News Updates from Citizens For Legitimate Government
08 May 2008
http://www.legitgov.org/
All items are here:
http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

Feds Practice Evacuation From D.C. to Test 'Continuity of Government' --In Big National Drill, Executive Branch 'Runs' Government From Outside D.C. as Mock Crises Mount 08 May 2008 A national disaster exercise that began last week involves the evacuation of thousands of federal personnel from Washington, D.C., the Washington Post reported [Buried in the 'Metro' section, Page B08]. In National Exercise 2-08, which continues through Saturday, [Bush bin Laden's] terrorists release a poisonous gas from a tanker in Washington state while Oregon authorities must handle the unintentional escape of nerve agent from the Umatilla Chemical Depot.

Meanwhile, the capital region is faced with a terrorist threat and a major hurricane making its way up the East Coast. Over three days this week, the federal government is using cars and helicopters to move large numbers of employees to temporary sites in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia. The drill is intended to test the ability to maintain "continuity of government" in the face of a crisis. This is among the largest such drills since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, officials said. President [sic] George W. Bush was not expected to be among the evacuees, but some White House personnel would be sent out of town, said spokesman Scott Stanzel.

Cheney aide subpoenaed to testify to Congress 07 May 2008 U.S. Vice President [sic] Dick Cheney's chief of staff was subpoenaed on Wednesday to testiLIE in a congressional probe of the administration's treatment and possible torture of enemy combatants. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) issued the subpoena to David Addington a day after it was authorized by a House panel.

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CLG Newsletter editor: Lori Price, Manager. Copyright © 2008, Citizens For Legitimate Government ® All rights reserved. CLG Founder and Chair is Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D.

http://pol.moveon.org/enoughdistractions/?r_by=12458-6733832-XIU8Ih&rc=p...

If you missed the Democratic presidential debate on ABC Wednesday night, Editor & Publisher called it "perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years."

Moderators George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson spent the first 50 minutes obsessed with distractions that only political insiders care about--gaffes, polling numbers, the stale Rev. Wright story, and the old-news Bosnia story. And, channeling Karl Rove, they directed a video question to Barack Obama asking if he loves the American flag or not. Seriously!

I just signed a petition to ABC and other media that says: "Debate moderators abuse the public trust every time they ask trivial questions about gaffes and 'gotchas' that only political insiders care about. Enough with the distractions--ABC and other networks must focus on issues that affect people's daily lives."

Want to sign it too? We need a bunch of signers for ABC to take this concern seriously.
Click here to sign:

http://pol.moveon.org/enoughdistractions/?r_by=12458-6733832-XIU8Ih&rc=p...

Another newsletter for you. We have some important developments to address.

News and related thoughts:

---> Assuming we care about the law and the Constitution, this week was particularly painful. I'll just list a couple of the more alarming news stories.

"Documents show Pentagon now using FBI to spy on Americans"
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Documents_show_Pentagon_now_using_FBI_0402...

"States quietly buy, mine personal data -- including names of your associates and relatives"
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Big_Brother_States_buy_mine_personal_0402....

"Top Bush Administration officials pressured underlings to use torture tactics at Guantanamo"
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Highlevel_members_of_Administration_pressu...

"Yoo Torture Memo Says Fourth Amendment Doesn't Apply in War on Terror"
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/yoo-torture-mem.html

Those of us who follow the news and concern ourselves with the direction in which this country has been moving may not find any of that surprising. And yet on occasion it's important to ask ourselves where our line in the sand lies. When does our concern for our future and that of our loved ones inspire a response of some kind?

In a New York Times/CBS News poll published yesterday 81 percent of respondents in the U.S. said they believed that "things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track." People are seeing the problem. But for many that does not translate into action.

We are seeing this desire for change in the record turnout of voters during the Presidential primaries. Yet beyond the election many are not certain what they can do to affect change. Apathy and cynicism are easy to come by as we do not see many avenues for altering the self-destructive path our country has been on.

And yet maybe in our frustration and impatience we seek broad change when local change is what we could most realistically accomplish. And maybe if enough people had that attitude, we'd have a revolution on our hands.

One thing we know for certain. Nothing will change unless more people are better informed about things going on in their world that are having or will have a direct impact on their lives. And so dedicating some time to informing people in our communities is something we can do that does help move us all in a positive direction.

That's what TruthMove is all about.

* * *

Upcoming Activity:

TruthMove has been just a few people for quite a while now. It's time for that to change. We are very interested in getting more people involved in the organization. And we are taking steps to encourage greater participation.

We will holding our first public meeting for those who would like to get involved, brainstorm, and help us plan upcoming actions. The meeting will be held at the Whole Foods Market in Lower Manhattan at 7:00pm on Wednesday, April 9th. 95 E Houston St. We'll be meeting on the second floor over the small bridge in the media resource area. Here are a couple of things we will be discussing:

- We are planning on organizing an event with speakers before long, and are looking for people to help us develop a solid theme and work out the details. We would likely be able to secure some reasonably notable speakers.

- We would like to hold another TruthMove gallery show. This is a chance for people to examine information and media at their own pace without the pressure of discussion. Input and submissions will only make this better.

- We would like to have a discussion on unique ways to get people's attention. What interesting promotional device have we not thought of? What might really catch the eye while conveying a solid theme or message?

So, if you are in the area, and have thought you might like to get involved in educating your community, please join us. We have an important message, a unique approach, and we very much want this organization to grow.

- TM

By Gregory Fegel

To be an American citizen is very much like being the child of a wealthy and unscrupulous criminal ‘Godfather,’ who appears to be kind and generous to his own children at home, but is unflinchingly treacherous and murderous in conducting his family business, which is based on coercion, domination, exploitation, and violence. The average US citizen enjoys prosperity and relative freedom, but US prosperity derives in large part from the criminal xploitation of, and frequently the outright murder of, millions of innocent people in developing countries throughout the world. Most US citizens choose to remain in a perpetual state of denial regarding the criminal activities of their government, because they lack the courage and the character to learn and face the truth. An unquestioning acceptance of the values, motives, and goals of the US government by the majority of US citizens allows those citizens to be easily fooled and manipulated by the propaganda presented to them by the US government and by the US government-controlled ‘Mainstream Media.’

From early childhood, US citizens are raised on a steady diet of pro-US government propaganda that is fed to them at school and at home through the media of television, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, and popular music. The propaganda presents the US government as an ethically superior exemplar of justice for the entire world, as an exceptionally generous contributor to global economic development, and as a benevolent arbiter of world affairs. Furthermore, a great deal of crucial information about US political history, particularly regarding events of the past half-century, is not taught in US schools and is never allowed to appear in the Mainstream Media outlets.

RETROSPECTIVE - 2008
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/retrospective2008.shtml
March 24, 2008 - I have owed you this update for a long time. Things have evolved so much and so relentlessly that there was no solid ground on which to plant my feet, take a look around and tell you what I saw with a steady gaze. I can do that now.

I know it's not necessary for me to point out to ever-loyal FTW supporters how right we got it in our eight and a half years. A look at economics, energy and geopolitics today mirrors - almost exactly - everything I and the FTW writing staff predicted from 2001 through the end of 2006. Oil is over $100 a barrel. Global oil production has never exceeded the levels of late 2005. Gold is settling in at over $1,000 an ounce and $1,500 may be locked in as a floor by year's end.

The US (and global) economy has begun its irreversible collapse.

The US has not (and will not) attack Iran.

Surrogate wars are developing in West Africa and around Venezuela. I predicted this in a mid-June 2005 private meeting with Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, (R) Maryland as I described a map I had made and he had seen on our web site. Its title was, "World Energy Picture, March 2005." (It's on the FTW web site.) A few days after our meeting Bartlett took that map, along with material from other Peak Oil activists like Matt Savinar, and one I had made of Africa into a private, one-on-one meeting with George W. Bush.

The subject of that meeting was Peak Oil.

In the most frightening article we ever published, "Eating Fossil Fuels" (October 3, 2003), the great Dale Allen Pfeiffer starkly described the umbilical between oil and food. We are just at the threshold of what he told us was coming. Read it if you dare.

FTW was right about Pat Tillman. That series was our last great exposé - but it was by no means our first.

The only major prediction we ever got wrong was that there would be a draft; something the Empire has avoided through Stop-Loss, the recruitment of green-card warriors, and a "surge" in enlistments from young men and women who can find no other employment.

We missed the collapse of the US economy by a year and only the deluded claim the worst is over. The major blessing that FTW enjoyed from 1998 through 2006 of having a readership that had the time and resources to read, to learn, and to fight the good fight, has been replaced by an entire population focused solely on immediate economic survival and a desire to stay out of a vortex swirling toward the drain.

There was always going to come a time when survival crowded out other concerns. That is not necessarily true for Peak Oil activists. We know that we have done all that we could, balancing to various degrees our concern for fellow man against the requisites of our own survival and health. Some of us did a better job of this than others. The courageous Ali Samsam Bakhtiari left us a few months ago. I will never forget or yield the honor I feel in having worked with all of them, especially the great Colin Campbell.

Nor will I ever surrender the places I have in my heart for Michael Kane, Stan Goff and Jamey Hecht.

As I said after the 2004 election, September 11th is all but forgotten. No one wants to hear about it anymore. People are too busy worrying about how to keep from becoming homeless. The one blessing here is that Rudy Giuliani did not benefit from 9-11 this election year. But I shudder to think of him as Attorney General under President John McCain who, as a commentator on CNN quipped, "will make Dick Cheney look like Gandhi."

As Attorney General, Rudy Giuliani would be just plain vicious.

What has been lost as a result of FTW's end? Not much. Our accomplishments are both significant and enduring. In my file cabinet I have several hundred letters (not counting emails) sent as I returned - desperately ill and broken in spirit - from Venezuela in December 2006. They all say the same thing. "Mike, you've done so much. You've given us a map and we are capable of reading it. Your book 'Crossing the Rubicon' is our reference 'bible'. FTW showed us how to analyze and to predict. You and the writers taught us how to analyze and question and think. We want you to rest, to recover, to have a life...You've earned it."

