By LINDA HEARD|ARAB NEWS

US should put 9/11 to rest with facts

Why should any challenge to official version be treated as treachery?

It’s been almost nine years since the Sept. 11 attacks yet questions still remain and accusations keep coming. Last week an influential elected member of Japan’s ruling Democratic Party and head of the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs Yukisha Fujita said he believes that 9/11 was perpetrated by shadowy forces within America and then covered-up. He also claims that at least eight of the hijackers are still alive and suggests that The World Trade Center Building 7 was deliberately demolished with explosives.

Last week, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has regularly characterized 9/11 as a “suspect event,” said the attacks were “a big lie” used by the US to elicit sympathy to pave the way for its entry into Afghanistan. It appears that Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez is on the same page. Just last Tuesday, he suggested that the US government may have orchestrated the 9/11 attacks. In an earlier statement, he agreed with Fujita’s hypothesis that Building 7 had been dynamited.

In September 2003, Tony Blair’s former Minister for the Environment Michael Meacher shocked his former boss and the establishment by writing a column published in The Guardian describing the “War on Terror” as “bogus” and implying that the US government either allowed 9/11 to happen or played a role in it. 

Spurious anti-American messages emanating from Ahmadinejad and Chavez are par for the course and can be easily dismissed as baseless barbs. But now that a top Japanese official has doubts about the authorized version of events, shouldn’t these be addressed? The Washington Post thinks not. It has written them off as Fujita’s lunatic fantasies. The problem is that those who accept the official version of events as gospel — feeling that any challenge is tantamount to treachery at worst or is eccentric at best — are unwittingly feeding the conspiracy bandwagon. 

 

I know that for many Americans — and especially New Yorkers — any discussion of that terrible day still hits a raw nerve. And that’s understandable. In the post-9/11 climate it became a real taboo. But there is a genuine need to get at the truth because as several former British ministers recently admitted to the Iraq inquiry, 9/11 changed the world. As they submit, without changed perceptions following Sept. 11, Afghanistan and Iraq would probably not have been invaded. So, one can logically extrapolate that 9/11 resulted in up to one million deaths rather than almost 3,000.

The official 9/11 commission shut up shop in August 2004 after publishing a detailed report on the origins of Al-Qaeda, the events of the day and recommendations on preventing such tragedies in the future. However, the report is unsatisfactory in that it presumes the unproven and neglects to clarify key anomalies.

One of its main flaws is the overall assumption that Osama Bin Laden was the mastermind, which contradicts FBI findings. Bin Laden does appear on its “Most Wanted” site but not in connection with 9/11 because the bureau believes there is not enough hard evidence tying him to that crime. 

A message on the FBI’s website reads: Bin Laden “is wanted in connection with the Aug. 7, 1988 bombings of the United States embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya... In addition, Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world.”

 

Even more troubling is the report’s failure to explain why the World Trade Center Building 7 came down seven hours after the attacks when it hadn’t been directly hit. There was, however, an official explanation authorized by Congress in 2004 arrived at by using computer models, detailed analysis and eyewitness accounts. This was simply that Building 7 collapsed due to fires ignited by falling debris from the Twin Towers. This is the first time that we are aware of that a 15-story building collapsing due to fire, said a spokesman for the investigative team.

I’ve always tried to keep an open mind as, frankly, the official tale and the conspiracy theories are equally implausible. On the one hand, it’s hard to believe that elements within the US government would be involved in such a heinous mass murder. Plus, any such conspiracy would have had to involve dozens, if not hundreds, of high-level players sworn to secrecy. It’s hardly feasible that not one of them has sought to speak out until now given the emotion surrounding the attacks and the repercussions they had on the entire world.

The conspiracy theorists would argue that America has been known to concoct false flag operations in the past. Operation Northwoods, for example, called for CIA operatives to commit acts of terrorism and hijack planes so that Cuba would get the blame as a prelude to war. The plan was ultimately rejected by President John F. Kennedy. 

For most people, it’s unthinkable that the US could have played any part in 9/11 or knowingly allowed it to happen. But with more and more prominent individuals speaking their minds on the subject to America’s detriment it may be time for the US to silence the ugly slurs. An entirely independent commission on the lines of Britain’s Iraq Inquiry would help; if there is nothing to hide, then why not?

Lastly, if I could have the answer to only one question it is this. How did a man with the same name and face as an alleged hijacker turn up in Casablanca after the attacks when the official story positions him on American Airlines Flight 11 stabbing a stewardess?  

The individual in question told the BBC that he had, indeed, attended a flight-training school in Daytona Beach and was the man in the photograph distributed by the FBI. An article on the BBC website dated Sept. 23, 2001 headed “Hijack ‘suspects’ alive” tells the tale. Did someone steal his identity? Did the FBI get it wrong? Did the BBC make a mistake? Inquiring minds would love to know.

Comments

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WHY CANT THERE BE AN IMPARTIAL INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION SET UP BY THE UNITED NATIONS OR THE ICJ IN THE HAGUE. LET US GET TO THE TRUTH ONCE AND FOR ALL. WHAT REALLY BOTHERS ME IS THE SILENCE ON THE PART OF THE INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC CONFERENCE ARAB LEAGUE ETC.,.I HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT THIS SINCE 2002, BUT NOTHING HAS BEEN PUBLISHED.LETS SEE WHTHER I AM LUCKY THIS TIME.

ISMAEEL MARIKAR

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WHY HAVENT THE MUSLIM ORGANIZATIONS DEMANDED ANDINDEPENDENT COMMISSION OF INQUIRY TO FIND THE TRUTH,SINCE
MUSLIMS ALL OVER HAVE SUFFERED IN THE AFTERMATH OF 9/11
IT MAY BE THAT SOME MUSLIM COUNTRIES DO NOT WANT THE TRUTH,SINCE THEY WANTED "SADDAM' OUT. THE MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION IS WHY OSAMA IS NOT ON THE WANTED LIST, WHILE AMERICA CLAIMS HE HAS ACCEPTED RESPONSIBILITY. THIS IS ALL A "CHARADE"

REMORRIS

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There are a couple of other questions you can ask yourself, since the topic is up. First, though, the building collapse of '15 stories' referred to above, was, in fact, a whopping 47 storied 81 columned steel high rise . WTC7 was FORTY SEVEN stories high. Not 15.
From within which -throughout the day- major explosive events were reported and recorded OTHER THAN debris strike from towers 1 and 2.[Barry Jennings and others]
This high rise completely 'collapsed' into its own footprint at 5:20pm on 911in 6.5 seconds flat. 2.5 seconds of which is in total FREE FALL. [NIST NCSTAR1-9:607] I don't know how many engineers you know who build 'big stuff', but, if any you do, ask them what 'sudden onset FREE FALL' of a 47 storied, steel framed, 81 columned high rise 'into its own footprint' means . I don't think 'Sequential fire induced building collapse as a result of normal office furnishings fire '[NIST final report] will be their first response. It may well be their second, after consulting their career objectives, but. That goes for all of us.
Anyway, mention the Thermitic Materials [super nanothermites]found in DUST of 911, [produced in an on-line science paper : The Bentham Open Science Journal']last year should determine that outcome.

As to false flag and creating war fever among the home crowd [where the soldiers come from], this is well understood WAR strategy. Your publication works out of the "Gulf" you say? perhaps you had better google 'USS LIBERTY', and see where that takes you with regard false flag events and comprehending rogue forces within the amercian/other systems willing and able to [with allies closer to thee,] engineer such atrocity.
After that, 'Operation Gladio' up there in Europe can offer a few pointers as to 'people killing their own'......
the US and media globally are attempting to control the increasing 911truth activism, by incorporating 911 within all 'conspiracy theories'. Thus not admitting its singularity.Thereby neutering it. Denying its SINGULAR importance as a global strategic event that effects us ALL. The difference is, 911 evidence can stand in a court of LAW, if a court of LAW can be found to stand it.

DAN NOEL

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The author's conspiracy argument is respectable: the official story and the alternate theories are hard to believe. Why not use the scientific method to dig out the truth? The U.S. government made voluminous technical investigations into the spectacular structural failures of the twin towers. Do they match the available evidence? If not, are the errors significant enough to put in doubt the official narrative? Worse, are these errors so "big" that the easiest way to explain them is a deliberate deception?

Would the author care to browse the web for such information? It may not be that hard to find and would be of tremendous assistance to the readers.

Love,
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