Myths vs. facts on government complicity in 9/11

Dear Michael,

thank you for an interesting contribution on the subject of U.S. government 
complicity in the 911 attacks.

My comments:

1. The word "watertight" is used to describe evidence ("facts") required to 
obtain a criminal conviction. We are still not even at the stage of an 
indictment yet, but of trying to initiate a citizens' call for an inquiry. 
So a demand for such evidence is putting the cart before the horse. 
Ultimately, to advocate the preposterous application of this evidential 
standard could have the same effect as an attempt to harbor suspected 
criminals from justice.

Political scandals do not came to the light of day this way. Independent 
researchers can not summon witnesses. We are simply not equipped to try 
cases except, God willing, in the media.

We have been quite restrained in assessing the conclusiveness of our 
evidence, on occasion perhaps overly so. Yet we are up against a 
corporatist media cartel which has a vested interest in suppressing the 
truth, and we appreciate the indispensable assistance of peace activists 
and other private citizens who help our voice be heard.

I submit that we have the First Amendment right, if not duty, to posit the 
culpability of our public servants in print, when the accusation is founded 
in fair evidence, and that it is in the public interest for informed people 
to write and read about it, especially when the future of world peace and 
democracy are evidently at stake.

2. Memri and the New Antisemitic Myth

A cursory inspection of the MEMRI website will reveal what business niche 
they are in: promoting hatred of the Arab world by translating sundry 
indiscretions from the Arab press, along with other  disinformation. (This 
task is made easier by the lamentable fact that the level of scholarly 
rigor in the Arab world remains far behind its heyday of centuries ago.) 
While the selections presented offer a certain piquanterie, and might 
contain leads for investigation, it would be surprising if any serious and 
useful conclusions for an investigation of 9/11 were to appear from this 
source.

Implicit in this contribution are some logical fallacies.

A. The word Myth in the title, of course, is used to state the conclusions 
before the evidence.

B. The apriori assumption is that to accuse zionists of wrong-doing is 
*always* "anti-Semitic" (even if the plaintiff is Jewish.) We might return 
the compliment, and call this the Old Anti-Semitic Myth, which involves 
wielding the word anti-Semite as a defensive and offensive weapon to 
deflect any opposition, whether or not the accuser or critic really might 
suffer from anti-Semitism.

3. Basically, there appears to be an underlying erroneous assumption in 
your contribution, which might be illuminated with the following analogy:

A and B are enemies. Suspect A is suspected of committing a crime. Enemy B 
is the first to make a public stir about it. Defense attorney D cites B's 
rantings as proof of A's innocence, and asks for a dismissal. Judge C 
agrees that the enmity of A and B is cause for caution in inspecting B's 
claims, but not for throwing out the evidence. Furthermore, the court finds 
that the evidence did not originate with enemy B, who has merely publicized 
it for his own ends. The case goes to trial and is not dismissed. Whether 
or not B rejoices at the outcome is of no concern of the court.

MEMRI is trying to use the same argument as attorney D in order to hush up 
the issue.

4. In the case of the evidence of an Israeli connection to 9/11, the 
earliest prominent compiler and disseminator was, to my knowledge, Justin 
Raimondo of antiwar.com. He is not, to my knowledge, a racist. Furthermore, 
the aims of antiwar.com are, as far as I know, consistent with their domain 
name; I believe they have no hate agenda. Thus, our grounds for having the 
case heard are stronger than in the vignette above.

5. For a serious and objective discussion of the evidence and motivations 
for U.S. government complicity in 911, (primarily U.S./CIA, while also 
including most of the major sources published in English on the apparent 
Israeli connection), I highly recommend the Timeline by Paul Thompson at 
http://www.unansweredquestions.org/timeline/ .

Paul's Timeline is mercifully free of the absurdities, ad hominem and other 
logical fallacies, carelessness, gratuitous insults and obfuscation that 
have marred the dispute (debate is too good a word) heretofore on this 
thread. He has given us a marvelous tool for untangling the Orwellian web 
of deceit woven over our nation by our "intelligence community," Pentagon 
and putschist President in their transparent attempt to install a virtual 
military dictatorship (American comfort style, mind you, employing 
corporate self-censorship and a 24/7 media barrage in lieu of block 
cadres)  - for a new Blitzkrieg in the Middle East.

The web of the 9/11 evidence can be mind-boggling in its complexity, which 
is in itself a formidable line of defense of the culprits, which their 
media lackeys regularly capitalize on. Paul has done us a great service in 
untying the knots as well as connecting the dots.

In closing I would like to add a few last tidbits for thought, in case I 
don't find time to return to this forum.

6. All this warmongering is nothing new. We can usefully simplify the 
picture to a high degree without oversimplifying.

This is only another battle in the same race war that has been going on for 
half a millenium, of heavily armed whites against defenseless aborigenes, 
colonialism, exploitation and conspicous consumption of stolen resources. 
Those great wars of the last century were mere turf battles between 
competing white gangs over the loot to be had from these racist imperialist 
exploitation opportunities.

The turf wars have now been definitively won by the moloch USA. Now the 
tragedy of some critics is that they are still fighting one or the other 
side of those battles, and still overlook the real war that has not stopped 
for 500 years. This error brings them down on the wrong side. Overly eager 
to conform to the white world's bankrupt norm of political correctness, 
they falsely and groundlessly accuse us of being liars and neo-nazi 
holocaust deniers.

Thus, they describe themselves, for they are assisting the real, serial 
warmongers in covering up fresh holocausts. How pitiable, to be so fatuous 
and so fooled.


- John Leonard, http://www.thewaronfreedom.com
(Publisher of The War on Freedom, the first book on the evidence on US 
government complicity in 911, and author of the section in it setting forth 
an overview of self-terror incidents used to provoke virtually all of 
America's past foreign wars, as well as the evidence of a link to the 
"imperialist proxy Israel")

At 08:13 17.9.02 -0700, Michael Pugliese wrote:
>http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SR702
>
>September 13, 2002
>No.7
>
>
>
>The Events of September 11 and the Arab Media: The New Antisemitic
>Myth