September 11, 2001: America and NATO Declare War on Afghanistan
Michel Chossudovsky | 21.12.2009 07:53 | Analysis | Anti-militarism | History | World
Both the media and the US government, in chorus, continue to point to the 9/11 attacks and the role of Al Qaeda led by "terrorist mastermind" Osama bin Laden.
The bombing and invasion of Afghanistan is described as a "campaign" against Islamic terrorists, rather than a war.
To this date, however, there is no proof that Al Qaeda was behind the 9/11 attacks.
Neither is there evidence that Afghanistan as a Nation State was behind or any way complicit in the 9/11 attacks.
The bombing and invasion of Afghanistan is described as a "campaign" against Islamic terrorists, rather than a war.
To this date, however, there is no proof that Al Qaeda was behind the 9/11 attacks.
Neither is there evidence that Afghanistan as a Nation State was behind or any way complicit in the 9/11 attacks.
September 11, 2001: America and NATO Declare War on Afghanistan
NATO's Doctrine of Collective Security
Why are American and NATO troops in Afghanistan?
What is the justification for waging war on a country of 28 million people?
What justifies Obama's military surge?
Both the media and the US government, in chorus, continue to point to the 9/11 attacks and the role of Al Qaeda led by "terrorist mastermind" Osama bin Laden.
The bombing and invasion of Afghanistan is described as a "campaign" against Islamic terrorists, rather than a war.
To this date, however, there is no proof that Al Qaeda was behind the 9/11 attacks.
Neither is there evidence that Afghanistan as a Nation State was behind or any way complicit in the 9/11 attacks.
The Afghan government in the weeks following 9/11, offered on two occasions to deliver Osama bin Laden to US justice, if there were preliminary evidence of his involvement in the attacks. These offers were refused by Washington.
Where was Osama on September 11, 2001?
To this date, Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, is identified in military documents and official statements of both the Bush and Obama administrations as the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.
The Afghan government (the "Taliban regime" in official documents) is identified as supporting Al Qaeda and providing refuge to its leader Osama bin Laden inside Afghan territory at the time of the 9/11 attacks.
On September 10, 2001, according to a CBS news report, Osama bin Laden had been admitted to a Pakistani military hospital in Rawalpindi. (CBS Evening News with Dan Rather; CBS, 28 January 2002, See also Michel Chossudovsky, Where was Osama on September 11, 2001?, Global Research,11 September 2008):
"DAN RATHER, CBS ANCHOR: As the United states and its allies in the war on terrorism press the hunt for Osama bin Laden, CBS News has exclusive information tonight about where bin Laden was and what he was doing in the last hours before his followers struck the United States September 11.
This is the result of hard-nosed investigative reporting by a team of CBS news journalists, and by one of the best foreign correspondents in the business, CBS`s Barry Petersen. Here is his report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BARRY PETERSEN, CBS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Everyone remembers what happened on September 11. Here`s the story of what may have happened the night before. It is a tale as twisted as the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
CBS News has been told that the night before the September 11 terrorist attack, Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan. He was getting medical treatment with the support of the very military that days later pledged its backing for the U.S. war on terror in Afghanistan (CBS, op cit, emphasis added)
Recovering from his hospital treatment in Rawalpindi on the 11th of September, how could Osama have coordinated the 9/11 attacks?
How could Afghanistan be made responsible for these attacks by Al Qaeda? Bin Laden is a national of Saudi Arabia who, according to CBS News, was not in Afghanistan, but in Pakistan at the time of the attacks.
The Invasion of Afghanistan: NATO's Doctrine of Collective Security
The legal argument used by Washington and NATO to invade Afghanistan was that the September 11 attacks constituted an undeclared "armed attack" "from abroad" by an unnamed foreign power, and that consequently "the laws of war" apply, allowing the nation under attack, to strike back in the name of "self-defense".
