Washington's Blog

I am a big fan of Glenn Greenwald.

Greenwald - a former constitutional lawyer - regularly destroys the "official" narratives about war, torture, spying, anthrax and other topics. I have worked tirelessly and written hundreds of articles on these issues myself, and I regularly quote Glenn.

I have seen Greenwald time and again refute false claims, ad hominem attacks and illogical reasoning. I know that Glenn can ignore the straw men and red herrings, keep his "eyes on the prize" of truth, and get to the heart of the matter.

Given the way that Mr. Greenwald has shredded the anthrax investigation, I know that he is not afraid to speak truth to power and to courageously challenge false narratives being pushed by the government and the mainstream media.

Whistleblowers

Given the manner in which Mr. Greenwald regularly quotes high-level whistleblowers, and his brilliant criticism of the unlawful persecution of Julian Assange and Bradley Manning, I am confident that he values whistleblowers.

Starting there, Glenn might be interested in learning that Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and the Senator who was instrumental in making those documents public (Mike Gravel) are both skeptical of the official 9/11 narrative.

For example, Ellsberg says that the case of a certain 9/11 whistleblower is "far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers". (Here's some of what that whistleblower says.) He also said that the government is ordering the media to cover up her allegations about 9/11.

And Ellsberg said that some of the claims concerning government involvement in 9/11 are credible, that "very serious questions have been raised about what they [U.S. government officials] knew beforehand and how much involvement there might have been", that engineering 9/11 would not be humanly or psychologically beyond the scope of those in office, and that there's enough evidence to justify a new, "hard-hitting" investigation into 9/11 with subpoenas and testimony taken under oath (see this and this).

Similarly, Air Force Colonel and key Pentagon official Karen Kwiatkowski - the primary insider blowing the whistle on the Pentagon's "Office of Special Plans" (the unit responsible for "stovepiping" false intelligence regarding Iraq's wmds to the White House) - questions 9/11, and writes:

I have been told by reporters that they will not report their own insights or contrary evaluations of the official 9/11 story, because to question the government story about 9/11 is to question the very foundations of our entire modern belief system regarding our government, our country, and our way of life. To be charged with questioning these foundations is far more serious than being labeled a disgruntled conspiracy nut or anti-government traitor, or even being sidelined or marginalized within an academic, government service, or literary career. To question the official 9/11 story is simply and fundamentally revolutionary. In this way, of course, questioning the official story is also simply and fundamentally American.

(page 26).

Many other well-known whistleblowers also challenge the official 9/11 narrative.

Lawyers

Lawyers know that "conspiracies" are alleged every day by prosecutors and by plaintiffs in civil suits. They know that - just as with allegations of trespass, or defamation, or any other claim of wrongdoing - conspiracy allegations often fall apart under investigation, but that many - even big ones - turn out to be true.

The best lawyers value the Constitution and the rule of law, are able to examine evidence and to spot cover-ups or inconsistencies in the evidence and bias in witnesses or decision-makers, and are good at weighing conflicting evidence. Starting with those assumptions, Mr. Greenwald will be interested in the fact that numerous high-level legal scholars question the government's official story about 9/11:

• Former Federal Prosecutor, Office of Special Investigations, U.S. Department of Justice under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan; former U.S. Army Intelligence officer, and currently a widely-sought media commentator on terrorism and intelligence services (John Loftus) questions the government's version of 9/11

• Former Inspector General, U.S. Department of Transportation; former Professor of Aviation, Dept. of Aerospace Engineering and Aviation and Professor of Public Policy, Ohio State University (Mary Schiavo) questions the government's version of 9/11

 

• Professor of International Law at the University of Illinois, Champaign; a leading practitioner and advocate of international law; responsible for drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, the American implementing legislation for the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention; served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International (1988-1992), and represented Bosnia- Herzegovina at the World Court, with a Doctor of Law Magna Cum Laude as well as a Ph.D. in Political Science, both from Harvard University (Dr. Francis Boyle) questions the government's version of 9/11

 

• Former prosecutor in the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the U.S. Justice Department and a key member of Attorney General Bobby Kennedy’s anti-corruption task force; former assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois (J. Terrence "Terry" Brunner) questions the government's version of 9/11

 

• Professor Emeritus, International Law, Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University; in 2001 served on the three-person UN Commission on Human Rights for the Palestine Territories, and previously, on the Independent International Commission on Kosovo (Richard Falk) questions the government's version of 9/11., and asks whether the Neocons were behind 9/11

• Bessie Dutton Murray Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Director, Center for Human Rights, University of Iowa; Fellow, World Academy of Art and Science.
  

