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Matt McKinlay
Working individually

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Definition: Giving a meaning to something that never existed.

Connection: For years, people thought Velociraptors were fairly big sized dinosaurs with reptile like skin. When, in fact, Velociraptors were the size of Chickens and were feathered.

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Definition: When someone believes in something and refuses to see the other side of their opinion based on their own knowledge.

Connection: Some people choose to believe the Holocaust never existed. They believe this based solely on their own knowledge.

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Holocaust denial is any attempt to negate the established facts of the Nazi genocide of European Jews. Holocaust denial and distortion are forms of antisemitism, prejudice against or hatred of Jews. Holocaust denial and distortion generally claim that the Holocaust was invented or exaggerated by Jews as part of a plot to advance Jewish interests.

These views perpetuate long-standing antisemitic stereotypes, hateful beliefs that helped lay the groundwork for the Holocaust. Holocaust denial, distortion, and misuse all undermine the truth and our understanding of history.

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Holocaust denial is any attempt to negate the established facts of the Nazi genocide of European Jews. Holocaust denial and distortion are forms of antisemitism, prejudice against or hatred of Jews. Holocaust denial and distortion generally claim that the Holocaust was invented or exaggerated by Jews as part of a plot to advance Jewish interests.

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Definition: Knowledge of Ancient beings and/or objects. The belief that ancient beings, such as Extra Terrestrials were behind artifacts today.

Connection: Many people believe ancient beings were behind the infamous Easter Island heads

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Feature Articles - The stone heads of Easter Island
The stone heads of Easter Island have cast an almost magical spell on anyone that has seen them - if only in a photograph. Though often eyeless, they still gaze along the shores of the island. What were they built for and who were the artisans of these mysterious creations?
by Philip Coppens

It was Easter 1722. The Dutch Admiral Jacobs Roggeveen had discovered a new island in the Pacific Ocean. He named it Easter Island. Near the coastline, his crew saw small boats of the local people setting off to greet his ship. Scanning the coastline of the island, he saw gigantic heads. Roggeveen gave this description of the heads: "the stone heads surprised us. We could not understand how these people, who do not have load-bearing wood to make machinery, or strong rope, succeeded in erecting these statues, statues that measure ten metres in height and width." Roggeveen had just added one more entry in the growing list of mysteries: the more Westerners travelled the globe, the more enigmas they came across. When Roggeveen arrived, there were two tribes on the island. The first was the Ha-nau-aa-epe, which was distinct because of their long ears. They were tall, white-skinned with red hair and ca. two metres tall. The other tribe was the Ha-nau-mo-moko, which had short ears. Though it is assumed that the statues were created by the short-eared tribe, under the command of the long-eared people, portraying the latter, there was also a massacre of the long-eared people in 1760; apparently only three of them survived. The massacre is normally interpreted as a revolt of the short-eared people against their oppressive elite of the long ears. The type of "diplomacy" used when liaising with the local people often meant that no further knowledge about the stone heads was easily recorded. Roggeveen himself felt he had found a quick answer to "his" mystery. He chopped off the head of one statue, in the supposition that the heads were not really made of stone, but of clay, covered with a coating of seashells. His theory proved incorrect.

It lasted until 1770 before the Spanish decided to send an expedition in search of this island that had been left to its own devices for the past five decades. The expedition proved that the heads were definitely made of stone.

The local population had to contend with great tribulations between 1770 and 1774, by which many statues had also fallen from their bases. James Cook identified that the only hill on the island was actually a volcano and identified it as the main cause for the destruction that had occurred by 1774. Cook also concluded that the current inhabitants of the island were not the creators of the heads. But who was then? Two hundred years later, the Swiss controversial author Erich von Däniken speculated that the statues were the work of extraterrestrial beings. These beings were believed to have been stranded on the island and with nothing better to do, they had begun to erect these statues. Von Däniken argued that the local population, with the primitive tools they had at their disposal, were unable to create the heads.

His was just one opinion amongst several. Others believed that the statues were millennia old, the last remnants of a lost civilisation, Mu, the Pacific Ocean colleague of Atlantis. There were, however, more conservative views. Cook and other expedition leaders concluded that the platforms on which the heads stood were used for funerals. The statues were also named after former rulers of the local people. But no further information was learned from the local people, if only because those were exported from the island as slave labour. Indeed, by 1877, only 111 people were still living on the island.

The civilisation of Easter Island was eventually made famous by the British pioneering expedition of Katherine Routledge, who arrived on the island in 1914 and began what amounted to the first serious archaeological campaign into the mysteries of the island and - specifically - its enigmatic stone heads. With help from the locals, she and her husband eventually excavated thirty figures and recorded the island's legends and history. A century onwards, the origin of almost thousand stone heads remains nevertheless extremely difficult to assess. All statues gaze towards the land, even though many of the statues stand very close towards the sea. They measure between two and eleven metres high and all have the same appearance: a long shaped head with an upper torso, a chin and long ears, with arms along the body or arms that rest on the stomach. Some statues still contain eyes, made in white and red stone and coral. Only ca. seventy of the more than thousand statues have a "pukao", or "hats", on their head. The name originated from reports of the first visitors, who had spotted certain local people with a headdress made of red feathers. This small number of hatted heads has puzzled archaeologists for many decades. The volcanic rock used for the hats came from a sacred quarry inside a crater full of red scoria, a volcanic pumice. The rock had to be transported for several miles on rolling tree trunks. Sue Hamilton believes that the hats were, in fact, a plait or top knot that was only worn by the elite chieftains. The 20th century did provide an answer to their age. Archaeologists learned that the first people had come to the island between the 4th and 7th century AD. The platforms were constructed shortly afterwards, with the statues beginning to be erected after 1000 AD. No more statues were erected after 1680, the result of society collapsing, caused by or resulting in warfare. Conclusion: the statues were constructed over a 500 year period - meaning that on average, two heads were erected each year.

The stone used for the heads originated from the inner core of the Rano Rarku volcano. Indeed, there, hundreds of empty spaces remain, though close to 400 statues also still remain inside the quarry. This is an interesting situation, for it would mean that there were enough statues being quarried for a century to come... somewhat unlikely and suggesting more than two statues were erected each year.

One unfinished statue is labelled "El Gigante". It measures twenty metres tall and weighs 270 ton. Even though the outer layer of the quarry is very hard, the interior stone is hardly more durable than chalk and thus easily modifiable. It is this difference in stone that probably lead to Roggeveen's erroneous conclusion.

How were the stones quarried? Several pointed stones were still in situ in the quarry; they seemed to be the likely tools that had been used. The Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl tried to recreate the stone heads in situ. Six men worked for three days, resulting in a stone head that was five metres high. It was argued that it would take a team of six people one year to create a giant statue - meaning that the entire production of the stones could be the result of just twelve people - far from the conclusions reached by the likes of Erich von Däniken. Several traces of tracks from the quarry to the various locations of the statues remain visible, some of them ten kilometres long. What is equally clear is that the largest statues stand closest to the quarry. Though it was no doubt because more effort was required in moving them, at the same time, the statues were quite fragile and might not have survived the longer journeys.

As to how the heads were transported: wooden rollers. The first researchers believed that the island had always been without trees, but more recent research has shown that trees were indeed present on the island. Several possible techniques have thus been recreated in an attempt to see how the statues could be moved. Using wooden carriers, the heads were moved over a distance of fifty metres in two minutes. Later efforts actually involved putting the statues on their back, rather than moving them erect. As to where the artisans came from, that question was also posed by Thor Heyerdahl. He doubted the general assumption that they had come from the west and felt they originated from Southern America - specifically Peru. However, archaeologists could not support this theory, as they stated that the Peruvian people did not possess sea-worthy craft that would reach as far as Easter Island.

In his unique style, Heyerdahl wanted to challenge this argument and in 1947 organised the Kon Tiki expedition, in which he used a traditional Southern American boat in his effort to reach Easter Island. Heyerdahl's voyage lasted 101 days, covering 6000 miles, showing that the ship was definitely seaworthy - contrary to the archaeological opinion. Nevertheless, Heyerdahl did not make it to Easter Island, but ended up in Tahiti. Equally, Heyerdahl was subjected to some critique, as the design used post-dated the Spanish conquest of Southern America. Furthermore, the ship had a sail and was dragged 100 kilometres from the shore before it was allowed to sail on its own power. This was necessary as the strong currents hitting the Peruvian shores did not allow the ship to leave the coastal waters. The currents pushed the ships northwards, towards Panama - not westwards, towards Easter Island.

Heyerdahl's expedition was the first of a series, all intent to reach Easter Island from Southern America. But all of them ended up in Tahiti - not one ever made it to Easter Island. Nevertheless, it is true that a certain amount of plants on Easter Island have a Southern American origin. It was in fact such evidence that inspired Heyerdahl and others to argue for the Southern American origins theory. However, subsequently, it has been shown that at least one of these plants was taken to the island more than 30,000 years ago - by animals. Another plant had been spread across the islands of the Pacific Ocean via it drifting on the oceanic currents.

The only proof left to Heyerdahl for a human agent was the presence of the potato on the island. Though it is enigmatic, there is alas no proof that it was transported by humans. It might have been transported by clinging on to birds. One anomaly is just that: an anomaly, not proof positive that the opposite therefore has to be true. As a result, it was clear that the likelihood that Southern Americans had reached Easter Island became less and less likely. Evidence that the population of Easter Island did actually originate from Polynesia was discovered on the island of Pitcairn, 2000 km west of Easter Island. 1790 traces of a Polynesian influence were discovered there - but the most important discovery was the presence of giant heads, erected on platforms, suggesting a link between Pitcairn and Easter Islands. Unfortunately, the earliest colonists had destroyed these heads, which is one of the primary reasons why this link is little known.

Indeed, when Heyerdahl proposed his alternative approach, little was known about Polynesia as a whole. Heyerdahl lived under the assumption that no technological awareness had ever existed on those islands. Fifty years later, that situation is vastly different. David Hatcher Childress is one of a growing number of authors that has identified that major monuments exist on Polynesian islands. These construction projects are on par to the stone heads of Easter Island - though far less known.

The final breakthrough that the people from Easter Island came from the West and not Southern America came when DNA research of skeletons, dated from 1100 to 1868, revealed similarities with Hawaii and the Chatham Islands, near New Zealand. Indeed, in the end, Heyerdahl himself toned down the Southern American origin theory. Still, many mysteries of Easter Island remain, like the enigmatic writing known as rongo rongo. At the time of the arrival of the Europeans, there was still a vast store of rongo rongo tablets and other wooden artefacts covered with these hieroglyphs. They were kept in covers made of reed, although few if any could still read them. The language was first seen by a priest, Joseph Eyraud, the first non-local person to settle on the island... and the one to lit bonfires, so that all writings of the Easter Island population disappeared.

Today, only 26 artefacts featuring rongo rongo remain, giving us a total of 16,000 signs. Unfortunately, all attempts to decipher the language have so far seem to failed, though there have been some close calls. In 1886, the American sailor William Thomson discovered two tablets and spoke to an 83-year old inhabitant, who stated that he could read the language, but that he would not: the Church had forbidden the active use of the language. After a bribe, the elder person was willing to look at the tablets, even though he was unwilling to touch them. After having read them, the man, accompanied by a few other locals, sang a fertility song. But because there was no confirmation possible that this was indeed the contents of this text, Thomson's statements were received with the customary level of scepticism.

However, Professor Benon Z. Szalek of the University of Szezecin is seen by some as the decoder of the rongo rongo language and argues a similar case, namely that "the Easter Island writings constitute sequences of short ritual formulas praising the avatar - incarnation or son of the god. These texts do not contain any genealogies, historical traditions or tales." Ritual formulas like fertility songs?

Additionally, Szalek believes that it were the Tamils from India that brought their civilisation to Easter Island. "The anthropological studies of the old skulls from megalithic graves indicate an amazing fact, namely that around 60 percent of Easter Island's population was of Europoidal origin."

Legends from the island state that the first king, Hotu Matua, brought with him 67 previous tablets from his land of origins in the west and that he also imported the religion of the "bird man" and Make Make. This cult featured an annual race for the first egg laid on the nearby islands of Motu Iti and Motu Nui. The race selected a man, who for the next year became the god Make Make's personification, and bearer of the divine force that was associated with Make Make. Throughout the year, the man was kept isolated from his family, sealed off in a cave, which would mean that the lack of sunlight made his skin whiter, and hence, they argued, more god-like. It is clear that the mystery of Easter Island has lost some of its enigmatic fringes in recent years. Nevertheless, the final word has not been spoken about the meaning of the stone heads - or any further details on the people that seem to have emigrated ever further east, over many centuries - if not millennia - from a homeland that might have been India. As such, the stone heads of Easter Island continue to perfectly illustrate that there remain many mysteries to be explored.

This article originally appeared in Frontier Magazine 7.3 (May/June 2001) and has been adapted.

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The stone heads of Easter Island - Eye Of The Psychic

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Feature Articles - The stone heads of Easter Island The stone heads of Easter Island have cast an almost magical spell on anyone that has seen them - if only in a photograph. Though often eyeless, they still gaze along the shores of the island.

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Definition: Using far more words then necessary when trying to prove something. They also continuously talk over the other person and won't here the other person out.

Connection: This year at the UFC 229 press conference, Conor McGregor was a prime example of someone who was showing verbosity

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Conor McGregor verbally spars with Khabib Nurmagomedov in media-only press conference

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Definition: What you sense when you are inspired.  You are inspired as you feel a certain emotion and you are functioning at a level much higher than before.

Connection: Today, in some areas of Africa, "Witch Doctors" exist in tribes, believed to be able to heal you through mystical rituals

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KATABI, Uganda - Jackline Mukisa sobbed as she described how her 8-year-old son was found in a nearby swamp in February without teeth, lips, ears and genitals.

"My innocent son died a painful death," said Mukisa, 28. "How could somebody intend to murder my son?"

A motorcyclist offered John Lubega a lift as he walked back from school, according to fellow students who saw him last. His remains suggest he was slowly killed as part of a human sacrifice ritual performed by witch doctors, apparently to appease the spirits, said Mukisa, who filed a police report.

No arrest has been made so far.

In this landlocked country whose diverse landscape includes the snow-capped Ruwenzori Mountains and immense Lake Victoria, many believe sacrificial rituals can bring quick wealth and health.

Among those rituals, human sacrifice, especially of children, occurs frequently despite the government's efforts to stop it.

Seven children and two adults were sacrificed last year, said Moses Binoga, a police officer who heads Uganda's Anti-Human Sacrifice and Trafficking Task Force. Seven children and six adults were sacrificed in 2015.

But experts said the number could be much higher.

Times are tough in Uganda, and people are looking to sacrifices to improve their fortunes. The worst drought in over half a century has hit parts of East Africa, leaving more than 11 million people in this nation facing food insecurity and 1.6 million on the brink of famine, according to the Ugandan government.

"There is no food due to the ongoing drought, and some believe that this has been brought by ancestral spirits," said Joel Mugoya, a traditional healer. "So there is a high desire for people to conduct sacrifices so that they come out of this problem."

Parents accompany children to school in Busia town in east part of Uganda on Sept. 5, 2017. (Photo: Doreen Ajiambo, Religion News Service)

Recently, Uganda police arrested 44 suspects in Katabi, a town 24 miles from the capital, Kampala, in connection with a spate of killings of children and women. Half of the suspects have been charged in court, including two alleged masterminds.

Uganda Police Inspector General Kale Kayihura said one suspect confessed to killing eight women. More than 21 women have been killed between May 3 and Sept. 4, Kayihura said.

"The murders were for ritual sacrifices," he told residents last week. "We are working hard to arrest the remaining suspects and end the practice."

Francis Bahati's wife was among the victims. He discovered her body after three days of searching. Her fingers and feet had been cut off for ritual purposes, likely in hopes of securing better fortunes.

"I was shocked and even lost consciousness," he said.

Last year police arrested Herbert Were, a resident of Busia town in eastern Uganda, for beheading his 8-year-old brother, Joel Ogema. Were, 21, confessed to police that he killed his brother in hopes of attaining wealth.

Church leaders are teaming up with police to end the brutal practice.

Pastor Peter Sewakiryanga, who heads Kyampisi Childcare Ministries, a Christian organization that fights child sacrifice in Uganda, said children disappear in the country every week. They are often found dead, or alive with missing body parts.

Most survivors or victims do not file police reports, Sewakiryanga said, adding that he implores victims to come forward.

"It's a serious problem but we are fighting it with the help of the government," he said.

Sacrifices often involve removing body parts, blood or tissue while the child is still alive.

"It's a brutal ritual that destroys the lives of our children and affects their parents mentally," he added. "We are working with the police to arrest witch doctors involved in the ritual. We are also assisting the survivors financially and with moral support."

Sewakiryanga said his charity worked with Ugandan police three years ago to arrest a witch doctor and his accomplices who sacrificed a 7-year-old girl named Suubi.

The witch doctor drained her blood and cut out her genitals, he said. He then cut the neck and drained the blood of the girl's 10-year-old brother, Kanani.

In June, a Ugandan court sentenced the witch doctor to life in prison.

Fears of witch doctors have hurt women who practice traditional medicine, however.

According to KidsRights, a global organization that advocates for children, Uganda has 650,000 registered traditional healers and an estimated 3 million unregistered practitioners. Unscrupulous witch doctors hide among so-called healers, the group said.

"They should arrest people who murdered my son," Mukisa said. "The government is doing little to protect our children. They must begin to arrest all witch doctors."

But Sewakiryanga said arresting everyone claiming to practice medicine was going too far. He hoped to end the practice by changing the hearts of those who promote human sacrifice.

Efforts to end the practice need to expand, he said. Other countries in Africa reported to be practicing child sacrifice include Tanzania, Nigeria, Swaziland, Liberia, Botswana, South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2xzanBs

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Witch doctors sacrificing children in this drought-stricken African country

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KATABI, Uganda - Jackline Mukisa sobbed as she described how her 8-year-old son was found in a nearby swamp in February without teeth, lips, ears and genitals. "My innocent son died a painful death," said Mukisa, 28. "How could somebody intend to murder my son?"

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Definition: People believing something is true because an individual of higher authority gave them the information.

Connection: In the 1950s and 60s, cigarette companies would pay real doctors to promote there cigarettes and claim they are good for you. People would think if the information is coming from a doctor, it must be true

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Definition: People believing in their own beliefs with a close mind

Connection: Many people choose to believe that 911 was an inside job by the American Government. While there is evidence supporting this, there is also a ton that argues it, which they choose to ignore

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20521.htm
What does it take to prove it was an inside job?

By Mark H. Gaffney

The following is an excerpt from Mark H. Gaffney's forthcoming book, THE 911 MYSTERY PLANE AND THE VANISHING OF AMERICA, to be released in September 2008.

15/08/08 "ICH" - Regrettably, there is considerable evidence that elements of the Bush administration were complicit in the 9/11 attack, and may even have helped stage it. Let us now examine some of what I regard as the most compelling evidence. However, the following discussion makes no claim to be comprehensive.

We know that within minutes of the "worst terrorist attack" in US history, even before the collapse of WTC-2 at 9:59 am, US officials knew the names of several of the alleged hijackers. CBS reported that a flight attendant on AA Flight 11, Amy Sweeney, had the presence of mind to call her office and reveal the seat numbers of the hijackers who had seized the plane.[1] FBI Director Robert Mueller later said, "This was the first piece of hard evidence."[2] In his memoirs CIA Director George Tenet emphasizes the importance of the passenger manifests, as does counter-terrorism czar Richard A. Clarke.[3] All of which is very strange because the manifests later released by the airlines do not include the names of any of the alleged hijackers. Nor has this discrepancy ever been explained.

According to MSNBC, the plan to invade Afghanistan and "remove Al Qaeda from the face of he earth" was already sitting on G.W. Bush's desk on the morning of 9/11 awaiting his signature.[4] The plan, in the form of a presidential directive, had been developed by the CIA and according to Richard Clarke called for "arming the Northern Alliance...to go on the offensive against the Taliban [and] pressing the CIA to...go after bin Laden and the Al Qaeda leadership."[5]

A former Pakistani diplomat, Niaz Naik, tells virtually the same story. During a BBC interview, three days after 9/11, Niak claimed that senior American officials had informed him in mid-July 2001 that the US would attack the Taliban "before the snows start falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest."[6] Niak said he received this information in Berlin at a UN-sponsored international contact group on Afghanistan. He also predicted, correctly, that the US attack would be launched from bases in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. But how could US officials know in mid-July that American forces would invade Afghanistan in October unless they had foreknowledge of the attack?

Foreknowledge probably also explains why General Richard Myers, the acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs on 9/11, announced at the first post-9/11 meeting of Bush's National Security Council, held on video-conference the afternoon of the attack, that "there are forty-two major Taliban bombing targets."[7] But how did Myers come to have such detailed information about military targets in Afghanistan, so soon after the 9/11 attack? This important detail belies oft-repeated claims that the US military was not prepared to attack Afghanistan, and points to extensive war planning before 9/11. Journalist Steve Coll arrived at a similar conclusion while researching his 2004 book, Ghost Wars, an excellent history of the period leading up to the 9/11 attack. Coll interviewed two Clinton administration officials who informed him that "the Pentagon had been studying possible targets in the same spring [i.e., 1998] that the CIA had been drawing up its secret plan to raid Tarnack Farm," located near Kandahar, Afghanistan, where bin Laden had taken up quarters at the invitation of Taliban leader Mullah Omar.[8]

According to Clarke, at the same meeting on the afternoon of 9/11, CIA Director George Tenet informed the president that "Al Qaeda had committed these atrocities."[9] But, again, how did Tenet know this so soon after the attack, especially given that "security failures" had occurred, unless he had foreknowledge?

Editor's Note:
Update Sept 2, 2008: 9/11 Misinformation: Flight 'Passenger Lists' Show 'No Hijacker Names' by Arabesque. It has been pointed out that the passenger manifest issue may be moot, http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/evidence/passengers.html

This is what conspires when a large group of admittedly amateur researchers manages to dig through and correlate a mountain of dispersed and sometimes disparate evidence to attempt to do what should have been accomplished by any number of (better) funded and authoritarian agencies in what is obviously a criminal investigation. That even such a seasoned investigator as Gaffney has difficulty consolidating all the known evidence only further underscores the lack of thoroughness and professionalism exhibited by those tasked and funded to due so by our government.

Nonetheless, this essay is an excellent starting point for your own information and research.

No Hard Evidence

On September 20, 2001, the Bush administration officially declared that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attack. Three days later, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced on Meet the Press that the government would soon release "a white paper" detailing the evidence against bin Laden.[10] Later the same day, Bush faced questions from the press about Powell's remark and backed away from releasing any additional information. Bush explained that the government had a lot of evidence but that most of it was classified and could not be made public. Bush emphasized, however, that the evidence "leads to one person, as well as one global terrorist organization."[11] National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice made a similar statement during an interview on FOX News. Said Rice: "We have very good evidence of links between Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda operatives, and what happened on September 11."[12] Rice refused to release any particulars, however, and, like Bush, claimed that the evidence was "classified."

As we know, the US government never got around to releasing the promised white paper. Why not? Was it because the evidence against bin Laden was too weak to hold up in court? Such was the view of journalist Seymour Hersh, who cited CIA and Justice Department sources to this effect in his regular column in the New Yorker magazine.[13]

Foreign intelligence agencies were also busily investigating the case, but fared no better. For instance, Germany's Chief Federal Prosecutor, Kay Nehm, admitted that there was no hard evidence linking bin Laden with the crime.[14] The lack of evidence prompted former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt to speak out against President Bush's decision to invoke Article V of the NATO Treaty, mobilizing NATO's involvement in the war on terrorism. In Schmidt's own words: "Proof had to be delivered that the September 11 terror attack came from abroad. [Yet,] that proof still has not been provided."[15]

Osama did not cooperate by acknowledging his role in the attack; on the contrary. In a statement on September 16, 2001 carried by Al-Jazeera, bin Laden categorically denied any involvement. Days later, he repeated this denial during an interview with the Pakistani newspaper Ummaut.[16] On November 3, 2001 Al-Jazeera released a third statement, in which bin Laden not only denied involvement but also accused the Bush administration of waging a "crusader war" against the Muslim world. To the best of my knowledge, none of these denials were reported in the US media. Why not?

On October 1, 2001 British Prime Minister Tony Blair told the House of Commons that the case against bin Laden was proved beyond a shadow of doubt. Said Blair: "I have seen absolutely powerful and incontrovertible evidence of his [Osama Bin Laden"s] link to the events of the 11th of September."[17] Several days later (on October 4), Blair's government went public with the evidence to which Blair had alluded: a "Bin Laden Dossier."[18] But the evidence turned out to be short of "incontrovertible," and in fact was shockingly thin. The Independent described it as "little more than conjecture,"[19] and an editorial in the Guardian concluded that the dossier was "almost worthless from a legal point of view."[20] The (London) Times agreed, observing that "There is no evidence presented [in the dossier] that directly links bin Laden to September 11."[21]

The Bin Laden Video and the personification of evil

Confronted with US demands to hand over bin Laden unconditionally, the Taliban was initially defiant, and refused. However, in early October 2001 two Pakistani Islamic parties persuaded the Taliban leadership to extradite bin Laden to Peshawar, Pakistan, where he would be held under house arrest and tried by an international tribunal.[22] The deal even included the extradition of bin Laden to the US in the event of a conviction. However, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf vetoed the arrangement, no doubt, under heavy pressure from the Bush administration. But why would the US turn down an opportunity to bring the arch villain of 9/11 to justice for the crime of the century? Was it because, as I have already suggested, the US had insufficient evidence to convict and faced the embarrassing likelihood of an acquittal?

In fact, the only evidence the US government released linking bin Laden to 9/11 was a video-tape which supposedly turned up by chance in Afghanistan. According to the State Department, US military forces found the hour-long video in Jalalabad on December 9, 2001, shortly after the US invasion.[23] It purportedly shows bin Laden and several of his al Qaeda comrades ghoulishly celebrating their successful attack upon America. The US government released the tape on December 13, 2001 along with an English translation and a Department of Defense (DoD) press release. The latter included the following statement by Rumsfeld: "There was no doubt of bin Laden's responsibility for the September 11 attacks before the tape was discovered."[24] The US media made much of this confessional tape, as did political luminaries like New York City Mayor (and presidential hopeful) Rudy Giuliani, who told CNN that the tape confirmed that the US military campaign against bin Laden was "more than justified." Giuliani added: "Obviously, this man [i.e., bin Laden] is the personification of evil. He seems delighted at having killed more people than he anticipated, which leaves you wondering just how deep his evil heart and soul really is."[25]

In the video bin Laden brags about al Qaeda's role in staging the attack. But is the footage bona fide? Anyone who has seen the film knows that the main character bears only the most superficial resemblance to bin Laden, judging from well-known photos. In addition, there are major discrepancies. For example, the video shows bin Laden writing with his right hand when according to the FBI he is a southpaw.[26]

Two independent translators and a third expert on oriental studies also took issue with the English translation of the Arabic released by the DoD. During the program "Monitor," which aired on the German TV channel "Das Erste," the three experts stated that "at the most important places where it [i.e, the video] is held to prove the guilt of bin Laden, it [i.e., the translation] is not identical with the Arabic."[27] The experts also disputed the US claim that the tape proved foreknowledge. Gernot Rotter, professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies at the University of Hamburg, stated that "The American translators who listened to the tapes and transcribed them apparently wrote a lot of things in that they wanted to hear but that cannot be heard on the tape no matter how many times you listen to it." While this does not necessarily exonerate bin Laden, it does raise questions. If, as Bush claimed, the US had solid evidence of bin Laden"s guilt, then why make false claims?

Evidently, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agrees with the skeptics. The FBI's on-line web listing of "Most Wanted Terrorists" includes a page devoted to Osama bin Laden. According to this official post, which may be viewed by anyone with access to cyberspace, bin Laden is wanted by the FBI for the August 1998 attacks upon US Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, which killed over 200 people.[28] However, the page makes no reference to the events of September 11, 2001. Nor is there any mention of the video discussed above. In June 2006, when blogger Ed Haas learned about this, he was understandably puzzled and contacted FBI headquarters by phone seeking an explanation. Haas talked with Rex Tomb, the FBI's Chief of Investigative Publicity, who informed him that "The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Osama bin Laden's Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11."[29] Haas was dumbfounded, and said: "But how is this possible?" Tomb replied that "bin Laden has not been formally charged in connection with 9/11." He then explained why not:

"The FBI gathers evidence. Once evidence is gathered, it is turned over to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice then decides whether it has enough evidence to present to a federal grand jury. In the case of the 1998 United States Embassies being bombed, bin Laden has been formally indicted and charged by a grand jury. He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11." [my emphasis][30]

This admission by the FBI is astonishing and raises fundamental questions about the war on terrorism, as well as the role of the US media. Was Osama bin Laden convicted for the cold-blooded murder of nearly 3,000 innocent Americans in the US court of public opinion by means of a media circus? Did the US government and the corporate media collude to deceive the American people? If so, then a colossal miscarriage of justice has occurred.

Consider also the strange statement made by President Bush at a press conference on March 13, 2002. When asked about the progress being made to catch bin Laden, Bush replied that "we haven"t heard much from him. [i.e., bin Laden] And I wouldn"t necessarily say he"s at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don"t know where he is. I, I"ll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him." [31] [my emphasis] But why this almost lackadaisical attitude about the arch-villain whom Bush had promised to track down to the ends of the earth? What had become of the president's laser-like determination" Bush explained that bin Laden had ceased to be a terrorist threat due to the US occupation of Afghanistan. Yet, by at least one account, the US forces at Tora Bora displayed almost unbelievable incompetence during the pursuit of bin Laden, as a result of which the accused and most of his entourage escaped.[32] Was this the plan, all along?

A no less strange remark made a few weeks later (April 6, 2002) by General Richard Myers, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, suggests that bin Laden"s getaway had been approved at the highest level. Myers told CNN that "the goal has never been to get bin Laden."[33] I personally found his statement incomprehensible, since at the time Osama was public enemy number one. Did the US allow bin Laden to escape because the Bush administration judged he was more valuable at-large" We can"t be certain, because by this time there were also numerous reports that bin Laden was dead.[34]

Did President Bush know when he made the above statement that bin Laden was already deceased? This would explain Bush's casual demeanor. Yet, either way, from the standpoint of propaganda it hardly mattered whether bin Laden was dead or alive. His larger-than-life reputation could be sustained simply by neglecting to confirm his death, and the legend is what counted. His persona could also be "spun" in various ways and made to serve political expedience. Indeed, by this logic bin Laden was even more valuable dead because a living breathing bin Laden might at some point be apprehended, in which case the Bush administration faced the unwelcome prospect of a very public trial at which the terrorist would have an opportunity to tell his side of the story to a listening world. And this, of course, had to be avoided.

If we can believe the 9/11 Commission Report, the case against bin Laden was greatly bolstered by the capture and subsequent confession in 2003 of the alleged 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM). The problem, of course, is that the official story about the plot against America is wholly based on secret CIA interrogations that have never been independently confirmed, and must therefore be viewed as suspect. But even if we accept the testimony of KSM in 2003, this does not explain the rush to war in 2001. Nor does it explain President Bush's decision to go to war against Saddam Hussein, a decision reportedly made in July 2002.[35]

Previous cases of terrorism had already demonstrated the wisdom of proceeding with caution, since knee-jerk responses can (and do) misfire. For example, after the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, US investigators at first suspected a Mideast connection. But this was proved false, and similar errors were made after the 1988 downing of Pan American Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Although initial evidence pointed to Syria or Iran, a thorough forensic investigation ruled these out and eventually implicated Libya. The 9/11 Commission Report itself describes the latter case as "a cautionary tale about rushing to judgement in attributing responsibility for a terrorist act."[36] So, why the rush to war after the September 11 attack? If the Bush administration had conclusive evidence that al Qaeda was responsible, why not release it? Was the Bush White House tight-lipped because the actual evidence would have exposed the complicity of the US military and intelligence community? A stunning story that broke in the US press in 2005 points to such a conclusion.

Able Danger

As it happened, a legitimate US military counter-terrorist operation known as Able Danger was tracking Mohamed Atta and his cohorts as early as January-February 2000. The operation, based at Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, was small but extremely high-tech, as it employed advanced computers to sweep the internet, a methodology known as as data-mining. In May 2000, however, when Able Danger's success became known throughout the Defense Department, the officers who ran it were ordered to shut it down and destroy their data.[37] One officer reportedly was threatened with prison if he refused. Later, the Pentagon attempted to block Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Able Danger, and in 2005, when this failed, the Pentagon refused Able Danger staffers permission to testify before the committee.[38]

One intelligence officer who later testified anyway, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, was targeted for harassment. The question is why? Of course, the standard explanation is that the military bureaucracy made gross blunders and later sought to cover up their incompetence. But there is another possibility. Was Able Danger shut down because this honest operation threatened to unmask the covert planning for the September 11 "attack"?

What is clear is that the Pentagon's self-serving attempts to gag and discredit Lt. Col. Shaffer are not to be believed. In February 2006 Shaffer told the House Armed Services Committee that during the summer of 2000 he and other officers involved in Able Danger attempted on three separate occasions to warn the FBI about the terrorist threat posed by Mohamed Atta. But the meetings never happened. Each time they were canceled at the last minute by high-level Pentagon attorneys.[39] Nor has the Pentagon ever provided a satisfactory explanation as to why.[40]

Some time after the dissolution of Able Danger Shaffer was reassigned to Bagram Air Base, in Afghanistan, where in October 2003 he succeeded in bringing the existence of Able Danger to the attention of the 9/11 Commission. This apparently happened due to a chance encounter with Philip Zelikow, Executive Director of the commission, and several commission staffers who were then on tour, gathering firsthand information about the US war on terrorism. Lt. Col. Shaffer told the House committee that after he briefed the commission staff about Able Danger's success in identifying Mohamed Atta and other alleged 9/11 hijackers, Zelikow came up, handed him his card, and asked him to "please contact me upon your return to the states so we can continue this dialogue."[41] However, three months later when Shaffer did just that he was surprised to discover that Zelikow was no longer interested in Able Danger. But why wouldn't he be?

