Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The following presentation is Del Marvis Studio's production. You're listening
to the Fact Hunter Radio Network. Here is your host,
George Hobbes.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome back truthseekers from around the world. It's time for
another edition of our classic audio series, and tonight we
welcome back David ray Griffin and his presentation entitled nine
to eleven The Myth and the Reality and of course
David ray Griffin one of the original founding members of
(00:37):
Scholars for nine to eleven Truth and unfortunately mister Griffin
passed back in November of twenty twenty two. Enjoy this
presentation and again this week on the podcast. This Tuesday,
July the eighth, we'll be looking at Jeffrey Epstein, and
the following week, Tuesday July the fifteenth, will welcome back
(00:59):
Scott Share to the program. Without any further ado, here
is David ray Griffin. Have a wonderful week. God bless
you all and take care.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
It's an honor and pleasure to introduce our main speaker,
author of the New Pearl Harbor, Disturbing Questions about the
Bush administration in nine to eleven and the nine to
eleven Commission Report Omissions and Distortions a critique of the
King Selico Report. When people face a problem, they usually
ask what can I do? However, when confronted with nine
to eleven truths that chatter their world views, people must
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ask themselves who am I? Doctor David Ray Griffin has
spent much of his life examining questions about who we
are and our relationship with the universe. A professor of philosophy,
of religion and theology Emeritus at Claremont's School of Theology
and Claremont Graduate University, co director of the Center of
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for Process Studies, he has authored fifteen books, edited a
dozen more, and has authored over a hundred articles in chapters,
presented innumerable papers and lectures. He's renowned for his theological
work and a recipient of the Book Prize of the
Scientific and Medical Network. His forthcoming books include nine to
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eleven and the American Empire, Intellectual speak Out and Christian
Faith and the Truth Behind nine to eleven. A Call
to Reflection and Action. In Process Theology, an introductory exposition,
he and his co author John B. Cobb Junior, present
a way of understanding God's existence and our own as
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a co creative process where humans individually and collectively have
the freedom, responsibility, and opportunity to imagine and realize a
better or worse future for all. Doctor Griffin has overcome
the central political and spiritual challenge confirmed humanity at this
eternally critical moment, fear. In nineteen seventy six, he and
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cob wrote the choice of life, which is the choice
of God's call, is the highest freedom in itself. Hope
grows with the ability to respond. Despair grows with the
self chosen closing in of horizons. To be responsible is
not finally to shoulder an unendurable burden. It is to
share in the divine adventure in the world. Although its
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outcome is never assured in itself, it is joyful. The
one who experiences the joy of this participation in the
divine life hopes urgently for success, but accepts the risk
that the only reward may be in the joy itself.
By deconstructing the foundational lives of the War on terrorism,
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courageously dispelling fear to champion truth and light the path
towards a hopeful future, Doctor Griffin is an inspiration to
all who reject fear, terror, war and lies, and to
all who cherish life, health, peace, and truth. The fact
that he can enjoy challenging the most threatening empire the
world has ever seen makes it possible and compelling for
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all of us to join him in this journey. Please
welcome Doctor David ray Griffin.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Good evening.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Although I have given many lectures about nine to eleven,
I had prior to this one, never devoted an entire
lecture to simply summarizing what I take to be the
strongest evidence against the official.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Account of nine to eleven.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Although I'm a philosopher of religion and a theologian, I've
spent most of my time the last three years working
on nine to eleven, studying it, writing about it, talking
about it.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
In this lecture, I will try to.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
Make clear why I have devoted so much time and
energy to this topic. I will do so in terms
of the distinction between myth and reality. I'm here using
the term myth in two senses. In one sense, a
myth is an idea that, while widely believed his false,
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does not correspond with reality. In a deeper sense, which
is employed by students of religion, a myth serves as
an orienting and mobilizing story for a people, a story
that reminds them who they are and.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Why they do what they do.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
When a story is called a myth in this sense,
which can be called myth with a capital M, the
focus is not on the story's relation to reality, but
on its function. This orienting and mobilizing function is possible
because the myth in this sense has a religious overtone.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
It is a sacred story.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
However, although to note that a story functions as a
myth in the religious sense is not to say anything
about its truth. A story cannot function this way unless
it is believed to be true in the community or
the nation.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
It is not a matter of debate.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
If some people have the bad taste to raise the
question of the truth of the sacred story. The keepers
of the faith do not enter into debate with them.
They ignore them or denounce them as blasphemers.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
It is wrong, blasphemous, and sinful for you to suggest, imply,
or help other people come to the conclusion.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
And that the US government killed three thousand of its
own citizens.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
According to the official story about nine to eleven, America
because of its goodness, was attacked by fanatical Arab Muslims
who hate our freedoms. This story has clearly functioned as
a sacred myth since that fateful day, and this function
appears to have been closely carefully orchestrated. The very next day,
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President Bush announced his intention to lead a monumental struggle
of good versus evil. Then, on September thirteen, he declared
the following day would be a national day of prayer
and remembrance for the victims of the terrorist attacks. And
on that next day, the President himself, surrounded by Billy Graham,
a cardinal, a rabbi, and an imam, delivered a sermon
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in the National Cathedral, saying, our responsibility to history is
already clear to answer these attacks and rid.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
The world of evil.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
War has been waged again them us by stealth and
deceit and murder. This nation is peaceful, but fierce when
stirred to anger. In every generation the world has produced
enemies of human freedom. They have attacked America because we
are freedom's home and defender, and the commitment of our
fathers is now the calling of our time. We ask
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Almighty God to watch over our nation and grant us
patience and resolve in all that is to come, and
may He always guide our country. God bless America through
this unprecedented event in which the President of the United
States issued a declaration of war from a cathedral. French
author Terry Masson observed in two thousand and two, the
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American government consecrated its version of the events. From then on,
any questioning of the official truth would be seen as sacrilege.
That attitude has remained dominant in the public sphere until
this day, as official account has continued to serve as
a sacred story. When people raise questions about this story,
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they are either ignored, ridiculed as conspiracy theorist, or, as
Charlie Sheen has recently learned, personally attacked. When any one
asks what right the administration has to invade and occupy
other countries, to imprison people indefinitely without due process, or
even to ignore various laws, the answer is always the
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same nine eleven.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Those who believe that U.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
S Law and international law should be respected are dismissed
as having a pre nine eleven mindset. Given the role
that the official account of nine eleven has played, the
most important question before our country to day is whether
this account, besides being a myth in the religious sense,
is also a myth in the pejority sense, that is,
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it is simply false. As a phlossph of religion, I
would emphasize that the fact that a story has served
as a religious myth does not necessarily may mean that
it fails to correspond with reality. Many religious accounts have
at least a kernel of truth that can be defended
in rational debate. In many cases, however, stories that have
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served as religious myths cannot stand up to rational scrutiny.
When such a story is stripped of its halo and
treated simply as a theory rather than an unquestionable dogma,
it cannot be defended as the best theory to account
for the relevant evidence. The official account of nine to
eleven is such a theory. When challenges to it are
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not treated as blasphemy, it can easily be seen to
be composed of a number of ideas that are myths
in the sense of not corresponding with reality. Using the
word myth, from now on only in this pejority sense,
I will discuss nine of the major myths contained in
the official story about nine to eleven. I will thereby
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show that the official account cannot be defended in light
of the relevant evidence against the main alternative account, according
to which nine eleven was an inside job orchestrated by
people within our own government. I will begin by looking
at a few myths that prevent many people from even
looking at this evidence. Myth number one, our political and
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military leaders simply would not do such a thing. This
idea is widely believed, but it is undermined by much evidence.
The United States, like many other countries, has often used
a seat to begin wars, for example, the American Mexican
War with its false claim that Mexico had shed American
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blood on American soil, the Spanish American War with its
remember the Main incidents, the War in the Philippines with
its false claim that the Filipinos fired the first shot,
and the Vietnam War with its Gulf of Tonkian hoax.
The U S government has also sometimes organized false flag
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terrorist attacks, killing innocent civilians, then blaming the attacks on
an enemy country or group, often by planning evidence. As
Daniel Ganser has shown in his recent book NATO's Secret Armies, NATO,
guided by the CIA and the Pentagon, arranged many such
attacks in Western European countries during the Cold War, in
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which hundreds of people were killed by bombs or hooded
men with shotguns. These attacks were successfully blamed on communists
and other leftists to discredit them in the eyes of
the voting public. Finally, if it be thought that the U. S.
Military would not orchestrate such attacks against American citizens, one
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needs only to read the plans known as Operation Northwoods,
which the Joint Chiefs of Staff worked up in nineteen
sixty two, shortly after Fidel Castro had overthrown the pro
American dictator Batista. This plan contained various pretexts which would
provide justification for U. S. Military intervention in Cuba. Some
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of them would have involved killing Americans. For example, I
remember the main incident. We could blow up a ship,
a U. S ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba.
At this point, some people, having seen evidence that U.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
S leaders would be morally.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Capable of orchestrating nine to eleven, might avoid looking at
the evidence by appeal to myth number two. Our political
and military leaders would have had no motives for orchestrating
the nine to eleven attacks. This myths was reinforced by
the nine to eleven Commission, while explaining why that Alcada
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had ample motives for carrying out the attacks. This report
mentions no motives that U S leaders might have had,
But the alleged motives of al Qaeda that had hated
America and the Americans and their freedoms is dwarfed by
a motive held by many members of the Bush Cheney administration,
the dream of establishing a global Pax Americana, the first
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all inclusive empire in history. This dream has been articulated
by many Neo Conservatives or neo Khans during the nineteen nineties,
after the disintegration of the Soviet Union made it seem possible.
It was first officially articulated in the Defense Planning Guidance
of nineteen ninety two, drafted by Paul Wolfowitz on behalf
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of then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, a document that
has been called a blueprint for permanent American global hegemony
and Cheney's plan to rule the world. Achieving this goal
would require four things. One of these was getting control
of the world's oil, especially in Central Asia and the
Middle East, and the Bush administration came to power with
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plans already made to attack Afghanistan and Iraq. The second
requirement was a technological transformation of the military, in which
fighting from space would become central. A third requirement was
an enormous increase in military spending to pay for these
new wars and the weaponization of space. A fourth need
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was to modify the doctrine of preemptive attack so that
America would be able to attack other countries even if
they presented no imminent threat. These four elements would require
a fifth, an event that would make the American people
ready to accept these imperialistic policies. As the Big Brazinski
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explained in his nineteen ninety seven book The Grand Chessboard,
the American people, with their democratic instincts, are reluctant to
authorize the money and human sacrifice as necessary for imperial mobilization,
and this refusal limits America's capacity for military intimidation. But
this impediment could be overcome if there were a truly
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man then widely perceived direct external threat, just as the
American people were willing to enter World War II only
after the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
The same idea was suggested in a two thousand document
entitled Rebuilding America's Defenses, which was put out by a
Neil Khan think tank called the Project for the New
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American Century, many members of which including Cheney, rumsfeld and Wolfowitz,
became central members of the Bush administration. This document, referring
to the goal of transforming the military, said that this
process of transformation is likely to be a long one
absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new pearl harbor.
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When the attacks of nine to eleven occurred, they were
treated like a new pearl harbor. Several members of the
administration spoke of them as opportunities. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeldt
said that nine to eleven created the kind of opportunities
that World War II II offered to refashion the world.
It created, in particular the opportunity to attack Afghanistan and Iraq,
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to increase the military budget enormously, to go forward with
military transformation, and to turn the new idea of preemptive
warfare into official doctrine. This doctrinal change was announced in
the two thousand and two version of the National Security Strategy,
which said that America will act against emerging threats before
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they are fully formed. So not only did the Bush
administration reap huge benefits from nine to eleven. These were
benefits that it had desired in advance.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
The idea that it would have had no motives for.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Orchestrating nine to eleven is a myth.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
But there is one more.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
Myth that keeps many people from looking at the evidence.
This is myth number three. Such a big operation involving
so many people could not have been kap a secret
because someone involved in it would have talked by now.
This claim is based on a more general myth, which
is that it is impossible for secret government operations to
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be kept secret very long because someone always talks. But
how could one know this If some big operations have
remained secret until now, we by definition don't know about them. Moreover,
we do know about some big operations that were kept
secret as long as necessary, such as the Manhattan Project
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to create the atomic bomb, and the war in Indonesia
in nineteen fifty seven, which the United States provoked, participated in,
and then kept secret until nineteen ninety five. Many more
examples could be given. We can understand moreover why those
withinside knowledge of nine to eleven would not talk. At
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least most of them would have been people with the proven.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Ability to keep secrets.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Those who were directly complicit would also be highly motivated
to avoid public disgrace.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
And the gas chamber.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Those people who had knowledge without being complicit could be
induced to keep quiet by means of more or less
subtled threats, such as, Joe, if you go forward with
your plan to talk to the press, I don't know
who is going to protect your wife and kids from
some nutcase angered by your statement. Still, another fact is
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that neither the government nor the mainstream press has, to
say the least, shown any signs of wanting people to
come forward. For all these reasons, it is not surprising
that no one has I moved to myth number four.
The nine to eleven Commission, which has endorsed the official account,
was an independent, impartial commission, and hints can be believed.
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One needs only to look at the reviews of the
nine to eleven Commission report on Amazon dot com to
see that this assumption is widely held. Perhaps this is
because in the preface, the commission's chairman and co vice
chairman tell us that the commission sought to be independent, impartial, thorough,
and non partisan. But these terms do not describe the reality.
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The Commission's lack of impartiality can be explained partly by
the fact that Chairman Thomas Kane, most of the other commissioners,
and at least half of the members of the staff
had serious conflicts of interest. The most serious problem, however,
is that the Executive Director, Philip Zellikow, was essentially a
member of the Bush Cheney administration. He had worked with
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Condoleeza Rice on the National Security Council in the administration
of the first President Bush. Then when the Republicans were
out of office, he and Condaleza Rice wrote a book together. Then,
when she was named National Security Advisor for the second
President Bush, she brought him on to help with the transition. Finally,
then he was appointed to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
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So he was the White House's man inside the nine
to eleven CUS mission, and yet as executive Director, he
guided the staff, which did virtually all the work. Zeliko
was in position therefore to decide which topics would be
investigated and which one's not. One Disgrental's staff member reportedly
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said at the time, Zelokow is calling the shots. He's
skewing the investigation and running.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
It his own way.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Accordingly, the Commission was not independent from the executive branch.
In so far as the Commission was supposed to be
investigating the failure of the Bush administration to prevent the attacks,
the commission was no more independent and impartial than if
Dick Cheney had been running it. The only difference was
that no one was shot. Zeloko's ideological and personal closeness
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to the Bush administration is further shown by one more
fact that until now has not been widely known even
within the nine to eleven truth movement. I mentioned earlier,
the Bush Administration's National Security Strategy Statement of two thousand
and two, in which the new doctrine of preemptive warfare
was articulated. The primary author of this document, reports James
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Mann in Rise of the Vulcans, was none other than
Philip Zelikow. According to Mann, after Rice saw a first draft,
which had been written by Richard Hass in the State Department,
she wanted something bolder and brought in Philip Zelikhow to
completely rewrite the document. The result was a document that
used nine eleven to justify a very bellicot's foreign policy.
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We can understand, therefore, why the Commission, under Zelikow's leadership
would have ignored all the evidence that would point to
the truth that nine eleven was a false flag operation
intended to authorize the doctrines and funds needed for a
new level of imperial mobilization. The suggestion that nine eleven
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was a false flag operation brings us to myth number five.
The Bush administration provided proof that the attacks were carried
out by al Qaeda terras under the direction of Osama
bin Laden.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
One of the main.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
Pieces of alleged proof involved the claim that the baggage
of a Mohammedada, called the ring Leader, was discovered at
the Boston airport from which flight eleven departed. This baggage,
besides containing Atta's passport and driver's license, also contained various
types of increminating evidence, such as flight simulator manuals, videotapes
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of Boeing air liners, and a letter to other hijackers
about preparing for the mission. But the bags also contained
Ada's will. Why would Atta have intended to take his
will on a flight he planned to fly into the
World Trade Center. There are also many other problems with
this story. We seem to have planted evidence. Another element
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of the official story about the alleged hijackers is that
they were very devout Muslims. The nine eleven Commission reports
said that auDA had become very religious, even fanatically. So
the public was thereby led to believe that these men
would have no problem with a suicide mission because they
were ready to meet their maker. But investigator reporter Daniel
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Hopzicker discovered that Atda loved cocaine, alcohol, gambling, pork, and
lap dances. Several of the other alleged hijackers had similar taste,
reported The Wall Street Journal. The Commission pretends, however, that
none of this information was available. While admitting that auDA
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met other members of Alcada in Las Vegas shortly before
nine to eleven, it says that it saw no credible
evidence explaining why on this occasion and others.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
The operaties flew to or met in Las Vegas.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
Another problem in the official account is that although we
are told that four or five of the alleged hijackers
were on each of the flights, no proof of this
claim has been provided. The story, of course, is that
they did not force their way on to the plains,
but they bought tickets. If so, their names should have
been on the flight manifests, But the flight manifests that
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have been released contained neither the names of the alleged
hijackers nor any Arab names whatsoever.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
We have also been given no proof.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
That the remains of any of these men were found
in the wreckage. One final little problem is that several
of these nineteen men, according to stories published by the
b b C and British newspapers, are still alive. For example,
the nine eleven commission named Walid Alshiri as one of
the hijackers and reproduced the FBI's photograph of him. It
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even suggested that Alsheri stabbed one of the flight attendants
shortly before Flight eleven crashed into the North Tower. But
as BBC News had reported, eleven days after nine eleven, Alshiri,
having seen his photograph in newspapers and TV programs, notified
authorities and journalists in Morocco, where he works with his
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pilot that he was still alive. But if there are
various problems with the government's story about the hijackers, surely
it proved its case about Osama bin Laden. In so
far as this belief is held, it is also a myth.
Secretary of State Colin Powell promised shortly after nine to
eleven to provide a white paper giving this.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Proof, but this paper was never produced.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
British Prime Minister Tony Blair did produce such a paper,
but it begins with the admission that it does not
purport to provide a prosecutable case against Osama bin Laden
in a court of law, so evidence good enough to
go to war, but not good enough to.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Go to court.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
And although the Taliban said that it would hand beIN
laden over if the United States presented evidence of his
involvement in nine to eleven.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Bush refused.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
This failure to provide proof was later said to be
unnecessary because ben Laden, in a video, allegedly found enough
gas Anistan admitted responsibility for the attacks. This confession is
now widely cited its proof. But the man in this
video has darker skin, fuller cheeks, and a broader nose
than the also Osama.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Bin Laden of all other videos. We again seem to
have planet evidence.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
There are moreover other problems in the official account of
Osama bin Laden. For one thing, in June of two
thousand and one, when he was already America's most wanted criminal,
he reportedly spent two weeks in the American hospital in Dubai,
was treated by an American doctor and visited by the
local CIA agent. Also after nine eleven, when America was
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reportedly trying to get Osama dead or alive, the US
military evidently allowed him to escape on at least four occasions,
the last one being the Battle of Torribora, which the
London Telegraph labeled a grand charade. Shortly thereafter, Bush said,
I don't know where Ben Laden is.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
I really don't care. It's not our priority.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
Sometimes the truth slips out. In any case, The idea
that the Bush administration has provided proof for its claims
about Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda hijackers is
a myth. I turned now to myth number six. The
nine to eleven attacks came as a surprise to the
Bush administration. Nothing is more essential to the official story
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than this idea. About ten months after nine to eleven,
FBI Director Robert Mueller said, to this day, we have
found no one in the United States except the actual
hijackers who knew of the plot. There is much evidence, however,
that counts against this claim. One type of evidence involves
an extraordinarily high volume of put options purchased in the
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three days prior to nine to eleven. To buy put
options for a particular company is to bet that its
stock price will go down. These extraordinary purchases included two
and only two airlines, United American, the two airlines used
in the attacks. They also included Morgan Stanley Dean Witter,
which occupied twenty two stories of the World Trade Center.
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The price of these shares did, of course, plummet after
nine to eleven, resulting in enormous profits for the purpose purchasers.
These unusual purchases, as the San Francisco Chronicle said, raised
suspicions that the investors had advanced knowledge of the strikes.
It would appear, in other words, that those who made
the purchases knew that United and American airliners were going
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to be used in attacks on the World Trade Center.
The nine eleven Commission tried to show these suspicions to
be unfounded. It claimed, for example, that the purchases for
United Airlines do not show any one other than al
Qaeda had for knowledge, because ninety five percent of these
options were purchased by a single US based institutional investor
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with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda. But the Commission
thereby simply begged the question at issue, which is whether
some organization other than al Qaeda was involved in the planning.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
I'm not making this up.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
Also, the Commission ignored the other crucial point, which is
that US intelligence agency closely monitored the stock market looking
for any anomalies that might provide clues to untoward events. Therefore,
regardless of who orchestrated the attacks, the US government would
have had intelligence suggesting that United and American airliners were
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to be used for attacks on the World Trade Center
in the near future. Further evidence of advanced knowledge is
shown by the behavior of President Bush and his secret
Service agents at the photo op at the school in
Florida that morning. According to the official story, when Bush
was first told that a plane had struck one of
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the twin towers, he dismissed the incident as a horrible accident,
which meant that they could go ahead with the photo op.
News of the second strike, however, would have indicated, assuming
that the strikes were unexpected, that terrorists were using planes
to attack high value targets, and what could have been
a higher value target than the President of the United States.
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His location at the school had been more highly publicized. Therefore,
the Secret Service agent should have feared that a hijacked
airliner might have been bearing down on the school at
that very minute, ready to crash into it. It is
standard procedure for the Secret Service to rush the President
to a safe location whenever there is any sign of danger,
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and yet these agents allowed the President to remain another
half hour at the school, even permitting him to deliver
an address on TV, thereby announcing to the world that
he was still at the school. Would not this behavior
be expledable only if the head of the Secret Service
detail knew that the planned attacks did not include an
attack on the president. The nine eleven Commission, of course,
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did not ask this question. It was content to report
that the Secret Service told us they did not think
it imperative for the President to run out the door.
Maintaining decorum, in other words, was more important than protecting
the president's life. Can anyone serious belief seriously believe that
the highly trained Secret Service would act this way in
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a situation of genuine danger. A third example, a Pentagon spokesperson,
in explaining why the Pentagon was not evacuated before it
was struck, claimed that the Pentagon was simply not aware
that this aircraft was coming our way. The nine eleven
Commission claimed that there was no warning about an unidentified
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aircraft heading towards Washington until nine thirty six, and hence
only one or two minutes before the Pentagon was struck.
But this claim is contradicted by Secretary of Transportation Norman
Minetta's testimony about an episode that occurred in the Presidential
Emergency Operations Center under the White House, an open testimony
(33:12):
to the nine to eleven commission itself, Minetta said, during
the time.
Speaker 6 (33:17):
Then the airplane coming in to the Pentagon, there was
a young man who had come in and say to
the Vice President, the plane is fifty miles out. The
plane is thirty miles out, and when it got down
to the plane is ten miles out.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
The young man also.
Speaker 6 (33:36):
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?
Speaker 4 (33:52):
Minetta said that this conversation occurred at nine twenty five
or nine twenty six, and hence many minutes before the
Pentagon was struck. This example gives us one of the
clearest examples of the fact that the zeleekow led nine
to eleven Commission cannot be trusted. Having claimed that there
(34:13):
was no knowledge that an aircraft was approaching the Pentagon
until the last minute or so, it simply omitted Minetta's
testimony to the contrary. Then, to rule out the possibility
that the episode Minetta had reported could have occurred, it
claimed that Cheney did not even arrive down at the
Presidential Emergency Operations Center until almost ten o'clock, hence about
(34:38):
twenty minutes after the Pentagon was struck. But this claim,
besides contradicting Minetta's eyewitness testimony that Cheney was already there
whene Minetta arrived at nine to twenty, also contradicts all
other reports as to when Cheney had arrived there, including
a report by Cheney himself in some Having compared the
(35:01):
official stories about the put options, the Secret Service, and
Minetta's testimony, we can reject as a myth the idea
that the attacks were unexpected. However, even if the attacks
had been unexpected, should they not have been prevented? This
brings us to myth Number seven. US officials have explained
(35:23):
why the hijacked airliners were not intercepted. Actually, there is
a sense in which this claim is true. US officials
have explained why the US military did not prevent the attacks.
The problem, however, is that they have given us three explanations.
They are all mutually contradictory, and none of them is
(35:46):
a satisfactory explanation.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
I will explain.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
According to standard operating procedures, if an FAA flight controller
notices anything that suggests a possible hijacking, the controllers to
contact to superior. If the problem cannot be fixed quickly
within about a minute, the superiors to ask NORD, the
North American Aerospace Command, to send up or scramble jet
fighters to find out what is going on. NORD then
(36:14):
issues the scramble order to the nearest Air Force base
with fighters on alert. The jet fighters at Norrid's disposal
could respond very quickly. According to the US Air Force website,
F fifteen's can go from scramble order to twenty nine
thousand feet in only two and a half minutes, after
which they can fly over eighteen hundred miles an hour. Therefore,
(36:37):
according to General Ralph Eberhart, the head of nor AD,
after the FAA senses that something is wrong, it takes
about a minute for it to contact nor AD, after which,
according to a spokesperson, NORD can scramble fighter jets within
a matter of minutes to anywhere in the United States.
(36:58):
An Air Force traffic control doc him put out in
nineteen eighty eight warn pilots that any airplane's persisting and
unusual behavior will likely find two jet fighters on their
tail within ten or so minutes. If these procedures had
been carried out on the morning of nine eleven, American
Airlines Flight eleven and United Flight one seventy five would
(37:20):
have been intercepted before they could have reached Manhattan. An
American Flight seventy seven would have been intercepted long before
it could have reached the Pentagon. Such interceptions are routine,
being carried out about one hundred times a year. A
month after nine eleven, the Calgary Herald reported that in
the year two thousand, NORD has scrambled fighters one hundred
(37:41):
and twenty nine times. Do these scrambles often result in interceptions.
Just a few days after nine eleven, Major Mike Snyder,
a NORAD spokesperson, told The Boston Globe that nord's fighters
routinely intercept aircraft, why did not such interceptions occur on
nine eleven. During the first few days, the public was
(38:03):
told that no fighter jets were sent up until after
the strike on the Pentagon at nine thirty eight. However,
it was also reported that signs of Flight eleven's hijacking
had been observed at eight fifteen. That would mean that,
although interceptions usually occur within ten or so minutes after
(38:23):
signs of trouble are observed, in this case, eighty or
so minutes had elapsed before fighters were even airborne. This
story suggested that a standown order had been given within
a few days. However, a second story was put out,
according to which NORD had sent fighters up, but because
notification from the FAA had been very tardy, the fighters
(38:46):
arrived too late. On September eighteenth, NORD made this second
story official, embodying it in a timeline which indicated when
NORD had been notified by the FAA about each airplane
and when it had scrambled fighters in response. Critics quickly showed, however,
that even if the FAA notifications had come as late
(39:09):
as Nord's time line indicated, Norris jets would have had
time to make interceptions. The second story did not therefore
remove the suspicion that a stand down order had been given.
Hoping to overcome this problem, the nine eleven Commission report
provided a third account, according to which, contrary to Norrad's
(39:31):
time line of September eighteenth, the FAA did not notify
Norat about flight one seventy five until it after it
had struck the South Tower, or about flight seventy seven
until after it had struck the Pentagon. But there are
three big problems with this third story. One problem is
the very fact that it is the third story. Normally,
(39:54):
when a suspect in a criminal investigation keeps changing his story.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
We get suspicious. Let's say that the.
Speaker 4 (40:01):
Police asked Charlie Jones where he was on the night
of a particular crime. He says he was at the
movie theater. But they say, no, the movie theater's been
closed all week. Oh, Charlie says, that's right, I was
with my girlfriend. No, the police say we checked with
her and she was home with her husband.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
At that point.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
Charlie says, oh, now, I remember I was home reading
the Bible. You're probably not gonna believe Charlie and.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
Yet that's what we have here.
Speaker 4 (40:34):
The military told one story right after nine to eleven,
another story a week later, and a third through the
nine to eleven Commission report in two thousand and four.
The second problem with this third story is that it
contradicts several features of the second story, which had served
as the official story for almost three years. For example,
NORAD's timeline had indicated that the FAA had notified it
(40:58):
about Flight one seventy five, twenty minutes before the South
Tower was struck, and notified at about Flight seventy seven,
at least fourteen minutes before the Pentagon was struck. The
nine to eleven Commission maintains that both of these statements
were incorrect, that really there had been no notification that
(41:19):
the about these flights until after they hit their targets.
This is why the military failed to intercept them. But
if Nord's timeline was false, as the Commission now claims,
Nord must have been either lying or confused. But it
is hard to believe that it could been confused one
week after nine to eleven, so it must have been lying.
(41:42):
But if Nord was lying, then why should we believe
them now. Further Skepticism about this third story arises from
the fact that it is contradicted by considerable evidence. For example,
the commissions claimed that the military did not know about
Flight one seventy five until it reached its goal is
contradicted by a report by Captain Michael Jelinek, who on
(42:05):
nine to eleven was overseeing NORAD's headquarters in Colorado. According
to a story in the Toronto Star, Jelinek is a Canadian.
Jelink was on the phone with Norrad as he watched
Flight one seventy five crash into the South Tower. He
then asked Nord, was that the hijacked aircraft you were
(42:26):
dealing with, to which Nord said yes. The nine eleven
Commission's claims about Flight one seventy five and seventy seven
are also contradicted by a MIMO sent to the Commission
by Laura Brown of the FAA. Her memo stated that
the FAA had set up a teleconference at about eight
fifty that morning, which it start at which time it
(42:49):
started sharing information about all flights with the military. She
specifically mentioned flight seventy seven. Her MIMO, which is available
on the web, was discussed by the Commission and read
into its record on May twenty third, two thousand o three.
But Zelocow's nine eleven Commission report fails to mention this memo.
(43:12):
Because of these and still more problems, which I have
discussed in electure called flights of fancy, this third story
does not remove the grounds for suspicion that a stand
down order had been given. There is moreover ear witness
testimony for this suspicion. An upper management official at l
a X who who needs to remain anonymous, told me
(43:36):
that he overhood members of l a X security, including
officers from the FBI and the l a p D,
interacting on their walkie talkies shortly after the attacks. In
some cases, he could hear both sides of the conversation.
At first, the LAX officials were furious because they were
told that the airplanes that attacked the World Trade Center
(43:58):
and the Pentagon had not been in accepted because the
FAA had not notified NORD about the hijackings. But later,
he reports, they were even more furious because they were
told that NORAD had been notified but did not respond
because it had been ordered to stand down. When LAX
(44:19):
security officials asked who had issued that order, they were
told that it came from the highest level of the
White House. That, of course would mean Cheney. Accordingly, the
idea that the tacks could not have been prevented is
a myth. To move to myth number eight. Official reports
(44:43):
have explained why the Twin Towers and Building seven of
the World Trade Center collapsed. This claim suffers from the
same problem as the previous one. We have had three explanations,
each of which contradicts the others, and none of which
is anywhere near adequate. The first explanation, widely disseminated through
(45:05):
television specials, was that the buildings collapse because their steel
columns were melted by the jet fuel fed fires. But
this explanation contained many problems, the most obvious of which
is that steel does not begin to melt until about
twenty eight hundred degrees fahrenheit, while open fires based on
hydrocarbons such as kerosene, which is what jet fuel is, cannot,
(45:29):
even under the most ideal circumstances, rise above seventeen hundred degrees.
A second explanation, endorsed by the nine to eleven Commission
report is a pancake theory, according to which the fires
while not melting the steel, heated it up sufficiently to
cause the floors weakened by the airplane strikes to break
loose from the steel columns, both those in the core
(45:51):
and those around the outside. All the floors above the
strike zone hence fell down on the floor below the
strike zone, causing it to break free, and this started
a chain reaction so that the floors pancaked all the
way down. But this explanation also suffered from many problems,
the most obvious of which was that it could not
(46:12):
ex explain why the buildings collapsed into a pile of
rubble only a few stories high. The core of each
of the twin towers consisted of forty seven massive steel columns.
If the floors had broken loose from them, these columns
would have still been sticking up into the air.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
A thousand feet.
Speaker 4 (46:30):
The nine eleven Commission report tried to cover up this
problem by claiming that the core of each tower consisted
of a hollow steel shaft, but those massive steel columns
could not be wished away. The definitive explanation was supposed
to be a third one issued by the National Institute
for Standards and Technology, usually called NIST. The KNIST report
(46:54):
claimed that when the floors collapsed, they, rather than breaking
free from the columns, pulled on them, causing the perimeter
columns to become unstable. This unstability then increased the gravity
load on the core columns, which have been weakened by
tremendously hot fires in the core, which NIS claims reached
over eighteen hundred degrees fahrenheit, and this combination of factors
(47:17):
resulted in global collapse. But as physicists Jim Hoffman and
Stephen Jones have shown, this account is riddled with problems.
One of these is that nists claim about the tremendously
hot fires in the core is completely unsupported by the
evidence or logic. A second problem is that even if
(47:38):
this sequence of events had occurred, nists provided no explanation
as to why it would have produced global, that is,
total collapse. The NIS to report as search that calumn
failure occurred in the core as well as the perimeter columns,
but this remains a bare assertion. There is no plausible
(47:58):
explanation of why the core columns would have broken or even.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
Buckled so as to produce global collapse.
Speaker 4 (48:06):
And this is only to begin to enumerate the problems
in this theory, all of which follow from the fact
that it, like the previous two theories, is essentially a
fire theory, according to which the buildings were brought down
primarily by fire. In the case of the twin Towers,
of course, the impact of the airplanes is said to
(48:26):
have played a role, but most experts who support the
official theory attribute the collapses primarily to the fire. Nis
for example, says that the main contribution of the airplanes,
aside from providing jet fuel, was to dislodge a lot
of the fireproofing from the steel, thereby making it vulnerable
(48:47):
to the fires. By the way, when you go home
tonight and light your fire in fireplace, be sure to
fireproof your steel, or the great may collapse. But these
fire theories faced several formidable problems. First, the fires in
these three buildings were not very hot, very big, or
(49:09):
very long lasting, compared with fires in some steel frame
high rises that did not collapse. A nineteen ninety one
fire in Philadelphia burned eighteen hours, and a two thousand
and four fire in Caracas burned seventeen hours without causing
even a partial collapse. By contrasts, the fires in the
North and South Towers burned only one hundred and two
(49:31):
and fifty six minutes, respectively before they collapsed, and neither fire,
unlike the Philadelphia and Caracas fires, were hot enough to
break windows. Second, total collapses of steel frame high rise
buildings have never either before or after nine eleven, been
brought about by fire alone or fire plus externally caused
(49:55):
structural damage. The collapse of Building seven has been recognized
as especially difficult to explain. It was not hit by
a plane, so the explanation has to rely solely on fire,
and yet because there was no jet fuel to get
a big fire started, this building had fires on only
two or three floors, according to several witnesses and all
(50:16):
photographic evidence. FEMA admitted that the best theory it could
come up with for this collapse had only a low
probability of occurrence. The nine to eleven Commission report implicitly
admitted that it could not explain the collapse of this
building by not even mentioning it. The thist report, which
(50:41):
could not claim that the fire proofing had gotten knocked
off the steel of this building, as yet to offer
an explanation as to why it collapsed. And NIST, like
the nine to eleven Commission, evidently does not want you
asking why Building seven collapsed even though it was not
hit by a plane.
Speaker 3 (50:59):
On its web site, it.
Speaker 4 (51:01):
Says that one of its objectives is to determine why
and how World Trade Center Buildings one, two, and seven
collapsed after the initial impact of the aircraft, thereby implying
that Building seven, like the twin towers, was also hit
by a plane in any case. A third problem with
(51:21):
the official account of the collapses of these three buildings
is that all prior and subsequent collapses total collapses of
steel frame high rises, have been caused by explosives in
the procedure known as controlled demolition. This problem is made
even more severe by the fact that the collapses of
these three buildings manifested many features of the most difficult
(51:45):
type of controlled demolition, known as implosion. I will mention
seven such features. First, the collapses began suddenly. Steel, if
weakened by fire, would gradually begin to sag, but as
one can see from the videos available on the web,
all three buildings are completely motionless up to the moment
(52:08):
they begin to collapse. Second, if these huge buildings had
toppled over, they would have caused enormous death and destruction
in Lower Manhattan, but they came straight down. This straight
down collapse is the whole point of controlled implosion, which
only a few companies in the world are qualified to
(52:28):
pull off. Third, these buildings collapsed at virtually free fall speed,
which means that the lower floors, with all their steel
and concrete, were offering virtually no resistance. Fourth, as mentioned earlier,
these collapses were total collapses, resulting in piles of rubble
only a few stories high. This means that the enormous
(52:50):
steel columns in the core of each building had to
be broken into rather short segments, which is what explosives do. Fifth,
great quantities of mo and steel were produced, which means
that the steel had been heated up to several thousand degrees,
and witnesses during the cleanup reported that sometimes when a
piece of steel was lifted out of the rubble is
(53:13):
dripping molted. Sixth, according to many firefighters, medical workers, journalist,
and World Trade Center employees, many explosions went off both
before and during the collapses. For example, fire Captain Dennis Tardel,
speaking of the South Tower, said, I hear an explosion
(53:36):
and I look up, it as if the building is
being imploded from the top floor down, one after another, boom, boom, boom.
Firefighter Richard Minasinski said, 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.
Thanks to the release in August of two thousand and
five of the oral histories recorded by the Fire Department
(53:59):
of New York shortly after nine to eleven, dozens of
testimony of this type are now available. I have published
an essay on them, which has included a forthcoming book
on nine to eleven in Christian Faith, along with a
lecture on the destruction of the World Trade Center, which
I am now summarizing. A seventh feature of controlled implosions
(54:22):
is the production of large quantities of dust. In the
case of the Twin Towers, virtually everything except the steel,
all the concrete, the deaths, the computers was pulverized into
very tiny dust particles.
Speaker 3 (54:36):
The official story.
Speaker 4 (54:37):
Cannot explain one, let alone all seven of these features,
at least, as Hoffman and Jones point out, without violating
several basic laws of physics. But the controlled demolition theory
easily explains all these features. These findings are inconsistent with
(54:57):
the idea that al Qaeda terris were responsible. Foreign terras
could not have gotten access to those buildings for all
the hours it would have taken to plant the explosives. Also,
Alcada terrace probably would not have had the courtesy to
make sure that the buildings came straight down rather than
toppling over. Territs working for the Bush Cheney administration, by contrast,
(55:23):
could have gotten such access. Given you're ahead of the heart.
They could have gotten such access, especially given the fact
that Marvin Bush and Wert Walker the Third, the President's
brother and cousin, respectively, were principles of the company in
(55:45):
charge of security for the World Trade Center. Another relevant
fact is that the evidence was destroyed. An examination of
the buildings steel beams and columns could have shown whether
explosives had been used to slight them, but virtually all
of the steel was removed before it could be properly investigated,
(56:05):
then put on ships to Asia to be melted down.
It is usually a federal offense to remove anything from
a crime scene, even a matchbook, but here the removal
of over one hundred tons of steel. The biggest destruction
of evidence in history was carried out under the supervision
of federal officials. Evidence was also apparently planted. The passport
(56:27):
of one of the hijackers on flight eleven was allegedly
found in the rebel having survived the fiery infernal I'm
not making this up. The passport had survived the not
(56:48):
only the fiery inferno caused by the airplane, but also
whatever caused everything else in these buildings to be pulverized
into tiny dust.
Speaker 3 (57:00):
The magic passport.
Speaker 4 (57:04):
To sum up, the idea that US officials have given
a satisfactory or even close to satisfactory explanation of the
collapse of the World Trade Center is a myth, and
these officials have implicitly admitted this by refusing to engage
in rational debate about it. Michael Newman, a spokesman for
(57:26):
a NIST, reportedly said during a recent interview that none
of the NISTS scientists would participate in any public debate
with scientists who reject their report. When Newman was asked
why NIST would avoid public debate if it had confidence
in its report, he replied, because there is no winning
(57:48):
in such debates. In the same interview, Newman had compared
people who reject the government's account of the collapses with
people who believe in book Bigfoot and a flat Earth.
And yet he fears that his scientists would not be
able to show up these fools in a public debate.
(58:09):
In any case, I come now to the final myth,
which is myth number nine. There is no doubt that
Flight seventy seven, under the control of Al Qaeda hijacker
Hani Honyur, struck the Pentagon. There, in fact, many reasons
to doubt this claim. We have, in the first place,
reasons to doubt that the aircraft that hit the Pentagon
(58:30):
was under the control of Hani Hanjour.
Speaker 3 (58:33):
For one thing, the.
Speaker 4 (58:34):
Aircraft before striking the Pentagon reportedly executed a two hundred
and seventy degree downward spiral. And yet Hani Honyur was
known as a terrible pilot who could not safely fly
even a small plane. Russ Wittenberg, who flew large commercial
airliners for thirty five years after serving in Vietnam as
(58:55):
a fighter pilot, says that it would have been totally
impossible for an amateur who could even fly a Sesna
to maneuver the jetliner in such a highly professional manner. Moreover,
as a result of that very difficult maneuver, the Pentagon's
West wing was struck, but Terras brilliant enough to get
through the US military's defense system, would have known that
(59:17):
this was the worst place to strike for several reasons.
The west wing had been reinforced, so the damage was
less severe than a strike anywhere else would have been.
This wing was still being renovated, so relatively few people
were there. A strike anywhere else would have killed thousands
rather than one hundred and twenty five, and the Secretary
of Defense in all the top brasts whom Terrists would
(59:40):
presumably have wanted to kill were in the east wing.
Why would an Alcada pilot have executed a very difficult
maneuver to hit the west wing when he could have
simply crashed into the roof of the east wing. A
second major problem with the official story. There are reasons
to believe that the Pentagon was struck only because officials
(01:00:01):
at the Pentagon wanted it to be struck. For one thing,
Flight seventy seven, allegedly, after making a U turn in
the Midwest, flew back to Washington undetected for forty minutes,
and yet the US military, which by then clearly would
have known that hijacked airliners were being used as weapons.
As the best radar systems in the world, one of
(01:00:23):
which it brags, does not miss anything occurring in North
American airspace, the idea that a large airliner could.
Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
Have slipped through is absurd.
Speaker 4 (01:00:34):
Also, the Pentagon is surely the best defended building on
the planet. It is not only within the P fifty
six A restricted airspace that extends seventeen miles in all
directions from the Washington Monument, but also within the P
fifty six B airspace, the three mile altar restricted zone
above the White House, the Capitol, and the Pentagon. The
(01:00:55):
Pentagon is only a few miles from Andrews Air Force Base,
which has at least three squadrons with fighter jets on
alert at all times. The claim by the nine eleven Commission.
Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
Report that no fighters were on alert the morning of
nine eleven.
Speaker 4 (01:01:09):
Is wholly implausible, as I have explained in my book
on this subject. The Pentagon, moreover, is reportedly protected by
batteries of surface to air missiles, so if any aircraft
without a US military's transponder were to enter the Pentagon's
airspace it would be shot down. So even if the
aircraft that hit the Pentagon was Flight seventy seven, it
(01:01:33):
could have succeeded only because officials in the Pentagon turned
off their missiles, as well as ordering the fighters from
Andrews to stand down. A third major problem with the
official story is that there is considerable evidence it could
not have been Flight seventy seven because it was not
a Boeing seven fifty seven. For one thing, the strike
on the Pentagon, unlike the strikes on the Twin Towers,
(01:01:56):
did not create a detectable seismic signal. Also, according to
several witnesses and many people who have studied the available photographs,
both the damage and the debris were inconsistent with a
strike by a large air liner. That issue, however, is
too complex to discuss here, as is the issue of
(01:02:16):
what should be inferred from conflicting eye witness testimony. Deferring
those topics to another time, I will conclude by pointing
out that the suspicion that the Pentagon was not struck
by a seven fifty seven, as the government claims, is
supported by the fact that evidence was destroyed shortly after
the strike. Government agents picked up debris and carried it off.
(01:02:41):
Shortly thereafter, the entire lawn was covered with dirt and gravel,
so that any remaining forensic evidence was literally covered up.
Speaker 3 (01:02:50):
Also, the videos.
Speaker 4 (01:02:51):
From security cameras on the nearby Citgo gas station and
Sheraton Hotel, which would show what really hit the Pentagon,
were a meet deeately confiscated by agents of the FBI,
and the Department of Justice has to this day refused
to release them. If these videos would prove that the
Pentagon was really hit by a seven fifty seven, most
(01:03:12):
of us would assume the government would release them. To conclude,
it would seem, for many reasons that the official story
of nine to eleven, which has served as a religious
myth in the intervening years, is a myth in the
pejority sense of a story that does not correspond with reality.
One sign of that a story of a myth in
(01:03:34):
this sense I have pointed out is that it cannot
be rationally defended. The official story has never been publicly
defended by any member of NIST, or of the nine
to eleven Commission, or of the Bush administration. After Charlie
Sheen had made public his skepticism about the official story.
(01:03:55):
CNN's Showbiz Tonight wanted to have a debate about the
point he had raised between a representative of the government
and a representative of nine eleven truth dot Org, but
the report producers reportedly could find no member of the
government willing to appear on the show. In this unwillingness
of the government to appear on an entertainment to show
(01:04:18):
to answer questions raised by an actor, we would seem
to have the clearest possible sign that the government's story.
Speaker 3 (01:04:25):
Is myth, not reality.
Speaker 4 (01:04:37):
If so, we must demand that the government immediately cease
implementing the policies that have been warranted by the official
account of nine to eleven. When what charges were brought
recently against members of Duke University's the Cross team, the
president of the university immediately canceled all future games until
(01:04:59):
the truth of the charges could be decided. But surely
as serious as the charges against some members of this
team are, the charges against the official story of nine
to eleven are far more serious. For this story, serving
as a national religious myth, has been used to justify
two wars, which has cost many tens of thousands of
(01:05:22):
deaths to start a more general war on radical Islam,
in which Muslims around the world are now considered guilty
until proven innocent, to annul and violate civil rights, and
to increase our military spending, which was already greater than
all the spending of the rest of the world together,
(01:05:44):
and yet now we've increased it by several more billions
of dollars, much of this being used to put weapons
in space. Congress needs to put the implementation of these
policies on hold until there is a truly independent investigation
carried out by qualified individuals who are not members of
(01:06:04):
the very circles that if nine to eleven truly was
a false flag operation planned, it carried it out and
then covered it up. Thank you very much for your attention.
Speaker 5 (01:06:48):
Several questions, in fact, are related to your own safety.
How concerned are you.
Speaker 3 (01:06:55):
Not, because.
Speaker 4 (01:06:58):
Either they're going to me out or leave me alone.
If they leave me alone, I get to enjoy my
old age and write my systematic theology. If they take
me out, my nine to eleven books go to the
number one spot on a full health.
Speaker 3 (01:07:18):
So it's a win win situation.
Speaker 7 (01:07:23):
Do you think you're being monitored?
Speaker 5 (01:07:24):
Asks one question, or do you think we have some
FBI agents in the room, guys.
Speaker 4 (01:07:29):
I hope so, because I've been told that there are
many people inside who would like to tell their story,
but they know it'll be very dangerous for them if
they do, and certainly if they let anybody know in
advance that they are going to. But what we're faced
(01:07:50):
here with is so humongous. I mean, the very future,
not only of our country, but of our planet is
at stake.
Speaker 3 (01:08:00):
So I would.
Speaker 4 (01:08:00):
Appeal to some people within the military, within the FBI,
within any branch of government, who knows the truth and
can really be a whistleblower, to come forward, take the risk,
even at the risk of your own life, for the
good of the world.
Speaker 5 (01:08:25):
One question that says, it still seems difficult for me
to believe that the members of the nine to eleven commission,
democrats included, could be so managed by one person so
as to hide all this evidence. How could that happen here?
Speaker 3 (01:08:40):
These people were carefully selected.
Speaker 4 (01:08:43):
Lee Hamilton, for example, had experience on previous investigations. And
I'm not an expert on this, but you might bring
Peter Dale Scott to talk about this and the role
that Hamilton played in the Iran Contra investigation. And again
in my second book, The nine to eleven Commission Report,
(01:09:05):
Omissions and Distortions. In the final section I discussed the
various conflicts of interests that were in the commission. And furthermore,
remember the commissioners you saw on TV.
Speaker 3 (01:09:18):
They didn't do the work of the commission. The staff
of about.
Speaker 4 (01:09:23):
Eighty that zellacow ran did the work, and Zellikow, as
I say, decided which topics were worth investigating. So, for example,
when Jamie Gerrelliic was asked, why didn't you talk about
the war games, she said, we were told those weren't important,
so we didn't look into them. Can you imagine how
many things they were told were not important. There was
(01:09:45):
no investigation at all of any of the aspects of
the story that contradict of any of the evidence that
contradict's official story. Commission did not say, Okay, what's the
most plausible theory of that's what happened. They just accepted
the official story and looked at evidence relevant to that.
(01:10:07):
They didn't even raise the question of this alternative scenario
and ask what kind of evidence there was for that.
Now people say, look at the what a scholarly book.
Look at all those notes in the back. You can
go through all those notes. The first sign of a
work of scholarship is a review of the relevant evidence.
You will not find my books or any other critics
(01:10:30):
of the nine to eleven official story, our books, or
articles or websites.
Speaker 3 (01:10:35):
Mentioned in there.
Speaker 4 (01:10:36):
It's a total blackout of all contrary information.
Speaker 5 (01:10:41):
Of Solicitor General Olson's wife was on the plane that
hit the Pentagon?
Speaker 3 (01:10:46):
Do we know that?
Speaker 4 (01:10:47):
We all assume we were all taught. Of course, Barbara
also was on there because she made a cell phone
or an airphone call to her husband, ted Olsen. How
do we know that? Only only we have ted Olsen's
word for it. There is no confirmation that we've been
(01:11:10):
given of any investigation of the phone records to suggests
that such a call was even made. The bigger question here,
you know, it would be, well, then if it wasn't
flight seventy seven, what happened to flight seventy seven and.
Speaker 3 (01:11:28):
All the people on it?
Speaker 4 (01:11:30):
Well, there are many possible theories as to that, and
I don't happen to have a particular theory, but there
are all sorts of explanations. One was suggested on nine
to eleven itself that an airliner had crashed near the Kentucky,
Ohio border. Jane Garvey took that very seriously. Later it
(01:11:50):
was said, oh, no, that was false. But maybe that
was true.
Speaker 3 (01:11:53):
We don't know.
Speaker 4 (01:11:54):
There are many other things that could have happened to
the flight. My focus has been not on what really
happened that day, but just on the many, many reasons
to hold that the official story is not true. And
what we need is an investigation. I would love to
know where Barbara Holson went. I would love to know
(01:12:18):
what really happened, and with the Pentagon and with the
World Trade Center. What we need is a genuine investigation.
You put people under oath, you use subpoenas, you use
light detector tests, you do all the things you do
in a real criminal investigation, all the things that were
(01:12:38):
not done in this investigation. This investigation was a total farce.
Speaker 5 (01:12:44):
The next question is about your proposal for an official investigation,
and he asks, so she asks, if this is conducted
as you recommend this investigation, how could it be implemented
in light and view of the obstacles that will be
placed by the administration.
Speaker 4 (01:13:01):
There are many possibilities one would be a citizens investigation.
Get some very distinguished citizens, you know, of the Jimmy
Carter type at stature. Get some real scientists who are
(01:13:22):
not on the payroll and whose companies are not dependent
upon government contracts.
Speaker 3 (01:13:29):
That's possible now.
Speaker 4 (01:13:30):
That could be done within our country. It could be
done within North America, our country and Canada, and in
particular it could be done in the Western hemisphere. We
hear tell that Venezuela is getting very interested in carrying
out an investigation. There's been talk about a European or
(01:13:56):
an international commission. I hope there are some people in
this room today who might have the vision and the
wherewithal and the energy to organize and perhaps fund such
a commission. By the way, one other thing that would
you know, I mean, it would be the obvious thing
(01:14:17):
would be it would be good if Congress would do this.
Speaker 3 (01:14:20):
But of course they did.
Speaker 4 (01:14:21):
Their little joint inquiry, and then they realized they really
couldn't do it. They got intimidated by the FBI, and
they passed it on then to the nine to eleven Commission,
which did a worse job than the Joint Inquiry did. So,
I mean, we learned a few interesting real facts from
the Joint inquiry. So thus far there are no signs
(01:14:46):
that Congress will act, whether to do their own investigation
or appoint a special prosecutor. That would be a way
to do this, but it's there are a few signs
that that will happens. So it'll probably be more fruitful
to focus on some sort of citizens committee, national or international.
Speaker 5 (01:15:08):
The Pearl Harbor attack, there was a real enemy and
if that was facilitated, well, there was a real enemy
to chase. Is it your opinion that there is now
a new real enemy?
Speaker 4 (01:15:25):
This is the big difference between the new Pearl Harbor
and the old Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt believe the United States
had to get into World War Two? Robert, is it
Stinnett or Stinett Stanette? Does he happen to be here?
I think he's right. And in the meantime, some more
(01:15:46):
people have written evidence about this. If you look at
Steven Snegowski, google him and you'll find even more information
about the original Pearl Harbor. In any case, let us
assume this is true, that Sennett and these others are right,
(01:16:06):
that Roosevelt knew that Pearl Harbor was coming, and even
to some extent maneuvered the Japanese into the attack, and
roughly three thousand people were killed, mainly military people. In
this case, many people looking back would say, you know,
eighty percent of the people that's those are the numbers
(01:16:30):
we get were again skidding in the war, and that
Roosevelt believed emphatically that it.
Speaker 3 (01:16:37):
Was necessary.
Speaker 4 (01:16:40):
To protect American interest, no doubt that was number one,
but also for the good of the world as a whole,
to stop the Japanese and fascist alliance.
Speaker 3 (01:16:53):
In the present case, we have a fabricated enemy.
Speaker 4 (01:16:58):
Some of you seen The Power of Night gives an
inkling about that. Nothing like the whole story, but some
very important information. The question about what it was, and
certainly what is the present relation between the Bush administration
and al Qaeda, I don't know, but there is reason
(01:17:21):
to believe that the working relationship they had during the
Afghanistan war was never severed. So if that's the case,
this is completely an artificial enemy. Now many people say, Okay,
they were working together at one time and then Osama
bin Laden got really ticked off at us and decided
(01:17:42):
to attack us. That's possible, but it's also possible.
Speaker 3 (01:17:48):
That that's all part of the official story, particularly when
you hear that.
Speaker 4 (01:17:54):
Osama was in the hospital in Dubai being treated by
an American doctor there and visited by the local CIA
agent in the summer of two thousand and one, when
Osama bin Laden was already supposedly America's most wanted criminal.
Speaker 5 (01:18:13):
Since so many people have an emotional investment in what
they believe America to be and stand for in the world,
do you think we, as a people in a country
have any substantial hope or interest in reconciling the truth
with our own self image.
Speaker 4 (01:18:28):
That is an excellent question, and it really gets to
the crux of the matter for many people, and the
difficulty of getting the story out. I have a theological
friend in the UK who early on said, well, he
(01:18:49):
read my book and the evidence is completely persuasive, but
he just refuses to believe it because he says, there
just must be some end to.
Speaker 3 (01:19:03):
American duplicity.
Speaker 4 (01:19:05):
Now, that's a different attitude than the one we're talking
about here, that is Americans themselves. I grew up a patriot.
I think most of us probably grew up as patriots,
and patriotism meant believing your country was good. This is
the myth that has been inculcated that America always does right,
or if we do wrong, it's just a mistake or
(01:19:27):
a few bad apples. So to believe that the system
has become so corrupt that criminals willing to do this
sort of thing are in charge of the White House
and the various branches.
Speaker 3 (01:19:42):
The FBI, CIA, and Justice.
Speaker 4 (01:19:45):
Department and so on, and that the Congress is either
complicit or too cowardly to do anything, and it still
remains an open question. I think about the Supreme Court. Well,
these are very troubling thoughts. And one person wrote in
response to a story about me, the only positive story
(01:20:12):
that's appeared in the mainstream press about my work was
in the La Times magazine Sunday magazine, and someone wrote
in saying, well, the evidence is completely persuasive that Griffin presents,
but that America will not believe it because it just
runs too contrary to our myth and the idea of
(01:20:33):
this kind of conspiracy and cover up is just too frightening,
and so we will find some way not.
Speaker 3 (01:20:41):
To believe it.
Speaker 4 (01:20:42):
And I'm afraid that may be the truth. But I'm
actually more optimistic than that. I think the people can
stand to know the truth, want to know the truth,
and will rally when there is an opportunity.
Speaker 8 (01:21:09):
Something came to my mind the other day when we
saw Andrew Card resign and or jump off the sinking ship,
whatever you want to say. I've always thought, looking at
that very very famous footage of him bending over and
whispering into the ear of President Bush in that Florida classroom,
(01:21:30):
I've always thought that what he said was.
Speaker 7 (01:21:33):
Everything's going according to plans, sir. It's the only thing that.
Speaker 8 (01:21:39):
Makes sense looking at his faith for Bush's faith, how
do you account for the fact that there are so
many holes in the official story. Surely they would have
planned the cover story while planning the attack. They want
(01:22:00):
us to uncover the truth for some other reason.
Speaker 4 (01:22:07):
That's a good question, and I devoted quite a bit
of space to it in the New Pearl Harbor because
I point out there are so many things that are
just so obviously problematic. But one answer is that you know,
when you look at the war in Iraq, these guys
are not geniuses. Now, there is a very frightening possibility
(01:22:39):
which is yes, indeed, they do want Americans to know
and know that they know we know and that there's
nothing we can do about it, and that they're in control.
Speaker 3 (01:22:55):
I hope that is not the case, but it well
could be.
Speaker 4 (01:22:58):
And people ask me if this stuff keeps me awake
at night, that that possibility does.
Speaker 3 (01:23:08):
Sometimes.
Speaker 8 (01:23:13):
Is anything known about the placement of explosives in the
World Trade Center buildings and their ignition?
Speaker 4 (01:23:26):
Both Jim Hoffman, whom I believe is here and Stephen Jones,
physicists at BYU who's I think there was a film
with him in it, and he has now he has
written a lecture which has gotten a lot of circulation
(01:23:46):
called why Indeed did the World Trade Center Buildings Collapse?
Both Huffman and Jones have discussed this issue. Of course,
would not know exactly, I mean, we won't know until
the truth comes.
Speaker 3 (01:24:03):
Out exactly what happened.
Speaker 4 (01:24:05):
But there are plausible scenarios not very difficult actually to
figure out as to where the explosives would have to
be placed in order to slice, say, you know, all
the forty seven cord columns. And evidently it wouldn't take
an enormous amount a number of explosives. Jones at least
(01:24:28):
suggests it take quite quite a bit fewer than I
had originally thought so that it wouldn't literally take thousands
of hours to plant all these.
Speaker 8 (01:24:39):
What about the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania. Several of
my family members work for the NSA, and they say
it was shot down.
Speaker 4 (01:24:51):
I left ninety three out tonight because I thought you
might want to get home before midnight.
Speaker 3 (01:25:00):
A man appreciates that good.
Speaker 4 (01:25:03):
But I devoted quite a bit of time to it,
both in the New Pearl Harbor and in the second book.
It certainly does appear that the US military shot it down.
I mean, there's an enormous amount of evidence that it did.
And it appears that one of the motives for lying
(01:25:24):
about when Cheney went down below is to make it
appear that he could have not possibly given the shootdown order.
That is, everybody knows it was Cheney who gave the
shootdown order. Now there's been the controversy did he get
the permission from the President, And of course they say
(01:25:44):
he did, and even the nine to eleven Commission express
skepticism about that. But that aside, everybody knows that Cheney
gave the order. So then the question is when did
he give the order. Every story prior to the nine
to eleven commission report said that he gave it several
minutes before ten o'clock, and flight ninety three was shot
(01:26:12):
down at ten oh three, according to the government's theory
a little later, trying to seismic records, Richard Clark, for example,
had said in his book Against All Enemies, that he
was amazed when he asked for shootdown authorization how quickly
it came from Cheney. And Clark gives the impression it
(01:26:33):
came about nine five, and he says definitely before the plane.
The President's plane took off at nine fifty. And then
we have reports that jets were sent by the head
of Needs, Nora Ads in the in the northeast section.
Speaker 3 (01:26:54):
And told to shoot the flight down.
Speaker 4 (01:26:56):
We have a pilot who said he heard a room
from his other people in the military that the military
had shot down an aircraft. People at the site gave
all sorts of evidence that would suggest the plane had
been down, probably by a missile, and so on. But
the nine to eleven commission said that Cheney didn't get
(01:27:18):
down to the underground bunker until almost ten o'clock, and
then by the time he gave the shootdown authorisation it
was after ten ten, so that at least seven minutes
had gone by after the flight had already crashed. So
the logic is Cheney the military could not possibly have
(01:27:40):
shot it down. But this is one of the most
obvious lies in the commission report. Everything, including Cheney himself,
indicated that he was down there long before that. And
it's just amazing, or it ought to be amazing, that
our mainstream press won't even point out that most obvious
(01:28:00):
lie in the commission's report. Of course, another question is
why would why if the military shot the plane down,
why are they lying about it and saying they didn't.
Why didn't they claim, well, here when we got an
sufficient notification, we did our job, so see we were
(01:28:21):
trying to protect Washington. This is one of the big
mysteries why they didn't take credit for it and uh
and lied about it. There are various theories about why
this happened, and some of them are plausible, but I
don't know for sure. One other thing happened recently, by
(01:28:42):
the way, there was an envoy to to Canada and
talking to the Canadians about supporting America with with regard
to going all the way with the new plans for
Nora ad and this speaker to try to instill pride
(01:29:06):
in the Canadians, said well, you know, it was a
Canadian who gave the order to shoot down Flight ninety
three on September eleventh. So little bits of the truth
do come out here and there it appears.
Speaker 8 (01:29:24):
What do you think is the best response to the
phrase conspiracy theory?
Speaker 4 (01:29:33):
Well, the quickest one is that the government's theory was
the original conspiracy theory.
Speaker 3 (01:29:38):
About nine to eleven.
Speaker 4 (01:29:43):
And it's very interesting that both President Bush and Philip
Zellikow use the identical words, telling people do not fall
for outrageous conspiracy theories. But it's interesting to think about.
And you know, what would be an outrageous conspiracy theory.
(01:30:04):
It can't just be any conspiracy theory, since the government's
theory is a conspiracy theory according to which nineteen era Muslims,
under the inspiration of some have bin Laden, conspired to
do all these things.
Speaker 3 (01:30:16):
So what's an outrageous one.
Speaker 4 (01:30:19):
Well, you know, if you think about these things in
terms of the philosophy of science, a you know, you
have good theories and bad theories. There's nothing wrong with
a theory. You know, quantum theory is considered rather respectable.
And yet it's a theory. So and there's nothing wrong
with conspiracy theories. We all believe hundreds of conspiracy theories.
(01:30:43):
Every day you read the newspaper, read about you know.
It's just when two or three people conspire in secret
to do something immoral or illegal, that's a conspiracy. And
so our newspapers are full of those from robbing the
local seven and eleven to inrun conspire to cheat its investors.
(01:31:05):
So there must be something that makes something an outrageous
conspiracy theory. Well, in philosseph science, a good theory is
one that can take account of all the relevant facts
in a self consistent way. A bad theory is one
that is inconsistent with some of the relevant facts. An
(01:31:27):
outrageous theory would be one that is inconsistent with all
the relevant facts. And that's the official theory about nine
to eleven.
Speaker 8 (01:31:41):
Why have none of the four or possibly eight black
boxes on the hijacked planes been revealed to the public.
Speaker 4 (01:31:51):
I think that was a rhetorical question, So he probably
doesn't move on these black boxes. Could just review all
sorts of things that contradict the official story. So we're
not going to see these black boxes anymore than we're
going to see the videos from the Pentagon.
Speaker 8 (01:32:14):
Please comment on the allegations of wargames in progress on
nine to eleven involving simulated hijackings, as confirmed by Rumsfeld
to representative Maxine Waters.
Speaker 4 (01:32:29):
People involved in the nine to eleven Truth movement tend
to some of us are generalists, but even generalists have
to specialize in certain things. And I have followed the
discussion of the wargames with interest, and at the time
Mike Rupert wrote his book, I think he was talking
(01:32:50):
about four wargames going on, and now Paul Thompson and
Matt Everett have suggested I believe.
Speaker 3 (01:32:59):
They're up to nine.
Speaker 4 (01:33:00):
Now. I have not thus far been convinced that we
should say that what happened on nine to eleven was
not a standdown, what was rather confusion caused by these
war games and planes being out of town and all
these blips on the computers and so on. It's possible,
(01:33:25):
but I haven't seen the need for it yet, and
so I'm still just an old fashioned standdown guy.
Speaker 8 (01:33:33):
Why is the theologian one of the primary speakers for
this cause? Do you feel you see any religious or
spiritual implications for nine to eleven, and what are they?
Speaker 4 (01:33:54):
Why is a theologian speaking about that. I didn't have
anything else to do. What we theologians are supposed to
be doing is trying to imagine and speak about the
world from the divine point of view. And if the
religions of the world are basically correct, the Vine is
(01:34:18):
the creator and lover of all peoples, in fact, all creatures,
and cares about the good of the world, the long
term good of the world. And wouldn't want people producing
nuclear wars that would decimate all life on the planet.
Speaker 3 (01:34:38):
Wouldn't want the.
Speaker 4 (01:34:42):
Global warming to continue continue after thirty years after we've
known about it thirty five years now about the ecological crisis.
Wouldn't want all these things. So I'm convinced that this administration,
as was said earlier tonight, is the most dangerous administration
we have ever had it for the future of this country.
Speaker 3 (01:35:14):
And the future of the world.
Speaker 4 (01:35:17):
And if trying to save God's planet is not a
religious issue, I wouldn't know what was.
Speaker 3 (01:35:25):
Thank you for the question.
Speaker 8 (01:35:31):
There are only a few demolition companies that could have
pulled off a controlled demolition of the towers.
Speaker 7 (01:35:37):
Have they been investigated and.
Speaker 8 (01:35:39):
Individual workers sought out who might have been involved in
the packing or placing of the explosives beforehand.
Speaker 3 (01:35:48):
Of course, not.
Speaker 4 (01:35:52):
Controlled demolition. That company, which is one of the few
companies in the world authorized to do controlled implosions, was
brought in to do the cleanup for the World Trade Center.
I understand, made quite a tidy profit on it. Tighty
(01:36:13):
not tiny. It's very interesting Marcloiseau. The President did an
interview recently in New Scientists magazine, and some very damning
stuff in there. Inadvertently. He explains that to make a
building come down in that way, straight down, so no
(01:36:34):
other buildings are destroyed, it takes enormous planning, he says.
He spends, you know, hundreds of hours when it's a
big building, scoping it out, taking pictures, going back again.
He says, the explosives have to be placed just right
and in precisely the right order in order to bring
(01:36:54):
the building straight down. But then he says, oh, but
of course the World Trade Center buildings were brought down
by fire.
Speaker 7 (01:37:07):
I agree with all you said. What do we do now?
A plan? A revolution?
Speaker 8 (01:37:13):
B nonviolent resistance like Gandhi c move to another country,
they have the President, Congress, courts, military, CIA, NSA, Homeland security, industry, media, etc.
Speaker 7 (01:37:31):
We have what.
Speaker 4 (01:37:36):
Well, we have each other, and we have the truth
for starters. And of the three options, I would say
A and B. Both of them plan the revolution and
nonviolent resistance. I gave a talk recently in Santa Barbara,
(01:38:03):
which was actually the first talk I gave specifically as
a Christian theologian speaking on this issue.
Speaker 3 (01:38:11):
To fellow Christians.
Speaker 4 (01:38:13):
And in that talk as well as in the book,
I mentioned that it's coming out on nine to eleven
in Christian faith, I suggest that what we need within
the Christian Church in this country is an anti imperial movement,
and now tonight I would expand that and say that Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists,
(01:38:41):
ethical humanists, human beings should form an anti imperial movement,
because that's what, as I tried to make clear, nine
to eleven was all about, a means to increase the empire.
And so we do need a revolution, a nonviolent revolution,
and against American imperialism before it's too late.
Speaker 7 (01:39:18):
You're listening to the fact Hunter Radio Network. Just the facts,
Mam