‘In his latest weekly address to the nation, President Obama asserts that America’s questions about 9/11 have been answered. If only it were so.
The questions of 9/11 have only continued to pile up higher since that fateful day, and despite official platitudes we are no closer to having those questions answered today then we were when they first arose. In fact, for some of the most important 9/11 questions, the government’s own documents and records that could conceivably answered them have been destroyed, meaning we may never have answers.
The unanswered questions of 9/11 are too numerous to enumerate, but they include:
-Why has NIST classified the data that they used to make their computer animation of the WTC7 collapse? Would knowledge of how NIST believes the building collapsed really “jeopardize public safety“?
-Why did the DIA destroy more than 2.5 terabytes of data on their Able Danger investigation that reportedly identified four of the alleged hijackers years in advance of the attack? Why did the Pentagon buy up and burn the entire first print run of Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer’s book on the program?
-Why did the SEC destroy their records on the 9/11 insider trading question, presumably the most important investigation in the agency’s history?
-Why did the alleged “mastermind” of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, confess not only to plotting 9/11 “from A to Z” but also confess to masterminding numerous crimes that he could not have committed?
-Why did Osama bin Laden repeatedly deny any involvement in the attacks until a series of mistranslated and otherwise manipulated videos came along appearing to portray him as taking credit for those attacks?
-Why was the report of US State Department official Frank Taylor supposedly proving the case for Al Qaeda’s role in 9/11, which NATO used to justify its invasion of Afghanistan, presented in a classified briefing? Why is that report still classified to this day?
-Why did the 9/11 commission rely so heavily on the confessions extracted through torture which even the Senate’s Armed Services committee points out is specifically used to extract false confessions?
-Why did the CIA destroy 92 videotapes of their illegal torture sessions after being specifically ordered by a court not to do so? Why did the courts eventually absolve the CIA of any culpability for this crime?
-Why did Donald Rumsfeld announce a new “war” on September 10, 2001? What was the reason for the 2.3 trillion missing dollars which the Pentagon had lost up until that point, what did Rumsfeld’s “war on bureaucracy” hope to achieve, how was that “war” hindered when the budget analyst office in the Pentagon was destroyed the following morning, and where are the public records into this accounting scandal?
-Why did Rumsfeld go into a regularly scheduled meeting with a CIA officer in his office on the morning of 9/11, after both of the Twin Towers had been struck by airplanes and it had been determined that “America was under attack.” Why did the highest ranking official in the US military remain in that meeting and unavailable for contact even by his highest staff members as the worst attack on US soil in history continued to unfold? Why did he suddenly come out for a photo op on the Pentalawn after the explosion instead of helping to coordinate the defense of the nation?
-Why is there such a massive discrepancy between the 9/11 commission’s official finding of the time of entry of Dick Cheney into the Presidential Emergency Operation Center on the morning of 9/11 and Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta’s testimony of the timing of that arrival?
-Why did the US government contract with Ptech, an enterprise architecture software firm, to install its backdoor access software on some of the most sensitive databases in the US government? Why did they continue to use Ptech even after it was discovered that its sweetheart investor was a specially designated global terrorist on the Treasury’s own terror list? Why did they declare that there was nothing untoward in the software mere hours after raiding Ptech’s offices in 2002? And what was Ptech doing in the basement of the Pentagon on 9/11? What interoperability tests was it running on the link between FAA and NORAD systems on 9/11, and how did that interfere with the FAA and NORAD’s response?
-And, perhaps most tellingly of all, how did four highjacked aircraft fly so wildly off course for such lengthy periods of time without being confronted by a single fighter interceptor, and why did the Pentagon admittedly and on the record lie to the American public about the timing of its response that day?
These and many, many questions like them have been asked by the victims’ family members, the first responders, members of the US military, American congressmen and women, intelligence agents, foreign dignitaries and heads of state, and concerned members of the public across America and around the globe. And still, 11 years after the events themselves, the American president has the gall to suggest that all questions have been answered and it is time for Americans to move on.’
One World Trade CenterA reflective 104-story skyscraper known as One World Trade Center is rising amid New York City’s skyline where the iconic Twin Towers of the World Trace Center once stood.
The building—which became New York’s tallest in April—sits adjacent to the site of the towers that were destroyed in a terrorist attack 11 years ago today, on September 11, 2001. The exact footprints of the Twin Towers have been memorialized by two reflecting pools with cascading waterfalls, and walls inscribed with the names of those who were lost in the attacks.
The photographs featured above were taken by members of the crew building the new World Trade Center, which is expected to be completed in late 2013.
| — | Christian Bale |
The New York City Police Department and Microsoft have partnered up to bring the world a surveillance system straight out of a sci-fi novel. With a name both mundane and a little bit menacing, the Domain Awareness System allows the department to access around 3,000 CCTV cameras around the city and link the feeds with software to cross-check criminal and terrorist databases, take radiation levels, scan license plates, and more — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from a lower Manhattan headquarters. And when Microsoft turns around and sells the technology to other cities, New York gets a cut.
“We’re not your mom-and-pop’s Police Department anymore,” said Mayor Bloomberg yesterday at the system’s unveiling. “We are in the next century. We are leading the pack.” Ray Kelly added, “We can track where a car associated with a murder suspect is currently located and where it’s been over the past several days, weeks or months.” Months! The archival period for video is actually 30 days, but can be extended if the Deputy Commissioner of Counterterrorism feels like it.
The official documents ensure, “As with all NYPD operations, no person will be targeted or monitored by the Domain Awareness System solely because of actual or perceived race, color, religion or creed, age, national origin, alienage, citizenship status, gender (including gender identity), sexual orientation, disability, marital status, partnership status, military status, or political affiliation or beliefs.” But we’ve heard that one before.
Beyond the surveillance integration, the Domain Awareness System is an investment. “I hope Microsoft sells a lot of copies of this system,” the mayor said, “because 30 percent of the profits will go to us.” High-tech crime fighting and a business opportunity? It’s a Bloomberg-ian dream.
Lagos — Speakers at a public symposium, “Advancing a New World Order for the progress of the Human Race,” organised by the Lagos Zone of the Rosicrucian Order, AMORC, at Lagos Airport Hotel, Ikeja, have urged world leaders to evolve new ways of pursuing the collective destiny of humanity by the creation of one world government.
The speakers included the Grand Administrator and Director, Supreme Board, AMORC, Dr. Kenneth Idiodi; Mr. Ekanem Kofi-Ekanem; Professor T. A.T. Wahua of University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt; Professor M.Y. Nabofa, Niger Delta University, Bayelsa State; Prof. John Idiodi, University of Benin and Johnson Ikube, Managing Consultant/CEO, JI Global Solutions Limited.
Dr.Kenneth Idiodi, who spoke on “Personal security through internal role-playing,” said the need for security was borne out of the instinct of self-preservation of life itself.
He argued that peace cannot be said to abide in a society where people are living in a constant state of alertness and cannot sleep at night with both eyes shut, figuratively speaking!
In his presentation on whether one world government is desirable, Johnson Ikube argued that this is possible in that the majority of people believed that the universe is one large system under one governance; that of the Supreme Being, God; and also with the inspirations that led to the establishment of the United Nations. This vehicle is already here with us. Its operational modalities can be improved for better deployment; and also the formations of regional integration structures and mechanisms such as the European Union, African Union, the Americas.”
He said a one world government will see the whole world as its responsibility and, therefore, focus on holistic, accelerated growth and development in a sustainable manner ensuring partnership between man and nature according to the will of the owner.
| — | Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran |
