon. I reported in my first book (The New Pearl Harbor) that Thierry Meyssan argued this case. But I also mentioned that his main point was that there is no good evidence that a Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon and some evidence that it was a missile or a small military plane. That still leaves, of course, your question: If Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon, what happened to it?

I never cease being amazed at how many people think that, unless those who deny that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon can answer this question, our claim is discredited. But that is simply the most prevalent example of the assumption that, to provide a convincing argument against the official theory, one must provide a fully detailed alternative theory---in this case explaining what happened to Flight 77. But that does not follow. There are many possible things that could have happened to it. It might, for example, have been the airliner that reportedly crashed on the Ohio-Kentucky border; or it could have been taken to a US Air Force base. But apart from an investigation, there is no way for those of us not involved in the operation to know what really did happen to it. And there is no need for us to have an answer, just as you, to prove you didn’t kill Bill Jones, would not have to be able to say who did it and how.

We do, I might add, have strong evidence that the government used deception to convince us that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon. US Solicitor General Ted Olson---who had been instrumental in putting the Bush administration in power by successfully arguing that the US Supreme Court should stop the 2000 vote count in Florida---claimed on 9/11 that he had received two phone calls from his wife, TV commentator Barbara Olson, from Flight 77 shortly before the Pentagon was hit, during which she reported that the flight had been taken over by hijackers armed with knives and boxcutters. This was used as evidence that Flight 77 had been hijacked and that it had not crashed in the Mid-West. When the FBI presented its evidence about phone calls from the planes at the Moussaoui trial in 2006, however, it said this about Barbara Olson: She attempted one call, which was “unconnected,” and hence lasted “O seconds.” Accordingly, although the FBI is part of the Department of Justice, its report indicates that the story told by Ted Olson, the DOJ’s former solicitor general, was untrue---which implies either that Olson lied or that he was duped. In either case, the claim that Barbara Olson gave information about Flight 77 was based on deception. And such deception is one more piece of evidence that the whole story about Flight 77 and the attack on the Pentagon is false (NPHR Ch. 2).

Q. Can you please comment on the role of terrorist attacks in domestic politics in the US?

DRG: Clearly the 9/11 attacks played a major role in the elections of 2002 and 2004, helping the Republicans gain control of the Congress and the White House. This role was not, to be sure, sufficient to keep Bush and Cheney in the White House in 2004, as the Republicans also had to resort to distorting John Kerry’s war record and also to stealing the election through various means, most clearly in Ohio (see Mark Crispin Miller, Fooled Again). But there seems to be little doubt that the use of 9/11 to scare people into voting for Republicans played a role (even if irrationally, because the 9/11 attacks, if not either orchestrated or deliberately allowed by the Bush administration, were allowed by its incompetence).

By 2006, the 9/11-based appeal to fear had little effect, and thus far it is still weaker in 2008. This fact has not, however, prevented the Republicans from trying to use it one more time to scare people into voting for them, as the addresses to the Republican convention by Bush, Giuliani, and McCain illustrated.

Many people in the 9/11 community, however, fear that another false-flag attack, perhaps this time employing a nuclear weapon, will come before the 2008 elections, whether to help McCain win or, more fatefully, as a pretext for Bush to declare martial law and cancel the elections, allowing him, by the power he gave to himself in Presidential Directive 51, to assume unilateral control of the federal government. I am not saying that I expect this to happen. But I do not consider the fear unrealistic.

Q. In the days prior to September 11, the volume of put options on the stocks of firms involved in the attacks (mainly airlines and companies whose headquarters were in the WTC) soared. Do we know who bought these options and was it a case of insider trading?

DRG: It does appear to have been a case of insider trading (as I reported in “The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions,” citing the careful study by Allen Poteshman, who teaches finance at the University of Illinois).

But the 9/11 Commission, while assuring us that it was not a case of insider trading, refused to tell us who bought the extraordinary numbers of put options on these companies. In illustrating its purported evidence that all the purchases were innocent, it said that “[a] single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda purchased 95 percent of the UAL puts.” The Commission thereby employed circular logic. Beginning with the assumption that the attacks were planned and carried out entirely by al-Qaeda, with nobody else knowing about the plans, it argued that unless the put option purchasers were connected to al-Qaeda, the purchaser could not have had any inside information. But that argument begs the basic question at issue, which is precisely whether the attacks were planned by al-Qaeda, with no one else knowing about the plans (NPHR Ch. 5).