• Honorary Editor, Board of Editors, American Journal of International Law (Burns H. Weston) questions the government's version of 9/11

 

• Former president of the National Lawyers Guild (C. Peter Erlinder), who signed a petition calling for a real investigation into 9/11. And see petition

 

• Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Troy University; associate General Counsel, National Association of Federal Agents; Retired Agent in Charge, Internal Affairs, U.S. Customs, responsible for the internal integrity and security for areas encompassing nine states and two foreign locations; former Federal Sky Marshall; 27-year U.S. Customs career (Mark Conrad) questions the government's version of 9/11.

 

• Professor of Law, University of Freiburg; former Minister of Justice of West Germany (Horst Ehmke) questions the government's version of 9/11

• Director of Academic Programs, Institute for Policy and Economic Development, University of Texas, El Paso, specializing in executive branch secrecy policy, governmental abuse, and law and bureaucracy; former U.S. Army Signals Intelligence officer; author of several books on law and political theory (Dr. William G. Weaver) questions the government's version of 9/11

 

• Famed trial attorney (Gerry Spence) questions the government's version of 9/11

 

Indeed, quite a few lawyers - including Ferdinando Imposimato, Honorary President of the Supreme Court of Italy, the Former Senior Investigative Judge, Italy, who presided over several terrorism-related cases, including the kidnapping and ultimate assassination of President Aldo Moro, the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II, other political assassinations and kidnapping cases and several cases against the Mafia, a former Senator who served on the Anti-Mafia Commission in three administrations, and served as former legal consultant to the United Nations regarding institution of laws to control drug trafficking - have signed the petition at Lawyers for 9/11 Truth.

Other Smart People Question 9/11

A lot of other smart, high-level people question at least some aspects of the government's explanation for 9/11. By way of example only:

9/11 Commissioners:

• The 9/11 Commission's co-chairs said that the 9/11 Commissioners knew that military officials misrepresented the facts to the Commission, and the Commission considered recommending criminal charges for such false statements (free subscription required)

• 9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton says "I don't believe for a minute we got everything right", that the Commission was set up to fail, that people should keep asking questions about 9/11, and that the 9/11 debate should continue

• 9/11 Commissioner Timothy Roemer said "We were extremely frustrated with the false statements we were getting"
  

• 9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland resigned from the Commission, stating: "It is a national scandal"; "This investigation is now compromised"; and "One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up"
  

• 9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey said that "There are ample reasons to suspect that there may be some alternative to what we outlined in our version . . . We didn't have access . . . ." He also said that the investigation depended too heavily on the accounts of Al Qaeda detainees who were physically coerced into talking, and he has called for a permanent investigation to get to the bottom of the remaining mysteries

• And the Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (John Farmer) - who led the 9/11 staff's inquiry - recently said "At some level of the government, at some point in time...there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened". He also said "I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described .... The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years.... This is not spin. This is not true." And he said: "It's almost a culture of concealment, for lack of a better word. There were interviews made at the FAA's New York center the night of 9/11 and those tapes were destroyed. The CIA tapes of the interrogations were destroyed. The story of 9/11 itself, to put it mildly, was distorted and was completely different from the way things happened"

Senior intelligence officers:

• A 27-year CIA veteran, who chaired National Intelligence Estimates and personally delivered intelligence briefings to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, their Vice Presidents, Secretaries of State, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many other senior government officials, and who has for years been a tireless anti-war advocate and critic of imperial foreign policy (Raymond McGovern) said “I think at simplest terms, there’s a cover-up. The 9/11 Report is a joke”

• A 29-year CIA veteran, former National Intelligence Officer (NIO) and former Director of the CIA's Office of Regional and Political Analysis (William Bill Christison) said “I now think there is persuasive evidence that the events of September did not unfold as the Bush administration and the 9/11 Commission would have us believe (and see this)

• A number of intelligence officials, including a CIA Operations Officer who co-chaired a CIA multi-agency task force coordinating intelligence efforts among many intelligence and law enforcement agencies (Lynne Larkin) sent a joint letter to Congress expressing their concerns about “serious shortcomings,” “omissions,” and “major flaws” in the 9/11 Commission Report and offering their services for a new investigation (they were ignored)

• A decorated 20-year CIA veteran, who Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh called "perhaps the best on-the-ground field officer in the Middle East”, and whose astounding career formed the script for the Academy Award winning motion picture Syriana (Robert Baer) said that "the evidence points at" 9/11 having had aspects of being an inside job

• The Division Chief of the CIA’s Office of Soviet Affairs, who served as Senior Analyst from 1966 - 1990. He also served as Professor of International Security at the National War College from 1986 - 2004 (Melvin Goodman) said "The final [9/11 Commission] report is ultimately a coverup"

Congressmen:

• According to the Co-Chair of the Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 and former Head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Bob Graham, an FBI informant had hosted and rented a room to two hijackers in 2000 and that, when the Inquiry sought to interview the informant, the FBI refused outright, and then hid him in an unknown location, and that a high-level FBI official stated these blocking maneuvers were undertaken under orders from the White House (confirmed here)

• Senator Patrick Leahy said "The two questions that the congress will not ask . . . is why did 9/11 happen on George Bush's watch when he had clear warnings that it was going to happen? Why did they allow it to happen?"

• Congressman Ron Paul calls for a new 9/11 investigation and states that "we see the [9/11] investigations that have been done so far as more or less cover-up and no real explanation of what went on"

• Congressman Dennis Kucinich hints that we aren't being told the truth about 9/11

• Congressman Jason Chafetz says that we need to be vigilant and continue to investigate 9/11

 

• Senator Lincoln Chaffee endorses a new 9/11 investigation

• Congressman Dan Hamburg doesn't believe the official version of events

• Congressman and senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, and who served six years as the Chairman of the Military Research and Development Subcommittee Curt Weldon has shown that the U.S. tracked hijackers before 9/11, is open to hearing information about explosives in the Twin Towers, and is open to the possibility that 9/11 was an inside job

Other government officials:

• U.S. General, Commanding General of U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe, decorated with the Bronze Star, Silver Star, and Purple Heart (General Wesley Clark) said "We've never finished the investigation of 9/11 and whether the administration actually misused the intelligence information it had. The evidence seems pretty clear to me. I've seen that for a long time"

• Former Deputy Secretary for Intelligence and Warning under Nixon, Ford, and Carter (Morton Goulder), former Deputy Director to the White House Task Force on Terrorism (Edward L. Peck), and former US Department of State Foreign Service Officer (J. Michael Springmann), as well as a who's who of liberals and independents) jointly call for a new investigation into 9/11

• Former Federal Prosecutor, Office of Special Investigations, U.S. Department of Justice under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan; former U.S. Army Intelligence officer, and currently a widely-sought media commentator on terrorism and intelligence services (John Loftus) says "The information provided by European intelligence services prior to 9/11 was so extensive that it is no longer possible for either the CIA or FBI to assert a defense of incompetence"

• The Group Director on matters of national security in the U.S. Government Accountability Office said that President Bush did not respond to unprecedented warnings of the 9/11 disaster and conducted a massive cover-up instead of accepting responsibility

• Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan (Col. Ronald D. Ray) said that the official story of 9/11 is "the dog that doesn't hunt"

• Several key employees for the defense department say that the government covered up their testimony about tracking Mohammed Atta before 9/11

• The former director of the FBI (Louis Freeh) says there was a cover up by the 9/11 Commission

As the above-described list shows, there is bipartisan questioning of 9/11. In addition to the folks listed above, leading progressives such as William Blum, Lewis Lapham, Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, Thom Hartmann, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Marc Crispin Miller, Howard Zinn, Robert McChesney, Gore Vidal, Chris Floyd, Robert Fisk, Medea Benjamin, Doris "Granny D" Haddock, Paul Hawken, David Cobb, Randy Hayes, Ernest Callenbach, Dennis Bernstein, Paul H. Ray, Michael Franti, Janeane Garafalo and Ed Asner have questioned the government's account of 9/11.

Similarly, in addition to the people listed above, leading paleo (as opposed to Neo-) conservatives such as Paul Craig Roberts, Joel M. Skousen and Karen Johnson question the government's narrative.

