9/11 – A Cheap Magic Trick

by Philip Giraldi
May 23, 2013
Antiwar.com

Sinclair Lewis once wrote that if fascism ever comes to the United States it will be wrapped in the American flag and carrying a cross. Lewis might have been describing our contemporary “political Christians,” the mostly evangelicals who believe that Washington has a manifest destiny to make the world behave while simultaneously expunging the constitution of all those troubling un-Biblical bits that were pulled together into the Bill of Rights. Well, it hasn’t quite happened that way. The “Moral Majority” remains influential in the Republican Party, but it has been replaced by the “moral hypocrisy” crowd that came in with change we could believe in in 2008. Who would have thought that a Democrat preaching inclusion and talking to one’s enemies would have gone on to complete the job begun by George W. Bush in transforming our republic into a full blown national security state? Well, someone should have thought of it if history is anything to go by. Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, promised peace when he was elected in 1916 even as he was conniving to enter the First World War. Franklin D. Roosevelt, another Democrat, ran on a platform asserting that he had kept the nation out of war while he was colluding with Winston Churchill fight the Germans. The lesson that was apparently not learned well enough was to beware of politicians falsely proclaiming themselves to be peace candidates.

The Founding Fathers included impeachment in the constitution for a reason. Andrew Johnson was impeached for firing his Secretary of War, surviving the process by one vote. Richard Nixon would have been impeached because of Watergate and Bill Clinton might have suffered the same fate over perjury connected with his inability to keep his trousers on. As much as I would like to see George W. Bush in jail for starting a war of aggression, he is more likely to be indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes than he is to face any retribution in the United States as he is now out of office. But we still have Obama.

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by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
May 23, 2013

Have you ever wondered how the government’s misinformation gains traction?

What I have noticed is that whenever a stunning episode occurs, such as 9/11 or the Boston Marathon bombing, most everyone whether on the right or left goes along with the government’s explanation, because they can hook their agenda to the government’s account.

The leftwing likes the official stories of Muslims creating terrorist mayhem in America, because it proves their blowback theory and satisfies them that the dispossessed and oppressed can fight back against imperialism.

The patriotic rightwing likes the official story, because it proves America is attacked for its goodness or because terrorists were allowed in by immigration authorities and nurtured by welfare, or because the government, which can’t do anything right, ignored plentiful warnings.

Whatever the government says, no matter how problematical, the official story gets its traction from its compatibility with existing predispositions and agendas.

In such a country, truth has no relevance. Only agendas are important.

A person can see this everywhere. I could write volumes illustrating how agenda-driven writers across the spectrum will support the most improbable government stories despite the absence of any evidence simply because the government’s line can be used to support their agendas.

For example, a conservative writer in the June issue of Chronicles uses the government’s story about the alleged Boston Marathon bombers, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, to argue against immigration, amnesty for illegals, and political asylum for Muslims. He writes: “Even the most high-tech security systems imaginable will inevitably fail as they are overwhelmed by a flood of often hostile and dangerous immigrants.”

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Written by Chris Sarns
May 21, 2013
Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth

Award-winning actor Ed Asner provides an intriguing narration to Solving the Mystery of WTC 7 that eases viewers into the astonishing evidence surrounding the skyscraper’s destruction on 9/11

Editor’s Note: If you see the 5-minute version of Solving the Mystery of WTC 7 on your local PBS station, please let us know. Just use the Contact Us form on our website; make sure to select “Other” In the “Subject Area” field and enter “Spotlight On” in the “Subject” field. Thanks!

AE911Truth is proud to air once again the fascinating 5-minute excerpt of Architects & Engineers: Solving the Mystery of WTC 7 on PBS stations nationwide!ed-asner-solving-the-mystery-w-wtc7Award-winning actor Ed Asner provides an intriguing narration to Solving the Mystery of WTC 7 that eases viewers into the astonishing evidence surrounding the skyscraper’s destruction on 9/11 This mini-documentary, narrated by Ed Asner, introduces viewers to the “collapse” of WTC Building 7 on 9/11 and includes the expert testimony of technical and building professionals. The shortened version of our Youtube hit fills in between 55-minute PBS programs such as Frontline, Masterpiece Theater, and News Hour.