Then, all hell broke loose when Shaffer dutifully informed his commanding officer about the contact. From that point on Lt. Col. Shaffer was subjected to the sort of military hazing that is usually reserved for green recruits. His security clearance was cancelled. He lost access to his office computer and all of his classified materials about Able Danger, which, he later learned, were destroyed. Subsequently, the Pentagon dismissed his testimony, claiming it was unsupported by hard evidence, an obvious example of Catch-22. Shaffer also learned that he was under investigation, although no formal charges were ever filed against him. He was told "off the record" that he had "pissed off" one or more high-ranking officers. Several of Shaffer's colleagues from Able Danger corroborated his story, but it didn't matter. His military career was over, destroyed.[42] Shaffer's testimony before Congress is riveting and is essential reading for anyone interested in 9/11 truth.

In their 2006 book Without Precedent, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission, deny that Able Danger had ever identified Mohamed Atta before 9/11.[43] But their assertion, much belated, is just not credible. Their own final report on 9/11 makes no mention of Able Danger. It is abundantly clear that even though Lt. Col. Shaffer notified the panel about this important counter-terrorism operation the commissioners made no attempt to investigate it, and since Kean and Hamilton failed to do so how can they now credibly claim to know? Obviously, their denial is based on information they received, much later, from the Pentagon.

Kean and Hamilton write that their staff "received all of the Department of Defense documents on Able Danger and had found no mention of Atta."[44] But their claim is not persuasive, since we know that 2.5 terabytes of intelligence data about Able Danger had already been destroyed (in 2000), not to mention the information on Shaffer's hard drive (in 2004). The question for the co-chairs is simple: What assurance could they possibly have that the documents they received from the DoD about Able Danger tell the full story? Obviously, they do not. More to the point, why would Kean and Hamilton believe the Pentagon over the testimony of Lt. Col. Shaffer? By this time the co-chairs already had good reason to suspect that the Pentagon, not Shaffer, had deceived them in the hearings.[45]

Eavesdropping on bin Laden

The fact that Able Danger was shut down in May 2000, long before Bush entered office, raises disturbing questions. Was covert planning for 9/11 already underway during the Clinton administration" It is curious that in 2002 CIA Director George Tenet told a closed session of a joint House-Senate panel investigating the 9/11 "security failure" that al Qaeda's planning of the September 11, 2001 attack started as early as 1998.[46] But how could Tenet know this unless the CIA had been tracking bin Laden, all along? As a matter of fact, we know they were! According to several UPI reports, the National Security Administration (NSA) acknowledged in February 2001 that the use of advanced Echelon software enabled the US intelligence community to eavesdrop on thousands of bin Laden's cell phone calls over a period of years. US officials disclosed that even after bin Laden began to encrypt certain calls in 1995, his "codes were broken."[47]

The date 1998 is doubly curious. That same year Tenet informed the Senate Intelligence Committee that the CIA's strategy to defeat al Qaeda included the recruiting of al Qaeda operatives.[48] In his memoirs Tenet goes even further with an assertion that is remarkable for its candor. He writes: "the [9/11] commission failed to recognize the sustained comprehensive efforts conducted by the intelligence community prior to 9/11 to penetrate the al Qaeda organization."[49] I had to re-read this passage several times just to believe my own eyes. Did the CIA recruit terrorists who were then used as patsies on 9/11?

Bush officials, of course, have steadfastly denied that the US successfully penetrated al Qaeda before 9/11. But their denials are less than persuasive in light of Lt. Col. Shaffer's testimony about Able Danger, and also because there is no doubt: we know that the monitoring of phone calls continued. After al Qaeda bombed two US embassies in East Africa in August 1998, FBI investigators got lucky and stumbled upon an al Qaeda communications hub in Yemen. According to writer Lawrence Wright, this proved to be "one of the most important pieces of evidence the FBI would ever discover, allowing investigators to map the links of the al Qaeda network all across the globe."[50] The hub was a private telephone, anything but high tech. The switchboard operator turned out to be the brother-in-law of Khalid al-Midhar, one of the nineteen alleged hijackers. His job in Yemen was simply to relay messages to-and-from various al Qaeda operatives, including bin Laden.[51]

From phone records US investigators confirmed a flurry of calls through the hub before the embassy bombings, and this pattern was repeated before the attack on the USS Cole in October 2000.[52] Indeed, it is unclear why US intelligence agencies failed to prevent the attack on the Cole because, by this time, they were listening. The al Qaeda hub was allowed to operate right up until September 11, 2001, and even after. Incredibly, US and Yemeni authorities did not finally move in and close it down until 2002.[53]

Based on this evidence, gleaned from open sources in the US media, we must conclude that the US intelligence community was tracking al Qaeda's nearly every move before 9/11, and had been for years, probably including the entry of the alleged hijackers into the US, their "flight training" and subsequent movements. The phone intercepts certainly continued.

In June 2002 both the Miami Herald and the Dallas Star-Telegram reported that in the summer of 2001 the NSA even monitored phone conversations between alleged 9/11 lead hijacker Mohamed Atta and alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM).[54] The papers reported that the NSA "did not recognize the significance of what they had." Evidently, we are supposed to believe that the NSA did not pass along this important intelligence to the CIA. But this is absurd. After all, the NSA is a part of the US Department of Defense and exists for the purpose of providing intelligence to the CIA and the US military. The story in the Miami Herald even acknowledges this, citing an NSA official who stated under condition of anonymity that it was "simply not true" that the NSA failed to share the information with other intelligence agencies.[55] Of course they shared it. Incidentally, a google search failed to locate the full text of either of these articles, which apparently have long since been scrubbed from the internet. To the best of my knowledge they survive in cyberspace only as thumbnails.

What are we to make of all of this? Did elements of the US intelligence community know about al Qaeda's multiple hijacking operation, all along? Did they, then, covertly piggy-back their own planning on top of it, thereby insuring the attack's "success" while also manipulating it for their own ignoble ends? If true, this would easily explain why the Pentagon shut down Able Danger in May 2000. It would explain the Pentagon's gag order imposed upon the Able Danger staffers, which blunted a Congressional inquiry. It would also explain the carefully orchestrated smear campaign aimed at Lt Col. Shaffer, who did his patriotic duty and was made to pay a terrible price. It would explain why the DoD fed phony or incomplete information about Able Danger to co-chairs Kean and Hamilton, and other members of the commission, to persuade them that the data-mining effort was "insignificant." It would also explain why, time and again, during the period before 9/11, the CIA withheld critical information from the FBI, information, which, had it become known, would have enabled the FBI to foil the 9/11 attack. The FBI was always just one or two critical pieces of information short of putting together the plot. Nor has the CIA disconnect ever been adequately explained.[56] The standard excuses, bureaucratic bungling and interagency rivalry, are simply not persuasive.

