Archive for the 9/11 Truth or Consequences? category
July 4th, 2007
Bush Behind 9/11: French Minister
by IslamOnline.net & News Agencies
http://www.just-international.org/article.cfm?newsid=20002386
A high-profile French politician, now a minister in President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government, has suggested that US President George W. Bush might have been behind the terrorist 9/11 attacks.
“I think it is possible. I think it is possible,” Christine Boutin, now a Housing Minister, said in a video interview that started to seep into the mainstream media and was highlighted by Reuters Saturday, July 07.
Almost 3,000 people were killed when hijackers crashed planes into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington in 2001.
The attacks were claimed by Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
Some conspiracy theories argue that the collapse of the World Trade Center was the result of a controlled demolition.
Foreign activists and intellectuals did not buy that the massive terrorist operation was the work of Al-Qaeda, arguing that the attacks were orchestrated by the Bush administration to enforce into dominance drive on the world by force.
Some theorists also contend that a commercial airliner did not crash into the Pentagon and that the airline was shot down.
A recent Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll said that more than one-third of Americans believe US officials helped in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop them.
In 2002, a book claiming that no plane hit the Pentagon in the 9/11 attacks topped the French bestseller lists.
The White House revealed a security memo in 2004 under the Freedom of Information Act that warned of possible terrorist acts in the US one month before the 9/11 attacks.
The memo was received by Bush on August 6, 2001, and warned that Al-Qaeda network of Osama Bin Laden had penetrated the United States and could resort to plane hijackings.
Voice of the Masses
Boutin said that the websites that challenge Al-Qaeda role on the attack are drawing the largest numbers of visitors.
“I know that the websites that speak of this problem are websites that have the highest number of visits …,” Boutin said in the interview posted on the website www.ReOpen911.info which promotes the 9/11 conspiracy theories.
“I tell myself that this expression of the masses and of the people cannot be without any truth.”
Boutin’s remarks have immediately drawn attention of the French media.
“Christine Boutin snared by her controversial suggestions about Sept. 11,” Le Monde newspaper said in a headline.
Boutin’s office sought to play down her remarks about Bush’s role in the attacks.
Spokesman Christian Dupont was quoted by Liberation newspaper as saying that Boutin had not wanted to appear pro or anti-Bush at a time when Sarkozy was being branded a “US poodle” after meeting the president in Washington.
“And then she is not the foreign minister,” Dupont added.
Boutin’s office said that she said later in the interview that “I’m not telling you that I adhere to that position.”
But this comment does not appear on the video clip on the website.
April 12th, 2007
Below is a recent press release from an airline pilots’ 9/11-truth organization. I found it at Axis of Logic:
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_24288.shtml
but you can go the pilots’ site as well:
www.pilotsfor911truth.org
The pilots say they recently got hold of the NTSB study (2002) of American Airlines Flight 77 (supposed to have hit the Pentagon) thru FOIA, and that the analysis therein seems to clearly say that the large plane that passed that way that day was too high:
(a) to have knocked down the 5 or 6 light poles,
(b) to have appeared in the Pentagon security camera footage, and
(c) to have hit the Pentagon. (See press release)
I do remember seeing reports of at least one eyewitness who supposedly said that the large plane that day actually flew OVER the Pentagon as the attack occurred and landed at Dulles shortly after. These reports fed speculation that what hit the Pentagon was a military drone or missile launched by and/or controlled by the larger plane.
The 9/11 commish report acknowledges that an air force electronic surveillance/command plane was over the Pentagon when it was hit. A bit of the pilot’s testimony is in the report; his name is public.
He was also in the air earlier that morning (same plane) over Shanksville, Pa when whatever happened there happened. I’ve never seen any satisfactory account of this fellow, esp as to how, in a lumbering plane, he was able to be so on-the-spot — twice — while the fighter jets it seems were not.
I don’t mean that the picture is now clear. Just that it continues to make too little sense to be credible.