I do have a life now; a really good one. I am happier than I have been in the thirty years since, as a young Los Angeles police officer, I discovered that CIA was bringing drugs into the country. I am also living less than a quarter mile from where I was living then. I am two miles from where I graduated High School; four miles from my beloved UCLA.

Why am I not in Oregon? Why am I not preparing to live a sustainable life? The answers will make sense to you but not until I tell you how I got here.

Read the rest at:: http://www.fromthewilderness.com/retrospective2008.shtml

Joel S. Hirschhorn
www.delusionaldemocracy.com
www.foavc.org
March 23, 2008

Whether you see yourself as a truth seeker, patriotic American, independent thinker or voter, or just someone with bad memories of 9/11, you should make an effort to view The Reflecting Pool, a new independent movie. It is not about 9/11. It is about the credibility of the official government story about 9/11. Though a drama, it is based on meticulously researched facts about 9/11 as revealed in the bonus material on the DVD.

The story is about the search for truth and the unsettling implications of discovering 9/11 truth that conflicts with what has become the folklore about the historic event.

The plot follows the efforts of independent journalist Alex Prokop and Paul Cooper, a researcher and father of a 9/11 victim, to piece together fact-fragments into a picture that ultimately implicates the US government in the attacks. The horror of this revelation rivals the horror of the 9/11 events themselves, especially when we realize that far more people, especially American soldiers, have died because of 9/11 in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than on 9/11. Yet to close our eyes to this truth makes us co-conspirators in one of the world’s most devilish and despicable events.

And that is the dilemma that viewers face after they watch this disturbing docudrama: What if this fictional story actually and accurately describes how our government played a role in causing 9/11?

Writer/Director Jarek Kupsc plays Alex Prokop who examines a mysterious 9/11 videotape revealing new information on the attack. Joseph Culp appears as Paul Cooper, the man who sent the tape and whose daughter died on 9/11. Though skeptical of conspiracy theories and fearful that it will jeopardize his career, Prokop agrees to take on the story with encouragement from his magazine editor and a former Gulf War correspondent, McGuire, played by Lisa Black.

The film follows Prokop and Cooper, especially as they investigate one of the great mysteries of 9/11: the inexplicable collapse of the 47-story World Trade Center Building 7, not hit by any airplane. They uncover the illegal destruction of physical evidence from Ground Zero, and discover information that the White House knew an attack was imminent. The team spends two weeks in New York and Washington D.C., interviewing people and discovering damning information never mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report. The FBI becomes involved, the magazine's corporate investors threaten to kill the entire story, and Prokop is attacked by a lawsuit and the media in an effort to discredit his story. Why?

Because the official version as presented in the 9/11 Commission Report purposely ignored or omitted vital evidence and testimonies to protect people in the Bush administration. Prokop, plagued by the ghosts of his childhood in Russia and trying to uphold the independence of American journalism, struggles to come to grips with this awful truth. The film illustrates that, as so often is the case, the truth does not set you free; it ties your stomach and conscience into knots. It will remind you of All the President’s Men and JFK, films that also used drama to pursue political truths.

The DVD is available for only $15 on http://reflectingpoolfilm.com/ and you will want to loan it to friends and family or give as a gift, which is made especially attractive with even lower prices for packs of five or ten DVDs. An extended trailer is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32b-e-xwuB8. Details about the film and its actors are at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1015468/

Video rental outlets like Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, Netflix and Redbox should make this DVD available. Otherwise, it is further evidence that status quo thinking is subverting 9/11 truth to the detriment of American democracy. Public libraries should also stock this important educational film. Once you watch it you too will feel strongly about it reaching a wide audience.

Warning: No matter what you know or think you know about 9/11, this movie will rattle your brain, make you think, and perhaps keep you up at night.

By Paul Craig Roberts
24/03/08
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19598.htm

We know that the Bush regime wants to attack Iran. Despite the NIE report that Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program several years ago and despite no signs of a weapons program having been uncovered by IAEA inspectors, Bush, Cheney, and the neocon nazis continue to agitate for striking Iran “before it is too late.” Their politicized military commander in Iraq, Gen. Petraeus, keeps insisting that Iran is training Iraqi insurgents and supplying weapons that are killing US troops. Bush and Cheney themselves have made trips to Europe and the Middle East trying to marshall support for an attack on Iran. Anyone who is not deaf, blind and stupid knows that the Bush regime is doing everything it can to create circumstances that will permit a US attack on Iran.

We know for a fact that the Bush regime created false evidence, lied, and deceived in order to attack Iraq. All the reasons given for the US invasion have proven to be false. The real agenda has never been declared. Yet, five years later the traitors in high office who deceived Americans into a war in behalf of a hidden agenda have not been held accountable. As Agatha Christie said, getting away with one murder makes it easy to commit another.

There is so much that Americans do not know about secret schemes serving undeclared agendas. Those who have attempted to clue in fellow citizens are invariably frustrated, because Americans have been trained to dismiss the messenger who brings news of “false flag” events as a “conspiracy theorist.”