This interpretation would also explain why George Tenet lied during the 9/11 Commission hearings when he denied his meetings with President Bush in August 2001. Indeed, it might even explain why President-elect G.W. Bush retained Tenet, a Clinton appointee, as his CIA chief. The move was one of Bush's first decisions as president and was most unusual, especially given the neocons' scarcely concealed scorn for the Clinton administration. However, it makes perfect sense, assuming that when Bush took office elements of the CIA and US military were already deeply involved in the covert planning for the 9/11 attack. Continuity at the CIA would have been essential. As far as I know, writer Ian Henshall was the first to make this connection.[57] And let us not forget: during the period before 9/11 the CIA Director visited the White House on a daily basis. Tenet personally briefed Bush on intelligence issues, an unusual chore for a CIA Director.[58] But, again, this becomes understandable, assuming that a major covert operation was in the works, one that entailed extreme compartmentalization. Only a very few individuals at the top would have been fully briefed.

bin Laden in Dubai?

A no less shocking story that appeared in the prestigious French paper Le Figaro on October 11, 2001 points to the same conclusion. The story claimed that bin Laden was actually under the protection of US security agencies prior to the 9/11 attack. According to Le Figaro, bin Laden checked in to the American Hospital in Dubai on July 4, 2001, just two months before 9/11, where he received medical treatment over a ten-day period for a serious kidney ailment.[59]

Dubai is one of the Arab Emirates located in the Persian Gulf. The story cannot be based on just rumor or hearsay because it includes many details: Bin Laden was reportedly accompanied by his personal physician, a nurse, four body guards, and at least one of his lieutenants. It also states that the local CIA station chief, evidently a well known figure in the tiny country, was seen entering bin Laden"s hospital suite during his stay, and immediately after the meeting caught a flight back to the US. If the story is accurate, bin Laden held court from his hospital room, welcoming various members of his extended family, as well as prominent Saudis and Emiratis. It is no secret that bin Laden suffered from kidney disease. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had informed the Clinton administration about bin Laden"s deteriorating health as early as 1998, during a state visit to Washington.[60]

A follow-up report in the Guardian (UK) on November 1, 2001 confirmed the above story and added further details, noting that bin Laden's Saudi guests included Prince Turki al Faisal, who was then head of Saudi intelligence. The article in the Guardian names French intelligence as the source of the story in Le Figaro. It also claims the information was leaked because the French were "keen to reveal the ambiguous role of the CIA and to restrain Washington from extending the war to Iraq and elsewhere." Given that bin Laden was already wanted at the time for the US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, why did the US not arrange to have local authorities snatch the terrorist in Dubai, in order to bring him to justice? Of course, it goes without saying that bin Laden would never have visited the US hospital in the first place had he not been confident of his protected status. Do we dare to connect these dots? Surely the story in Le Figaro suggests that elements of the US intelligence establishment knew about the coming 9/11 attack and allowed bin Laden to remain free to play his assigned role. As shocking as this sounds, if the story is correct there is no other plausible explanation.

Such a conclusion is further supported by powerful evidence that first came to light on November 6, 2001, when the BBC program Newsnight produced FBI documents on British television proving that soon after G.W. Bush entered office the White House ordered the FBI to "back off" from ongoing investigations of Osama bin Laden and other members of his family, some of whom were living in the US at the time.[61] To the best of my knowledge, none of these stories from European and UK press were ever reported in the US media. Again, why not?

Were elements of the US government and intelligence community complicit in the events of September 11, 2001? Did they allow the attack to happen, or even help to stage it, in order to generate the pretext for a much more aggressive US foreign policy which the American people would not otherwise support? Either way, the implications are shocking, indeed, so shocking that many of our fellow countrymen (and women) cannot bring themselves to think such thoughts. Yet, it is a matter of record that the neoconservatives openly advocated an imperial shift in US foreign policy before the November 2000 election.[62] Moreover, Clinton was already moving in this direction.

These are grave questions for our nation and we must not fail to address them. If there is any truth in them we face a Constitutional crisis unlike anything in our history.

Mark's forthcoming book, THE 9/11 MYSTERY PLANE will feature, among other disclosures, the first published discussion and analysis of the NORAD/FAA radar data from 9/11, released last October thanks to a FOIA request. Mark Can be reached for comment at markhgaffney@earthlink.net

Mark's book can be pre-ordered at amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/11-Mystery-Plane-Vanishing-America/dp/0979988608/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216184222&sr=1-1
1 According to another account the stewardess was Betty Ong. Lynn Spencer, Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama that Unfolded in the Skies over America on 9/11, Free Press, New York, 2008, p.18.

2 "The President's Story," CBS News, September 10, 2003.

3 George Tenet, At the Center of the Storm, My Years at the CIA, HarperCollins, New York, 2007, pp.xix and 167; Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies, Free Press, New York, 2004. pp. 13-14.

4 Jim Miklaszewski and Alex Johnson, "US planned for attack on al-qaida," MSNBC and NBC, May 16, 2002,

5 Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies, Free Press, New York, 2004, p. 26. Evidently the name of the plan was "Blue Sky." George Tenet, At the Center of the Storm, My Years at the CIA, HarperCollins, New York, 2007, pp. 171 and 130-131.

6 The three US officials were Tom Simmons, a former US Ambassador to Pakistan, Karl Inderfurth, former Assistant Secretary of State for Asian Affairs, and Lee Coldren, a former State Department expert on south Asia. George Arney, "US 'planned attack on Taliban'," BBC news, September 18, 2001.

7 At the Center of the Storm, My Years at the CIA, HarperCollins, New York, 2007, pp.. 23.

8 Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, Penguin Press, New York, 2004, p. 409, also see note 21, p. 628.

9 Ibid.

10 "White House Wavers on Publicizing bin Laden Case," UPI, September 24, 2001.

11 Transcript: President Freezes Terrorists' Assets: Remarks by the President, Secretary of the Treasury O'Neill and Secretary of State Powell on Executive Order, The Rose Garden, September 24, 2001, posted at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010924-4.html

12 News Sunday, FOX News, September 23, 2001.

13 Seymour Hersh, "What Went Wrong: The C.I.A. and the failure of American intelligence, New Yorker, October 1, 2001

14 The Guardian, September 17, 2001, p. 11; also see The (London) Times, September 28, 2001, p. 5.

15 Schmidt reportedly made the statement on German television on December 10, 2001. See the Webster Tarpley segment in the video by Barrie Zwicker, "The Great Conspiracy: The 9/11 News Special You Never Saw," 2004.

16 Ummaut, September 22, 2001. The pertinent text reads, as follows: "I was not involved in the September 11 attacks in the United States nor did I have knowledge of the attacks. There exists a government within a government within the United States. The United States should try to trace the perpetrators of these attacks within itself; to the people who want to make the present century a century of conflict between Islam and Christianity. That secret government must be asked as to who carried out the attacks....The American system is totally in the control of the Jews, whose first priority is Israel, not the United States ... I have already said that we are not hostile to the United States. We are against the system, which makes other nations slaves of the United States, or forces them to mortgage their political and economic freedom."