PRESS RELEASE
03/26/07
PILOTS FOR 9/11 TRUTH
www.pilotsfor911truth.org
Contact: Robert Balsamo
e-mail: pilots@pilotsfor911truth.org
OFFICIAL ACCOUNT OF 9/11 FLIGHT CONTRADICTED BY GOVERNMENT’S OWN DATA
Pilots for 9/11 Truth, an international organization of pilots and aviation professionals, petitioned the National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB) via the Freedom of Information Act to obtain their 2002 report, “Flight Path Study-American Airlines Flight 77″, consisting of a Comma Separated Value (CSV) file and Flight Path Animation, allegedly derived from Flight 77’s Flight Data Recorder (FDR).
The data provided by the NTSB contradict the 9/11 Commission Report in several significant ways:
1. The NTSB Flight Path Animation approach path and altitude does not support official events.
2. All Altitude data shows the aircraft at least 300 feet too high to have struck the light poles.
3. The rate of descent data is in direct conflict with the aircraft being able to impact the light poles and be captured in the Dept of Defense “5 Frames” video of an object traveling nearly parallel with the Pentagon lawn.
4. The record of data stops at least one second prior to official impact time.
5. If data trends are continued, the aircraft altitude would have been at least 100 feet too high to have hit the Pentagon.
In August, 2006, members of Pilots for 9/11 Truth received these documents from the NTSB and began a close analysis of the data they contain. After expert review and cross check, Pilots for 9/11 Truth has concluded that the information in these NTSB documents does not support, and in some instances factually contradicts, the official government position that American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon on the morning of September 11, 2001.
According to the 9/11 Commission Report, which relied heavily upon the NTSB Flight Path Study, American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon at 9:37:46 AM on the morning of September 11, 2001. However, the reported impact time according to the NTSB Flight Path Study is 09:37:45. Also according to reports, American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon and by doing so, struck down 5 light poles on Highway 27 in its path to the west wall.
The information provided by the NTSB does not support the 9/11 Commission Report of American Airlines Flight 77 impact with the Pentagon.
Pilots for 9/11 Truth is committed to discovering the truth surrounding the events of September 11, 2001. We have contacted both the NTSB and the FBI regarding these and other inconsistencies. To date, they have refused to comment on, correct, refute, retract or offer side-letters that might explain the discrepancies between what they claim are the data extracted from the FDR of AA Flight 77 and the official story alleging its crash into the Pentagon.
As concerned citizens and professionals in the aviation industry, Pilots for 9/11 Truth asks, why have these discrepancies not been addressed by agencies within the United States Government? Why have they falsely represented their own data to the American people? Pilots for 9/11 Truth takes the position that an official government inquiry into these discrepancies is warranted and long overdue. We call upon our fellow citizens to write to their Congressional representatives to inform them of these discrepancies and call for an immediate investigation into this matter. For more information please visit www.pilotsfor911truth.org
Signed:
Robert Balsamo
4000+ Total Flight Time
Former: Independence Air/Atlantic Coast Airlines
Glen Stanish
15,000+ Total Flight Time
American Airlines, ATA, TWA, Continental
Captain Russ Wittenberg (ret)
30,000+ Total Flight Time
Former Pan Am, United
United States Air Force (ret)
Over 100 Combat Missions Flown
John Lear
Son of Bill Lear
Founder, creator of the Lear Jet Corporation
More than 40 years of Flying
19,000+ Total Flight Time
Captain Jeff Latas
USAF (ret)
Captain - JetBlue Airways
Ted Muga
Naval Aviator - Retired Commander, USNR
Col Robert Bowman USAF (ret)
Directed all the “Star Wars” programs under Presidents Ford and Carter - 101 combat missions
Alfons Olszewski
Founder Veterans For Truth
US Army (ret), Aircraft Maintenance Crew Chief
Robin Hordon
Former Boston Center Controller
Commercial Pilot
John Panarelli
Friend and fellow aviator of John Ogonowski
Capt. AA #11
11,000+ Total Flight Time
Eastern Metro, Braniff, Ryan International, Emery
Worldwide, Polar Air Cargo
Lt. Colonel Shelton F. Lankford
United States Marine Corps (ret) - 10,000+ Total Flight Time 303 Combat Missions
Captain Dan Govatos
10,000+ Total Flight Time
Former Chief Pilot of Casino Express airlines, Director of Operations Training at Polar Air
George Nelson, Colonel USAF (Ret.) Licensed Commercial Pilot and Aircraft Mechanic
Dennis Spear
Army Aviator (ret)
7000+ Total Flight Time Operations Officer, Aviation Safety Officer
Captain Joe H. Ferguson
30,000+ Total Flight Time (ret) USAF (ret)
END PRESS RELEASE
February 7th, 2007
A while back The Nation broke its silence with Roots of Paranoia, dismissing with a conceptually empty paternal piece people who find the official story of 9/11 unbelievable. Yesterday The Guardian (a bit below) contributed its guffaw. The substance and rhetoric in these things are so weak, one wonders why they bother. Pressure to say something, I suppose. Pressure from above or below?
A 9/11 conspiracy virus is sweeping the world, but it has no basis in fact
George Monbiot
Tuesday February 6, 2007
The Guardian
There is a virus sweeping the world. It infects opponents of the Bush government, sucks their brains out through their eyes and turns them into gibbering idiots. First cultivated in a laboratory in the US, the strain reached these shores a few months ago. In the past fortnight, it has become an epidemic. Scarcely a day now passes without someone possessed by this sickness, eyes rolling, lips flecked with foam, trying to infect me.
The disease is called Loose Change. It is a film made by three young men that airs most of the standard conspiracy theories about the attacks of September 11 2001. Unlike the other 9/11 conspiracy films, Loose Change is sharp and swift, with a thumping soundtrack, slick graphics and a calm and authoritative voiceover. Its makers claim that it has now been watched by 100 million people.
January 24th, 2007
Story below re Wm Rodriguez, who worked in the WTC and has spoken at length re hearing and experiencing explosions in the building well before the collapses.
Here he says the first occurred circa 830 am and 22 other people in a basement office with him heard and felt them. Who are the 22 people?
I didn’t realize that his testimony to the 9/11 commish was closed session — and that Zelikow then blacked him out of the 911 Commish Report entirely. Another black mark re the Report.
Nor did I know (but am happy to see) that Hillary has dared pose with him.
May come back to haunt her.
Key 9/11 survivor in Lancaster
THE last man to leave the World Trade Center building alive is coming to Lancaster on Thursday, February 8, to speak on his experiences during and since 9/11
WILLIAM Rodriguez was working as a janitor in the World Trade Center on the ninth of September 2001 when he heard explosions – from below.
But William didn’t just try to save his own skin; as the only key holder for the North Tower stairwell where he was working, he unlocked doors and helped firefighters to rescue hundreds of people.
William was also the last survivor to leave the building. He spent the rest of 9/11 helping out as a volunteer in the rescue efforts, and at dawn the following morning, was back at Ground Zero continuing his efforts.
After 9/11 William lost his job and has worked ever since to help others who were affected by the atrocities.
In February William is coming to Lancaster to tell his side of the story; a story the US Government would not let him tell in full.
William, a native of Puerto Rico, a citizen of the United States and a resident of the State of New Jersey, was employed as a maintenance worker at the 110-storey World Trade Center building for 19 years.
William with Hillary Clinton.
Arriving at 8.30am on the morning of 9/11, he went to the maintenance office located on the first sub-level, one of six sub-basements beneath ground level.
Fourteen people were in the office at that time. As he was talking with others, he says there was an incredibly loud and powerful explosion which seemed to emanate from between sub-basement B2 and B3. There were 22 people on B2 sub-basement who also felt and heard that first explosion.
At first William thought it was a generator that had exploded, but the cement walls in the office cracked from the explosion.
“When I heard the sound of the explosion, the floor beneath my feet vibrated, the walls started cracking and everything started shaking,” said William, who was crowded together in the office with 14 other people, including Anthony Saltamachia, supervisor for the American Maintenance Company.
