Tom DeLay

I was just reading about Tom DeLay this morning...he's been indicted in an ethics probe. Jeez, what took so long? Well, better late than never. Things aren't looking good for the Republicans these days. The Iraq mess, the hurricanes, high gas prices, now this. If 9/11 truth ever goes mainstream, that will be the final nail in the Republicans' coffin, because 9/11 is the big lie that the entire administration is based on. That's all they have left. Somebody wrote an article on 911truth.org about this - 9/11 is the "mother" issue of them all.

But even more than that, if 9/11 is exposed for what it was, there will be other big changes. The whole shadow government situation will be exposed, the whole neocon ideology, the CIA...all these entities will be laid bare, investigated, and rooted out.

In researching 9/11 lately, for some reason I keep thinking about a scene in Mission Impossible, the movie with Tom Cruise and Jon Voight. There's a scene toward the end of the movie, where Jon Voight comes back and talks to Tom Cruise about why the mole (Jon Voight) did what he did - something about shadow operatives being rendered obsolete in the post-Cold War era, and taking revenge because of it. It was a brilliant little scene, I thought, in an otherwise silly movie. But it strikes me as relevant here.

Was 9/11 in part a desperate lashing out of shadow operatives, to justify their existence?

Layer after layer...

It's amazing to me, how complex 9/11 was. Reading Tarpley's book really opens up the scope of the thinking behind it all, the history of it. According to him, these rogue military and private networks go back to JFK's assassination, MLK, RFK, the OKC bombing, and the 1993 WTC bombing. What I find incredible is how secret the whole thing is. It's almost beyond belief that (assuming that these assertions are true) everyone involved in these operations is so loyal to the neocon ideology that nobody from within ever comes forward with information, or makes a big enough mistake that their plans get noticed beforehand. And you'd have to have so many people involved in the thing...people to plant charges in the buildings, a base with people working on the dummy planes, a command center where the flights were controlled from, complicit military and government employees, politicians...how did they pull it off?

I was just reading in Tarpley's book about Giuliani and his political maneuvers on 9/11 and afterward, making sure that the WTC site was cleaned up quickly, stirring up discord among the firefighters - a big group of eyewitnesses who could have revealed information about controlled demolition charges, explosions going off, etc. Somehow, the firefighters were discredited, marginalized.

So, was Giuliani involved in the planning for the attacks? And Larry Silverstein, the owner of the WTC lease, who mentioned "pulling" WTC Building 7? Why aren't they being investigated and questioned, if the evidence points clearly toward their complicity?

I can't help wondering what would have happened if someone had videotaped events at Logan Airport that morning - people boarding the planes, shots of the planes themselves...that would be some damning evidence. Also, video of the people who planted the charges in the WTC over the weekend of 9/8 to 9/9, when there was a "power down" of floors 50 and above in the north tower.

But no such luck, I guess.

One of the most disturbing assertions in the book is that Bush essentially capitulated to the rogue network when he started to mention Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda after the attacks. Supposedly, that was what the network wanted, to start a "clash of civilizations" against the Arab world, so that the U.S. could maintain its dominance for the next however many decades or more. Also, this network is in a position to threaten the current Administration because it has access to all sorts of weaponry. So, that means the Bush Administration is being blackmailed by these guys. Whenever Bush states publicly, as he did today, for example, that he's not going to withdraw troops from Iraq, he's basically saying to this network, "Don't worry, we'll keep up this clash of civilizations as long as you want us to."

Can that really be what's happening here?

Webster Tarpley's book

I just got back from Barnes & Noble, where I bought my special-order copy of 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA by Webster Griffin Tarpley. I spent about an hour reading through it in the cafe. It's really something - it ratchets up 9/11 truth to a new level by going into a history of state-sponsored terrorism, in the US and elsewhere. It also dares to talk about the network of organizations that were likely responsible for carrying out the attacks. Fascinating stuff. I highly recommend it, and I haven't even finished it!

You can see some video of Mr. Tarpley and other 911 truth people at 911busters.com.

