I. Victims

Glenn Greenwald recently posted a short piece about "The Human Toll of the U.S. Drone Campaign." Greenwald noted that the population of the United States is kept in the dark about the civilian victims of the drone campaign by a government that "refuses to disclose anything about these attacks and media outlets [which] virtually never report on [its] victims." What the U.S. public does get from both of these sources is a picture of the Middle East "as a cauldron of sub-human demons."

Greenwald’s article references a BBC program about a Pakistani "jirga" or gathering of tribal leaders. The leaders were from the Warziristan region of the country but the gathering took place in the capital of Islamabad. Warziristan has been the site of many drone attacks and the leaders brought with them some of the maimed survivors so they could be seen and their stories told. The picture that came through is that there are now rapidly growing numbers of innocent victims of these attacks: children, teenagers, adults and the elderly–essentially anyone in the neighborhood of an intended target. The number of those actually targeted who have been killed is impossible to know because the government will claim such kills even if the only verifiable victims are "half-blinded, double-amputee teenagers."

II. Visibility

Greenwald correctly observes that "it is easy to cheer for a leader when the victims of his on-going violence remain invisible." However, the question remains, how is this invisible status maintained in a country with a "free press"? Here are some relevant points that might shed light on this issue:

1. The "news business" in America is infinitely more interested in profit than it is in journalistic excellence. Much of that profit comes from advertisers who have no wish to underwrite what might appear to be unpatriotic investigations into unwarranted wars and foreign interventions. This makes the business oriented boards and stockholders of media outlets very conservative and also encourages a "make no waves" cooperative attitude toward the government and its preferred storylines.

2. Most citizens do not care about all this. In the U.S., and elsewhere, the majority are apolitical. They focus on the local and other people are "real" relative to their geographic and relational distance. As you move further away from the average person’s focal center, victims of accident or injustice become more abstract.

3. Being apolitical does not mean that the average citizen cannot be scared out of his or her wits. Deliver the same media message over and over again, consistently and with the right amount of emotion and you can create a nationwide consensus based on nothing but a sales pitch. Among other things you can sell the population an enemy (Viet Nam, Iraq, Iran or any state you chose) to the point where almost an entire nation will support invasion and slaughter. This is what I call a "thought collective." And, as our own recent history reveals, you can create this sort of group-think repeatedly over a relatively short period of time.

III. Distorted Vision

Greenwald’s piece is an indicator that, when it comes to the Middle East, the United States has long been steeped in a thought collective that distorts the vision of both the common folk and the elites alike. The 9/11 attacks raised this national mind set to the point of near hysteria. In the immediate aftermath of that disaster anyone who suggested that U.S. foreign policy might have helped motivate the terrorists (an obvious fact for anyone who had read the speeches of Osama bin Laden) was likely to be labeled unpatriotic, maybe even a traitor, lose their job, maybe even their friends, and refused admittance into the arena of national mourning. When in early October 2001 Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal gave the city of New York a check for $10 million to help with recovery efforts, Mayor Giuliani rejected the offer out of hand. It seems the Prince had suggested that now was a good time for the U.S. to rethink its Middle East foreign policy.

Only in the last year or so have their been signs of small cracks in the thought collective. Growing numbers of ordinary citizens, to the extent that they think about these things at all, want the U.S. out of the Middle East. They are even starting to question the $3 billion a year that goes to Israel. And, it may be that Islamophobia has peaked as a popular topic of national concern. More and more, this bit of paranoia is being identified with fringe factions of the conservative right.

Unfortunately, these cracks are visible only outside the beltway. Inside the beltway, that is in Washington DC, nothing has really changed. The thought collective is, if anything, stronger than ever. This is because the formulation of policy is strongly influenced by special interests whose power over the politicians and the political parties is financially decisive. It will stay that way until millions of Americans decide change in our foreign policy is important enough to be a voting issue.

Because the thought collective within the government has not changed, foreign policies and actions have not changed. Violent intervention is still the mainstay of policy as can be seen in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Pakistan (with perhaps Iran in the wings). Greenwald notes at the end of his piece that while Americans "hear almost nothing" about the victims of U.S. aggression, "the people in that part of the world hear a lot about it and that explains much about the vast discrepancy between the two regions."

IV. The Verdict

And what might that continuing discrepancy mean for the future of the United States? Well, it means the U.S. will almost certainly lose the war in Afghanistan, just as it lost the war in Iraq. You see, in Afghanistan as in Iraq, there are just too many people who really hold a fearsome dislike for the U.S., its government and its soldiers, to make likely successful conquest and pacification. A more general victory in the war of terror is equally unlikely. Here the applicable logic is rather simple. There were a set of conditions that led up to the 9/11 attacks and the attacks themselves created a precedent. America’s contribution to those conditions (our policies and our behavior) have held constant. Whatever damage we have caused al-Qaida can, and probably will, be repaired and other equally dangerous groups are likely to spring up in the foreseeable future.

So what then is the answer to the question that serves as the title of this short essay? The honest answer is that if there continues to be no change in U.S. policies and behavior in the Middle East, it is more likely than not that another attack of the magnitude of 9/11 will occur within the next ten years. The time line is guesswork, but the rest of the answer is not.

* Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University. He is the author of numerous books, including Islamic Fundamentalism and America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood.

(By Paul J. Balles * | Sabbah Report: www.sabbah.biz)

This past week the internet and mainstream media have both been chock-a-block with 9/11. But they haven't been in the same world. The contrasting stories have been absolutely amazing.

The mainstream media has covered the ceremonies honouring the dead and the courageous. Both deserve the honours--the dead as innocent victims and the courageous for sacrificing their lives and health in rescue efforts.

TV and print media have both gone into expansive detail about the victims and the heroism of first responders--police, fire fighters and paramedics.

The stories cover moving, appropriate memorials to the dead and injured.

But then there's the other world, which exists outside of the mainstream--the 9/11 truth seekers.

Truth seekers range from extreme conspiracy theorists, who believe that the Bush administration engineered the attacks to consolidate power, roll back civil liberties and help oil mogul friends.

More moderate factions simply insist that top government officials know more about the attacks than they have acknowledged, and then used the attacks as a pretext for invading Iraq.

A large percentage of activists proffer--often in great detail--what they call inconsistencies in government explanations of the attacks, which many consider a governmental cover-up.

The most amazing thing about these two worlds is that one of them doesn't even acknowledge that the other even exists.

Major newspapers like the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and major networks like MSNBC, ABC, CBS and CNN have knowledgeable reporters, researchers and anchors working for them.

They can't possibly be so completely detached from the internet world and unaware of the truth seekers. They act as if they don't know the questions that have been raised or the findings that have been reported in the online world.

Mainstream media voices continue to talk about 9/11 as if thousands of intelligent researchers didn't even exist!

These people might as well have duct tape over their mouths! What silenced the media people who use remarkable resources to dig up facts, evaluate them and make sound judgments about other issues?

It's impossible to believe that mainstream commentators and their staffs have willingly buried their heads in the sand obliterating any honest investigation of the questions raised about 9/11.

How can they pretend to be honest anchors and programme hosts and not stay awake at night with guilt over what they have shoved under the carpet?

David Ray Griffin, Professor Emeritus, author of 11 books on 9/11 wrote, "All the proffered evidence that America was attacked by Muslims on 9/11, when subjected to critical scrutiny, appears to have been fabricated." Have our brilliant news anchors been oblivious to this?

Apparently the wealthy networks and publications haven't used their vast resources to investigate the findings of more than 3000 professionals and experts who have questioned the official story.

The findings that follow come from The Wisdom Fund.

More than 220 Senior Military, Intelligence, Law Enforcement and Government Officials, including two generals, have questioned the 9/11 Commission's report.

Lt. Col. Robert Bowman, PhD, Former Director of Advanced Space Programs Development said "Scholars and professionals . . . have established beyond any reasonable doubt that the official account of 9/11 is false and that the official 'investigations' have really been cover-up operations."

The following have all found serious flaws in the Commission's findings.

1500 plus architects and engineers; more than 250 pilots and aviation professionals; 400 plus professors, dedicated to research and teaching the truth; more than 300 survivors and family members; 200 plus artists, entertainers and media professionals.

A video released last week entitled AE 9/11Truth Experts Speak Out provides the clearest analysis of the 9/11 attacks from professional architects and engineers. It is, without doubt, the best and most comprehensive film yet produced challenging the official version of the WTC attacks. It's also the appropriate antidote to the disinformation that continues to be pervasive in the US media.

Video link: http://youtu.be/YW6mJOqRDI4

The world of the mainstream media need not entertain flawed or questionable conspiracy theories. However, with their articulate anchors, investigative reporters and large staffs of producers and researchers, they have no excuse for wallowing in ignorance.

The major news organizations and networks need to get in tune with the cogent minds of scientists and credentialed professionals who have found legitimate flaws in the public accounts of 9/11.

* Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. He's a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the Gulf Daily News. Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month.

By James M. Wall * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

9/11: by Marty Lederhandler for the Associated Press

President George Bush's War on Terror began ten years ago, September 11, 2001.

Murderous crime scenes in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, became spiritual staging grounds for an international war against what Time's Tony Karon describes as "a tiny network of transnational extremists, founded on the remnants of the Arab volunteers who'd fought in the U.S.-backed Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union."

It did not need to come to this.

The attacks on the US could have been a time to reinvent ourselves as a united people, bound together in our common grief. But politicians, supported by a national media that was far more concerned with drama of what happened than why it happened, began to shape a different future, a worldwide attack on Islam.

Our crime scenes of death became shrines of memory designed not to mourn the dead, but to serve as spiritual support bases for the Bush War on Terror. The deaths of more than 3000 victims were exploited to create an evolving narrative of permanent international warfare.

Frank Rich wrote in New York magazine August 27, 2011:

The hallowed burial grounds of 9/11 were supposed to bequeath us a stronger nation, not a busted one. We were supposed to be left with a finer legacy than Gitmo and the Patriot Act. When we woke up on September 12, we imagined a whole host of civic virtues that might rise from the smoldering ruins.

Rich reminds us that Bush, a "still-green president" had a "near-perfect approval rating for weeks". The nation was ready to build "a selfless wartime patriotism built on the awesome example of those regular Americans who ran to the rescue on that terrifying day of mass death, at the price of their own health and sometimes their lives".

Instead we got "another hijacking-of 9/11 by those who exploited it for motives large and petty, both ideological and crassly ­commercial".

The most lethal of these hijackings was the Bush administration's repurposing of 9/11 for a war against a country that had not attacked us. So devilishly clever was the selling of the Saddam-for-Osama bait-and-switch that almost half the country would come to believe that Iraqis were among the 9/11 hijackers.

Joseph E. Stiglitz, University Professor at Columbia University, wrote in a posting, The Price of 9/11: "President George W. Bush's response to the attacks compromised America's basic principles, undermined its economy, and weakened its security".

Three years ago, when Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winning economist, and a colleague, examined the costs of the Bush wars, their conservative tally was $3-5 trillion. Since then, he writes, the costs have mounted.

With almost 50% of returning troops eligible to receive some level of disability payment, and more than 600,000 treated so far in veterans' medical facilities, we now estimate that future disability payments and health-care costs will total $600-900 billion. But the social costs, reflected in veteran suicides (which have topped 18 per day in recent years) and family breakups, are incalculable.

One glaring reason why the Bush-Cheney war machine could shape public opinion with such impunity in 2001 is that the main stream media had abandoned its journalistic responsibility to talk truth to power.

Looking back over my own 2001 files from those immediate post 911 months, I found a remarkable exception to that total media capitulation, a Newsweek essay published on November 18, 2001. The essay was written by David Gates under the headline, "The Voices Of Dissent". The Daily Beast, Newsweek's current online presence, has the essay on its site, here. Gates writes:

Since September 11, political dissent has seemed a decadent luxury, rather than a democratic necessity. The new united-we-stand orthodoxy holds that we're all engaged in a war of unquestionable good against inexplicable evil–that, in fact, the attempt to understand the enemy's perception of us is disloyal–and that bombing Afghanistan, approved by 90 percent of Americans, is both morally and practically justified.