By not telling us who the investors were, the 9/11 Commission made it impossible for us to confirm its assurance that the purchases did not reflect insider information. We must simply take it on faith---which is difficult to do, given the dozens of lies of omission and distortion within the Commission’s report (“The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions”).

Sam, thanks for your questions, which have perhaps allowed me to reach a new audience with evidence that the official story about 9/11 is a lie. This evidence---only a small portion of which I have mentioned here---means that the policies that have been based on the assumption that America was attacked by Muslims on 9/11 need to be reversed. This point is especially germane in the light of Barack Obama’s argument that one reason to wind down our involvement in Iraq is to have the troops and resources to “go after the people in Afghanistan who attacked us on 9/11.” His position, which was stated repeatedly by speakers at the Democratic convention, is also reflected by the New York Times, which refers to the US attack on Iraq as a “war of choice” but the attack on Afghanistan as a “war of necessity,” and by Time magazine, which has dubbed the latter “the right war.” If we were not really attacked by Muslims on 9/11, these two wars were equally unjustified (as well as equally illegal under international law).

Bali Bomb was a CIA gladio-type atrocity

to garner support for the war of terror.

Watch this film in its entirety and you cannot escape this conclusion. Of course you won't act upon it, we are powerless to stop the mighty USA, right?



Exposing the Australian government's lies about the East Timor massacres, the cover-up of the Bali bombings (including '93 WTC attack) and subsequent anti-terror legislation forced through parliament.

"Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart
Bomb Used in Trade Center Blast"

By Ralph Blumenthal

Law-enforcement officials were told that terrorists were building a bomb that was eventually used to blow up the World Trade Center, and they planned to thwart the plotters by secretly substituting harmless powder for the explosives, an informer said after the blast.

The informer was to have helped the plotters build the bomb and supply the fake powder, but the plan was called off by an F.B.I. supervisor who had other ideas about how the informer, Emad Salem, should be used, the informer said.

The account, which is given in the transcript of hundreds of hours of tape recordings that Mr. Salem secretly made of his talks with law-enforcement agents, portrays the authorities as being in a far better position than previously known to foil the February 26th bombing of New York City's tallest towers.

The explosion left six people dead, more than a thousand people injured, and damages in excess of half-a-billion dollars. Four men are now on trial in Manhattan Federal Court [on charges of involvement] in that attack.

Mr. Salem, a 43-year-old former Egyptian Army officer, was used by the Government [of the United States] to penetrate a circle of Muslim extremists who are now charged in two bombing cases: the World Trade Center attack, and a foiled plot to destroy the United Nations, the Hudson River tunnels, and other New York City landmarks. He is the crucial witness in the second bombing case, but his work for the Government was erratic, and for months before the World Trade Center blast, he was feuding with the F.B.I.

Supervisor `Messed It Up'

After the bombing, he resumed his undercover work. In an undated transcript of a conversation from that period, Mr. Salem recounts a talk he had had earlier with an agent about an unnamed F.B.I. supervisor who, he said, "came and messed it up."

"He requested to meet me in the hotel," Mr. Salem says of the supervisor.

"He requested to make me to testify, and if he didn't push for that, we'll be going building the bomb with a phony powder, and grabbing the people who was involved in it. But since you, we didn't do that."

The transcript quotes Mr. Salem as saying that he wanted to complain to F.B.I. Headquarters in Washington about the Bureau's failure to stop the bombing, but was dissuaded by an agent identified as John Anticev.

Mr. Salem said Mr. Anticev had told him,

"He said, I don't think that the New York people would like the things out of the New York Office to go to Washington, D.C."

Another agent, identified as Nancy Floyd, does not dispute Mr. Salem's account, but rather, appears to agree with it, saying of the `New York people':

"Well, of course not, because they don't want to get their butts chewed."

CBS NEWS report about FBI foreknowledge of the World Trade Center bombing. WMV video download (2.2MB)

Gladio! just like Madrid on 11 March 2004, in London on 7/7/05