http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/24/thousands-have-illnesses-_n_299...

NEW YORK — A city task force on medical problems linked to the collapse of the World Trade Center says tens of thousands of New Yorkers have sought treatment or enrolled in a health monitoring program.

The annual report by the World Trade Center Medical Working Group was released Thursday. The report says nearly 16,000 people have sought out care at publicly funded programs for people with illnesses potentially related to the attacks.

Another 42,000 rescue, recovery and clean up workers were in monitoring programs.

But the report also found that there are people who aren't taking advantage of available medical services, including thousands of people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

A recent poll by Public Policy Polling showed 22% of those polled either believed Bush allowed 9/11 to happen or were unsure. That same question revealed 38% of self-described "Liberals" either believed Bush allowed 9/11 or were unsure. 21% of "Moderates" and 16% of "Conservatives" held the same opinion.

Compare these results with other 9/11-related polls. A World Public Opinion poll from 2008 showed only 46% of the world believes al-Qaeda alone perpetrated 9/11; 15% believe the US government did it.

These polls demonstrate, more than anything, that the degree of skepticism expressed by the public reflects the framing of the question: the more open-ended the skepticism of the question, the more respondents agree with it. The most indicative of this trend is the 2006 CBS/NY Times poll about Bush administration foreknowledge: 16% said "telling the truth", 53% said they are "mostly telling the truth but hiding something", 28% said they are "mostly lying", 3% not sure.

In a recent article for Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations, Zbigniew Brzezinski calls for NATO to transform itself into a "hub" for a global security "web". This article is an expanded version of a NY Times Op-Ed piece he wrote in August.

Brzezinski advocates the following:

"But to remain relevant, NATO cannot — as some have urged — simply expand itself into a global alliance or transform itself into a global alliance of democracies. A global NATO would dilute the centrality of the U.S.-European connection, and none of the rising powers would be likely to accept membership in a globally expanded NATO. Furthermore, an ideologically defined global alliance of democracies would face serious difficulties in determining whom to exclude and in striking a reasonable balance between its doctrinal and strategic purposes.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/09/14/binladen.message/index.html

(CNN) -- An audio message purportedly from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has accused President Barack Obama of being unable to fulfil his election pledge to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq.

Osama bin Laden is seen in an image taken from a videotape that aired on Al-Jazeera in September 2003.

Osama bin Laden is seen in an image taken from a videotape that aired on Al-Jazeera in September 2003.

The tape emerged on radical Islamist Web sites, just two days after the United States marked the eighth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.

"To the American people, this is my message to you: a reminder of the reasons behind 9/11 and the wars and the repercussions that followed and the way to resolve it," the message said.

"From the beginning, we have stated many times ... that the cause of our disagreement with you is your support of your allies, the Israelis, who are occupying our land in Palestine. Your stance along with some other grievances are what led us to carry out the events of 9/11."

Would you still sign the 9/11 Truth petition?
We ask signatories of the statement that helped drive Van Jones from office if they stand by it.

By Vincent Rossmeier
Sep. 11, 2009 |

Thanks in large part to his association with the 9/11 Truth movement, Van Jones is no longer a member of the Obama White House. Jones resigned last week amid a swirl of controversy -- prodded on largely by Fox News' Glenn Beck -- that included the former "green jobs" advisor's signing of a petition put out by the 9/11 Truth movement urging a further investigation into the World Trade Center attacks. Most controversially, the petition wondered darkly that "unanswered questions ... suggest that people within the current administration may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war," before drifting into a list of wild and dubious speculation. (You can read the petition right here.)

Initially, Jones said that he hadn't fully reviewed the statement before he signed. But that didn't stop the onslaught of bad publicity that ultimately led to his exit.

http://www.thecanadiancharger.com/page.php?id=5&a=127

by Dr. Graeme MacQueen

"Today, our nation saw evil." George W. Bush, September 11, 2001

September 11, 2009 will not be a simple anniversary of an extraordinary day but the mythic return of a day that is now in the calendar of American civil religion.

American citizens will be urged to re-achieve the levels of patriotic fervour stimulated by the original event by flying the nation’s flag.[1]

Pilgrimage to “Ground Zero” will thrive.

