I came across these two images from the press conference held on 9/11/2006 at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. where family members, Donna Marsh O'Connor, Christina Kminek, and Michele Little called for a new investigation.

I don't know who took these, but they are very good.

I also recommend my blog on Opium. - Jon

dailytimes.com.pk

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

KABUL: Delegates at a joint Pak-Afghan peace jirga last week evinced a keen interest to solve problems facing the two neighbours - including drug trafficking.

Recommendations by the fourth of five working committees underlined the need to purge Afghanistan of drugs and the Taliban insurgency and to expand the Afghanistan government’s writ beyond Kabul, officials said. The committee acknowledged Pakistan’s efforts to make the country drugs-free. It asked Kabul to follow the Islamabad way of achieving success against drugs.

Source: gnn.tv

By Dr. Peter Dale Scott
Tue, 14 Aug 2007 10:11:57 -0500

Terror, oil and the "shadow government"

In this exclusive excerpt from his powerful new book, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press), UC Berkeley professor emeritus Peter Dale Scott asks whether there is a connection between America’s historical use of terror as a political weapon and the recent moves by the Bush administration to suspend the Constitution and create a “shadow government” in the wake of the next terrorist attack:

The strategy of tension in Europe and America

The idea that sectors of government might sponsor extremists in acts of terrorism against their own people is, initially, almost unthinkable. Yet this unthinkable possibility has clearly happened in Italy, with the celebrated bombings of Milan’s Piazza Fontana in 1969 and the Bologna railway station in 1980. (Sixteen people were killed in Milan, and eighty-five in Bologna.) Although anarchists took part in these bombings, and were initially blamed for them, it developed that the bombings were part of a “strategy of tension” orchestrated by Italian military intelligence.1

The responsibility of Italian intelligence services has been definitively established by Italian courts and parliamentary investigations. As Stanford historian Thomas Sheehan wrote in the New York Review of Books, “Later the [Piazza Fontana] massacre was traced to two neofascists, Franco Freda and Giovanni Ventura, and to an agent of the Secret Services (SID) named Guido Giannettini. Giannettini fled the country, but continued to receive checks from SID for a full year. He and three high SID officials were eventually jailed for conspiracy in the massacre.”2

But the Italians found responsible have implicated U.S. covert actions in Italy, beginning with the efforts by the Office of Policy Coordination to defeat the Communists in the 1948 Italian elections. General Vito Miceli, the Italian head of military intelligence, after his arrest in 1974 on a charge of conspiring to overthrow the government, testified “that the incriminated organization, which became known as the ‘Parallel SID,’ was formed under a secret agreement with the United States and within the framework of NATO.”3

Former Italian defense minister Paulo Taviani told Magistrate Casson during a 1990 investigation “that during his time in office (1955–58), the Italian secret services were bossed and financed by ‘the boys in Via Veneto’—i.e. the CIA agents in the U.S. Embassy in the heart of Rome.”4 In 2000 “an Italian secret service general said . . . that the CIA gave its tacit approval to a series of bombings in Italy in the 1970s to sow instability and keep communists from taking power. . . . ‘The CIA wanted, through the birth of an extreme nationalism and the contribution of the far right, particularly Ordine Nuovo, to stop (Italy) sliding to the left,’ he said.”5

Take a Day to Show that You Want Change!

Source: associatedcontent.com

By Timothy Gatto
Published Aug 10, 2007

I have been writing for many years about the constant attacks on our rights as Americans that were, at one time, guaranteed by this nation's Constitution. When I first started to write political commentary, I was sure that people, once they knew the truth, would understand what I was writing. I thought that my back ground as a career military person, and my liberal posture, would combine to render make my writing somehow unique, and because of my liberal views and my military service, I would capture the trust of my readers.

Most of you have heard of John Feal. If by the off chance you haven't, John was a demolition supervisor that worked for six days at Ground Zero, until his foot was crushed by an eight-ton steel beam, resulting in the loss of half of his foot. He spent 11 weeks in the hospital, and a bit longer learning how to cope.

John is an amazing individual. He was willing to risk life and limb in order to help with the efforts down at Ground Zero. Since being hurt, he has become one of the leading advocates for 9/11 First Responders that are now sick and dying, and has started an organization called "The FealGood Foundation" that assists those very same responders.

Because of his efforts, he has managed to help 100's of 9/11 First Responders, if not more.

John is a very "colorful" individual with a heart of Gold. He holds no punches when speaking his mind, and I admire him for that. Here are some great John Feal quotes:

Q: Do you think the U.S., or U.N. forces, should have moved into Baghdad?

A: No.

Q: Why not?

A: Because if we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.