The "Global War on Terrorism" was officially launched by the Bush administration on September 11, 2001. On the following morning (September 12, 2001), NATO's North Atlantic Council meeting in Brussels, adopted the following resolution:
"if it is determined that the [September 11, 2001] attack against the United States was directed from abroad [Afghanistan] against "The North Atlantic area", it shall be regarded as an action covered by Article 5 of the Washington Treaty". (emphasis added)
In this regard, Article 5 of the Washington Treaty stipulates that if:
"The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area." (NATO, What is Article 5, NATO Topics - NATO and the Scourge of Terrorism, accessed 24 November 2009, emphasis added)
"Use of Armed Force" only "If It is Determined..."
There was an "if" in the September 12 resolution. Article 5 would apply only if it is determined that Afghanistan as a Nation State was complicit or behind the 9/11 attacks.
In practice, the "if" had already been waved prior to 9/11. The entire NATO arsenal was already on a war footing. In military terms, NATO and the US were already in an advanced state of readiness. Known to military analysts, but never revealed in the Western media, the implementation of a large scale theater war takes at least one year of advanced operational planning, prior to launching of an invasion. Using article 5 of the Wasington Treaty had in all likelihood been contemplated by military planners, as a ptetext for wagin war, prior to 9/11.
There was no official declaration of war on September 12th. The Alliance waited until 3 days before the invasion to declare war on Afghanistan, a impoverished country which by no stretch of the imagination could have launched an attack against a member state of "The North Atlantic area".
The September 12 resolution of the Atlantic Council required "determination" and corroborating evidence, that:
1) Al Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden had ordered the "attack from abroad" on the United States of America;
2) The terrorist attacks of 9/11 constituted a bona fide military operation (under the provisions of Article 5) by an alleged foreign country (Afghanistan) against a NATO member state, and consequently against all NATO member states under the doctrine of collective security:
"Article 5 and the case of the terrorist attacks against the United States: The United States has been the object of brutal terrorist attacks. It immediately consulted with the other members of the Alliance. The Alliance determined that the US had been the object of an armed attack. The Alliance therefore agreed that if it was determined that this attack was directed from abroad, it would be regarded as covered by Article 5. NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson, subsequently informed the Secretary-General of the United Nations of the Alliance's decision.
Article 5 has thus been invoked, but no determination has yet been made whether the attack against the United States was directed from abroad. If such a determination is made, each Ally will then consider what assistance it should provide. In practice, there will be consultations among the Allies. Any collective action by NATO will be decided by the North Atlantic Council. The United States can also carry out independent actions, consistent with its rights and obligations under the UN Charter.
Allies can provide any form of assistance they deem necessary to respond to the situation. This assistance is not necessarily military and depends on the material resources of each country. Each individual member determines how it will contribute and will consult with the other members, bearing in mind that the ultimate aim is to "to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area".
By invoking Article 5, NATO members have shown their solidarity toward the United States and condemned, in the strongest possible way, the terrorist attacks against the United States on 11 September.
If the conditions are met for the application of Article 5, NATO Allies will decide how to assist the United States. (Many Allies have clearly offered emergency assistance). Each Ally is obliged to assist the United States by taking forward, individually and in concert with other Allies, such action as it deems necessary. This is an individual obligation on each Ally and each Ally is responsible for determining what it deems necessary in these particular circumstances.
No collective action will be taken by NATO until further consultations are held and further decisions are made by the the North Atlantic Council. (NATO, NATO Topics - NATO and the Scourge of Terrorism, accessed 24 November 2009, emphasis added)
The Mysterious Frank Taylor Report
The final decision to invoke Article 5 in relation to the 9/11 attacks came three weeks later upon the submission to the NATO Council of a mysterious classified report by a US state Department official named Frank Taylor. The report was submitted to NATO on October 2nd, 5 days before the commencement of the bombing and invasion of Afghanistan.
Frank Taylor was working in the US State Department. He had been entrusted in writing up a brief to establish whether the US "had been attacked from abroad", pursuant to the North Atlantic Council's resolution of September 12 2001.
US Ambassador at Large and Co-ordinator for Counter-terrorism Frank Taylor briefed the North Atlantic Council barely on October 2nd, five days before the commencement of the bombings.
On October 2nd he handed his brief to NATO "on the results of investigations into the 11 September attacks.... " NATO - Topic: Terrorism, NATO and the fight against Terrorism, accessed 24 November 2009).
The classified report was not released to the media. And to this date, to our knowledge, it has remained classified.
NATO's Secretary General Lord Robertson casually summarised the substance of the Frank Taylor report in a press release:
"This morning, the United States briefed the North Atlantic Council on the results of the investigation into who was responsible for the horrific terrorist attacks which took place on September 11.
The briefing was given by Ambassador Frank Taylor, the United States Department of State Coordinator for Counter-terrorism.
This morning's briefing follows those offered by United States Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and United States Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and illustrates the commitment of the United States to maintain close cooperation with Allies.
Today's was classified briefing and so I cannot give you all the details.
Briefings are also being given directly by the United States to the Allies in their capitals.
The briefing addressed the events of September 11 themselves, the results of the investigation so far, what is known about Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida organisation and their involvement in the attacks and in previous terrorist activity, and the links between al-Qaida and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
The facts are clear and compelling. The information presented points conclusively to an al-Qaida role in the September 11 attacks.
We know that the individuals who carried out these attacks were part of the world-wide terrorist network of al-Qaida, headed by Osama bin Laden and his key lieutenants and protected by the Taliban.
On the basis of this briefing, it has now been determined that the attack against the United States on September 11 was directed from abroad and shall therefore be regarded as an action covered by Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, which states that an armed attack on one or more of the Allies in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.
I want to reiterate that the United States of America can rely on the full support of its 18 NATO Allies in the campaign against terrorism." (Lord Robertson, NATO Secretary General, statement to the NATO Council, State Department, Appendix H, Multinational Response to September 11 NATO Press
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In other words, 2 days before the actual commencement of the bombing campaign on October 7, the North Atlantic Council decided, based on the information provided by Frank Taylor to the Council "that the attacks were directed from abroad" by Al Qaeda, headed by Osama bin Laden, thereby requiring an action on the part of NATO under Article 5 of the Washington Treaty ( NATO - Topic: Terrorism, NATO and the fight against Terrorism, accessed 24 November 2009):
NATO action under article 5, was outlined in an October 4 decision, 3 days before the commencement of the bombings.
Two days later, on 4 October, NATO agreed on eight measures in support the United States, which were tantamount to a declaration of war on Afghanstan:
to enhance intelligence sharing and co-operation, both bilaterally and in appropriate NATO bodies, relating to the threats posed by terrorism and the actions to be taken against it;
to provide, individually or collectively, as appropriate and according to their capabilities, [military] assistance to Allies and other states which are or may be subject to increased terrorist threats as a result of their support for the campaign against terrorism;
to take necessary measures to provide increased security for facilities of the United States and other Allies on their territory;
to backfill selected Allied assets in NATO’s area of responsibility that are required to directly support operations against terrorism;
to provide blanket overflight clearances for the United States and other Allies’ aircraft, in accordance with the necessary air traffic arrangements and national procedures, for military flights related to operations against terrorism; to provide access for the United States and other Allies to ports and airfields on the territory of NATO nations for operations against terrorism, including for refuelling, in accordance with national procedures;
that the Alliance is ready to deploy elements of its Standing Naval Forces to the Eastern Mediterranean in order to provide a NATO presence and demonstrate resolve; and that the Alliance is similarly ready to deploy elements of its NATO Airborne Early Warning Force to support operations against terrorism. NATO - Topic: Terrorism, NATO and the fight against Terrorism, accessed 24 November 2009 emphasis added)
Press reports of Frank Taylor's brief to the NATO Council were scanty. The invocation of Article 5, five days before the bombings commenced, was barely mentioned. The media consensus was: "all roads lead to Bin Laden" as if bin Laden was a Nation State which had attacked America.
What stands out are outright lies and fabrications. Moreover, prior to October 2nd, NATO had no pretext under Article 5 of the Washington Treaty to intervene militarily in Afghanistan.
The pretext was provided by Frank Taylor's classified report, which was not made public.
The two UN Security Council resolutions adopted in the course of September 2001, did not, under any circumstances, provide a justification for the invasion and illegal occupation of a UN member country of 28 million people. (see Security Council resolution 1368 (2001) Threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts, Security Council resolution 1373 (2001) Threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts).
UNSC Resolution 1373 (2001) called for prevention and suppression of terrorist acts, as well suppression of the financing of terrorism:
“(e) Ensure that any person who participates in the financing, planning, preparation or perpetration of terrorist acts or in supporting terrorist acts is brought to justice and ensure that, in addition to any other measures against them, such terrorist acts are established as serious criminal offences in domestic laws and regulations and that the punishment duly reflects the seriousness of such terrorist acts;
...
“3. Calls upon all States to:
“(a) Find ways of intensifying and accelerating the exchange of operational information, especially regarding actions or movements of terrorist persons or networks; forged or falsified travel documents; traffic in arms, explosives or sensitive materials; use of communications technologies by terrorist groups; and the threat posed by the possession of weapons of mass destruction by terrorist groups;
“(b) Exchange information in accordance with international and domestic law and cooperate on administrative and judicial matters to prevent the commission of terrorist acts;
“(c) Cooperate, particularly through bilateral and multilateral arrangements and agreements, to prevent and suppress terrorist attacks and take action against perpetrators of such acts;
...
“4. Notes with concern the close connection between international terrorism and transnational organized crime, illicit drugs, money-laundering, illegal arms-trafficking, and illegal movement of nuclear, chemical, biological and other potentially deadly materials, and in this regard emphasizes the need to enhance coordination of efforts on national, subregional, regional and international levels in order to strengthen a global response to this serious challenge and threat to international security;
“5. Declares that acts, methods, and practices of terrorism are contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations and that knowingly financing, planning and inciting terrorist acts are also contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations (excerpts of UNSC Resolution 1373 (2001, See also UN Press Release SC 7178 SECURITY COUNCIL UNANIMOUSLY ADOPTS WIDE-RANGING ANTI-TERRORISM RESOLUTION; CALLS FOR SUPPRESSING FINANCING, IMPROVING INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION, Security Council, 4385th Meeting, September 2001)
Nowhere in this resolution is there any mention of military action against a UN member State.
The US led war on Afghanistan, using 9/11 as a pretext and a justification is illegal and criminal.
The US and NATO heads of state and heads of government from 2001 to the present are complicit in the launching of a criminal and illegal war.
Michel Chossudovsky
Homepage:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16573
Comments
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Global research?
21.12.2009 12:03
On 911, I'd really reccomend you watch 'Screw Loose Change' which debunks almost every claim by 'truthers'.
Ex Truther
The Media Response to the Growing Influence of the 9 /11 Truth Movement
21.12.2009 14:21
The Media Response to the Growing Influence of the 9 /11 Truth Movement
Reflections on a Recent Evaluation of Dr. David Ray Griffin
The cover story of the September 24, 2009, issue of The New Statesman, the venerable left-leaning British magazine, was entitled “The 50 People who Matter Today.”(1) Any such list, necessarily reflecting the bias and limited awareness of the editors, would surely contain choices that readers would find surprising.
That is true of this list – which includes families as well as individuals. A good number of names are, to be sure, ones that would be contained in most such lists created by British, Canadian, or American political commentators, such as the Obamas, the Murdochs, Vladimir Putin, Osama bin Laden, Angela Merkel, Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffett, Pope Benedict XVI, and Gordon Brown. But about half of the names reflected choices that I, and probably most other readers, found surprising. One of these choices, however, is beyond surprising - it is astounding.
I refer to the person in the 41st position: David Ray Griffin, a retired professor of philosophy of religion and theology who, in 2003, started writing and lecturing about 9/11, pointing out problems in the official account of the events of that day. By the time the New Statesman article appeared, he had published 8 books, 50 articles, and several DVDs. Because of both the quantity and quality of his work, he became widely regarded as the chief spokesperson of what came to be called “the 9/11 Truth Movement.” It was because of this role that the New Statesman included him in its list, calling him the “top truther” (the “conspiracy theorist” title went to Dan Brown, who was placed in the 50th slot).
In saying Griffin “matters”, however, the New Statesman was not praising him. Here is how the magazine explained its choice:
“Conspiracy theories are everywhere, and they always have been. In recent years, one of the
most pernicious global myths has been that the US government carried out, or at least
colluded in, the 11 September 2001 attacks as a pretext for going to war. David Ray Griffin, a
retired professor of religion, is the high priest of the ‘truther’ movement. His books on the
subject have lent a sheen of respectability that appeals to people at the highest levels of
government - from Michael Meacher MP to Anthony ‘Van’ Jones, who was recently forced to
resign as Barack Obama's ‘green jobs’ adviser after it emerged that he had signed a 9/11 truth
petition in 2004.”
I wish to raise two questions about the New Statesman’s treatment of Griffin. First, is its evaluation of him as one of the most important people in the world today simply absurd, as it certainly seems at first glance, or is there a perspective from which it makes sense? Second on what basis could the editors justify their claim that the 9/11 truth movement is promoting a “myth” – and a “pernicious” one at that?
The Inclusion of Griffin in the List: Does It Make Sense?
Why would Griffin’s role as “top truther” – as the intellectual leader of the 9/11 truth movement - lead the magazine’s editors to consider him one of the “50 people who matter today”? Unlike a president, a prime minister, or a pope, he has no political clout; unlike a billionaire, he has no financial clout; and his book sales do not begin to rival those of Dan Brown. Indeed, his books do not even get reviewed in the press. The idea that he is one of the 50 people who matter most in the world today is, as he himself has said, absurd – at least from most angles.
There is, however, one angle from which it does make sense: Given the enormity of the 9/11 attacks and of the policies, both foreign and domestic, that have been justified as responses to those attacks, a movement challenging the official story of the attacks certainly could, in principle, become so influential that its intellectual leader would be a person of consequence.
And the movement has, in fact, grown enormously in both size and credibility since 2004 and 2005, when Griffin published his first two books on the subject – “The New Pearl Harbor” and “The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions” – and began working, with colleague Peter Dale Scott, on an edited volume that was published in 2006 as “9/11 and the American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out.”
Due in large part to these volumes - plus the national exposure Griffin received when his 2005 lecture at the University of Wisconsin in Madison was carried by C-SPAN - a small group of academics formed Scholars for 9/11 Truth, which led in turn to the formation of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, the leaders of which launched the Journal of 9/11 Studies in 2006.
The existence of these scholarly organizations stimulated the creation of three professional organizations: Veterans for 9/11 Truth, Pilots for 9/11 Truth, and the destined giant of the movement, Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, which was formed after architect Richard Gage, a conservative Republican, heard an interview with Professor Griffin on his car radio that would change his life. In it, Griffin was describing the newly released oral testimonies from the dozens of New York firefighters a who had heard booming explosions in the Twin Towers.(2) After looking into the evidence for himself and concluding that the destruction of the World Trade Center buildings could not have resulted from anything other than explosives, Gage formed his organization of architects and engineers, which now has almost 1000 licensed members.
While these developments were occurring, translations were made of some of Griffin’s books, beginning with “The New Pearl Harbor,” which was published in Italian, Chinese, Danish, Czech, French, Dutch, Japanese, and Arabic. Thanks in part to these translations, a worldwide movement is now calling for 9/11 truth.
Also, this movement, which at one time was discounted as crazy conspiracy theorists playing around on the Internet, has now become widely professionalized, with Griffin again a critical influence in his consultant role to the emerging organizations of journalists, lawyers, medical professionals, religious leaders, and political leaders.
One of those organizations, Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth, includes in its membership British MP Michael Meacher, who has, according to the New Statesman, succumbed to the “sheen of respectability” given to “the ‘truther’ movement” by Griffin’s books. The New Statesman would presumably look equally askance at other members of this organization, including Senator Yukihisa Fujita, one of the leading members of the new ruling party of Japan, who made a nationally televised presentation questioning the official account or 9/11, and Ferdinando Imposimato, a former Italian senator and judge who presided over the trial of the assassination of President Aldo Moro and the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II.
If political leaders are so easily taken in by a “pernicious global myth” about 9/11 because of the “sheen of respectability” lent to it by Griffin’s books, one could hopefully look to firefighters, who are generally practical, sensible people, for reassurance about the truth of the official account of 9/11. This hope is dashed, however, by the testimonies about explosions in the Twin Towers by dozens of firefighters, some of whom Richard Gage heard Griffin discussing on that interview in 2006. New York firefighters lost 343 of their own on September 11. The members of Firefighters for 9/11 Truth are demanding the investigation and prosecution of those involved in arranging explosions, destroying evidence, and orchestrating a cover-up.
One thing bringing Griffin to the attention of the editors of the New Statesman may have been the selection of his seventh book about 9/11, “The New Pearl Harbor Revisited,” by America’s foremost book trade reviewer, Publishers Weekly, as its “Pick of the Week” on November 24, 2008. This honor, which is bestowed on only 51 books a year, perhaps increased the sheen of respectability these editors attribute to Griffin’s books.
And, if the New Statesman did its homework in researching its #41 position, it would have found that Griffin was nominated in both 2008 and 2009 for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Whatever the case, there can be no doubt that the 9/11 truth movement, which Griffin has done more than any other single person to bring to its present level of professionalism and credibility, now poses a significant threat to the public narrative about 9/11, which has been accepted as a basis for policy by virtually all governments and news organizations around the world.
The decision of the New Statesman to include Griffin on the list of people who matter today does make sense, therefore, insofar as it was saying that the movement he represents is important. This way of understanding it was, in fact, Griffin’s own, as soon as he learned about the article. In a letter to fellow members of the 9/11 truth community, he said: “We should take this [New Statesman] article as a reluctant tribute to the effectiveness of our movement.”(3)
Does the 9/11 Truth Movement Promote a Pernicious Myth?
My second questions is: On what basis could the New Statesman editors justify their claim that this 9/11 truth movement promotes a “myth” - a “pernicious” one at that?
To call it a “myth” implies that it is not true. But why is it “pernicious”?
If the New Statesman were a right-wing magazine, we could assume that it would regard the 9/11 truth movement’s central claim – “that the US government carried out, or at least colluded in, the 11 September 2001 attacks as a pretext for going to war” – as pernicious because it seeks to undermine the imperialist wars justified by 9/11. But surely the left-leaning New Statesman does not share that view.
The word “pernicious” might simply mean that the myth “that the US government carried out, or at least colluded in, the 11 September 2001 attacks as a pretext for going to war,” is too morally repugnant to accept. But that gut reaction does not bear on the truth or falsity of the possibility, especially in light of all the morally repugnant things carried out by the Bush-Cheney administration that have already been publicly documented.
More likely, the New Statesman shares the view of left-leaning intellectuals, such as Alexander Cockburn and George Monbiot, that the 9/11 movement is distracting many left-leaning people from dealing with truly important issues.
However, would many people who regard 9/11 as a false-flag operation – in which forces within the US government orchestrated the attacks to have a pretext for, among other things, going to war against oil-rich Muslim countries - consider the attempt to reveal this truth a distraction from important issues? Surely not.
For the Statesman to call the central claim of the 9/11 truth movement “pernicious,” therefore, seems to be simply another way of calling it a “myth” – of saying that it is false.
If so, the question becomes: On what basis would the editors of the New Statesman argue that the position of the 9/11 truth movement, as articulated in Griffin’s writings, is false?
I will suggest a possible way they could do this: They could use the pages of their magazine to explain why the cumulative case Griffin has constructed against the official story is unconvincing. To assist them in this task, I have provided below a summary of some of the main points in Griffin’s case, with page references to his most comprehensive work, “The New Pearl Harbor Revisited” (2008), and his most recent book, “The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7.”
Elements in Griffin’s Cumulative Case Against the Official Account of 9/11
Evidence that the attacks were carried out by Arab Muslims belonging to al-Qaeda
The FBI, which does not list 9/11 as one of the terrorist acts for which Osama bin Laden is wanted, has explicitly admitted that it “has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11” (NPHR 206-11).
Mohamed Atta and the other alleged hijackers, far from being devout Muslims ready to die as martyrs, regularly drank heavily, went to strip clubs, and paid for sex (NPHR 153-55).
The main evidence for hijackers on the planes was provided by phone calls, purportedly from passengers or crew members on the airlines, reporting that the planes had been taken over by Middle-Eastern men. About 15 of these calls were specifically identified as cell phone calls, with Deena Burnett, for example, reporting that she had recognized her husband’s cell phone number on her Caller ID. But after the 9/11 truth movement pointed out that cell phone calls from high-altitude airliners would have been impossible, given the cell phone technology available in 2001, the FBI changed its story, saying that all the calls, except two made from a very low altitude, had been made using onboard phones.
Although US Solicitor General Ted Olson claimed that his wife, Barbara Olson, phoned him twice from AA 77, describing hijackers with knives and box-cutters, his widely reported story was contradicted by FBI evidence presented to the Moussaoui Trial in 2006, which said that the only call attempted by her was “unconnected” and (therefore) lasted “0 seconds” (NPRH 60-62).
Although the decisive evidence proving that Al-Qaeda was responsible for the attacks was originally said to have been found in a rented Mitsubishi that Mohamed Atta had left in the airport parking lot in Boston, the present story says that it was found in luggage that did not get loaded onto American Flight 11 from the commuter flight that Atta took that morning from Portland, Maine. This story changed after it emerged that Adnan and Ameer Bukhari, originally said to have been the hijackers who boarded American 11 after taking that commuter flight from Portland, had not died on 9/11.
The other types of reputed evidence for Muslim hijackers, such as security videos at airports, passports discovered at the crash sites, and a headband discovered at the crash site of United 93, show clear signs of having been fabricated (NPHR 170-73).
In addition to the absence of evidence for hijackers on the planes, there is also evidence of their absence: Although the pilots could have easily “squawked” the universal hijack code in two or three few seconds, not one of the eight pilots on the four airliners did this (NPHR 175-79).
The Secret Service, after being informed that a second World Trade Center building had been attacked---which would have meant that unknown terrorists were going after high-value targets---and that still other planes had apparently been hijacked, allowed President Bush to remain at the unprotected school in Sarasota, Florida, for another 30 minutes. The Secret Service thereby betrayed its knowledge that the airliners were not under the control of hostile hijackers.
Evidence of a “stand-down” order preventing interception of the four planes
Given standard operating procedures between the FAA and the military, according to which planes showing signs of an in-flight emergency are normally intercepted within about 10 minutes, the military’s failure to intercept any of the flights implies that something, such as a stand-down order, prevented standard procedures from being carried out (NPHR 1-10, 81-84).
Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta reported an episode in which Vice President Cheney, while in the bunker under the White House, apparently confirmed a stand-down order at about 9:25 AM, which was prior to the strike on the Pentagon. (NPHR 94-96).
The 9/11 Commission did not include this testimony from Mineta in its report and claimed that Cheney did not enter the bunker until almost 10:00, which was at least 40 minutes later than Mineta and several other witnesses reported his being there (NPHR 91-94).
The 9/11 Commission’s timeline for Cheney that morning even contradicted what Cheney himself had told Tim Russert on “Meet the Press” five days after 9/11 (NPHR 93).
Evidence that the official story about the Pentagon cannot be true
Hani Hanjour, who according to his flight instructors could not safely fly a single-engine airplane, could not have possibly executed the extraordinary trajectory reportedly taken by American Flight 77 in order to hit Wedge 1 of the Pentagon (NPHR 78-80).
Wedge 1 would have been the least likely part of the Pentagon to be targeted by foreign terrorists: It was remote from the offices of the top brass; it was the only part of the Pentagon that had been reinforced; and it was still being renovated and hence was only sparsely occupied (NPHR 76-78).
Evidence that the official story about the destruction of the World Trade Center cannot be true
Because the Twin Towers were supported by 287 steel columns, including 47 massive core columns, they could not have come straight down, largely into their own footprints, unless these columns had been severed by explosives. Therefore, the official theory - according to which the buildings were brought down solely by fire plus, in the case of the Twin Towers, the impact of the planes – is scientifically impossible (NPHR 12-25).
Many other things that occurred during the destruction of the Twin Towers, such as the horizontal ejections of steel beams from the top floors and the liquefying of steel and other metals with melting points far above any temperature that could have produced by fire, can only be explained by powerful explosives (NPHR 30-36).
The almost perfectly symmetrical collapse of WTC 7, which was supported by 82 steel columns, could only have occurred if all 82 of those columns had been sliced simultaneously (MC Ch. 10).
In its final report on WTC 7, issued in November 2008, NIST admitted that this building had come down in absolute free fall for over two seconds. NIST, however, was still affirming a theory of progressive collapse caused by fire, which, as NIST had explained the previous August, could not possibly result in absolute free fall, because the lower floors would offer resistance. NIST was able to avoid admitting that explosives had brought the building down, in other words, only by continuing to affirm its fire theory after admitting that it could not explain one of the empirical facts it had come to acknowledge (MC Ch. 10).
Journalists, city officials, WTC employees, and over 100 members of the Fire Department of New York testified to having witnessed massive explosions in the World Trade Center buildings (NPHR 27-30, 45-48, 51).
A scientist who had formerly worked for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which produced the official reports on the world Trade Center, reported in 2007 that it had been “fully hijacked from the scientific to the political realm,” so that its scientists had become little more than “hired guns” (NPHR 11, 238-51).
The fact that NIST in writing its reports functioned as a political rather than a scientific agency is illustrated with special clarity by its report on WTC 7, in which it not only omitted all the evidence pointing to the occurrence of explosives (MC Chs. 3-5), but also falsified and even fabricated evidence to support its claim that the building was brought down by fire (Chs. 7-10).
Until the editors of the New Statesman are able to refute Griffin’s cumulative argument, we can agree with their view that Griffin, by virtue of his role in the 9/11 truth movement, has become a person of global importance, while rejecting as groundless their charge that the growing importance of this movement is pernicious.
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Notes
1.New Statesman. “The 50 People Who Matter Today,” September 24, 2009 (
2. New York Times. “The Sept. 11 Records. A rich vein of city records from Sept. 11, including more than 12,000 pages of oral histories rendered in the voices of 503 firefighters, paramedics, and emergency medical technicians, were made public on Aug. 12. The New York Times has published all of them.”
3. New Statesman Cover Story: David Ray Griffin 41st Most Influential Person in the World!” 911 Blogger, September 26, 2009, posted by Adam Syed (
__________________
Elizabeth Woodworth
Homepage:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16505
wow
21.12.2009 17:49
sorry I could'nt help myself
The mere fact that the secret service did not shift the pres for 30 mins does not mean that they were complicit, indeed the opposite. If they had known then the play would have been stronger. They would have made a huge show of rushing him to Air force one. They did'nt, they were probably awaiting confirmation of events, as they were unbelieveable, and working out that the pres was safer where he was.
The structural integrity argument for the towers is a weak one, the figures are all available and anyone at a major univercity could blow a hole in that theory withing hours. Too many variables.
The internal staffing of the pentagon and its state of repair are not common knowledge, If you have gone to the fuss of killing 3000 people, the chance of pulling a home goal is too strong.
Why wait untill the statesman refutes it, it does it itself. conspiricies say more about the accusers than the accused. A horrible need for you enemy to be without a shred of decency and capable of the darkest actions, in reality this is very rarely the case
anon
Ooops!
22.12.2009 16:04
*David Shayler, John Hill, David Ike. All leading truthers. All declared themselves to be the messiah.
Father Xmas
giddy up!
23.12.2009 01:02
20 minutes later they fell down. I wasn't surprised and don't recall anybody else being surprised either.
What IS interesting is how the 'truth movement' came along afterward and misdirected peoples attention away from the highly orchestrated and pre-planned invasions that followed. The public support for those invasions was helped by the truth movement setting up camp in the rubble of 9/11, and smothering the whole subject with a sense of the deranged. If you decided you were against this war on terror, then you were no better than a truther!
Politics by aversion, not inspiration.
The truth movement should concentrate more on dealing with the squalid barbarism of the US beast and its efforts to demonise all humanity as terrorists than waste time on revisionism.
Sack up and dust yourselves off, the worst is yet to come.
Ethel Red.
Re: Giddy Up
24.12.2009 19:40
And all they succeed in doing is dividing the anti war movement, disrupting events and make the anti war movement look stupid. Just WHO or WHAT is pulling their strings?
Wondering
wandering
28.12.2009 11:42
@