Fisk forgot to include a question about the fortuitous appearance of Atta's passport, still pristine and legible among the thousands of tons of paper, concrete and steel debris of the twin towers. Yes, many many questions remain......

Readers might want to explore Peter Dale Scott's new book form University of California Press, The Road to 9/11

http://www.amazon.com/Road-11-Wealth-Empire-America/dp/0520237730

The importance of this publication should not be underestimated. Published by the University of California Press, Scott's new book goes further than any other book so far published about 9/11, to identify and establish through unimpeachable documentary evidence the historic factors that have made the crime of 9/11 and its cover-up possible. Much more than this, The Road to 9/11 demonstrates exactly how it has happened over the past half century that American democracy has been fundamentally undermined, and, vitally, how it can be re-established.

Most of the book documents key points in this "para-political" history. It's treatment of the actual crime of 9/11 is brief relative to the space given towards establishing the hidden political structures and context which allowed 9/11 to happen. This is not a book detailing all the legitimate questions about the 9/11 event; rather, it focuses on some of the most pertinent - and damning. More importantly, and this is its most significant offering, it establishes the underlying context by which to accurately understand the current historical predicament.

The fact that UC Press has published this book - even though it names sitting politicians as being likely of having committed criminal, even treasonous acts - is a testament both to their courage, and especially to the impeccability of Scott's research. Reportedly, the relevant editorial department at the UCP Berkely decided to publish the book only after commissioning two independent peer reviewers, who each recommended publication, and after one of the longest debates in their history. As bold and disturbing as it is, they apparently decided it was too important to decline or delay publication of this material, once the accuracy of its sources had been vigorously confirmed.

Style-wise, it's academic, to be sure, but it's a great one to give to judges, journalists, police officers, lawyers, professors, religious leaders, politicians, military officers, students, concerned foreigners, and, well heck - any caring citizen with a brain.

This book will surely become a cornerstone for present and future historians to understanding the current epoch. If you care about our democracy, The Road to 9/11 is a book you must read. Soon.

------ other reviews by people who could be made fun of by Tweedy People in Funded Journals (TPFJ)
Book Description
This is an ambitious, meticulous examination of how U.S. foreign policy since the 1960s has led to partial or total cover-ups of past domestic criminal acts, including, perhaps, the catastrophe of 9/11. Peter Dale Scott, whose previous books have investigated CIA involvement in southeast Asia, the drug wars, and the Kennedy assassination, here probes how the policies of presidents since Nixon have augmented the tangled bases for the 2001 terrorist attack. Scott shows how America's expansion into the world since World War II has led to momentous secret decision making at high levels. He demonstrates how these decisions by small cliques are responsive to the agendas of private wealth at the expense of the public, of the democratic state, and of civil society. He shows how, in implementing these agendas, U.S. intelligence agencies have become involved with terrorist groups they once backed and helped create, including al Qaeda.

From the Inside Flap
"Scott's brilliantly perceptive account of the underpinnings of American governmental authority should be made required reading. The book vividly depicts the political forces that have pushed this country toward an abyss, threatening constitutional democracy at home and world peace abroad. Its central message can be understood as an urgent wake-up call to everyone concerned with the future of America."--Richard Falk, author of The Great Terror War

"Peter Dale Scott is one of that tiny and select company of the most brilliantly creative and provocative political-historical writers of the last half century. The Road to 9/11 further secures his distinction as truth-teller and prophet. He shows us here with painful yet hopeful clarity the central issue of our time--America's coming to terms with its behavior in the modern world. As in his past work, Scott's gift is not only recognition and wisdom, but also redemption and rescue we simply cannot do without."--Roger Morris, former NSC staffer

"The Road to 9/11 is vintage Peter Dale Scott. Scott does not undertake conventional political analysis; instead, he engages in a kind of poetics, crafting the dark poetry of the deep state, of parapolitics, and of shadow government. As with his earlier work Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, Scott has no theory of responsibility and does not name the guilty. Rather, he maps out an alien terrain, surveying the topography of a political shadow land, in which covert political deviancy emerges as the norm. After reading Scott, we can no longer continue with our consensus-driven belief that our so-called 'liberal' order renders impossible the triumph of the politically irrational."--Eric Wilson, Senior Lecturer of Public International Law, Monash University, and co-editor of Government of the Shadows

"Peter Dale Scott exposes a shadow world of oil, terrorism, drug trade and arms deals, of covert financing and parallel security structures-from the Cold War to today. He shows how such parallel forces of the United States have been able to dominate the agenda of the George W. Bush Administration, and that statements and actions made by Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld before, during and after September 11, 2001, present evidence for an American 'deep state' and for the so-called 'Continuity of Government' in parallel to the regular 'public state' ruled by law. Scott's brilliant work not only reveals the overwhelming importance of these parallel forces but also presents elements of a strategy for restraining their influence to win back the 'public state', the American democracy."--Ola Tunander, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo

"A powerful study of the historic origins of the terrorist strikes of September 11, this book offers an indispensable guide to the gluttonous cast of characters who, since Watergate and the fall of Nixon, fashioned an ever more reckless American empire. By exposing the corrupt U.S. 'deep state'-transfer of public authority to America's wealthy and to the nation's unaccountable secret intelligence agencies-Peter Dale Scott's The Road to 9/11 illuminates the path toward a more democratic and inclusive republic."--David MacGregor, King's University College at the University of Western Ontario

"The Road to 9/11 provides an illuminating and disturbing history of the American government since World War II. Scott's account suggests that the 9/11 attacks were a culmination of long-term trends that threaten the very existence of American democracy, and also that there has been a massive cover-up of 9/11 itself. This book, which combines extensive research, perceptive analysis, and a fascinating narrative, will surely be considered Scott's magnum opus."--David Ray Griffin, author of Debunking 9/11 Debunking

"'The America we knew and loved. Can it be saved?' That question opens this book, and getting to the answer called for the honed intellect of a scholar and the sensitivity of a poet. Peter Dale Scott has both, in spades, and here gives us much, much more than a book about 9/11. In a time of fear, he speaks for sanity and freedom."--Anthony Summers, author of The Arrogance of Power

So many magic bullets; so little time!

Thank God for the "ravers." At least they question the official reports, which are so defficient as to be idiotic. There is no doubt in my mind that the Bushies carried out the Sept 11 attacks. Can I prove it scientifically? no. Do I need to? no. Deep in my heart, I know it was a conspiracy carried out at the highest levels of government in order to fulfill the agenda of the globalist money power. That's all I need to know.

Just an observation, but I read the 9/11 Report, and remember asking myself why so quickly it had been written (for government standards)? It seemed to me that the Congressional Committee investigating the event wrote the report rather hastily. I suppose they wanted to provide a document explaining why it happened and furnish people a copy as soon as possible. Did all of you get this same sense?

I met Usama bin Laden in the USA 1979 when he was recruited by the CIA to destabilize a secular Afghanistan. He was introduced as "very dangerous". The PNAC was advocating the seizure of Arabian oil fields, with a wink and a nod from Bush in 2000. I was certain of an attack in the tradition of the Hashassins and read the Qu'ran on line 60 days before 9-11 to better understand the motivations of Arab sovereignty.

"My final argument - a clincher, in my view - is that the Bush administration has screwed up everything - militarily, politically diplomatically - it has tried to do in the Middle East; so how on earth could it successfully bring off the international crimes against humanity in the United States on 11 September 2001?"

The Cheney/Neocon administration hasn't screwed up anything, according to their plan. Cheney has been very open from the beginning until today that progress is being made. Creating chaos, tribe fighting tribe and the subsidizing of transnational corporations with the US Treasury to privitize Iraqi infrastructure and resources are the facts on the ground - they are "the plan"
carried out to a "T".

"Alexander" Cheney's march to Tehran moves along - as planned - still unabatted. As so much of The People's mental and physical energies are applied to quibbling over how the Twin Towers fell and a preposterous "presidential campaign", the catastrophe of 9/11/01 is repeated monthly in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Iran is now being targeted after 15 years of bombing Iraq.

The arrogance is so bold that during the men's NCAA basketball tournament one of the beloved transnationals (Coke) put "the plan" in broad daylight for all to see and "laugh" along with in their "cute" trilogy of ads that featured the punch lines: " 'sue' them back to the stone age", "wipe them off the face of the earth", and, in tribute to Kissenger and Abu Ghraib, "humiliate them".

The Cheney/Neocon administration has screwed things up? No way. Halliburton out of bankruptcy fears and into record profits along with the oil companies? This is screwed up?

No. What's screwed up is that We The People can't get our heads out of our navels and IMPEACH THE CHENEY/NEOCON ADMINISTRATION!

"What's screwed up is that We The People can't get our heads out of our navels and IMPEACH THE CHENEY/NEOCON ADMINISTRATION!"

The people are ready, the Pelosicrats aren't.

"The Cheney/Neocon administration has screwed things up? No way. Halliburton out of bankruptcy fears and into record profits along with the oil companies? This is screwed up?"

Despite the absolute dependency of the Iraqi 'government' on US power in a besieged city, they haven't managed to get the parliamentarians to rubber stamp the theft of the oil. These people are not masterminds, but psychotics and sociopaths who simultaneously believe & operate on contradictory levels of thought -- on the one hand, they are profiteers; on the other hand, they believe that they are improving the world and bringing happiness through a carnage which temporarily inconveniences the Iraqis -- and it's the Iraqi's fault if they aren't fully peaceful and democratic by now.

Empire, in its 'democratic' form, can only be run by people who believe six impossible things before breakfast: it demands dementia among the rulers.

Personally, there never has been a question in my mind that the Bushies created the "911 Product".

And have another available in '08.

The article above mentioned 3 of the high jackers being alive today. Am I the only one having read and or heard of it being 6, and maybe more? I high doubt they'd keep/go by the same name now knowing governments across the world would love to quiet them.

While watching the 9/11 thing on the history channel a few nights ago. As they went from the 2 groups of people that were debunking each others theories, I had to wonder why they never once shown/brought up the issue of thermo charges being used on the beams. Or even showed them neatly cut at the angle after blown, when they are used. Or the fact that investigators didn't reassemble the planes as they do in all cases of downed jet airliners. Of course I understand it with the twin towers. But the other 2 cases, especially the Pa plane could have been reassembled if it was actually there. Ok yea right, the one at the pentagon miraculously turned into dust also for some reason!?! And somewhere around 100 witnesses seen a plane hit it. There just happen to be 100 people within sight of this area? Where is the eye witness reports then? And why can't the video recordings confiscated by FBI in the area be shown to prove so or not? I don't really see what the reason is to continue the subject if everyone is going to act like the senate and congress. By not asking all the questions to all the issues to get the full true. Other then to continue the seemingly attempted brain washing of a nation.

I was working at my desk at home in CT with the TV on when CNN broke in with that horrible image of a gaping hole in the WTC. Having worked downtown for over 10 years and having spent much time in the towers I of course immediately tuned out all else. As CNN was rambling on about reports that a small plane might have hit I stared at the screen looking at the vertical beams and their spacing, and as my wife came into my office I told her that was no small plane- the hole was huge. CNN starting going on that perhaps a navigational beacon was off or some other technical reason- I, as anyone who lived in that area that day knows, knew that day to be absolutely one of the most brilliant September mornings ever. Even as just a private pilot I also knew that you don't fly the crowded skies over NYC with your head buried in instruments on a day like that. As I continued to study the TV and got my bearings it struck me that a large jet, which is the only kind that could cause that kind of damage, would not be flying at that altitude going south over the Hudson- they do fly North over the river on a right base before turning right onto final for runway 13 at LGA. As soon as I put this together I turned to my wife and told all this talk is nonsense and that OBL was responsible for this and that there might be more; it was an attach I told her- not long after the other planes hit.

If Mr. Fiske knows as much about the Middle East as I believe he must, it is strange he doesn't mention the fact that 911 was really just to finish the job that the 1993 bombing failed to achieve. The failure was a loss of face and had to rectified; it was a question of respect. There was, and remains, no question of responsibility in that attach. This took me 10 minutes to figure out, though of course it wasn't until later that I could be certain.

As to the scientific evidence that from a mechanical engineering point of view this simply could not happen- Mr. Fiske points to 2 that want to challenge the facts and are not afraid to speak up. Does he know that there are over half a million mechanical and civil engineers working in this country? So we have the gang that couldn't shoot straight employing hundreds of operatives, all of them psychopathic traitors, all of whom keeping quiet- ok even if you to buy this, how did they get to the half a million engineers? I mean really, it could not have happened so why are they all so quiet? That's a lot of black helicopters even for the biggest conspiracy fruit cakes.

And yes, if you believe that 911 was done by the President of the United States and his family for personal gain and OBL took the credit just for kicks YOU ARE A FRUIT CAKE! With PLENTY OF NUTS! While this bumbling, stuttering, illiterate, insecure and self-righteous President has caused this country and others great harm and driven me to conniptions , I have not gone over the edge into the land of Mind Driveling Lunacy.

Right on Puck.
Unfortunately, its going to take a lot of pain for this country to understand and come to terms with its arrogance...and abysmal ignorance.
We live in a time where, as C. Jung puts it:
"The popular faith in words is a veritable sickness of the mind..."
The people believe whatever a politician says, and repeats; especially since there is no press to refute it.

Mr Fisk, please, pleeeaaase, look into the "coincidental" deaths of 5 TOP RAYTHEON EXECUTIVES---which just happened to "DISAPPEAR" on all those
flights!!!! Perhaps they knew too much? Or could they be rotting away in one of those secret "interrogation" prisons? Now why would 5 executives who were directly connected to developing missile technology unluckily meet with such a tragic end?

A fact of life, GOVERNMENTS LIE!, So re: 911, it's a question of degree. Did they have some vague intelligence warnings which they ignored in the hopes that an attack would help further their state terrorist agenda or, for the same reasons, did Dick and George meticulously plot out every engineering detail? There never will be truth found in this matter.

But one truth remains, this government has been taken over by fascists and Iran is now in the crosshairs.

My favorite argument is one that Fisk cites above:

"Any military which can claim - as the Americans did two days ago - that al-Qa'ida is on the run is not capable of carrying out anything on the scale of 9/11."

There are several differences between the two.

1) Sept 11 happened in NEW YORK CITY. That's inside THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA folks. It's a lot easier for the UNITED STATES MILITARY to do something in THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA than it is for them to do it outside.

2) There is no central network for alQaeda. They can't be "on the run" because they are a loose group of people networking over thousands of miles. The military could never catch one and say they have control of all of them. That's like an army taking over Florida and saying they have control of the United States.

3) Our military is embroiled in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as being stationed in Europe, South America, and East Asia. Plus Bush has made it clear that bin Laden is not our top priority.

To be honest, I'm not at all convinced that bin Laden or alQaeda even exist. If they don't exist, of course the military is having a hard time catching them.

What's funny is that even if Bush/Cheney came out and just blatantly said "we did it, all of it, it was all us" the stupid rednecks and rich boy executives would still support them and put their "Dubya's my boy!" stickers on their cars and probably say something like "I'm sure they did it in America's best interests."

Mr. Fisk, I agree with your comments, and take this opportunity to express my appreciation for, and admiration of, your fine work. (On the other hand, since you don't accept e-mails, it's not very likely that you will review these comments as some writers do...)

I hope I'm not being too self-indulgent to share a good bit of an e-mail I wrote some weeks ago to a fellow blog-visitor. I wrote it after I encountered a recurring phenomenon in the comments section: mention of someone challenging "The Truth about 9/11", triggering a rote response by blog regulars dismissing the challenger as merely a Raver.
_____________________________________________________________________________

...I happened to stumble into X growling about a "9/11 conspiracy nut" co-worker who was persistently annoying on the subject. This prompted an immediate wave of commiseration from the other "no-nonsense" realists or however they think of themselves. In particular, Z is a physicist, or at least knows all about physics, and has no patience with wooly-headed fanatics who fail to respect the Immutable Laws of Physics. Case closed!

Neither X nor Z knows what really happened on 9/11, and neither do I. Yet it appalls me that the self-assured, self-satisfied anti-conspiracy contingent remains oblivious to the possibility that their smug certainty about what DIDN'T happen that day is simply the mirror-image of the conspiracy-theorizing they profess to despise.

Of COURSE there are lots of surreal, improbable, and patently absurd speculations floating around in the stew of ambiguity. But it exasperates the hell out of me that certain commenters-- e.g. George Monbiot, Matt Taibbi, Amy Goodman-- have taken the position that the "conspiracy wackos" are not only mad or bad, but are corrosive and damaging to the anti-Bush, anti-war, anti-imperialist cause-- because ostensibly by making fools of themselves in the eyes of the general public, they discredit the entire progressive/left community. Please!

One of the obvious problems with the conspiracy-despisers is that they of necessity buy into the Official Stories generated by the Whitewash Commission, NOVA, Popular Mechanics, etc. Thus, while they scorn and revile "conspiracy nuts"-- really, anyone who asserts that there are significant unexplained anomalies and contradictions in the official version(s) that can't be explained away, and deserve sustained scrutiny-- they aren't exactly ready to admit that, yeah, they pretty much accept the plain vanilla official version. That is, they are always ready to express withering contempt and disdain towards 9/11 skeptics, using rhetorical techniques such as setting up the most absurd and preposterous conspiracy-nut straw men up as representative of skeptical opinion, then knocking them over with palpable exasperation.

"Occam's Razor", relied upon so ubiquitously by these robust conspiracist-smashers in the course of their work, is a beautiful, elegant instrument or tool; perhaps it is the philosophical equivalent of another medieval invention: the telescope. But it is a double-edged blade, and a scalpel. It is not so effective when used as a machete, or as a switchblade to slash at encroaching doubt and complexity.

It's easy enough to ridicule extreme caricatures of conspiracy theory, but these critics never really say what the "REAL truth" of the matter is, or how THEY'VE succeeded in arriving at it without getting bogged down in the treacherous swamp of the unknown, ambiguous, and conflicting aspects of the events that beleaguers us skeptics. Absent an explanation that refutes the controversial issues, they might as well declare, "The Whitewash Commission, NOVA, Popular Mechanics, etc. said it; I believe it; and that settles it!"

It just strikes that these would-be intellectuals can't face up to the disquieting uncertainty of it all, and retreat into resentful complacency as a way of sealing off emotionally disturbing and difficult, and perhaps paralyzing, speculations and conclusions.

I often think of the phrase in Bob Dylan's "Queen Jane Approximately":

"Trying to prove that your conclusions should be more drastic..."

Good for you Robert.

I too discount a full-blown government conspiracy on the grounds that these clowns have mismanaged almost everything they've touched. The notion that they deliberately botched the Iraq War is laughable.

As for 9-11, I agree, however, with Fisk that there are many questions that beg answers and raise questions. And clearly the one thing we can say for certain, as with the Kennedy assassination, is that the official explanation is nonsense.

Just the way the second plane that hit from the south made a perfect sweeping arc and landed right on target at full speed is, I'm told by pilots, an incredible bit of flying, especially for neophyte pilots.

And the problem of how burning jet fuel, most of which would have dissipated in minutes of the crash, could have caused the collapse of steel beams, and they explanation for the identical collapse of Building 7, which wasn't hit at all, all raise questions of what the hell went on there.

Also, I live near a naval airbase just north of Philadelphia. Its jets--A-10 Warthogs--fly exercises every day, or at least did in 2001 before base closure began last year. They either had planes airborne, or that could have been loaded up and sent aloft in minutes, with crews at the ready. at 600 mph, they could have been up in Manhattan in 12-15 minutes--plenty of time to stop the second plane, not to mention flight 93. Ditto McGuire Airbase in Southern Jersey, which had faster planes available.

It's simply crazy the explanations as to why nothing was done to get planes up in the air and over to Manhattan.

Clearly a real opposition party (which the Democrats are steadily demonstrating themselves not to be) would be holding serious hearings into this whole mess, to demand answers. Even the Kennedy assassination was investigated repeatedly. Why not this much more serious incident in American history?

Dave Lindorff
http://www.thiscantbehappening.net

All you have to do is to read Craig Unger's excellent book, "House of Bush, House of Saud" to start connecting the dots and seeing that something is definitely NOT right here. 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, not Iraqis, not Afghans.

There have been long-standing and cozy ties between the bin Laden family and the Bush family going back a very long way. The day after 9/11, all of the bin Laden's who were currently in the US were flown out of the country, courtesy of the US, when there were absolutely NO airplanes allowed to fly, period. They were, in essence, material witnesses who were flown back to Saudi Arabia and haven't been interrogated or anything about what they might have known.

I'm convinced that 9/11 was engineered by the Bush administration for the purpose of justifying an attack on Iraq, and now possibly Iran, for the purpose of seizing their oil fields to enrich some of the oil men in this country and to establish a new American Empire in the mold of Rome.

All you have to do is to read the early PNAC white papers to see that they've been planning this stuff for a very long time. Folks, this is nothing new. This whole thing has been in the works for over a decade now, since the establishment of the PNAC. And look who the majority of its members are - people who currently serve in high positions in the Bush administration. Like Cheney, for starters.

This administration has committed high crimes and treason against its own people. That no one is willing to hold them accountable outrages me. Where is the protesting in the streets? Where are the calls for the immediate removal of these treasonous and dangerous people? Why is everyone so afraid of them?

Dammit, the evidence is all there - 9/11 was engineered by the Bush administration. It was no sudden fluke, it was no surprise attack by a small band of fanatics with box cutters. It was planned and orchestrated for the sheer purpose of establishing American hegemony in the Middle East in order to seize their oil assets to enrich the PetroBarons and their cronies who run the oil companies.

Connect the dots folks. The evidence is as plain as the nose on my face. Open your eyes, it's all there. This administration has committed treason. Remove them NOW or suffer the consequences for centuries to come. We are in a crisis the likes of which have not been seen since the Revolution. It's time to overthrow the new tyrants and to re-establish our government using every Constitutional means possible. DOWN WITH KING GEORGE AND THE DARK PRINCE RICHARD!!!!

Much of the more far out theories of 9/11 are probably red herrings planted by the Bush administration to cover the simplest of the 9/11 conspiracies; the Bush administration had ample foreknowledge of the attacks to have raised a terrorism alert but made a political decision to allow the attacks to go unimpeded to advance the radical PNAC political agenda.
For instance steel doesn't have to reach melting temperature to loose strength. Have you ever see a western movie where the blacksmith heats up the horse shoe so he can shape it with a hammer?

