Wednesday 31 August 2011
CIA’s Bay of Pigs foreign policy laid bare
A once-secret CIA history of the Bay of Pigs invasion lays out in unvarnished detail how the American spy agency came to the rescue of and cut deals with authoritarian governments in Central America, largely to hide the U.S. role in organizing and controlling the hapless Cuban exile invasion force. The most powerful people in Central American embassies were the CIA station chiefs.
Ambassadors step aside and allow the CIA to negotiate deals for covert paramilitary bases in a newly released portion of the CIA’s “Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation.” “What you’re reading in this report shows again that in the hypocritical name of democracy the United States and CIA were willing to prop up some of the most cut-throat dictatorships,” says researcher Peter Kornbluh of the National Security Archive at George Washington University. He sued the CIA for release of the Top Secret document that dissects one of the agency’s greatest failures. Using secret interviews, cables and memos, CIA historian Jack B. Pfeiffer wrote the classified account of the disastrous operation to topple Fidel Castro. It’s unusually candid because nobody except spies were expected read it. Both the Eisenhower and Kennedy governments wanted to be able to deny responsibility for the invasion. [...]
With CIA help, NYPD moves covertly in Muslim areas
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the New York Police Department has become one of the nation's most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies, targeting ethnic communities in ways that would run afoul of civil liberties rules if practiced by the federal government.
The operations have benefited from unprecedented help from the CIA, a partnership that has blurred the line between foreign and domestic spying. The department has dispatched undercover officers, known as "rakers," into minority neighborhoods as part of a human mapping program, according to officials directly involved in the program. They've monitored daily life in bookstores, bars, cafes and nightclubs.
Police have also used informants, known as "mosque crawlers," to monitor sermons, even when there's no evidence of wrongdoing. Many of these operations were built with help from the CIA, which is prohibited from spying on Americans but was instrumental in transforming the NYPD's intelligence unit. A veteran CIA officer, while still on the agency's payroll, was the architect of the NYPD's intelligence programs. The CIA trained a police detective at the Farm, the agency's spy school in Virginia, then returned him to New York, where he put his new espionage skills to work inside the United States. And just last month, the CIA sent a senior officer to work as a clandestine operative inside police headquarters. [...]
Wall Street Aristocracy Got $1.2 Trillion in Secret Loans
Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. were the reigning champions of finance in 2006 as home prices peaked, leading the 10 biggest U.S. banks and brokerage firms to their best year ever with $104 billion of profits. By 2008, the housing market’s collapse forced those companies to take more than six times as much, $669 billion, in emergency loans from the U.S. Federal Reserve. The loans dwarfed the $160 billion in public bailouts the top 10 got from the U.S. Treasury, yet until now the full amounts have remained secret.
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s [actions] included lending banks and other companies as much as $1.2 trillion of public money, about the same amount U.S. homeowners currently owe on 6.5 million delinquent and foreclosed mortgages. The largest borrower, Morgan Stanley, got as much as $107.3 billion, while Citigroup took $99.5 billion and Bank of America $91.4 billion, according to a Bloomberg News compilation of data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, months of litigation and an act of Congress. It wasn’t just American finance. Almost half of the Fed’s top 30 borrowers, measured by peak balances, were European firms.
Data gleaned [under the Freedom of Information Act] make clear for the first time how deeply the world’s largest banks depended on the U.S. central bank to stave off cash shortfalls. Even as the firms asserted in news releases or earnings calls that they had ample cash, they drew Fed funding in secret.[...]
History Channel gets it right
Thursday night’s “Secret Access” report by The History Channel — “UFOs On The Record” — is the sort of crisp advocacy journalism one might easily envision in PBS’ “Frontline” rotation.
Devoid of the tripe that too often characterizes network programming on this issue, “UFOs On The Record” is a foundational model for jump-starting a national conversation so desperately overdue. The 96-minute documentary, built upon Leslie Kean’s UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record, was produced by filmmakers Ricki Stern and Annie Sudberg. Like Kean, they made no unsubstantiated claims and dispensed with the uninformed ruminations of so-called UFO skeptics that pass for “balance” in mainstream formulas. Instead, they mined official documents and eyewitnesses to build a compelling case for the serious disconnect between reality and American public policy. For Kean’s readers, the “Secret Access” treatment covered familiar turf: the Phoenix Lights, the Rendlesham Forest incident, the 1989-90 Belgian wave, etc. But watching many of the players in the book — like former Federal Aviation Administration accidents division chief John Callahan, and retired Belgian Gen. Wilfried De Brouwer — as they physically reconstructed complex interactions between UFOs and jet planes brought the enormity of the transactions to life. [...]
Tuesday 30 August 2011
Global Warming Caused by Cosmic Rays and the Sun - Not Humans
New, convincing evidence indicates global warming is caused by cosmic rays and the sun — not humans
The science is now all-but-settled on global warming, convincing new evidence demonstrates, but Al Gore, the IPCC and other global warming doomsayers won’t be celebrating. The new findings point to cosmic rays and the sun — not human activities — as the dominant controller of climate on Earth.
The research, published with little fanfare this week in the prestigious journal Nature, comes from über-prestigious CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, one of the world’s largest centres for scientific research involving 60 countries and 8,000 scientists at more than 600 universities and national laboratories. CERN is the organization that invented the World Wide Web, that built the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider, and that has now built a pristinely clean stainless steel chamber that precisely recreated the Earth’s atmosphere.
In this chamber, 63 CERN scientists from 17 European and American institutes have done what global warming doomsayers said could never be done — demonstrate that cosmic rays promote the formation of molecules that in Earth’s atmosphere can grow and seed clouds, the cloudier and thus cooler it will be. Because the sun’s magnetic field controls how many cosmic rays reach Earth’s atmosphere (the stronger the sun’s magnetic field, the more it shields Earth from incoming cosmic rays from space), the sun determines the temperature on Earth.
The hypothesis that cosmic rays and the sun hold the key to the global warming debate has been Enemy No. 1 to the global warming establishment ever since it was first proposed by two scientists from the Danish Space Research Institute, at a 1996 scientific conference in the U.K. Within one day, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Bert Bolin, denounced the theory, saying, “I find the move from this pair scientifically extremely naive and irresponsible.” He then set about discrediting the theory, any journalist that gave the theory cre dence, and most of all the Danes presenting the theory — they soon found themselves vilified, marginalized and starved of funding, despite their impeccable scientific credentials.
The mobilization to rally the press against the Danes worked brilliantly, with one notable exception. Nigel Calder, a former editor of The New Scientist who attended that 1996 conference, would not be cowed. Himself a physicist, Mr. Calder became convinced of the merits of the argument and a year later, following a lecture he gave at a CERN conference, so too did Jasper Kirkby, a CERN scientist in attendance. Mr. Kirkby then convinced the CERN bureaucracy of the theory’s importance and developed a plan to create a cloud chamber — he called it CLOUD, for “Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets.”
But Mr. Kirkby made the same tactical error that the Danes had — not realizing how politicized the global warming issue was, he candidly shared his views with the scientific community.
“The theory will probably be able to account for somewhere between a half and the whole of the increase in the Earth’s temperature that we have seen in the last century,” Mr. Kirkby told the scientific press in 1998, explaining that global warming may be part of a natural cycle in the Earth’s temperature.
The global warming establishment sprang into action, pressured the Western governments that control CERN, and almost immediately succeeded in suspending CLOUD. It took Mr. Kirkby almost a decade of negotiation with his superiors, and who knows how many compromises and unspoken commitments, to convince the CERN bureaucracy to allow the project to proceed. And years more to create the cloud chamber and convincingly validate the Danes’ groundbreaking theory.
Yet this spectacular success will be largely unrecognized by the general public for years — this column will be the first that most readers have heard of it — because CERN remains too afraid of offending its government masters to admit its success. Weeks ago, CERN formerly decided to muzzle Mr. Kirby and other members of his team to avoid “the highly political arena of the climate change debate,” telling them “to present the results clearly but not interpret them” and to downplay the results by “mak[ing] clear that cosmic radiation is only one of many parameters.” The CERN study and press release is written in bureaucratese and the version of Mr. Kirkby’s study that appears in the print edition of Nature censored the most eye-popping graph — only those who know where to look in an online supplement will see the striking potency of cosmic rays in creating the conditions for seeding clouds.
CERN, and the Danes, have in all likelihood found the path to the Holy Grail of climate science. But the religion of climate science won’t yet permit a celebration of the find.
How Disney Instills Greed and Consumerism in Babies as Young as Three Months Old
Few people have considered the hold that the Disney Corporation has not only on their own lives, but on the world as a whole.
In American culture, Disney has become synonymous with childhood. Present-day grandparents grew up watching the animated films, wearing Mickey Mouse pajamas and begging to go to Disneyland. But while it all seems innocent, few people have considered the hold that the Disney Corporation has not only on their own lives, but on the world as a whole.
Henry Giroux and Grace Pollock explore this relationship between consumer and industry in their book "The Mouse that Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence." [Full disclosure: Henry Giroux is a member of Truthout's Board of Directors.]
Henry Giroux and Grace Pollock explore this relationship between consumer and industry in their book "The Mouse that Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence." [Full disclosure: Henry Giroux is a member of Truthout's Board of Directors.]
Cuddly cartoon animals and whimsical fairy-tale stories are merely Disney's public face. The expansive conglomerate is not limited to Disney film and theme parks. It also owns six motion picture studios, ABC television network and its 226 affiliated stations, multiple cable television networks, 227 radio stations, four music companies, three cruise lines, theatrical production companies, publishing houses, 15 magazine titles and five video game development studios. This media and culture monopoly goes unnoticed by most Americans, who just want to indulge their childhood fantasies as Disney so deftly enables with its movies, theme parks and merchandise.
Giroux and Pollock's peerless scholarship exposes Disney through essential, hard-hitting information that America needs to face. The authors' dedication to thorough research and the book's trove of facts and statistics make this an indispensable reference work, as well as a passionately engaged and engaging investigation of Disney and its place in consumerist America.
A case study of corporate morality and intention, "The Mouse that Roared" also analyzes the zeitgeist and culture that both give rise to and are shaped by Disney, which, as the authors illustrate, succeeds in raking in money by both pandering to childhood and adult imagination, and molding the minds of our youth.
The authors quote Walt Disney: "I think of a child's mind as a blank book. During the first years of his life, much will be written on the pages. The quality of that writing will affect his life profoundly." They demonstrate how Disney's movies, TV shows and toys are doing a majority of that writing in this generation's children.
Cultural pedagogy provides the lens through which Giroux and Pollock evaluate not only the media monopoly the Disney conglomerate has built, but also the impact of that media on the development of cultural attitudes and behavior through the targeting of youth, beginning today with Disney video programs aimed at infants.
The Baby Einstein products are designed to entertain and educate children as young as three months. However, according to the Journal of Pediatrics, infants who watched an hour or more of television a day displayed slower language development. While the Baby Einstein Company did eventually remove the section from their web site claiming that their videos had educational value for children, a 2007 study still showed that 48 percent of parents thought these videos had a positive effect on young children.
"The Mouse that Roared" also draws attention to the gender stereotypes in Disney princess movies, from older cartoons such as "The Little Mermaid" to their newest, "Enchanted."
"Disney has become a major player in global culture, and the first casualties of its dominance in popular culture are, of course, those who are most defenseless - children," the book warns. [...]Defense Against the Psychopath
For an in-depth view of psychopathy please see:
Political Ponerology: The scientific study of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes
Tripoli faces humanitarian crisis
More than a week after the NATO-led “rebels” invaded the Libyan capital of Tripoli, the city’s 2 million residents are facing a deepening humanitarian crisis, deprived of water, electricity, adequate food supplies and desperately needed medical care.
While the downfall of the 42-year-old regime of Col. Muammar Gaddafi has been universally proclaimed, the whereabouts of Gaddafi himself are still not known. The principal leaders of the Benghazi-based National Transitional Council (NTC)—recognized by the major powers as the “legitimate” government of Libya—have yet to set foot in Tripoli.
Sporadic fighting continues to be reported in the capital, while NATO and the insurgent forces it has sponsored are preparing for a siege of Sirte, the coastal city of 100,000 that is Gaddafi’s home town and a center of his tribe, the Gaddafas.
NATO warplanes have conducted dozens of air strikes against Sirte, which straddles the highway leading from Tripoli in the west to Libya’s second largest city, Benghazi, to the east.
The pretense that this air war is being carried out under the United Nations mandate to protect Libyan civilians has become increasingly ludicrous as US, British and French warplanes are used to pound civilian population centers to prepare the way for invading “rebel” armies. [...]
Norwegian Police Conducted Drill for ‘Practically Identical Scenario’ Right Before Utoya Attack
Extraordinary. It should make any observer of geo-politics and state-sponsored terrorism extremely concerned though perhaps not surprised. As with the 7/7 London Attacks of 2005 and 911 there were also "drills" with exactly the same kind of scenario. These, according to some are used as a cover for the real event. A comment on cryptogon provided links to support the above which I'll include here:
7/7/2005 London Bombings Terror Drills
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJUVqcNDZlk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJUVqcNDZlk
9/11 military exercises
http://www.historycommons.org/.....1_timeline
http://www.historycommons.org/.....1_timeline
(scroll to near bottom of page)
FEMA arrived New York Sept 10 for a bio attack drill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLy_nmnE2FM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLy_nmnE2FM
-----------------------
J, a Danish Cryptogon reader, with family connections to Norway, kindly sent this translation. He says that native Norwegian speakers may find issues with it. Thank you, J, we appreciate your effort.