These assumptions are worth questioning, if only for prudential reasons. But our official opposition party has signed on; so have most of the world's leaders. And again, [few contemporary] writers get with the program.

Gates found, with some searching I imagine, John le Carre and Alan Gurganus, both of whom had written "to critique the war and the United States' arrogance"

The most audible voices Gates identified, however, were those of Susan Sontag and Barbara Kingsolver, and the Indian novelist Arundhati Roy.

Sontag, the essayist and author of the National Book Award-winning In America: A Novel, drew a bizarrely fierce reaction for a 473-word New Yorker piece. She called the president "robotic" and added that the attacks were motivated by "specific American alliances and actions". Gates does not specify those allies and their actions, but ten years later it is possible to surmise she may have been alluding to Israel.

Gates writes further that since September 11, Kingsolver "has been pouring out editorials and essays".

Her dissent, like Roy's, is both moral and practical. "If our goal is to reduce the number of people in the world who would like to kill us," she says, "this is not the way to go about it." She resents having her patriotism impugned. "I'm speaking out because I'm a patriot," she says.

"Because I love my country and I want it to do the right thing." And she also resents being told–as she has been lately–that she should stick to writing novels. "It's a nasty slap down that's been used against those of us, particularly Arundhati Roy, who have spoken out," Kingsolver says.

"As if the fact of our being novelists disqualified us for any other sort of speech. I can't make any sense of that. Words are my tools. Words are what I have to offer."

In that same 2001 file folder I found a column I wrote for the Christian Century's December 12, 2001, issue. It is available on the Century web site. Click here for the full column.

I quoted from the David Gates Newsweek essay, and added these observations on how Bush's War on Terror looked to me, and to many more Americans who were not being heard, in 2001.

Meanwhile, the president's repeated insistence that the war against terror will last a long time indicates that he is listening to those who want him to extend the war to all nations that "harbor" what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who has seen too many movies, likes to call the "bad guys."

Rumsfeld's deputy Paul Wolfowitz, White House officials Condolezza Rice, Karl Rowe and Karen Hughes, and chairman of the president's Defense Policy Board, Richard Pearle, are urging Bush not to stop with Afghanistan.

New Yorker writer Peter J. Boyer reports that Newt Gingrich, a member the President's Defense Policy Board, is urging the president to "confront Iraq even while the engagement in Afghanistan continues, and go after terrorist operations in Somalia and Sudan as well."

I called my December 12, 2001 column, A Moral Squint: Bombs and Chaos. The column began:

After a particularly heavy U.S. bombardment of the city of Kunduz, al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters initially refused to surrender. Northern Alliance factions argued over how to arrange the surrender of Kunduz, provoking one U.S. official to describe the situation in and around the city as "chaotic."

His word reminds me of an exchange in Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey demands that Thomas More support a papal dispensation so that King Henry VIII can legally divorce his queen, who has failed to produce a male heir.

When More refuses to intercede with the pope, the cardinal says, "You are a constant regret to me, Thomas. If you could just see facts flat on without that horrible, constant moral squint. With a little common sense you could have made a statesman."

To which More replies: "I think that when statesmen forsake their own private consciences for the sake of their public duties they lead the country by a short route to chaos."

Our nation needs the wisdom of writers these days who possess a "moral squint" and don't hesitate to write and speak about it.

* James M. Wall is currently a Contributing Editor of The Christian Century magazine, based in Chicago, Illinois. From 1972 through 1999, he was editor and publisher of the Christian Century magazine. Jim launched personal blog April 24, 2008.

By Paul J. Balles * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Assassinations, kidnappings, torture – the actions of uncivilized pirates, barbaric criminals and rogue governments.

The entire litany of vicious crimes against humanity, fitting for horrid, inhuman terrorist groups or Third World mongrels, now belongs to America.

Every day another violation of human dignity is exposed in the medium of the internet and ignored by most mainstream media.

The leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, Mitt Romney, exemplifies the brutish attitude of leading Americans. Said Romney:

American strength is the only guarantee of liberty,
American strength turned the Cuban missiles around,
American strength caused the collapse of the Soviet Union,
American strength yanked Saddam out of his spider hole.

... On 31 August, Ian Cobain and Ben Quinn, writing in the Guardian, revealed that US firms profited from torture flights.

In a rendition programme, America hired private firms who "flew terrorism suspects to locations around the world, where they were often tortured," the article reports.

Nadeem Sarwar writing for Monsters and Critics, Islamabad, records how "Beatings, deprivation of food and sleep, and cultural shocks were part of the daily routine for Ghairat Bahir during six years spent in US detention centres in Afghanistan."

Truthout editor William Rivers Pitt refers to "the rancid reality of a free and un-convicted Dick Cheney appearing in the public eye once again" following the publication of Cheney's memoir.

Says Pitt: "If there were any justice to be found in this deranged country, Dick Cheney would have penned his pestiferous, self-serving little memoir by the light of a bare bulb inside the cell of a federal prison.”

According to Pitt, Cheney's "actions directly caused deaths and injuries that number in the hundreds of thousands. The deaths he is responsible for are ongoing to this day..."

In several appearances on televised interviews, Cheney consistently attempted to defend his actions while in office, including the use of torture in interrogations.

In these interviews, Cheney proudly admitted that he authorized torture, secret prisons, and illegal wiretapping. All are crimes under US and international laws.

Observes Robert Kaiser in the Washington Post, the memoir attempts "to make clear how right Cheney always was, and how wrongheaded were his critics and bureaucratic rivals.

More than once Cheney tells us he would do again exactly what he did the first time, “in a heartbeat”. He acknowledges no serious regrets about anything.

Under any universally acceptable code of justice, narcissists who serve nothing but themselves, deserve to be arrested and prosecuted for their crimes. Failure to do so makes the public complicit in their crimes.

* Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. He's a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the Gulf Daily News. Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month.

By Stephen Lendman* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Winston Churchill rightly explained that "(a) lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." Today, of course, it circulates everywhere instantly.

Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany's Reich Minister of Propaganda, once said:

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

He added that "truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."

Corporate media manipulators love a big story they can hype, distort, and falsify to attract large audiences supportively for the worst imperial crimes.

In fact, the bigger the event, the worse the reporting, sacrificing truth for managed news and opinions everyone should understand and avoid.

Distinguished scholars like David Ray Griffin exposed the 9/11 lie in his exhaustive research and writings. In numerous books, articles, and lectures, he provided convincing evidence about an inside job, not an attack carried out by "crazed Arabs."

In an April 5, 2006 lecture titled, "9/11: The Myth and the Reality," he concluded saying:

"It would seem, for many reasons, that the official story of 9/11, which has served as a religious Myth in the intervening years (and still does), is a myth in the pejorative sense of a story that does not correspond to reality."

It was Griffin's polite way of calling it a Big Lie, the biggest of our time.

On September 11, 2008, his Global Research article headlined, "September 11, 2001: 21 Reasons to Question the Official Story about 9/11," including:

(1) Although the Big Lie holds Osama bin Laden accountable, the FBI admitted it "has no hard evidence connecting" him to the attack (NPHR 206-11).

(2) Although the 9/11 myth claims "devout Muslims (were) ready to die as martyrs to earn a heavenly reward, Mohamed Atta (their alleged leader) and the other alleged hijackers regularly drank heavily, went to strip clubs, and paid for sex (NPHR 153-55)."

(3) Claimed cell phone calls from above 30,000 feet to relatives were falsified as technology at the time made completely them impossible. Later, the FBI changed its story, saying only two were made "from United 93 after it descended to 5,000 feet (NPHR 111-17)."

(4) Then "US Solicitor General Tel Olson's claim that his wife, Barbara Olson, phoned him twice from AA 77," saying hijackers controlled the plane, "was also contradicted by this FBI report," saying one call she attempted was "unconnected" and lasted "0 seconds (NPRH 60-62)."

(5) The FBI lied, saying Atta's left behind luggage included "decisive evidence that al-Qaeda was responsible for the attacks....(NPHR 155-62)."

(6) Evidence of alleged Al Qaeda videos, "passports discovered at the crash sites, and a headband discovered at the crash site of United 93 (showed) clear signs of having been fabricated (NPHR 170-73)."

(7) Evidence shows hijackers WERE NOT on the planes. Moreover, if they broke "into cockpits, the pilots would have 'squawked' the universal highjack code," a simple two second act. However, none aboard the four flights did it (NPHR 175-79).

(8) Standard operating procedures to intercept "planes showing signs of an in-flight emergency within about 10 minutes" weren't followed. Instead, a "stand-down order prevented (them) from being carried out (NPHR 1-10, 81-84)."

(9) Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said Dick Cheney, inside the White House bunker, "apparently confirmed a stand-down order at about 9:25AM," prior to an alleged plane striking the Pentagon. "Another man has reported hearing a member of LAX Security learn that a stand-down order (came) from the 'highest level' of the White House (NPHR 94-96)."

(10) The 9/11 Whitewash Commission ignored Mineta's report, deleted it from the official record, "and claimed that Cheney did not enter the (bunker) until almost 10:00...." They lied (NPHR 91-94).

In fact, Philip Zelikow, head of the 9/11 Commission, was a member of the Bush White House.

(11) The 9/11 Commission even contradicted what Cheney told Tim Russett on "Meet the Press" on September 16 (NPHR 93).

(12) Hani Hanjour, the so-called terrible pilot unable to fly a single-engine aircraft, "could not possibly have executed the amazing (AA 77) trajectory....to hit Wedge 1 of the Pentagon" that even experienced airline pilots would have had trouble negotiating, and never would have tried, fearing they'd crash and burn (NPHR 78-80).

(13) Wedge 1 was the most implausible spot to be struck. It was furthest from offices of Rumsfeld and Pentagon top brass, presumably the targeted high-value officials.

It was also "the only part of the Pentagon that had been reinforced." Its reconstruction wasn't finished, so few people were there. And it presented the most difficult flight path to execute (NPHR 76-78).

(14) Pentagon officials lied, saying they had no warning of an approaching aircraft. In fact, "a military E-4B - the Air Force's most advanced communications, command, and control airplane - was flying over the White House at the time." Astonishingly, the Pentagon "denied it belonged to them (NPHR 96-98)."

Moreover, the Pentagon is the most guarded structure in the world, complete with advanced radar and surface-to-air missiles, able to intercept and destroy any approaching threat.

(15) Without explanation, the Secret Service let George Bush remain at a Sarasota, FL school for 30 minutes after learning the second tower was struck, ignoring standard procedures to secure his safety as presumably high-value officials were targeted.

Only advance knowledge assured them of no danger at a time media reports circulated about America being under attack.

On 9/11's first anniversary, a new White House story emerged, falsely claiming Bush left the school immediately. "The lie was told in major newspapers and on MSNBC and ABC television (NHHR 129-31)."

(16) Their rigid steel columns made it impossible for the towers to crumble, let alone "at virtually free-fall speed - unless (they) had been sliced by means of explosives." In other words, claims about impacting planes and resulting fires being responsible are "scientifically impossible (NPHR 12-25)."

(17) Other features of the towers' destruction "can be explained only in terms of powerful explosives." They include "horizontal ejections of steel beams, the melting of steel, and the sulfidation and thinning of steel." Moreover, "fires could not have come within 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit of the temperature needed to melt steel (NPHR 30-36)."

(18) New York Fire Department "oral histories shortly after 9/11" provided testimonies of "having witnessed explosions in the Twin Towers. Others toppling WTC 7 as well as the towers were also reported by city officials, WTC employees, and journalists (NPHR 27-30, 45-48, 51)."

(19) On 9/11, Mayor Rudy Giuliani told" told ABC News anchor Peter Jennings that he was informed that the towers would collapse, despite no basis to think so. In fact, the so-called information came from his own Office of Emergency Management that either falsified it or had advance knowledge of the plot (NPH 40).

(20) "NIST, which produced the official reports on the Twin Towers and (recently) WTC 7, has been fully hijacked from the scientific to the political realm...." In fact, its "scientists" are "hired guns (NPHR 11, 238-51)."

(21) Growing numbers of "physicists, chemists, architects, engineers, pilots, former military officers, and former intelligence officers" reject the official 9/11 myth as a bald-faced lie (NPHR xi).

The Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST - formerly the National Bureau of Standards, NBS) is a measurement standards laboratory, expected to produce scientifically verifiable, not falsified, analysis.

In other writing, Griffin exposed its 9/11 coverup role, saying it suggested that "fire-induced collapses of large steel-frame buildings (like the twin towers) are normal events," when they knew it's impossible.

NIST was also tasked to provide "the definitive explanation" of WTC 7's collapse. Again, coverup was its unstated mandate.

It "committed two kinds of scientific fraud: Ignoring relevant evidence (showing explosives were used) and falsifying evidence."

For example, it suppressed evidence revealed in a peer-reviewed University of Copenhagen report, showing "WTC dust contained unreacted nanothermite. Unlike ordinary thermite, which is an incendiary, nanothermite is a high explosive."

Short of verifiable insider confessions, its presence is as close as it gets to smoking gun proof of controlled demolitions, destroying the twin towers and WTC 7, not fires or other causes.

Scholars for 9/11 Truth

James Fetzer founded Scholars for 9/11 Truth, a non-partisan association of faculty, students, and scholars, dedicated to exposing official lies, removing the shroud of deceit, and revealing truths behind 9/11.

Access his site here.

A section on it headlines "Why Doubt 9/11," providing 20 examples to debunk the official lie. They include:

(1) The Twin Towers were built to sustain impacts similar to large planes striking them.

(2) Most jet fuel burned "in the first fifteen seconds or so. Below the 96th floor in the North Tower and the 80th in the South, those buildings were stone cold steel, unaffected by" fires above.

(3) Steel melts at 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit, "about 1,000 degrees higher than the maximum" burning jet fuel produces.

(4) "Underwriters Laboratory certified the" building steel to be able to handle temperatures up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit "for three or four hours without any significant effects."

The ignited 500 degree fires were more suitable for roasting marshmallows than melting steel.

(5) Had steel melted or weakened the buildings, "the affected floors would have displayed completely different behavior," far short of collapsing that was impossible.

(6) Even when the top 30 floors of the South Tower "pivoted and began to fall to the side when the floors beneath gave way, it wasn't enough "to exert downward pressure on the lower 80 floors."

Moreover, the top 16 floors of the North Tower, "as one unit of downward force," was offset by "199 units of upward force....counteract(ing) it."

(7) Last man out of the North Tower William Rodriguez "reported massive explosions in the sub-basements that (caused) extensive destruction...."

(8) He said "the explosion occurred prior to reverberations from upper floors, a claim...substantiated by a Craig Furlong and Gordon Ross" study, titled "Seismic Proof: 9/11 Was an Inside Job," showing the "explosions actually took place as much as 14 and 17 seconds before the presumptive airplane impacts."

(9) "Heavy-steel-construction buildings like" the towers are virtually immune from "pancake collapse," unless rigged explosives cause it.

(10) Both towers collapsing from fires or on their own any other way at free-fall speed is impossible.

(11) Mechanical Engineering Professor Judy Wood compared the phenomenon of the towers collapsing to "two gigantic trees turning to sawdust from the top down."

(12) WTC-7 was a "classic controlled demolition at 5.20PM...."

(13) The twin towers were "destroyed by different modes of demolition."

(14) "The hit point at the Pentagon was too small to accommodate a 100-ton airliner with a 125-foot wingspan and a tail that stands 44-feet high...."

Moreover, the debris found had "no wings, no fuselage, no seats, no bodies, no luggage, no tail," and no engines.

In other words, no plane struck the Pentagon. A likely cruise missile was used, a weapon unavailable to alleged terrorists anywhere, let alone the ability to launch one.

(15) Pentagon videotapes show no Boeing 757 striking the building.

(16) The "official trajectory - flying at high speed barely above ground level - (was) physically impossible..." It was aerodynamically inconceivable to negotiate even for experienced airline pilots. None, of course, would have tried.

(17) Flight recorder data given to Pilots for 9/11 truth by the NTSB "corresponds to a plane with a different approach and altitude...." If followed by a Boeing 757, it would have overflown the Pentagon, not hit it.

(18) If Flight 93 crashed as reported, efforts would have been made to find survivors post-haste. Instead, coverup to suppress the truth followed, suggesting an incident other than reported.

(19) The alleged hijackers had minimal competence to fly single-engine aircraft, let alone be able to handle commercial jets. Moreover, their "names are not on any original, authenticated passenger manifest."

In fact, several "turned up alive and well and living in the Middle East." Washington never even produced their tickets as evidence because they weren't aboard the planes and had nothing to do with the incidents.

(20) George Bush later acknowledged that Saddam Hussein "had nothing to do with 9/11. The Senate Intelligence Committee" said he had no connection to Al Qaeda. Moreover, the FBI admitted having no evidence linking bin Laden to 9/11.

Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth

AE911Truth is a "non-partisan association of architects, engineers and affiliates dedicated to exposing the falsehoods and to revealing truths about" the Big 9/11 lie, substituting myth for reality.

Its growing membership "is devoted to:

(1) Dispelling misinformation with scientific facts and forensic evidence

(2) Educating and motivating thousands of architects and engineers and the public at large

(3) Procuring a truly independent 9/11 investigation with subpoena power

(4) Achieving 9/11 Truth mainstream coverage

Access AE911Truth's here.

Growing numbers worldwide now dispute the official myth, including Muslims for 9/11 Truth, anyone can connect with through its site.

More than any others worldwide, Muslims unfairly paid the greatest price - vilified, persecuted and attacked for their faith, ethnicity, locations in resource rich countries, and domestically for political advantage.

The 9/11 lie bears main responsibility for launching a decade of war, persecution and other forms of abuse. Stopping it ahead is job one. Revealing the truth and holding those responsible is how.

In his new book titled, "9/11 - Ten Years Later," David Ray Griffin said the following:

"Getting the 9/11 lie exposed is essential. One obvious reason is simple justice," not only for 9/11 family members never told the truth or compensated in whatever way possible.

"There also needs to be justice in the sense of punishment for those who engineered this crime," including top government and military officials. They perhaps consider themselves patriots. They're, in fact, "guilty of murder and treason."

Revealing 9/11 truth is also vital "for the sake of preventing further crimes against democracy."

"Many lines of evidence show that 9/11 was an inside job." It's virtually indisputable. As a result, it needs to outed so everyone knows to give "never again" real meaning.

A Final Comment

9/11 was the transformative event of our time, for ill, not good. It sparked multiple wars producing more of them, as well as repressive domestic crackdowns.

It also launched a Global War on Terror (GWOT), another on truth, human and civil rights, social justice, rule of law principles, and democratic values wherever America and its NATO partners show up.

September 11, 2011, will mark the 10th anniversary of a day those old enough won't ever forget. Nor should they forgive political Washington for using it to wage war on humanity.

All wars are for wealth and power, never for liberation or other social justice reasons.

Debunking the official 9/11 lie is a vital first step to freeing America of a malignancy that's destroying it and free people everywhere in its grip.

Mark October 6 on your calendar. Stand with most Americans for "human needs, not corporate greed."

"Stop the Machine! Create a New World!" Head to the nation's capital where "hundreds of thousands are expected" to "occupy Freedom Plaza indefinitely until their demands have been met," including:

(1) Taxing the rich and corporations.

(2) Ending imperial wars, bringing US forces home, and cutting military spending.

(3) Protecting America's social safety net, especially Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, as well as public and private pensions.

(4) Ending corporate and other forms of welfare for the rich at the expense of most others.

(5) Transitioning to a clean energy economy, as well as reversing environmental degradation.

(6) Protecting worker rights, including collective bargaining, decent wages and benefits, and initiatives to create jobs.

(7) Getting money out of politics, and

(8) Supporting social justice for everyone, not just too-big-to-fail banker crooks, other corporate favorites and America's aristocracy.

Transforming America starts with putting our bodies on the line for change, and not quitting no matter the odds.

There's no other way because the alternative is too grim to accept what only grassroots activism can achieve.

* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon.

By Alan Hart * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Dear Abe Foxman,

In your lengthy article Decade of Deceit: Anti-Semitic 9/11 Conspiracy Theories 10 Years Later, you label a number of named writers and commentators including me who say that Israel's Mossad was or even might have been involved in the 9/11 terror attack as anti-Semitic, and you assert that they are demonizing "the Jews". You also say: "Anticipating criticism, a number of these anti-Semitic conspiracists now try to immunize themselves against charges of anti-Semitism by making disclaimers up front about not being anti-Semitic. Their own works and record, however, blatantly contradict their innocuous self-characterizations."

I have to assume that I am one of the "number" in the above quotation because when you introduce at the end of your piece a few sentences of what I have said on the subject of 9/11, you do so with these words: "After pre-emptively trying to dismiss charges of anti-Semitism, Hart asserts..."

I also have to assume that you have not read (surprise! surprise!) my epic book, Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, three volumes in its American edition (www.claritypress.com). Except those who are brainwashed by Zionist propaganda and deluded to the point of clinical madness, nobody could read this book and conclude that I was anti-Semitic. The first picture in it is of Golda Meir when she was prime minister, inscribed it in her own hand "To a good friend, Alan Hart." Do you believe, Mr. Foxman, that old lady was so stupid that she couldn't have seen through me if I was anti-Jew?

As I say in the book and on every public platform on which I speak, THE key to understanding is knowledge of the difference between Judaism and Zionism. Here is how I am going to summarise this difference in a speech in Germany on this September 11.

JUDAISM is the religion of Jews, not "the" Jews because not all Jews are religious. Like Christianity and Islam, Judaism has at its core a set of moral values and ethical principles.

ZIONISM is a sectarian, colonial-like nationalism which created a state for some Jews in the Arab heartland mainly by terrorism and ethnic cleansing, and by doing so demonstrated contempt for, and made a mockery of, Judaism's moral values and ethical principles. In reality mainstream Judaism and Zionism are total opposites.

I'm also going to wonder aloud how many in my German audience are aware of two particular background facts. One is of that the return of Jews to the land of biblical Israel by the efforts of man – one possible but wholly inadequate definition of Zionism – was proscribed by Judaism. The other is that prior to the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust, the vast majority of Jews everywhere, and especially many eminent American Jews including the then owner of The New York Times, were totally opposed to Zionism's Palestine project. Why? They believed it to be morally wrong. They feared it would lead to unending conflict with the Arabs and the wider Muslim world. But most of all they feared that if Zionism was allowed by the big powers to have its way, it would one day provoke violent anti-Semitism on a grand scale.

I am then going to give the two main reasons why knowledge of the difference between Judaism and Zionism is the key to understanding.

The first is that when you know the difference, you can understand why it is perfectly possible to be passionately anti-Zionist (anti Zionism's colonial enterprise) without being in any way, shape or form anti-Semitic in the sense of loathing and even hating all Jews everywhere just because they are Jews.

The second is that when you know the difference between Judaism and Zionism, you can understand why it is wrong to blame all Jews everywhere for the crimes of the hard core Zionists in Israel.

Defenders of Israel right or wrong assert that Judaism and Zionism are one and the same in order to make the charge, as you do Mr. Foxman, that criticism of Israel is by definition a manifestation of anti-Semitism. That, I will tell my German audience, is Zionist propaganda nonsense for a blackmail purpose, the purpose being to silence criticism and prevent informed and honest debate about Israel's policies and actions. And I will add this: "When you know the difference between Judaism and Zionism, you don't have to be frightened about being falsely accused of anti-Semitism for speaking and writing the truth of history as it relates to the making and sustaining of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel. You can say to your Zionist accuser, 'Go to hell!'".

Mr. Foxman, I'm not going to tell you to go to hell. I have a constructive suggestion to make. If you truly believe that I am anti-Semitic, why don't you say so explicitly in writing (on ADL's web site will be fine) and then I can sue you. And that will give us the Mother and Father of a test case to determine what anti-Semitism is and is not. (For some of my in-depth thinking on this matter you may care to visit Anti-Semitism: Zionist myth v truth and reality. There you'll find an article of mine with the headline Anti-Semitism – Zionist myth vs truth and reality.

While you are thinking about how to respond to my suggestion, you might like to consider two particular statements I make in my book and on most public platforms.

The first is this. I do not blame the Zionist lobby for acting in the way it does. It is only playing the game according to the rules. I blame a corrupt, pork-barrel system of American politics which puts what passes for democracy sale up to the highest bidders.

The second is this. The Jews, generally speaking are the intellectual elite of the Western civilization and the Palestinians are by far the intellectual elite of the Arab world. What these two peoples could do together in peace and partnership is the stuff that dreams are made of. They could change the region for the better and by doing so give new hope and inspiration to the whole world.

And I'll add this. I have two driving motivations.

One is to contribute to the understanding needed if there is ever to be an acceptable amount of justice for the Palestinians. Without it the future is predictable – catastrophe for all, possibly in the shape of a Clash of Civilizations, Judeo-Christian v Islamic.

The other is to contribute to the understanding needed to stop Holocaust II, shorthand for another great turning against the Jews. My Gentile views on this aspect of the matter are in tune with the warning words of Yehoshafat Harkabi, Israel's longest serving Director of Military Intelligence. In his book Israel's Fateful Hour, published in 1986, he wrote this:

Israel is the criterion according to which all Jews will tend to be judged. Israel as a Jewish state is an example of the Jewish character, which finds free and concentrated expression within it. Anti-Semitism has deep and historical roots. Nevertheless, any flaw in Israeli conduct, which initially is cited as anti-Israelism, is likely to be transformed into empirical proof of the validity of anti-Semitism. It would be a tragic irony if the Jewish state, which was intended to solve the problem of anti-Semitism, was to become a factor in the rise of anti-Semitism. Israelis must be aware that the price of their misconduct is paid not only by them but also Jews throughout the world.

In the world today we are witnessing a rising tide of anti-Israelism provoked by Israel's arrogance of power, its contempt for international law and its appalling self-righteousness. (In Harkabi's view self-righteousness is the biggest threat to Israel's existence). If Israel stays on its present course, the danger is, as Harkabi warned, that anti-Israelism will be transformed into anti-Semitism, leading to another great turning against Jews everywhere and quite possibly starting in America. In my view the real danger of that happening will be greatly reduced if those (mainly Westerners) among whom most of the Jews of the world live are made aware of the difference between Judaism and Zionism.

Also to be said is that the Jews of the world (those in North America and Europe especially) could and should act to best protect their own interests by distancing themselves from the Zionist state and its crimes. In the Prologue to Volume One of my book which is titled Waiting for the Apocalypse, I quote Dr. David Goldberg, a prominent liberal London rabbi, as saying the following in 2001: "It may be time for Judaism and Zionism to go their separate ways."

Today I would say to him, it's not "may be" time, it is time.

Awaiting your response.

Sincerely,

Alan Hart

Extended Footnote for the record: Text of my overview of 9/11.

The starting point for any serious and honest discussion of 9/11 has to be this question: Did the impact of the planes and the heat of their burning fuel bring the Twin Towers down? If the answer is "Yes", there's no need for conspiracy theories. If the answer is "No", the speculative question has to be – Who did it and how and why?

My own answer is "No". In my analysis there's enough evidence – visual, technical and scientific, and from eye-witnesses including fire fighters – to invite the conclusion that the Twin Towers, like Building Seven, were pre-wired for controlled demolition.

For context, the first observation I'd like to offer is that the mainstream media's complicity in suppressing even questions and debate about what really happened on 9/11 is consistent. What I mean is that for the past 63 years – from the creation of the Zionist (not Jewish!) state of Israel mainly by terrorism and ethnic cleansing to the present – the mainstream media has been complicit in Zionism's suppression the truth about the making and sustaining of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel. Put another way, the mainstream media has been content to peddle Zionism's propaganda lies. The two biggest lies can be summed up in a very few words:

The first is that poor little Israel has lived in constant danger of annihilation, the "driving into the sea" of its Jews. The truth, as I document in detail through the three volumes of the American edition of my book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, is that Israel's existence has never, ever, been in danger from any combination of Arab force. Zionism's assertion to the contrary was the cover that allowed Israel to get away where it mattered most – in the Western world and America especially – with presenting its aggression as self defense and itself as the victim when it was and is the oppressor.

The second is that Israel "never had Arab partners for peace" That is complete nonsense. Just two of many examples to make the point... From almost the moment he came to power in 1951, Eygpt's President Nasser wanted an accommodation with Israel. He had secret exchanges with Israel's foreign minister, Moshe Sharret, who was in my view the only completely rational Israeli leader of his time. For wanting to make peace with Nasser and the Arabs, Sharett was destroyed by Israel's founding father and first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion... Example number two: By the end of 1979, the pragmatic Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the PLO, had prepared the ground on his side for peace with Israel on the basis of a genuine and viable two-state solution – peace on terms which any rational government and people in Israel would have accepted with relief. But then, as is still the case today, Israel's leaders and most of its Jewish citizens were not rational.

Prior to 9/11, the best single example of the mainstream media's complicity in the suppression of the truth as it relates to conflict in the Middle East is Israel's attack on the American spy ship, the USS Liberty, on 8th June 1967, the 4^th day of the 6-Day war. (I was the first Western correspondent to the banks of the Suez Canal with the advancing Israelis, so I was in the Sinai desert at the time). That attack killed 37 Americans and seriously wounded more than 90 others. If things had gone according to the plan of the man who ordered that attack, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, the Liberty would have been sunk with all hands on board, leaving nobody to tell the story of what really happened... If it had been an Arab/Muslim attack on an American vessel, it's reasonable to speculate that America would have resorted to a military strike, if not war, on the country or countries it held responsible. What did President Johnson do? Out of fear of offending the Zionist lobby and its stooges in Congress, he ordered a cover-up which remains in force to this day. And the mainstream media went along with it. As it still does.

The following are my summary thoughts on the possible/probable involvement of Israel's Mossad in 9/11. Two scenarios – A or B.

In Scenario A it's not impossible that 9/11 started out as an Arab/Muslim idea. But even if this was the case, Mossad would have had an inside track very quickly. From almost the moment of the Zionist state's birth, Mossad put great effort into placing agents inside every Arab regime, every Arab military and security establishment and every Arab/Muslim liberation movement and terrorist group. Many of Mossad's best and most effective agents were Moroccan and other North African Jews because they could pose most perfectly as Arabs. (In a moment I'll tell you the short story of Mossad's penetration of the Abu Nidal terrorist group).

In Scenario A the question is: Did Mossad tell anybody? My speculation is that it told some in the CIA and a few of Zionism's neo-con associates, Jews and non-Jews, including Vice President Cheney (I call him the real Doctor Strangelove) and the likes of Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. In this scenario Mossad could have asked, "What do we do about this?" And the answer could have been something like, "We'll use it for the Pearl Harbour-like pretext we need."

In this scenario, 9/11, even if it started out as an Arab/Muslim idea, was a joint Israeli/Mossad and American/neo-con conspiracy.

For background a very short story about Mossad's penetration of the Abu Nidal terrorist group. Abu Nidal was a member of Arafat's Fatah but he broke with it when Arafat had come to terms with the reality of Israel's existence and was preparing the ground on his side for compromise with Israel. The Abu Nidal group, based mainly in Iraq, was responsible for the assassinations, mainly in Europe, of more than 20 of Arafat's emissaries who were telling Western governments behind closed doors that the Fatah-dominated PLO was serious about compromise with Israel. An investigation by Arafat and Abu Iyad, Fatah's counter intelligence chief, subsequently revealed that Abu Nidal was an alcoholic

- he consumed between one and two bottles of whisky a day, and for much of most days he was drunk, not sober. His number two was running the show and targeting those to be assassinated and directing the killing. Abu Nidal's number two was a Mossad agent.

It was, in fact, two Palestinian students in London who were activated by the Abu Nidal group to assassinate Israeli ambassador Argov. It was that assassination attempt in 1982 that gave Israeli Prime Minister Begin and Defense Minister Sharon the pretext they needed to launch their invasion of Lebanon all the way to Beirut, for the purpose of exterminating the entire leadership of the PLO and destroying its infrastructure... Ambassador Argov survived and quite some time after the event, he indicated that he suspected Israel's involvement (he could only have meant targeting) in the attempt to kill him.

Scenario B has to be considered because it's a fact that some of the Arab/Muslim plotters, actual or alleged, were under surveillance by various Western intelligence agencies for years before 9/11. The agencies who were tracking them as possible/probable terrorists included the those of America, Germany and Israel.

In this scenario it's not impossible that the idea for 9/11 was put into the heads of possible/probable Arab/Muslim terrorists by Mossad agents.

In this scenario, Mossad was actually running the show with key American neo-cons fixing things in America to make sure the attack was successful. From all that happened on the day, I'm not convinced that President Bush was in the pre-9/11 fixing loop. I think Cheney was most probably in control of the American executive oversight of what was essentially a Mossad false flag operation.

Question: How did 9/11 serve the interests of the lunatic right in Israel and its neo-con associates in America?

In their view Saddam Hussein represented the only foreseeable potential Arab challenge to Greater Israel's continued military domination of the whole Arab world. He had to be removed. By falsely claiming that Iraq was implicated in the 9/11 attack, Zionism and its neo-con associates in America set the stage for President Bush to be conned into going to war.

As we know, Zionism's intention to get rid of Saddam Hussein was not a secret. In 1996, under the chairmanship of Richard Perle, widely known in informed circles as the "Prince of Darkness", American Zionism presented a policy document with the title A CLEAN BREAK: A NEW STRATEGY FOR SECURING THE REALM.

It urged incoming Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to have no second thoughts about making a clean break with the Rabin policy of negotiating with the PLO and trading land for peace. Israel's claim to all the land it occupied was "legitimate and noble", the policy paper said. "Only the unconditional acceptance by Arabs of our rights is a solid basis for the future." After the clean break Israel would be free to shape its "strategic environment". What would that involve? Among other things, "re-establishing the principle of pre-emption (pre-emptive strikes)... focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq... weakening, containing and even rolling back Syria, Hizbollah and Iran."

In fact the commitment of Zionism's in-America fixers and their neo-con associates to getting rid of Saddam Hussein goes back further than 1996. They were angry when President Bush the First refused to complete the job when he assembled a coalition to eject Iraq from Kuwait. After that Zionism's in-America fixers and their neo-con associates needed two things – a president who was dumb enough to buy their ideas – they got that with George "Dubya" Bush; and a "Pearl Harbour" like event to trigger the action. They got that with 9/11.

But there was much more to it. 9/11 was a win-win for Zionism in a number of ways.

Predictably it provoked a rising tide of Islamophobia throughout the Western world and across America especially. In the minds of uninformed and ignorant Americans (i.e. most Americans), that in turn gave added credibility to the Zionist state's claim to be America's only true and reliable ally in the whole of the Arab and wider Muslim world.

As I say in the Dear America introduction to the American edition of Volume 1 of my book, when Americans asked "Why do they hate us?", they were more or less all Arabs and Muslims everywhere. And I ask this question: What would Americans have learned if, instead of rushing to declare his war on global terrorism, President Bush had caused the Why-do-they-hate-us question to be addressed seriously?

The short answer I give in my Dear America Introduction – the long answer is in the three volumes of my book – begins with the statement that the overwhelming majority of all Arabs and Muslims everywhere do NOT hate America or Americans. What almost all Arabs and Muslims everywhere DO hate is American foreign policy – its double standards in general and, in particular, its unconditional support for an Israel which ignores UN resolutions, demonstrates its contempt for international law and human rights conventions and resorts to state terrorism... A truth is that for decades very many Arabs and other Muslims would, if they could, have migrated to America to enjoy a better life there. Today, however, the number of Arabs and other Muslims who would opt for American residence and citizenship if they could is greatly reduced because of the fact, sad but true, that the monster of Islamophobia is on the prowl across the Land of the Free and licking its lips.

Unlike most Americans, most Arabs and other Muslims know that America's unconditional support for Israel is not in America's own best interests. In fact it's not in anybody's best interests including those of the Jews of the world and Israel itself.

* Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East. Author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. He blogs on www.alanhart.net and tweets on www.twitter.com/alanauthor

By Stephen Lendman* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

In February 2003, a Florida Court of Appeals unanimously ruled for Fox News, saying no rule or law prohibits distorting or falsifying news.

Just as Wall Street, war profiteers, Big Oil, Big Pharma, and other corporate favorites steal with impunity, it's OK for America's media to lie.

The ruling pertained to a 1996 Jane Akre/Steve Wilson Fox affiliate WTVT, Tampa reports on bovine growth hormone (BGH) dangers, Monsanto's hazardous to human health genetically engineered milk additive.

At first, the station loved them. Later, however, Fox executives and their attorneys ordered its reporters to admit falsifying evidence and produce bogus reports on BGH safety.

They refused, threatened to inform the FCC, were fired, and sued. A district court jury decided on their behalf, awarding Acre alone $425,000 in damages.

Fox appealed and won, the Appellate Court saying Acre wasn't protected under Florida's whistleblower statute, loosely interpreting it to mean employers must violate an adopted "law, rule, or regulation."

In other words, Fox simply followed "policy" entitling its stations to lie - whether on product safety or falsifying facts about anything, including 9/11 truth.

In 2005, Project Censored chose this story among its top 25 most important, titled "The Media Can Legally Lie," and lie they've done about 9/11 from that day to the present.

Those old enough to remember won't forget, including how media distortions turned it into perhaps the most hyped ever spectacle, especially on television.

For days, images of planes hitting the twin towers and their collapse were aired repeatedly.

A personal note. I was in a doctor's waiting room with others watching events on television. When the South Tower collapsed, everyone audibly gasped, unaware as I was how or why, let alone what lay next.

When the North Tower collapsed 30 minutes later, unsettling thoughts crystallized enough to make me sense much more was involved than met the eye or what news reports claimed.

It was almost anti-climactic when WTC 7 collapsed at 5:21PM. Notably, BBC's Jane Standley reported the event at 4:54PM New York time, 27 minutes in advance.

Later she claimed she didn't "remember minute-by-minute what she saw," or perhaps (like BBC's management) doesn't want to explain how she could report an event before it happened without advance knowledge.

Earlier in the afternoon, I smelled a rat and wrote my brother, saying: "They're drinking champagne in the White House tonight," precise words I'll never forgot. Yet they failed to imagine the horror-filled decade to come.

Back then, the whole world watched the horrific spectacle, including planes hitting the towers, both bursting into flames, desperate people jumping out of windows to avoid incineration, and then collapse at near free-fall speed, later proved (but unreported) by controlled demolitions.

A 2002 HBO film titled, "In Memoriam" called 9/11 "the most documented event in history," stopping short of revealing what really happened or why.

It provided a collage of images produced by news crews, filmmakers, amateur videographers and photographers, some of them risking their lives by so doing.

For three or more days, US television covered the event and its aftermath nonstop commercial free. In the process, they hyped war hysteria belligerently.

On October 7, 26 days later, it began against a nation having nothing to do with the attack. However, falsified reports held Osama bin Laden responsible. Later, the FBI admitted no evidence linked him to the incident.

Nonetheless, Washington demanded Taliban authorities extradite him. They, in turn, rightly wanted proof of his culpability.

None, of course, was provided to let the Bush administration go to war on false pretenses. March 2003 against Iraq followed.

Both wars rage today, besides Obama's naked aggression, notably against Libya - another nonbelligerent country America and its NATO allies systematically destroyed, butchering tens of thousands of Libyans on the pretext of protecting them.

America's post-9/11 decade is best called its visible fall from grace, waging permanent wars on humanity for wealth and power, never for falsified hyped reasons everyone needs to understand and condemn.

But don't expect America's media to explain. They're, in fact, complicit by regurgitating official lies, vilifying Islam, and resonating war fever discourse for intervention, featuring one-sided reports and commentaries.

Absent was critical debate. Vital questions weren't asked. Militarism instead was promoted as the solution to "global terrorism."

For days, political and military officials and spokespersons shared air time with so-called national security state experts and various crackpots, ranging from right-wing to hard-right to the lunatic fringe.

The common theme argued was that America was at war with Islam, Samuel Huntington's racist "clash of civilizations" notion, "good v. evil," "freedom (and our) way of life" against "forces of darkness."

Bush administration officials used cowboy metaphors, including wanting bin Laden "dead or alive," calling its campaign a "crusade" until criticism forced its change to "Operation Enduring Freedom," and vowing to "smoke out and pursue" barbaric evil doers.

Their underlying theme was fear because it sells, even when cause for it doesn't exist.

At the same time, Bush's "war on terrorism" didn't mention democracy, instead emphasizing his fighting for "freedom" mantra, no matter the human toll or illegitimacy of the Big (9/11) Lie, permitting America's war on the world to follow.

Inaugurated on January 20, 2001, his nationally televised address to Congress declared war on terrorism, describing a conflict between "those governed by fear (who) want to destroy our wealth and freedoms" and others wanting to defend it.

Thereafter, the major media hyped fear, promoted revenge, and defended falsified notions that Washington wages wars for freedom and democratic values by ridding nations of dangerous tyrants, especially ones threatening Americans.

In other words, wars of aggression are liberating ones. Civil and human rights are suppressed for our own good, and patriotism means going along with lawless governments, committing crimes of war and against humanity against one country after another.

Bin Laden and Al Qaeda replaced "the evil empire." Terrorism became the new mantra. Manichean good v. evil notions were hyped. Fear and hate overwhelmed sanity and defending right over wrong, as well as holding venal politicians accountable for acting lawlessly with impunity.

An earlier article explained that when America goes to war, managed news follows, spreading rumors, half-truths, misinformation, and willful deception about targeted nations, regimes, leaders, and other enemies, whether despots of democrats.

John Pilger said "Journalism is the first casualty" of war. "Not only that: it has become a weapon of war, a virulent censorship (and willful misreporting) that goes unrecognized in the United States, Britain and other democracies; censorship by omission (makes all) the difference between life and death for people in (targeted) countries...."

It suppresses debate, substitutes fiction for facts, filters out truth, and cheerleads in lockstep with government policy, right or wrong.

As a result, it supports America's right to be judge, jury and executioner, as well as get victor's spoils because that's why all wars are fought, never for falsified reasons, regurgitated on air and in print ad nauseam.

Because America's business is war, supported by its major media, war profiteering is a growth industry, and as famed comedian Jimmy Durante used to say:

"Everybody wants ta get inta da act," and they do.

In addition, not telling the truth and holding venal politicians accountable for taking America to war on false pretenses lets them do it again with impunity.

At best, damage control tactics follow, including Bush officials relying on 9/11 Commission liars to let them off the hook by sanitizing policy and concealing facts.

David Ray Griffin brilliantly exposed them in his book titled, "The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions." He explained that Bush officials "deliberately" failed to prevent the attacks or, in fact, were "actively involved in (their) planning and execution...."

His introduction calls his book important because of the significant consequences of 9/11, taking America to war on false pretenses, and its major media lying about it supportively.

His reasons for wanting to examine the 9/11 Commission's report included:

• to determine if Bush's "war on terrorism" response to 9/11 was appropriate;
• to learn if the Commission's account was "definitive;" and
• "whether the success of the attacks would have been less likely if the recommended structural changes had already been in place."

A fourth reason was the "possibility of a cover-up," and indeed that's precisely what happened. Instead of "provid(ing) the fullest possible account of the events surrounding 9/11," damage control suppressed them.

The Commission, of course, was hardly "nonpartisan," "impartial," or "thorough," especially with Philip Zelikow as executive director, a Republican Bush administration member at the time, appointed to assure whitewash, not full disclosure.

In his exhaustive account, Griffin brilliantly, "painstaking(ly) and devasting(ly) demoli(shed)" the Commissions findings, according to Peter Dale Scott.

Though Griffin didn't address America's media, he nonetheless exposed its complicit role. They regurgitated Commission lies as truth, the way they always represent powerful interests at the expense of good journalism, commentaries and full disclosure.

To this day, 9/11 mythology remains official dogma on air and in print. As a result, most Americans remain unaware of the biggest lie of our time and its horrific consequences, touching their lives directly.

A Final Comment

Sunday marks the 10th 9/11 anniversary. This writer plans two more articles about the big lie and its aftermath to be published on or about the date.

On September 10 and 11, the Progressive Radio News Hour will feature more discussion on it, especially its horrific consequences.

Expect America's media also to react. The Washington Post already features "Full coverage: Remembering 9/11," with features headlined:

"After 9/11, security guard on high alert," against what wasn't explained.

"Brought together by catastrophe," focusing on marriage vows exchanged, not 9/11 truth.

"Twin misses his other half," killed in the attack on the Pentagon, instead of explaining the toll on millions of dead Afghans, Iraqis, and their families, their countries destroyed by US lawlessness.

"Trying to find the new normal," about a wife coping in the aftermath of her military husband's death, again ignoring a global catastrophe because of America's post-9/11 wars.

On September 4, New York Times writers Jeremy Peters and Brian Stelter headlined, "Media Strive to Cover 9/11 Without Seeming to Exploit a Tragedy," saying:

Coverage of its 10th anniversary will walk "a fine line between commemoration and exploitation. Mindful of this, television networks and magazines and others planning special coverage....are approaching it differently," some commercial free.

Unfortunately, freedom from truth already is featured. Neither writer explained, instead saying news outlets will vary in their approach with special print and on air specials.

As on previous anniversaries, they'll cover everything except what Americans most need to know - the truth.

* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon.

By Philip A. Farruggio * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Seven Days in May - original film poster

What really happened on that day, now nearly 10 years ago? So many books and theories have been brought forth, yet our mainstream media, controlled by ...you guessed it, seems to discount most if not all of those theories. The purpose of this column is not to go down that road. Google 9/11 Truth or David Ray Griffin and check out the myriad of resource material available. The bottom line is that the Military Industrial Complex and the Cabal of nameless individuals made lots of money and extended our American empire because of that day. The coup that occurred on November 22, 1963 helped pave the way for it. There is a fine book, JFK and the Unspeakable, which came out last year. Read it! Oliver Stone, who was vilified after he made his JFK film, was hitting home with some powerful truths. The critics who trashed it simply took the few times that Stone used artistic license to mislead the public away from the historical facts. Those facts were that we did have a Coup d'e tat in 1963, and that we have never, as a nation, been able to counteract it.

On September 11, 2011, we will see and hear a slew of remembrances for the fallen. I say rightly so that we Americans remember the civilians killed in the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and in those planes. I would hope (and pray) that we Americans also reflect upon our need to finally have closure on what really may have gone down that day. The 9/11 Commission was partly a 'whitewash 'and completely a cop-out! The effect of that dastardly day was first the Patriot Act, whereupon the Bill of Rights was trashed. Then we had our Congress, more concerned about the upcoming elections than our Constitution, who overwhelmingly gave up its own exclusive right to declare war. Finally, we had an empire, really on its last legs, which needed to show force and Shock and Awe innocent people to death. There will be no ceremonies on September 11^th for those hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead, or the 4000+ young Americans killed in that hornet's nest... Our hornet's nest!

All of a sudden American foreign policy trumpets the need to 'Bring democracy to the world.' And now, they change the faces and the political ornaments, these masters behind the Military Industrial Complex curtains. Back at home, we have a 2 Party con job that will not allow for any real ideas of needed change, whether they are economic or political. Sadly, as our nation falls deeper into a depression ( financially and emotionally ) few seem to challenge the Military Industrial Complex that even Cold War warrior President Eisenhower chose to warn us about... much too late! No, the hypocrites who wear those Republican, Democrat and Tea Party buttons on their election cycle lapels only care about serving the empire. Who is this empire? Who makes bundles of money from phony wars, illegal invasions and occupations? Who earns profits from those fantastic up and down swings of the S& P? Yet, they still pull the strings and watch the obedient lemmings march to the edge of the cliff of reason. Swim anyone?

* Philip A. Farruggio is son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen. He is a small businessman, activist leader and free lance columnist. Philip is an advocate for the 25% Solution to cut military spending to save our state and city budget shortfalls. Since the 2000 elections, he has written over 250 columns, many posted on various sites worldwide. Philip can be reached at paf1222@bellsouth.net.

By Noam Chomsky * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

This is the 10th anniversary of the horrendous atrocities of Sept. 11, 2001, which, it is commonly held, changed the world.

The impact of the attacks is not in doubt. Just keeping to western and central Asia: Afghanistan is barely surviving, Iraq has been devastated and Pakistan is edging closer to a disaster that could be catastrophic.
On May 1, 2011, the presumed mastermind of the crime, Osama bin Laden, was assassinated in Pakistan. The most immediate significant consequences have also occurred in Pakistan. There has been much discussion of Washington’s anger that Pakistan didn’t turn over bin Laden. Less has been said about the fury among Pakistanis that the U.S. invaded their territory to carry out a political assassination. Anti-American fervor had already intensified in Pakistan, and these events have stoked it further.

One of the leading specialists on Pakistan, British military historian Anatol Lieven, wrote in The National Interest in February that the war in Afghanistan is “destabilizing and radicalizing Pakistan, risking a geopolitical catastrophe for the United States – and the world – which would dwarf anything that could possibly occur in Afghanistan.”

At every level of society, Lieven writes, Pakistanis overwhelmingly sympathize with the Afghan Taliban, not because they like them but because “the Taliban are seen as a legitimate force of resistance against an alien occupation of the country,” much as the Afghan mujahedeen were perceived when they resisted the Russian occupation in the 1980s.

These feelings are shared by Pakistan’s military leaders, who bitterly resent U.S. pressures to sacrifice themselves in Washington’s war against the Taliban. Further bitterness comes from the terror attacks (drone warfare) by the U.S. within Pakistan, the frequency of which was sharply accelerated by President Obama; and from U.S. demands that the Pakistani army carry Washington’s war into tribal areas of Pakistan that had been pretty much left on their own, even under British rule.

The military is the stable institution in Pakistan, holding the country together. U.S. actions might “provoke a mutiny of parts of the military,” Lieven writes, in which case “the Pakistani state would collapse very quickly indeed, with all the disasters that this would entail.”

The potential disasters are drastically heightened by Pakistan’s huge, rapidly growing nuclear weapons arsenal, and by the country’s substantial jihadi movement.

Both of these are legacies of the Reagan administration. Reagan officials pretended they did not know that Zia ul-Haq, the most vicious of Pakistan’s military dictators and a Washington favorite, was developing nuclear weapons and carrying out a program of radical Islamization of Pakistan with Saudi funding.

The catastrophe lurking in the background is that these two legacies might combine, with fissile materials leaking into the hands of jihadis. Thus we might see nuclear weapons, most likely “dirty bombs,” exploding in London and New York.

Lieven summarizes: “U.S. and British soldiers are in effect dying in Afghanistan in order to make the world more dangerous for American and British peoples.”

Surely Washington understands that U.S. operations in what has been christened “Afpak” – Afghanistan-Pakistan – might destabilize and radicalize Pakistan.

The most significant WikiLeaks documents to have been released so far are the cables from U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson in Islamabad, who supports U.S. actions in Afpak but warns that they “risk destabilizing the Pakistani state, alienating both the civilian government and military leadership, and provoking a broader governance crisis in Pakistan â(euro) .125.”

Patterson writes of the possibility that “someone working in (Pakistani government) facilities could gradually smuggle enough fissile material out to eventually make a weapon,” a danger enhanced by “the vulnerability of weapons in transit.”

A number of analysts have observed that bin Laden won some major successes in his war against the United States.

As Eric S. Margolis writes in The American Conservative in May, “(bin Laden) repeatedly asserted that the only way to drive the U.S. from the Muslim world and defeat its satraps was by drawing Americans into a series of small but expensive wars that would ultimately bankrupt them.”

That Washington seemed bent on fulfilling bin Laden’s wishes was evident immediately after the 9/11 attacks.

In his 2004 book “Imperial Hubris,” Michael Scheuer, a senior CIA analyst who had tracked Osama bin Laden since 1996, explains: “Bin Laden has been precise in telling America the reasons he is waging war on us. (He) is out to drastically alter U.S. and Western policies toward the Islamic world,” and largely achieved his goal.

He continues: “U.S. forces and policies are completing the radicalization of the Islamic world, something Osama bin Laden has been trying to do with substantial but incomplete success since the early 1990s. As a result, I think it is fair to conclude that the United States of America remains bin Laden’s only indispensable ally.” And arguably remains so, even after his death.

The succession of horrors across the past decade leads to the question: Was there an alternative to the West’s response to the 9/11 attacks?

The jihadi movement, much of it highly critical of bin Laden, could have been split and undermined after 9/11, if the “crime against humanity,” as the attacks were rightly called, had been approached as a crime, with an international operation to apprehend the suspects. That was recognized at the time, but no such idea was even considered in the rush to war. It is worth adding that bin Laden was condemned in much of the Arab world for his part in the attacks.

By the time of his death, bin Laden had long been a fading presence, and in the previous months was eclipsed by the Arab Spring. His significance in the Arab world is captured by the headline in a New York Times article by Middle East specialist Gilles Kepel: “Bin Laden Was Dead Already.”

That headline might have been dated far earlier, had the U.S. not mobilized the jihadi movement with retaliatory attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq.
Within the jihadi movement, bin Laden was doubtless a venerated symbol but apparently didn’t play much more of a role for al-Qaida, this “network of networks,” as analysts call it, which undertake mostly independent operations.

Even the most obvious and elementary facts about the decade lead to bleak reflections when we consider 9/11 and its consequences, and what they portend for the future.

* Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and pressor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Techonology. Chomsky is well known in the academic and scientific communities as one of the fathers of modern linguistics, and a major figure of analytic philosophy. Chomsky is the author of more than 150 books and has received worldwide attention for his views.

By Anthony Lawson* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

This video concentrates on the two major 9/11 issues: The Unidentified Planes and The Controlled Demolitions. Nothing else. It does not mention the NORAD stand--down; the don't-fly and don't-go-to-work warnings or the Dancing Israelis or any of the other anomalies and suspicious happenings. The alleged amateur suicide pilots are not mentioned, either, for obvious reasons, and I do not know what happened to the allegedly hijacked planes or their alleged passengers and crews.

It is my contention that the 9/11 Truth Movement has got to concentrate on the most blatant and provable lies in the official story, and stop trying to be an amateur Police Precinct or a citizen's District Attorney's Office. The Movement must bring pressure to bear in the authorities for a new enquiry, so that the police, the FBI, the NTSB and all of the other law enforcement and investigative agencies can do what should have been done 10 years ago: Find out who was responsible for the crime of the attacks on 9/11 and bring them to justice.

Video link: http://youtu.be/wF-Rp4W_ABE

While I was thinking about a video for the 10th anniversary of 9/11, an English artist named David Borrington got in touch, and asked if I would write and record some voice commentaries to be included in a set of prints that he was making for the same occasion. When I saw his strangely haunting artwork, I decided to incorporate David's images into my video. So, my sincere thanks go to David Borrington, whose website is www.davidborrington.com

I would also like to recommend that anyone who is interested in the research done on the Murray Street engine take a look at Christopher King's excellent web page.

Music: Adagietto - 4th Movement from Gustav Mahler's Symphony No.5

* Anthony Lawson (known professionally as Tony Lawson) is a retired international-prize-winning commercials director, cameraman, ad agency creative director and voice over. He used to be known for shooting humorous commercials, but doesn’t find much to laugh about, with the way the world is going, these days.

They are part of the national fabric that holds our country together. They contribute to America in many ways, and deserve the same respect as any of us. My Fellow American pledge to spread this message, and affirm the country's principles of liberty and justice for all.

Take the pledge: http://myfellowamerican.us/pledge

Video link: http://youtu.be/cjm0uk2JO58

By Paul J. Balles * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

The biggest political mistake I've ever made was to vote for Barack Obama. I should have known that a really great campaign speaker and organizer would probably make an inept president.

All of Obama's emphatic talk about change sounded appealing; even though Washington has proven so often that it's incapable of changing. There are just too many self-interests needing trade-offs with other self-interests, none of which has public needs in mind.

The fact that Obama opposed the Iraq War carried a lot of weight with those who don't believe America should mind everybody else's business.

Many had enough of Bush-Cheney war-mongering for the neo-cons (aka American Zionists who desperately wanted America to take out Iraq before Saddam Hussein could wage the mother of all WMDs against Israel).

So the Zioncons made up stories, pretended that fiction was fact and lied about non-existent WMDs.

Some argue they even went so far as to arrange for the slaughter of 3000 plus people on 9/11 with Israel's help.

Let's say Mossad, Israel's intelligence deceivers, speaking perfect Arabic and pretending to be Arabs, infiltrated an Al Qaeda cell and hatched a plan to highjack four planes; and that would show everyone how clever Al Qaeda was.

Of course the hijackers knew nothing about any plan to fly into buildings like kamikaze pilots on a suicide mission.

Once they got into the air and managed to get control of the planes, there would be nothing else the hijackers had to do. Thank you very much; everything would now be on remote control, with planes being flown like drones and directed by the Pentagon.

All the Israeli-firsters needed to do now was trigger the already placed thermal devices in the Trade Centre buildings just before the time the flying drones were guided into the top of the twin towers.

Another plane was droned into a largely unoccupied wing of the Pentagon, and the last--not allowed to fly into the White House--was shot down over Pennsylvania.

The whole story is perfect enough to allow Bush to continue reading to school children in Florida and for Cheney to pretend fear of terror while hiding in a bunker under the White House.

Of course the dots had to be connected between hijackers and Al Qaeda who at first knew nothing about the operation, and later -Bin Laden hearing they were blamed for 9/11- ignorantly accepted credit.

Is there any better rationale for assassinating Bin Laden, once he was allowed to be found, than to keep him from eventually testifying that he had nothing to do with 9/11?

Once Bin Laden claimed credit for bombing America, the Taliban refused to turn him over to US authorities without evidence that Bin Laden was indeed guilty.

That provided enough reason for America to gather a coalition of 9/11 sympathizers to agree to invade Afghanistan. Does anyone seriously believe it took 10 years to find Bin Laden? Certainly Obama must know better!

Before locating and capturing the Al Qaeda mastermind, it was necessary to go to war with Iraq. In order to do that, Iraq had to be associated with the reign of terror connecting the triumvirate of evil: Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

North Korea was simply thrown into Bush's Axis of Evil to send a message to China while pretending that the US wasn't focusing only on Middle Eastern threats to Israel.

Now here's Barack Obama, foster child of Bush-Cheney, trying to prove to the Zioncons (who have already jumped ship) that he's as much a warrior for Israel as his predecessors were.

Shame on me for ignoring the lessons of history: a great campaigner can make an inept leader!

* Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. He's a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the Gulf Daily News. Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month.

By Ray McGovern* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

With few exceptions, like some salacious rumor about the Kennedy family, the mainstream U.S. news media has shown little interest in stories that throw light on history - even recent, very relevant history. So it comes as no surprise that, when a former White House counter-terrorism czar accuses an ex-CIA director of sitting on information that could have prevented a 9/11 attack, the story gets neither ink nor air.

Bulletin for those of you who get your information only from the New York Times, the Washington Post and other outlets of the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM): Former White House director for counterterrorism Richard Clarke has accused former CIA Director George Tenet of denying him and others access to intelligence that could have thwarted the attack on the Pentagon on 9/11.

Deliberately withholding critical intelligence from those who need it, and can act on it, is - at the least - gross dereliction of duty. The more so if keeping the White House promptly and fully informed is at the top of your job jar, as it was for Director of Central Intelligence Tenet. And yet that is precisely the charge Clarke has leveled at the former DCI.

In an interview aired on Aug. 11 on a local PBS affiliate in Colorado, Clarke charges that Tenet and two other senior CIA officials, Cofer Black and Richard Blee, deliberately withheld information about two of the hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77 - al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar. The two had entered the United States more than a year before the 9/11 attacks.

Clarke adds that the CIA then covered it all up by keeping relevant information away from Congress and the 9/11 Commission.

Lying by senior officials is bad enough, and there is now plenty of evidence that former CIA Director George Tenet and his closest agency associates are serial offenders. Think for a minute about the falsehoods spread regarding Iraq's non-existent "weapons of mass destruction" stockpiles.

But withholding intelligence on two of the 9/11 hijackers would have been particularly unconscionable - the epitome of malfeasance, not just misfeasance. That's why Richard Clarke's conclusion that he should have received information from CIA about al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar, "unless somebody intervened to stop the normal automatic distribution" amounts, in my view, to a criminal charge, given the eventual role of the two in the hijacking on 9/11 of AA-77, the plane that struck the Pentagon.

Tenet has denied that the information on the two hijackers was "intentionally withheld" from Clarke, and he has enlisted the other two former CIA operatives, Cofer Black (more recently a senior official of Blackwater) and Richard Blee (an even more shadowy figure), to concur in saying, Not us; we didn't withhold.

Whom to believe? To me, it's a no-brainer. One would have to have been born yesterday to regard the "George is right" testimony from Black and Blee as corroborative.

Tenet's Dubious Credibility

Tenet is the same fellow who provided the "slam dunk" on the existence of "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, as well as the "artist renderings" of equally non-existent mobile laboratories for developing biological warfare agents, based on unconfirmed information from the impostor code-named (appropriately) "Curveball."

It was Tenet who, under orders from President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, ordered up and disseminated a fraudulent National Intelligence Estimate on WMD in Iraq, the purpose of which was to deceive our elected representatives out of their constitutional prerogative to authorize war. No small lies.

After a five-year investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee, Chairman Jay Rockefeller described the intelligence adduced under Tenet to "justify" attacking Iraq as "uncorroborated, contradicted, and non-existent." Good enough to win Tenet the Presidential Medal of Freedom, though. The corruption of intelligence worked just fine for the purposes of Bush and Cheney, thank you very much.

It is a actually a matter of record that Tenet lies a lot - on occasion, displaying what I would call chutzpah on steroids. Recall, for example, Tenet in April 2007 snarling at Scott Pelley on "60 Minutes" - five times, in five consecutive sentences - "We do not torture people."

Even Under Oath

Tenet has lied about 9/11, too. The joint statement from Tenet, Black and Blee – orchestrated by former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow – concludes: "We testified under oath about what we did, what we knew and what we didn't know. We stand by that testimony."

Almost made me laugh ... almost.

In his sworn testimony to the 9/11 Commission on April 14, 2004, Tenet said he had not spoken to Bush - even on the telephone - during the entire month of August 2001.

But Tenet did fly down to see the President in Crawford - not once, but twice during August 2001, and briefed Bush again in Washington on the 31st.

After the TV cameras at the 9/11 Commission hearing were shut off, Bill Harlow phoned the commission staff to say, Oops, sorry, Tenet misspoke. Even then, Harlow admitted only to Tenet's Aug. 17 visit to Crawford (and to the briefing on the 31st).

How do we know Tenet was again in Crawford, on Aug. 24? From a White House press release quoting President Bush to that effect - information somehow completely missed by our vigilant Fawning Corporate Media.

Funny, too, how Tenet could have forgotten his first visit to Crawford on Aug. 17. In his memoir, At the Center of the Storm, Tenet waxes eloquent about the "president graciously driving me around the spread in his pickup and me trying to make small talk about the flora and the fauna." But the visit was not limited to small talk.

In his book Tenet writes: "A few weeks after the August 6 PDB was delivered, I followed it to Crawford to make sure the president stayed current on events." The Aug. 6, 2001, President's Daily Brief contained the article "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US." According to Ron Suskind's The One-Percent Doctrine, the president reacted by telling the CIA briefer, "All right, you've covered your ass now."

If, as Tenet says in his memoir, it was the Aug. 6, 2001, PDB that prompted his visit on Aug. 17, what might have brought him back on Aug. 24? I believe the answer can be found in court documents released at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the fledgling pilot in Minnesota interested in learning to steer a plane but indifferent as to how to land it.

Those documents show that on Aug. 23, 2001, Tenet was given an alarming briefing focusing on Moussaoui, titled "Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly." Tenet was told that Moussaoui was training to fly a 747 and, among other suspicion-arousing data, had paid for the training in cash.

It is an open question - if a key one - whether Tenet told Bush about the two hijackers, al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar, while keeping that key information from the person who most needed it - White House counter-terrorist czar Richard Clarke. Clarke finds the only plausible explanation in his surmise that Tenet was personally responsible. Clarke says:

"For me to this day, it is inexplicable, when I had every other detail about everything related to terrorism, that the director didn't tell me, that the director of the counterterrorism center didn't tell me, that the other 48 people inside CIA that knew about it never mentioned it to me or anyone in my staff in a period of over 12 months."

Enter Harlow

But Tenet's aide-de-camp Bill Harlow has branded Clarke's statements "absurd and patently false." And the statement Harlow shepherded for Tenet, Black and Blee adds "reckless and profoundly wrong ... baseless ... belied by the record ... unworthy of serious consideration."

And Harlow never lies? Right. I'm reminded of Harlow's reaction to Newsweek's publication on Feb. 24, 2003, of the intelligence information provided by Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel when he defected to Jordan in 1995. Kamel brought with him a treasure trove of documents and unique knowledge of Iraq's putative "weapons of mass destruction."

Most significantly, he told his U.S. debriefers there were no WMD in Iraq. He knew. He had been in charge of Iraq's chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs for almost a decade, and he ordered what weapons existed destroyed before the U.N. inspectors could discover them after the war in 1991. In his words:

"I ordered the destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons - biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed."

He told the U.S. much more, and the information that could be checked out was confirmed. But Kamel's information didn't fit with the Bush administration's propaganda regarding its certainty that Iraq did have WMD stockpiles and was defying United Nations demands that the WMD be destroyed.

Those pushing the Iraq War juggernaut in early 2003 almost had a conniption when Newsweek acquired a transcript of Kamel's debriefing and published this potentially explosive story barely three weeks before the invasion.

Newsweek noted gingerly that this information "raises questions about whether the WMD stockpiles attributed to Iraq still exist." It was, in fact, the kind of impeccably sourced documentary evidence after which intelligence analysts and lawyers lust.

But this was not at all what Bush, Cheney, and - by sycophantic extension - Tenet wanted Newsweek readers, or the rest of us, to learn less than a month before the U.S./U.K. attack on Iraq ostensibly to find and destroy those non-existent weapons.

Bill Harlow to the rescue: he told the FCM in no uncertain terms that the Newsweek story was, "incorrect, bogus, wrong, untrue." And the media cheerleaders for war breathed a sigh of relief, saying, Gosh, thanks for telling us, and then dropped the story like a hot potato.

By all indications, Harlow is still able to work his fraudulent magic on the FCM, which have virtually ignored this major Clarke v. Tenet story since it broke six days ago.

If Harlow says it's not true ... and hurls still more pejorative epithets and adjectives, in a crude attempt to discredit the very serious charge Clarke has made ... well, I guess we'll have to leave it there, as the FCM is so fond of saying.

No matter Clarke's well-deserved reputation for honesty and professionalism - and Tenet's for the opposite. And so it goes.

* Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. As a CIA analyst, he served under seven presidents and nine CIA directors; he is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

While we were not watching, conspiracy theory has undergone Orwellian redefinition.

A "conspiracy theory" no longer means an event explained by a conspiracy. Instead, it now means any explanation, or even a fact, that is out of step with the government’s explanation and that of its media pimps.

For example, online news broadcasts of RT have been equated with conspiracy theories by the New York Times simply because RT reports news and opinions that the New York Times does not report and the US government does not endorse.

In other words, as truth becomes uncomfortable for government and its Ministry of Propaganda, truth is redefined as conspiracy theory, by which is meant an absurd and laughable explanation that we should ignore.

When piles of carefully researched books, released government documents, and testimony of eye witnesses made it clear that Oswald was not President John F. Kennedy’s assassin, the voluminous research, government documents, and verified testimony was dismissed as "conspiracy theory."

In other words, the truth of the event was unacceptable to the authorities and to the Ministry of Propaganda that represents the interests of authorities.

The purest example of how Americans are shielded from truth is the media’s (including many Internet sites’) response to the large number of professionals who find the official explanation of September 11, 2001, inconsistent with everything they, as experts, know about physics, chemistry, structural engineering, architecture, fires, structural damage, the piloting of airplanes, the security procedures of the United States, NORAD’s capabilities, air traffic control, airport security, and other matters. These experts, numbering in the thousands, have been shouted down by know-nothings in the media who brand the experts as "conspiracy theorists."

This despite the fact that the official explanation endorsed by the official media is the most extravagant conspiracy theory in human history.

Let’s take a minute to re-acquaint ourselves with the official explanation, which is not regarded as a conspiracy theory despite the fact that it comprises an amazing conspiracy. The official truth is that a handful of young Muslim Arabs who could not fly airplanes, mainly Saudi Arabians who came neither from Iraq nor from Afghanistan, outwitted not only the CIA and the FBI, but also all 16 US intelligence agencies and all intelligence agencies of US allies including Israel’s Mossad, which is believed to have penetrated every terrorist organization and which carries out assassinations of those whom Mossad marks as terrorists.

In addition to outwitting every intelligence agency of the United States and its allies, the handful of young Saudi Arabians outwitted the National Security Council, the State Department, NORAD, airport security four times in the same hour on the same morning, air traffic control, caused the US Air Force to be unable to launch interceptor aircraft, and caused three well-built steel-structured buildings, including one not hit by an airplane, to fail suddenly in a few seconds as a result of limited structural damage and small, short-lived, low-temperature fires that burned on a few floors.

The Saudi terrorists were even able to confound the laws of physics and cause WTC building seven to collapse at free fall speed for several seconds, a physical impossibility in the absence of explosives used in controlled demolition.

The story that the government and the media have told us amounts to a gigantic conspiracy, really a script for a James Bond film. Yet, anyone who doubts this improbable conspiracy theory is defined into irrelevance by the obedient media.

Prof. Niels Harrit

In America today, and increasingly throughout the Western world, actual facts and true explanations have been relegated to the realm of kookiness. Only people who believe lies are socially approved and accepted as patriotic citizens.

Indeed, a writer or newscaster is not even permitted to report the findings of 9/11 skeptics. In other words, simply to report Professor Harrit’s findings now means that you endorse them or agree with them. Everyone in the US print and TV media knows that he/she will be instantly fired if they report Harrit’s findings, even with a laugh. Thus, although Harrit has reported his findings on European television and has lectured widely on his findings in Canadian universities, the fact that he and the international scientific research team that he led found unreacted nano-thermite in the WTC dust and have offered samples to other scientists to examine has to my knowledge never been reported in the American media.

Even Internet sites on which I am among the readers’ favorites will not allow me to report on Harrit’s findings.