False Flags

While it doesn't directly indicate that any shenanigans occurred on 9/11, it is important as historical background information that governments from around the world admit they carry out false flag terror:

• A major with the Nazi SS admitted at the Nuremberg trials that - under orders from the chief of the Gestapo - he and some other Nazi operatives faked attacks on their own people and resources which they blamed on the Poles, to justify the invasion of Poland. Nazi general Franz Halder also testified at the Nuremberg trials that Nazi leader Hermann Goering admitted to setting fire to the German parliament building, and then falsely blaming the communists for the arson

• The CIA admits that it hired Iranians in the 1950's to pose as Communists and stage bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its democratically-elected prime minister

• Israel admits that an Israeli terrorist cell operating in Egypt planted bombs in several buildings, including U.S. diplomatic facilities, then left behind "evidence" implicating the Arabs as the culprits (one of the bombs detonated prematurely, allowing the Egyptians to identify the bombers, and several of the Israelis later confessed) (and see this and this)

• The former Italian Prime Minister, an Italian judge, and the former head of Italian counterintelligence admit that NATO, with the help of the Pentagon and CIA, carried out terror bombings in Italy and other European countries in the 1950s and blamed the communists, in order to rally people’s support for their governments in Europe in their fight against communism. As one participant in this formerly-secret program stated: "You had to attack civilians, people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security" (and see this)(Italy and other European countries subject to the terror campaign had joined NATO before the bombings occurred)

• As admitted by the U.S. government, recently declassified documents show that in the 1960's, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on a plan to blow up AMERICAN airplanes (using an elaborate plan involving the switching of airplanes), and also to commit terrorist acts on American soil, and then to blame it on the Cubans in order to justify an invasion of Cuba. See the following ABC news report; the official documents; and watch this interview with the former Washington Investigative Producer for ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. Official State Department documents show that - only nine months before - the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other high-level officials discussed blowing up a consulate in the Dominican Republic in order to justify an invasion of that country. Neither plan was carried out, but they were both discussed as serious proposals

• The South African Truth and Reconciliation Council found that, in 1989, the Civil Cooperation Bureau (a covert branch of the South African Defense Force) approached an explosives expert and asked him "to participate in an operation aimed at discrediting the ANC [the African National Congress] by bombing the police vehicle of the investigating officer into the murder incident", thus framing the ANC for the bombing

• An Algerian diplomat and several officers in the Algerian army admit that, in the 1990s, the Algerian army frequently massacred Algerian civilians and then blamed Islamic militants for the killings (and see this video; and Agence France-Presse, 9/27/2002, French Court Dismisses Algerian Defamation Suit Against Author)

• According to the Washington Post, Indonesian police admit that the Indonesian military killed American teachers in Papua in 2002 and blamed the murders on a Papuan separatist group in order to get that group listed as a terrorist organization.

• The well-respected former Indonesian president also admits that the government probably had a role in the Bali bombings

• As reported by BBC, the New York Times, and Associated Press, Macedonian officials admit that the government murdered 7 innocent immigrants in cold blood and pretended that they were Al Qaeda soldiers attempting to assassinate Macedonian police, in order to join the "war on terror".

• Former Department of Justice lawyer John Yoo suggested in 2005 that the US should go on the offensive against al-Qaeda, having “our intelligence agencies create a false terrorist organization. It could have its own websites, recruitment centers, training camps, and fundraising operations. It could launch fake terrorist operations and claim credit for real terrorist strikes, helping to sow confusion within al-Qaeda’s ranks, causing operatives to doubt others’ identities and to question the validity of communications.”

• United Press International reported in June 2005:
  

  U.S. intelligence officers are reporting that some of the insurgents in Iraq are using recent-model Beretta 92 pistols, but the pistols seem to have had their serial numbers erased. The numbers do not appear to have been physically removed; the pistols seem to have come off a production line without any serial numbers. Analysts suggest the lack of serial numbers indicates that the weapons were intended for intelligence operations or terrorist cells with substantial government backing. Analysts speculate that these guns are probably from either Mossad or the CIA. Analysts speculate that agent provocateurs may be using the untraceable weapons even as U.S. authorities use insurgent attacks against civilians as evidence of the illegitimacy of the resistance.

• Quebec police admitted that, in 2007, thugs carrying rocks to a peaceful protest were actually undercover Quebec police officers

• At the G20 protests in London in 2009, a British member of parliament saw plain clothes police officers attempting to incite the crowd to violence

Indeed, the following historical quotes show that this type of hanky panky has been going on for a long time:

"This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector."
- Plato

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
- U.S. President James Madison

"Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death".
- Adolph Hitler

"Why of course the people don't want war ... But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
- Hermann Goering, Nazi leader.

"The easiest way to gain control of a population is to carry out acts of terror. [The public] will clamor for such laws if their personal security is threatened".
- Josef Stalin

Specific Facts About 9/11

With the foregoing background, I will now quickly address some specific facts. Initially, I assume that Mr. Greenwald already knows that 9/11 was wholly and completely foreseeable. If he doesn't, he should read this.

Next, Glenn will want to learn that Dick Cheney was in charge of all counter-terrorism exercises, activities and responses on 9/11. Ssee this Department of State announcement; this CNN article; and this essay.

In fact, 5 war games were scheduled for 9/11, including games that included the insertion of false radar blips onto air traffic contollers' screens. Specifically, on the very morning of September 11th, five war games and terror drills were being conducted by several U.S. defense agencies, including one "live fly" exercise using REAL planes.

Then-Acting Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Richard B. Myers, admitted to 4 of the war games in congressional testimony -- see transcript here or video here (6 minutes and 12 seconds into the video).

Norad had run drills for several years of planes being used as weapons against the World Trade Center and other U.S. high-profile buildings, and "numerous types of civilian and military aircraft were used as mock hijacked aircraft". In other words, drills using REAL AIRCRAFT simulating terrorist attacks crashing jets into buildings, including the twin towers, were run. See also official military website showing 2000 military drill, using miniatures, involving a plane crashing into the Pentagon.

Indeed, a former Los Angeles police department investigator, whose newsletter is read by 45 members of congress, both the house and senate intelligence committees, and professors at more than 40 universities around the world, claims that he obtained an on-the-record confirmation from NORAD that on 9/11, NORAD and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were conducting a joint, live-fly, hijack exercise which involved government-operated aircraft posing as hijacked airliners.

On September 11th, the government also happened to be running a simulation of a plane crashing into a building.

In addition, a December 9, 2001 Toronto Star article (pay-per-view; reprinted here), stated that "Operation Northern Vigilance is called off. Any simulated information, what's known as an 'inject,' is purged from the screens". This indicates that there were false radar blips inserted onto air traffic controllers' screens as part of the war game exercises.

Moreover, there are indications that some of the major war games previously scheduled for October 2001 were moved up to September 11th by persons unknown.

Now here's where it gets interesting ... Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta testified to the 9/11 Commission:

"During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President … the plane is 50 miles out…the plane is 30 miles out….and when it got down to the plane is 10 miles out, the young man also said to the vice president “do the orders still stand?” And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said “Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDfdOwt2v3Y

(this testimony is confirmed here and here).

So even if 9/11 wasn't foreseeable before 9/11, it was foreseeable to Dick Cheney - who had been attacking democracy for nearly 40 years - as the plane was still 50 miles away from the Pentagon.

While this is not proof of wrongdoing, it shows that - as - 9/11 needs further investigation.

Scientific Evidence

Lawyers are used to retaining experts. Specifically, when there is an area which laypeople and lawyers cannot understand without expert input, experts are retained.

Many top structural engineers and fire protection experts - the two types of experts most relevant to the collapse of World Trade Center buildings 1 and 2 (the Twin Towers) and building 7 (which was never hit by a plane) - doubt the official narrative, and say that the agency addressing such issues played politics with the science, just as FBI has twisted the science to try to convict Bruce Ivins for the anthrax attacks, and the Bush administration "fixed the facts around the policy" of invading Iraq.

Indeed, 1,500 architects, engineers and other relevant experts doubt the official story.

Is It Worth Going Down the Rabbit Hole?

As this lengthy post shows, looking at September 11th with open eyes means going down the rabbit hole to some extent.

But as Mr. Greenwald has eloquently argued, we can't just "look forward" on issues like torture, lying about war, and other crimes. If we don't truly air the dirty laundry, they will happen again.

Similarly, if 9/11 was, in fact, in any way allowed to happen, then we have to truly get to the bottom of it, or the boys will use ball-dropping negligence or "false flags" again.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/05/what-glenn-greenwald-will-be-interested.html