—
//Trained for Utøya scenario July 22
Ray: – The police were interested in British cells
The trial of Behring Breivik might be conducted in the Oslo Courthouse The police wanted to sell the boat that had experienced engine failure en route to Utøya
Four days in advance, and also the same Friday the attack was carried out, the police special unit trained on an ongoing terror campaign that was approximately equal to the situation that hours later, met the 22 police officers within the emergency squad on Utøya.
//Aftenposten have confirmation from key sources in the Oslo police management that
the exercise was terminated at 3PM that very Friday.
All officers from the emergency squad that participated in the government quarter after the car bomb and later came ashore on Utøya, arresting Anders Behring Breivik, had earlier that same day and in the days ahead participated in training on an identical scenario.
The police barely completed the exercise, before what they had been training for, became reality.
As far as Aftenposten has been informed, the training transcended directly into what the policed then faced in the Tyrifjord that very day; a mobile terror attack, in which one or more perpetrators only goal was to shoot as many people as possible and then shoot the police when they arrived.
- It was very close to facit. Chance would have it that way, says a key police source, who declined to quoted by name.
//Massacre
The police did not train on a scenario including as many victims as they met on Utøya. The police special unit trains continuously. But every quarter, they have “sections” where they train for different types of scenarios.
These are different scenarios police envisions might occur where the emergency squad must be inserted. There may be actions indoors, in cities or outside in other environments.
According to police, this is a scenario they train on several times a year and has trained for, for several years, especially after specific events in other countries.
//26 minutes
Only 26 minutes after the emergency squad´s training had concluded, the car bomb went off in the government quarter. The Emergency Squad arrived early on the scene. At 3.30PM, the staff at the Oslo police learned about a shooting at Utøya. They put so much trust in the the message, that the emergency squad entered the cars, already positioned in the government quarter and cars that came from the police station at Grønland in Oslo.
On the way they had problems contacting the North Buskerud Police District, but at 6.02PM, six minutes before they arrived, they established contact and agreed to meet at Storøya.
Once there, seven people from the emergency squad and three police officers from Nordre Buskerud Police District boarded a 4.9 meter long rubber dinghy. This was so heavily loaded that it began taking in water. The police were assisted by a civilian boat and sailed towards Utøya.
—End Update—
If anyone from Norway would like to send in a reliable English translation of this Aftenposten piece, I’d appreciate it.
Via: Northern Trumpet:
Just hours before Anders Behring Breivik launched his deadly attack at a political summer camp on Utoya island on July 22, police had conducted a drill for a “practically identical scenario”, Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten reports.
Sources within the top level management of the police in Oslo have confirmed to Aftenposten that the drill finished at 15:00 that same Friday. The bomb attributed to Breivik went off only 26 minutes after the anti-terror drill finished, according to officials.According to Aftenposten all of the officers from the anti-terror unit who took part in the action and arrest of Breivik had a full week training on a mobile terrorist attack scenario in which one or more perpetrators only goal is to shoot as many people as possible and then shoot the police when they arrive.
“Chance would have it that way”, a key police source who wishes to remain anonymous, told Aftenposten.
Sufism and the Way of Blame
Reality Sandwich
The following is excerpted from Sufism and the Way of Blame: The Hidden Sources of a Sacred Psychology, available from Quest Books.
J. G. Bennett was convinced that Gurdjieff's greatest influence came from a group of proto-Naqshbandis in Central Asia, a brotherhood later verified by HasanŞuşud as the Khwajagan, or Masters. Idries Shah implied that his own perspective was influenced by the Khwajagan-Naqshbandiyya. Moreover, the father of Idries, Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah, was also known to have contacts among Afghan Sufis, some of whom (according to Robert Darr) were still active members of the Khwajagan.
J. G. Bennett was convinced that Gurdjieff's greatest influence came from a group of proto-Naqshbandis in Central Asia, a brotherhood later verified by HasanŞuşud as the Khwajagan, or Masters. Idries Shah implied that his own perspective was influenced by the Khwajagan-Naqshbandiyya. Moreover, the father of Idries, Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah, was also known to have contacts among Afghan Sufis, some of whom (according to Robert Darr) were still active members of the Khwajagan.
HasanŞuşud, a rather enigmatic Sufi in Istanbul, had disguised his former affiliation with the Naqshbandiyya and with another group that referred to itself as the Nuriyya-Malamatiyya (in Turkish, Nuriyye-Melamiyye). He had revealed that he had a rather low opinion of Gurdjieff as a "thief of the tradition." It is hard to tell which tradition Şuşud was referring to, although he probably meant the Khwajagan or the malamatiyya, or both of them comingled together.
A common element that tied together Gurdjieff, the Shah family, Bennett, and Şuşud was that all of them referred to the Masters of Central Asia. All of them also posited that the Khwajagan had functioned as a rather elite group within greater Sufism; yet all of them, with the exception of Şuşud, seem to have deviated from the central teachings of Sufism, which emphasized the nothingness of human beings next to God. Instead, the followers of Gurdjieff, Bennett, and Idries Shah would all continue to promote a form of occult elitism that emphasized a hidden hierarchy in Sufism composed of superhumans who operated beyond, behind, or outside of normative Sufism and Islam. And this idea was inimical to the original teachings of the Khwajagan.
Ibn al-Arabi had also referred to a hierarchy among saints, at the pinnacle of which were the blameworthy (malamiyya, or malamatis). But rather than promoting a form of elitism, he and other classical Sufis claimed that malamatis hid themselves among the common people. A question that remains is whether or not the Khwajagan and the people of blame were somehow associated with each other, and if so whether or not they shared common characteristics. To attempt to answer this question requires a less fantastical examination of the early malamatis and the Khwajagan, who appear to be separate. So, to begin with, what was the original "path of blame"? [...]
Monday 29 August 2011
The West Wants to take Control of Libya's Oil Wealth
Interview with Michel Chossudovsky, Director of Centre for Research on Globalization.
click here for Video version
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/195674.html
While Libyan revolutionaries have not yet won the war in the oil-rich country, Western powers are already discussing the post-Gaddafi period on such issues as how the interim government there needs to honor its oil contracts.
In case of internal fighting in Libyan crisis, will the US and its coalition NATO allies deploy boots on the ground to protect their oil interests?
In a Press TV interview, Michel Chossudovsky, Director of Center for Research on Globalization, shed more light into the development. The following is a rush transcription of the interview:
Press TV: Western powers have said that the international community will support the political transition to a free and democratic Libya: In what form will this "support" come? A "Western" democracy imposed on Libyans? What is that going to mean for the Libyans? They used the same language when they attacked Afghanistan 10 years ago and Iraq 8 years ago. The US still insists that its soldiers should have immunity in these countries. How will it be in Libya?
Chossudovsky: Well I think we have to understand both the nature of this military operation, the covert intelligence behind the rebels, as well as the extensive bombings of civilians infrastructure, residential areas, as well as schools, universities, hospitals which has taken place in the course of the last few months.
And particularly virtually continuous bombings, at night in Tripoli in the course of last few days. We are talking about 20,000 sorties, 8,000 strike sorties, In another words what has happened in the course of these last months, particularly in a last few weeks, is the destruction of an entire country, its infrastructure, institutions, very targeted, involving a lot of civilian casualties.
In other words, the Western "pro democracy" NATO supported rebels, as well as the NATO supported heads of states and heads of governments, they have blood on their hands, they have a lot of blood on their hands, because they have killed a lot of women and children.
Our correspondent has been reporting form the Rixos Hotel, just a few hours ago, he and several other journalists, were extracted from the hotel; they were liberated from the Hotel, where they were held for several days, and they are safe now.
Chossudovsky. But I can tell you, my understanding is, first of all this is not a revolution. These are NATO trained gunman, and they are Al Qaeda related paramilitaries, mercenaries.
They have very little support within civil society in Libya. Whether we like the Gaddafi regime or not, I do not think that this is the issue. The large majority of the population are against the rebellion, and the only thing that sustains the rebellion, are the NATO bombings. And these are criminal bombings; let's say what they are. They are in derogation of international law, actions that are criminal in terms of their consequences: the killings of children, the killing of people in their own homes, and this has been well documented.
And what is criminal in this process, is the fact that this war is presented to the media as a humanitarian operation.
Realities are turned upside down. We are told, that war is peace, The lie becomes the truth, essentially that is what has happened. [...]
Fresh oil slicks forming over Deepwater Horizon spill site
Raw Story
Despite assurances from British oil company BP that no oil was present at the Deepwater Horizon site in the Gulf of Mexico, two Louisiana State University men have returned with video evidence of large blooms of crude oil swelling up to the water’s surface where the doomed oil rig once hovered.
Tests on the oil were inconclusive as far as linking it to the now-plugged oil well, but if it is from the Deepwater Horizon spill it could indicate the formation of fissures on the seabed, seeping oil into the ecosystem anew.
If so, that would mean the worst accidental release of oil in human history — a spill so bad, it took five months just to stop crude from flowing — isn’t quite over.
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and 9/11 Part III
"There are so many gaping holes in the official accounts of 9/11 that no plausible coherent narrative remains, and until now we have been staggering forward as if the truth about these traumatic events no longer mattered." [74] But if the mainstream press start investigating properly, it could lead to a completely unprecedented '9/11 scandal.'
- Human rights Lawyer Richard Falk
By Matt Everett
Journal of PsychohistoryVolume 32, No. 3, Winter 2005, pp. 202-238
THE MOHAMED ATTA MYTH
Of the four alleged 9/11 suicide-pilots, three had been in attendance at two flight schools at the tiny airport in Venice, Florida: Huffman Aviation and Florida Flight Training. Both were owned by Dutch men who purchased the schools within months of each other, in 1999. Soon after they took over, the schools began training unprecedented numbers of Arab flight students. [57] Yet Huffman Aviation and Florida Flight Training, along with the dubious characters who ran them, have so far avoided any serious investigation or media attention.
One man who has tried to make up for this is investigative reporter Daniel Hopsicker, who spent two years following the attacks in Venice, examining the training of the alleged hijackers. He reports his findings in his book Welcome to Terrorland: Mohamed Atta & the 9-11 Cover-up in Florida. As well as describing evidence of large-scale illegal activity going on in and around the Venice Airport, this book casts serious doubt upon the official account of who the hijackers really were.
We have all heard how these 19 alleged hijackers were Islamic extremists. Yet evidence uncovered by Hopsicker, particularly regarding alleged ringleader Mohamed Atta, depicts unlikely personalities and lifestyles for a bunch of religious fanatics. For example, almost totally ignored by the mainstream press is that Atta had an American girlfriend for over two months whilst in Venice, with whom he would go out clubbing almost every night.
At the time, this attractive young woman -- Amanda Keller -- had spiky pink hair and was working as a 'lingerie model' for an escort service called Fantasies & Lace. Atta is known to have been a heavy drinker who snorted cocaine. Local newspapers reported how in February 2001, along with Keller, he went on a three-day binge of drinking and drug taking in Key West. [58]
Just days before 9/11, Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi (another of the alleged suicide-pilots) spent the evening drinking heavily at a bar in Fort Lauderdale. The bar's manager later told reporters that the men "got wasted," drinking "Stolichnaya and orange juice, and Captain Morgan's spiced rum and Coke." Bartender Patricia Idrissi concurred, saying: "Atta drank Stoli vodka for three straight hours…. They were wasted." [59]
Amanda Keller describes a typical night out at a club with Atta: "Marwan [al-Shehhi] was in the reggae room drinking with a bunch of women at the bar, there were a lot of women around him, and he was just flaunting money." As Hopsicker points out: "It's one thing to hear Atta described as living it up with wine, women and song. But Marwan flaunting money at the bar pretty much puts the lie to the 'Islamic fundamentalist' tag." [60]
Hopsicker suggests that, rather than being a fundamentalist Muslim, Mohamed Atta better fits the profile of a member of Arab society's privileged elite and also a spy. Amongst many oddities contradicting the 'fundamentalist' label is the fact that his e-mail list included the names of several employees of U.S. defense contractors. [61] More alarming, he and as many as six of the other alleged 9/11 hijackers appear to have trained at U.S. military bases. Hopsicker writes:
"On the Saturday following the Tuesday attack, the Los Angeles Times broke the story in a long article on their front page. 'A defense official said two of the hijackers were former Saudi fighter pilots, 'reported the paper, 'who had studied in exchange programs at the Defense Language School at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas and the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama.'"
The story went wide the next day, Sunday, September 15th. Newsweek, the Washington Post and the Miami Herald all reported as many as seven of the terrorist hijackers in the September 11th attacks received training at secure U.S. Military installations.
"Two of 19 suspects named by the FBI, Saeed Alghamdi and Ahmed Alghamdi, have the same names as men listed at a housing facility for foreign military trainees at Pensacola. Two others, Hamza Alghamdi and Ahmed Alnami, have names similar to individuals listed in public records as using the same address inside the base," the Washington Post reported.
"In addition, a man named Saeed Alghamdi graduated from the Defense Language Institute at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, while men with the same names as two other hijackers, Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari, appear as graduates of the U.S.
International Officers School at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, and the Aerospace Medical School at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, respectively," the Post said. [62]
Newsweek detailed how U.S. Military facilities routinely trained pilots for other countries: "A former Navy pilot told NEWSWEEK that during his years on the base, 'we always, always, always trained other countries' pilots…. Whoever the country du jour is, that's whose pilots we train.' Candidates begin with 'an officer's equivalent of boot camp,' he said. 'Then they would put them through flight training.'" [63]
Hopsicker explains how this crucial story came to be dismissed:
"Someone was going to have to answer ... for a lot.""But Atta is a fairly common surname in the Middle East," the Post quoted Laila Alquatami of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee as saying, and the suspected hijacker's first name is "probably the No. 1 name that is given to babies, in honor of the prophet Mohamed."
