The established left media was severely damaged by September 11, 2001. A number of leading progressive thinkers have completely abandoned their former probity on this subject, weakening the global effort to change the momentum the Republican right has had since that day. In response, many people on the Internet (including the author) are forming loose associations of 911 researchers. We are trying to tell progressives what the “Left Gatekeepers” won’t hint at; i.e., 9/11/01 was an unbelievably cruel hoax.

Official facts of 911	Progressive Media defends the story
Reexamining 9/11/01	Topics for Further research
Conclusion

Some of the Official Facts of 911  Top

Osama bin Laden, from his cave in Afghanistan, and armed with a cell phone, directs 19 hijackers in the US to attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by hijacking four planes. The hijackers have been to US flight schools to learn to fly planes into buildings. When the hijackers have concluded their terrible mission two hijacked planes crash into the north and south towers of the WTC. Another plane crashes into the Pentagon. A fourth crashes in Pennsylvania after passengers fought for and wrestled with the controls. Both the North and South towers collapse due to the “pancake” theory; i.e., each floor falls on the one below until the building has fallen. At least 3,000 people are killed from the collapsing towers in broad daylight. Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda are quickly identified as the culprits. Later in the evening World Trade Center 7 collapses from a fire.

The Progressive Media Defends the Story  Top

Immediately after the terrible events of September 11th hysteria raged in this nation fueled by endless video replays of the atrocities. Arabs, Muslims and liberals were the principal targets. To stoke the inferno, the man installed President by a right-wing judicial coup d’etat declared that “you are either with us or against us!” In this climate of terror many progressives naturally adopted conservative postures; e.g., they called for the capture and swift execution of Osama bin Laden.

Two imperial wars later, the established left media still hasn’t bothered to look closely into what actually happened that day. For example, David Corn of the Nation and syndicated columnist Norman Solomon have become stalwart defenders of the official facts 911, with Alternet and Common Dreams only too eager to publish their pro-establishment positions. So both Corn and Solomon have attacked conspiracy theorists such as Mike Ruppert, a former police officer. (Corn has also attacked former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney for asking basic questions.) They have each borrowed a trick from the right and attacked just a single point from a single source (i.e., Ruppert and his claim that Mike Vreeland’s saga is relevant.). If only the entire 911 Truth Movement were represented by Ruppert’s views on Mike Vreeland. Then we could still respect Corn and Solomon for arguing in this intellectually dishonest fashion.

Stephen R. Shalom & Michael Albert of Z Magazine (June 2, 2002) have weighed in with a similarly dismissive view of those who doubt any points of 911’s official story. In their astonishingly shallow article Shalom and Albert spend the first NINE paragraphs defining what the term conspiracy means. (Now, that’s being a resource for progressives!) When they finally finish discussing what the term means they pen a lie:

”Obviously the World Trade Center attack was a U.S. government hoax, declared conspiracy fans within days of 9-11, because most of the hijackers have turned up to be still alive. This claim took advantage of early confusions, but became completely discredited a short time later (Shalom & Albert, Z Magazine, June, 2002).”

Unfortunately, it isn’t true. Even the Washington Post (quietly) mentioned the living hijackers. Shalom and Albert’s turgid article finally gets interesting in section 7 which is headed, “Is a conspiracy theory regarding 9-11 credible?” After suffering through the filler so far we deserve a good answer. The article then lists some of the points that many 911 investigators argue before announcing “None of the above strike [sic] us as remotely interesting much less plausible. Neither of us would ordinarily have ever spent even five minutes exploring the above claims, because they all fly in the face of our broad understanding of how the world works.” Is this Z Magazine or Fox News? After teasing us with the question of whether there is merit to the theories they dismiss the theories without arguing why. Z Magazine, home of Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman and occasionally Saul Landau hasn’t managed to revisit the 911 facts since Shalom and Albert’s wretched piece.

Individually, Chomsky, Herman, Landau and other Z Mag authors are all refusing to publicly reconsider any deviation from the official 911 story. Z Mag and Chomsky particularly, are receiving a lot of criticism from respected intellectuals for this position. My view is that Chomsky’s contribution to human social advancement has been colossal. I’m not one who feels the need to bash him at every turn on popular messageboards. However, the sad reality is his unwillingness to become engaged with the 911 facts is a valid knock on his otherwise stellar intellectual reputation.

#file_1# The official story is also being continuously reinforced by “resistance radio”; a.k.a., Pacifica’s Democracy Now! Sure, they have aired a couple of valuable programs about the air quality of Ground Zero, which were well-investigated by Amy Goodman’s co-host Juan Gonzalez. However, Democracy Now continues to repeat that 19 hijackers flew planes into the World Trade Center. They also will not have on any guest who significantly questions the official facts of that day. Democracy Now’s idea of a “debate” on the subject is to host two book-hawking “experts” (Peter Lance and Richard Miniter), both of whom promote the idea that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda were involved in 9/11/01, which was an “intelligence failure” for the CIA.

Counterpunch’s efforts have been mixed. They have published some columns by people like Wayne Madsen and an early one by yours truly that have questioned what happened on 9/11/01. However, they remain a disappointment to many in the 911 Truth Movement because of how infrequently they delve into this topic.

Thankfully, there is Global Research, by Professor Michel Chossudovsky. It remains relatively fearless, publishing an enormous amount of material which is invaluable to progressives. While most of the Left Gatekeepers continue to keep their collective heads in the sand Chossudovsky is still fighting great battles and approaching the subject with intellectual honesty.

Reexamining 9/11/01  Top
(with thanks to Unanswered Questions )

Let’s return to the official story of 911, with some critical words added. Osama bin Laden, a kidney patient in need of dialysis, is living in a cave or a hovel in Afghanistan. Presumably, he has a cell phone. He uses it to coordinate acts of terrorism utilizing 19 hijackers in the US. They have been living in the US in order to learn how to fly jets into buildings. (Apparently it would be impossible for them to learn to fly in their home countries.) The hijackers did not resort to using aliases; they openly registered for flying lessons and paid their bills with their credit cards. None of the hijackers rated high enough to fly a Cessna solo. However, when they hear Osama bin Laden’s voice echoing from his cave each is willing to dramatically elevate their skills in order to die for him.

The hijackers put their plan in motion. Alleged ringleader Mohammed Atta, a devout Muslim with a recent penchant for lap dances at strip clubs, leaves his copy of the Koran at the bar he drinks alcohol at on the evening of September 10th. He drove to Portland, Maine so that he could take a connecting flight to Boston the next morning. (Using connecting flights is the method of choice for airline terrorists using precise time-tables.)

The next day several of the hijackers feel compelled to bring to the airport flight manuals in Arabic which are left in the parked cars. Curiously, they also manage to elude every airport security camera. (No airport video or photos will be published showing them at their final airports.) Also, the hijackers manage to avoid appearing on the flight lists the airlines produced immediately after the major events were finished. Finally, as mentioned above several of the hijackers will actually turn up alive after September 11.

With the planes in flight the hijackers use concealed box cutters and knives to overwhelm the crew and passengers of four airlines. Outside of September 11, 2001, no hijacking has ever been attempted with box cutters. However, the hijackers were so confident in them they apparently had no other backup plan.

At 8:46 a.m. of September 11th something identified as Flight 11 hits the North Tower (WTC 1). An eyewitness interviewed by Bryant Gumble says he saw a small plane, not a jet hit WTC1. However, shortly afterwards the Vice President of CNN, Sean Murtagh, is on CNN live. Murtagh is certain he saw a large passenger jet hit WTC 1. The network news stations continue to broadcast the North Tower burning for seventeen minutes. At 9:03 a.m. the unthinkable occurs. With millions of viewers watching their televisions United Airlines 175 strikes the South Tower (WTC 2).

At 09:06 a.m. Bush is at Booker Elementary in Florida reading with some kids. In the video Andrew Card walks over and tells Bush something in a conversation that lasts two-seconds. We’re later told that Card told Bush at that time that a second plane has hit the WTC. In the video neither man expects for Bush to say anything further, and Bush’s reaction is hardly stern. Card quickly leaves. With the US apparently under attack Bush opts to continue listening to the story of a pet goat. Somehow this famous still photo of Card speaking to a firm, resolute Bush was produced from this fleeting moment in time. (Bush uses it for his fundraising.) It sure looks like a staged photo.
#file_2#

After “Flight 11” struck WTC 1 Donald Rumsfeld was heard predicting to reporters that the Pentagon would also be hit by terrorists. At 9:30 a.m. his astute prediction becomes reality. Flight 77 makes an extremely difficult high-speed turn (descending 7,000 feet in two and a half minutes) and then manages to strike the only part of the Pentagon which is being renovated and which has few people there. The first thing that most people notice when examining the photographs is that there is a definite lack of plane debris and damage to the Pentagon. Also, the reddish fireball is the wrong color for a kerosene explosion. And, the damage to the lawn is minimal, despite official reports that Flight 77 hit the ground before smashing into the Pentagon.

The Department of Defense initially said it had no surveillance video of Flight 77 striking the Pentagon. Then it published what it said was five frames of a surveillance video. The frames that were published are simply not believable. (For one thing, the exhaust of a missile clearly appears in the first frame. For another, the date time stamp is wrong.)

To close this brief discussion of the Pentagon it should not be forgotten that Donald Rumsfeld has even mentioned in Parade Magazine that it was a missile, not a plane which hit the Pentagon. (Sure, it was a slip of the tongue. Right.)

#file_3# At 9:59 a.m. the South Tower of the WTC becomes the first steel building in history to collapse from a fire. The top 300’ of it originally seems to be tilting; however, almost instantly the top section and the floors below it turn to dust. The South Tower falls as a thick slurry of pulverized dust which lands in its footprint. Because it completely turned to dust the actual duration of the collapse is difficult to ascertain with certainty. However, repeated observation suggests that the entire structure collapses a second or two beyond what it would take for the steel to have free-fallen (i.e., fallen through air). When the dust of the South Tower initially settles on the ground a strange glow briefly arrives and goes. This glow reminds many who are reviewing the documentary evidence of nuclear explosions.

At 10:03 a.m. we’re told Flight 93 crashes in Pennsylvania. Seismic records will indicate it happened at 10:06 but trust the government on this. As with the other three planes which crashed that day no flight recorder will ever be produced from this event. CBS initially broadcasts that Flight 93 was being tailed by two F-16s. Eyewitnesses will later claim that Flight 93 was hit by a missile. Somehow these witnesses are not quoted widely.

The North Tower (WTC 1) collapses at 10:28 a.m., becoming the second steel building in history to collapse from a fire. As with the South Tower before, the North Tower disintegrates into extremely fine dust in about the same time it takes for steel to fall from the top from gravity. As the dust settles an eerie glow briefly sets in. Later, authorities will find Mohammed Atta’s intact passport from the wreckage, a survivor of both the fires and the implosion. That sure was lucky.

Just before the North Tower collapsed there remained a solitary spire from the core. It remains eerily standing for a few seconds before it, too, disintegrates into dust. The spire is significant because it indicates highly unusual failure in the North Tower that is not consistent with a gravitational collapse.

Prior to their respective collapses the two towers had fires which were burning black, indicating they were oxygen-deprived. FEMA will later produce a report referring to both towers indicating temperatures from the respective fires reach 800 degrees Celsius. Oddly, steel buildings are very difficult to heat. Also, steel melts at much higher temperatures than that. In addition, steel buildings have experienced much more severe fires than the Twin towers experienced without collapsing.

One might think that if two very tall buildings collapsed from gravity after being hit by planes that eventually the fires would be out. However, the rubble burned for weeks, even though rescue personnel sprayed water on it. In fact, a thermal map of Ground Zero made by a NASA airplane indicates that parts of the rubble remained hot enough to melt aluminum five days after the towers had fallen. Exactly what the source of this heat is remains a mystery.

In addition, not only were we told that the North and South towers were destroyed from the plane crashes but WTC 3, 4, 5 and 6 were all extremely damaged. Building 6 actually explodes when UA 175 is seen striking the South Tower. This explosion creates a massive hole in the middle of it and was definitely not caused by a plane hitting the nearby South tower.

At 5:20 p.m. WTC 7 collapses, becoming the third and last steel building to ever collapse from a fire. Debris from the North Tower had hit it. A fire broke out localized in the offices of the Security Exchange Commission. This fire had burned all day from an unknown fuel. In the evening this fire causes simultaneous failures in both the penthouse and lower floors which cause it to collapse in its footprint.

Almost immediately after the plane identified as UA 175 hits the South Tower the public is informed that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda were responsible for the day’s attacks. However, what is never mentioned is that the CIA has a documented history of cooperation with Al Qaeda which continued up to the year 2000, according to Professor Michel Chossoduvsky’s research.

Chossoduvsky also points out that on the morning of September 11, the two men later made chairmen of the Joint Inquiry on 9/11, Sen. Bob Graham and Rep Porter Goss are having breakfast with Pakistan’s General Ahmad. (Arizona Senator John Kyl joins them.) Early reports in 2001 will later state the FBI’s belief that Ahmad is the "money-man" behind the 9/11 hijackers. The Washington Post quietly mentions that “Ahmed ran a spy agency notoriously close to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban (Washington Post, May 18, 2002.).” Shortly after the Washington Post’s article appears (in its Style section which contains light-fare) the mysterious breakfast meeting is never mentioned again by the mainstream media. It is another story which disappears down the memory hole.

Many members of the established left maintain that “intelligence failures” by the CIA caused September 11 to happen. What they won’t report is that the CIA was very busy that day. The Company was actually implementing a pre-planned simulation of planes flying into buildings to test the emergency issues involved. What a coincidence.

The destruction of the World Trade Center was possibly the largest crime scene in history, with three tall buildings having completely collapsed in their own footprints. However, what isn’t widely known is that New York City officials swiftly sold the debris from Ground Zero for scrap. Eric Hufschmid opens his must-read book Painful Questions with a discussion of how the evidence from the most infamous crime scene ever was swiftly and deliberately carted away before being properly investigated. People were actually threatened with arrest if they attempted to photograph the rubble as government officials carted it away.

Topics for Further Research  Top

If you’ve read this far you’ve got the makings of becoming a 911 researcher. Eric Hufschmid’s “Painful Questions” should be read by all who want to know more about September 11. The writing is somewhat uneven. Also, I don’t fully accept all of his conclusions. However, it shatters the “pancake theory”; i.e., the official explanation of why the twin towers collapsed. For more information on why the pancake model is faulty look mid-way on this page.

A scientist/physician nicknamed Plague Puppy has built on Hufschmid’s research and is investigating the true causes of the collapses of the WTC. Plague Puppy argues very cleverly that some sort of “black technology” was used to bring down the WTC towers. At this writing the exact nature of this technology is unresolved.

Central to the alternative theories of what really happened on 9/11/01 is A.K. Dewdney’s brilliant thesis, Operation Pearl. Dewdney’s explanation that Flight 93 was deliberately shot down while carrying all of the crew of UA 175, AA 11 and AA 77 is chilling. It also has a strong ring of truth.

#file_4# We’ll close with a new theory. A lot of attention is being given by 911 researchers to the alleged stand down of US Air Force jets that day. The quite rational argument is that standard operating procedure is for the USAF to scramble jets to intercept airlines off course. Then they issue a Friend or Foe challenge.

However, this author believes the stand-down is a red-herring. My argument is that neither Flights 11 nor 175 actually crashed in New York City on September 11. The plethora of visual anomalies with the footage of UA 175 crashing into the South Tower indicates it was a hoax that was accomplished through video manipulation. In this scenario, neither the North or South Towers or the Pentagon was actually hit by a plane.

Conclusion  Top

The established “progressive media” has been failing its audience by ignoring a plethora of research by a growing number of 911 skeptics around the world. As the Bush administration increasingly moves closer towards declaring martial law and establishing a police state in the US the failure of the established left media to publicly ask basic questions about the official facts is causing a great deal of anxiety. Many of us 911 skeptics argue that the only way the Bush administration can be stopped from their authoritarian plans is for the general public to be exposed to some of the lies about 9/11/01.

The events of that terrible day were an unbelievably cruel sham orchestrated by state intelligence services on the par of Mossad and the CIA.

Visit also the Webfairy’s great 911 site.