Front Page Of "Le Monde Diplomatique": Was September 11th An Inside Job?

[Gold9472]

Was September 11th an inside job?
Norge 'Le Monde Diplomatique' puts 9/11 on Front Page.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v491/reprehensor/911/le-monde-7-4-2006.jpg

Rough Translation provided by “Seabhcan”
From the July 1, 2006 Norwegian Le Monde Diplomatique

9/11TRUTH: More and more people in the USA are convinced that the American authorities are concealing their involvement in the September 11th tragedy. Statements from witnesses, marked confidential for several years, now show that controlled demolition may have taken place. The US government had long anticipated such an incident – as the Republican document from 2000 Rebuilding America’s defenses indicates. The 9/11Truth organisation believes that the USA probably orchestrated an incident of this type in order to justify the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the curtailing of civil liberties within the US through the introduction of The Patriot Act. It has now emerged that the America’s most senior military leader in 1962 devised a plan for a premeditated attack on Americans, which would have involved shooting down a passenger plane, so that the blame could be cast on Cuba. So why should this be excluded today? Many also believe that Pakistani intelligence cooperated with the CIA and Al-Qaida because the former transferred significant sums of money to the hijacker Mohammed Atta in the days leading up to the 11th of September. They even had Bin Laden under surveillance during the time of his treatment in a military hospital in Peshawar, Pakistan in September 2001.

Kim Bredesen
Journalist for Le Monde diplomatique.
7/4/2006

Most of us would think it strange if the impact of a passenger plane wasn’t sufficient to cause a skyscraper to collapse. So there were few who doubted what it was that hit the Twin Towers on the 11th of September 2001 or the identities of the perpetrators. However, in the intervening years, several individuals and groups, both in North America and in Europe, began to doubt whether this necessarily constitutes accuracy. For them, a set of contradictory circumstances surrounding the attacks do not correspond with the explanations of the American authorities and the Congress-appointed 9/11 Commission. A key reason for this doubt could be that there are witnesses and participants in September 11th who describe events that do not tally with events in the official story. An example is provided by onlookers who heard and saw what they believed to be explosions around the Twin Towers before they were struck by the planes. Policemen thought it looked like “planned implosion”. Fireman Richard Banaciski reported that: “It seemed like on television when they blow up these buildings. It seemed like it was going all the way around like a belt, all these explosions.” Assistant Fire Commissioner Stephen Gregory claimed:

“I saw a flash flash flash [at] the lower level of the building. You know like when they demolish a building?” – Assistant Fire Commissioner Stephen Gregory

Another controversial witness statement came from maintenance worker, William Rodriguez who was working in the North Tower on the 11th of September. In an interview with New York Magazine he claimed that he first heard a huge explosion when he was in one of the sub-basements of the skyscraper and witnessed the appearance of victims, the skin burnt off their arms by fires in the lift shaft. After the explosion in the sub-basement he heard another one from above. It was a Boeing 767. Williams was the last survivor to be rescued from the World Trade Center’s Ground Zero. He was hailed as a hero and invited to visit George Bush and the White House. Later, when he attempted to publicise his story about the sub-basement explosion, it was rejected by the American authorities. He has now filed a lawsuit against these same authorities under the RICO Statute, a legal ruling originally designed to prosecute Mafia families.

Besides witness statements describing a controlled demolition of the Twin Towers with explosives, critics of the Bush administration believe there are several sets of circumstances around September 11th that give good reason to suspect the official story is incorrect. It is a fact that none of the four hijacked planes were intercepted by fighter planes. That this did not happen, combined with the fact that the majority of the air force was engaged in military exercises, has given weight to suspicion that the American air defense force gave the order to “stand down” so that the terrorist attacks could proceed unhindered. Another suspicious circumstance is that WTC 7- also known as Building 7 – a 47-storey skyscraper, collapsed without having been hit by any of the planes. Conversely, the buildings that stood adjacent are still intact.

When it comes to any forewarning of the attacks, claims that the NSA monitored fully translated conversations in the summer of 2001 – in real-time – between Mohammed Atta and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed have raised concern. In one of the conversations, Atta purportedly gave Mohammed the green light for the attacks; NSA therefore should have been forewarned.

FBI-agent Colleen Rowley claims that the FBI’s directors intentionally obstructed her investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui In relation to investigation that could have led to the apprehension of the hijackers, FBI agent Colleen Rowley claims that the FBI’s directors intentionally obstructed her investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui – at the time he was attending flight school in Minneapolis. They did this despite having received warnings from French intelligence. Rowley believes that, had the FBI approved the investigation, they could have uncovered Moussaoui’s plans as well as those of several other hijackers enrolled in flight schools. That Pakistani intelligence (ISI) transferred significant sums of money to Mohammed Atta in the days leading up to the 11th of September, some believe, is evidence of cooperation between the ISI, CIA and Al-Qaida.

It may also seem suspicious that George Bush has maintained that American authorities have stepped down the hunt for Osama bin Laden, the main suspect behind September 11th. General Richard Myers also stated that the war in Afghanistan was not about finding bin Laden. A former CIA agent, Gary Berntsen, has furthermore claimed that the Bush administration let bin Laden escape when he was cornered in a pocket of the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan in 2001. It is also known that American intelligence were fully aware of bin Laden’s whereabouts as early as July 2001 when he was treated for a kidney condition at an American hospital in Dubai, The United Arab Emirates. A few months later in September, he also received treatment in a military hospital in Peshawar, Pakistan under the surveillance of Pakistani intelligence.

THE EXISTENCE OF CIRCUMSTANCES and witness accounts that contradict aspects of the official story has led some individuals and groups to search for alternative explanations for what happened on the 11th of September 2001. Consequently, a veritable jungle of theories about what really happened in the US five years ago has sprung up. The theories unfurl in a several, interconnected directions. A comparison of different opinions is presented in the book The New Pearl Harbor – Disturbing Questions about the Bush-Administration and 9/11 (2004), by David Ray Griffin, Professor of Theology and the Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California. A key premise he presents in the book is that the responsibility for the attacks of September 11th can, to a large extent, be attributed to former members of the Neo-Conservative think tank Project for a New American Century (PNAC), who are now key players in the Bush administration. In the document Rebuilding Amercia’s defenses: strategies, forces and resources for a New American Century (2000), written by PNACs members, it is claimed that:

“Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor”.

The title of Griffin’s book refers to PNAC’s statement the transformation of the American military necessitated “a new Pearl Harbor”. Griffin looks at this quotation in the light of the legal principle of the profit motive, or qui bono and concludes that September 11th was precisely the catalyst the Bush administration needed. For Griffin, it is therefore probable that the US orchestrated an incident of this type in order to justify the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the curtailment of civil liberties in the US through the introduction of The Patriot Act. That they have chosen to invade countries in the Middle East he regards as simply an extension of the cooperation the US already had with the power elite in Saudi Arabia, the Pakistani Intelligence (ISI), the Taliban regime and regimes in Central Asia. And for Griffen, the agenda in the Middle East and Central Asia is quite clear: it is about controlling both the production and transportation of oil via pipes and tankers. Griffin does not point to any specific figures responsible for arranging the September 11th attacks. He states only that there are different opinions about this issue. For some, speculation about the identity of those responsible surrounds intelligence agencies like the NSA, FBI and CIA. Others believe it was the White House. A third group believe that is was individual figures like Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Jed Bush, George Tenet and Donald Rumsfeld who were the real architects of the attacks. Alternatively, other possible combinations of perpetrators and organisations may have worked together. In his paper, “What is your ‘HOP’level?” Nicholas Levis categorises opinions on the attacks under four main headings:

a) The Official Story: That Osama bin Laden was responsible, that the planes were hijacked by 19 Muslim fundamentalists and that the White House did not receive any warning.

b) Incompetence Theory: Accepts the official history but blames the White House, FBI, CIA, NSA and others for not following up the many warnings. This was the line taken, with a great deal of cover-up and spin, in the 9/11 Commission’s report.

c) LIHOP (“Letting It Happen on Purpose”): There are a number of variations on this one. Is mainly about how factions within the American authorities and the private sector were aware of the hijackers’ plans but did nothing to stop them, since September 11th was in line with political objectives.

d) MIHOP (“Making It Happen on Purpose”): US authorities or private forces planned and carried out the attacks.

End Part I

[Gold9472]

For the sceptics, the common denominator is their belief that at least one of the elements of the official presentation of September 11th is inaccurate. For those who subscribe to the radical MIHOP hypothesis, a key premise is that the Twin Towers – including Building 7 – collapsed as a result of controlled demolition with explosives; that it was an inside job. The technical/construction part of this claim has however been directly refuted in a report of approximately 10,000 pages written by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), who claim that it was fuel from the passenger planes that disturbed the structure of the towers and that it was this that eventually caused them to collapse. NIST is unable to offer a satisfactory explanation as to why the third building collapsed, WTC 7, did so without having been struck by a plane. Professor of physics at Brigham Young University in Utah, Steven E. Jones, rejects NIST’s claims about the Twin Towers (see also Greig’s article). He relates, for example, how eyewitnesses had observed that steel from all three skyscrapers had melted, (in some cases, the steel was found glowing three weeks after the attack) and was twisted in a way that can only have been caused by what he describes as pre-positioned “cutter charges”. According to Jones, these charges consisted of thermate, HMX or RDX, and these are only used in explosives that are used in controlled demolitions. Another important point for Jones is that the fires in the buildings and the fuel from the passenger planes, (the maximum temperature for airplane fuel is 1000 degrees Celsius) did not produce sufficient heat to melt the steel – which would require temperatures of between 1550-1990 grader Celsius – within the 1-1½ hours it took the Twin Towers to collapse.. Jones’ claims are supported by the data engineer Jim Hoffman. After video and photo analysis of the events, Hoffman concludes that all three buildings fell almost symmetrically, at close to freefall speed and directly downwards onto their own foundations. According to Hoffman therefore, the speed of the collapse, the pulverisation of the concrete to a “milky” powder and the presence of horizontal dust clouds observed alongside WTC 7 are associates with the use of pre-positioned explosives in buildings.

MANY NO LONGER BELIEVE the official explanation, but are convinced that the Towers’ collapse was an inside job – either that the authorities “let it happen” or “made it happen”. Many who put their trust in other hypotheses, have joined forces with the umbrella organisation 9/11Truth. – an ad hoc organisation, formed to exist until the last unanswered question about September 11th has been answered. 9/11Truth has brought together a cross-section of society; members with different political allegiances manage the same organisations and lobby groups. This cooperation is mainly concentrated on meetings, demonstrations, the production of documentary films, Internet fora, online publications and conferences. In the UK, a local branch of 9/11Truth has been set up called JulySeventhTruth, so called as it seeks to piece together what happened during the terrorist attacks in London on the 7th of July 2005.

9/11Truth poses questions about why no fighter planes managed to intercept the four hijacked planes. 9/11Truth searches for the answer to whether or not the Bush administration is lying when it says they had no foreknowledge of the terrorist attacks. And as to whether intelligence agencies like the FBI, CIA and NSA deliberately failed to investigate leads and dismissed evidence that could have identified the hijackers before September 11th. 9/11Truth organised a major conference entitled “9/11 Revealing The Truth/ Reclaiming our Future” in Chicago between the 2nd and 4th of June. Every day, the media spokesman for NY9/11Truth, Les Jamieson is in southern Manhattan,where each Sunday he helps to arrange demonstrations at Ground Zero or seminars in St. Mark’s Church, made available by priest, Frank Morales. Jamieson made the following responses to questions from Le Monde Diplomatique:

– Does September 11th represent further justification to declare war?

– No. It happened before in Germany when the Reichstag was set on fire. Those responsible dressed Germans up to look like Communists and made it look as though Russians were setting fire to the German parliamentary building. The Germans did the same with Poland. They dressed prisoners to look like German soldiers and shot them. In this way, they made it look like Polish soldiers were shooting Germans – and used this as an excuse to invade Poland. And it has recently emerged that, here in the USA, the authorities planned a similarly staged operation, Operation Northwoods: A plan was devised in 1962 by the most senior-ranking military leader in the US. The plan was to arrange a terrorist attack inland, on the coast of Florida where Americans would be killed, a passenger plane shot down, a ship sunk – and all the blame would be laid on the Cubans. So this is nothing new, it’s been done before.

– How cynical can a government become?

– A lie precipitated the Vietnam War too – the events in the Tonkin Gulf. It was reported that Vietnamese torpedo boats had shot at American ships in the Tonkin Gulf. But these reports were fictitious. President Lyndon B. Johnson and foreign minister Robert McNamara exploited these reports to pass the Tonkin Gulf Resolution in Congress – which was really a declaration of war. 50,000 Americans ended up dead, hundreds of thousands tragically affected. The herbicide Agent Orange was used to poison farms and land use. This is what happens when governments and the power elite orchestrate wars. There really is a level of evil, a loathing of humanity. That’s why Henry Kissinger said once about the war between Iraq and Iran: “I hope they kill each other,” or: “Oil is much too important a commodity to be left in the hands of the Arabs.”

– Is it similarly possible to suggest that there could have been a secret group connected to the government, a “state within a state,” that planned and brought about September 11th?

– Yes. One has to remember that there are private groups of agents, private armies that exist outside Congress’ field of vision. They carry out covert operations deep inside the CIA, and have severed all contact with the American government, who for their part, have no knowledge about what is going on. This has been happening since the 50’s. When Dwight Eisenhower left his presidency he said that one should be vigilant over the overarching control of the Military-Industrial Complex. To this day, we still have a shadow government, an invisible government and we believe this one works together with elements within the intelligence agencies MI5, MI6 and perhaps Mossad. MI5 and the CIA definitely work together in translating the agenda for the international power elite.

– Are you not afraid of being labelled a conspiracy theorist?

– The term “Conspiracy Theory” must also be understood as a strategy of the mass media and individuals within the power elite to sew seeds of doubt about this kind of information. The fact is that, on the contrary, there are a range of examples of real conspiracies by the authorities. For example, the Iran-Contras affair was a result of a huge conspiracy that enabled the sale of narcotics to buy weapons for the Contras. And we have the BCCI scandal in 1991 – a massive banking scandal. There’s also the vote in Florida in 2000 and in Ohio in 2004. If one studies these things, mammoth conspiracies can be uncovered. What about all the lies that led to the invasion of Iraq? We were told that weapons of mass destruction definitely existed and that Saddam tried to buy “yellow cake” from Nigeria. It was all lies and deception. These kinds of events need a conspiracy! The American government’s official version of what happened on September 11th is a scandalous conspiracy theory; it’s not to be believed! In our organisation we are detectives and investigators. We put together a theory and are actually extremely stringent in finding the best possible analysis.

The American government’s official version of what happened on September 11th is a scandalous conspiracy theory; it’s not to be believed!

Les Jamieson
JAMIESON IS NOT THE ONLY ONE subscribing to such theories. The participation of many community groups and service personnel connected to 9/11Truth has generated a trail of research and articles. A group called Scholars for 911Truth describes itself as ”..a non-partisan association of faculty, students, and scholars, in fields as diverse as history, science, military affairs, psychology, and philosophy, dedicated to exposing falsehoods and to revealing truths behind 9/11. It was established by philosophy professor James H. Fetzer and professor of physics Steven E. Jones – the movement’s foremost expert on the collapse of the Twin Towers. The latter’s work will be published in September, a contribution to the anthology 9/11 & American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out (2006). In the book, edited by David Ray Griffin and Peter Dale Scott, there is input also from Ola Tunander, professor at the PRIO – the International Peace Research Institute Oslo with the article “The War on Terror and Pax Americana” (see under).