Best-selling author Steve Alten in his recently published book, The Shell Game, attempts to reach Americans with a thriller that mixes fiction with fact. Alten describes a conspiracy, beginning in 2007 and ending in 2012, by a Black Op group in a Republican administration to set off nuclear weapons in two American cities, with planted evidence pointing to Iran. It is a historical thriller predictive of our immediate future by an author who has no illusions about the US Government or the interest groups that control it.

Alten’s book is a first class thriller set in the real world of today. It is a perfect read for Americans who need their dose of reality to be watered down with fiction and delivered as entertainment.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8352
by Tod Fletcher

9/11 CONTRADICTIONS by David Ray Griffin is the fifth of his books to examine the official account of the events of September 11, 2001. This brilliant and highly readable book takes a new yet simple approach to the truth about 9/11. It focuses entirely on contradictory statements made by members of the Bush administration, government departments and agencies, and official bodies such as the 9/11 Commission. All the statements that Griffin examines are official claims in direct conflict with other official claims. How could this be? Why would the government keep changing "the official story"? The public, of course, is expected to take all the statements as incontrovertibly true, yet they directly conflict with one another.

And why, if the government pronouncements are contradictory, haven't members of Congress and the mainstream media launched investigations to determine which are true and which are false, and to ask why are obvious falsehoods about the events of 9/11 being promulgated by the government? I say "obvious falsehoods" because, as Griffin explains in the Preface, "If [Transportation Secretary Norman] Mineta said "P," that is a fact. If the 9/11 Commission said "not P," that is a fact. And it is a fact that "P" and "not P" cannot both be true" (p. viii). The subtitle, "An Open Letter to Congress and the Press," indicates Griffin's hope that the juxtaposition of the contradictory claims the book provides will stimulate such investigations. But the book is really intended for the public at large, and its clear focus makes it the easiest to read of all Griffin's books on 9/11. Because of its relative simplicity it is a perfect introduction to the subject.

Drawing on government publications, media reports, testimony from the 9/11 Commission hearings, oral histories from the Fire Department of New York, and other official sources, Griffin documents masterfully 25 of the most serious contradictions, divided into five parts:

"Part I. Questions about Bush Administration and Pentagon Leaders," reveals the contradictory claims about the activities of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Richard Myers, Donald Rumsfeld and Ted Olson. In this part Griffin shows that Bush's long stay at the Florida school was initially confirmed and later denied by the White House, that various government spokespersons and the 9/11 Commission could not agree on where Cheney, Myers and Rumsfeld were at key times that morning, and that DOJ Solicitor General Ted Olson's claims to have received phone calls from his wife on Flight 77 were directly contradicted by the DOJ's FBI.

"Part II. Questions about the US Military," explores the many contradictions within government claims about when the military was alerted to the emergencies on the flights, whether the military could have shot down Flight 93, and whether it had envisioned 9/11-type attacks prior to that day.

"Part III. Questions about Osama bin Laden & the Hijackers," examines the contradictions in official claims about the religious devotion of the alleged hijackers, where the luggage with the Arabic-language flight manuals, attributed to Mohamed Atta, was found, whether cell phone calls from the flights provided evidence of hijackers, and the existence of hard evidence for Osama bin Laden's responsibility.

"Part IV. Questions about the Pentagon," spotlights contradictions in the official account of Hani Hanjour's flying skills, what caused the large hole in the interior C Ring wall of the building, and whether a sophisticated US military reconnaissance plane was overhead during the attack.

"Part V. Questions about the World Trade Center," exposes the contradictions in Rudy Giuliani's account of his foreknowledge of the catastrophic collapse of the Twin Towers, in the official claims about explosions in the towers and WTC 7 before they disintegrated, and in official statements concerning the presence of molten steel in the subbasements after the buildings came down.

When examined under Griffin's microscope, it becomes clear that the "official story" has kept changing over time, just like the stories criminals tell as they are interrogated. As holes in the government's explanations of the incomprehensible events opened up under questioning, to some degree from the press but primarily from the 9/11 truth movement, they were plugged by new claims. And virtually all of the new claims have been accepted by the press and Congress without asking how they could be true in light of the earlier, contradictory claims. You don't need to be a conspiracy theorist to see that when the story keeps changing, doubt is cast on all of its versions. Any police investigator knows this, as should investigative journalists and elected representatives.

Of course, if Congress and the press won't do their jobs, it's up to the rest of us. With this authoritative dissection of the conflicting statements of the principal suspects, Griffin has done much of the pre-trial legwork already. The American public should not allow his selfless devotion to truth and justice to be squandered by inaction. This may be one of those things that representatives just cannot do for us.

http://www.911Truth.org

The growing 9/11 truth movement represents the most powerful political force for fundamental reform and democratic renewal in America today. No other constituency has the vision, strategy or evidentiary base to bring timely change to a gravely corrupt corporatist system that has hijacked our governance and now threatens the world more than ever.

911truth.org needs your support to continue to serve, inform and galvanize our movement so it can achieve its full transformative potential in a timeframe that makes sense.

911truth.org is not simply the leading portal of 9/11 information and related news; it has provided the truth movement with catalytic events, campaigns, and organizing strategies for the last five years.

You may not be aware that all of our funding comes from just two sources: individual donors and our online store. We have neither requested nor receive any foundation or corporate support—we are thus able to keep our focus on 9/11 truth, real truth, without the influence of organizations with potentially ulterior motives. 911truth.org is truly a grassroots organization, and without grassroots support, we don’t exist.

We are therefore appealing to those of you who understand the urgent importance of our cause and shared mission to donate whatever you can to help us bring this movement to fruition before it is too late.

Donate Now!

911truth.org contributions to the truth movement include:

1. Movement Building Initiatives - With the help of leading researchers and victim family members, we have initiated or co-sponsored some of the most effective projects in the truth movement's short dramatic history including influential conferences in New York, Toronto, DC, Boston, Chicago and Santa Cruz, the well publicized national Zogby polls, the justicefor911.org petition drive, the Politics911 candidate poll, and the widely reprinted "Top 40 Reasons to Doubt the Official Story," as well as countless other tactical campaigns, PR exploits and workshops.

2. Educational Resources - Most people in the movement want to get the truth out, but don't have the time or resources to personally verify each and every claim or revelation. They need a reliable source of informative materials that are straightforward, persuasive, and factually based.

911truth.org therefore provides a wide variety of carefully vetted educational supplies on our website, through our online store, and in our free grassroots organizing kits. We also offer free guides and an extensive selection of handout materials as well as other discounted resources for those who want to host house parties, start local truth groups, or sponsor larger public events.

We are also now preparing a 9/11 Truth Speakers Information Bureau of authoritative and provocative spokespeople to facilitate local event organizing and regional tours.

3. Organizing Aids - Many grassroots truth advocates are well versed in 9/11 information details, but inexperienced in developing effective local groups. Successful grassroots organizing requires a variety of interpersonal and group dynamics skills that we help foster with the following services:

· Valuable self-teaching tools – We offer a variety of group building materials including "Community Guide: The Care and Feeding of 9/11 Truth Groups," "Communication Tools," and "Handling Dividers and Disruptors." These and other materials provide proven ideas and practical advice on developing effective and harmonious grassroots communities. (Located on the 911truth.org website under the menu tabs: Get Involved -> Grassroots Communities -> Grassroots Tools)

· Working retreats for grassroots organizers - These workshops are dedicated to developing the skills and sensibilities needed to understand group dynamics, develop a collaborative environment, and become an inspiring leader and effective organizer.

· Personal coaching - 911truth.org provides uniquely intimate support for activists trying to launch and grow impactful local groups. Our national grassroots coordinator has 23 years experience as an organizational development consultant, and is on the phone daily helping truth groups across the land.

· Lobbying education and support - Training and materials for engaging, informing and motivating state and federal representatives.

4. Coalition, Alliance & Network Formation: Vibrant grassroots citizen groups are essential to maintain local democracy and a livable environment, but in times of national crisis, they need wider circles of association to effect meaningful change. 911truth.org works to weave local truth groups into synergistic regional and national networks, as well as forging collaborative alliances with other activist groups. In brief, we offer the 9/11 truth community:

· A gathering point - 911truth.org provides a public registry for active and aspiring grassroots organizers seeking to recruit new members or start new groups. Over the past few months we have witnessed remarkable growth at the local level averaging nearly one new registration each day. Our site also provides a forum to connect directly with other grassroots organizers, as well as a calendar to publicize all local and regional events.

· Regional and national conference calls - Our national calls occur the second Thursday of every month, and offer a valuable time for registered grassroots groups to connect, share ideas, and plan mutually supportive activities. We have also started a monthly Grassroots Development Seminar call that provides important guidance and training with the help of relevant experts.

· Bridge-building and coalition ties - We actively collaborate with other national organizations working for peace, human rights, media reform and others, and cosponsor pioneering synergistic events like the Boston Tea Party and the Santa Cruz Independent Media Summit.

In other words, 911truth.org is working flat out to bring us to the political tipping point and a societal moment of truth and transformation. However, we don't want to keep doing this forever, and now ask your help to make us both victorious and obsolete. Together we can generate the profound awakening we need as a people to create a country and planet that live in peace, justice, and sustainable abundance at last.

Please donate now.

Thank you!!

As always, we thank you for your courage and persistence, and your continued energy in 2008--may this be the year truth and justice prevail!

911Truth.org Steering Committee

Janice Matthews
Michael Berger
Paul Deslauriers
Jason King
David Kubiak
Dan Nalven
Bryan Sacks
Matt Sullivan

http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2004/08/coincidence-theorists-guid...

That governments have permitted terrorist acts against their own people, and have even themselves been perpetrators in order to find strategic advantage is quite likely true, but this is the United States we're talking about.

That intelligence agencies, financiers, terrorists and narco-criminals have a long history together is well established, but the Nugan Hand Bank, BCCI, Banco Ambrosiano, the P2 Lodge, the CIA/Mafia anti-Castro/Kennedy alliance, Iran/Contra and the rest were a long time ago, so there's no need to rehash all that. That was then, this is now!

