http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/truth-and-conspiracy-in-the-catskills/?ref=opinion

From the article:

I distanced myself from my discomfort by regarding the event as theater and inventorying the dramatis personae. They were straight out of central casting. Sander Hicks, the master of ceremonies, looked like an amalgam of Johnny Depp, Sean Penn and Matt Dillon; he kept things moving and implored “put your hands together” as each speaker came to the podium. Paul Zarembka played (and was) the left-leaning academic economist. He said, “The ruling class will do anything to keep in power.” The Rev. Ian Alterman preached gentleness, humility and respect. He said that those who have an investment in the official lies because that’s all they’ve ever heard cannot be approached in a confrontational manner.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/utzons-son-signs-up-for-september-11-conspiracy-theory-20091124-jhf7.html

Utzon's son signs up for September 11 conspiracy theory

AS CONSPIRACY theories go, it is up there with the CIA assassination of president John Kennedy and the faked moon landings. The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001, have spawned a cottage industry devoted to questioning whether they were the work of al-Qaeda and hinting that it was ''an inside job''.

Now a lead figure in the self-described ''9/11 truth movement'', an American architect, Richard Gage, has revealed one of its most high-profile adherents to date: Jan Utzon, son of the world-famous designer of the Sydney Opera House, Joern Utzon.

In a video posted on YouTube during his current visit to Sydney, Mr Utzon is interviewed by Mr Gage and endorses his call for a new inquiry into the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers has published a memoir. Predictably, Eyes on the Horizon carries an impressive payload of military-industrial propaganda in support of the “War on Terror”. But most interesting is Myers’ chapter recollecting the “defining moment” of September 11, which begins thusly:

"My driver, Dan Downey, braked hard at the Pentagon River Entrance, and we jumped from the car. The steps were crowded with men and women fleeing the building, many still coughing from the smoke inside."

From what is this thrilling Doc Savagesque prose meant to distract us?

On September 11, 2001 Air Force General Richard Myers was the Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and yet his tale of that day begins some time after the Pentagon was officially attacked at 9:38 a.m. What about the 35 minutes after the South Tower was hit, announcing a coordinated operation to the world? What about the 52 minutes after F-15s were finally scrambled from Otis to intercept a hijacked airliner at that moment striking the North Tower?

http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/578061.html

"Eckert, Rooney's high school sweetheart, continued to live in their home in Stamford, Conn., after the terrorists' attacks of 2001. As co-chairwoman of Voices of Sept. 11, she pushed for a formal commission to investigate intelligence failures and for a proper memorial to the victims."

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1220-04.htm

MY SILENCE CANNOT BE BOUGHT
by Beverly Eckert

"I've chosen to go to court rather than accept a payoff from the 9/11 victims compensation fund. Instead, I want to know what went so wrong with our intelligence and security systems that a band of religious fanatics was able to turn four U.S passenger jets into an enemy force, attack our cities and kill 3,000 civilians with terrifying ease. I want to know why two 110-story skyscrapers collapsed in less than two hours and why escape and rescue options were so limited.

I am suing because unlike other investigative avenues, including congressional hearings and the 9/11 commission, my lawsuit requires all testimony be given under oath and fully uses powers to compel evidence.

In his 1968 interview with Perry Adams, Mort Sahl explains the urgency of bringing to justice the conspirators behind the public execution of JFK. After reviewing the evidence, Sahl had made the decision to assist New Orleans DA Jim Garrison in his investigation. As a consequence of his vocal support for Garrison, Sahl--whose face made the cover of (CIA's) Time Magazine in 1960--was blacklisted and his successful mainstream career as an entertainer came to an end overnight.

Sahl's words and his sacrifice will not be lost on the generation of activists working to expose the truth of 9/11 and other shattering acts of state terrorism.

http://www.maebrussell.com/Mort%20Sahl/Mort%20Sahl%20-%20Argo.html

"ARGO: Why is the truth behind the assassination of President Kennedy the last chance of America for its survival?