To me the only thing that explains W's reactions in the classroom that morning is foreknowledge of the attacks, and the look of dread on his face knowing that if the truth is ever known to the public Bush will replace fuck as the most vile word in the English language. Remember both Putin and Mubarak called Bush and warned him of the plot in the days before 9/11/2001. Also at the G-8 meeting in Italy in July of 2001 there was unprecedented air security including bring in anti-aircraft missile batteries and Bush slept on an aircraft carrier far out to sea surrounded by the aircraft carriers defense ring of destroyers.

He knew.

The United States bathes in imperialistic ethos. Look back at the history.
After WWII it became a military garrison state serving the needs of the growing and thriving military industrial complex---a machinery in perpetual need of fresh blood. Yes, it is an orwellian "monster." 9/11 was very carefully orchestrated by our oval office junta; soldiers are mere fodder so why wouldn't 3000 civilians be expendable in a couple of towers?

Our beloved usurper/leader made Iraq an "offer it can't refuse": we'll end this illegal occupation only after you've signed away your oil field to us---that is the "benchmark" that must be completed!!!! So, it's never about "killing fields," "re-education camps," or preventing "bloodbaths." It's about $$$$$$$$$$$$.

Beware of standing armies stationed in hundreds of bases around the globe and forever looking for "missions to accomplish."

People are missing the point. The "official story" is a conspiracy theory!!!!!!

Therefore I support research into 911 and commend all the bloggers and researchers out there for asking questions.

Dear Mr. Fisk, Speaking as an avid reader and admirer of your courageous reporting, would you please spare us that bunch of crap about "ravers"? Sir, when, on the same day, NORAD goes totally non-functional, when three structural steel buildings fall into their basements at the speed of gravity, their concrete and contents reduced to powder, something that has never happened before in history without the aid of explosives, when the cabal that is running the White House, having said that they needed such a disaster to initiate a certain policy, act like thieves covering their tracks after the fact, and then initiate that policy, when all these miracles coincide, THERE IS, SIR, NO BLOODY BENIGN EXPLANION! Raver? Raving furious, more like it, about 343 firefighters reduced to dust in the line of duty, not to mention our Constitution.
Tony Vodvarka, Hartly DE

I still can't accept that the Bushies are capable of anything even slightly clever.

They KNEW they had made up the WMD excuse to invade Iraq, yet forgot to take some nerve gas along to Iraq to 'discover' if nothing better appeared!

"the Bush administration had ample foreknowledge of the attacks to have raised a terrorism alert but made a political decision to allow the attacks to go unimpeded to advance the radical PNAC political agenda."

Madhoosier-that's what I think happened.

I think a lot of people, even those on the left, just don't want to believe that our gov't would be that low to allow deadly acts of terror to occur.

There haven't been any attacks since 9/11/01. The chances of such attacks occurring are so minimal, you're more likely to be struck by lightning. That's one reason why I think they allowed them to occur.

Think about it. These guys who actually carried out the attacks were a bunch of amateurs with box cutters. How did they let that slip through their fingers?

This is why imo Bush should not only be impeacghed, he should also be tried for treason.

The good news is that Hitler lost. The bad news is that it took a global effort, and the death of multiple millions of humans globally. Whoever (whomever) is "the man behind the curtain", because it certainly isn't W, (but it is fun to see him twist in the wind now that he has been used, and they prepare our next emperor)is clearly on track for global dominion, probably 75% accomplished in the states. The American experiment in republican democracy (not Republican, as in a the party) , which real or not, held the dreams and noble aspirations of many for 200 years, is probably lost. (still some hope, though faint)

The world, however, does not live by the Empires Rules. The great news is that most of the rest of the world is discovering and living by a new paradigm. The Empire is fighting to win a game that soon no one else will be playing. Toss in a bit of environmental collapse and Peak Oil and the remaining peoples of the planet, those that have still may have the freedom of action, will fully cease to be enamored by the fools that brought them to the abyss. Putin, China, the rising peoples of South American, the Arab world, the African peoples, and the bold experiment of the EU, the billions of Asia, all these peoples will soon need to work together or perish. And that wave of humanity, despite the guns held by the Empires children, will wash over the tyrants clinging to their porphyry thrones like a flood past an old barn, ripping it asunder, washing the land clean for the next step of our collective journey.

Thank you, Jesus! By which I really mean, thank Robert Fisk for saying it and Common Dreams and The Independent for publishing it.

I feel like the dam of "left gatekeeper" silence on 911 may be giving away. "Ravers" need to keep the pressure on the Chomsky, Cockburn, Amy Goodman, and others, and maybe, finally, the public at large will get to hear and understand the truth about 911. In fact, many people have some knowledge about 911, but until they see their knowledge validated by people they trust and admire, they will not accept it as true.

Right on Fredwol. What I don't get is how virtually all the "main stream media" totally ignored the overwhelming, or at least volumous, amount of evidence that something was amiss with the "official stoty" Can intemidation via the airwaves be so tactically effective. If so, Goerbels would be proud. Or is there some deeper means that the adminstration has used to subvert any serious questioning of their story to rise to even moderate public debate? So, we have vast evidence of foul play, how again tactically can the coverup be so complete as to silence so many? Cover up they did. But how did they do it so effectively?

""Occam's Razor", relied upon so ubiquitously by these robust conspiracist-smashers in the course of their work, is a beautiful, elegant instrument or tool; perhaps it is the philosophical equivalent of another medieval invention: the telescope. But it is a double-edged blade, and a scalpel. It is not so effective when used as a machete, or as a switchblade to slash at encroaching doubt and complexity."

Occam's razor is an epistemological simplifier used to de-multiply metaphysical entities, in order to reduce the scope of debate to what is knowable, rather than draw in agents of causality from outside the accessible realm. It tells us that we know that human beings were responsible & that demons did not push the towers down after the planes hit them, and that conjecture about whether a divine being explicitly commanded their collapse is pointless. Occam's razor can't tell us what their true motivations were, or what they believed themselves to be doing. The argument in terms of physics, whether the fires were sufficient or insufficient, whether other interior explosives were involved, can only be solved by those with the scientific credentials to solve them.

"I still can't accept that the Bushies are capable of anything even slightly clever."

You mean like occupying the White House without winning an election?

There are two fundamental misconceptions even among my well-informed American countrymen.

Misconception #1 "Bush/Cheney have bungled the invasion". Not true. Sorry to say, mission has indeed been accomplished. The mission was to destroy a potential rival of Israel. And the mission was to make sure Saddam does not control one of the largest oil reserves of the world.

Misconception #2 "Democrats are spineless". Not true. The Democrats are actually enablers of the Bush/Cheney/Israeli mission. They are complicit.

Now try to think through what has been happening since 2001. Now you won;t have to bang your head against wall in frustration. Now a lot of things will indeed make sense.

So, mission has indeed been accomplished.
And Dems = Bush enablers.

Anybody who believes that our military/government simply could not be so evil as to perpetrate such a "false flag" attack on it's own citizens, I urge you to research PROJECT NORTHWOODS. Official documents released a few years back under the freedom of information act show that not only is such a thing possible, it came close to happening in the 60's. This proposal, which advocated the hijacking/crashing of planes and other acts of domestic terrorism to be attributed to Castro was approved by the Joint Chiefs and got as far as the defense secretary's desk under the Kennedy administration.

Puck Twain, I agree wholeheartedly. This bunch is not in the least incompetent and I've never believed they were. They have achieved a great deal of what they set out to achieve. I believe they aren't hanging onto it all as they hoped, but much remains to be seen. There are still plans for martial law, and there was news about some vague "detention centers" (concentration camps) being built sometime back. They are beyond clever. They are insidious. It is just so tragic that they put all that industry toward such diabolical ends.

Entropy is also right. They have not only stolen two elections, they have involved us in two illegal wars that they wanted for the sake of resource domination, they have made their cronies in industry wealthy beyond imagination, they have polluted the environment when everyone else wants it fixed, they have stacked the judiciary with pro-corporate extremists, and they get away with literal murder every day. And they use our money and our government to do it all.

They aren't in the least incompetent. I am still shocked that anyone with any intelligence thinks they are. No, they haven't screwed up anything, except perhaps their ability to hang onto it all as long as they want. They might have screwed that up. Maybe.

If you follow the MONEY, the obvious culprits are Dick Cheney and George Bush Padre.

Cheney coordinated the caper from his bunker.

No one else had motive and opportunity, plus reaped huge financial payoffs from 9/11.

I have never seen it as being the least bit mysterious. I even said as much on Mexican television the afternoon of 9/11 itself.

Here is Latin America nobody believes that it was orchestrated by a FORMER CIA operative with terminal kidney disease from a cave in the mountains of wild Afghanistan.

If YOU do, I have a bridge I can sell you that goes from Manhattan to Brokklyn....

It appears that those who claimed this a "Reichstag" type event may not be so crazy or 'raving'.

Compare the loss of liberties in this country since 9/11 to the loss of liberties in Germany after 1933.

After all it is documented that the Bush/Walker family acted as bankers for the Third Reich until it was threatened with loss of license by the US government in 1942.

There are those who say that the Middle East chaos was created only to act as a distraction to deflect attention from the perfidious loss of civil liberties we are experiencing.

US corporations spying on US citizens ala 3rd Reich, Sovit Russia?
Makes one wonder.

A lot of coincidences?

I agree. The dems are definitely complicit enablers.

i also think there is a kernal of utter hate there somewhere that clouds judgement and results in inaction....sad...so sad....but who really suffers?

And what do "we the People" get? Nothing. Nothing in & Nothing out. Nothing that is good for US.

Thats why in my humble opinion, it really is time for better times....

....its time for a new generation to emerge and take matters into our own hands....because its a mess RIGHT now....

Peace,
Ken Hausle

There are NO coincidences.

Ever.

"My final argument - a clincher, in my view - is that the Bush administration has screwed up everything . . . how on earth could it successfully bring off" 9-11?

The neocons didn't have to "bring off" 9-11 to be complicit. They just had to allow it. They just had to allow al Qaeda to bring it off, they just had to ignore Clinton's plea to watch out for Osama, they just had to ignore their own terrorism czar, Richard Clark, who pleaded right up until 9-11 to watch out for Osama, they just had to ignore US and other Western intelligence, they just had to let Osama bring the neocons their Pearl Harbor, as the neocons themselves put it. They just had to let the intelligence play out.

Notice that nowhere does Fisk say that Bush performed due diligence. Presidents are elected to actually do things. If a cop stands by while an old lady is mugged, I guess Fisk would say the cop is not complicit.

Nobody is accusing Bush of using US personnel to fly the hijacked jets. That's direct complicity. Read Fisk. This is the sort of rediculous direct complicity that he's looking for before he'll implicate Bush.

Fisk is too smart. So why is he being so lame?

Yeah moonraven - like the coincidence that are posts posted at the same time (or thereabouts...)

Peace moonraven. Peace to you.

Peace,
Ken Hausle

It's called SYNCHRONICITY, not coincidence.

Google it.

moonraven - I said Peace. Honestly.

Call it whatever you want.

But remember this: bickering over names can waste a lot of energy. Energy that might be better utilized in other ways....

Peace,
Ken Hausle

It is so good to see so many who are awake, aware and willing to say so, and to see that over the past 6 years this discussion has not died in the face of ridicule from the right or dismissals from some on the left, but instead has become focused on the scientific, the provable, and the impossible (for the sentient) to deny. Many thanks to Nathaniel for the information on The Road to 9/11, and to everyone else on this blog for sharing their insights.

As for me, I was hit in the gut by the belief that the administration was allowing the attacks literally from the instant I watched the plane hit the second tower. The feeling was utterly unexpected--considering what I was seeing, the fear I was sharing with everyone else in the room that we just might die that day, and the fact that though I already disliked Bush, at that time it hadn't crossed my mind he could be criminal. Nevertheless, the feeling was so strong I was nauseated, and remained nauseated for the next two weeks as I watched the administration and the media turn the attacks into a means to change America and everything we stood for.

What I find most frightening now is similar to what was posted by ARA Charleston. Rove, Cheney, someone/someones have so brilliantly manipulated the media and events for six years that there is a real possibility (especially if there is another/pseudo attack) that eventually someone in the administration will say "we did it, all of it, it was all us," and not only "the stupid rednecks and rich boy executives" will say "I'm sure they did it in America's best interests"--the majority of Americans will simply accept that pronouncement, because we've become convinced we are helpless to change our government's actions or to demand truth from anyone in power. I believe achieving that has been one of their primary goals.

And there is a misconception #3, which is "3/4 of Americans are against the Iraq war". Not true. The vast majority is against a losing war (not the war itself). Remember, as the war had started, 80+% of Americans were in support of the war.

And while I am at it, there is also a misconception #4, which is "we must do something to bring our troops home". Wrong. The troops are going there voluntarily, they can simply refuse to go. Don't think so? Ask Lt. Watada and many others.

I am one of those people, like Fisk, who squirmed when listening to the wacko's rave on about 9-11. But then I heard some intelligent people talking about the smoking guns and started to do some reading on my own. I discovered The New Pearl Harbor by David Ray Griffin, along with Paul Thompson's excellent The Terror Timeline, and am completely convinced that the Bush Administration not only knew what was coming and when, but also issued stand-down orders to the fighter jets that should have been scrambled out of McGuire AFB. The more I read, the more the pieces of the puzzle start to fit together, e.g., why the buildings fell straight down, why the owner of WTC told the NY Fire Dept. re: WTC#7 "Let's pull it", why they've never recovered any remnants of a jet aircraft at the Pentagon site, why the public has never seen any film of the Pentagon being hit, why the wreckage of #93 is strewn over several miles, why Bush continued to read "My Pet Goat" in the classroom and was not taken to a safe place immediately if we in fact were under attack, why NORAD wasn't activated, why the plane heading toward Washington, D. C. was allowed to continue its course, why absolutely no individual from Air Traffic Controllers, the Military, CIA and FBI has been reprimanded and/or lost their job due to negligence or incompetence on that fateful day. Would someone, anyone, care to explain that last fact to me?

I truly believe that the "keystone kops" narrative is a fabrication and a smokescreen so we won't see what's really happening. I completely agree with puck on this. They are right on target, and we'll be in Iraq for twenty more years.

There are thousands of holes in the official story, for anyone who is open-minded enough to listen and do some basic research. The facts are out there, if you want to learn...........BTW, the official story is also a "conspiracy theory", except the conspiracists are all Islamic.

Ok, kids, let's look at this thing from the standpoint of who is accused, and what they gained.

OBL? He gained worldwide notoriety, hounding by the most powerful military in the world, and a cave to hide in. In the eyes of the world he has brought America down, though, but at the cost of having the 1.1 billion strong Islamic community viewed with horror, disgust, and suspect sanity. Although 1.1 billion is a huge number we must always remember it is only a small fraction of the estimated 6.5 billion world population.

Bu$hCo? Well, the dollar sign in his name says most of it, but not all, because the neo-CON/Zionist lust for world domination can't entirely be satisfied with just money. Just as with OBL religious zealotry plays a big part in the equation. Both Bush & OBL claim to be divinely guided, which is just a ruse to control populations through religion. Another way is through the tool of energy sources...I.E....OIL. In this respect both men are winners for their families. While America is in the ME the oil companies & MIC (military industrial complex), both Bush backers, gain greatly win or lose. Through the Iraqi hydrocarbon law being forced on that nation by America the oil companies gain by control of supply. Even if we pull out of Iraq they will gain by having an excuse to control (and raise) price. Since the Bush & OBL families are 'all about oil' both families are winners regardless of the outcome in Iraq. The MIC might seem to be the losers in this deal, but why do you think we are doing so much saber rattling against Iran right now?

As proposed by PNAC, control of ME oil is essential for success. One effective means is to destabilize the region and affect a 'clearing', much the same as the wealthy land owners did during the Irish potato famine in the 1840's. The Irish barons didn't care where the people on their land went as long as it was somewhere else. Because of this a quarter of the Irish people died of starvation. Within about another year about a quarter of the Iraq population will either be dead, or displaced from their homes in-country or out. This is only a beginning, however, since many more are likely to be 'cleared' from the area through the US use of the radioactive & toxic WMD of DU (depleted uranium) Google DU, read a couple articles, and you will see what I mean. It's a whole lot easier to take another country's resources if there are no people there to stop you.

Keep in mind the PNAC plan was written in 1997, and has roots going back much farther than that. All these groups of people involved are operating on long range plans, which brings us back to the article under discussion. The Bushies, neo-CONs, Zionists, Mossad, Israelis, OBL people, whatever, have either been planning or praying for just such an opportunity as 9/11 for quite some time now, and it provided the perfect (some say too perfect) event to forward their long range plans. One piece of information buried by the events of 911 was a report that came out on 9/10 stating the Pentagon couldn't account for over $2 Trillion (with a T) in military supplies that were 'missing'. How convenient was it that the events of 9/11 pushed that major fiscal scandal out of everyone's minds? "Follow the money", is the famous quote.

We definitely need more than the Whitehouse whitewash, incomplete, long delayed study know as the 'Official 911 Commission Report' to set this matter to rest once and for all. With lingering doubts cast now by a full third of Americans as to whether BushCo was complicit in this event directly, or covertly by letting it happen, it bodes ill for our democracy to have any question as to whether the $1-2 Trillion the Iraq/Afghanistan fiasco will eventually cost us, not to mention an estimated 1 million deaths so far, was worth it.

Someone asked David Ray Griffin what happened to the passengers (including Ted Olson's wife)if it was really a missile that hit the pentagon and he stumbled over it and said something about them being willing to kill loved ones to further the agenda-or whisk them off to an island. Then he urged everyone to buy his book.

There are lots of weird things with 9 11-but also alot of coincidences.
Like Larry King having 3 guests a few days later, one of whom said they should invade afghanistan, syria, then Iraq and Iran.
The other two guests said in nervous unison: uh i dont think that's a good idea.
They were Judith Miller and Paul Bremer.

Fisk: "the Bush administration has screwed up everything - militarily, politically diplomatically - it has tried to do in the Middle East".

Big contractors like Halliburton will disagree. The dollars spent on political campaigns are coming back now, tenfold. Is making lots of money to be considered a 'screw-up'?

However, I do think Mr Fisk should be applauded for the guts he's shown in publishing this article. It's a start.

For people still wondering, I recommend reading "The New Pearl Harbor" by David Ray Griffin. Those who want to check some facts might take a look at www.911review.com.
Oh, and read Orwell's "1984" (again).

We cannot all be scientists, but we do have some common sense. Why not try using it?

As an engineer I feel compelled to point out that there is a significant difference between the 1480°C melting point of the material that the 4 main structural steel columns were made fromand the point at which the strength imparted to them during their manufacturing and assembly process has been degraded by the 820°C heat of the burning jet fuel so as to make them incapable of supporting the load of the floors above any longer.

Assuming these 4 main structural supports were designed at or beyond the typical 4 hour minimum code required fire rating, think how long they stood burning after the initial injury and be thankful that most folks below the impact floors were able to escape.

We must get our facts straight when our message will be seen by many over-zealous right wingers. This is not to say that there is nothing that begs explanation around the whole incident for which the Bush administration owes the world.

For instance:
Why were there terror games being played by the Air Force on that same day that "coincidentally" ;) were exactly the scenario that played out. Our fighter jets were disarmed for the exercise and it produced just enough confusion in the FAA flight controllers to allow the predominantly Saudi and Egyptian religious zealots to succeed in their plot? For reference, see "the exact same thing happened in the London Tube bombings."

What is up with the lack of acknowledgement that the Bush admin. ignored the warnings from the Clinton admin. regarding Al Qaida? It is my opinion that the plot was helped by the president irresponsibly taking as much vacation as Bush did in his first year.

REgarding building 7. There's a really good question! How long does it take to prep a building for demolition like that? A couple weeks at best. Charges must be placed and usually, certain bracing walls need to be weakened or removed to facilitate the inward collapse.

The maximum damage caused to that building by the remnants of the Auxilliary Power Unit (a tiny ~75kW turbine driven generator that weighs a couple hundred pounds at most...remember weight is a critical factor in the design of flight hardware) or the remnants of the main engines, both after they went completely through the no less than 3 glass walls (both in towers 1 or 2 and the outside of building 7 and countless other metal stud and fire 'resistant' sheetrock, or drywall. So what's up with that building 7 demolition?

Why were the buildings so lightly populated on that fateful day? Does this not remind anyone of similar happenings at other "terrorist attacks" like OK City?

The other question I have is why are there no official pictures of the Pentagon attack? And how is it that after the first strike, the missiles that protect DC were not on high alert? How come there is no photographic evidence or tourists who were there profiting from selling their story from any source about the plane striking that building?

Just my 2 cents.

I only know a few things for sure:

1) 9/11 was a failure of national security of biblical proportions. Whether due to complicity or incompetence doesn't matter. The end result is the same.

2) Osama bin Laden is still around, after all these years. Whether due to complicity or incompetence doesn't matter. The end result is the same.

3) If there is another terrorist attack of this magnitude, 1 will still be true. If 2 remains true, then complicity goes up as a probability.

George and Osama do have a love-hate relationship, after all. They give each other exactly what the other needs to stay on top.

Of us.

Everybody here is right. Something very fishy happened. My big question, though, is what did the neocons really want to accomplish? What is the end game according to PNAC? Was part of the plan to turn America into a dictatorship first and take over the world second? I buy the money incentive up to a point, but I think this is more about power than anything else. Is the war in Iraq a diversion so that the Neocons can take over the U.S.?

I don't know if Bush is going to need another false flag event like 9/11 to attack Iran, but I want to know why the rest of the world powers are standing by while the U.S. gobbles up the world. Where are Russia and China in all this?

I just can't get this puzzle to come together at all. All the strange events and facts about 9/11 need to be investigated. We need answers. But the biggest question for me is WHY?

(Lot of good posts, starting with puck twain and ending with lucid dreaming directly above). Here' my take:

I have always respected Fisk's writing.
Yet, I am confused by his article because:
1) He takes great pains to distant himself from "ravers", and yet
2) He brings up several of the "check-mate" points that are the reason why they "rave" so much, such as my favorite, which is how building 7 (the Salamon Brothers building) fell down in 6.1 seconds (free fall) into its own footprint.

What is it going to take for people like Fisk, and Amy Goodman, and the writers at the Nation, Progressive, Z magazine, et al, to see the obvious? The Nation is located in NYC. Are they not at all curious how building 7 fell down? Is that not bizarre that they have never wondered aloud about that? Are there not pertinent questions left "unanswered"?

The good news is that, despite his "distancing", Fisk, an important writer, has at least gone on record as saying something is fishy. But where are the truth tellers today? Why not just say the obvious? If we lose our democracy, it will be because good men and women, did nothing.