He has his own website, too: http://www.tarpley.net/welcome.html

Well, time to get back to my reading of this important new contribution to 911 research...

If I had one wish...

There are people who will always believe the official story, no matter what. They will not confront anything that doesn't conform to their worldview.

If I had one wish, it would be to convince all of these people that their worldview works perfectly for the criminals who are running the show. These are the people who put those "Support the Troops" ribbons on their SUVs, or the "Power of Pride" bumper sticker, or "These colors don't run," or my personal favorite, "They started it...we'll finish it!"

Just think of how this stuff works for Cheney and Rumsfeld. Sheer ignorance and jingoistic paranoia are perfect for them. Perfect. The moment you start to doubt or question things, everything falls apart. That's why they have FOX News, Rush Limbaugh, and the rest of the corporate media constantly reinforcing this mentality. And the major newspapers do it, too. There's this entire industry of media whores who get paid to keep everyone intensely ignorant.

Doesn't it make you sick, how little they think of us? They are the ones laughing, Mr. Colwell - the media whores. Not Osama bin Laden. Can anybody even prove that bin Laden still exists? There is evidence to support the contention that he is a fictitious boogeyman, created by the CIA.

You know who else is laughing? Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, the CIA...this whole thing is working out great for them. Except that it's starting to fall apart now, thank god.

But how far will it fall apart? Will 911 truth ever enter into the mainstream media?

My email to Mr. Colwell

(sent on 9/12/05)

Dear Mr. Colwell,

I read your column on Sunday, September 11th. It
struck me as an appropriate article for most
Americans, who still believe the official story of the
terrorist attacks, which can be summarized as follows:
a crazy man living in a cave in Afghanistan
orchestrated the attacks, which were carried out by 19
hijackers with boxcutters. That explanation still
works for most Americans.

I'm sure that many people reading your column were
reminded of the anger they felt four years ago at the
perpetrators of the attacks. I was reminded of the
anger I felt, but I was also reminded of how naive I
was back then, only four years ago.

I have read a lot about September 11th, 2001 since
September 11th, 2001.

I wonder if you are at all aware of the growing
so-called "911 truth movement," which questions the
official story of that day's events. There are
several books and websites devoted to revealing
evidence of our own government's inaction (at best)
and possible complicity (at worst) in the attacks.

If you have not at least read through The New Pearl
Harbor by David Ray Griffin, I urge you to do so.
This is a very thoughtful and dispassionate critique
of the official story as told to us all by the media
and the 911 Commission. Another recent critique is
9/11 Revealed by Rowland Morgan and Ian Henshall. One
of the main websites is simply www.911truth.org.

Even more disturbing is a video called 911 In Plane
Site, which you can order from www.911inplanesite.com.
Despite its awful title and sensationalist tone,
there is deeply disturbing video evidence in this
production that seriously calls into quesion whether
Flight 77 really hit the Pentagon, whether the planes
that hit the towers were commercial or military, and
whether the twin towers collapsed because of the
impacts or because of controlled demolition charges.

I appreciate your criticism of the government's lack
of preparation for Hurricane Katrina and its dismal
homeland security efforts. But you have also
succeeded in simply whipping up your readers' emotions
with a Bin Laden retrospective that plays right into
the popular mythology surrounding September 11th.

As long as we all keep believing in this convenient
boogeyman, who may not even be alive anymore (did you
even know that?), we'll always have a justification
for prolonging our presence in Iraq or invading
another country. I think it's high time that
journalists start writing responsible articles about
what's really going on.

I hope you will consider researching 911 truth and
then writing about it for the Tribune. I'd also
appreicate a response to this email.

Sincerely,
Andy
Granger, IN

Mr. Colwell's piece

(South Bend Tribune, 9/11/05)

"Who gets last laugh? So far, it's bin Laden hands down"

Osama bin Laden, that murdering jihadist who wishes ill for all of us, must be a very happy guy on this fourth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on our nation.

If he feared that our expenditures and planning for homeland security would lessen the impact of the next terrorist strike, he must have exchanged high-fives, or engaged in whatever jihadists do to celebrate, as he and his buddies watched the impact of Hurricane Katrina.