Investigative journalist Gary Webb refused to be complicit. For his courage, the Mockingbird character assassins remembered him with this hit-piece of an obituary: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/13/obituaries/13webb.html

After the 2004 election, five weeks before his "suicide", he called out the American people for their apathy and moral cowardice.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3977503.stm

"What this election tells me, unfortunately, is that it doesn't matter to most Americans if their government lies to them repeatedly.

They no longer care if their leaders erode their civil liberties, push this country further towards a police state, or shroud their actions in additional layers of official secrecy.

They don't mind if their government operates strictly for the benefit of the rich and the corporate class, as long as their own taxes don't go up.

Nor do they care if their government spends itself to the brink of bankruptcy. As long as they feel threatened by some external evil, everything is permitted."

The following query was mailed by an associate to footage@cbs.com

"I write to request all available information concerning the segment of archival CBS News footage that is currently available on YouTube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_RbtEkjqIU&feature=related#

Specifically, I seek answers to these questions:

1) What is the date and time of the original airing?

2) Is there any subsequent update, follow-up or correction in the archives regarding the contents of this bulletin?

3) Mr. Rather's language indicates he has seen and intends to air a "video" of Rudolph Giuliani "holding up" a "flight recorder box" recovered from Gound Zero. Does CBS News possess video of Rudolph Giuliani matching Rather's description? If not, did CBS News possess such video when Rather announced this bulletin? If CBS News no longer possesses such video, what became of it and who currently has custody of it?

4) If CBS still has custody of the video of Rudolph Giuliani described in #3, what steps might be taken to acquire a copy of this footage?

Thank you for your cooperation and kind attention.

Respectfully,"

The following response was received:

http://culhavoc.blogsome.com/2006/05/03/confirming-the-exploding-mural-van-coverup

As transcribed by Culhavoc:

"officer: “I got a message on that uh plane, it’s a big truck with a mural painted of a of a airplane diving into New York City and exploding [inaudible] know what’s in the truck, the truck is in between 6th and 7th on King Street“

officer: [inaudible] are you holding those two guys [inaudible] (kay?)

multiple voices/commotion: [inaudible] fucking beat the shit out of him.

[..]

multiple voices/commotion: [inaudible] fucking shit out of him [inaudible]

officer: all right listen you need any [inaudible] on those two guys over there? you all right over there kay?

officer: “we got both suspects under kay, we have the suspects who drive…drove in the van and that exploded we have both of them under kay let’s get some help over here”

In February of 2006, the Norman Y. Mineta International Institute for Surface Transportation Policy Studies (MTI) published their report entitled: “Saving City Lifelines: Lessons Learned in the 9-11 Terrorist Attacks”.

Why does this sound familiar?
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/defense/

Invest in a 21st Century Military

"Rebuild the Military for 21st Century Tasks: As we rebuild our armed forces, we must not simply recreate the military of the Cold War era. Obama believes that we must build up our special operations forces, civil affairs, information operations, and other units and capabilities that remain in chronic short supply; invest in foreign language training, cultural awareness, and human intelligence and other needed counterinsurgency and stabilization skill sets; and create a more robust capacity to train, equip, and advise foreign security forces, so that local allies are better prepared to confront mutual threats.

Expand to Meet Military Needs on the Ground: Barack Obama supports plans to increase the size of the Army by 65,000 soldiers and the Marines by 27,000 troops. Increasing our end strength will help units retrain and re-equip properly between deployments and decrease the strain on military families.

Of all the events of 9/11 "omitted" by the Commission Report, is this one the most potentially explosive?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_fg7eashn0&feature=related#

If this audio is authentic, then there exist multiple eyewitnesses to the fact that on the morning of 9/11 FDNY personnel summoned the "bomb squad" to King Street, where a "big truck" (also described as a "van")--painted with a mural of planes crashing into Manhattan--was fled by two men and then "exploded". The two men were detained and roughed-up on the scene. And then...?

The mural depicting the aerial attacks connects the truck bombers with the WTC events, and was clearly meant to advertise that connection. Possibly they planned to park the vehicle at their intended target and escape, but were forced to abort their attack and detonate the bomb prematurely.

And still there's this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt7r_fMPhzk

Is it wise and safe to ignore these "anomalies" in the public record of "the day that changed the world", or should they rather be shoved in the face of every government and media apologist for the OCT and the ongoing murderous farce called the "war on terror"?