That Jonathan Bush's Riggs Bank has been found guilty of laundering terrorist funds and fined a US-record $25 million must embarrass his nephew George, but it's still no justification for leaping to paranoid conclusions.

That George Bush's brother Marvin sat on the board of the Kuwaiti-owned company which provided electronic security to the World Trade Centre, Dulles Airport and United Airlines means nothing more than you must admit those Bush boys have done alright for themselves.

That George Bush found success as a businessman only after the investment of Osama's brother Salem and reputed al Qaeda financier Khalid bin Mahfouz is just one of those things - one of those crazy things.

That Osama bin Laden is known to have been an asset of US foreign policy in no way implies he still is.

That al Qaeda was active in the Balkan conflict, fighting on the same side as the US as recently as 1999, while the US protected its cells, is merely one of history's little aberrations.

The claims of Michael Springman, State Department veteran of the Jeddah visa bureau, that the CIA ran the office and issued visas to al Qaeda members so they could receive training in the United States, sound like the sour grapes of someone who was fired for making such wild accusations.

That one of George Bush's first acts as President, in January 2001, was to end the two-year deployment of attack submarines which were positioned within striking distance of al Qaeda's Afghanistan camps, even as the group's guilt for the Cole bombing was established, proves that a transition from one administration to the next is never an easy task.

That so many influential figures in and close to the Bush White House had expressed, just a year before the attacks, the need for a "new Pearl Harbor" before their militarist ambitions could be fulfilled, demonstrates nothing more than the accidental virtue of being in the right place at the right time.

That the company PTECH, founded by a Saudi financier placed on America's Terrorist Watch List in October 2001, had access to the FAA's entire computer system for two years before the 9/11 attack, means he must not have been such a threat after all.

That whistleblower Indira Singh was told to keep her mouth shut and forget what she learned when she took her concerns about PTECH to her employers and federal authorities, suggests she lacked the big picture.

And that the Chief Auditor for JP Morgan Chase told Singh repeatedly, as she answered questions about who supplied her with what information, that "that person should be killed," suggests he should take an anger management seminar.

That on May 8, 2001, Dick Cheney took upon himself the job of co-ordinating a response to domestic terror attacks even as he was crafting the administration's energy policy which bore implications for America's military, circumventing the established infrastructure and ignoring the recommendations of the Hart-Rudman report, merely shows the VP to be someone who finds it hard to delegate.

That the standing order which covered the shooting down of hijacked aircraft was altered on June 1, 2001, taking discretion away from field commanders and placing it solely in the hands of the Secretary of Defense, is simply poor planning and unfortunate timing. Fortunately the error has been corrected, as the order was rescinded shortly after 9/11.

That in the weeks before 9/11, FBI agent Colleen Rowley found her investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui so perversely thwarted that her colleagues joked that bin Laden had a mole at the FBI, proves the stress-relieving virtue of humour in the workplace.

That Dave Frasca of the FBI's Radical Fundamentalist Unit received a promotion after quashing multiple, urgent requests for investigations into al Qaeda assets training at flight schools in the summer of 2001 does appear on the surface odd, but undoubtedly there's a good reason for it, quite possibly classified.

That FBI informant Randy Glass, working an undercover sting, was told by Pakistani intelligence operatives that the World Trade Center towers were coming down, and that his repeated warnings which continued until weeks before the attacks, including the mention of planes used as weapons, were ignored by federal authorities, is simply one of the many "What Ifs" of that tragic day.

That over the summer of 2001 Washington received many urgent, senior-level warnings from foreign intelligence agencies and governments - including those of Germany, France, Great Britain, Russia, Egypt, Israel, Morocco, Afghanistan and others - of impending terror attacks using hijacked aircraft and did nothing, demonstrates the pressing need for a new Intelligence Czar.

That John Ashcroft stopped flying commercial aircraft in July 2001 on account of security considerations had nothing to do with warnings regarding September 11, because he said so to the 9/11 Commission.

That former lead counsel for the House David Schippers says he'd taken to John Ashcroft's office specific warnings he'd learned from FBI agents in New York of an impending attack - even naming the proposed dates, names of the hijackers and the targets - and that the investigations had been stymied and the agents threatened, proves nothing but David Schipper's pathetic need for attention.

That Garth Nicolson received two warnings from contacts in the intelligence community and one from a North African head of state, which included specific site, date and source of the attacks, and passed the information to the Defense Department and the National Security Council to evidently no effect, clearly amounts to nothing, since virtually nobody has ever heard of him.

That in the months prior to September 11, self-described US intelligence operative Delmart Vreeland sought, from a Toronto jail cell, to get US and Canadian authorities to heed his warning of his accidental discovery of impending catastrophic attacks is worthless, since Vreeland was a dubious character, notwithstanding the fact that many of his claims have since been proven true.

That FBI Special Investigator Robert Wright claims that agents assigned to intelligence operations actually protect terrorists from investigation and prosecution, that the FBI shut down his probe into terrorist training camps, and that he was removed from a money-laundering case that had a direct link to terrorism, sounds like yet more sour grapes from a disgruntled employee.

That George Bush had plans to invade Afghanistan on his desk before 9/11 demonstrates only the value of being prepared.

The suggestion that securing a pipeline across Afghanistan figured into the White House's calculations is as ludicrous as the assertion that oil played a part in determining war in Iraq.

That Afghanistan is once again the world's principal heroin producer is an unfortunate reality, but to claim the CIA is still actively involved in the narcotics trade is to presume bad faith on the part of the agency.

Mahmood Ahmed, chief of Pakistan's ISI, must not have authorized an al Qaeda payment of $100,000 to Mohammed Atta days before the attacks, and was not meeting with senior Washington officials over the week of 9/11, because I didn't read anything about him in the official report.

That Porter Goss met with Ahmed the morning of September 11 in his capacity as Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on intelligence has no bearing whatsoever upon his recent selection by the White House to head the Central Intelligence Agency.

That Goss's congressional seat encompasses the 9/11 hijackers' Florida base of operation, including their flight schools, is precisely the kind of meaningless factoid a conspiracy theorist would bring up.

It's true that George HW Bush and Dick Cheney spent the evening of September 10 alone in the Oval Office, but what's wrong with old colleagues catching up? And it's true that George HW Bush and Shafig bin Laden, Osama's brother, spent the morning of September 11 together at a board meeting of the Carlyle Group, but the bin Ladens are a big family.

That FEMA arrived in New York on Sept 10 to prepare for a scheduled biowarfare drill, and had a triage centre ready to go that was larger and better equipped than the one that was lost in the collapse of WTC 7, was a lucky twist of fate.

Newsweek's report that senior Pentagon officials cancelled flights on Sept 10 for the following day on account of security concerns is only newsworthy because of what happened the following morning.

That George Bush's telephone logs for September 11 do not exist should surprise no one, given the confusion of the day.

That Mohamed Atta attended the International Officer's School at Maxwell Air Force Base, that Abdulaziz Alomari attended Brooks Air Force Base Aerospace Medical School, that Saeed Alghamdi attended the Defense Language Institute in Monterey merely shows it is a small world, after all.

That Lt Col Steve Butler, Vice Chancellor for student affairs of the Defense Language Institute during Alghamdi's terms, was disciplined, removed from his post and threatened with court martial when he wrote "Bush knew of the impending attacks on America. He did nothing to warn the American people because he needed this war on terrorism. What is...contemptible is the President of the United States not telling the American people what he knows for political gain," is the least that should have happened for such disrespect shown his Commander in Chief.

That Mohammed Atta dressed like a Mafioso, had a stripper girlfriend, smuggled drugs, was already a licensed pilot when he entered the US, enjoyed pork chops, drank to excess and did cocaine, was closer to Europeans than Arabs in Florida, and included the names of defence contractors on his email list, proves how dangerous the radical fundamentalist Muslim can be.

That 43 lbs of heroin was found on board the Lear Jet owned by Wally Hilliard, the owner of Atta's flight school, just three weeks after Atta enrolled - the biggest seizure ever in Central Florida - was just bad luck. That Hilliard was not charged shows how specious the claims for
conspiracy truly are.

That Hilliard's plane had made 30-round trips to Venezuela with the same passengers who always paid cash, that the plane had been supplied by a pair of drug smugglers who had also outfitted CIA drug runner Barry Seal, and that 9/11 commissioner Richard ben-Veniste had been Seal's attorney before Seal's murder, shows nothing but the lengths to which conspiracists will go to draw sinister conclusions.

Reports of insider trading on 9/11 are false, because the SEC investigated and found only respectable investors who will remain nameless involved, and no terrorists, so the windfall profit-taking was merely, as ever, coincidental.

That heightened security for the World Trade Centre was lifted immediately prior to the attacks illustrates that it always happens when you least expect it.

That Hani Hanjour, the pilot of Flight 77, was so incompetent he could not fly a Cessna in August, but in September managed to fly a 767 at excessive speed into a spiraling, 270-degree descent and a level impact of the first floor of the Pentagon, on the only side that was virtually empty and had been hardened to withstand a terrorist attack, merely demonstrates that people can do almost anything once they set their minds to it.

That none of the flight data recorders were said to be recoverable even though they were located in the tail sections, and that until 9/11, no solid-state recorder in a catastrophic crash had been unrecoverable, shows how there's a first time for everything.

That Mohammed Atta left a uniform, a will, a Koran, his driver's license and a "how to fly planes" video in his rental car at the airport means he had other things on his mind.

The mention of Israelis with links to military-intelligence having been arrested on Sept 11 videotaping and celebrating the attacks, of an Israeli espionage ring surveiling DEA and defense installations and trailing the hijackers, and of a warning of impending attacks delivered to the Israeli company Odigo two hours before the first plane hit, does not deserve a response. That the stories also appeared in publications such as Ha'aretz and Forward is a sad display of self-hatred among certain elements of the Israeli media.