New Orleans destroyed.

Bin Laden has dreamed of destroying an American city. Aware now of the bureaucratic bumbling in preparations for and the aftermath of Katrina, he surely is encouraged that he can indeed someday soon take out another of our cities without any help from a hurricane.

The political babbling here must give him cause for hearty laughter.

Some partisan commentators actually suggest that Louisiana got what it deserved because it elected a Democratic governor.

Some political partisans on the other side actually suggest that Louisiana got what it deserved because it went Republican for President Bush.

No laughing matter, except for a guy like bin Laden.

He can rejoice that all the finger-pointing in seeking to affix blame for 9/11 apparently has not done much to find solutions for dealing with a homeland disaster. We don't have enough fingers to point at all the mistakes in dealing with Katrina. And what good is pointing, if those pointed out are not replaced and if the problems pointed to are not solved?

Katrina was a threat spotted out in the Gulf way in advance. Bin Laden plans no warning. He will seek again, as on that day four years ago when terror struck out of the blue, out of beautiful blue skies, to provide another surprise. If we can't cope, even with days of warning, how will we cope with the next surprise disaster?

Cartoonists like to portray bin Laden as a bedraggled and sickly figure holed up in a dark, spider-filled cave somewhere in Afghanistan or Pakistan, cowering helplessly. If only it were so.

Living in a cave, if that's where he is today, is no hardship if you don't care about comforts we enjoy, if you still can frustrate those who hunt you and if you still find ways to dispatch orders to do evil to those you despise. And any cave abode no doubt has been pretty nicely furnished by now by his loyal backers in jihad.

Bin Laden must laugh a lot at how he has been able for so long to avoid capture by the most powerful nation ever.

He probably never expected to survive so long. Nor does he necessarily care that much, convinced as he is that his death will bring martyrdom, rally jihadists for ultimate victory and provide the rewards he anticipates in heaven.

Too often we fail to understand that our views and values are not his.

Sometimes bin Laden is pleased with our success. He surely was delighted when our invasion of Iraq took out an infidel he hated, Saddam Hussein, and those Baathist unbelievers who had rejected and cruelly suppressed creation of an Islamic state.

Now, he is delighted that terrorism flourishes in Iraq, with hope for civil war that could lead to an Islamic state of the Iran type. We dare not leave Iraq with the job unfinished, but do we know how to finish it? He must laugh at our dilemma. Can we keep bin Laden from having the last laugh?

How bin Laden must laugh, contemplating how our best and brightest to react to new terror includes the Arabian Horse Association guy who heads FEMA. Does al-Qaida have incompetent patronage appointees, too? Do they have a lot of bureaucratic paperwork before they can strike?

How bin Laden must laugh, contemplating how Congress prepared for the long-feared New Orleans disaster by cutting requested funds for frills like stronger levees.

How bin Laden must laugh, contemplating how we play the blame game now, making more divisive the split between the red states and the blue states. In disaster time, couldn't all the states be red, white and blue?

How bin Laden must laugh, contemplating how racism brings hatred in our homeland. Some see racism where it played no part. Others refuse to see it where it was a factor.

It's nice to spread happiness. But to bin Laden, that murdering jihadist?

As we head beyond the fourth anniversary of 9/11 terror, can't we finally handle homeland security in a way that won't have Osama bin Laden laughing? Or is the plan to cause him to die laughing at us?

Jack Colwell is a columnist for The Tribune. Write to him in care of The Tribune or by e-mail to jcolwell@comcast.net.

South Bend Tribune editorial

Last week, on September 11th, there was an editorial in the SBT by a columnist named Jack Colwell. In the editorial, Mr. Colwell kept saying that Bin Laden must be laughing at us for what he did to our country four years earlier. Apparently, Mr. Colwell has bought right into the official 9/11 story: Osama Bin Laden, the hijackers, they hate our freedoms, and so on.

