466 Orwellian September 11 commemoration heralds new wars - Thierry Meyssan

Orwellian September 11 commemoration heralds new wars - Thierry Meyssan

(1) Orwellian September 11 commemoration heralds new wars - Thierry Meyssan
(2) Mahathir: scariest thing about 9/11 is realizing who carried out the
attack: yes, the American Government
(3) Taliban say they had no role in 9/11
(4) French TV lifts censorship of 9/11 issues, covers WTC Building 7
collapse; Toronto Hearings Live Stream
(5) A Critique of Noam Chomsky's denial of 9/11
(6) Paul Craig Roberts: Does 9/11 Truth Have A Chance?
(7) 9/11, ten years on: fear the ruling elite, not phony terrorists
(8) Neocons complicit in 9/11

(1) Orwellian September 11 commemoration heralds new wars

by Thierry Meyssan

BEIRUT (LEBANON) | 12 SEPTEMBER 2011

http://www.voltairenet.org/Orwellian-September-11

The tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks has given rise to a
profusion of articles, documentaries and television programs that
certify the Bush administration’s version of the events, while world
opinion has become largely skeptical. For Thierry Meyssan, who sparked
the global debate on the interpretation of the attacks, the overwhelming
media campaign is the imperial system’s last attempt to preserve its
apparent legitimacy and justify its future wars.

It is strange to observe how the Western press is celebrating the tenth
anniversary of the September 11 attacks: while the topic could be
approached from a variety of different angles, a uniform narrative set
in or was imposed. Media were vying to obtain live interviews on the
subject: "What were you doing on that day at that time?." This approach
reflects the collective refusal to put things in perspective, to analyze
the event and its consequences, focusing exclusively on the immediate
emotional reactions; in short, to put on a big show instead of doing
journalism.

The commemoration was punctuated with Orwellian injunctions: "How dare
you question the official version considering the suffering of the
victims’ families?", or "Those who question the official version are
negationists and the enemies of democracy!." And yet, respect for
victims - not just those who died on that day in the United States, but
also those who were killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere -
requires precisely that we seek the truth instead of settling for
outrageous lies. And how can democracy thrive if we fail to question
official "truths" or, worse, if we substitute rational debate with
verbal abuse?

In the days following the attacks, through a series of articles, and in
subsequent months through books and lectures, I challenged Bush’s
version of the events and accused the Straussian faction of the US
military-industrial complex of having sponsored them. Although initially
alone in my approach and heckled by the Atlanticist press, I gradually
mobilized international public opinion, including in the United States,
until last year when my questions rang out at the podium of the UN
General Assembly. The more the US authorities tried to contradict me,
the more they were contradicting themselves. Doubt spread and today
those who doubt are the majority.

As usual when the wind turns, the opportunists safeguard their future by
distancing themselves from the version they had long defended and that
is sinking fast. This was the case yesterday with MM. Kean and Hamilton,
the co-chairs of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, who have
disassociated themselves from their own report; it is now the turn of
Mr. Richard Clark, counter-terrorism adviser to Mr. Clinton and Bush,
who accused his colleagues of cover-up. In 10 years, the U.S. and
British authorities failed to produce the evidence to justify their
"self defense" military action in Afghanistan, according to their pledge
before the UN General Assembly. Instead, they showed they had a dark
secret to hide and have continued to fabricate more lies in order to
hide it. Who would still dare to claim, as Colin Powell did at the UN
Security Council, that Saddam Hussein was complicit in September 11 or,
like Tony Blair, that Osama bin Laden masterminded the London bombings?

During these ten years, a growing number of experts have brought to
light the inconsistencies in the Bush version, which in turn other
experts have defended. Had the latter’s arguments been persuasive, the
controversy would have flickered out. At the end of the day, the
differences between the two groups of scientifs intersect a dividing
line which is exclusively political. If they approve of the Afghanistan
invasion and the Patriot Act, they ratify the theory that the steel
structures of the Twin Towers did not withstand the heat of the fire,
that Tower 7 was too fragile and that a plane disintegrated inside the
Pentagon. If, on the contrary, they condemn the imperial military
expansion and the legitimation of torture, they refute the absurdity
that the Twin Towers were the only steel structures in the world to have
collapsed into their own footprint, that Tower 7 collapsed by imitation,
and that a big Boeing penetrated the Pentagon through a doorway without
damaging the frame.

Bush’s version of September 11 has become the central tenet of
imperialism. We are ordered to believe in it as in a revealed truth.
Failing that, we challenging the New World Order and are rejected as
heretics and intellectual accomplices of terrorism.

The dividing line can be summarized as follows: on one side, the
globalized Western elites cling to the official version; on the other
side, the majority of Western populations and the Third World denounce
the lie.

What is important is not to determine how some individuals, who were not
on the flight manifests yet made it on board the aircraft, can hijack
the flight, or how a Boeing can fold back its wings, enter through a
small door and disappear inside the Pentagon, but rather if from that
day the West has been the target of a world Islamic conspiracy, or if
instead the attacks were orchestrated by a US faction to embark with
impunity on the conquest of the world.

