OpEdNews - Page 2 of Article: The Lies and Crimes of 911: A Canadian View of the War on Terror's Origins

While the War on Terror recycles many old patterns of US conduct in the Indian Wars and in the Cold War, there is, nevertheless, something unprecedented in the intensity of the undisguised contempt displayed by many of the top figures in the US executive branch for the rule of law and the ideals of universal human rights. The official conspiracy theory of the events of 911 has been deployed to bring us to this point where we are being walked through a series of steps that Naomi Wolf, a child of Holocaust survivors, has recently identified as the classic points of transition along the road to fascism. [ix] The national security state is creating the basis of a global police state that violates the sovereign status of every national government on earth. We live in an era when the US government has asserted the unique authority of its president to designate unilaterally any person anywhere in the world as an unlawful enemy combatant. We can guesstimate that possibly tens of thousands of individuals have already been rounded up and transported to known and unknown locations around the world on the basis of the illegitimate claim that the US executive branch possesses some sort of worldwide jurisdiction that supersedes the sovereign character of all national entities. Those targeted by the national security state are being jailed in a global network of gulags and secret concentration camps where they may be tortured or even eliminated without any prospect of receiving a fair trial.

In this country on the eve of a national election, the minority government of Stephen Harper seems thoroughly complicit with many US incursions on Canada's national sovereignty. Indeed our Prime Minister seemed perfectly content to run his minority government as some sort of franchise or branch plant operation of George Bush's White House. When has Prime Minister Stephen Harper uttered even a hint of criticism directed at US violations of international law and global human rights inflicted in the name of 911 and the War on Terror? The ongoing incarceration of Canadian citizen Omar Khadr in the infamous US concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay epitomizes the problem. Canadian General Romeo Dallaire recently condemned Khadr's US jailers and their Canadian enablers for violating those laws and treaties that prohibit the abusive treatment of child soldiers. Khadr was fifteen when he was apprehended in 2002 by US forces in Afghanistan.[x] Dallaire's insistence on the need to respect international law contrasts dramatically with the attitudes displayed by Gordon O'Connor, a retired Brigadier General in the Canadian Army who served for two years as the Harper government's Minister of National Defence. In January of 2007 O'Connor was called upon to justify the Canadian commitment of almost 3,000 soldiers to serve the US-led NATO mission in Afghanistan.[xi] O'Connor said, "When the Taliban or al-Qaeda came out of Afghanistan, they attacked the Twin Towers and those in the Twin Towers, 25 Canadians were killed [sic]. The previous government and this government will not allow Canadians to be killed without retribution. [xii]

O'Connor's comment brings us to the core issues we have come to address at this convention. On what basis did Gordon O'Connor or anyone else in the Canadian government decide who is responsible for the attacks on the Twin Towers and those in the Twin Towers? What is the evidentiary base of the Canadian government's contention that the portion of the Afghani people who identify themselves as Taliban or supporters of the Taliban are the primary culprits responsible for the crimes of 911 including the murder of 25 Canadians? Why has not the Canadian government undertaken its own independent investigation to decide for itself the identity of those most responsible for the death of our citizens in the explosive pulverization of the Twin Towers? In this season when many politicians in North America are asking us for our vote, what can we do to exact a commitment that a proper investigation will yet take place, ideally in a way that helps stimulate a larger international process aimed at bringing to justice those genuinely responsible for the crimes of 911?

The Canadian investigation will have to address the issues involved in keeping our soldiers in a civil war zone where the factions known variously as the Taliban, al-Qaeda and the Northern Alliance have all in recent times been united mujahadeen backed and armed by the US government in order to overthrow a Soviet-backed puppet regime. This US government's backing of the mujahadeen through Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence agency was one episode of a more pervasive pattern during the Cold War when the US national security state encouraged, helped organize, and richly financed religious extremists of all stripes in the name of opposing the atheism of Godless Marxism. In the Canadian investigation of the genesis, events and outcome of 911, careful consideration must be devoted to the role and legacy of CIA agent Osama bin Laden as well as to the background of Hamid Karzai, the current CIA agent and pipeline consultant in charge of the US-client regime in Kabul. Careful consideration must be given to the great increase in the export of opium from Afghanistan since the US-backed Northern Alliance ousted from Kabul the governing Taliban.[xiii] Does it make sense to continue to put our sons and daughters in harm's way in order to visit Canadian "retribution" on Afghani citizens, Taliban or not? We need our own Canadian inquiry, emphasizing our own national perspectives and our own national interests?

As we mourn the terrible loss of our Canadian soldiers, diplomats and aid workers we must not lose sight of those Afghanis who have been killed and maimed because of the way the events of 911 have been interpreted, spun and exploited? How many Afghani lives have been lost or ruined because of the actions our own military personnel? How many of those Afghanis detained by our own people have ended up in torture chambers, including those reported to exist in the US Armed Force's notorious Bagram Theatre Internment Facility? How many Afghanis have been wrongfully subjected to the same kinds of nightmares visited on Maher Arar. Arar and his wife, Monia Mazigh, are Canadian heroes with ample cause to understand the kinds of injustice that can occur when overzealous officials abuse the arbitrary powers invested in them by this so-called War on Terror?[xiv] Why should we betray our national identity and international reputation as peacemakers and peacekeepers on the basis a foreign government's absurd proposition that warfare diminishes terror. How is terror being diminished by the US weaponization of space, by the US financing of newer and ever more devastating technologies of mass destruction, or by the massive privatization of state violence through the large-scale deployment of mercenary armies empowering contractors with guns?

The fast and circus-like media trial that almost immediately assigned blame for the crimes of 911 formed a rude introduction to the attempt by the US executive branch to extinguish habeas corpus-the basis of the principle that individuals are innocent until proven guilty. The appearance of official duplicity and cover-up only grew in 2002 when President George W. Bush tried to appoint Henry Kissinger as the White House's main investigator into the crimes of 911. As a prime candidate himself for the role of the accused in possible war crimes tribunals of the future, Kissinger's appointment proved unacceptable.[xv] But the effort to make Kissinger the US agent in charge of covering up what happened on 9/11 established patterns that continued until the 9/11 Commission released its final report. From its inception the Bush White House's 9/11 Commission had everything to do political protection of the powerful and nothing to do with the substance of an impartial judicial review. The work of the 9/11 Commission was shot through with evasion, fraud and cover-up from beginning to end.

The suspicion generated by George Bush's original choice of Kissinger led to the appointment of Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton as Chair and Co-Chair of an investigation where the real substance of the process was left to the Commission's hired staff. Kean and Hamilton began their own book looking back on the work of the Commission by declaring that they had been "set up to fail" by the White House. [xvi] And fail they certainly did. The key figure who drafted much of the report was the 9/11 Commission's executive director, Philip D. Zelikow. Zelikow is a professor as well as an insider in the Bush White House. He was a member of the Project for a New American Century, a member of President Bush's transition team and a very close associate of Condolezza Rice with whom he co-authored an academic book. Accordingly, Zelikow's many conflicts of interest could not be more clear. He used his position to shield his political patrons in the White House from political harm.

Zelikow's own academic specialty involved studying the relationship between terrorist attacks and the making of public mythology. This background made him the White House's ideal candidate for his role as the guardian of the 911 myth. The 9/11 Commission didn't even address the sudden demolition at 5:20 in the afternoon of September 11 of World Trade Centre 7. WTC 7 was the 47 story building that instantly plunged to the ground without being hit by any airplane. Many of those who have studied the 9/11 Commission report in greater detail than I have see it as a farce that is totally unworthy of the gravity of the event it addresses. For instance Benjamin DeMott wrote in Harper's Magazine, hardly a radical or a marginal publication, that the 9/11 report is a "whitewash, a cheat and a tremendous fraud." It is full of "evasive manoeuvres that infantilize the audience, transforms candor into iniquity, and conceals realities that demand immediate inspection and confrontation." DeMott concludes, "The Commission, in sum, offers peace through exculpation, evasion, and entertainment, and in doing so dangerously re-energizes a national relish for fantasy." [xvii]

The absence of any disinterested third-party investigation and arbitration of the crimes of 911 together with the timidity, laziness, or outright complicity of the commercial news media have opened up a huge field for the intervention of a concerned citizenry who do not buy the officially-sanctioned conspiracy theory. This convention hosted by Edmonton 911 Truth is one expression of the vitality of our fast-spreading grass roots movement. The quest for some measure of truth about the genesis and events of 911 have created a virtual cottage industry of research, book writing, and digitally published movies, texts and radio shows. Increasingly the lies and crimes of 911 are the subject of raprock music videos and all manner of artistic interpretation As a former student of Marshall McLuhan I find this whole phenomenon to be of huge academic interest quite apart from the specifics of the information being presented. It represents a classic display of what McLuhan meant when he said the medium is the message.

The 911 Truth Movement is creating one of the most lively and interesting districts of critical inquiry on the Internet. Of course the material presented in the New Media is of uneven merit and quality. But in its totality, this complex of web sites together with the related books and DVD's has become the basis of vast and extremely accessible public archives on a huge array of topics joined by their critical importance to the public interest. The topics include, for instance, assessments by engineers of the demolitions that took down the three World Trade Centre structures, the double dealing that goes on to this day in the CIA-backed Inter-Service Intelligence Agency in Pakistan, the complex business dealings in and around the events of 911, and the many military drills that were planned to coincide with the attacks of 911. These drills drew the US Air Force away from intercepting the attack airplanes and the projectile that hit the Pentagon. Yet another rehearsal for a terrorist attack just happened to put in downtown New York on September 10 scores of agents of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA had a major role in coordinating the removal of the structural evidence from the scene of the mass murder as quickly as possible once various caches of gold, including one belonging to the Bank of Nova Scotia, were removed. The role of Rudolf Guiliani in this part of the 9/11 cover-up operation incensed many members of the New York Fire Department who were prevented from finding the remains of their killed brethren by the rush to cart off to the dump the evidence of the 911 crime scene. [xviii]

In my estimation there has never been anything quite like this digital challenge to the authority of many institutions, but particularly to the traditional role of commercial news venues as the gatekeepers of information deemed suitable for public consumption. As I have been preparing for this presentation over the summer I have been especially impressed by the many You Tube productions depicting small groups of activists, some of them obviously new to the political process, heading out into their communities, pamphlets and DVDs in hand. As far as I can see their quest is animated for the most part by the simple and sincere hope that the Big Lie of 911 can be transcended so that justice will prevail. Along the journey towards 911 truth the seekers attempt to engage their fellow citizens in meaningful dialogue about the importance of connecting the dots. They encourage those they encounter to see through the official conspiracy theory and its huge negative consequences for all humanity. Doesn't this kind of community-based and web-based activism epitomize how honest political transactions are supposed to take place among the members of responsible citizenries who understand their civic duty to be as well informed as they can be on the major issues of the day? Doesn't this example point to an exit from, rather than a manifestation of, "the great derangement" that Rolling Stones journalist Matt Taibbi wrote about in his satirical literary romp that is none-too-flattering to the 911 truth movement. [xix]

The experience of looking through a representative sample of the many thousands of Internet sites and the many hundreds of Internet movies, all devoted to the quest for 911 truth, is giving me some hope that a new form of citizens' journalism is replacing the form of paid investigative journalism that once was fairly common even in the commercial media. But make no mistake about it. The best of the contributions seeking to explain key elements of the most visually dramatic crime ever committed serve as a marker of how retrograde the commercial media has become in keeping up with an extremely consequential and fast-breaking story. After all their early involvement in helping to create and cultivate the public mythology of the events of 911, what commercial or publicly-funded news venue would dare now to assume the enormous responsibility of confronting the lies of 911? Who in the commercial media would be willing to the lead an unrelenting exploration of the scenario that the War on Terror may be based on the criminal acts of individuals who learned their black arts not in some distant caves in Afghanistan and Pakistan but in locations much closer to home? Nevertheless the chips shall eventually fall where they will. I predict that they day is not too far distant when many of our most influential opinion makers will be in a hurry to declare retroactively that knew all along that something was terribly inconsistent between the compelling visual evidence of controlled demolitions and the official explanation that would make burning jet engine fuel, melting steel and the force of gravity the basis of the pancake theory of the Twin Towers' demise.

Trying to Move Towards the Truth in Telling the Story of 911

Although I have been documenting the so-called War on Terror from its inception, this presentation is my first formal address on the lies and crimes of 911. In stepping forward I'm aware that Canadians have made many substantial pioneering efforts in the rich scholarship on this topic. For instance Barry Zwicker and Michel Chossudovsky were among the earliest and most clear and consistent scholarly commentators to identify the gross deceptions installed into the public mythology of 911. In putting together the ingredients in 2004 of the Toronto International Citizens Inquiry into 9/11 Zwicker and Chossudovsky helped push the boundaries to create the framework for the kind of citizens' movement epitomized by this event and the hard work of its organizers. I want also to make special mention of the academic contributions of John McMurtry's and Peter Dale Scott. Both are hugely accomplished senior academics who helped establish the framework of critical 911 studies. Interestingly both men come from illustrious Canadian families whose members have played significant roles in the academy, in the law, and in social activism at its finest.

A member of the Royal Society of Canada, McMurtry is a retired philosophy professor at the University of Guelph whose very original explorations into the concept of values drew him towards the analysis of how what he calls the life economy is assaulted by the market economy. Scott is a former Canadian diplomat and a retired Professor of English at the University of California in Berkeley. In his work on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Scott developed the concept of "deep politics." This study drew him to explore the intertwined role of oil and drug cartels in the complex workings of our secret governments. Like Chossudovsky and Zwicker, McMurtry and Scott spent decades developing lines of analysis that flowed almost organically into 911 studies. Scott is the son of F.R. Scott, the great constitutional authority, civil libertarian, and poet. Among his many posts, F.R. Scott was once Dean of the McGill Law School. McMurtry's brother, Roy, is a former Attorney General and Chief Justice of Ontario. The third brother, Bill, who recently passed away, was a legendary lawyer who fought urban sprawl, helped found the Toronto International Film Festival, and made significant strides advancing the legal case for Aboriginal and treaty rights.

My continuing work with Splitting The Sky forced me to realize I could not indefinitely postpone some sort of scholarly reckoning with the lies and crimes of 911. Among the various projects on which Splitting the Sky and I have collaborated is the case of the United States versus James Pitawanakwat. In 2000 I wrote the expert report for the Pitawanakwat's government-assigned lawyer in the Federal Public Defender's Office in Portland Oregon. Pitawanakwat is veteran of the Indian war that took place at Gustafsen Lake British Columbia in 1995. The Canadian government put in a request to the US government to extradite Pitawanakwat back to Canada. After hearing the evidence that we put forward Judge Janice Stewart decided not to grant this request. She overruled the US State Department. Judge Stewart agreed with our contention that Pitawanakwat had been criminalized largely for political reasons in a conflict where the Royal Canadian Mounted Police led a media campaign of "disinformation and smear." The governments of BC and Canada used the media spin doctoring of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to stigmatize the Gustafsen Lake sun dancers as terrorists rather than deal with the serious constitutional arguments they tried to bring forward through their lawyer, Dr. Bruce Clark. Clark was later disbarred by the Law Society of Ontario for his unrelenting efforts to represent his clients under extremely difficult circumstances.

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