The 15-minute version of the film was created for those who choose to visit the AE911Truth website. It is also the best version to share with others because it concisely demonstrates the utter falsity of the official explanation for the skyscraper’s destruction.

This short video has the power to move mountains…–Mike Marino

Here’s the back story on the creation of this compelling documentary:

In September of 2009, I was volunteering with AE911Truth, verifying our petition signers, when I came across some interesting comments from petition signer Wendy Rapkin. She is an associate producer for Trivue Entertainment who produces Spotlight On, a series of 3-to-5-minute programs that air on PBS stations throughout the country. She suggested that we at AE911Truth avail ourselves of this opportunity for national exposure. “I really wanted to get the word out about Building 7,” Rapkin said, “and the first video that AE911Truth produced, 9/11: Blueprint for Truth, was all about the science of its destruction.”

The AE911Truth team decided to move forward with the idea, but several delays, including the Australia/New Zealand/Japan tour and the 1,000 A&E press conference took precedent, so the project was put on the back burner.

However, San Francisco-area volunteer Mike Marino compelled it back to the forefront by continuously pressing AE911Truth founder Richard Gage, AIA. When the video was finished, Mike noted that “This short video has the power to move mountains.”

In September of 2010, Mike, Richard, Gregg Roberts, and I started working on the script. We wrote an introduction and assembled some powerful evidence, but it wasn’t until Mike came up with a more appropriate introduction that we all knew we had the winning combination. “It eases the viewer into the reality of what happened to WTC 7,” noted Mike. “After being invited into the world of fascinating structures designed by architects and engineers, you’re shown a modern high-rise that was ‘built to last.’ Then you see it come crashing down.”

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Yet another serious escalation of the Obama administration’s attacks on press freedoms emerges

by Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk
Monday 20 May 2013

Fox News chief Washington correspondent James Rosen had his emails read by the Obama DOJ, which accused him of being a co-conspirator in a criminal leak case.

It is now well known that the Obama justice department has prosecuted more government leakers under the 1917 Espionage Act than all prior administrations combined – in fact, double the number of all such prior prosecutions. But as last week’s controversy over the DOJ’s pursuit of the phone records of AP reporters illustrated, this obsessive fixation in defense of secrecy also targets, and severely damages, journalists specifically and the newsgathering process in general.

New revelations emerged yesterday in the Washington Post that are perhaps the most extreme yet when it comes to the DOJ’s attacks on press freedoms. It involves the prosecution of State Department adviser Stephen Kim, a naturalized citizen from South Korea who was indicted in 2009 for allegedly telling Fox News’ chief Washington correspondent, James Rosen, that US intelligence believed North Korea would respond to additional UN sanctions with more nuclear tests – something Rosen then reported. Kim did not obtain unauthorized access to classified information, nor steal documents, nor sell secrets, nor pass them to an enemy of the US. Instead, the DOJ alleges that he merely communicated this innocuous information to a journalist – something done every day in Washington – and, for that, this arms expert and long-time government employee faces more than a decade in prison for “espionage”

The focus of the Post’s report yesterday is that the DOJ’s surveillance of Rosen, the reporter, extended far beyond even what they did to AP reporters. The FBI tracked Rosen’s movements in and out of the State Department, traced the timing of his calls, and – most amazingly – obtained a search warrant to read two days worth of his emails, as well as all of his emails with Kim. In this case, said the Post, “investigators did more than obtain telephone records of a working journalist suspected of receiving the secret material.” It added that “court documents in the Kim case reveal how deeply investigators explored the private communications of a working journalist”.

But what makes this revelation particularly disturbing is that the DOJ, in order to get this search warrant, insisted that not only Kim, but also Rosen – the journalist – committed serious crimes. The DOJ specifically argued that by encouraging his source to disclose classified information – something investigative journalists do every day – Rosen himself broke the law. Describing an affidavit from FBI agent Reginald Reyes filed by the DOJ, the Post reports [emphasis added]:

“Reyes wrote that there was evidence Rosen had broken the law, ‘at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator’. That fact distinguishes his case from the probe of the AP, in which the news organization is not the likely target. Using italics for emphasis, Reyes explained how Rosen allegedly used a ‘covert communications plan’ and quoted from an e-mail exchange between Rosen and Kim that seems to describe a secret system for passing along information. . . . However, it remains an open question whether it’s ever illegal, given the First Amendment’s protection of press freedom, for a reporter to solicit information. No reporter, including Rosen, has been prosecuted for doing so.”

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FBI whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds was described as “the most gagged person in the history of the United States” by the American Civil Liberties Union. Was the Sunday Times pressured to drop its investigation into her revelations?

May 16, 2013
By Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
Cease Fire Magazine

A whistleblower has revealed extraordinary information on the U.S. government’s support for international terrorist networks and organised crime. The government has denied the allegations yet gone to extraordinary lengths to silence her. Her critics have derided her as a fabulist and fabricator. But now comes word that some of her most serious allegations were confirmed by a major European newspaper only to be squashed at the request of the U.S. government.

In a recent book Classified Woman, Sibel Edmonds, a former translator for the FBI, describes how the Pentagon, CIA and State Department maintained intimate ties to al-Qaeda militants as late as 2001. Her memoir, Classified Woman: The Sibel Edmonds Story, published last year, charged senior government officials with negligence, corruption and collaboration with al Qaeda in illegal arms smuggling and drugs trafficking in Central Asia.

In interviews with this author in early March, Edmonds claimed that Ayman al-Zawahiri, current head of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden’s deputy at the time, had innumerable, regular meetings at the U.S. embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, with U.S. military and intelligence officials between 1997 and 2001, as part of an operation known as ‘Gladio B’. Al-Zawahiri, she charged, as well as various members of the bin Laden family and other mujahideen, were transported on NATO planes to various parts of Central Asia and the Balkans to participate in Pentagon-backed destabilisation operations.

According to two Sunday Times journalists speaking on condition of anonymity, this and related revelations had been confirmed by senior Pentagon and MI6 officials as part of a four-part investigative series that were supposed to run in 2008. The Sunday Times journalists described how the story was inexplicably dropped under the pressure of undisclosed “interest groups”, which, they suggest, were associated with the U.S. State Department.

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Senior Obama officials tell the US Senate: the ‘war’, in limitless form, will continue for ‘at least’ another decade – or two

by Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk
Friday 17 May 2013

Assistant Defense Secretary Michael Sheehan, right, testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee’s May 16, 2013, hearing on the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force. Photo: AP/Carolyn Kaster

Last October, senior Obama officials anonymously unveiled to the Washington Post their newly minted “disposition matrix”, a complex computer system that will be used to determine how a terrorist suspect will be “disposed of”: indefinite detention, prosecution in a real court, assassination-by-CIA-drones, etc. Their rationale for why this was needed now, a full 12 years after the 9/11 attack:

Among senior Obama administration officials, there is a broad consensus that such operations are likely to be extended at least another decade. Given the way al-Qaida continues to metastasize, some officials said no clear end is in sight. . . . That timeline suggests that the United States has reached only the midpoint of what was once known as the global war on terrorism.”

On Thursday, the Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing on whether the statutory basis for this “war” – the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) – should be revised (meaning: expanded). This is how Wired’s Spencer Ackerman (soon to be the Guardian US’s national security editor) described the most significant exchange:

“Asked at a Senate hearing today how long the war on terrorism will last, Michael Sheehan, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, answered, ‘At least 10 to 20 years.’ . . . A spokeswoman, Army Col. Anne Edgecomb, clarified that Sheehan meant the conflict is likely to last 10 to 20 more years from today – atop the 12 years that the conflict has already lasted. Welcome to America’s Thirty Years War.”

That the Obama administration is now repeatedly declaring that the “war on terror” will last at least another decade (or two) is vastly more significant than all three of this week’s big media controversies (Benghazi, IRS, and AP/DOJ) combined. The military historian Andrew Bacevich has spent years warning that US policy planners have adopted an explicit doctrine of “endless war”. Obama officials, despite repeatedly boasting that they have delivered permanently crippling blows to al-Qaida, are now, as clearly as the English language permits, openly declaring this to be so.

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Both the left and the right are enabling the emerging police state

by Justin Raimondo
May 17, 2013
Antiwar.com

Amidst all the justified outrage over the apparent targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups by the IRS, not to mention the Associated Press phone tapping brouhaha, an important point is being lost: this is nothing new. The Tea Partiers may be shocked – shocked! – that the Big Government they have spent the last few years complaining about really is a threat to our liberties, but the government targeting certain political groups wholly on account of their views is hardly breaking news. Just ask the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), which had set up an “Antiwar Committee” whose members have been spied on, indicted, and arrested for engaging in legal, constitutionally protected activities.

The FBI had sent a pair of infiltrators into the Antiwar Committee, and, on September 24, 2010, a veritable army of FBI agents launched simultaneous raids on antiwar activists in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Grand Rapids (Michigan). They seized computers, cell phones, passports, documents, family photos and even children’s artwork. Agents issued 14 subpoenas ordering the recipients to testify before a Chicago federal grand jury, and showed warrants indicating that the feds were searching for evidence related to “material support for terrorism.” A total of 23 people have since been handed subpoenas commanding them to appear before the grand jury in Chicago: all have refused. The FBI “investigation” – i.e. fishing expedition – is continuing.

At the time of these raids, we heard not a single protest from the “Tea Party” groups that are now loudly protesting their own victimization at the hands of the government: the leftists targeted by the FBI were just another group of “terrorists,” left to fight against their targeting and prosecution largely alone. Now that conservatives have been put in the crosshairs in a similar manner, however – singled out by a government agency for “special treatment” on account of their politics – their sympathizers in Congress are making a big stink about it and the headlines are alight with their outrage.

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“It represents capitalism. It represents freedom. It represents everything America is about. And to bring those two buildings down would bring America to its knees.”

- Line from Nosebleed, a movie originally set to start being filmed at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001

A significant number of movies and television dramas were being produced at the time of the 9/11 attacks, which had storylines with some remarkable similarities to the events of September 11, 2001. These storylines featured incidents such as terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, terrorists hijacking a commercial aircraft, and terrorists causing a jumbo jet to crash in New York.

The movies and TV shows would have featured some famous actors, and were being made for major companies, such as CBS and 20th Century Fox. Furthermore, employees of the military and other U.S. government agencies are known to have assisted in developing the storylines of some of these productions. Unsurprisingly, after September 11, the movies and TV shows were either canceled or significantly rewritten so as to remove any resemblance to the 9/11 attacks.

The existence of these movies and TV dramas, at the very least, disproves claims that the 9/11 attacks could not have been foreseen. It is worth considering, however, whether these productions served a more sinister purpose in relation to 9/11, albeit unknown to most of the people working on them.

This article examines seven movies and television dramas that were in production at the time of the 9/11 attacks, which all had notable similarities to aspects of what happened on September 11. These proposed movies and TV shows received some attention after September 11 because of their resemblance to the attacks in New York and at the Pentagon. Newsweek even commented that the amount of movies and TV shows about terrorism being made at that time “makes you wonder if this [i.e. terrorism] wasn’t an obsessive theme in the culture even before September 11.” [1] However, no one suggested that there might have been a more sinister reason for there being so many productions about terrorism. Instead, their existence was treated like a simple coincidence.

ACTION MOVIE FEATURED TERRORIST PLOT TO BLOW UP THE WORLD TRADE CENTER
A number of movies and TV shows that were being produced at the time of the 9/11 attacks are notable because they featured acts of terrorism in New York or, specifically, at the World Trade Center.

A movie that is particularly striking is Nosebleed, which would have been about a terrorist plot to bomb the Twin Towers. [2] It was going to feature the well-known martial artist and actor Jackie Chan as a window washer at the World Trade Center who uncovers the plot and tries to thwart the terrorists. [3]

The script for Nosebleed was initially written in 1999 by Stu Zicherman and Raven Metzner, and developed after that. Zicherman and Metzner had also come up with the film’s storyline. [4]

A line reportedly in the script indicates that the fictitious terrorists intended to cause the Twin Towers to collapse–like what actually happened on September 11. A terrorist would say of the WTC: “It represents capitalism. It represents freedom. It represents everything America is about. And to bring those two buildings down would bring America to its knees.” [5]

Nosebleed would have been a major film. It would have cost $50 million to $60 million to make, according to Variety magazine. [6] In May 2000, it was reported that Renny Harlin, who previously directed action movies such as Die Hard 2 and The Long Kiss Goodnight, was in talks to direct it, although whether he was subsequently taken on as director is unclear. [7]

FILMING WAS SET TO TAKE PLACE AT THE WORLD TRADE CENTER ON SEPTEMBER 11
Not only did the plot of Nosebleed have similarities to the 9/11 attacks, but a scene for the movie was scheduled to be filmed at the top of one of the Twin Towers at 7:00 a.m. on September 11. [8] The filming would have taken place at Windows on the World, the restaurant at the top of the North Tower, according to Jackie Chan, but it was canceled. So instead of being at the WTC, Chan was in Toronto working on another movie, The Tuxedo, on September 11. [9]

Had the filming gone ahead as originally scheduled, Chan and the other people involved would likely have died, since everyone who was in Windows on the World when American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. on September 11 was trapped and subsequently died. [10] Chan told one newspaper, “I would probably have died if the shooting went ahead as planned.” [11] He said that on September 11, after he learned about the attacks on the WTC, he was “like a walking dead man” for the rest of the day. [12]

It is unclear why the filming at the WTC was canceled. According to some reports, it was because the script for the scene there was late. [13] According to the Orlando Sentinel, it was because Chan “didn’t want to make Nosebleed without a finished script.” “The action was good, but, somehow, the script not ready,” he commented. [14] But Chan gave a different explanation to the Boston Phoenix, saying: “The studio didn’t really like the script of Nosebleed because it was not perfect yet. So my manager said: ‘Don’t worry. If you do not like this film, we can do Tuxedo. You will meet with [Steven] Spielberg to see if you like it or not.’ Then I met with Spielberg and I say I will do Tuxedo, because I trust Spielberg.” [15]

Unsurprisingly, work on Nosebleed was put on hold after 9/11 and the movie has never been made. [16]

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Written by Chris Sarns
Wednesday, 08 May 2013
AE911Truth.org

Editor’s note: To this day most people, including many architects and engineers, are not aware that a third skyscraper, World Trade Center Building 7, mysteriously collapsed along with the World Trade Center Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. The official report on this building’s collapse by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been challenged by many reputable and credentialed technical professionals. The NIST analysis has not undergone the rigors of scientific peer review – the typical pathway for validating significant scientific theories. Chris Sarns’ research appears in Dr. David Ray Griffin’s book titled “The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7.” The studies below represent years of work by Chris in unraveling some of the most glaring inconsistencies and outright frauds in the NIST report on World Trade Center 7. He demonstrates that the NIST’s theory of the fire-induced collapse of Building 7 is faulty and misleading.

The destruction of this skyscraper on September 11 was truly unprecedented in the history of high-rise buildings. More than 1,900 architects and engineers at AE911Truth are demanding a new investigation.

Chris has also been deeply involved in the work of AE911Truth, where he provides his expertise on WTC 7.

During the next five months, we will be presenting five articles written by Chris Sarns that address the alleged fire-induced collapse of World Trade Center 7 at 5:20 PM on September 11, 2001.

Quotes from the NIST WTC 7 report are shown in “brown”
1. BURNED-OUT FIRE
The timing of the fire on floor 12 exposes NIST’s false claim that fire led to the collapse.

The images shown below on the left are Sarns’ approximations using the photogrpahs as a guide of where and at what times the fire existed on floor 12. On the right is the NIST ANSYS computer model for the same times.

“Note that only window glass breaking times were prescribed in the fire model. The observed fire activity gleaned from the photographs and video were not a model input” NCSTAR 1-9 Vol.2 p. 378 [pdf p. 40]

NIST will not release the input data because doing so might “jeopardize public safety”

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