In the absence of my being there in New York City to stand with the 9/11 families, first responders and survivors, I offer the following statement in support of your goal of a new investigation into the attacks of September 11th and the NYC CAN campaign to place it on the ballot for November.
At the time of 9-11, I had been an FBI agent for over 20 years. My main responsibilities by then were teaching criminal procedure to FBI agents and other law enforcement officers, mostly about 4th Amendment search and seizure, 5th and 6th Amendment law of interrogation, right to attorney and constitutional protection of rights to free speech, due process, habeas corpus, and against cruel and unusual punishment. A week before 9-11, I and the rest of the FBI's ethics instructors were mandated (as a result of an earlier public FBI scandal) to give a one hour PowerPoint presentation, a form of remedial training on "law enforcement ethics" which I accomplished in a fairly perfunctory way, just reading the slides.
After 9-11, with the knowledge I had of the bitter internal dispute inside the FBI that was being hushed up but had kept some of our better agents from possibly uncovering more of the 9-11 plot before it happened, I couldn't forget two of the slides in that Law Enforcement Ethics curriculum: "DO NOT: Puff, Shade, Tailor, Firm up, Stretch, Massage, or Tidy up statements of fact." And "Misplaced Loyalties: As employees of the FBI, we must be aware that our highest loyalty is to the United States Constitution. We should never sacrifice the truth in order to obtain a desired result (e.g. conviction of a defendant) or to avoid personal or institutional embarrassment."
The official dissembling and excuse-making about the true causes and prior mistakes that gave rise to and allowed the terrorist attacks to happen, almost immediately ushered in the Bush-Cheney Administration's egregious and lawless, post 9-11 "war on terror" agenda which bore no connection to the original causes and no connection to the goal of reducing terrorism and making the world safer. When I got a chance, about 8 ½ months after 9-11 to tell what I knew, I did so and my disclosures led to further investigation by the Department of Justice Inspector General and figured in the 9-11 Commission Report.
But it was way too late for this emerging bit of truth that has continued to leak out in dribs and drabs to have any impact. The laws themselves, especially the criminal procedure ones rooted in the Constitution that I had spent my career teaching to law enforcement, have largely gone up in smoke. Having seen the cost of remaining silent, I publicly warned, a few months after my first memo, against launching the pre-emptive invasion of Iraq. But false agendas had already filled the vacuum created by lack of truth. And we are still dealing with the disastrous consequences of these unjustified, pre-emptive wars.
Let me therefore simply repeat the request I made to the Senate Judiciary Committee in June 2002: "Foremost, we owe it to the public, especially the victims of terrorism, to be completely honest. I can only imagine what these crime and terrorism victims continue to go through. They deserve nothing but the complete, unfettered truth."
Therefore, I fully support the 9/11 families, first responders, survivors and over 60,000 other New Yorkers who have endorsed a new 9/11 investigation in New York City as advanced by ballot referendum this coming November election.
Warren Commission - what a joke!
Watergate - coverups and pardons.
Iran-Contra - more coverups and pardons.
911 Commission - another joke!
Just finished reading the UNCENCORED story of the 911 Commission.
To me it read like a whitewash of a coverup. Sorry Author, already forgot
your name but you didn't tell me nothin about nothin.
Just sayin.
It is unlikely that a new 9/11 report will help anyone except our enemies. The in-fighting inside the various law enforcement are lessons for administrators, not citizens. The western world changed from an open handed, experiment in freedom in to closed fisted posture of military readiness. The religious anarchist on the other side of the world are not a very open minded bunch. It was better to be given a "small" surprise by in faction than wait to surpised by a well organized force with nukes coming in from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, or whereever. No NO. All the resources we have should go into stopping the next one not, revisiting the last one. The only other option really is nuke everything from Morroco the Pakistan and start over... oh yes the oil would still be there.
