Al Qaeda and the Bogus "War on Terror"

Al Qaeda and the Bogus "War on Terror"

By Arabesque

In an editorial entitled "War on Terrorism is Bogus" Michael Meacher, a former Member of UK parliament wrote:

[The] "global war on terrorism" has the hallmarks of a political myth propagated to pave the way for a wholly different agenda - the US goal of world hegemony, built around securing by force command over the oil supplies required to drive the whole project.

Who is Al Qaeda? As noted by Michel Chossudovsky:

Ironically, Al Qaeda --the 'outside enemy of America' as well as the alleged architect of the 9/11 attacks-- is a creation of the CIA. From the outset of the Soviet-Afghan war in the early 1980s, the US intelligence apparatus has supported the formation of the 'Islamic brigades'.

As former National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski explained:

According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, [on] 24 December 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.

Did this support ever end? As Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed explains in Ties With Terror: The Continuity of Western-Al-Qaeda Relations in the Post-Cold War Period:

At every major strategic point in the world, we find that US and Western power is symbiotically melded – through financial, military and intelligence connections – with al-Qaeda; and further that al-Qaeda has in certain places been explicitly used as a military-intelligence asset by Western powers, particularly the United States and United Kingdom. This documentation indicates that international terrorism in the form of al-Qaeda is not merely an enemy to be fought, but rather an unruly asset to be, when possible, controlled and manipulated in the pursuit of quite specific strategic and economic interests. Worse still, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that certain elements of the policy-making establishment are perfectly cognizant that as a direct result of such policies, national security is being fundamentally and continuously undermined with repeatedly fatal consequences. Yet the same brand of policies persists. Without dwelling unnecessarily on the possible theoretical ramifications of this phenomenon, it is sufficient for me to note that these facts fundamentally challenge the entire paradigm of the ‘War on Terror’ as articulated and legitimized by the official narrative.

This "unbroken chain of links between "Al Qaeda" and Western Intelligence agencies from the 1980's through the 1990's" has also been documented by Michel Chossudovsky. This "relationship" has continued to the present day:

"President George W Bush has given the CIA approval to launch covert "black" operations to achieve regime change in Iran, intelligence sources have revealed. Mr Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilise, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs."

"The CIA is giving arms-length support, supplying money and weapons, to an Iranian militant group, Jundullah, which has conducted raids into Iran from bases in Pakistan."

This group has ties to the Al-Qaeda organization.

Lorie Van Auken's Speech In Front Of The NYC Ballot Initiative

See also Lorie Van Auken's Speech In Front Of The NYC Ballot Initiative by Jon Gold on 911blogger and the NYC 9/11 Ballot Initiative Campaign.

How the 9/11 Commission Got it Wrong - an Introduction to 9/11 Skepticism on YouTube

How the 9/11 Commission Got it Wrong - an Introduction to 9/11 Skepticism on YouTube

From Reprehensor on 911blogger:

If Shenon's book was your introduction to the simple fact that the 9/11 Commission failed in its mandate on several levels, then you are probably unaware that serious criticism of the 9/11 Commission was entered into the Congressional Record of the 109th Congress. This criticism was the result of a Congressional Briefing conducted by former Congressional Representative, Cynthia McKinney of Georgia. (McKinney is currently seeking the Presidential nomination for the Green Party of the United States.)

The briefing was held on July 22nd, 2005, subsequently broadcast by C-SPAN, and studiously ignored by the corporate press. A comprehensive collation of the briefing has not been made available online, but thanks to the magic of YouTube, I have chopped the most pertinent testimonies from that day into neat 10 minute segments that are easily digestible for the busy internet surfer. You may have seen some of the footage from the briefing in the documentary, "Press for Truth", where Lorie Van Auken talked about her husband's fate on 9/11. Beyond that, not much of this footage has been circulating on the net.

source: http://www.911blogger.com/node/14030

Michael Ruppert and Peter Dale Scott

Michael Ruppert and Peter Dale Scott
911 - Aftermath: Unanswered Questions from 9/11 (2 of 3) - Live Panel
GNN
48 min 19 sec - Aug 9, 2006

9/11 Cartoon: Steel Melting Double Straw-man

9/11 Cartoon: Steel Melting Double Straw-man

By Arabesque

A blog entitled Respectful Insolence posts a 9/11 Cartoon The "troof" hurts...

The cartoon asks the question "can fire melt steel" and gives a misleading answer.

Yes, fire can melt steel, but only in special conditions as Dr. Thomas Eagar explains:

“The fire is the most misunderstood part of the WTC collapse. Even today, the media report (and many scientists believe) that the steel melted. It is argued that the jet fuel burns very hot, especially with so much fuel present. This is not true.... The temperature of the fire at the WTC was not unusual, and it was most definitely not capable of melting steel. In combustion science, there are three basic types of flames, namely, a jet burner, a premixed flame, and a diffuse flame.... In a diffuse flame, the fuel and the oxidant are not mixed before ignition, but flow together in an uncontrolled manner and combust when the fuel/oxidant ratios reach values within the flammable range. A fireplace is a diffuse flame burning in air, as was the WTC fire. Diffuse flames generate the lowest heat intensities of the three flame types... The maximum flame temperature increase for burning hydrocarbons (jet fuel) in air is, thus, about 1000 °C -- hardly sufficient to melt steel at 1500 °C.” Eagar, T. W. and Musso, C. (2001). “Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse? Science, Engineering, and Speculation”, Journal of the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, 53/12:8-11 (2001).

Ironically, this cartoon found underneath the blogger's tagline, "The miscellaneous ramblings of a surgeon/scientist on medicine, quackery, science, pseudoscience" is actually a double straw-man. First of all the NIST report denies molten steel (likely because acknowledging molten steel would be very problematic for the official story--in contrast to what this cartoon would have us believe). Secondly, molten steel can only occur with the conditions described above by Eagar.

Did the steel melt at the WTC as denied by NIST? According to eyewitness testimony of "pools of molten metal", analysis, and other evidence; yes it did. With very unusual temperatures.

"The temperatures required for the observed spherule-formation and evaporation of materials observed in the WTC dust (table 1) are significantly higher than temperatures reachable by the burning of jet fuel and office materials in the WTC buildings (table 2). The temperatures required to melt iron (1,538 °C) and molybdenum (2,623 °C), and to vaporize lead (1,740 °C) and aluminosilicates (~2,760°C), are completely out of reach of the fires in the WTC buildings (maximum 1,100 °C). We wish to call attention to this discrepancy: the official view implicating fires as the main cause for the ultimate collapses of the WTC Towers and WTC 7 (FEMA [13], NIST [15] ) is inadequate to explain this temperature gap and is therefore incomplete at best. The formation of numerous metal-rich spherules is also remarkable, for it implies formation of high-temperature droplets of the molten metals, dispersed in the air where they cool to form spherules." Extremely high temperatures during the World Trade Center destruction, Steven E. Jones, Jeffrey Farrer, Gregory S. Jenkins, Frank Legge, James Gourley, Kevin Ryan, Daniel Farnsworth, and Crockett Grabbe.

Is this the only evidence of molten steel? Hardly. In fact, "a fire protection engineer and two science professors" published a brief report about steel taken from Building 7, revealing:

"a phenomenon never before observed in building fires: eutectic reactions, which caused "intergranular melting capable of turning a solid steel girder into Swiss cheese." The New York Times described this as "perhaps the deepest mystery uncovered in the investigation."

What does it all mean? The NIST report denies this evidence even though some of it made its way into the previous FEMA report. This is exemplified by John Gross, who denied the existence of molten steel:

There is compelling evidence that the steel melted, and no official explanation has been given. Instead, official reports have been forced to deny the existence of molten steel to support the official story that fires caused the Towers and Building 7 to collapse.

Contrary to the insinuations of this cartoon, the truth is more complicated than the question: "can fire melt steel?" Indeed it can, but not in the conditions we are told existed within the World Trade Center on 9/11. It is an indisputable fact that jet fuel fires cannot reach the temperatures needed to melt steel. Not only this, the buildings were designed to survive plane crashes and jet fuel fires of the kind seen on 9/11.

Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, Architects for 9/11 Truth, and others are calling for an investigation to answer what really caused the molten steel and the unusual temperatures observed.

10 Questions About 9/11 Answered

10 Questions About 9/11 Answered

By Arabesque

1. When did the conspiracy theories start to come around?

The 9/11 official story is a "conspiracy" of 19 hijackers and Osama Bin Laden. In response to the attacks, 9/11 Family members demanded an investigation. Mindy Kleinberg, in an opening address to the 9/11 Commission:

“It has been said that the intelligence agencies have to be right 100% of the time. And the terrorists only have to get lucky once. This explanation for the devastating attacks of September 11th, simple on its face, is wrong in its value, because the 9-11 terrorists were not just lucky once. They were lucky over and over again. When you have this repeated pattern of broken protocols, broken laws, broken communication, one cannot still call it luck. If at some point, we don’t look to hold the individuals accountable for not doing their jobs, properly, then how can we ever expect for terrorists to not get lucky again?”

The 9/11 family members demanded accountability for the 9/11 attacks. Who was held responsible for the attacks? Instead of reprimand, key officials were promoted:

Former Senator Gary Hart observes that, “in terms of accountability, I think this is one of the great mysteries of the last three or four years. Three thousand Americans died three years ago, and no one lost his or her job over it. A president who says that he is a strong president, and those around him say he is, did not fire anyone. Either he was misled, in which case, somebody should have been fired. Or he misled us, in which case he should be fired.”[4] Senator Charles Grassley similarly noted that “I can’t think of a single person being held accountable anywhere in government for what went on and what went wrong prior to Sept. 11. It seems that nobody in government makes any mistakes anymore.” According to testimony given to Congress these statements are accurate; not one single individual within the CIA, FBI, and NSA has been reprimanded, punished, or fired for the events of 9/11.

2. Do you think we will ever find out the "truth"? Explain.

It depends. Key facts will remain unknown unless another investigation takes place. Will the truth ever be known? Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern explains that, "The whole mystique of intelligence is that you acquire this… very valuable information covertly… if truth be told, about 80%—eight, zero—of any of the information that one needs is available in open source materials.” In other words, while the entire truth may or may not be known, a great deal of the facts are available to us. Only another investigation could get answers to some key questions.

3. What do you think happened to the Pentagon on 9/11?

A commercial 757 airliner impact as explained in an excellent analysis by Jim Hoffman. There is significant controversy over this among skeptics of the official story. A significant reason for this is that physical evidence can be ambiguous in real life situations. However, the overwhelming eyewitness testimony reports of an impact, plane parts, light poles, and other evidence points to a plane impact. The key question here is why was there no interception of the incoming plane 80 minutes after the first off course plane? As Norman Mineta said in testimony to the 9/11 commission (but omitted from the final report):

"During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President...the plane is 50 miles out...the plane is 30 miles out....and when it got down to the plane is 10 miles out, the young man also said to the vice president "do the orders still stand?" And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said "Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!??"

4. What do you think happened to the World Trade Center on 9/11?

The official reports have been criticized as inadequate. The official NIST report admits that:

"We are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse".

And also, the Report:

"[Does] not actually include the structural behavior of the tower after the conditions for collapse initiation were reached." NIST, 2005, p. 80, fn. 12

In other words, the 20 million dollar report does not explain or even offer a theory to explain how the towers collapsed completely to the ground. The pancake theory was discarded and abandoned by NIST and the report only attempts to show that fires initiated the collapse. For these and other reasons, many have offered alternative explanations for the collapse of the towers. I believe that a controlled demolition was responsible for the destruction of the towers, but we need an investigation to determine how this was accomplished and who exactly was responsible.

5. What do you think happened to Flight 93 on 9/11?

Based on eyewitness reports, and the wide range of the debris found, I believe that the plane was shot down. I believe that this may have been kept from the public to prevent questions about why the other planes were not shot down. It is standard and routine procedure to intercept planes if they even manage to go off course or lose radio contact:

“Consider that an aircraft emergency exists ... when: ...There is unexpected loss of radar contact and radio communications with any ...aircraft.”[13] —FAA Order 7110.65M 10-2-5 (6)
“If ... you are in doubt that a situation constitutes an emergency or potential emergency, handle it as though it were an emergency.”[14] —FAA Order 7110.65M 10-1-1-c (7)

In fact, Laura Brown of the FAA testified to the 9/11 commission that:

“Within minutes after the first aircraft hit the World Trade Center, the FAA immediately established several phone bridges that included FAA field facilities, the FAA Command Center, FAA headquarters, DOD [meaning the NMCC in the Department of Defense], the Secret Service… The US Air Force liaison to the FAA immediately joined the FAA headquarters phone bridge and established contact with NORAD… The FAA shared real-time information on the phone bridges about the unfolding events, including information about loss of communication with aircraft, loss of transponder signals, unauthorized changes in course, and other actions being taken by all the flights of interest.”

9/11 Commission, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Public Hearing, Friday, May 23, 2003.

6. Were you in any of the areas where the attacks occurred at the time? If so, did you think any mischievous activity was going on?

No, I was not directly impacted by the attacks. I saw them on the news later in the day. I was surprised that hijackers were identified so quickly, the collapse of building 7 which looked like a perfect controlled demolition, and the Pentagon scene, which I found it surprising that a plane was supposed to have crashed there. The collapse of the World Trade Center looked shocking, and I waited to hear the official explanation, which I now reject.

7. What do you think about the 9/11 commission report?

It is a deliberate cover-up through the omission and distortion of key facts. After pushing for the 9/11 commission, the 9/11 family members asked 400 questions and got 30% of them answered. The 9/11 Family member based steering committee judged the 9/11 commission "derelict" in its duties.

A senator claimed that NORAD "lied to the American people, they lied to Congress and they lied to your 9/11 commission to create a false impression of competence, communication and protection of the American people." Further to this, “suspicion of [Pentagon] wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member [9/11] commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation.”

The 9/11 commission report omitted key pieces of evidence and testimony that was even reported to them directly, some of which was listed here (see Norman Mineta and Laura Brown testimony). Other key facts and questions were not addressed, such as the War Games and their impact on the attacks. Some officials gave contradictory and even false statements that were not seriously addressed or questioned by the commissioners.

8. Why did you start believing in these conspiracy theories?

Not all "conspiracy theories" are true. Not all theories account for all of the facts or offer the best explanation. There are many theories about 9/11 that are spread deliberately to discredit legitimate questions about the attack through guilt by association. The phrase "conspiracy theory" has been used by the Mainstream media to silence and intimidate discussion about serious questions about the attacks that many family members have had since the beginning. For example, only 30% of their 400 questions were ever addressed by the 9/11 commission. This is a "conspiracy fact", not a "theory".

As well, the media has reported extremely damaging facts about 9/11 only to never follow up on their own facts or put them together.

Furthermore, "Conspiracy theory" is a term often used in a misleading and biased way. The 9/11 official story is a conspiracy theory of outlandish incompetence. It alleges that terrorists successfully evaded a multi-billion-dollar defense establishment including NORAD, standard FAA intercept procedures, US airbases, the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, international intelligence agencies and more, without any significant or effective resistance. To believe the official story, you have to dismiss countless contradictory facts left out of the 9/11 commission report and believe that it is acceptable that instead of reprimand, those most responsible for preventing the attacks were promoted. The head of NORAD--responsible for air defenses on 9/11 was promoted three days after the attack.

9. What are some good books, articles, websites, etc. on 9/11 conspiracy theories?

There has been great research into 9/11, but there has also been misleading information spread by even the most careful and credible researchers and authors (disinformation and misinformation). Some present accurate information mixed with inaccurate information. I recommend, 9/11 Truth: Essential Reading

10. Can you tell me any information that I have not thought of?

False Flag attacks are commonly and historically used as a basis to start wars. Many times, politicians want wars and need to convince the population to agree with them and support them. Many believe that 9/11 was a False Flag attack designed to gain support for gaining access to oil. In fact, this was a stated policy goal of PNAC, whose members are prominent figures in the Bush Administration.