After everything I've researched about 9/11, I couldn't just sit back and let this guy get away with such a blatantly ignorant, irresponsible article. So I wrote to Mr. Colwell and told him about the 9/11 truth movement. I asked him to look at www.911truth.org and to read The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11 by David Ray Griffin. I have yet to hear back from him. I have a feeling I'll be waiting quite a while for any kind of response.

Now, there's an important thing to realize about someone like Mr. Colwell. This man is called a "columnist" by the Tribune. That is very different from a real journalist. A journalist, as I understand the term, is a person who reports the news and is supposed to be informed about the issues he or she is reporting on. A columnist (sometimes called an "opinion journalist") is a person who provides mostly opinion pieces. It's no surprise that these days there seem to be far more columnists writing opinion pieces than journalists doing real investigative news reporting.

I can't help but think about something the author David Brock said in Outfoxed, the recent documentary about Fox News - he said that Fox News and other right-wing outlets like talk radio, for example, have been trying to turn all journalism into a matter of opinion, because opinion can't be proven false. This is a very scary development.

Picture the average person reading Mr. Colwell's opinion piece. The average person knows nothing about 9/11 truth. He reads the opinion piece, which does nothing to further his knowledge about 9/11. It simply reinforces the official story, and it raises his indignation level with repeated quotes like, "How Osama must be laughing at us..." What's the result for this average guy? What's going on is his mind? Here's what's going on: a perpetual closed loop of non-information and a mindless desire for revenge, violence, and war. And that's exactly what's intended.

This is not good. Here's Colwell's opinion piece:

http://www.southbendtribune.com/stories/2005/09/11/opinion.20050911-sbt-MICH-B10-Who_gets_last_laugh_.sto

So, what is "9/11 truth"?

Well, it's a term that many people are using to indicate that there are problems with the official 9/11 story, as told to us through the typical news media outlets, and by the 9/11 Commission.

Now, at this point, it's probably a good idea for me to mention that until about a year ago, maybe a little more than that, I believed the official 9/11 story, which goes something like this: a crazy man in a cave in Afghanistan masterminded the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The attacks were carried out by 19 hijackers armed with boxcutters. They overpowered the pilots, the crew, and the passengers, and they flew the planes directly into their targets, killing thousands of people. They did it because they were Muslim extremists and they hated our freedoms.

I would guess that most Americans probably still believe this story. And who could blame them, really? Most of us are wired into TV for countless hours a day. Most of us are too tired from overworking ourselves at our silly jobs that we don't have time to wade through the bad information, or to seek out the missing information. Most of us don't even want to get the point where we're asking questions. We just want to plop down in front of the idiot box and forget about everything. We simply do not care about this stuff.

This is one of the reasons I wanted to become a librarian - I wanted to fight against this awful tendency that we have to be passive and uncritical of what goes on in the world. Every community needs a place where people can go to get access to real information, where there are people like me who are paid to help them find it.

So what is this information about September 11th that's missing? One of the best places to go for a summation of the 911 truth movement is wikipedia.org. Your homework for tonight is as follows: go to this article at wikipedia and read through it. This is an excellent place for everyone to start.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_conspiracy_theories

Welcome to Indiana 9/11 Truth

Wow...my first blog. This is exciting. I have no idea what will happen with this little adventure, but I guess that's part of the fun.

Let me get right to the point. I'm a librarian. I've been a librarian for seven years. My job is to help people find information. It's a great feeling, helping people find information - everything from "where's the bathroom?" to "can you help me find information about gall bladder surgery?" Whatever piece of truth people are looking for, I help them find it. I do it with a great attitude, although sometimes it takes great patience, because sometimes people can be a real challenge. Maybe you've noticed. Also, sometimes finding information can be a real challenge. There's a lot of information in the world. There's good information, bad information, and missing information. My reason for creating this blog is to tell people that there is information about the September 11th terrorist attacks that has largely "gone missing" - information that the average American doesn't even know exists.

I'm calling it "Indiana 9/11 Truth" because it's my hope that Indiana residents, in particular, will learn a few things from it. Of course, anyone is welcome to join the party at any time. I also hope that other people across the country will eventually create their own blogs devoted to this issue.

So, that's my official welcome! My next post will delve right into the heart of the subject.