Another on-air oddity from Dan Rather:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_RbtEkjqIU&feature=related#

Observations:

- Rather's language suggests he has knowledge of a video clip in custody of CBS News in which Giuliani "holds up" what he claims is a "flight recorder box" from the WTC wreckage.

- Rather introduces this clip, but immediately a BBC-style "technical problem" prevents its being aired.

- Giuliani would not make such an announcement to the national media casually--much less "hold up" the object in question--without confirmation that what had been found was indeed a "flight recorder box" and not the remains of some other electronic appliance from the debris.

This episode supports claims by FDNY personnel and an NTSB "insider" that the WTC "black boxes" were in fact found, and suggests the actual moment the blackout curtain descends on this matter in the corporate media.

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff12202005.html

"I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks." - General Buck Turgidson in "Doctor Strangelove"

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=5555394&page=1

"Vice President Dick Cheney was more blunt, telling Georgia's president that "Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States."

"Asked to explain Cheney's phrase "must not go unanswered," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said, "It means it must not stand." White House officials refused to indicate what recourse the United States might have if the attacks continue."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/opinion/11kristol.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

"Surely we cannot simply stand by as an autocratic aggressor gobbles up part of — and perhaps destabilizes all of — a friendly democratic nation that we were sponsoring for NATO membership a few months ago." - William Kristol

A neocon proxy war against Russia while the Iran blockade fleet assembles?

Are they really that arrogant? That reckless? That death-loving insane?

I have watched the Naudet film "9/11" carefully, but never noticed that it includes a clip of the WTC2 collapse that captures a dark smoke plume rising at a considerable distance apparently SW from the towers. No doubt its approximate location can be triangulated by reference to landmarks.

The plume does not appear to be industrial exhaust as it is dark grey and has not drifted laterally, but is typical of aircraft crashes.

It appears at 54:00 on the DVD, and blooms upwards for several seconds as the WTC2 cloud expands. A still from this clip is discussed as Item 5 here:

http://www.spingola.com/JULES%20NAUDET%20App%204.htm

The source of the clip is unknown and may be among the film's credits, but there it is--smack in the middle of this slick Naudet CBS/Paramount production.

I link to Raphael's analysis of the Naudet film "9/11" because it is the only place I have seen this still isolated, NOT because I seek to promote his conclusion that the film is evidence of complicity by the Naudets or--more devisively--certain members of the FDNY.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/

Here's what Greenwald acknowleges in the "mainstream" Salon:

One week after 9/11, a person or persons within the US bioweapons community--referencing "9/11" in the letters--attempted to frame Muslims in a false-flag WMD attack on "opposition" leaders in the US Senate and selected members of the media. This frame-up was aided and abetted by ABC (Disney), whose assets proceeded to "fear-up" the US public in preparation for a war of aggression against Iraq.

But there's more:

Richard Cohen confirms that "a high government official" advised him to take Cipro "soon after Sept 11".
http://www.slate.com/id/2186766/

"The attacks were not entirely unexpected. I had been told soon after Sept. 11 to secure Cipro, the antidote to anthrax. The tip had come in a roundabout way from a high government official, and I immediately acted on it. I was carrying Cipro way before most people had ever heard of it."

This corroborates reports that Cheney's staff began taking Cipro on 9/11.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/2953.shtml

Another of the PNAC's "best and brightest" has added his voice to the chorus calling for a war of aggression against Iran.

http://tinyurl.com/57nz5g
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1240.html

The following letter to Kagan was forwarded from a friend. The linked images are disturbing.

"Dr. Kagan:

As you and your PNAC associates are working so assiduously to trigger a "pre-emptive" attack against Iran (a nation which has neither attacked nor threatened to attack either Israel or the US and is a signatory of the NNPT), and as you evidently take great pride in your "authorship" of the Iraq invasion, occupation and "surge", I am compelled to recommend a few photographs for your consideration. Although there are many thousands like them on the internet, somehow I sense you may not have had the opportunity to view them. As an academic myself, I understand how easily such abstractions as "war", "empire" and "national interest" can obscure the palpable facts of their realization.