Beam cut in straight line in exact same fashion as a controlled demolition

The unwillingness or inability to entertain any view of 9/11 different from the official view dooms to impotence many Internet sites that are opposed to the wars and to the rise of the domestic US police state. These sites, for whatever the reasons, accept the government’s explanation of 9/11; yet, they try to oppose the "war on terror" and the police state which are the consequences of accepting the government’s explanation. Trying to oppose the consequences of an event whose explanation you accept is an impossible task.

If you believe that America was attacked by Muslim terrorists and is susceptible to future attacks, then a "war on terror" and a domestic police state to root out terrorists become necessary to make Americans safe. The idea that a domestic police state and open-ended war might be more dangerous threats to Americans than terrorists is an impermissible thought.

A country whose population has been trained to accept the government’s word and to shun those who question it is a country without liberty in its future.

* Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His latest book, How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds . He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

Niels Harrit interview:

Video link: http://youtu.be/0lU-vu2JvZY

By Stephen Lendman * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Wikipedia defines false or black flags as "covert operations designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities."

They're "big lies," defined by Merriam-Webster as "deliberate gross distortion(s) of the truth used especially as a propaganda tactic."

America's decade from September 11, 2001 to May 1, 2011 was punctuated by the (big) lie of our time and (big) lie of the moment.

Put another way, the official stories are falsified, myths, widely believed fantasies contrary to reality.

In his exhaustive research and writings, David Ray Griffin provided convincing evidence that 9/11 was an inside job and that bin Laden died of natural causes in mid-December 2001.

The former spawned a decade of overt and covert "war on terror" lawlessness at home and abroad. Policies and events following the second have yet to unfold, but expect little at best to be positive.

Past US false flags provided pretexts for militarism, wars, occupations, domestic repression, and national security state extremism, antithetical to democratically free and open societies. Allegedly removing America's "Enemy Number One," in fact, may intensify, not diminish, Washington's scheme for unchallengeable global dominance. More on him below.

With or without bin Laden, bogymen threats are plentiful. Since WW II alone, America's had numerous ones, including communists, Al Qaeda, WMDs, the Taliban, Gaddafi, and a host others yet unnamed, as well as numerous "foiled" domestic ones.

Among others, they include:

• a fake shoe bomber;
• fake underwear bomber;
• fake Times Square bomber;
• an earlier one there;
• fake shampoo bombers;
• fake Al Qaeda woman planning fake mass casualty attacks on New York landmarks;
• fake Oregon bomber;
• fake armed forces recruiting station bomber;
• fake synagogue bombers;
• fake Chicago Sears Tower bombers;
• fake FBI and other building bombers;
• fake National Guard, Fort Dix and Quantico marine base attackers;
• fake 9/11 bombers; and
• others to enlist public support for the fake war on terror and very real ones it spawned.

America, Pakistan, Bin Laden, Official Lies, and Misreporting

On May 5, New York Times writer Elisabeth Bumiller headlined, "Pentagon Breaks Silence on Pakistani Role," saying:

A "top Pentagon official said....Pakistan would have to work hard to rebuild relations with the United States Congress," including a commitment "to fighting terrorism...."

It suggests what some analysts suspect: namely, planned destabilization, confrontation, and balkanization for greater Eurasian control, as well as future terrorist false flags.

On May 5, Times writers Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane headlined, "Data Show Bin Laden Plots; CIA Hid Near Raided House," saying:

Alleged "computer files and documents seized at the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed," reveal "considered attacks on American railroads, (but) there was no evidence of a specific plot."

Perhaps no files and documents either. For sure, no bin Laden.

Nonetheless, "(s)ince Sunday night, counterterrorism officials have been alert to (possible) new attacks from Al Qaeda to avenge its leader's death," especially at airports, rail facilities, and other strategic locations. "American officials and terrorism experts have warned that this is not the end of Al Qaeda," not, of course, if they're blamed for planned false flags to intensify US imperial wars.

Another May 5 Bumiller Times report ran cover for shifting official accounts about what really happened on May 1 headlined, "Raid Account, Hastily Told, Proves Fluid," saying:

"(I)t was a classic collision of a White House desire to promote a stunning national security triumph - and feed a ravenous media - while collecting facts from a chaotic military operation on the other side of the world. At the same time, White House officials worked hard to use the facts of the raid to diminish Bin Laden's legacy."

She continued, quoting an unnamed Pentagon official claiming no "intent to deceive or dramatize," adding that "Everything we put out we really believed to be true at the time." She also quoted Victoria Clarke, Bush Pentagon spokeswoman, saying, "First reports are always wrong. It's a fundamental truth in military affairs."

In other words, it was OK first to claim a fierce firefight in which no US forces were killed or hurt, then 24 hours later call the battle one-sided, Navy Seals quickly dispatching bin Laden's guards and "Enemy Number One," shooting him unarmed in the head.

Notably, however, there's no body, no photos, no video, no evidence, and no truth, just the media regurgitated big lie.

In fact, more lies compounded it, including about:

• Pakistan's alleged knowledge of his presence;
• claimed evidence confirming it and assault specifics; and
• fabricated bad theater, explained in a slapdash, keystone cops manner.

High Level Skepticism

Appearing on CNN May 5, former Pakistani intelligence chief, Hamid Gul, told "In the Arena's" host Eliot Spitzer that bin Laden died years earlier, saying:

"Yes, I think he died - he perished some years ago, and I think this was a story which was created (because) nobody would want to believe this version....I (don't believe) the story which was given out by the American media and by the American administration."

Whoever was killed May 1 "was probably somebody else....(American authorities) must have known that he died some years ago....were keeping this story on the ice and they were looking for an appropriate moment" to announce it.

"(P)eople simply not in Pakistan alone but around the world....don't believe the stories that have been put out."

In other words, the entire account was fabricated, the event staged, Western media, including The New York Times, running cover for the big lie. Gul politely called it "a huge intelligence failure."

Notable American and Other False Flags

Discussed in earlier writing, numerous ones stand out, including:

• In 1898, Spain was falsely accused of blowing up the USS Maine in Havana, Cuba harbor. The Spanish-American war followed.
• On May 7, 1915, a German U-boat was accused of torpedoing the RMS Lusitania, killing 128 US citizens. It helped precipitate America's April 4, 1917 WW I entry, a war Woodrow Wilson wanted and got through a propaganda campaign, turning pacifist Americans into German haters. It was later learned that on board munitions, not a torpedo, exploded, sinking the ship.
• In 1933 Germany, a week before general elections, the strategically timed Reichstag fire (home of the German parliament) was blamed on communists. President Paul von Hindenburg's emergency decree followed. Civil liberties were suspended. Weimar Republic democracy ended, and Hitler assumed fascist powers after enough Nazis were elected to assure it.
• On August 31, 1939, Nazis impersonating Polish terrorists attacked the Gleiwitz radio station on the border between the two countries, starting WW II.
• On December 7, 1941, Roosevelt manipulated Japan to attack Pearl Harbor, giving him the war he wanted from the early 1930s, but had to convince a pacifist public of the threat. The fleet was also tracked across the Pacific, but Admiral HE Kimmel wasn't warned or given known intelligence to assure enough mass casualties for congressional and public support.
• Complicit with Washington, numerous 1949/1950 South Korean incursions north precipitated Pyongyang's retaliation in June 1950, giving Truman the war he wanted.
• In 1962, a US Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed false flag never happened because Kennedy rejected it. Called Operation Northwoods (a part of Operation Mongoose), it included sinking US ships, shooting down US commercial airliners, blowing up buildings in US cities, attacking America's Guantanamo base, other incidents, and blaming it on Cuba as a reason for war.
• The fake August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident initiated full-scale retaliation against North Vietnam after Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing war without declaring it.
• In October 1983, after ousting Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, US forces invaded Grenada, allegedly to rescue American medical students threatened by nonbelligerent Cubans building infrastructure.
• In December 1989, manufactured incidents precipitated America's Panama invasion, deposing Manuel Noriega, one-time ally turned enemy because he forgot who's boss.
• in August 1990, Washington colluded with the al- Sabah monarchy, entrapping Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait. In January 1991, it launched the Gulf War, followed by over two decades of sanctions, more war occupation, and destruction of the "cradle of civilization."
• The September 11, 2001 false flag operation launched a decade of imperial wars against Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Palestine allied with Israel, perhaps others to come, as well as proxy wars in Somalia, Yemen, Bahrain, Central Africa, Haiti, Honduras, Colombia, and at home against Muslims, Latino immigrants, and working Americas.

On February 16, 2010, a Washington's blog web site (georgewashington2.blogspot.com) article titled, "Governments ADMIT That They Carry Out False Flag Terror" listed examples, including:

• The CIA admitted its 1950s role in toppling Iran's democratically government in 1953.
• Israel acknowledged a 1954 attack in Egypt, including planting bombs in US diplomatic facilities, leaving "evidence" of Arab involvement.
• Indonesia's former president, Abdurrahman Wahid, said the nation's police or military most likely were involved in the 2002 Bali bombing, killing over 200 people.
• A former Italian prime minister, judge, and military counterintelligence head, General Gianadelio Maletti, said America's CIA instigated and abetted right wing terrorist groups in the 1970s and earlier, including bombing a Milan bank in 1969 to rally popular anti-communist support in Italy and other European countries.
• Many others, including former Carter administration National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, telling a Senate committee that a false flag terror attack on US soil might occur to blame Iran and justify war.

In his 1997 book, "The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives," he said:

"Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat," the kind 9/11 created - predicted, planned, orchestrated, and carried out to further new world order global dominance.

Other False Flag Examples

• The March 2004 Madrid train bombings occurred three days before Spain's general elections. With no supportive evidence, they were blamed on Al Qaeda, yet they stoked public fear of threats against other Western cities, including American ones.
• The July 7, 2005 London underground bombings (called 7/7) were a series of attacks on the city's public transport system during the morning rush hour for maximum disruption and casualties. At precisely the same time, an anti-terror drill occurred, simulating real attacks. It was no coincidence, others in America and Britain came on the same day.
• On 9/11 morning, the CIA ran a "pre-planned simulation to explore the emergency response issues that would be created if a plane were to strike a building." Held at the Agency's Chantilly, Virginia Reconnaissance Office, AP reported (on August 22, 2002) that it simulated "a small corporate jet (hitting) one of the four towers....after experiencing a mechanical failure."

  Unmentioned at the time was a later revealed (but unreported) Homeland Security conference announcement a year later to commemorate the 9/11 event. Held under the auspices of the National Law Enforcement and Security Institute, one of its speakers was John Fulton, CIA Chief of the Strategic War Gaming Division of the National Reconnaissance office in charge of the operation. Another coincidence, or was something more sinister afoot?

  In October 2000, the Pentagon simulated a commercial plane striking the Pentagon, coordinated by its Command Emergency Response Team and the Defense Protective Services Police. This and the 9/11 exercises are more than coincidental, given what's now known and the fallout.

• On June 30, 2007, a Jeep Cherokee with propane canisters crashed into Glasgow International Airport's glass doors, the BBC reporting that it "was in the middle of the doorway burning....The car didn't actually explode. There were a few pops and bangs which presumably was the petrol."

The usual suspects were falsely blamed, Al Qaeda and Islamic terrorists.

In Miami, on January 11, 2010 (one day before Haiti's earthquake), the Pentagon's US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) simulated a hurricane striking the island in preparation for subsequent measures to be implemented. A carefully prepared military operation, they included occupying, controlling, and plundering the island.

Also, Deputy SOUTHCOM head, General PK Keen, was in Haiti when the quake struck, ready to assume command when it did and use a communication tool called the Transnational Information Sharing Cooperation project (TISC), linking other nations and NGOs with the Pentagon and US government to facilitate measures to be implemented. None were to help Haitians.

A Final Comment

Exposed as bad theater, New York Times writer Elizabeth Harris further discredited the broadsheet, headlining:

"Al Qaeda Confirms Bin Laden's Death," citing an unconfirmed statement, warning of new attacks to come. It also said an audio recording days before his death will soon be released. In fact, past video and audio ones were exposed as fakes.

* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon.