Four
long years have passed since the deadly attacks of 9/11, and the
huge consequences that followed worldwide have likely dwarfed the
attacks themselves: two bitter wars (Afghanistan and Iraq) and packs
of so-called anti-terror laws around the world in what later history
might see as another witch-hunt that saw words like Islam, Muslim,
Islamic, and Islamist mostly going hand-in-hand with
other terms like extremism, fanaticism, radicalism,
and, of course, terrorism.
The
mainstream media in the United States, Europe, and consequently the
world hardly catch their breath following the rapid changes and
endless events on all fields, and all are related—directly or
indirectly—to the 9/11 attacks. But what is surprising, to say the
least, is that the events themselves—four years after they
occurred—still raise more questions than answers.
An
American Web site called reopen9/11.org,
established by US individuals representing almost all walks of
life—media persons, military experts, fire experts, explosives
experts, researchers, ex-officials, etc.—presents the view that
the US administration’s “half-baked” investigation into the
grisly events led to more suspicions than certainties and raised
more questions than answers about the nature and scope of the
attacks, but more importantly about the criminals behind them.
On
the Web site, the group declares “we work to unite people who are
interested in our mission regardless of political party, race,
color, sex, age, religion, political affiliation, sexual
orientation, national origin or any other differences. We are
non-partisan in the true sense of the word in that we are
Republicans, Libertarians, Objectivists, Democrats, Socialists, and
Greens.”
Try
any search engine on the Internet and you’ll be amazed at the
number of American gatherings and groups believing that the Bush
administration, at the very least, facilitated the attacks to happen
for political gains.
What
prompted such movements to emerge? What arguments do they have? What
inconsistencies in the official explanation about the attacks made
them believe there was more to them than the US administration is
saying?
Let’s
try to highlight the points that I could not find any official
clarification for after a torturous search during the past six
months since I received a documentary to translate into Arabic that
prompted the interest to “know what really happened.” Being a
human who believes in the power of the people and their ability to
change once they are aware, I think it is our right (Americans,
Afghans, Iraqis, European Muslims, and humans in general) to
understand why we are being kidnapped, killed, tortured, detained
without due legal process and, above all, why all of us have to live
in fear.
Cheap
Investigation
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Jimmy
Walter
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The
first thing that raises an eyebrow regarding this whole tragedy is
the “fact” that “the entire 9/11 Commission spent only 15
million dollars … while all expenditures on Clinton’s
indiscretion exceeded 65 million” (Confronting the Evidence).
Former
US President Bill Clinton’s sex scandal investigation cost the US
taxpayers over 65 million dollars, despite the fact that the scandal
did not—as far as we know—cause the death of a single person.
So
how could the investigation into the unprecedented attack on US soil
that caused the death of almost 3,000 people and the huge economic
losses cost only 15 million dollars?
The
answer could be very simple: The facts were all there and the
culprits were all known, so the case was complete! But was that
really the case?
Building
Seven
Ever
heard of the term “building seven”? I personally came in touch
with it a few months ago. The World Trade Center in New York
comprised seven buildings, not just the North and South towers we
all watched the planes crash into during that fateful Tuesday
morning four years ago. Buildings four, five, and six were office
buildings. Building three was a hotel. Building number one was the
North Tower and number two was the South Tower.
Our
focus here, or rather that of US experts who found it too difficult
to swallow the official explanation of what happened on 9/11, is
concentrated on “building seven.”
The
attack on 9/11 destroyed all seven towers and damaged surrounding
buildings as well.
In
a documentary called Painful Deceptions, Jimmy
Walter put a lot of emphasis on building seven and
the 9/11 Commission’s report’s explanation of how it fell down:
Building
7 at the World Trade Center was a 47 story building with a steel
frame. No airplane crashed into, nor did the towers fall onto it.
However, this building disintegrated on September 11th.
Here
is a view from an airplane of the rubble of building seven. The pile
is very small. How did a 47 story steel building crumble into a tiny
pile of rubble? The Bush administration wants us to believe that
fire caused it to disintegrate.
Fire
started in building seven at around 9:00 in the morning. A few
moments after the plane crashed into the south tower. These fires
burned slowly all day. This photo shows the fires at 3:00 PM. The
fires are not easy to see because they are small and the air is full
of dust and smoke.
According
to Bill Manning, editor in chief of Fire Engineering—a
magazine for fire departments—fire has never destroyed a steel
building.
“This
building, Seven, was straddling an electrical substation for the
city. So it had some of the thickest steel beams of any building on
the planet.”
In
the course of investigating how and why Building Seven was pulled
down, Manning became so disgusted by the investigation that the
January 2002 issue published an article in which he called the
investigation a “half-baked farce.”
In
the 9/11 Commission Report, “the Federal Emergency Management
Agency lament that, the specifics of the fires in World Trade Center
7 and how they caused the building to collapse, are unknown.”
Unknown?
Why did you wrap up the investigation then? Why did you spend only
15 million dollars? Not 65 million, as Clinton’s sex scandal cost
you?
Pentagon
or Pentagate?
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French
researcher Thierry Meyssan
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In
2002, French researcher Thierry Meyssan, dubbed “conspiracy
theorist” by the US State Department and other “uglier” names
by US and French mainstream media, wrote a book suggesting that a
cruise missile instead of a plane hit the Pentagon on September 11.
Meyssan’s
book, L’Effroyable Imposture [The Horrifying Fraud]
was translated into 23 languages: French, English, Spanish, German,
Russian, Italian, Greek, Turkish, Persian, Arabic, Korean, Greek,
Portuguese, Romanian, Czech, Estonian, Croatian, Albanian, Serbian,
Chinese, Slovenian, Japanese, and Dutch. The book was published in
English as 9/11: The Big Lie.
Despite
huge attacks against Meyssan inside and outside France, the book
remained a bestseller in the French book market and sold 200,000
copies in France alone, within a couple of months from hitting the
bookshelves.
Reading
the book (in Arabic, in this case) and also reading many articles
and reviews refuting its allegations, proved a really interesting
experience. The clearest conclusion that almost settled in my head
back then was this: Meyssan raised some very serious questions about
the nature of the thing that hit the Pentagon that fateful morning.
But still the refutations were also reasonable, except that they
hardly answered any of his serious questions.
|
Congresswoman
Cynthia
McKinney attacked the Bush administration over the
9/11 attacks, and she was vilified in the press until
it became clear that many more people were believing
her than the pundits imagined.
|
Anyway,
back then the whole issue (Pentagon attack) seemed a duel between
French “conspiracy theorists” and US patriots.
Jimmy
Walter, in another documentary titled Confronting the Evidence,
shows what some Americans are saying about the Pentagon attack.
In
February of 2002, my attention was drawn to the following
website entitled Hunt The Boeing Test Your Perceptions. Now the
original website was completely in French and was released by
the French, and drew very serious questions as to what had
really happened at the Pentagon.
I
mean, after all, we had all seen the big hole that was created
by the 757 that had slammed into the Pentagon at 9:43 on
September 11th. But some of the photographs shown on this
website raised very serious questions whether or not that’s
exactly what had happened.
Some
of these photographs showed a smaller hole and in some cases,
show that there was no way that a 757 could have created this
damage.
Walter
then goes on refuting the official US version as to
what really happened to the Pentagon according to the 9/11
Commission’s report, interviewing experts, analysts, former
Pentagon officials, and many others.
All
these interviews, in addition to many other 9/11-related materials,
are available at dozens
of Web sites, along with petitions for reopening the
investigation into the 9/11 attacks.
Mainstream
Media
|
These details and little pieces of analytical evidence can hardly be
conspiracy theories.
|
Before
embarking on that long journey of trying to grasp the bloody events
of that day, I was wondering to myself: “What’s done is done and
the world now is witnessing endless developments, so why waste your
time in reading conspiracy theories?” Then I realized all these
developments are directly related to what happened that day and that
maybe “knowing” what really happened may lead to some real
change to put a hold to this fateful course led by “warmongers and
bloodsuckers” in both camps! Besides, these details and little
pieces of analytical evidence can hardly be conspiracy theories.
But
what is really mind-boggling is the position taken by the mainstream
media, especially in the United States, as to the whole issue of the
inconsistent and incoherent official theory about that day. The
basic elements of professionalism and objectivity say that reporters
should not just be postmen; that is, they should not be just
conveying official statements and ignoring criticism thereof.
Walter
briefly touched on that point in his documentary when he was trying
to mobilize Americans against the invasion in Iraq.
“I
was so alarmed I ran full page ads in the New York Times, USA
Today, various alternative newspapers across the country. I was
censored by the L.A. Times, I was ignored by everyone.”
It
just makes one wonder whether the so-called mainstream media giants
are no more seeking to present the truth to their readers but rather
to make the highest profit possible for the capitalists, who now
control over 90 percent of the media worldwide.
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Click to read the final report of the 9/11 Commission,
set up by the Bush administration, compare it with what
“conspiracy theorists” claim and come up with your own
“theory”!
|
Thanks
to the economic effects of globalization, mainstream TV stations,
big newspapers and magazines, in addition to radio stations, are now
controlled by nine multinational corporations. Among them are giant
corporations and heavy-weight business tycoons that also have big
investments in the field of weapons, especially nuclear arms.
General Electric and Westinghouse are just examples of the list,
according to a UNESCO report in 2000 on the effects of
globalization—in its various dimensions—on the media.
But
does this mean giving in to the aspirations of crazy politicians and
greedy businessmen who believe that “those who own the world must
run it”?
Afghanistan
was attacked October 7, 2001, less than a month following the
attacks. Americans back then were still stunned by the deadly
terrorist attacks and no one was ready to ask what happened, how it
happened, or who did it. And from that day on, the Bush
administration has been playing on the element of fear to go ahead
with a pre-set agenda to control the world. Four years later, what
is the world like?
On
the other hand, millions of people—Americans, Europeans, Muslims,
Arabs, Christians, Jews, secularists, and all these names the media
generously gives to us humans—are still struggling to get out of
the trap of “blood”.
In
Uncle Sam’s land, thousands, if not millions, still insist on
finding out “what really happened that black Tuesday four years
ago.” Will they ever manage, or will the bloody and destructive
day be added to other mysterious events like the Kennedy
assassination that never seem comprehensible?
**
Khaled Mamdouh is an editor on IslamOnline.net’s News Desk. He is also a radio announcer, and journalist and translator for several Arabic magazines. You can reach him at
khaledm69@hotmail.com.
