9/11 Truth Movement

From The Book of THoTH (Leaves of Wisdom)

The 9/11 Truth Movement is a collection of groups and researchers questioning the official account of 9/11 who disagree with the mainstream media's account of the September 11, 2001 attacks. The 9/11 Truth Movement is informal, decentralized and occasionally fractious; its members convene by electronic mailing lists, ongoing local meetings, and national and international public conferences. (500 Conspiracy Buffs Meet to Seek the Truth of 9/11 "In the ballroom foyer of the Embassy Suites Hotel, the two-day International Education and Strategy Conference for 9/11 Truth was off to a rollicking start.") (Hijacking the truth on 9/11 "Once found only on fringe websites and in Arab marketplaces, conspiracy theories about that day are popping up among serious academics.")

Contents

[edit]

Genesis of Movement

Almost immediately after the terrorist attacks, 9/11 conspiracy theories alleging government complicity or cover-up appeared.

The first book on the subject, 9/11 The Big Lie, was published in France in March 2002 by Thierry Meyssan, President of Voltaire Network. He emphasized anomalies in the photos of the Pentagon. His work has since been the subject of multiple critiques, which allege Meyssan's book is a form of misdirection.[1],[2], [3][4]).

Around the same time, Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth was published in France by Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, documenting media reports in publications like the Times of India that the US government had told numerous allies it was going to invade Afghanistan several months before 9/11. Up until 2004, Germany produced the largest number of books questioning the official 9/11 narrative; three of them, by Andreas von Bülow, Gerhard Wisnewski and Mathias Bröckers, were best-sellers, as were the aforementioned French works.

In June 2002, the group Unanswered Questions held an event [5] at the Washington National Press Club. Various officials and some 9/11 family members used the event to call for a full investigation and greater transparency around the events of 9/11. At that time the Bush administration was working to oppose such an inquiry [6].

The first work in English was The War on Freedom [7] by Nafeez Ahmed in July 2002, emphasizing geopolitical motives, soon followed by Michel Chossudovsky's book, War and Globalization - The Truth Behind September 11th. In September 2002 Eric Hufschmid's Painful Questions was published, which promotes a controlled demolition thesis of the destruction of the WTC towers.

While these books inspired many activists of the 9/11 Truth Movement, others came to the movement via websites, e-mail and demonstrations. Indymedia websites, for example, also played a role in promoting the questioning of the mainstream media account of 9/11 early on. Canadian journalist Barrie Zwicker aired a series on Vision TV titled "The Great Deception" in January and February 2002, the first televised questioning of the common account that charged a deliberate effort to allow the attacks to happen via suppression of the normal air defense systems over New York and Washington.

In 2002, Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-GA, became an icon of the movement when she questioned whether George Bush had foreknowledge of 9/11. In November 2003, the 911 Visibility Project held the first coordinated national activism protest for 9/11 truth activists. In March 2004, came the book The New Pearl Harbor by the academic and theologian David Ray Griffin, providing a methodical, deductive framework. In 2004, Michael C. Ruppert's Crossing the Rubicon was published, which claimed to identify key insider suspects in the 9/11 attacks and provide an examination of their context: petroleum, geopolitics, narcotraffic, intelligence and militarism. In 2005 Webster Tarpley's 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA tried to make a link between 9/11 and previously known models of false flag state-sponsored terrorism such as Gladio or the Red Brigades.

[edit]

Evolution

On January 8, 2002 in San Francisco, a rally and march on Senator Dianne Feinstein's office took place to demand a Congressional Investigation of 9/11. A delegation of activists from peace and human rights organizations met with Senator Feinstein's and Senator Barbara Boxer's staffers and raised key questions about 9/11[8]. That month, President Bush and Vice President Cheney asked Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to limit the investigations to "intelligence failures."[9]

The 911 Visibility Project distributed thousands of STOP the 9-11 COVER-UP signs at the anti-war protests of March 20, 2004, which received national press exposure and served to kick start the national 9/11 Truth Movement. Also in March of 2004, the first International Inquiry into 9/11 [10] was hosted in San Francisco, California, which brought together 9/11 researchers and activists from all over the world for presentations, dialog, and interviews.

To date, activists in the movement have distributed over 6 million "Deception Dollars" (an anti-Bush parody of the dollar bill that includes addresses of websites which aim to prove that 9/11 was an inside job). David Ray Griffin's address on "9-11 and the American Empire," on April 18, 2005, which was broadcast on C-Span and widely distributed via radio, community access TV, DVD, and in print, expanded the movement considerably.

The 9/11 Truth Movement received more publicity in the fall of 2005, when BYU Physics professor Steven E. Jones announced a paper describing his hypothesis that the WTC towers had been intentionally demolished by explosives. This paper garnered a small amount of mainstream media attention, including an appearance by Jones on MSNBC. This was the first such programming on a major cable news station.

On 16 May 2006, the US Department of Defense, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Judicial Watch, released more video of the Pentagon attack, which brought attention to members of the 9/11 Truth Movement. [11] According to the website Prisonplanet.com, Chris Farrell, Judicial Watch's Director of Investigations & Research, said in an interview [12] that his organization "could be the water carriers for a honey pot operation, in which the government attracts overwhelming attention to the Pentagon issue, making it the cornerstone of the 9/11 truth movement, and then blowing it out of the water by releasing clear footage of Flight 77." Groups within the 9/11 truth movement including flight77.info, and Scholars for 9/11 Truth, say they are working to get the others of the 70 or more videos[13] of the Pentagon released.

[edit]

Characteristics

The 9/11 Truth Movement embraces a political diversity of members, including "left," "right," pacifists, paleoconservatives, Greens, anarchists, and libertarians. While the mainstream media has mostly ignored the 9/11 Truth Movement, alternative media on the Internet, including talk-radio hosts like Alex Jones, and publishers like Larry Flynt of Hustler magazine, have addressed the presence of the Movement and some of the unanswered questions. Some of the questions asked by activists and researchers in the 9/11 Truth Movement were also put forth by the 9/11 Family Steering Committee to the 9-11 Commission in the hopes they would be responded to during the public hearings.

Within the 9/11 Truth movement, some activists are considered more radical than others. Some labelers have ascribed the acronyms "MIHOP" (Made It Happen On Purpose) and "LIHOP" (Let It Happen On Purpose) to designate two camps.

While some maintain that the US government was intentionally negligent, allowing blame for 9/11 to remain on Muslim hijackers, others argue that the attacks were engineered by elements within the government, and not by Arabs (in other words, the alleged Arab hijackers were, at most, patsies). These activists argue that the physical evidence of rapid falls of the three WTC skyscrapers could not have occurred as the result of aerial collisions. Researchers Jim Hoffman and Steven E. Jones, promote the concept that pre-planted explosives caused the collapses of the WTC towers, suggesting that only insiders with full knowledge of the attacks could have gained access to and wired the buildings[14],[15].

Popular books on the topic include David Ray Griffin's aforementioned The New Pearl Harbor, Crossing the Rubicon by Michael C. Ruppert, The Terror Timeline by "Paul Thompson", and The War on Truth by Nafeez Ahmed. Some of the movement's popular videos have been "The Great Deception" and "The Great Conspiracy" by Barrie Zwicker, and "Truth and Politics" and "9/11 and American Empire" by David Ray Griffin. In 2006 actor Charlie Sheen spoke out on the Alex Jones show in support of an independent investigation into the 9/11 attacks, an interview which was subsequently covered by CNN Showbiz Tonight.

[edit]

The Citizens' Commission on 9-11

The Citizens' Commission on 9-11 was a meeting by a group of United States citizens who were skeptical of the findings of the 9/11 Commission Report, and who purported to launch their own investigation into the events of September 11th, 2001. The meeting took place on September 9, 2004. The event was sponsored by 911 CitizensWatch, with support from 911Truth and Ny911truth.org. Kyle Hence, co-founder of 911 CitizensWatch, presented the event and Nicholas Levis, co-founder of Ny911truth.org, helped organize the event.

The event was billed as being modeled after the United States Congressional hearings which were conducted by the 9/11 Commission. A group of citizens heard testimony provided by witnesses, authors, experts and whistle blowers. The witnesses gave their testimony after having been sworn in, and were then questioned by the citizen panel. An audience and representatives from the press were also present. In the introduction, Kyle Hence noted that citizen-panelists were not sworn in at the beginning of the 9/11 Commission, and that swearing in had only started after "we made some noise about it, and the press started to ask some questions." Hence also stated that some have dubbed the "9/11 Commission hearings" the "9/11 Omission Hearings". The world premiere of Barrie Zwicker's The Great Conspiracy was performed after the end of the hearings and questions.

Citizen-panelists included Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, local Imam and doctor Faz Khan, and father of one of the victims of the 9/11 attacks, Bob Mcalvane.

[edit]

Participants

  • Barry Zelman - lost his brother Kenneth in the North Tower
  • Mindy Kleinberg - widowed, single mom. Video testimony from her hearing to the 9/11 Commission.
  • Charlie Sheen
  • Jenna Orkin - plaintiff in potentional lawsuit against EPA, gave environmental hazard negligence testimony.
  • John Judge - co-founder of 911 CitizensWatch.
  • Barrie Zwicker - Canadian television journalist. transcript.
  • Michael Springmann - former Diplomat for the Department of State, Attorney, regarding giving Visas to terrorists.
  • Paul Thompson - author of The Terror Timeline.
  • Michael Ruppert - founder and editor of From The Wilderness.
  • Indira Singh - lived and worked at Ground Zero, she read a letter from Sibel Edmonds, and talked about P-TECH.
  • Nicholas Levis - talked about The Omissions Dossier.
  • Carolyn Betts - attorney, addressed options for future, for example courts.
  • Tom Delonge
[edit]

9/11 Truth Movement National and International Meetings


[edit]

Bibliography of Professional Books/Articles

  • Greenwald, Glenn. How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok. Working Assets Publishing, 2006, 146 p. ISBN 097794400X
  • Griffin, David Ray. The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11. Olive Branch Press, Northampton, MA, 2004. ISBN 1566565529
  • Griffin, David Ray. The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions And Distortions.]Olive Branch Press, Northampton, MA, 2004. ISBN 1566565847
  • Hoffman, Jim & Paul, Don. Waking up from our Nightmare: The 9/11 Crimes in New York City, Irresistible/Revolutionary Press, San Francisco, CA, 2004. ISBN 0943096103
  • Ruppert, Michael C. Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil. New Society Publishers, 2004. 696 p. ISBN 0865715408
  • Snow, Nancy. Information War: American Propaganda, Free Speech, and Opinion Control Since 9/11. Seven Stories Press, 2003. ISBN 1583225579
  • Zarembka, Paul., ed. The Hidden History of 9-11-2001 (Vol. 23 of Research in Political Economy). Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2006. ISBN 0762313056
[edit]

See also

[edit]

External links

Retrieved from "http://book-of-thoth.com/thebook/index.php/9/11_Truth_Movement"