The Boston Globe reported the Pentagon's denial: "Some of the FBI suspects had names similar to those used by foreign alumni of U.S. Military courses," said the Air Force in a statement. "Discrepancies in their biographical data ... indicate we are probably not talking about the same people."
How easy was it to tell the Pentagon was lying? Think about it. It is neither plausible nor logical that the reports were false because of seven separate cases of mistaken identity. One or two, maybe. But seven? [64]
None of the newspapers retracted the story, yet it disappeared. One person who sought answers was Senator Bill Nelson, who faxed Attorney General John Ashcroft, demanding to know if the story was really true. However:
"The Senator has still not received a reply, we heard from his spokesman, when we called his office eleven months later. In the wake of those reports, we asked about the Pensacola Naval Air Station but we never got a definitive answer from the Justice Department," stated the Senator's press spokesman. "So we asked the FBI for an answer 'if and when' they could provide us one. Their response to date has been that they are trying to sort through something complicated and difficult." [65]
Deciding to investigate for himself, Hopsicker phoned the Pentagon and spoke with the public information officer who helped write and disseminate their original denial of the story:
"Biographically, they're not the same people," she explained patiently, using the same language contained in the Air Force's press release. "Some of the ages are twenty years off."
… Was she saying that the age of the 'Mohamed Atta' who had attended the Air Force's International Officer's School at Maxwell Air Force Base was different than that of 'terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta?'
Not exactly, she admitted. She could not confirm that -- in this specific instance -- they had different ages. What she could do was once again deny that the International Officer's School attendee named Mohamed Atta had been the Mohamed Atta who piloted a passenger plane into the World Trade Center.
However, she could offer no specifics for her assertion, and repeatedly declined requests for biographical details about the Mohamed Atta who had trained at Maxwell Air Force Base. [66]
After Hopsicker's persistent questioning, she finally said in exasperation: "I do not have the authority to tell you who attended which schools." Hopsicker reflects: "It was hard to read this as anything other than a back-handed confirmation. When she said that she didn't have the authority, the clear implication was that someone else does… Somewhere in the Defense Dept. a list exists with the names of Sept. 11 terrorists who received training at U.S. Military facilities. She just didn't have the authority to release it." [67] Furthermore, Hopsicker spoke to a woman who works at the Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama:
"I have a girlfriend who recognized Mohamed Atta. She met him at a party at the Officer's Club," she told us. "The reason she swears it was him here is because she didn't just meet him and say hello. After she met him she went around and introduced him to the people that were with her. So she knows it was him."
Saudis were a highly visible presence at Maxwell Air Force Base, she said. "There were a lot of them living in an upscale complex in Montgomery. They had to get all of them out of here. "They were all gone the day after the attack." [68]
Despite it being a key 9/11 crime scene, there has been a surprising absence of investigations into the goings on in Venice, Florida. In fact, to the contrary, "the FBI's full attention seemed to have been engaged -- not in investigating what had happened -- but in suppressing evidence and even intimidating the witnesses who had seen and heard things that fly in the face of the 'official story.'" [69]
For example, Mohamed Atta's former girlfriend Amanda Keller says that even after she left Venice, the FBI called on her every other day for several months, telling her not to talk to anybody. Similarly, a woman called Stephanie Frederickson who lived next-door to Atta and Keller in Venice reported how she and other residents at the same apartment building were harassed and intimidated by FBI agents, to prevent them from talking to reporters.
According to Frederickson: "The question [the FBI] asked was always the same. You aren't saying anything to anybody, are you? At first, right after the attack, they told me I must have been mistaken in my identification. Or they would insinuate that I was lying. Finally they stopped trying to get me to change my story, and just stopped by once a week to make sure I hadn't been talking to anyone. [70]
What is more, the FBI arrived in Venice just hours after the 9/11 attacks. A former manager from Huffman Aviation said: "They were outside my house four hours after the attack." He added: "My phones have been bugged, they still are…. How did the FBI get here so soon? Ask yourself: How'd they got here so soon?" [71]
Within 24 hours of the attacks, records from Huffman Aviation, where Atta and al-Shehhi attended, were escorted aboard a C-130 cargo plane to Washington by Florida governor and brother of the president Jeb Bush. Similarly, according to a sergeant with the Venice police, the FBI took all their files and flew them to Washington with Jeb Bush aboard. (Presumably this was on the same flight as the Huffman records.) Hopsicker notes: "The important point was that taking files was a lot different than copying them. The FBI wasn't taking any chances." [72] He concludes: "There is a demonstrable, provable, and massive federally-supervised cover-up in place in Florida." [73]
As this and my previous evidence shows, there are countless unanswered questions about 9/11 that at some point are going to have to be properly examined. Even an investigation into just a few of these questions, such as those around the war games on 9/11, could be enough to start a major scandal. However, as numerous writers and independent researchers have found, there are so many suspicious circumstances that the truth could be very different to what we have been led to believe.
Human rights lawyer Richard Falk has written: "There are so many gaping holes in the official accounts of 9/11 that no plausible coherent narrative remains, and until now we have been staggering forward as if the truth about these traumatic events no longer mattered." [74] But if the mainstream press start investigating properly, it could lead to a completely unprecedented '9/11 scandal.'
PSYCHOHISTORICAL REASONS BEHIND 9/11 AND ENSUING WARS
There are in fact specific psychohistorical reasons I have identified why there could be a major 9/11 scandal in the future. I detail some of these in my previous article, "Killer Women Group-Fantasies and the 9/11 Controversy," in which I examined signs of the current public mood in Britain and America. [75] My evidence suggested both countries are in a state of particularly high anxiety and will need some kind of large crisis to make us all feel better. But with no new 'external enemy' having been found, I suggested we might instead be veering towards 'regicidal solution' -- where we somehow 'sacrifice' our own leaders. But what is the cause of the current public anxiety? And why have our leaders been unable to find a new 'external enemy' to invade?
Lloyd deMause describes how wars have generally occurred after periods of increased prosperity and social progress, especially when accompanied by more personal freedom. He has found that increased wealth and social change causes many individuals anxiety and discomfort:
"That personal achievement and prosperity often make individuals feel sinful and unworthy of their success is a commonplace observation of psychotherapy ever since Freud's first case studies of people 'ruined by success.' Yet no one seems to have noticed that feelings of sinfulness are usually prominent in the shared emotional life of nations after long periods of peace, prosperity, and social progress, particularly if they are accompanied by more personal and sexual freedom." [76]
As deMause points out: "wars between great powers occur during periods of economic expansion, while stagnation hinders their outbreak." [77] Furthermore, "Wars not only occurred far more frequently after prosperous periods, but were longer and bigger after prosperity, 'six to twenty times bigger as indicated by battle fatalities." [78]
DeMause has found recurrent images of guilt and poison blood in the media, following periods of prosperity and progress. The progress and increased wealth are felt to have "polluted the national bloodstream with sinful excess, making men 'soft' and 'feminine,' a frightful condition that can only be cleansed by a blood-shedding purification." [79]
DeMause continues: "Wars have often been thought of as purifying the nation's polluted blood by virtue of a sacrificial rite identical to the rites of human sacrifice so common in early historical periods, when the blood of those sacrificed was believed to renew all the people. War, said those preparing for the bloody Finnish Civil War, purges guilt-producing material prosperity through the blood of soldiers sacrificed on the battlefield." [80]
So, in the case of the 1991 Gulf War, once it was over: "The sacrificial ritual had been carried out. The nation had been cleansed of its emotional pollution. The President's popularity rating rose to 91 percent, the highest of any American leader in history. The stock market soared. The country had been united by slaughter as it had never been by any positive achievement. We felt cleansed, purified, as though we had been reborn." [81]
To summarize then, periods of growth and prosperity cause much discomfort to many people: feelings of guilt, sinfulness, being 'soft' or 'feminine,' etc. And one way that nations frequently relieve these unpleasant feelings is by going to war.
The 1990s and the beginning of the new millennium certainly rank as a period of prosperity and change. Along with increasing wealth and social change, we have experienced a technological revolution, with cheaper and increasingly powerful home computers, DVD players, digital cameras, and many other previously unavailable gadgets. One writer recently concluded: "We live in the freest, happiest, least bigoted, healthiest, most peaceful and longest-lived era in human history... [W]e are richer and have the power to alter and control our environment in ways that would have seemed like magic 200 years ago." [82]
Considering deMause's observations about wars correlating with change and economic growth, it seems the conditions have been right for a particularly large war to occur.
Although we have had recent wars in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), these have been small in comparison to some key wars of the 20th century. For example, the Vietnam War lasted many years, from the 1960s through to the early 70s.
During this conflict, the U.S. used weapons of mass destruction, spraying South Vietnam with a deadly chemical called 'Agent Orange,' which causes fetal death, congenital defects and cancer. [83] Several million Southeast Asians were killed, along with around 58,000 American soldiers. The recent attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq pale in comparison. So surely we'll need a bigger war than either of these, considering all the prosperity and change of the last decade. However, as I said at the start of this article, following the 2003 Iraq invasion attempts by Britain and America to find a new, more formidable enemy to attack have so far failed.
I believe the reason for this is because there are now larger than ever numbers of people opposing war. This in turn, I believe, is thanks to improvements in childrearing during the latter half of the 20th century. For years, psychohistorians have observed a steady evolution in childrearing that is now more rapid than ever before. Lloyd deMause writes:
"Progress in childrearing evolution may be extremely uneven, but the trends are nonetheless unmistakable. The overall direction is from projection to empathy, from discipline to self-regulation, from hitting to explaining, from incest to love, from rejection to overcontrol and then to independence... Just the sheer cost of raising a child in dollars has been going up. The families I know in my section of Manhattan easily devote over half of their spare time and half their income to their children. Compare this to the small fraction of parents' time and money given over to children in earlier centuries with children even spending most of their lives working for adults in various ways and one can begin to comprehend the overall direction of childrearing evolution." [84]
Similarly, in 1998 psychohistorian Robert McFarland wrote: "Improvements in parenting practices can now be measured in decades rather than in centuries. Since Sweden banned hitting children in 1979, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Austria have followed." [85] And whereas in 1992 over 90 per cent of American parents hit their young children, by 1999 this had dropped to 57 per cent. [86]
Due to this steady 'evolution of childhood,' the average level of childrearing experienced by today's young adults in developed countries will have been better than that experienced by previous generations. Consequently there are now more and more people in the higher 'psychoclasses': individuals who, due to their more loving childhoods, have a higher level of psychological health. These individuals will be more able to enjoy their increased prosperity and the new technology that has become available over recent years, along with any increased personal freedoms. As a result, they will have less, if any, desire for war.
This relationship between childhood experience and support for, or opposition to war, has been found by, amongst others, political psychologist Michael Milburn. Milburn says:
"We found that, particularly for males who had never had any psychotherapy, when they reported a high level of childhood punishment, they were significantly more likely to endorse a range of punitive public policies like ... support for the use of military force... [T]he higher level of punitiveness among political conservatives is really strongly associated with experiences, generally, of harsh punishment from childhood. It's not just going to be that they were spanked; there's a whole family climate, and punishment is just going to be one of those indicators of that." [87]
If a person who experiences a severe and punitive childhood is likely to grow up into the kind of adult who favours the use of military force, we might logically assume the opposite is true: Individuals who had better childhoods will be less supportive of wars. Lloyd deMause confirms this, describing his observations of young adults today who have experienced far more loving childhoods:
"[These individuals] are far more empathic and therefore more concerned about others than we ever were, and this has made them far more activist in their lives in trying to make a difference and change the world for the better, mostly involving themselves in local activities rather than global political changes. They lack all need for nationalism, wars, and other grandiose projects, and in the organizations they start are genuinely nonauthoritarian.
There is no question that if the world could treat children with helping-mode parenting, wars and other self-destructive social conditions we still suffer from in the twenty-first century will be cured." [88]
With the gradual improvement in the average level of childrearing over recent decades (in developed countries at least), we would expect a corresponding decrease in support for war.
This was clearly evidenced by the unprecedented level of opposition to the 2003 Iraq invasion. In London, for example, on Saturday February 15, 2003, an estimated one to two million people marched in protest against the imminent invasion: the largest public demonstration ever to occur in Britain. The following month, 400,000 marched through London, the biggest protest in Britain against a war during wartime. [89]
Weeks before the war started, Tony Blair suffered the biggest Commons revolt of his premiership when 199 MPs rejected his direction over Iraq. As the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Charles Kennedy, observed: "Despite investing masses of political and parliamentary capital, the government has still failed to persuade a third of the House of Commons." [90]
According to leading political scholar and critic of American foreign policy Noam Chomsky, in an interview around this time: "There's never been a time that I can think of when there's been such massive opposition to a war before it was even started... Even in the United States there is overwhelming opposition to the war and the corresponding decline in the leadership that is driving the war." [91]
Chomsky points out how even our governments are aware of this new reluctance towards war and have had to modify their actions accordingly: "[W]hen any administration comes into office the first thing it does is have a worldwide intelligence assessment -- 'What's the state of the world?' -- provided by the intelligence services...
When the first Bush administration came in 1989, parts of their intelligence assessment were leaked, and they're very revealing about what happened in the subsequent 10 years about precisely these questions. The parts that were leaked said that it was about military confrontations with much weaker enemies, recognising they were the only kind we were going to be willing to face, or even exist. So in confrontations with much weaker enemies the United States must win 'decisively and rapidly' because otherwise popular support will erode, because it's understood to be very thin. Not like the 1960s when the government could fight a long, brutal war for years and years practically destroying a country without any protest. Not now." [92]
Although the peace movement failed to prevent the Iraq invasion, when the war began it seemed they had made a significant difference. As Jonathan Freedland wrote in The Guardian:
"The campaign began not with 'shock and awe' but a subtler knife, aimed at the surgical decapitation of Saddam Hussein and his regime. One night's bombing of Baghdad lasted no more than an hour... There could be a stack of explanations for that initial deployment of the short, sharp blow... But there may be another motive for the initial preference for short-and-sweet over shock-and-awe. The US might have wanted to avoid a wave of worldwide revulsion. A series of tight, well-aimed strikes at the regime would have confounded the global fear of colossal Iraqi civilian casualties. It's as if Washington had heard the peace movement's objection to this war--that too many innocents would die--and was attempting to heed it." [93]
Freedland continues:
"[P]erhaps the clearest proof of the anti-war camp's efforts came from our own prime minister: 'I know this course of action has produced deep divisions of opinion in our country,' he said, just seconds into his own TV message to the nation. No leader wants to go into a war admitting such a thing. But Blair had no choice. As with much else, the peace movement has changed the landscape for this conflict--and the men of war are having to deal with it." [94]
What peace activists may well have achieved is the prevention of further invasions of 'axis of evil' countries. As Lindsey German of the Stop the War Coalition said, "does anyone think Tony Blair can ever stand up in parliament again and say the words, 'trust me'? As they talk up targeting Iran and Syria, do you think anyone will ever believe this government when they say we've got the intelligence to prove it?" [95]
Maybe the improvements in childrearing over recent decades that account for this unprecedented opposition to war, will also mean there are now enough people less afraid to challenge authority and face unpleasant truths, so as to help bring about a 9/11 scandal. Compare this to, say, the truth about the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. We now know that President Franklin Roosevelt and his top military advisers knew in advance that Japan was planning a 'surprise attack' on America. Japanese radio messages had been intercepted and it was known when and where they would attack the U.S.
Despite this foreknowledge, Roosevelt allowed the attack to go ahead so as to create a pretext for America to join World War II. Yet these facts only became more widely known in 2000, with the release of Robert B. Stinnett's book Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor. [96] Robert McFarland points out: "While it was 58 years before Stinnett's book made the facts about Pearl Harbor widely known, two important books about 9/11 came out within a year... Since these books came out quickly, we are apparently more willing to look at bad news than we were in 1941." [97]
While a 9/11 scandal would be a sufficiently large public crisis to help ease the particularly high level of public anxiety ('growth panic') among the lower psychoclasses, unlike a massive war it ought also be acceptable to the more peaceful higher psychoclass individuals. If we do have such a scandal, the emotional effect will undoubtedly be intense. Consider how the general public would feel if people start openly accusing some within the Bush administration of complicity in the 9/11 attacks. How would Americans feel who had voted for these men, trusted and respected them? I can imagine many people finding such events devastating.
What if security camera footage of the attack on the Pentagon had to be made public at some point and it showed something other than a Boeing 757 hitting the Pentagon? [98] Surely millions of people would feel horrified. The full implications of a 9/11 scandal would be colossal. It would be the emotional equivalent of a massive war. So maybe instead of the war "of a force and scope and scale that has been beyond what has been seen before," that Donald Rumsfeld promised back in 2003, there is going to be a scandal of a "scope and scale" that is "beyond what has been seen before."
Important note: Don't miss the "What you can do" section at the end of the footnotes below. For the full article on a top 9/11 website, click here.
FOOTNOTES
1 David Hearst, "Nato directionless on nuclear policy." The Guardian, January 19, 2003.
2 "UK restates nuclear threat." BBC News, February 2, 2003.
3 John Pilger, "John Pilger investigates US plans for mini-nukes." New Statesman, August 18, 2003.
4 Duncan Campbell, "Bush in new threat to Iran and Syria." The Guardian, July 22, 2003.
5 Richard Norton-Taylor, "US hawk warns Iran threat must be eliminated." The Guardian, October 10, 2003.
6 From Paul Thompson, "The Failure to Defend the Skies on 9/11." Center for Cooperative Research. http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/essay.jsp?article=essayairdefense
7 "Half of New Yorkers Believe US Leaders Had Foreknowledge of Impending 9-11 Attacks and 'Consciously Failed' To Act; 66% Call For New Probe of Unanswered Questions by Congress or New York's Attorney General, New Zogby International Poll Reveals." Zogby International, August 30, 2004. Online at: http://zogby.com/news/2004/08/30/half-of-new-yorkers-believe-us-leaders-had-foreknowledge...
8 Antonia Zerbisias, "Poking holes in the official story of 9/11." Toronto Star, May 26, 2004.
9 Michael Gavin, "September 11 conspiracy claims find large readership." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 5, 2003.
10 Quoted in Kate Connolly, "German Sept 11 theory stokes anti-US feeling." The Telegraph, November 20, 2003.
11 From "Secretary Rumsfeld Interview with Larry King." Larry King Live, CNN, December 5, 2001. Transcript at: http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=2603
12 Ibid.
13 From "Chairman Cox's Statement on the Terrorist Attack on America." September 11, 2001. Online at: http://web.archive.org/web/20020817051201/http://cox.house.gov/html/release.cfm?id=33
14 From "Day One Transcript: 9/11 Commission Hearing." Washington Post, March 23, 2004. Online at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17798-2004Mar23
15 From "'The Pentagon Goes to War': National Military Command Center: A look at 9/11 at the Pentagon's National Military Command Center." American Morning With Paula Zahn, CNN, September 4, 2002. Transcript here, and "9/11: Interviews by Peter Jennings," ABC News, September 11, 2002. Transcript at: http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/pentagon/attack/abcnews091102_jenningsinterviews.html
16 The 9/11 Commission Report: The Full Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Executive Summary. 2004, p. 15. Online at: http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Exec.htm
17 See Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, CJCSI 3610.01A, June 1, 2001. Online at http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/cjcsd/cjcsi/3610_01a.pdf. Due to the fact that this new procedure was introduced just three months before 9/11, several individuals have questioned whether this new instruction, requiring secretary of defense approval in responding to hijackings, was introduced deliberately so as to hinder the interception of the hijacked planes on 9/11. However, this requirement was not new: The previous instruction for dealing with hijackings, dated July 31, 1997, also required approval from the defense secretary. See: http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/cjcsd/cjcsi/3610_01.pdf
18 The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, PBS, September 10, 2003. Transcript at:
19 "Testimony of U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld Prepared for Delivery to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States." March 23, 2004, p. 21. Online at: http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/hearing8/rumsfeld_statement.pdf
20 The 9/11 Commission Report: The Full Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004, p. 35.
21 The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 39-40.
22 "Sept. 11 Scramble." ABC News, September 14, 2002.
23 "9/11 Commission Hearing." May 23, 2003. Transcript at: http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing2/9-11Commission_Hearing_2003-05-23.pdf
24 Dan Balz and Bob Woodward, "America's Chaotic Road to War." Washington Post, January 27, 2002.
25 The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 40.
26 Ibid., p. 41.
27 Daniel Klaidman and Michael Hirsh, "Who Was Really In Charge?" Newsweek, June 28, 2004.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
30 Meet the Press, NBC, May 26, 2002. Transcript online at: http://www.kolumbus.fi/sy-k/911/Daschle.htm
31 The 9/11 Commission states: "Prior to 9/11, it was understood that an order to shoot down a commercial aircraft would have to be issued by the National Command Authority (a phrase used to describe the president and secretary of defense)." From The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 17. Previous news reports had said the president was the only person with the authority to order the shooting down of a civilian plane. See Jamie McIntyre, "Pentagon never considered downing Stewart's Learjet." CNN, October 26, 1999. http://edition.cnn.com/US/9910/26/shootdown/ Kevin Dennehy, "'I Thought It Was the Start of World War III'." Cape Cod Times, August 21, 2002.
32 From Illarion Bykov and Jared Israel, "Guilty for 9-11, Part 3: Bush in the Open." The Emperor's New Clothes, January 18, 2002, revised September 12, 2003. http://www.emperors-clothes.com/indict/indict-3.htm
33 "Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer." September 7, 2001. Online at:
34 From Allan Wood and Paul Thompson, "An Interesting Day: President Bush's Movements and Actions on 9/11." Center for Cooperative Research, May 9, 2003.
35 Quoted in Susan Taylor Martin, "Of fact, fiction: Bush on 9/11." St. Petersburg Times, July 4, 2004.
36 Ibid.
37 The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 38.
38 Ibid., p. 38.
39 Ibid., p. 39.
40 From Allan Wood and Paul Thompson, "An Interesting Day."
41 Gail Sheehy, "Who's in Charge Here?" Mother Jones, July 22, 2004.
42 See Allan Wood and Paul Thompson, "An Interesting Day."
43 CNN Transcript of President Bush's town meeting in Orlando, Florida on December 4, 2001.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0112/04/se.04.html
44 Transcript on White House website of President Bush's comments at a town hall forum in Ontario, California on January 5, 2002
45 "Remarks by the President After Two Planes Crash Into World Trade Center." September 11, 2001. Online at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010911...html
46 Eric Boehlert, "Bush's 9/11 coverup?" Salon, June 18, 2003.
47 From Julian Borger, "Bush to face tough questions on 9/11." The Guardian, April 29, 2004; "Hiding in the White House." The Boston Globe, April 30, 2004.
48 This briefing is available online at: http://edition.cnn.com/2004/images/04/10/whitehouse.pdf
49 Frank Rich, "Thanks for the Heads-Up." New York Times, May 25, 2002.
50 The Project for the New American Century, Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century. September 2000, p. iii.
51 Ibid., p. 50.
52 Ibid., p. 51.
53 Dan Balz and Bob Woodward, "America's Chaotic Road to War."
54 John Pilger, "Two years ago a project set up by the men who now surround George W. Bush said what America needed was 'a new Pearl Harbor'. Its published aims have come alarmingly true." New Statesman, December 16, 2002.
55 "Remarks By Office Of Management And Budget Director Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. At Conference Board Annual Meeting." October 16, 2001. Online at:
56 From "Alex Jones Interviews Stanley Hilton." The Alex Jones Show, September 10, 2004. Transcript at: http://www.serendipity.li/wot/hilton_interview.htm
57 From: Daniel Hopsicker, Welcome to Terrorland: Mohamed Atta & the 9-11 Cover-up in Florida. Eugene: The MadCow Press, 2004, pp. 171-182.
58 Ibid., pp. 68-69.
59 Ibid., p. 81.
60 Ibid., p. 284.
61 Ibid., p. 105.
62 Ibid., pp. 135-136.
63 George Wehrfritz, Catharine Skipp and John Barry, "Alleged Hijackers May Have Trained at U.S. Bases." Newsweek, September 15, 2001.
64 Daniel Hopsicker, Welcome to Terrorland, pp. 136-137.
65 Ibid., p. 138.
66 Ibid., p. 139.
67 Ibid., p. 140.
68 Ibid., p. 141.
69 Ibid., p. 301.
70 Ibid., pp. 62-63.
71 Ibid., p. 150.
72 Ibid., p. 31.
73 Ibid., p. 301.
74 From his forward to David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor, p. vii.
75 Matt Everett, "Killer Women Group-Fantasies and the 9/11 Controversy." Journal of Psychohistory 32(1): 2-39.
76 Lloyd deMause, The Emotional Life of Nations. New York: Karnac, 2002, p. 17
77 Ibid., p. 159.
78 Ibid., p. 141.
79 Ibid, p. 51.
80 Ibid., p. 52.
81 Ibid., p. 38
82 Michael Hanlon, "There's no time like the present." The Spectator. August 7, 2004.
83 See John Pilger, "Nuclear war, courtesy of Nato." The Guardian, May 4, 1999; John Pilger, "Blair is a coward." Daily Mirror, January 29, 2003.
84 From Lloyd deMause, "Childhood and Cultural Evolution." Psychohistory Web site. http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/eln07evolution.html
85 Robert B. McFarland, "Improvements in Parenting are Real." Journal of Psychohistory 25(3):237.
86 Tracy L. Dietz, "Disciplining Children: Characteristics Associated With the Use of Corporal Punishment." Child Abuse & Neglect 24(2000): 1529, 1536. Quoted in Lloyd deMause, The Emotional Life of Nations, p. 339.
87 Brian Braiker, "See No Evil: A political psychologist explains the roles denial, emotion and childhood punishment play in politics." Newsweek Web site, May 13, 2004. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4972441/site/newsweek/
88 Lloyd deMause, The Emotional Life of Nations, p. 430.
89 Carmel Brown, "Weapon of mass democracy." The Guardian, September 26, 2003.
90 Matthew Tempest, "Labour Mps revolt over Iraq." The Guardian, February 26, 2003.
91 Matthew Tempest, "Full transcript: Noam Chomsky on the anti-war movement." The Guardian, February 4, 2003.
92 Ibid.
93 Jonathan Freedland, "Peaceniks lost the war but changed the shape of the battle." The Guardian, March 22, 2003.
94 Ibid.
95 Quoted in Carmel Brown, "Weapon of mass democracy."
96 Robert B. Stinnett, Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor. London: The Free Press, 2000.
97 Robert B. McFarland, "A Psychohistorical Comparison of the Pearl Harbor and September 11 Attacks." Journal of Psychohistory 31(1):75.
98 The Pentagon has many dozens of videos of the 9/11 Pentagon hit, yet has refused to release all but a few of these videos which are decidedly unconvincing as to what it was that hit the building.
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