Best,
DenverJJ
My military son was in the air on September 11, 2001. He was going to war in Saudi Arabia to help the Saudi Royals because King Hussein’s army had invaded Saudi Arabia when the planes stoke the towers. My son found out about it when he landed in Egypt.
The families of the lost deserve it, and the nation demands it. The murder of 3000 innocents certainly deserves a more thorough approach than some sort of sham traffic stop. Perhpas the investigation could investigate the previous pathetic excuse, ... the destruction and deportation of millions of tons of evidence, and the motivation of so many to play fast and loose with videotapes.
Perhaps, but unlikely. I nonetheless applaud your support for this effort. History is long, and amazingly diligent in its quest to reveal the facts, even when we in the present shove them under our beds, and wish to hide them.
I think we do ourselves a disservice when we dismiss questions by labeling people conspiracy lunatics without at least considering the points they raise. We should allow a real investigation to lead where it will and let's get answers to our questions.
The 9/11 Commission was formed simply because families of the victims campaigned for one not because the Bush Administration decided to have one. When people were finally brought before the Commission why wouldn't Bush and Cheney appear under oath. Rice finally came before the Commission and was a wee bit hostile about the questions asked.
No hard questions it seems, for anyone.
A cold streak went down my back when the towers fell like they did...red flags went off in my head.
I have done metal work...I know the importance of temperture on metals!
This in reply to peterg76. I'm posting here so it does not get buried.
I think he's saying that he's unwilling to believe our govt had anything to do with either allowing it to happen, or being involved in it directly. So in other words, he's only willing and able to accept the tired excuse of incompetence.
I'm not sure what peterg76 considers "lunatic fringe conspiracy theorists", but I have a feeling he doesn't know either. Sounds more like a term that gets conveniently tossed around to undermine the credibility of independent thought. What people call conspiracy theories are just ideas. And ideas are what we need right now, not "facts" that are handed down to us through the discredited MSM and "official" govt sources that for some reason we're supposed to take at face value. People really need to start understanding that most "facts" we are given, are merely claims. It is our responsibility to investigate the credibility of all claims (including conspiracy) and come to our own conclusions. If we don't do this, we are latching on to faith that is really no different than that of religious dogmatism. If we DO this, we quickly find it extremely difficult to bend our minds into the pretzel necessary to believe the official myth.
Besides the obvious insults to our intelligence that were clearly visible to the observer we also have many questions that go unanswered by our govt. This is completely unacceptable. You'd think the worst ter.rorist attack in American history would be worthy of open discussion and FULL investigation. No matter what you believe about 911, it warrants a real investigation. We are at war and killing lots of people in retaliation to this event. We have lost many of our civil liberties as well. So at the very least, shouldn't we make the effort to be ABSOLUTELY, UNQUESTIONABLY certain that we are going after the right people?
Unfortunately, I think fear is what leads most people to believe the myth. It's a matter if convenience to accept that it was Al Queda in the sense that it's less frightening than the alternative. Psychologically, this country needs to grow up, and fast.
http://adeolumen.com/2009/07/06/july-4th-poll-collecting-data-for-the-month-of-july/
Happy to conduct a cross-blog conversation with you, Coleen, about this topic, including an analysis of the results from each of our perspectives. Your insights would be most appreciated.
So, I wanted to find out what folks for myself by creating this poll.
The poll at is collecting data on the perception of elites in government, business, and media working together, purposely avoiding visibility before the American people. This is a complex and difficult subject. The goal is to objectively survey a wide range of people on what they think in a blind poll.
I have been surprised to find that there are millions of page views on various blogs, YouTube videos, and other websites that place events like these in a conspiracy narrative. Yet, this is not a narrative accepted in the mainstream. That intrigues me. You?
Perception is reality in politics, no? The simple fact that so many people visit these sites make the conspiracy narrative and its influence worthy of objective analysis. We all know that belief has major political implications, whatever the belief may be.
Results will be published in early August. I am eager to see what people think.