No one familiar with war and nationalism will be surprised by the religious aspects of these memorials and revisitings.[2]

The homeland was violated. Blood sacrifice and murder were accomplished. The nation, after reeling from the blow, found a sense of meaning and direction only by setting off on its own path of blood sacrifice.

I will not discuss here the well known aspects of the path chosen--the illegal invasions and torture abroad, the degrading of civil rights at home, and the parallel developments in other states, including Canada.

Museum scours world for new videos of 9/11 attacks

By VERENA DOBNIK (AP) – 11 hours ago

NEW YORK — A camera in Brooklyn points through a chain-link fence at black smoke pouring from one skyscraper, while a plane pierces another. Papers fly through the sky; some of them end up in the filmmakers' hands.

That evening — Sept. 11, 2001 — another camera finds firefighters trudging through dust-caked streets, carrying their helmets or a spare pair of shoes. The spindly facade of the World Trade Center is before them.

The new views of the terrorist attacks — one of the most recorded events of all time — are among hundreds of hours of amateur videos, images and stories gathered by the foundation building the memorial. The National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum is launching a Web site Thursday with its collection of citizen journalism of the tragedy and is appealing for more 9/11 stories from all over the world.

Maher lumps together 9/11 Truth with other "conspiracy" theories in this recent bit from his show.

Priceless: How The Federal Reserve Bought The Economics Profession
Ryan Grim

The Federal Reserve, through its extensive network of consultants, visiting scholars, alumni and staff economists, so thoroughly dominates the field of economics that real criticism of the central bank has become a career liability for members of the profession, an investigation by the Huffington Post has found.

This dominance helps explain how, even after the Fed failed to foresee the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression, the central bank has largely escaped criticism from academic economists. In the Fed's thrall, the economists missed it, too.

"The Fed has a lock on the economics world," says Joshua Rosner, a Wall Street analyst who correctly called the meltdown. "There is no room for other views, which I guess is why economists got it so wrong."

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090908_the_united_states_of_plutoc...

Posted on Sep 8, 2009

By William Pfaff

The United States has for practical purposes been a plutocracy for some years now. American national elections usually function more or less correctly, except that they have become all but completely dominated by money.

The contributors of money to Senate and House campaigns are dominated by the source of that money, and the source of the money is the United States government, which directs it to them as a result of the contracts awarded to them by the House and Senate members whose election they support. The process is circular.

It would be cheaper for all concerned if business were directly to pay senators and representatives and eliminate the middlemen, the parasites who live on the surplus money in this system, paid for their ability to persuade both sellers and buyers (so to speak) that they are providing a service by facilitating the bargain. Elections now cannot take place without them.

There would seem to be two steps by which this rot has taken hold.

New program will teach students about 9/11

By CRISTIAN SALAZAR (AP) – 3 hours ago

NEW YORK — Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani joined Sept. 11 family members and college professors on Tuesday at a hotel blocks from the World Trade Center site to unveil a plan to teach middle and high school students about the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The 9/11 curriculum, believed to be the first comprehensive educational plan focusing on the attacks, is expected to be tested this year at schools in New York City, California, New Jersey, Alabama, Indiana, Illinois and Kansas.

It was developed with the help of educators by the Brick, N.J.-based Sept. 11 Education Trust, and was based on primary sources, archival footage and more than 70 interviews with witnesses, family members of victims and politicians, including Giuliani and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a New York senator at the time of the attacks.

The curriculum is taught through videos, lessons and interactive exercises, including one that requires students to use Google Earth software to map global terrorist activity.

Former CIA agent's eight years hunting bin Laden in Pakistani badlands

Tim Reid in Washington

Art Keller, a blond, blue-eyed CIA agent, sits inside a decrepit building deep inside al-Qaeda territory, staring at his computer screen. He is forbidden by his Pakistani minders from venturing out into the badlands of Waziristan to help to find and kill the world’s most wanted man.

He is sick and exhausted, and suffering from food poisoning. Back home in the US his father is dying of cancer. The plumbing is basic, the heat intense — the generator has failed again. He pores over cables looking for any scrap of information — an intercepted phone call, an aerial photograph — that might finally end the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

The fruitless search has essentially been outsourced by the US to a network of Pashtun spies run by the Pakistani intelligence services.

Not that this should surprise any of us, but at least now it's on record (and explains the censorship of 9/11 Truth at Huffington Post). Here are Arianna Huffington's recent comments, following the resignation of Van Jones:

"More full disclosure: I despise 9/11 "truther" conspiracies. Indeed, one of the guidelines for bloggers on HuffPost is a ban on posts putting forth those kinds of theories. And it was stupid of Van to put his name on a very stupid "9/11 Truth Statement." I've spoken to Van. He doesn't believe that the Bush administration orchestrated the 9/11 attacks or allowed the attacks to happen in a cold-hearted attempt to gin up support. The 9/11 "Truthers" are fringe-dwellers and Van was completely wrong to allow himself to be associated with them."

Osama introduced Nawaz Sharif to Saudi royals: ex-ISI officer

PTI 6 September 2009, 07:15pm IST

LAHORE: Osama bin Laden introduced Nawaz Sharif to the Saudi royal family in the late 1980s and during a meeting the former Premier had asked the Al Qaida chief to provide employment to Pakistanis in Saudi Arabia, former ISI officer Khalid Khwaja claimed on Sunday.

Khwaja, who was close to Sharif in the late 1980s and early1990s, made the claim in an interview.

"During his first visit to Saudi Arabia as Chief Minister of Punjab in the late 1980s, no one from the royal family had given Sharif importance," he said.

"Thereafter, on Sharif's request, Osama bin Laden introduced him to the royal family and that helped him in getting closer to the Saudis," said Khwaja, who was a squadron leader in the Pakistan Air Force before joining the ISI in 1985.

"A close aide of Sharif family and I arranged at least five meetings between Sharif and bin Laden in Saudi Arabia.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-nelson/i-stand-with-van-jones_b_27805...

Join us at StandWithVan.com to show your unwavering support for White House green jobs advisor Van Jones.

Like sharks in the water, a right-wing lynch mob led by notorious race-baiter Glenn Beck is now circling around White House green jobs advisor Van Jones.

On the surface, their complaint centers around Jones' background and statements he previously made as an activist. Specifically, conservative blogs and media outlets have seized on a harshly-worded petition Jones signed in 2004 demanding further investigations into the 9/11 attacks. Jones has clarified since then, saying of the petition that "it certainly does not reflect my views, now or ever." But this is little more than the right-wing manufactured faux-outrage du jour. Beck began aggressively going after Jones in the wake of a campaign targeting Beck's advertisers -- organized by Color of Change -- an advocacy organization Jones founded prior to taking a position in the administration.

Right-wing blogs have picked up the story that Van Jones, President Obama's Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, is a signatory of the 2004+9/11+Truth+Statement demanding a new investigation. The bloggers are completely distorting the stated aims of the 9/11 Truth Statement (and Jones' signature attached to the statement), by suggesting he believes the Bush Administration was behind 9/11. The actual statement says nothing of the sort, but demands the following actions:

"The Statement asks for four actions: an immediate investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Congressional hearings, media analysis, and the formation of a truly independent citizens-based inquiry."

How a Detainee Became An Asset
Sept. 11 Plotter Cooperated After Waterboarding

By Peter Finn, Joby Warrick and Julie Tate
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, August 29, 2009

After enduring the CIA's harshest interrogation methods and spending more than a year in the agency's secret prisons, Khalid Sheik Mohammed stood before U.S. intelligence officers in a makeshift lecture hall, leading what they called "terrorist tutorials."

In 2005 and 2006, the bearded, pudgy man who calls himself the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks discussed a wide variety of subjects, including Greek philosophy and al-Qaeda dogma. In one instance, he scolded a listener for poor note-taking and his inability to recall details of an earlier lecture.

CIA+'threatened'+9/11+mastermind's+children

By Washington correspondent Kim Landers and wires

Mohammed was held at secret CIA prisons until 2006 before his arrival at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

American interrogators threatened to kill the children of the self-confessed September 11 mastermind, a new declassified CIA report says.

One interrogator allegedly told Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that if there was another terrorist attack in the US "we're going to kill your children", the document released by the US Justice Department says.

The report also says Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a suspect in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in which 17 US sailors were killed, was told his mother could be raped in front of him if he did not cough up information.

August 24, 2009
Arrest Over Software Illuminates Wall St. Secret
By ALEX BERENSON

Flying home to New Jersey from Chicago after the first two days at his new job, Sergey Aleynikov was prepared for the usual inconveniences: a bumpy ride, a late arrival.

He was not expecting Special Agent Michael G. McSwain of the F.B.I.

At 9:20 p.m. on July 3, Mr. McSwain arrested Mr. Aleynikov, 39, at Newark Liberty Airport, accusing him of stealing software code from Goldman Sachs, his old employer. At a bail hearing three days later, a federal prosecutor asked that Mr. Aleynikov be held without bond because the code could be used to “unfairly manipulate” stock prices.

This case is still in its earliest stages, and some lawyers question whether Mr. Aleynikov should be prosecuted criminally, or whether a civil suit may be more appropriate. But the charges, along with civil cases in Chicago and New York involving other Wall Street firms, offer a glimpse into the turbulent world of ultrafast computerized stock trading.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/us/23gitmo.html?_r=1&ref=us

August 23, 2009
Detainee to Question 9/11 Suspect
By JOHN H. CUSHMAN Jr.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge has granted a prisoner challenging his detention by the military at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, permission to ask questions of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of Al Qaeda’s Sept. 11 plot who is the camp’s most notorious inmate.

Judge Ricardo M. Urbina of the United States District Court in Washington, D.C., granted the request, which the government had vehemently opposed, only under tightly controlled conditions.

The ruling was issued Thursday in the case of the detainee, Abdul Raheem Ghulam Rabbani, a Pakistani who has been held as a terrorism suspect for five years despite claiming that he did only menial work for Mr. Mohammed, who has been held under extraordinary security since his capture.

Now that the Prince+of+Darkness+is+dead, perhaps it is a good time to recall that 911blogger exposed Novak as one of the early commentators to identify 9/11 as an "inside job" in his September 13, 2001 column. Thanks to pduveen for uncovering this detail.

This article is typical of deep state murkiness. While not directly related to 9/11, this information could be informative in understanding 9/11. - simuvac

Ex-undercover cop reveals the murky world of informants

WEST Midlands Police spent £20,000 on a single tip from an informant – and would regularly turn a blind eye to serious crime to protect their sources.

These are just some of the shocking revelations from a former undercover cop who has spilled the beans on the murky world of the snitch.

Ronnie Howard spent 23 years as an undercover detective working for West Midlands Police and the National Crime Squad.

A tough, no-nonsense, old school copper like Gene Hunt from TV’s Life On Mars, he took on pushers, pimps and fraudsters and, at the peak of his career in Birmingham, would run between 15 and 20 informants at a time.

For the first time the Sunday Mercury can reveal how the police worked with the criminal underworld in order to get the job done.

NIST Asks 9/11 Photographers Whether Images Should Be Withheld

The National Institute of Standards and Technology received thousands of photos and video images from hundreds of photographers as it investigated the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings, and it must release copies to Freedom of Information Act requesters unless those images are exempt.

* Aug 14, 2009

(Dr. Joel S. Hirschhorn is a former Senior Staff Member of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. He is on record calling for a new investigation of 9/11. - simuvac)

9/11 Mind Swell

by Joel S. Hirschhorn / August 11th, 2009

As we approach the eighth anniversary of 9/11 consider this paradox. In the post 9-11 years the scientific evidence for disbelieving the official government story has mounted incredibly. And the number of highly respected and credentialed professionals challenging the official story has similarly expanded. Yet, to the considerable disappointment of the international 9/11 truth movement, the objective fact is that there are no widespread, loud demands for a new government-backed 9/11 investigation. The 9/11 truth movement is the epitome of a marginalized movement, one that never goes away despite not achieving truly meaningful results, which in this case means replacing official lies with official truth. What has gone wrong?

NYC CAN News Bulletin - FORWARD WIDELY
August 10, 2009

Today we began the signature review, and with much promise! The first step: to do a recount of the signatures the Board of Elections did validate. And, after counting only 5 out of 52 volumes, we have found the Board of Elections reported 229 signatures fewer than what they actually validated inside the volumes. If their count continues to be off at the same rate, we will gain some 2,300 signatures - SIMPLY BY RECOUNTING THE ONES THAT WERE ALREADY VALIDATED. And we have already identified one petitioner who collected hundreds of signatures and was wrongly invalidated, along with all the signatures he gathered! And there are thousands of invalidated signatures ripe for challenging because the signer is on the voter roll but put their wrong address - these signatures will also be deemed valid if the signature on the petition matches the signature on their voter registration form.

In short, we have every reason to be optimistic that we will eclipse the 30,000 requirement, and that we will have our day in court to argue our right to establish a new commission to investigate 9/11.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/guantanamo/story/1179756.html

BY CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@miamiherald.com

U.S. military defense lawyers for accused 9/11 conspirator Ramzi bin al Shibh cannot learn what interrogation techniques CIA agents used on the Yemeni before he was moved to Guantánamo to be tried as a terrorist, an Army judge has ruled.

Bin al Shibh, 37, is one of five men charged in a complex death penalty prosecution by military commission currently under review by the Obama administration. He allegedly helped organize the Hamburg, Germany, cell of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers before the suicide mission that killed 2,974 people in New York, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania.

But his lawyers say he suffers a ``delusional disorder,'' and hallucinations in his cell at Guantánamo may leave him neither sane enough to act as his own attorney nor to stand trial. Prison camp doctors treat him with psychotropic drugs.

Army Col. Stephen Henley, the military judge on the case, has scheduled a competency hearing for mid-September.

Ventura's+new+venture:+'Conspiracy+Theories'

By BOB VON STERNBERG, Star Tribune
Last update: August 5, 2009 - 5:59 AM

With careers in wrestling, movies, radio and government under his belt, Jesse Ventura is adding a line to his résumé: professional conspiracy theorist.

A television production company announced Tuesday that the former Minnesota governor will host "Conspiracy Theories With Jesse Ventura" on cable's truTV, a Turner Broadcasting System channel.

The launch of the program was initially announced last September, but apparently only a pilot was produced.

"Now I get to be a detective and seek the truth," Ventura was quoted as saying in a news release at the time.

Talking about dark conspiracies is not exactly virgin territory for Ventura. In his books and repeated TV interviews, he has repeatedly maintained that the assassination of John Kennedy and the 9/11 terrorist attacks were hatched by conspirators unknown to the general public.

Jonathan Kay: Don't insult 9/11 'Truthers' by comparing them to brain-dead 'Birthers'
Posted: July 31, 2009, 2:27 PM by Jonathan Kay

Ever wonder what happened to all those right-wing loonies who sent you email in 2008 insisting that Barack Obama was a Muslim? Turns out they now have greater ambitions: They're trying to convince the world that Obama isn't even a "natural born citizen of the United States," and so is ineligible to be President.

Amazingly, these debunked conspiracy theorists not only have created a large Internet-based movement in recent months, they've also managed to convince some Republican members of Congress that there is real doubt about the legitimacy of Barack Obama's presidency.

The movement has been dubbed the "Birthers" — a play on the word "Truthers," who believe that the September 11 terrorist attacks were an inside job perpetrated (or known about) by warmongering elements within the U.S. government and/or military.

From Luke Ryland's blog Against All Enemies (links at original):

Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds dropped a bombshell on the Mike Malloy radio show, guest-hosted by Brad Friedman (audio, partial transcript).

In the interview, Sibel says that the US maintained 'intimate relations' with Bin Laden, and the Taliban, "all the way until that day of September 11."

These 'intimate relations' included using Bin Laden for 'operations' in Central Asia, including Xinjiang, China. These 'operations' involved using al Qaeda and the Taliban in the same manner "as we did during the Afghan and Soviet conflict," that is, fighting 'enemies' via proxies.

As Sibel has previously described, and as she reiterates in this latest interview, this process involved using Turkey (with assistance from 'actors from Pakistan, and Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia') as a proxy, which in turn used Bin Laden and the Taliban and others as a proxy terrorist army.

Control of Central Asia