Just seconds later he says there was another explosion high above which made the building oscillate momentarily. This, he was later told, was a plane hitting the 90th floor.
Then he says there were other explosions just above B1 and individuals started heading for the loading dock to escape the fires caused by the blasts.
Unlocking doors for the firefighters as he went, William got to the 39th floor before he was turned back by the firefighters. As he began his descent he heard a plane hit the south tower.
Down at ground level he saw the mangled and bloodied bodies of people who had jumped. William says he will never forget the anguish that hit him, or the sight of the senseless carnage.
The Twin Towers were the only known steel frame buildings in history claimed to have failed because of fire. Other steel frame buildings have been known to burn for hours and hours and not collapse. The cause of the Twin Towers’ failure is not known because the evidence was rendered unavailable for investigation.
Independent investigators said both towers suspiciously fell “like a house of cards,” claiming that William probably heard pre-arranged detonated bomb blasts, strategically placed and timed to make it appear that the plane was the cause of the collapse.
After the trauma of losing many of his close friends and the sheer horror of the events of 9/11, William looked forward to his appearance at a closed-door hearing of the 9/11 Commission.
But he started changing his opinion as he saw how the commission worked, and also when the American media edited out his testimonies about hearing bomb blasts in the buildings, whilst the Spanish media reported his claims unedited.
William was one of the last people to testify to the commission and spoke behind closed doors, unlike other witnesses. His testimony was not included in the final report
He said the commission didn’t answer his questions and avoided the issues he was presenting. When the administration started to link the 9/11 attacks with the preparations of the 2003 Iraq war, he said he felt “manipulated and used”.
He also sought out the National Institutes of Technology, which was investigating the collapse of the WTC, but was sent packing.
And the FBI was not interested in his claim that he’d met one of the hijackers ‘casing’ the buildings several months before 9/11.
In October 2004, William filed a civil lawsuit directed against George W Bush, Richard B Cheney, Donald H Rumsfeld and others, including a total of 100 defendants, together with Ellen Mariani and lawyer Phil Berg. The RICO Act is normally used by the US government to nail organised crime as a conspiracy, but this time it was used against the government itself, claiming a conspiracy on its part.
The government filed a motion to dismiss, or at least transfer, the case on grounds of national security. Berg answered by filing an affidavit that alleged the defendants “had knowledge that the attacks were impending… but they failed to (take countermeasures), not by reason of mere negligence, confusion, or ineptitude, but because they affirmatively desired such attacks to occur.”
William said: “I have tried to tell my story to everybody, but nobody wants to listen. It is very strange what is going on here in supposedly the most democratic country in the world. In my home country of Puerto Rico and all the other Latin American countries, I have been allowed to tell my story uncensored. But here, I can’t even say a word.”
January 24th, 2007
This is from the NY Times
January 24, 2007
A former New York City police officer died of a lung disease last night, hours before his son attended the State of the Union address to draw attention to the plight of 9/11 rescue workers like him who became ill after they were exposed to toxic dust at ground zero.
The police officer, Cesar A. Borja, 52, died around 6:15 p.m. at Mount Sinai Medical Center, where he was enrolled in a monitoring and treatment program for ground zero workers, said Lauren Woods, a hospital spokeswoman.
Officer Borja died of pulmonary fibrosis, a type of chronic lung disorder that involves scarring of the tissue between the air sacs.
Officer Borja had been in intensive care and had been accepted as a potential candidate for a lung transplant, but his critical condition, complicated by infection, precluded him being listed to receive a lung, said his physician, Dr. Maria L. Padilla.
A Congressional official briefed on the officer’s case, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of federal health privacy rules, said that federal officials had approved government financing for virtually all of Officer Borja’s care — an acknowledgment that his condition was linked to work at ground zero.
Officer Borja’s 21-year-old son, Ceasar, had been invited to attend President Bush’s address as a guest of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. On Monday at ground zero and again yesterday in Washington, the young man stood next to Mrs. Clinton and discussed the need for federal financing for treatment of 9/11 workers.
“It is really painful for me to be here, so close to where my father contracted this disease,” Ceasar Borja said in New York on Monday, wearing a dark blue coat and speaking slowly and softly. He said he was trying to stay strong for his mother and two younger siblings and added, “9/11 did not end that day.”
Last night, the son was at a dinner at Bullfeathers, a Capitol Hill restaurant, when he received a phone call notifying him of his father’s death, according to an official briefed on the situation.
Four Congressional aides were at the dinner, along with several other guests invited to attend the presidential address in order to draw attention to 9/11 responders. Those at the dinner tried to comfort Ceasar Borja, the official said, and he decided to go through with his plan to attend the address.
Officials warned last month that money for two major monitoring and treatment programs — one run by Mount Sinai and the other by the city’s Fire Department — would run out in a matter of months.
Representative Vito J. Fossella, the only Republican House member from New York City, has urged White House officials to support the workers, but so far he has evidently not met with success. President Bush did not mention the 9/11 workers in his address last night
January 8th, 2007
Excerpts from a piece in the Guardian:
by Hannah Pool
Phyllis Rodriguez’s son Greg was one of the 2,759 people who died in the World Trade Centre in 2001. The following year she and other relatives of victims of the New York attacks met Aicha el-Wafi, whose son Zacarias Moussaoui received a life sentence for his role in the hijackings. Rodriguez is involved in the Forgiveness project, a non-religious, non-political group that catalogues stories of forgiveness.
How did you first meet Aicha el-Wafi?
The meeting was arranged through two human-rights groups. Aicha had requested a meeting with any family members of victims who were interested. We agreed - on condition that it would be very private.
What happened at the meeting?
When she arrived, we embraced each other and we cried, and then we all sat and she told her story.
What was the first thing she said to you?
She expressed her sympathy for our losses and apologised. She said: “I don’t know if my son is guilty or innocent, but I’m sorry for what happened to you.”
Was it what you wanted to hear?
I didn’t expect her to apologise. I didn’t hold her responsible. The people who I would love to hear that from are the ones who died in the attacks, who sacrificed themselves. I don’t know that I would even insist on their apologising. I really wish I could have a dialogue with them, to understand what made them act that way.
Have people been angry at your willingness to forgive?
Yes, some people have been. I’ve been accused of being a bleeding heart liberal. I’ve been accused of not thinking seriously about what I am doing because it violates the memory of my son and those who were killed.
Many people hold Aicha indirectly responsible and I feel that she’s not responsible. First of all, I do not believe that her son had anything to do with it — there was no evidence, even though he pleaded guilty. But even if he were, she’s a mother, she did her best. I have never known a person well who was so abused in her marriage and in life and who fought and survived and kept her positive, generous nature.
Why forgive?
I think that, on a very intimate level, it helps me.
Is there a danger you are letting off those responsible?
No, I would not let them off. I would want them to pay, I would want them to have a fair trial, I would want them to have appropriate punishment, I would want society protected from dangerous people.
Do people confuse forgiveness with lack of punishment?
Yes, they do.
Are you more political now?
No, I don’t think I am more political, but I question a lot of stuff.
If you had five minutes with President Bush, what would you say?
What I would say to Bush is this:
“The military actions that you have taken, the Patriot Act that you have pushed through, those were not in the name of my son. I do not support this. You didn’t ask me. I wish you had asked me what I would have suggested in the name of my son. I do not feel that what you have done has made us safer — on the contrary, I feel less safe now. History has shown us, and international experience has shown us, that violence and repression do not make the world a better place.”
December 29th, 2006
New this past September (five years since) is the best documentary yet on the demolition of the Twin Towers and 7WTC: “9/11 Mysteries, Part 1: The Demolitions.”
This is a mature, rounded and well-founded argument. Brought to you by the good folks at 911weknow.com.
Pop some corn. Invite some friends.
November 2nd, 2006
Interesting testimony from, of course, radio.