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed wrote one of the first books published to question the official version of September 11th – The War on Freedom: How and Why America was Attacked, September 11th, 2001 (2002). It expresses profound criticism of American foreign policy, both leading up to and subsequent to 9/11.

Paul Thompson, from Scholars for 9/11Truth, is the author of The Terror Timeline, A Comprehensive Chronicle of the Road to 9/11 and America’s Response. This is a comprehensive collection of news articles about the terrorist attacks on the 11th of September 2001. Thompson works at the Center for Cooperative Research. Another much-talked about member of Scholars for 9/11Truth is David Ray Griffin. In addition to books on theology, religion and philosophy, he wrote The New Pearl Harbour (2004) and 9/11 Commission Omissions and Distortions (2005). In the latter, Griffin highlights 115 areas where the 9/11 Commission’s report failed to evaluate important evidence or deduced fundamentally flawed conclusions from existing evidence. Griffin is also a dynamic force behind the organisation MUJCA-net – a discussion forum for Christians, Jews, Muslims and other believers who are sceptical of the official explanation for September 11th. The head of the organisation is the intellectual, doctor and imam Faiz Khan, who works at a Jewish hospital in New York. In the essay The Paralysis of Discourse; The Incompetence of Academia, and The Need for an Accurate Diagnosis, he argues that September 11th precipitated a simplification of language and ideas about what it means to be Muslim and Arab – especially when Muslims the world over are to be held responsible for actions a small minority of terrorists have carried out. Khan believes the hijackers were most probably “fake” Muslims, i.e. that they were not Muslim in their beliefs in the way that American foreign policy is American. That the blame for the terrorist attacks is attributed to something as diffuse as a “military Islamic network,” he believes, is tantamount to an abdication of responsibility by the US, since the latter worked in tandem with the ISI (Pakistani intelligence) and Saudi-Arabia to build those networks up.

End

[Gold9472]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Monde

Le Monde (French for "The World") is a French daily evening newspaper with a circulation in 2004 of 371,803. It is considered the French newspaper of record, and is generally well respected, often the only French newspaper easily obtainable in non francophone countries.

The newspaper should not be confused with the monthly publication Le Monde diplomatique, of which Le Monde has 51% ownership, but which is editorially independent.

Le Monde was founded by Hubert Beuve-Méry at the request of General Charles de Gaulle after the German army was driven from Paris during World War II, and took over the format of Le Temps, whose reputation had suffered during the Occupation. Beuve-Méry reportedly demanded total editorial independence as the condition for his taking on the project. Its first edition appeared on November 19, 1944. Le Monde has been available on the Internet since December 19, 1995. It is the principal publication of Groupe Le Monde.

Its current board chairman and director of publication is Jean-Marie Colombani and the current chief editor (rédacteur en chef) is Gérard Courtois. Plantu is one of several political cartoonists who contribute to the paper, and his work is often featured on the front page above the fold.

[Gold9472]

To my knowledge, Paul Thompson is not a member of the Scholars.

[Partridge]

This is NOT Le Monde!

This is Le Monde Diplomatique (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Monde_Diplomatique) - a different paper altogether. Although Le Monde own about 50% of it, and its readers own the other 50%.

It's a left-leaning monthly, somewhat similar to the leftist French daily l'Humanite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Humanite).

It's an important distinction, and I'd hate to see you make such a mistake if you're in an interview situation and want to bring it up.

[Partridge]

I changed the thread title to reflect this.

[Gold9472]

Stupid French. Bill O'Reilly was right!