Jim Fetzer
Abstract. During a “Freedom Rally” in recognition of Ron Paul, (R-TX) and in opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth explained why the anti-war movement and the 9/11 truth movement should be more closely linked, since exposing the truth about 9/11 destroys the justification for those wars. While a clip of a part of his presentation has been posted on YouTube, here is a summation (with corrections) of his remarks in Washington, D.C., 15 April 2008. When it comes to 9/11, however, Ron Paul himself, alas!, doesn’t have a clue.
We cannot support the troops by “staying the course” when the Commander-in-Chief is marching them over a cliff.
—Jim Fetzer (15 April 2008)
I speak in praise of Ron Paul, who believes in the Constitution and in ending these illegal and immoral wars, which the Bush administration obviously does not.
There is a crucial link between the anti-war movement and the 9/11 truth movement, because exposing the truth about 9/11 destroys the justification for those wars.
We are told not to discuss conspiracy theories, but if 19 Islamic fundamentalists hijacked four planes, outfoxed the most sophisticated air defense system in the world, and perpetrated these atrocities under the control of a guy in a cave in Afghanistan, then 9/11 involved a conspiracy.
If we can’t talk about conspiracies, we can’t talk about 9/11. Why would this administration want to suppress public discussion of 9/11? To conceal the truth about the war or to conceal the truth about 9/11?
Lies about the War
We were told big lies about the war, including, first, that Saddam was responsible for 9/11. But during a press conference, Bush himself had to admit that Saddam had “nothing” to do with 9/11.
We were told, second, that Saddam was in cahoots with al Qaeda. But several investigations have revealed that not only was Saddam not in cahoots with al Qaeda, but he was actively tracking down its leaders to incarcerate or even kill them.
Moreover, honest generals have told us al Qaeda is not responsible for more than 10% of the opposition to US presence in Iraq and that our presence there is the greatest recruiting tool al Qaeda possesses.
In fact, an admiral—who may face imminent demotion—was quoted in The New York Times (11 April 2008) observing that no more than 40-50 foreign fighters were entering the country each month. How great a threat can that represent?
Political hacks tell us differently. Compare what General William Odom, who is retired, has said, with the words of General David Petraeus, who is not.
Third, we were told that Osama bin Laden was responsible for 9/11. But our FBI—our own FBI!—has acknowledged that it has “no hard evidence” connecting Osama bin Laden to the events of 9/11.
You thought there was “a confession tape”? But in his first video, which is the only one that appears to be authentic, Osama said that he had nothing to do with 9/11 and that the killing of innocent women and children is contrary to the tenets of Islam.
He said that he opposed the presence of US forces in Saudi Arabia, the home of Mecca and Medina—the two most holy sites in Islam—and our one-sided stance regarding the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
The so-called “confession tape” involves a different “Osama” who does not look the same and has a different voice. It is the product of an intelligence agency.
Lies about 9/11
And we have been told lesser lies about 9/11. You don’t have to have read the books of David Ray Griffin to know these things, but it helps.
At the Twin Towers, the fires burned neither long enough nor hot enough to cause the steel to weaken, much less melt. Jet fuel is primarily kerosene, most of which burned up in those spectacular fireballs. If it could have such effects, our Coleman lanterns and camping stoves would melt when we use them.
The towers were pulverized from the top down. Each floor stands motionless awaiting its destruction. They were turned into very fine dust and the buildings were destroyed to below ground level. There were no “pancakes”.
WTC-7 was destroyed by a classic controlled demolition at 5:20 PM. All of its floors fell together in a complete, abrupt, and symmetrical collapse in about 6.5 seconds. When it was over, there was a stack of about 7 floors of “pancakes”. Their modes of demolition were quite different.
Earlier, at 4:57 PM, the BBC reported that WTC-7 had collapsed, 23 minutes before the event occurred. If anyone wonders whether there is any collusion between the intelligence agencies, the government, and the mass media, I cannot imagine a better example.
The Pentagon presents many oddities. Pilots for 9/11 Truth has taken the black box data that the National Transportation Safety Board says came from the plane that hit the building and discovered that the data corresponds to a flight with a different approach and altitude than the official account describes.
It was too high at 300 feet to have taken out any lampposts and, one second from the building, it was 100 feet too high to have impacted with it. Such a plane may have swooped over the Pentagon, but it could not have hit it.
Moreover, two lime-green civilian fire trucks were on the scene almost immediately and extinguished the fires in the first 15-20 minutes. The billowing black clouds that were later observed from the Capitol came from a series of enormous dumpsters in front of the building rather than from the building itself. They were a special effect. We are being played for saps.
Apologists for the government insist that there is so little debris at the crash site in Shanksville because the plane crashed into an abandoned mine shaft!
Well, we know what to do with miners trapped in mine shafts: We bring out the heavy equipment and work non-stop in the hope that someone may have miraculously survived. But that was not done in Shanksville.
An Air Force officer who is an expert on plane crashes, Colonel George Nelson (retired), has told me that it looked to him as though someone had taken a bulldozer, dug a trench, filled it with trash, and blown it up!
We are not alone in our concerns with what we have been told by our government about 9/11. Jesse Ventura and Ralph Nader are two of the latest to join us. If you want to know why hundreds of military officers, intelligence experts, pilots, scientists, and members of the families of survivors support 9/11 truth, visit Patriots Question 9/11.
Why All These Lies?
According to the Center for Public Integrity, prominent members of the administration made nearly 1,000 lies to induce Americans to support a war in Iraq. These were made by George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and others. Why were they lying to us?
One reason may be because real national security depends upon (a) a sound economy, (
military strength, and © our moral standing in the world. Bush has vitiated all three. (a) The war alone is estimated to run $1-3 trillion and the nation is bankrupt. These ongoing rotations are (
weakening our military and are not sustainable, as general after general has observed. And if you doubt the morality of this practice, view the film “Stop-Loss”.By launching wars of aggression in violation of international law, the UN Charter, and the US Constitution, combined with the practice of torture, © the US has lost its moral standing in the eyes of the world. Instead of being the most admired and respected of nations, we are now—together with our ally, Israel—the most despised and reviled.
Since our greatest source of security from attack has been our moral standing, for Bush to describe himself as “the security president” is no more than a sick joke.
The Real Reasons for War
Do they want to conceal the real reasons for going to war? There appear to be three: oil, Israel, and ideology.
OIL: It’s easier to steal their oil than it is to find it ourselves. For a war that was supposed to pay for itself, we are shelling out $1 billion a week for gasoline to move our equipment around in Iraq.
I haven’t heard that ExxonMobile is offering to provide that gas for free to support our troops! Where do you suppose those profits are going?
After Dick Cheney’s latest visit to the Middle East, al Maliki rushed to Basra to oversee an attack on the militia forces of al Sadr. Basra is not just the second largest city in Iraq but sits astride the large oil fields in south and eastern Iraq.
Without pacifying the conflict there, ExxonMobile, Shell, BP and other companies will not be comfortable taking oil from that region. I have no doubt that the Bush-Cheney “benchmark” for success in Iraq is that the country has been pacified sufficiently for that purpose. That’s their bottom line.
ISRAEL. Israel has had a long-standing interest in weakening the influence of its political rivals in the region. Before 9/11, Iraq was the most modern and sophisticated among the Arab states, with a fine national health-care system, a strong program of public education, and an excellent infrastructure.
Anyone who wants to appreciate one of the real reasons for 9/11 should think about a clip of cheering Palestinians that played as the towers were being destroyed.
I asked myself, “Is there an enormous large-screen, outdoor television in the West Bank that would enable Palestinians to view these events as they are happening?”
It turns out to be archival footage from 1993 of rejoicing after some students had given an olive branch to Israeli soldiers and thought that peace was “just around the corner”, which just happened to be introduced at the point of maximum revulsion about what we were seeing on the screen.
IDEOLOGY. An influential group known as “Project for the New American Century” has formulated a plan for creating an empire greater than any the world has ever seen.
Now that the US is the only superpower, they advocated moving aggressively into the Middle East to seize control of its oil, support Israel, and exerting influence outward from that geopolitically strategic area.
Those who signed on to its principles included Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Eliott Abrams, Paul Wolfowitz, “Scotter” Libby, Eliot Cohen, and even Jeb Bush, many of whom assumed powerful positions in the Bush administration.
To get a handle on the “mind set” that drives this conception, which is now being justified as part of the “war on terror”, try reading The Shell Game. It is undemocratic, anti-American, and perverted.
Yet it exerts a powerful grip upon this administration. It is a mind set that must not just be changed but completely destroyed!
When Basra is pacified and that oil is transported, it will be through a series of pipelines that reach the Mediterranean Sea by way of Israel.
“Follow the Money”
The motives for mass murder must have been powerful. What happens when we “follow the money”?
Larry Silverstein took control of the World Trade Center on 24 July 2001 and promptly insured it for $3.5 billion against terrorist attacks. When there were two planes, he claimed “double indemnity” and asked for $7 billion, settling for $4.6. Not bad for a six week’s investment of $114 million.
Security and Exchange Commission records stored in WTC-7 were destroyed when that building was brought down. They not only included documents from the Enron case but many other major investigations of financial and banking interests.
The fines and penalties could have totaled hundreds of millions, even billions. But information necessary to conduct those investigations has now been destroyed.
Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged the day before 9/11 that the Pentagon had lost track of $2.3 trillion. He did that on a Monday, which was very odd for an experienced politician, who would know that reporters would dog him all week and the story would “grow legs”.
Ordinarily, you would wait until Friday with a story like this, hoping that it might be lost among weekend sports and other news. It is as if he knew that something would occur to wipe this from consciousness so he could waltz back into the halls of Congress and ask for hundreds of billions more in defense spending—which is exactly what he did!
Halliburton of course is profiting mightily from $100 billion, no bid, cost-plus contracts, which means that, no matter how much you spend on a project, you can add your profit on top of it.
Dick Cheney still has some 400,000 shares of stock in Halliburton in a not so blind “trust”.
And the gas and oil industry is benefiting immeasurably. Consider the case of Afghanistan as an illustration.
Before 9/11, we negotiated on behalf of Unocal with the Taliban over a pipeline to be built in northern Afghanistan, telling them that if they allowed it, we would bathe them in gold, and if not, we would bathe them in bombs. They didn’t and, after 9/11, we did.
Today that pipeline is under construction, there are two permanent bases ideally positioned to support it, the President of Afghanistan is a former Unocal oil official, and our Ambassador to Afghanistan is another Unocal oil official. This is not rocket science.
Condoleezza Rice asked the Taliban to turn Osama over to the United States for prosecution. They replied that they would do that on the condition that she produce proof that he had been involved. She said she would but never got around to it. She must have more pressing engagements.
What about Israel?
But could Israel have been involved? There are disturbing indications. The five “dancing Israels” were observed on a roof across the Hudson in New Jersey drinking and celebrating as they filmed the destruction of the Twin Towers.
Complaints by neighbors led to their apprehension in a van. The driver told the arresting officer, “We are not your problem. The Palestinians are your problem!” They would be incarcerated for 71 days until an assistant to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft directed that they be released.
They returned to Israel where three of them appeared on Israeli TV and explained they were there to document the destruction of the Twin Towers. Obviously, they could not have done that without knowing the Twin Towers were going to be destroyed.
The man who directed their release was Michael Chertoff, now our Director of Homeland Security, who is a joint US/Israeli citizen.
The Controller of the Pentagon at the time $2.3 trillion went missing was Dov Zokheim, another joint US/Israeli citizen.
Others in the administration with dual citizenship include Paul Wolfowitz, Elliot Abrams, Richard Pearle, Douglas Feith, “Scooter” Libby, Eliot Cohen, and John Bolton. Do any of these names sound familiar?
An especially interesting case is Michael Mukasey, our new Attorney General, who was also the judge on litigation between Larry Silverstein and insurance companies over the events of 9/11.
Who runs this country? About two weeks after 9/11, Ariel Sharon said, “We own America, and the Americans know it”.
If Israel was involved in 9/11, the American people are entitled to know.
Conflicting Loyalties
I will be accused of anti-Semitism for telling you facts in the public domain. But it is not “anti-Semitic” to criticize the state of Israel, the government of the state of Israel, or the policies and actions of the state of Israel.
Anti-Semitism involves discounting or belittling persons on the basis of their religious orientation or their ethnic origins.
It is not anti-Semitic to object to the expansion of illegal settlements, the starvation and killing of the Palestinian people, or the butchering of a peace activist with a bulldozer! For these gross violations of human rights, we have the government of Israel to thank.
We need laws to keep dual citizens from decision-making and policy-shaping positions in the US government. Who knows whose loyalty they respect?
I call upon those with joint citizenship to resign their positions in the interests of the nation—the United States of America!
If you think that’s “in your face”, consider this. Michael Hayden, our Director of the CIA, like General Petraeus, still wears his uniform. That means he is still in the chain of command and under the control of the President as Commander-in-Chief. We are being played for suckers!
I call upon him to resign his commission or to resign his position!
An Attack on Iran?
We who support Ron Paul want to end this war. They want to expand it.
The last time Cheney visited the Middle East, we attacked Iraq. This time may presage an attack on Iran. A Saudi newspaper has reported that the kingdom has been warned to prepare to cope with “sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards”, the source no doubt Cheney himself.
Estimates of casualties run as high as 1 million dead Iranians and as many as 35 million collateral casualties in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, who will incur cancer as a result of exposure to radioactivity.
If we—or “our ally”, Israel—undertake such an action, it will be the greatest act of mass murder in history, which will inevitably lead to attacks in kind on the US and on Israel, leading to its annihilation.
Those who would attack Iran are betraying this country. As a former Marine Corps officer, I remind commissioned officers of the American military that they not only have an obligation to refuse illegal orders but have the duty to take into custody those who issue them.
Iran is not in Iraq. Our own National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Iran abandoned its development of nuclear weapons in 2003. It has the right to develop nuclear energy.
Even if it had a bomb, Iran could not use it for offensive purposes without committing national suicide. Israel alone has more than 200 nuclear weapons. Did we learn nothing from the Cold War?
I call upon the officers of our armed forces to take into custody those who would direct the commission of further war crimes.
Parting Reflections
Here in Washington, we have a crime syndicate masquerading as an administration.
And Bush is talking about another 9/11, even suggesting its source!
Someone should sit down and ask him how he could possibly know.
I say, Support the Constitution! Stand with Ron Paul! End these wars! Study 9/11!
And remove these liars, cutthroats, and thieves from office!
The Commander-in-Chief is marching our troops off a cliff!
Enough is enough! Enough is enough!
James H. Fetzer is McKnight Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota, Duluth.
So I often keep BBC World Service on - I might just get a 30 minute warning to the end of the world, meteor hitting, or some such. CNN, Fox, and all that crowd only know when (or after) something happens - boring! I even think one could make some good money off of this source in the BBC in the 'futures' market. 