That multiple military wargames and simulations were underway the morning of 9/11 - one simulating the crash of a plane into a building; another, a live-fly simulation of multiple hijackings - and took many interceptors away from the eastern seaboard and confused field commanders as to which was a real hijacked aircraft and which was a hoax, was a bizarre coincidence, but no less a coincidence.

That the National Military Command Center ops director asked a rookie substitute to stand his watch at 8:30 am on Sept. 11 is nothing more
than bad timing.

That a recording made Sept 11 of air traffic controllers' describing what they had witnessed, was destroyed by an FAA official who crushed it in his hand, cut the tape into little pieces and dropped them in different trash cans around the building, is something no doubt that overzealous official wishes he could undo.

That the FBI knew precisely which Florida flight schools to descend upon hours after the attacks should make every American feel safer knowing
their federal agents are on the ball.

That a former flight school executive believes the hijackers were "double agents," and says about Atta and associates, "Early on I gleaned that these guys had government protection. They were let into this country for a specific purpose," and was visited by the FBI just four hours after the attacks to intimidate him into silence, proves he's an unreliable witness, for the simple reason there is no conspiracy.

That Jeb Bush was on board an aircraft that removed flight school records to Washington in the middle of the night on Sept 12th demonstrates how seriously the governor takes the issue of national security.

To insinuate evil motive from the mercy flights of bin Laden family members and Saudi royals after 9/11 shows the sickness of the conspiratorial mindset.

Le Figaro's report in October 2001, known to have originated with French intelligence, that the CIA met Osama bin Laden in a Dubai hospital in July 2001, proves again the perfidy of the French.

That the tape in which bin Laden claims responsibility for the attacks was released by the State Department after having been found providentially by US forces in Afghanistan, and depicts a fattened Osama with a broader face and a flatter nose, proves Osama, and Osama alone, masterminded 9/11.

That at the battle of Tora Bora, where bin Laden was surrounded on three sides, Special Forces received no order to advance and capture him and were forced to stand and watch as two Russian-made helicopters flew into the area where bin Laden was believed hiding, loaded up passengers and returned to Pakistan, demonstrates how confusing the modern battlefield can be.

That upon returning to Fort Bragg from Tora Bora, the same Special Operations troops who had been stood down from capturing bin Laden,
suffered a unusual spree of murder/suicides, is nothing more than a series of senseless tragedies.

Reports that bin Laden is currently receiving periodic dialysis treatment in a Pakistani medical hospital are simply too incredible to be true.

That the White House went on Cipro September 11 shows the foresightedness of America's emergency response.

That the anthrax was mailed to perceived liberal media and the Democratic leadership demonstrates only the perversity of the terrorist
psyche.

That the anthrax attacks appeared to silence opponents of the Patriot Act shows only that appearances can be deceiving.

That the Ames-strain anthrax was found to have originated at Fort Detrick, and was beyond the capability of all but a few labs to refine, underscores the importance of allowing the investigation to continue without the distraction of absurd conspiracy theories.

That Republican guru Grover Norquist has been found to have aided financiers and supporters of Islamic terror to gain access to the Bush
White House, and is a founder of the Islamic Institute, which the Treasury Department believes to be a source of funding for al Qaeda, suggests Norquist is at worst, naive, and at best, needs a wider circle of friends.

That the Department of Justice consistently chooses to see accused 9/11 plotters go free rather than permit the courtroom testimony of al Qaeda
leaders in American custody looks bad, but only because we don't have all the facts.

That the White House balked at any inquiry into the events of 9/11, then starved it of funds and stonewalled it, was unfortunate, but since the commission didn't find for conspiracy it's all a non issue anyway.

That the 9/11 commission's executive director and "gatekeeper," Philip Zelikow, was so closely involved in the events under investigation that he testified before the the commission as part of the inquiry, shows only an apparent conflict of interest.

That commission chair Thomas Kean is, like George Bush, a Texas oil executive who had business dealings with reputed al Qaeda financier
Khalid bin Mafouz, suggests Texas is smaller than they say it is.

That co-chair Lee Hamilton has a history as a Bush family "fixer," including clearing Bush Sr of the claims arising from the 1980 "October
Surprise", is of no concern, since only conspiracists believe there was such a thing as an October Surprise.

That FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds accuses the agency of intentionally fudging specific pre-9/11 warnings and harboring a foreign espionage ring in its translation department, and claims she witnessed evidence of the semi-official infrastructure of money-laundering and narcotics trade behind the attacks, is of no account, since John Ashcroft has gagged her with the rare invocation of "State Secrets Privilege," and retroactively classified her public testimony. For the sake of national security, let us speak no more of her.

That, when commenting on Edmond's case, Daniel Ellsberg remarked that Ashcroft could go to prison for his part in a cover-up, suggests Ellsberg is giving comfort to the terrorists, and could, if he doesn't wise up, find himself declared an enemy combatant.

I could go on. And on and on. But I trust you get the point. Which is simply this: there are no secrets, an American government would never
accept civilian casualties for geostrategic gain, and conspiracies are for the weak-minded and gullible.