In Paris, a replica of the Twin Towers was built on the Trocadero
esplanade in honor of the 3000 victims of September 11. It will be
inaugurated by the Ambassador of the United States, the mayor of the
French capital and the Interior Minister. No memorial has been planned
for the one million victims of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

The philosophers who study the history of science affirm that scientific
errors do not always disappear after having been refuted. It may take
the passing of the generation that professed them. What makes it
possible for a truth to substitute an error is that, over time, the
truth conserves explanatory power, while the error loses.

In 2001, I concluded my analysis by warning against the generalized
erosion of individual rights. I rebuffed the portrayal of Al-Qaeda as an
anti-Western terrorist organization and claimed instead that it was a
hotbed of Arab mercenaries used by the CIA in various conflicts, in
Afghanistan against the Soviets, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo against
the Serbs, and in Chechnya against the Russians, in accordance with the
Brzezinski strategy. Finally, I announced the imminent invasion of Iraq
and the remodeling of the Middle East promoted by the neoconservatives,
for once allied with Kissinger.

At the time, the press had made a mockery of my analysis on four main
points.
   Le Monde explained that the U.S. would never attack Iraq because they
had already settled the problem with "Desert Storm" and that only my
kneejerk anti-Americanism could lead me to consider otherwise.
   Le Monde Diplomatique reproved learnedly that I must have known
nothing about U.S. politics to imagine a neocon-Kissinger alliance.
   The Washington Post bombarded us with details on the sprawling world
Islamic conspiracy that I refused to take seriously, blinded as I was by
the Arab presence in France.
   And the New York Times applauded the Patriot Act and the creation of
the Department of Homeland Security, to which only a European pacifist
imbued with the spirit of Munich could be against.

Yet 10 years later, anyone can see that I was right on all four points
and that my detractors were wrong. They are now seeking to redeem
themselves by conceding loud and clear that the Bush administration
"used" 9/11 to impose its own agenda. Over time, they will inevitably
recognize that I did not read into a crystal ball to predict a future
they did not suspect, but that through a rigorous political analysis it
was possible to decipher in advance the intentions of the 9/11 sponsors
to execute this agenda.

While NATO has placed the companions of bin Laden in power in Tripoli,
it is more essential than ever to understand September 11 in order to
identify the real threats to world peace and be able to deal with. How
can we not see that the people who are commemorating this anniversary
today will be promoting new wars in the Middle East and North Africa
tomorrow?

(2) Mahathir: scariest thing about 9/11 is realizing that it was an
Inside Job

http://www.voltairenet.org/Former-Malaysian-PM-Bush-lied

Former Malaysian PM: 'Bush lied about 9/11 terror attacks'

VOLTAIRE NETWORK | 10 SEPTEMBER 2011

Mahathir Mohamad says it is not unthinkable for former US President
George W. Bush to lie about who was responsible for the 9/11 terror
attacks on the American soil. [Editor’s note: Then-Prime Minister
Mohamad is shown in the photo (L) with William Rodriguez, 9/11 hero and
the "last man out" of the Towers at a private 9/11 presentation.]

In a post published in his personal blog chedet on Friday, former
Malaysian prime minister said that the attacks on the World Trade Center
in downtown Manhattan, New York City, and the Pentagon in Arlington,
Virginia, could not have been carried out by Muslims. The acts of
violence could have rather been the work of other groups.

The Malaysian politician pointed out that “for some Americans, the
deaths of nearly 3,000 people was not the scariest thing about 9/11. It
was realizing who carried out the attack: yes, the American Government.”

Mohamad said although Arab Muslims are angry enough to sacrifice their
lives and become bombers, they are not capable of planning and
strategizing attacks similar to the 9/11 ones.

“The planning [for the 9/11 attacks] must have taken a considerable
length of time. The candidates had to learn to fly in tiny aircrafts….
Planning to hijack four aircraft simultaneously would require great
precision in timing and logistics. One aircraft maybe. But four
simultaneously!! I don’t think extremists from Saudi Arabia can carry
out this highly sophisticated operation with such success,” former
Malaysian prime minister commented.

Turning to the collapse of the World Trade Center twin towers, he said,
“They came down nicely upon themselves without toppling against the
other buildings close by. It looks more like planned demolition of
buildings than collapse consequent upon being hit by aircraft.”

Mohamad stated, “A third building also collapsed in the same fashion;
although it was not hit by any aircraft. What is the explanation for
this untouched building, which collapsed upon itself and did not damage
other buildings nearby?”

He also questioned the total disappearance of the aircraft, which hit
the Pentagon building in Arlington, Virginia. “There was no debris of
any kind, no broken parts of the aircraft, no black box, and no human
bodies flung into the surroundings. Is it possible for an aircraft to
vaporize totally after a crash?” former Malaysian prime minister said.

Mohamad further raised questions over the loss of the fourth aircraft,
which was supposed to have crashed in an open field. “Again no sign of
any debris. No big crater. Did it vaporize into nothingness? Did the
innocent passengers also vaporize?” he stated.

The Malaysian politician noted that the American press was strangely
silent about 9/11 attacks.

He also emphasized that Bush is the one that lied about Saddam’s weapons
of mass destruction. “The legacy of the former US president is that two
countries (Iraq and Afghanistan) have been devastated, and fratricidal
wars have become endemic. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Afghans and a
few thousand of young American soldiers have died. Thousands more are
wounded, maimed for life, and suffering from mental breakdowns,” Mohamad
pointed out.

Former Malaysian prime minister also said that human lives do not seem
to mean much to the former US president.

(3) Taliban say they had no role in 9/11

From: Sadanand, Nanjundiah (Physics Earth Sciences)
<sadanand@mail.ccsu.edu>  Date:13 September 2011

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fgw-afghan-truck-bomb-20110912,0,7767750.story

Taliban truck bomb wounds 77 at U.S. base

Two Afghan civilians die in the attack, which was carried out by a
suicide bomber in a truck carrying firewood, NATO said.

 From the Associated Press

September 11, 2011, 3:53 a.m.

KABUL, Afghanistan—

Nearly 80 American soldiers were wounded and two Afghan civilians were
killed in a Taliban truck bombing targeting an American base in eastern
Afghanistan, NATO said Sunday, a stark reminder that the war in
Afghanistan still rages 10 years after the Sept. 11 terror attacks
against the United States. ...

The truck bombing came hours after the Taliban vowed to keep fighting
U.S. forces in Afghanistan until all American troops leave the country
and stressed that their movement had no role in the Sept. 11 attacks. ...

(4) French TV lifts censorship of 9/11 issues, covers WTC Building 7
collapse; Toronto Hearings Live Stream

Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2011 12:56:36 +0100 From: Ian Henshall
<crisisnewsletter@pro-net.co.uk>

12 September 2011

1. Weekend Media Coverage

Breakthrough in France, nothing so far in UK. France 3 said to be the
equivalent of UKs Channel 4 or BBC2 has lifted the de facto censorship
of 9/11 issues with a balanced report of the WTC Building 7 campaign and
a report of the recent French opinion poll showing a surprisingly large
proportion of respondents feeling that the US government was involved in
the execution of the 9/11 attacks. Here in the UK the only discernible
effect of what should have been reported as both an opinion poll and an
intel bombshell has been a message from a Channel 4 Editor asking to be
removed from their list. Journalist Jason Burke, who should have
received the news releases, from us pronounced on Radio 4 that there is
"nothing new" to report on 9/11 this weekend. It is possible however
that our poll might have contributed to the extremely muted coverage of
the anniversary. ..

3. Toronto 9/11 Hearings Live Stream

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/thetorontohearings#utm_campaign=t.co&utm_source=8672760&utm_medium=social

(5) A Critique of Noam Chomsky's denial of 9/11

From: Gary Kohls <gkohls@cpinternet.com>  Date: 12 September 2011 03:42
From: Emmanuel Charles McCarthy
Subject: War By Deceit Continues until the Deceit is Revealed

After 9/11, Was War the Only Option?
by: Noam Chomsky, The New York Times Syndicate | Op-Ed
Friday 9 September 2011
http://chomsky.info/articles/20110905.htm
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/11887/after_9_11_was_war_the_only_option/

A Critique of Noam Chomsky's denial of 9/11

Posted by James H. Fetzer on September 11, 2011

Friends,

http://911scholars.ning.com/profiles/blogs/a-critique-of-noam-chomsky-s-denial-of-9-11

Even the New York Times is syndicating Noam Chomsky's views on 911. This
article about "what could have been, should have been, could be, might
be" is rest on Noam Chomsky's refusal from day one to even consider the
possibility that the causes of 911 were something other than the
impossible tale that the US Government began to put out an hour after
those two gigantic buildings fell at free fall speed into their own
footprints. What Noam Chomsky writes in the article is of little
importance. What the article assumes without question, that the US
Government's story is the truth, is of great importance. As one of the
big time gatekeepers of the political middle-left to far-left
consciousness and media, once Noam Chomsky bestowed his imprimatur on
the US Government's 911 story indicating it was the truth of the matter,
political left media and political left peace and justice organizations,
including most Christian P&J groups, closed their minds and doors  as
completely as Rush Limbaugh to consideration of the possible
falaciousness of the Government's story. Indeed, the "establishment
left" media, e.g., Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews. Lawrence O' Donnell,
Ed Schultz, Amy Goodman, etc. regularly trashed the laborious
investigatory work and detailed scientific work of 1500 Architects and
Engineers for 911 Truth, Dr. David Ray Griffin and thousands of
others—work that reveals gross, and impossible to reconcile, logical,
scientific, and on the scene eye-witness evidence that put the lie to
the 911 Commission Report—by referring to them in the derogatory
contemporary nomenclature of "truthers" and "conspiracy nuts."

Noam Chomsky's public life has been the pursuit of truth at an
extraordinary level of logical cognition. He knows, perhaps better than
99.99% of the people on earth, when someone is trying to pass off 1+1=7
as the truth. So why, when a tsunami of 1+1+7 absurdities is washing
over him does he continue to say, "The math seems right to me"?

The issue is truth and only truth. Punishment of those who are
responsible for 911, whoever they may be, does not interest me. Human
beings have suffered enough punishment at the hands of other human
beings to last for an eternity. Immunity from punishment for all
involved is the only path to truth. And, truth is so important in the
human situation, that such immunity should be granted without strings
attached. The US Government's story as represented by the 911 Commission
Report is rationally indefensible. It is because it is untenable that no
one in authority or in the establishment media or in religion—right,
left or middle—tries to defend it in open rational dialogue with those
who have put in the intellectual labor to reveal the story as logically
and scientifically impossible.

Wouldn't it be proper, right, and good for humanity, if Noam Chomsky
would sit down in a public forum, say on Frontline, for an open dialogue
with Richard Gage and David Ray Griffin on who and what brought down
those three WTC mega-structures at free fall speed in their own
footprints, etc.? And if Noam Chomsky won't, you can be sure that the
Lawrence O' Donnells, Rachel Maddows, Sean Hannitys, Amy Goodmans and
Rush Limbaughs of the world won't. ...

Imagine if those three WTC giant buildings were not, could not, have
been brought to totally collapse in their own footprints by those two
planes! What would be the implications to be derived from this one fact?
The axial question then whose answer must be truthfully ascertained is
this: Could those three buildings have been  brought down, free fall
speed and in their own footprints by those two planes? The scientific
answer to date, 9/11/11, is a resounding, "No." It would be rational in
light of his history, if Noam Chomsky specifically addressed that
question, even if he did not want to address any of the other evidence
that conclusively puts the lie to the US Government's Official 911
Commission Report. Truth has more power to save what he fears will be
lost by revealing it, than does human existence operating under the
continuing and ever intensifying gravity of lies, fear and murder.

The extreme and dreadful problem with not pursuing the truth in such
matters as the mass murder operation of September 11, 2001, as Noam well
knows, is innocent victims, and more innocent victims, and still  more
innocent victims, and ever more innocent victims, and innocent victims
without end at home and abroad until the third and fourth generation and
even beyond. Such is the unspeakable power of contagion within an
unaddressed socially orchestrated deception. An evil that is left
unnamed will perpetuate itself with lavish zeal. Exposing lies that
destroy is mercy. Ignoring lies that destroy is mercilessness.
Supporting lies that destroy is murder.

Emanuel Charles McCarthy

Postscript:
Let us also remember to pray today for the repose of the soul of
Salvador Allende who was murdered 38 years ago on September 11, 1773, by
Henry Kissinger operating on behalf of the US Government and American
multi-national corporations.

(6) Paul Craig Roberts: Does 9/11 Truth Have A Chance?

From: Sami Joseph <sajoseph2005@yahoo.com>  Date: 13 September 2011 06:37

Does 9/11 Truth Have A Chance?

By Paul Craig Roberts

The emotional needs of the population produced by government propaganda
overwhelms science, evidence, and facts.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29103.htm

Does 9/11 Truth Have A Chance?

By Paul Craig Roberts

September 11, 2011 "Information Clearing House"

In the US on September 11, 2011, the tenth anniversary of 9/11,
politicians and their presstitute media presented Americans with “A Day
of Remembrance,” a propaganda exercise that hardened the 9/11 lies into
dogma. Meanwhile, in Toronto, Canada, at Ryerson University the four-day
International Hearings on the Events of September 11, 2001, came to a
close at 5pm.

During the four days of hearings, distinguished scientists and scholars
and professional architects and engineers presented the results of years
of their independent research into all aspects of 9/11 to a
distinguished panel consisting of the honorary president of the Italian
Supreme Court who was an investigative judge who presided over terrorism
cases and three distinguished scholars of high renown and judgment. The
distinguished panel’s task is to produce a report with their judgment of
the evidence presented by the expert witnesses.

The Toronto Hearings were streamed live over the Internet. I was able to
watch many of the presentations over the four days. I was impressed that
the extremely high level of intelligence and scientific competence of
the witnesses was matched by a high level of integrity, a quality rare
in US politics and totally absent in the American media.

As I stressed in my recent interview about 9/11 with Jim Corbett and
Global Research, I am a reporter, not an independent researcher into
9/11. I pay attention when the fact-based community finds problems with
the official propaganda. Perhaps this reflects my age. My generation was
raised to believe in evidence and the scientific method. George Orwell
and other writers warned us of the consequence of succumbing to
government propaganda as a result of disinterest in the truth or
government manipulation of one’s patriotism.

My ability to serve as a reporter of scientific evidence is enhanced by
my having a Bachelor of Science from Georgia Tech, a Ph.D. from the
University of Virginia, and post-graduate education at the University of
California, Berkeley, and Oxford University, where my professor was the
distinguished physical chemist and philosopher, Michael Polanyi. In the
1960s, I was appointed Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemical
Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, in order to provide
together with Polanyi to the science students at Berkeley a course in
Polanyi’s unique contributions to knowledge. Polanyi’s illness prevented
the course from happening and condemned me to being a mere economist.

This does not mean that I am infallible or that my reporting is correct.
If my reporting stimulates you, go to the presentations, which I believe
will continue to be available online, and if not, some edited CD will be
available. Try http://www.ustream.tv/channel/thetorontohearings

As one whose own contributions to economics, now belatedly recognized,
are “outside the box,” I am responsive to those who can escape peer
pressure in order to advance truth. Here are some of the important
things I learned from the Toronto Hearings.

The NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology, a government
agency) reports on the twin towers and building 7 are fraudulent.
Witnesses at the Toronto Hearings proved that building 7 was a standard
controlled demolition and that incendiaries and explosives brought down
the twin towers. There is no doubt whatsoever about this. Anyone who
declares the contrary has no scientific basis upon which to stand. Those
who defend the official story believe in miracles that defy the laws of
physics.

A nano-chemist from the University of Copenhagen, who together with a
scientific team spent 18 months investigating the chemical and physical
properties of dust from the towers, found evidence of nano-termite in
the dust and quantities of particles not naturally formed by office or
normal building fires that indicate another explosive was also present.

These findings explain the extreme high temperatures that produced the
molten steel for which indisputable evidence exists. In the orchestrated
cover-up, NIST denies that molten steel is present as its presence is
inconsistent with the low temperatures that NIST acknowledges building
fires can produce.

Physicist David Chandler proved beyond all doubt that building 7 fell
over its visible part (other buildings obscure the bottom floors) at
free fall speed, an unambiguous indication that explosives had removed
all supporting columns simultaneously. There is no possibility
whatsoever according to the laws of physics that building 7 fell for the
reasons NIST provides. The NIST account is a total denial of known laws
of physics.

Many other powerful points were made at the conference that I will not
report, at least not at this time, because the revelation of malevolence
is so powerful that most readers will find it a challenge to their
emotional and mental strength.

Psychologists explained that there are two kinds of authority to which
people submit. One is to the authority of people in high positions in
the government. The belief that “our government wouldn’t lie to us” is
pervasive, especially among patriots. The other source of authority is
experts. However, to believe experts a person has to be educated and
open-minded and to trust scientific, professional, and scholarly integrity.

In recent years in America, scientific and scholarly authority has come
into disrepute among Christian evangelicals who object to evolution and
among anti-intellectual Tea Party adherents who object to “elitists,”
that is, objection to knowledge-based persons whose knowledge does not
support Tea Party emotions.

In other words, qualified, knowledgeable people who tell people what
they do not want to hear are dismissed as “the enemy.” Much of the
American population is set up to believe government propaganda. Without
an independent media, which the US no longer has, people are taught that
only “conspiracy kooks” challenge the government’s story. Even on the
Internet, this is a main theme on Antiwar.com and on CounterPunch.org,
two sites that protest America’s wars but accept the 9/11 propaganda
that justifies the wars.

This is the reason that I think that the US is moving into an era where
the emotional needs of the population produced by government propaganda
overwhelms science, evidence, and facts. It means the abolition of
accountable government and the rule of law, because protection from
terrorists is more important.

The fact-based world in which “we are not afraid to follow the truth
wherever it may lead” is being displaced by dogma. Anyone who doubts
“our government” is an anti-American, Muslim-loving, pinko-liberal
commie, who should be arrested and waterboarded until the culprit
confesses that he is a terrorist.

The event of 9/11 is now outside the realm of fact, science, and
evidence. It is a dogma that justifies the Bush/Cheney/Obama war crimes
against Muslims and their countries.

Obama regime appointee Cass Sunstein, a Chicago and Harvard Law School
professor, thinks the 9/11 movement, for challenging the official
“truth”, should be infiltrated by US intelligence agents in order to
shut down the fact-based doubters of government propaganda.

When a law professor at our two most prestigious law schools wants to
suppress scientific evidence that challenges government veracity, we
know that in America respect for truth is dead.

The notion that a country in which truth is dead is a “light unto the
world” is an absurdity.

(7) 9/11, ten years on: fear the ruling elite, not phony terrorists

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/sep2011/pers-s12.shtml

9/11, ten years on

12 September 2011

The tenth anniversary of 9/11 was predictably exploited by the US ruling
elite and the media in another attempt to wear down the critical
faculties of the American people and justify the crimes carried out over
the past decade in their name.

There is a palpable sense, however, that these efforts are wearing thin.
Like everything else in American life, the official commemorative
ceremonies for 9/11 have a ritualized character that has less and less
to do with people’s real concerns.

The lives of the three thousand victims of the appalling crime carried
out ten years ago should be honored and those they left behind
supported. But this is something entirely different from the attempt to
exploit their tragic deaths again and again for the most nefarious purposes.

Within hours of the attacks, the World Socialist Web Site warned in a
statement posted September 12, 2001 that the political establishment
would seize on them “to justify and legitimize the resort to war in
pursuit of the geopolitical and economic interests of the ruling elite.”
This assessment has been fully confirmed.

This year’s commemorations were lent a sinister character by the
prominent participation of George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. Both are
so personally responsible for the crimes and horrors that followed 9/11
that they cannot leave US soil for fear of being arrested on war crimes
charges.

The overriding problem with the tenth anniversary is that the American
people have passed through ten years of bitter experiences since
9/11—disastrous wars, the degradation of basic democratic rights, social
decay and economic crises.

Despite the best efforts of the political establishment to frighten the
people with the threat of new terror attacks—manifested in a
heavy-handed security crackdown surrounding the anniversary—the great
majority of the population is far more fearful of what may be done to
them by the US ruling elite and the government. Working people face the
constant threat of losing their jobs and their homes and the destruction
of vital social programs.

While the media pumps out articles and editorials proclaiming how 9/11
“brought us all together,” the reality is that class divisions were
manifest from the outset. The destruction of the Twin Towers contributed
to an economic downturn that cost hundreds of thousands of people their
jobs and filled New York’s homeless shelters to overflowing, but the
CEOs made sure the attacks did not interfere with the piling up of
profits. They exploited the tragedy to scoop up millions in stock
options at bargain basement prices.

Firefighters and others who responded to the disaster and now face
cancer and other ailments are forced to haggle for medical care, while
massive subsidies are handed out to ensure fat profits to the owners of
the World Trade Center site.

Despite the efforts to mythologize 9/11, large sections of the
population do not buy the government’s official story of what happened
that day. Polls have shown that fully half of New Yorkers, who bore the
brunt of the tragedy, believe that at some level the government knew in
advance of the 9/11 attacks and deliberately allowed them to happen. It
is just as significant that in New York, where the attacks took place,
there is perhaps the greatest opposition to the wars launched in their name.

The events themselves remain shrouded in secrecy and cover-up. It was
reported last week that the records of the 9/11 commission which issued
its report in 2004—documents that were supposed to be made public,
albeit in heavily redacted form—remain sealed at the National Archive.

That commission, in any case, was tasked not with an objective
investigation of the attacks and their antecedents, but with an
orchestrated cover-up of evidence that elements within the US
intelligence apparatus had foreknowledge of and complicity in these attacks.

We know that a number of those involved in the attacks had been subjects
of intense surveillance by the CIA and the FBI for as long as two years
before 9/11. Last month, an interview was released in which former chief
White House counterterrorism advisor Richard Clarke charged that the CIA
knew well in advance of the attacks that two of the hijackers had
entered the US and deliberately concealed that information from other
agencies.

One thing is certain, in the ten years since the attacks, not a single
individual in US intelligence circles, the military or the
administrations of either George W. Bush or Bill Clinton has been held
accountable with so much as a demotion for what was ostensibly the most
catastrophic intelligence and security failure in the history of the
United States. The unavoidable implication is that to hold anyone
accountable would inevitably lead to recriminations that would threaten
to uncover damning evidence of state involvement.

What ends did 9/11 serve?

Once again, the American public is being told that 9/11 “changed
everything.” The truth is that the policies and actions that were
implemented in its aftermath had been in preparation for at least a
decade before the attacks took place.

The liquidation of the Soviet Union in December 1991 had opened up an
enormous opportunity for the US—proclaimed the world’s sole
“superpower”—to assert global hegemony. Restraints on US militarism
imposed by the Cold War had been shattered, and predominant layers of
the American ruling elite came to see the use of America’s unchallenged
military superiority as a suitable means of offsetting the protracted
decline in the global economic position of the United States.

In 1997, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who as Carter’s national security adviser
had been the principal architect of the CIA-backed war by the Islamist
mujahideen against the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan, outlined the
strategic imperative of US imperialism becoming the dominant power in
Eurasia and preventing the emergence of any regional rival. In his book
The Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski cautioned that the “democratic
instincts” of the American people were an impediment to the aggressive
use of US military force to that end. This problem could be overcome, he
counseled, only under “conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the
public’s sense of domestic well-being.”

9/11 provided just such a “sudden threat or challenge,” creating at
least temporary public support for military action in the name of
retaliation for the attacks on New York and Washington.

The first war was launched to overturn the Taliban government in
Afghanistan, whose rise to power had previously been backed by
Washington. Nearly ten years after the start of the war, 100,000 US
troops remain deployed in the country, which US officials admit contains
no significant Al Qaeda presence. What it does provide is a strategic
beachhead near the Caspian Basin, which holds some 20 percent of the
world’s proven oil reserves and one eighth of its gas reserves.

The war in Afghanistan was followed in 2002 by Bush’s issuance of a
National Security Strategy claiming Washington’s right to wage
“preemptive” war on any nation it perceived as a potential threat to its
interests. This strategy was, in fact, a license for the waging of
aggressive war, which had been explicitly repudiated by the Nuremberg
tribunals and which formed the substance of the principal war-crime
charge brought against the Nazis.

In 2003, this doctrine was put into practice in an unprovoked war for
regime change in Iraq, which holds the world’s second largest proven oil
reserves. This war was justified with lies about nonexistent Iraqi ties
to Al Qaeda and “weapons of mass destruction.”

These events were the initial milestones in the thoroughgoing
criminalization of US foreign policy. Washington’s aggressive wars would
claim the lives of over a million Iraqis as well as thousands upon
thousands of people in Afghanistan, Pakistan and now Libya.

These wars were accompanied by a descent into ever more abhorrent forms
of behavior, with torture and assassination openly proclaimed as state
policy and revelations of barbaric practices at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib,
Bagram air base and CIA “black sites” provoking worldwide revulsion. The
unleashing of the American military has been accompanied by the
increasing militarization of the CIA, which operates the fleets of
Predator drones that have killed thousands in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia
and other countries. It has also seen the buildup of massively funded
mercenary armies, run by outfits such as Blackwater, that are
accountable to no one.

One domestic disaster after another over the past ten years—including
Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill—has exposed the disintegration of
basic infrastructure, pervasive social inequality, the precarious living
conditions of vast sections of the population and the subordination of
all facets of economic life to the banks and corporations together with
the ever more obscene accumulation of wealth by the top 1 percent.

The financialization of American capitalism and the obliteration of the
line dividing speculation from outright criminality ultimately produced
the Wall Street meltdown of September 2008, leaving 25 million Americans
without jobs.

Political life has been dominated by an assault on democratic rights
ranging from massive domestic spying and the repudiation of habeas
corpus begun under the Bush administration to the Obama administration’s
assertion of the right to murder an American citizen based upon
unsubstantiated charges of terrorism.

The election of Obama only demonstrated the impossibility of opposing
war or the destruction of democratic rights within the framework of the
capitalist two-party system. Nearly three years after his election, US
troops remain in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan has been sharply
escalated. The Democratic president has gone beyond the Bush Doctrine,
arrogating to US imperialism the right to wage war anywhere it sees a
threat to its interests and “values.” Included in these “values” is the
“flow of commerce,” meaning the free-market policies dictated by the
US-based banks and corporations and the profits they produce.

This new doctrine has been implemented in the unprovoked war on Libya,
waged openly for the goal of regime change and the installation of a
puppet state more subservient to US interests and Western oil companies.

9/11 and the wars that followed also served to expose the deep decay of
whatever remained of an American intelligentsia. Its integrity had
already been eroded by its participation in the accumulation of wealth
made possible by the speculative boom of the 1990s. Newfound social
interests led many within this layer to adapt themselves to imperialism,
portraying the Iraq war as legitimate, offering up liberal
justifications for Washington’s crimes, and repudiating the antiwar
sentiments of an earlier era.

This process has found its fruition in the Libya war, which won the
enthusiastic support of liberal academics and wide layers of the ex-left
who helped dress up an imperialist takeover of a former colonial country
as an exercise in human rights.

Among the more extreme manifestations of this general tendency has been
the wretched role of the media, which, with its “embedded” journalists,
serves as a jingoistic cheerleader for every militarist action and the
willing conduit of lies to justify them.

This ideological turn to the right took place under conditions of mass
popular opposition to war, which has only intensified but can find no
significant expression in the two-party political setup.

The endeavor begun by US imperialism in 2001, using 9/11 as a pretext,
has not produced the desired results. The wars in both Afghanistan and
Iraq turned into bloody debacles. Rather than US military conquest
producing a bonanza of new oil profits, the trillions of dollars spent
on a decade of war has only deepened the US financial crisis.

These failures, however, do not herald an end to US militarism. Quite
the opposite, they point to greater and far more deadly wars to come.
Discussions of a further drawdown of US troops in Iraq have been
accompanied by calls for expanded CIA operations against Iran. It can be
anticipated that the unabashed war for regime-change in Libya will be
repeated elsewhere in the Middle East and Central Asia. And the Pentagon
is preparing for war against China.

What Bush referred to when he spoke of the “wars of the 21st century”
continues unabated and will inevitably produce a new and greater
catastrophe.

The decisive lesson of the experiences of the decade since 9/11 is that
the struggle against war and in defense of basic social and democratic
rights can be waged only on the basis of the independent political
mobilization of the working class against the profit system, the source
of militarism and reaction.

The deepening crisis of American and world capitalism is ushering in a
new period of revolutionary upheavals. The central question is that of
revolutionary leadership and perspective, to arm the coming struggles
with a worked-out socialist and internationalist program. This means,
above all, building the Socialist Equality Party.

Bill Van Auken

(8) Neocons complicit in 9/11

http://www.voltairenet.org/Substantial-evidence-indicates-US

Substantial evidence indicates US neoconservatives perpetrated 9/11 in
pursuit of their own goals

by Mohsen Pakaein

In NATO powers and allied states, the media and politicians have
embraced the Islamic conspiracy theory as the obvious and indisputable
explanation for the September 11 attacks. But one man’s truth is another
man’s lie. In the rest of the world, what prevails is the idea that the
event was orchestrated by the neocons. This is, for example, the view of
Ambassador Mohsen PakAein, in charge of Iran’s Afghan policy.

VOLTAIRE NETWORK | TEHRAN (IRAN) | 9 SEPTEMBER 2011

September 11 – who was behind the events? In order to find out the
reasons why the U.S. neoconservatives have succeeded in carrying out
their plans and in moving toward their ambitious goals, it is necessary
to understand the causes and motivations behind the events of 9/11.

On 9/11, American trade, military, and political centers collapsed as a
result of explosions, with enormous smoke and dust. In this event, two
passenger jets slammed into the World Trade Center, and another one hit
the Pentagon. Also, another jet crashed – for unknown reasons – before
it hit its target. According to the latest statistics, these operations
resulted in over five thousand deaths and injuries. Immediately, a state
of emergency was declared all over the U.S. The sky across America was
declared a no-fly zone, and the U.S. army was put on high alert. Also,
European countries were informally in a state of emergency, and their
security forces stepped up espionage and intelligence operations.

The official programs of the mass media in Europe were disrupted, and
crisis groups, as well as political and military pundits, held especial
meetings in order to try to reduce the insecurity, which took hold of
all the political apparatuses, and to control public unrest in the wake
of this mass killing. A few hours after the operations, the then U.S.
president called the above-mentioned events a national tragedy for
America and stated that this is a war. It is a war on America, George
Bush said, and added – this is an attack on a lifestyle, democracy, and
the values of the modern world. Bush went on to say[that America had
entered a war, a war between the evil and the good – and we will win
this war, he alleged.

The events of 9/11 set the needed stage for carrying out the radical
ideas of the American neoconservatives. In declaring war and bringing
out its gigantic military machine, America referred to article five of
the NATO Washington Treaty for the first time in fifty years and
prepared itself to attack targets all over the world. This measure taken
by America marked a new phase in international policy and order.

The first stage of this interaction was the attack on Afghanistan. Some
researchers, by relying on lots of evidence, believe that America itself
is the cause behind the events of 9/11. Lyndon LaRouche, a former
American presidential candidate and one of the U.S.’s prominent analysts
of political and economic issues, claimed in an interview that the
events of 9/11 were planned and carried out by veteran American
politicians, in order to canalize and redirect the administration of
George W. Bush along a specific course. He said that 9/11 could [not
have been] the job of an outside group or organization because, given
the way the security system works, these events could have only been
orchestrated by internal security groups and organizations. And at high
levels of the security authorities, of course, there might have been
cooperation with others, albeit in a limited way, but what is
self-evident is the fact that these attacks were mainly controlled by
high-ranking American security authorities and organizations.

They wanted to stage an effective coup against Bush. They didn’t intend
to overthrow the government, but they wanted to move the Bush
administration in the direction they wanted. In his book The Big Lie,
written about 9/11, Thierry Meyssan, a French researcher, says: ’After
the two World Trade Center towers collapsed in a way that no one
predicted, complete official investigations into the incident as to how
it happened were not conducted, but the official account confirmed the
idea of two jets, as well as the identity of the accused, without
substantiating their existence or their involvement in the incident.
Immediately, there was an emphasis on demolishing the damaged buildings
and collecting the debris, and whatever was left in this place was
placed under the control of the F.B.I and was declared as part of
national defense secrets.

The rapidity with which the debris was collected raised suspicion with
the fire officials of the Fire Department of New York, because they
didn’t find Washington officials convincing, and they were certain that
the fuel of the two jets wasn’t sufficient to melt the iron skeleton of
the two towers in such a short time. And practically and chemically, it
is impossible, unless the two towers were made of cardboard. For this
reason, officials of the fire department requested an inquiry in order
to clarify the facts as to whether an explosion occurred at the bottom
of the two towers or not. However, F.B.I authorities didn’t agree with
this suggestion. There is another mystery here, since it is only through
explosives that high rise buildings can be demolished, while in this
case there isn’t any other evidence or picture to show what happened at
the bottom of the two towers.’

In an interview with France TV, Meyssan discloses secrets which can only
be grasped by experts in aerospace sciences. He says: ’Following a Q&A
with the experts in this field, it became clear that it is impossible
for passenger jets, such as the ones that crashed into World Trade
Center, to carry out such precision targeting without having
predetermined radars from within the two towers. This is exactly what
happened two hours prior to the attack, which scrambled radios and TVs
within the range of that area. Thus, without these radars, it wouldn’t
have been possible to achieve target precision, even if several jets had
carried out this task simultaneously.

There are other aspects which cast doubt on the involvement of foreign
agents in the explosions. With regard to the writings in Arabic that
show how to learn flying and pilot airplanes, it should be noted that
aircraft terminology has never been written in Arabic, but has always
been completely in English. As for the attack on the Pentagon, the U.S.
administration claimed that these operations were conducted by crashing
a Boeing 757 into the first or second floor, while the aforementioned
aircraft flew so low that it touched the grass surrounding the Pentagon.
However, when asked about this, experts in war aircraft ascertained that
such an act couldn’t be [accomplished] by non-military aircraft, such as
a Boeing 757, because such aircraft aim at their targets vertically or
fly low, but not close to the ground, and suddenly attack their target
horizontally. And since the Pentagon isn’t very high, but with only two
floors, it is impossible for a non-military jet to hit the Pentagon
horizontally, because Boeing jets can’t fly so low; and even if such a
thing is supposedly possible, it will damage the trees, electric posts,
and other things around the area, which didn’t happen. Indeed, no sign
or traces of this kind could be seen at the scene of the accident.

What draws more attention in this regard is the fact that no one had
seen the skeleton of the aircraft in the scene of the accident, and
there wasn’t the smallest picture of it, but just a black box, which it
was said had been found on the scene of the accident, whereas in the
first statements made by the officials, it was said that the attack was
carried out by a helicopter. Furthermore, the place which was the target
of the attack didn’t house any personnel or military staff, because
buildings were under construction in this place, and the only victims
were workers and people who happened to be there. This is surprising,
because only one military person was killed, while they announced that
many of the victims were Pentagon employees.

Another surprising thing is that there wasn’t any follow-up on the
pilots or the perpetrators of the operations. Another point is that,
when an aircraft is hijacked, its information is conveyed in a code to
the control tower, and non-military aircrafts also use identification
serial numbers which are sent to the control tower by transmitter disks,
and, in fact, it is in this way that tracking of such aircrafts is made
possible. Likewise, when an aircraft doesn’t send signals, it is assumed
to be an aircraft of the enemy, and warning signals are sent to it. In
the case of the two jets which hit the Twin Towers, there wasn’t any signal.

’Another point worth contemplating concerning the above-mentioned
incident is that none of the officials of the companies belonging to the
buildings of the world trade center was a victim. At the time of the
incident, most of these managers were invited for a friendly breakfast
at a military base, which is very far from New York, and George W. Bush
joined them.’

Overall, there is substantial evidence which indicates that 9/11 was
perpetrated by American neoconservatives in order to create the
opportunity to achieve their goals, such as strengthening militarism,
attacking countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan, and enlisting other
countries to join them in fighting terrorism. This suggests the will and
determination of the neoconservatives to consolidate American power
across the globe at whatever cost.