August 2009

Debates at Lolita Bar: “Should NY Reopen the 9/11 Investigation?”
Wednesday, September 2, at 8pm, with:
Sander Hicks, author of The Big Wedding, arguing yes.
Saul Devitt, computer programmer and skeptic, arguing no.
(And the group NYC CAN is fighting in court, meanwhile, over whether to make it a ballot initiative question, making the topic timely again.)
Hosted by Todd Seavey and moderated by Michel Evanchik.
Free admission, cash bar. Basement level of Lolita Bar at 266 Broome St. (New York City) at the corner of Allen St. on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, one block south
and three west of the Delancey St. F, J, M, Z subway stop.
This is, in effect, our second of three debates on "conspiracy"-related
topics — bring all the skeptics, watchdogs, truth-seekers, or debunkers you
know. And the audience gets to vote on the question at the end.

By Ray McGovern
August 30, 2009
ConsortiumNews.com

EXTRA! Read all about it in the Washington Post: Torture
worked;Cheney and torture practitioners vindicated.

It seems coverage of the Bush administration’s “war on terror” has been put back on track by the editors of the Washington Post and their “sources” who are determined to highlight the supposed successes of waterboarding and other forms of torture.

Frankly, I was wondering when this return to form would happen at the Post. I was surprised to see Post journalists recently lose their grip, so to speak, and fall into the practice of reporting real facts — like the sickening revelations in the long-suppressed CIA Inspector General’s report on torture.
Apparently they have now been reminded of the biases of the newspaper’s top brass, forever justifying the hardnosed “realism” of the Bush administration as it approved brutal and perverse methods for stripping the “bad guys” of their clothes, their dignity, their sense of self — all to protect America.

WE DEMAND THE BBC COVERS THIS STORY
A
Time Comes When Silence is Betrayal! Protest the BBC September 11th, 2009
> Scientific peer-reviewed proof nano-thermite found in the rubble at
Ground Zero
> 750+ architects and engineers demand a new investigation
9/11 is a historical event and it has changed the way we live today.
Subsequent to 9/11, the Bush and Blair administrations launched an aggressive
War on Terror which we were told would last the rest of our lives. Shortly after,
Afghanistan and Iraq were invaded and the blood of millions of innocents has
been spilt. Furthermore, the Patriot Act and UK Anti-Terror legislation has
eroded our civil liberties with devastating effect. The police state has never
been better funded. The mainstream media has sensationalized Islamaphobia and
Muslims are subject to countless unnecessary stops, searches, raids, arrests
and harrassements. The War on Terror is a War OF Terror.
This makes it all the more concerning when we discover that many western intelligence
agencies had foreknowledge of the attacks and failed abysmally to prevent them.
Furthermore, the 9/11 Commission Report and subsequent NIST reports are inconsistent
with records of the day and even contradictory in themselves. Scientists have
since released a peer reviewed paper on evidence of Nano-Thermate in the rubble
of ground zero and have repeatedly requested the computer model from NIST which
describes how the towers fell and which was never peer reviewed in accordance
with the scientific standards. There are also over 750 architects and engineers
who dismiss the official government reports, citing evidence that the WTC buildings
1, 2 and 7 were bought down by controlled demolition.
8 years after the attacks, we still have serious questions which the establishment
and corporate media have failed to answer.
Join us, with speakers and performers on the 11th of September 2009 at the
BBC head-quarters at White City by Shephard Bush from 12 noon till 8pm to remember
and to demand answers!

by Philip Giraldi
Posted on August 27th, 2009
The American Conservative
Those who are interested in issues like widespread corruption of our elected officals by foreigners have no doubt followed the ex-FBI traslator turned whistle blower Sibel Edmonds saga for the past few years. Sibel has finally testified in court under oath about some of the things that she learned while working for the bureau. The testimony was in a court in Ohio about two weeks ago. A full transcription and a useful summary appear at http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7374. In short, she names a number of Congressmen including former Speaker Dennis Hastert who took money from Turkish lobbyists. She also identifies senior State Department and Pentagon officials who apparently did the same, including our friends Marc Grossman, Paul Wolfowitz, and Doug Feith. Interestingly, she claims that Grossman blew the cover of Valerie Plame’s company Brewster Jennings back in 2001, causing CIA to shut it down, so Robert Novak was not guilty of exposing the CIA cover mechanism. In another interview given a few weeks ago, Edmonds claims that CIA was working closely with al-Qaeda in the Balkans and continued to do so until 9/11.

As I have reported before, Edmonds is a credible witness who is ignored by the mainstream media and congress because her tales, if true, would be devastating to both political parties and to the Israel and Turkish lobbies. She is dismissed as a crackpot. She might in fact be blowing smoke, but now that she has testified under oath and in considerable detail making very specific accusations isn’t it time for someone in the administration to review the FBI files and stand up to say whether her accounts are true or not? Corruption in the US government is something that no one wants to talk about, particularly if powerful foreign interests are involved.

The Silence of the Antiwar Movement is Deafening
Cindy Sheehan’s Lonely Vigil in Obamaland
By JOHN V. WALSH
August 26, 2009
Counterpunch.com
A funny thing has happened on Cindy Sheehan’s long road from Crawford, Texas,
to Martha’s Vineyard. Many of those who claim to lead the peace movement and
who so volubly praised her actions in Crawford, TX, are not to be seen. Nor
heard. The silence in fact is deafening, or as Cindy put it in an email to this
writer, “crashingly deafening.” Where are the email appeals to join Cindy
from The Nation or from AFSC or Peace Action or “Progressive” Democrats
of America (PDA) or even Code Pink? Or United for Peace and Justice. (No wonder
UFPJ is essentially closing shop, bereft of most of their contributions and
shriveling up following the thinly veiled protest behind the “retirement”
of Leslie Cagan.) And what about MoveOn although it was long ago thoroughly
discredited as principled opponents of war or principled in any way shape or
form except slavish loyalty to the “other” War Party. And of course sundry
“socialist” organizations are also missing in action since their particular
dogma will not be front and center. These worthies and many others have vanished
into the fog of Obama’s wars.

Just to be sure, this writer contacted several of the “leaders” of the “official” peace movement in the Boston area — AFSC, Peace Action, Green Party of MA (aka Green Rainbow Party) and some others. Not so much as the courtesy of a reply resulted from this effort – although the GRP at least posted a notice of the action. (It is entirely possible that some of these organizations might mention Cindy’s action late enough and quickly enough so as to cover their derrieres while ensuring that Obama will not be embarrassed by protesting crowds.) We here in the vicinity of Beantown are but a hop, skip and cheap ferry ride from Martha’s Vineyard. Same for NYC. So we have a special obligation to respond to Cindy’s call.