- Public Radio rehashing of the 1999 Egypt Air crash made
me uneasy. It seemed like an effort to indoctrinate listeners to believe
that Muslims would commit suicide by deliberately crashing passenger jets.
I wondered what was coming.
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- The sky was blue and deceptively cheerful in New
Jersey a few weeks later on September 11, 2001, when I heard about
the attack on the World Trade Center. My husband called and told me to
turn on the television.
- As soon as I saw the flames and explosions, I recognised
a professional made-for-TV event.
-
- As I watched the endless repetition of dramatic camera
shots, I perceived an attempt to hypnotise the public with a list of suspects
that had emerged before any serious investigation could possibly have begun.
One ridiculous news story claimed that Mohammed Atta had left behind
a handwritten note at the airport that began, "In the Name of
Allah, my family, and myself!" No Muslim would ever use such
a construction. Grandiose spectacles like 9/11 have not typically
characterised Islamic militants. The Taleban used to kill a handful of
Russian occupation soldiers a day.
- In the years since the WTC fell, there has never been
any repeat attack on American soil.
-
- Reuters reported on September 13, 2001, that Osama bin
Laden told Taleban officials he had no role in the terror attacks in the
United States. Bin Laden may be a lot of things, but he is not known to
be a liar. "We asked from him, (and) he told (us) we don't have any
hand in this action," stated Taleban ambassador Mullah Abdul Salam
Zaeef. Rather than provide evidence against bin Laden, the US imprisoned
Zaeef in Guantanamo. He now lives under house arrest in Kabul.
-
- On September 18, 2001, the Jerusalem Post reported that
Israeli officials had warned Washington beforehand that "large-scale
terrorist attacks on highly visible targets on the American mainland were
imminent," and specifically linked the plot to bin Laden.
-
- Problems in the official version soon developed. Some
of the TV photographs were faked, at least 7 of the alleged hijackers
were alive, and one had died before 2001. Bin Laden videotapes aired on
TV were proven fraudulent and mistranslated.
-
- On June 5, 2006 Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity
for the FBI told Muckraker Report that bin Laden "has not been formally
indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard
evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11." Robert Dreyfuss reported that
former CIA officials claimed Department of Defense officials were "producing
their own unverified intelligence reports to justify war." Political
analyst Eric Margolis notes, "Such 'experts' echoed the White House
party line and all were dead wrong. Yet amazingly, many are still on air,
continuing to misinform the public."
-
- A man whose nine children were killed when the US bombed
his home told Yvonne Ridley, "There has been a lot of fighting around
here between the Taleban and the Americans. They are searching for Osama
bin Laden but everyone knows he is not here."
-
- The Pentagon has used the bin Laden hype for years to
justify stationing warships and submarines off the Pakistani coast; kidnapping
and torturing prisoners such as Abu Zubaydah and his uncle Khalid Sheikh
Mohammad based on hearsay by anonymous sources; and testing new hi-tech
weapons like Predator unmanned drones and air-sucking thermo-baric bombs
on a defenseless population. The US government arrested thousands of Muslims
and deported hundreds. Not a single one of them has ever been convicted
on terrorism charges.
-
- In February 2009, 9/11 widow Beverly Eckert died in a
plane crash days after she voiced her concerns to President Obama about
the 9/11 investigation. Eckert was suing the Federal government to force
testimony about what went wrong that day. She formed a Family Steering
Committee to address the 9/11 Commission with questions like why on September
9th the president already had a war plan on his desk to go into Afghanistan;
how the passports of two alleged hijackers survived the inferno; why Mayor
Rudy Giuliani had the metal from the collapsed towers sold as scrap for
recycling overseas.
-
- "That metal was evidence which could have helped
explain the collapse," Eckert believed. She asked why high-ranking
Pentagon officials cancelled travel plans for the morning of September
11 "apparently because of security concerns?" What are the names
of the individuals and the financial institutions that bought "puts"
on American Airlines and United Airlines during the three weeks prior to
9/11? Who profited? Why didn't F-16s intercept the hijacked airliners?
Why was protocol not followed on 9/11? Why did Dick Cheney hinder CIA and
FBI investigations?
-
- "If what the government has told us about 9/11 is
a lie," said William Rodriguez, a fireman who survived the WTC attack,
"somebody has to take action to reveal the truth."
-
- Karin Friedemann is a Boston-based writer on the Middle
East affairs and US politics
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- http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/opinion/
- 2009/May/opinion_May16.xml§ion=opinion&col=
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