You may have heard that Philadelphia Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky recently wrote that a new 9/11 is what we need in order to re-unify this country.

I think what's interesting about his assertion is that he is willing to have 1000's of people murdered because it would be beneficial in his eyes.

How much different is that than what we are saying with regard to the Bush Administration and the first 9/11 (and hopefully the last)? Is it such a stretch to say that the Bush Administration was willing to have 1000's of people murdered because it was beneficial to them in that it allowed them to invade two countries illegally, it gave them unprecedented powers that go against the Constitution of the United States, it has given billions of dollars to their corporate friends, and it has given them "carte blanche" for policies that do not benefit the people, but instead the Military Industrial Complex? No, it isn't.

Source: dailykos.com

Luke Ryland
Thu Aug 09, 2007 at 06:17:06 AM PDT

For months we have been trying to get Henry Waxman to hold hearings into the case of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds but we have been met with a stony silence.

Until now!

The Hollywood Liberal snagged an interview with Henry Waxman and asked about Sibel's case.

The full interview is 25 mins long. I've posted the relevant 3-minute audio snippet here.

Transcript:

rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/ter/ter091106_truth.rm

This is the RealPlayer version. If you can convert this to either .mov, or .wmv, and upload it to Video Google, it would be very appreciated.

Thank You.

I met my father for lunch today, and he had an early birthday present for me. It was a piece of the above mural in a picture frame, along with a brief description.

About Yakov's Mural
After 9/11, Yakov Smirnoff used his art as an outlet for his grief. He created the painting "America's Heart" including a special message that reflected his belief in the human condition.

"The human spirit is not measured by the size of the act, but by the size of the heart."

Yakov shares that, "Along with so many people, I was stunned as I watched the images on television on the morning of September 11; and what made this devastation even more grievous was to know that what I was watching was coming from New York harbor, which is the home of the Statue of Liberty. She had to stand there and watch our American landscape changing in front of her very eyes, never to be the same. And yet she stood there, together and strong without wavering. I think it's a wonderful metaphor for all of us, to stand there, together and strong, without wavering, in love and not fear."

I want to see him live on television, or at the very least, a photograph of him. You don't have to be a "conspiracy theorist" to read something as vivid as "few Pakistan Rangers entered the flat, where they found Shaikh Mohammed and another man, allegedly with their hands up. The Rangers nevertheless opened fire on the pair. [...] "an Arab woman and a child were taken to an ISI safe house, where they identified the Shaikh Mohammed's body as their husband and father. The body was kept in a private NGO mortuary for 20 days before being buried, under the surveillance of the FBI, in a graveyard in the central district of Karachi. " and question the validity of his existence. Especially considering the level of secrecy around him. - Jon

The Black Sites
A rare look inside the C.I.A.’s secret interrogation program.

Source: newyorker.com

by Jane Mayer August 13, 2007

Yesterday, I came across this article from Manuel Garcia. I decided to send him a letter.

Dr. Garcia,

Should we ignore the 9/11 family members that fought for the creation of the 9/11 Commission, that worked with the 9/11 Commission staffers, that provided 1000's of well-researched questions to the 9/11 Commission when they say that that very 9/11 Commission was "derelict in its' duties", and when they question the "entire veracity" of the 9/11 Report?

Thomas Kean himself said, "They monitor us, they follow our progress, they've supplied us with some of the best questions we've asked. I doubt very much if we would be in existence without them."

Thank you,

Jon Gold

His response...

Given May 12, 2007 at Antioch University in Seattle.

Part I

Part II

Earlier today, I posted this article from Fox News entitled, "U.S. Terror Attack — 'Ninety Days at Most." This particular story was picked up today by Freemarketnews.com, canadafreepress.com, and familysecuritymatters.org.

As it turns out, this story was originally published by Fox News on 7/13/2005.

Thanks kelp for the catch.

6/2/2007

'9/11 Press For Truth' screened at 2:00PM today at the Central Cinema theater in Seattle as an official selection of the Seattle True Independent Film Festival, the movie's American festival debut.

Director Ray Nowosielski spent the week in Seattle promoting the movie and meeting with fellow filmmakers at the festival. The town was alive with film fans and industry professionals as STIFF ran concurrently with the Seattle International Film Festival, the largest festival in the world. Nowosielski was surprised to learn that John Sinno, producer of last year's Oscar-nominated feature documentary 'Iraq in Fragments', is a fan of 'Press For Truth'. Sinno ended up taking him to lunch, where they discussed future possibilities for reaching a wider audience with 'Press For Truth'.

View executive producer Kyle F. Hence's Q&A with the audience after the STIFF screening: