from upi: Steel debris from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on New York's World Trade Center is being offered to towns and cities for memorials, officials said. Nearly 2,000 pieces of steel, large and small, are being stored by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which has filled about 25 requests and has a dozen more pending, The New York Times reported Monday. Twisted steel columns recently were shipped to York, Pa., and Westerville, Ohio, with a smaller piece shipped to the Air Defense offices in Rome, N.Y., Port Authority Executive Director Christopher Ward said. Requests must be approved by a federal judge overseeing wrongful death lawsuits stemming from the attack, the Times reported, noting the judge so far has granted all requests. "All we need is a 1-foot-by-1-foot-by-4-feet tall piece of steel," said a letter from town officials in Glens Falls, N.Y. "It's a small piece of steel to fill our big hearts."
delta 1989 – additions to the 9/11 timeline as of aug17 from 9/11 blogger: Most of the new entries in the last week have concerned the "red herring" Delta 1989, which was a suspected hijack in the day of 9/11, but was never taken over by terrorists. Shortly after the hijacking of United 93, both Delta 1989 and other aircraft had to turn to avoid the hijacked airliner, and, shortly after the Pentagon was hit, Delta Air Lines ordered the plane to land in Cleveland, but did not tell the FAA. The pilot then changed course and failed to respond to an FAA message, causing the FAA to think it may be a hijack. However, when the Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) told the FAA the Delta plane was a confirmed hijack at 9:45 a.m., an FAA controller disagreed. Delta Air Lines reported four missing planes around 9:50 a.m., the same time as Cleveland airport and city buildings started to be evacuated. The pilot's failure to use a standard aviation term shortly after 10:00 a.m. made controllers suspicious, but SWAT teams and the FBI finally allowed passengers off the plane around noon.
There are also several entries about fighters being scrambled from non-alert bases, such as an unsuccessful attempt by NEADS to launch planes from Minnesota after 9:40 a.m. NEADS also contacted Selfridge Air Force Base to get unarmed jets sent after either Delta 1989 or United 93 just before 10:00 a.m., but the planes ended up returning to base instead. Pilots in Toledo originally through a NEADS request they launch was a joke, but were in the air at 10:17 a.m.
In addition to the Delta 1989 entries, there are two more about the Langley jets that took off at 9:30; they were initially given an incorrect heading, flying east instead of north, and were not immediately redirected.
9/11 truth ko's vibrant response false flag from amfirstbooks: Alarmed by what they saw as the dangers of national WMD terror exercise "Vibrant Response," four leading 9/11 Truth veterans decided to issue an alert. Going by the dictum that every terror exercise has an optional plan to become a terror attack, they investigated and published the Vibrant Response script, which called for a simulated nuking of Kansas City. They added a list of the top five U.S. target cities, based upon their experience in monitoring — and sometimes interdicting — false flag terror exercises. A simple chronology shows that their concerns were warranted and their assertions were correct...
hirschhorn’s 9/11 mind swill from jerry mazza: Congratulations, Mr. Hirschhorn, for your Online Journal article, 9/11 Mind Swell, in which you manage to straddle both sides of the 9/11 Truth Movement, both complimenting it and at the same time planting a knife firmly in its back.
natl geo's "9/11: science & conspiracy" will set you straight from prnewswire: America watched in horror as September 11, 2001, unfolded before our eyes. Eight years have passed and no stone has been left unturned in the painstaking process of piecing together what happened that fateful day. Yet according to a 2006 poll, 33% of us still do not accept the U.S. government's account. Were the attacks really the work of al-Qaida terrorists, or is it possible something even more sinister was at work? On Monday, August 31, 2009, National Geographic Channel's 9/11: Science and Conspiracy conducts a forensic investigation to test tenets of some of the most common conspiracy theories. Did the Twin Towers really collapse from fires, or did explosives inside cause the buildings to implode? Was the Pentagon hit by a missile, and not a commercial airliner? And why do so many people believe theories like these?
bombshell: bin laden worked for US until 9/11 from against all enemies: Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds dropped a bombshell on the Mike Malloy radio show, guest-hosted by Brad Friedman (audio, partial transcript). In the interview, Sibel says that the US maintained 'intimate relations' with Bin Laden, and the Taliban, "all the way until that day of September 11." These 'intimate relations' included using Bin Laden for 'operations' in Central Asia, including Xinjiang, China. These 'operations' involved using al Qaeda and the Taliban in the same manner "as we did during the Afghan and Soviet conflict," that is, fighting 'enemies' via proxies. As Sibel has previously described, and as she reiterates in this latest interview, this process involved using Turkey (with assistance from 'actors from Pakistan, and Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia') as a proxy, which in turn used Bin Laden and the Taliban and others as a proxy terrorist army.
'9/11 was an inside job': jerry mazza from russia today: New York journalist and poet Jerry Mazza speaks with RT's Anastasia Churkina about 9/11, Iraq and Afghanistan - and the effects they have had on the American psyche.
mi5 says it was infiltrated by al-qaeda from kurt nimmo: Sky News, the British version of Fox News, expects us to believe al-Qaeda infiltrated MI5, the Brit secret service. “Patrick Mercer, a Conservative member of Parliament, is demanding a probe into claims six Muslims were thrown out of MI5 because of concerns about their past. Two of the six allegedly attended Al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan while the others had unexplained gaps of up to three months in their resumes.” It is said MI5 had “mistakenly” recruited the al-Qaeda members and they were uncovered during the vetting process. In the film “The Power of Nightmares,” top CIA officials admit that al-Qaeda does not exist as advertised (see the BBC documentary here). It was created to scare the sheep into surrendering their rights and accepting a police state.
alleged 9/11 conspirator sparks war court standoff from mcclatchy: Alleged 9/11 go-between Ramzi bin al Shibh refused to leave his prison camp cell Monday, triggering a clash on how to hold a pretrial hearing in the complex conspiracy case for which prosecutors seek the death penalty. The standoff produced an eerie scene at the war court. Confessed mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed sat at the lead defense table amiably chatting across the state-of-the-art courtroom with three of his alleged co-conspirators. White noise broadcast through war court speakers made the alleged terrorists' conversations inaudible. All four former CIA-held captives compliantly wore the white uniforms of the prison camp. Mohammed, who at his June arraignment said he welcomed martyrdom, could be plainly seen in a massive gray-speckled beard sitting at the defendants table. He sported a white turban with black trim. Meantime, behind the scenes, prosecutors were working through Defense Department bureaucracy to see whether they could get an order to have bin al Shibh forced out of his cell and into the war court, said Air Force Maj. Gail Crawford, a military commissions spokeswoman.
gitmo judge enlists help from 9/11 mastermind from ap: Confessed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed offered Monday to help persuade one of his co-defendants to leave his prison cell for a pretrial hearing at Guantanamo Bay. Mohammed volunteered to reach out to Ramzi Binalshibh after the military judge overseeing the case suggested that he might offer a separate trial for Binalshibh, who has refused to appear with his four co-defendants in America's most important war-crimes trial since the close of World War II. Judge Ralph Kohlmann, a Marine colonel, permitted Mohammed and the other co-defendants to send notes to Binalshibh. If the Yemeni still refuses to appear in court on Tuesday morning, Binalshibh will be dragged from his cell, Kohlmann said. "It is my hope that perhaps we can avoid the need for a forcible bringing of him here," the judge said.
additions to 9/11 timeline as of sept 21: united 93, 9/11 commission from history commons: About half of this week's new entries concern United Airlines Flight 93. The airline's operations centre sent a message to the plane's co-pilot some minutes before the hijacking, but received no reply; it also notified flights of a crash at the WTC around 9:03 but did not send a warning about possible hijackings at this time. The airline's dispatchers were asked to warn flights at 9:21, the same time Flight 93 sent a routine message to one of the dispatchers. A couple of minutes later, it checked in with Cleveland air traffic control; the pilots then sent their last last message at 9:27.
Learning of potential problems on board, United tried to contact the plane at 9:31, and then sent a message to all flights, including flight 93, telling them to secure their cockpits. Dispatchers learned flight 93 was heading towards Washington at 9:36 and offered assistance, and a dispatcher issued another warning about securing the cockpit at 9:40. United's attempt to implement the lockout procedure for flight 93 failed at about 9:50, at the same time a dispatcher told Flight 93 to land at the nearest airport and was informed the flight may have been hijacked.
A few minutes after it crashed, a message was sent to the plane telling it not to divert to Washington, and none of the passengers relatives went to the airport it was scheduled to arrive at in San Francisco to meet the passengers. In 2007, a German television program was denied permission to film the wreckage.
Regarding the other flights, American Airlines ordered all its flights to land immediately at 9:15, and a dispatcher notified United flights of a ground stop in New York at 9:08. United ordered no new take offs for any international flights around 9:20, and a dispatcher sent a warning to Flight 175 at 9:23, several minutes after it hit the WTC.
There are also a number of entries regarding the 9/11 Commission. Most importantly, as the commission was just beginning its work in early 2003, Executive Director Philip Zelikow had already completed an outline of its final report. Also early on in the inquiry, the commission decided it would not bother with subpoenas, which left Commissioner Max Cleland disappointed. Later on, CIA Director George Tenet heard a false rumor the commission was to call for his firing, and got White House Chief of Staff Andy Card to plead with the commissioners for his job.
additions to 9/11 timeline as of sept 28: pentagon on 9/11, shoe bombing, bin laden in the soviet-afghan war & more from history commons: This week, a massive amount of new entries have been added to the timeline, dealing with a whole range of different issues. We will start with the day of 9/11, in particular the Pentagon, which a fire chief warned could be a target nearly 20 minutes before it was hit. The attack itself created confusion by setting off 300 fire alarms, although some medical workers thought the ensuing evacuation was a drill. After wandering about outside the building, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld refused to follow the established emergency plan and evacuate, instead sending deputy Paul Wolfowitz to an alternate military command center, where the computers and communication systems did not work.
There is also a group of entries about Congressional leaders' actions on 9/11. It was clear the Capitol was a possible target from around 9:00, but it was not evacuated until later. After the evacuation, some members of Congress established a Central Command Center, but others went home. Some were flown to a secure bunker outside the capital, from which Vice President Dick Cheney instructed them not to return to Washington. They finally summoned up the courage to do so anyway in the early evening, after agreeing to reconvene the next day.
Another topic that has received more coverage is the 2001 attempted shoe bombing. Zacarias Moussaoui, one of the many "20th hijackers," met one of the bombers, Richard Reid, at a London mosque in 1996. Reid also met an al-Qaeda recruiter at London's Finsbury Park mosque, which was run by British intelligence informer Abu Hamza al-Masri and also attended by Nizar Trabelsi, another operative who went on to be involved in the shoe bombing. A few months before the attempting bombing, Reid cased targets in Israel.
The US was monitoring calls between an al-Qaeda communications hub in Yemen and a top associate of the shoe bombers, leading to his arrest. That, in turn, led to Trabelsi's arrest, and that led to the arrest of a group of Algerians in Spain. All the plots Trabelsi was involved in were halted--except the shoe bombing, which was not cancelled even after his arrest was revealed in the international press.
There are also a few more entries about the Bojinka plot. One of the plotters, Abdul Hakim Murad, was allegedly tortured by Philippine police after his arrest and was then rendered to the US, as was lead plotter Ramzi Yousef. Another of the bombers, Wali Khan Amin Shah, mysteriously escaped from a Philippine jail, but was recaptured a few months later and also rendered to the US.
The recent seventh anniversary of the attacks was the occasion for the expression of some skepticism about what has come to be known as the "official account" of 9/11. A member of the European Parliament called for an international tribunal to reassess the attacks, a former Syrian minister said the US may have committed them itself, and a controversial documentary was shown on Russian television.
Regarding the hijackers' DNA, the coroner handling the Flight 93 investigation received a call from a person who represented himself as one of the hijackers' relatives in 2002, but the remains of 13 hijackers are still in US custody. Remains of the other six alleged hijackers have not been found.
truth videos targeted on youtube from nufff respect: (Editor’s note: This malicious activity appears to be a government op to discredit and take down truth YouTube accounts, although there is no direct evidence of this. “The Defense Dept. places a high-value on controlling information,” writes Mike Whitney. The Pentagon’s Information Operations Roadmap considers the internet “an enemy weapons system” that must be confronted by way of “virtual warfare” and resulting in “full spectrum dominance.”)
For all our sakes, this video desperately needs to go viral, so please, if you have any videos on your channel, add a few of them as a video response. Please also rate, favorite, and leave as many comments as you can. That way, this vid will reach the most-viewed lists and get seen by YouTube, and then they’ll have to do something about it. This is the only way we’re gonna expose this fraudster and stop him from ruining it for everyone else. Otherwise we’re all doomed. Every truth channel is relying on you now folks. It’s in your hands.
the 9/11 movement is alive, well & kicking in nyc & beyond! from jerry mazza: On Thursday, 9/11/08, WeAreChange.org and the ncy911 Ballot Initiative group joined forces at Ground Zero. Read all about them at the above links. I joined them about 11:30a.m. for the march and speeches that would begin around noon. The young WeAreChange leader Luke Rudkowski (a force unto himself) and the indefatigable Ballot Initiative leader Les Jamieson were there to kick off events. If I had apprehensions about the march, they were eased by the people I met. Optimistic, well informed, open, they were ready to face a harassing lunatic fringe and/or provocateurs with a healthy dose of humor or equal edge. Believe it or not, the legion of cops seemed bent on protecting us as well. Perhaps after seven years of listening to 9/11 Truth some had sunk in. Also, WeAreChange’s special fund-raising effort, “First Responders First,” made friends on the blue side as well with firemen and EMTs.
7yrs later, 9/11 hijackers' remains are in limbo from nytimes: (Editor's Note: If I had a nickel for every time we have been told about the "ongoing investigation" of 9/11 as being the reason why we can't have access to information, I would be a rich man.)
Seven years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, the remains of 13 of the 19 men responsible have been identified and are in the custody of the F.B.I. and the New York City medical examiner’s office. But no one has formally requested the remains in order to bury them. “Politically, one can understand that this is a hot potato,” said Muneer Fareed, secretary general of the Islamic Society of North America and a former professor of Islamic studies. “People don’t want to identify with the political equivalent of Jeffrey Dahmer.” What would happen if someone asked for the hijackers’ remains is not clear. Neither the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which holds the remains of the nine hijackers whose planes hit the Pentagon and crashed in a field in Somerset County, Pa., nor the New York City medical examiner’s office, which holds the remains of 4 of the 10 hijackers who flew planes into the World Trade Center buildings, has policies to deal with such a request. “If and when it comes up, we’ll address it then,” an F.B.I. spokesman, Richard Kolko, said. The bureau could turn down such requests, Mr. Kolko said, because the Sept. 11 investigation is an open case.
new al-CIAda tape surfaces despite US efforts to block it
from abc: Al Qaeda's annual September 11 propaganda video surfaced today, delayed eight days by a concerted US effort to block it. The tape showed no new pictures or statements from Osama bin Laden, although an al Qaeda figure was interviewed saying bin Laden was in "good health." Al Qaeda also showed a video it said was captured from a US bounty hunter, Keith "Jack" Idema, as he appeared to threaten to kill an Afghani citizen during an interrogation.
update: canadian mp ditches candidate over remarks about 9/11 from ctv: Stephane Dion began his day defending Lesley Hughes over accusations of anti-Semitism. But by lunchtime Friday the Liberal leader had unceremoniously dumped the Winnipeg-area candidate in an abrupt move that seemed as much about removing the tarnish of intolerance from the party brand as it did with buffing his leadership image.
Hughes later described herself as a "lifelong friend and supporter of the Jewish community in Winnipeg." Nonetheless, she apologized for the "perception" that she is anti-Semitic. But the apology wasn't enough for her party leader.
"The Liberal party's commitment to tolerance and multiculturalism is paramount," Dion said in a statement. "I have reviewed the past comments of Lesley Hughes and it is clear they do not meet this standard. While I appreciate her apology, I cannot condone those sentiments in any way. I have therefore asked Ms. Hughes to step down as the Liberal party candidate in Kildonan-St. Paul."
financial times & 'self-confessed mastermind of 9/11' from people's voice: The Financial Times (FT), once the liberal, enlightened voice of the financial elite (in contrast to the aggressively neo-conservative Wall Street Journal) has yielded to the totalitarian-militarist temptation. The feature article of the weekend supplement of August 16/17, 2008 – “The Face of 9/11” – embraces the forced confession of a 9/11 suspect elicited through 5 years of hideous torture in the confines of secret prisons. To make their case, the FT published a half-page blow-up photo first circulated by former CIA director George Tenet, which presents a bound, disheveled, dazed, hairy ape-like prisoner. The text of the writer, one Demetri Sevastopulo, admits as much: The FT owns up to being a propaganda vehicle for a CIA program to discredit the suspect while he stands trial based on confessions obtained through torture.
From beginning to end, the article categorically states that the principle defendant, Khalet Sheikh Mohammed, is the “self-confessed mastermind of the September 11 attacks on the US.” The first half of the article is full of trivia, designed to provide a human-interest feel to the courtroom and the proceedings – a bizarre mixture discussing Khaled’s nose to the size of the courtroom.
a new 9/11 clue from jerry mazza: Recently, an email drifted in about an article I wrote, What were the Mossad with fraudulent New Zealand Passports doing in Iraq? The writer said, “I’ve known about this for some time - that the Mossad was involved in murdering our troops in a variety of methods to keep them there so we could ‘finish’ the job by destroying Syria and Iran. For years now I’ve suspected and now know for sure the Mossad had a lot to do with the 9/11 attack on the WTC. The attached mp3 is a recording of NYPD radio transmissions on 9/11. Listen from the 3-minute mark almost to the end. This was never reported in the media.”
The recording is titled, “The WTC-10-5-the-message-about-the-remote-controlled-plane.” In the mélange of scratchy voices bumping each other off and on, around minute three, the words “remote controlled-plane” bump through clearly, are interrupted, and finally assert quite clearly again that “there’s a big truck on King Street with the mural of an airplane painted on it diving into New York City and exploding.” It was later noted “King Street between 6th and 7th Avenues,” about a mile north of WTC, which was in direct line of sight from King St. and 6th Avenue...
nist report: shameful, embarrassing & completely flawed from paul joseph watson: NIST Claims “New Phenomenon” Occurred For First Time Ever In Collapse Of WTC 7, Yet fails to address why ground zero workers and media outlets had prior knowledge of an “extraordinary event” never before observed an hour in advance, plus myriad of other ignored issues...
In its final report on the collapse of WTC 7 that news outlets are reporting “puts 9/11 conspiracy theories to bed,” NIST claims that the never before observed “new phenomenon” of “thermal expansion” was to blame for the destruction of the building, a completely ludicrous conclusion in a report that simply ignores eyewitness testimony and hard evidence that points to the deliberate demolition of the structure.
NIST completely fails to address prior knowledge of the building’s collapse, including why news outlets like the BBC and CNN reported that the building had collapsed an hour before it actually fell, as well as firefighters on the scene who are heard on video saying, “Keep your eye on that building, it’ll be coming down soon.”
cnn: conspiracy theorists ‘not swayed’ by wtc7 explanation from raw replay: CNN’s Deborah Feyerick reported that a new report explaining the collapse of World Trade Center building 7 during the 9/11 attack doesn’t convince conspiracy theorists. This video is from CNN’s American Morning, broadcast August 22, 2008.
"shockingly calm": phone calls from the planes on 9/11 from 9/11 blogger: A number of people received phone calls the morning of September 11, 2001 that they believed were made by individuals on board the planes that crashed in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. Descriptions of these calls, however, reveal something odd. According to the official story we have been told, the callers were in an unprecedented crisis, stuck on planes under the control of murderous terrorists, and with no knowledge of whether they were going to be allowed to live or die. Yet in many of the phone calls, the caller appears to have been remarkably calm. Perhaps if just a few of them--for example, those with specific personal experiences, like the flight attendant who was a former police officer--had maintained their composure, then this would be less remarkable. Yet the large majority of the callers displayed this same calmness. In their recollections, some of the people who received the calls have indeed commented on this fact, apparently surprised by it. Some of them have also commented on the absence of panic, screaming, or other sounds of chaos in the background.
urban moving systems: US/israeli 9/11 financial nexus from under the radar: With the global awakening of what really happened on 9/11 surging ahead at full steam, many people are now aware of facts such as prior government knowledge of the attacks, the mysterious collapse of WTC 7, all of the military and terror drills going on at the same time of the attacks, and the possibility that WTC 1, 2 and 7 were brought down by controlled demolition, and not by fire. What is not known by the majority of these people, but is as equally important as WTC 7 is the story ofUrban Moving Systems...
what to do with ground zero from jerry mazza: In light of the fact that we are two months and 11 days shy of the seventh anniversary of 9/11, America’s greatest homeland attack, and that the New York Times reported Monday in its City Room Blog, Higher Costs and Delays Expected at Ground Zero by Charles V. Bagli, who Tuesday reported Rebuilding at 9/11 Site Runs Late, I would suggest first you read the articles, then click on Wikipedia’s World Trade Center Site. The latter will give you a brief history of the real estate boondoggle that has left the 16-acre site with construction stops and starts, a 36-page PDF by the Port of Authority of New York and New Jersey about what went wrong, and the bottom line that the memorial to the lost of 9/11 will not be open on time for the 10th anniversary, that’s September 11, 2011, as previously announced.
from afp: Hundreds of Palestinian refugees headed to Lebanon's southern border with Israel on Wednesday marking 60 years since the creation of the Jewish state and exile from what was once Palestine. "We want to return to our country. We desperately miss our country's soil," said Mahmud Mahmud, aged in his 70s, who was wearing a traditional Palestinian headdress. "We came to this area in a peaceful march against the occupation on this occasion."
bush celebrates & says goodbye from los angeles times: President Bush arrived in Israel today to help celebrate the Jewish State's 60th anniversary and possibly help nudge along the (so far lackluster) Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations he launched last fall. With Bush's time in office winding down, Israeli observers sound genuinely nostalgic to see him go, and some are already fretting about Israel's future with someone else in the White House. An editorial in the Jerusalem Post this week declared: "Of all the US presidents over the past 60 years, it is hard to think of a better friend to Israel than George W. Bush."
israel’s 60 years of nuclear proliferation from jerry mazza: I have not written this article to condemn Israel on its 60th anniversary as a quasi-legal state, quasi to question the UN’s legitimacy to create it, and quasi for Israel’s subsequent actions to ingest and destroy the Palestinians. My aim is to point out Israel’s own hypocrisy regarding Iran’s possible possession of nuclear capabilitynot just for peacetime power. Beyond the Cold War, it is Israel that has historically been edging us into a worldwide nuclear conflagration; and doing so since 2001 with the hegemonic boobs presently running the USA and supporting Israel’s misguided efforts with billions of dollars of aid for arms in the hope that it will keep the Arab world intimidated and give us its oil.
from jerry mazza: '9/11 Is Over' by New York Times’ columnist Thomas Friedman is as ignorant if not as pernicious as its misguided view of 9/11’s tragedy. It is symptomatic of the worse elements at the Times those writers who waffle between administration ass-kissing and stands for faux-boldness like the above one, which is in effect from the mouth of a tinfoil hat, if not a voice of the CIA.
Friedman begins by quoting a send-up news story run by The Onion: "At a well-attended rally in front of his new ground zero headquarters Monday, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani officially announced his plan to run for president of 9/11..."
First of all, what’s important about Giuliani aside from his grim facial expressions is his grim record, making himself a millionaire by capitalizing on being the hero of 9/11, even though he’s been disowned by the International Union of Firefighters, first responders, and all those sick and dying from being pushed to clear the crime scene in eight months not the allotted 30 months. See my article, 'How low does Rudy go.'
Secondly, we have become “The United States of Fighting Terrorism” thanks to the specific inciting incident of 9/11, which was sponsored by the government to accomplish the neocon mission of world hegemony, starting with attacking the oil-rich Middle East and the Muslim world.Take a minute or two and consider that, Mr. Friedman. It’s kind of like 'The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11,' the landmark book by theologian and scholar David Ray Griffin. I suggest, Mr. Friedman, that you read it, along with historian Webster Tarpley’s '9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA.'
But it seems as if Friedman is either colossally naive or a non-reader. 9/11 isn't over because its true perpetrators have not been revealed in the corporate media of America.
from jerry mazza: Is this a new 9/11 conspiracy The New York Times is reporting? That “roughly $40 million that was set aside by the federal government to treat rescue workers, volunteers and firefighters who became ill after helping with the 9/11 cleanup and recovery will run out in months, physicians and federal officials said yesterday.” And the fund goes broke while the war meter ticks in Iraq at nearly $3 billion a week?
On top of that, that sanctimonious Contra criminal, Robert Gates, sworn in Monday as defense secretary warns us that failure in Iraq would be a “calamity” that would haunt the United States for years. Well Bobby, we’ve got a “calamity” here in New York (still part of the United States) that has haunted us for five years and won’t go away. So take your “commanders' assessments” “unvarnished and straight from the shoulder” and you know where to put ‘em.
Members of Congress from New York and New Jersey had to fight to secure $75 million a year ago to pay for health expenses, which included $40 million for drugs and medical procedures, for some 32,000 workers who reported a variety of illnesses after working at Ground Zero. You remember GZ, don’t you, where some special ops helpersblew up the Twin Trade Towers?
from jerry mazza: “Hammering Hank,” as he’s better known to colleagues, is at it again. According to Reuters, AP, and CNBC at msn.Money, Maurice “Hank” Greenberg has been buying up shares of The New York Times Company to try to break the Sulzberger family’s “hold” on it. Watch out.
As you may remember, Greenberg resigned as CEO from the board of AIG (American Insurance Group) in February 2005, and left the company on March 14, following “regulatory inquiries” made by Attorney General Spitzer (recently elected New York governor). Subsequently AIG and its new CEO Martin Sullivan paid a fine of over $1.6 billion.
Greenberg’s former satellite firm, Marsh & McLennan Companies (MMC), the world’s largest insurance broker, was run by Hank’s son Jeffrey Greenberg from 1993 to 2004. Jeffrey left 11 days after Spitzer’s civil action against MMC was presented on Oct 14, 2004. In January 2005, Marsh was forced to pay $850 million in fines to policyholders for steering clients to insurers from which it received lucrative payoffs.
Both Greenberg Sr. and Jeffrey Greenberg are Council on Foreign Relations members.
By the way, Marsh also bought Kroll, the security and military contracting company that recently pulled out of Iraq. Just a bit of back story about the Greenberg familia. There’s more linked in my September 29 article in Online Journal. And there’s more in my October 9 article, Answering the mail re: Greenberg & AIG. In it, there is a notable quote by Michael Ruppert (From The Wilderness):
"FTW has also conducted an extensive investigation into AIG and its predecessors, including the C. V. Starr Insurance Companies, revealing deep connections to US intelligence dating back to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in World War II. These connections include documented CIA operatives connected to drug smuggling from Southeast Asia and a current board member, Frank Wisner, Jr., whose father was a key figure in the creation of the CIA. History, as well as AIG's current operations suggest, that these relationships continue unabated today . . .
" . . . AIG has also been connected, albeit indirectly, to a major money laundering case. As the insurance carrier for the Bank of New York (BoNY) they are defending BoNY in a suit filed this year by BoNY shareholders charging mismanagement of the bank. That suit arose from revelations (See FTW Vol II, No.7, 9/99) in the major media that BoNY had been involved in laundering between $7 and $10 billion in criminal money out of Russia during the 1990s under its Chairman, Thomas Renyi. A credible source has told me, but I have not been able to confirm it, that AIG also insures the U.S. Department of Justice which was charged with investigating BoNY and which decided not to file criminal charges in 1999.”
You have to ask yourself, with a background and resume like this, is this man qualified to own and run a major newspaper? And, if given his druthers, is he also fit to make a bid for the Tribune Company, which owns, among others, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday and a host of TV stations? He has sold more than $1.5 billion in AIG shares since May, the articles report, it would seem he has some cash in hand for buying.
Do we need another Rupert Murdoch, eager to envelope and steer more media to the right? Do we need Maurice Greenberg, a man who grew out of a corporate culture with long-standing affiliation to the OSS and CIA, an insurance company reputedly involved in money-laundering and drug-smuggling while operating conveniently in some 135 countries?
What’s more, Greenberg has had some help in his Times Company plans from Morgan Stanley, which “submitted a proposal to the [Times] Company that is aimed at cutting the Sulzberger family’s long-standing control of the company by changing the voting structure so that shareholders have equal voting rights.”
It would seem that such an act would compromise the Time’s company’s editorial content, given a block of voters or single large share-block voter, who might chose to interfere in policy.
Additionally, AIG, Greenberg, and Morgan Stanley share another tie mentioned in my article The PROMIS of 9/11 and beyond. I think the opening paragraph underscores a darker side of AIG and Morgan Stanley’s business. The italics are mine . . .
“As whistleblower Richard Grove points out, SilverStream (the software company he worked for at the time of 9/11), served not only AIG (American Insurance Group), it also built trading applications for Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Banker’s Trust, Alex Brown, Morgan Stanley, and Marsh McLennan. With this impressive list, according to Grove, “you pretty much had the major players involved in the financial aspect of the 9/11 fraudulent trading activity.”
Thus, every fiber in me smells a rat in this alliance. Let me add, too, I am a New York Times reader, online and off. I don’t think it’s a perfect newspaper. I prefer alternative media. But I respect its right to be, and not to be interfered with by the likes of Maurice Greenberg or Morgan Stanley or any of the brokerage firms above listed. The news, and whatever truth The Times brings, should not be for sale to these power brokers. Thank you, I’ll take the Sulzbergers.
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from upi: Steel debris from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on New York's World Trade Center is being offered to towns and cities for memorials, officials said. Nearly 2,000 pieces of steel, large and small, are being stored by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which has filled about 25 requests and has a dozen more pending, The New York Times reported Monday. Twisted steel columns recently were shipped to York, Pa., and Westerville, Ohio, with a smaller piece shipped to the Air Defense offices in Rome, N.Y., Port Authority Executive Director Christopher Ward said. Requests must be approved by a federal judge overseeing wrongful death lawsuits stemming from the attack, the Times reported, noting the judge so far has granted all requests. "All we need is a 1-foot-by-1-foot-by-4-feet tall piece of steel," said a letter from town officials in Glens Falls, N.Y. "It's a small piece of steel to fill our big hearts."