17 The (London) Daily Telegraph, October 1, 2001.

18 The full transcript may be viewed at http://paulboutin.weblogger.com/2001/10/05

19 The Independent (UK), October 7, 2001, p. 7.

20 The Guardian, October 5, 2001, p. 23

21 The (London) Times, October 5, 2001, p. 8.

22 The (London) Daily Telegraph, October 4, 2001, p. 9; also see Milan Rai, "Afghanistan: The Unnecessary War," Znet, October 13, 2004.

23 The full video is posted at (bad link in story) http://paulboutin.weblogger.com/2001/12/14

24 As of this writing the press release is still posted and may be viewed at http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=3184

25 "Bin Laden on tape: Attacks "benefited Islam greatly"," CNN, December 14, 2001, posted at http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/12/13/ret.bin.laden.videotape/

26 http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm

27 Georg Restle, Ekkehard Sieker, "Bin-Laden-Video: Falschübersetzung als Beweismittel"", MONITOR Nr. 485 am, December 20, 2001. posted at http://web.archive.org/web/20021218105636/www.wdr.de/tv/monitor/beitraege.phtml?id=379

28 The page is posted at http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm

29 "FBI says, "No hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11," Muckraker Report, June 6, 2006, posted at http://www.teamliberty.net/id267.html

30 Ibid.

31 President Bush Holds Press Conference, The James S. Brady Briefing Room, March 13, 2002. Posted at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html

32 John F. Burns,"10-Month Afghan Mystery: Is bin Laden Dead or Alive"," New York Times, September 30, 2002.

33 Evans, Novak, Hunt and Shields, "Interview with General Richard Myers," CNN, April 6, 2002.

34 Giles Tremlett (in Madrid), "Al-Qaeda leaders say nuclear power stations were original targets," The Guardian, September 9, 2002; also see "Report: Bin Laden Already Dead," FOX News, December 26, 2001; "Israeli Intelligence: Bin Laden is dead, heir has been chosen," Special to World Tribune.com, October 16, 2002; "Musharraf: bin Laden likely dead," CNN, January 19, 2002.

35 George Tenet, At the Center of the Storm, My Years at the CIA, HarperCollins, New York, 2007, p. 309.

36 The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Norton & Co., New York, 2004, pp. 75-76.

37 Army Major Eric Kleinsmith destroyed 2.5 terabytes of intelligence data about al Qaeda in May and June 2000, at the order of Tony Gentry, general counsel of the Army Intelligence and Security Command. This is an enormous amount of data. To get an idea just how large the number is, wrap your mind around this: It is the equivalent of 25% of the Library of Congress. Patience Wait, "Data-mining offensive in the works," Government Computer News, October 10, 2005, posted at http://www.gcn.com/print/24_30/37242-1.html?topic=news

38 Philip Shenon, "Pentagon Blocks Testimony at Senate Hearings n Terrorism," New York Times, September 20, 2005; also see Philip Shenon, "Second Officer Says 9/11 Leader was Named Before Attacks," New York Times, August 23, 2005.

39 Prepared statement of Anthony A. Shaffer, Lt Col., US Army Reserve, Senior Intelligence Officer, before the House Armed Services Committee, Wednesday February 15, 2006, full transcript posted at http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2006_hr/021506shaffer.pdf

40 The official explanations are so ridiculous they do not even deserve comment.

41 Ibid.

42 Will Dunham, "Three more assert Pentagon knew of 9/11 ringleader," Reuters, September 1, 2005; "Navy Captain Backs Able Danger Claims," FOX News, August 23, 2005; also see Thom Shanker, "Terrorist Known Before 9/11, More Say." New York Times, September 2, 2005.

43 Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/1 Commission, Alfred A, Knopf, New York, 2006, pp. 294-295.

44 Ibid.

45 Dan Eggen, "9/11 Panel Suspected Deception by Pentagon," The Washington Post, August 2, 2006.

46 John Diamond and Kathy Kiely, "Officials: Sept. 11 attacks were planned since 1998," USA Today, June 18, 2002.

47 Richard Sale, "NSA Listens to bin Laden," UPI, February 13, 2001; also see John C.K. Daly, "Analysis: US Combs Airwaves for bin Laden," UPI, February 21, 2001; also see "US Makes Cyberwar on bin Laden," UPI, February 9, 2001.

48 See the final report of the Joint Inquiry Committee, Appendix, p. 21, cited in Coll, Ghost Wars, p. 413., also see note 30, p. 629.

49 George Tenet, At the Center of the Storm, HarperCollins, New York, 2007, p.121.

50 Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2006, pp.277-278.

51 By Lisa Myers, "Hindsight and the attacks on America," NBC News, July 21, 2004, posted at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5479799/

52 David Enser, Chris Plante and Peter Bergen, "USS Cole plot began after embassy attacks, investigator says, CNN News, December 20, 2002, posted at http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/12/20/terrorism.threat.02/

53 "US links Yemen clan to Sept. 11 and East Africa attacks," MSNBC, February 14, 2002. archived at http://www.bouwman.com/911/Operation/Yemen/Feb-15.html

54 Dallas Star-Telegram, June 7, 2002; also see Miami Herald, June 6, 2002.

55 Miami Herald, June 6, 2002.

56 For an excellent discussion of the many cases where the CIA withheld information, see Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2006. See chapters 16-20.

57 Ian Henshall, 9/11 Revealed: The New Evidence, Carroll and Graf, New York, 2007, p.64.

58 Tenet mentions this in his memoirs. At the Center of the Storm, p. 137.

59 Alexandra Richard, "The CIA met bin Laden while undergoing treatment at an American Hospital last July in Dubai, Le Figaro, October 11, 2001. (translated by Tiphaine Dickson)

60 Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, Penguin Press, New York, 2004, p. 442, also see note 14, p. 633.

61 Greg Palast and David Pallister, "FBI claims Bin aden Inquiry was frustrated: Officials told to "back off" on Saudis before September 11," Guardian (UK), November 7, 2001.

62 The neocon strategy for global US empire was outlined in a 2000 briefing paper, "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century." It may still be viewed at the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) web site: (This is precious. The link returns this message, "This Account Has Been Suspended. Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible." Ed. 911truth.org) http://www.newamericancentury.org/publicationsreports.htm

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20521.htm By Mark H. Gaffney The following is an excerpt from Mark H. Gaffney's forthcoming book, THE 911 MYSTERY PLANE AND THE VANISHING OF AMERICA, to be released in September 2008. 15/08/08 "ICH" - Regrettably, there is considerable evidence that elements of the Bush administration were complicit in the 9/11 attack, and may even have helped stage it.

# data[].attributes.body
Definition: Having a strong belief in something despite there being no evidence of its existence

Connection: Believing in paranormal beings is a prime example, many people believe in their existence even there has never been definitive evidence .

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As a promising actress, Peg Entwistle gained only moderate fame, but her ghost has become the stuff of Hollywood legend.

On the night of September 18, 1932, actress Peg Entwistle made her way up the steep slope of Mount Lee in Los Angeles to the site of the famous Hollywood sign (back then it spelled out "Hollywoodland"). She took off her coat and neatly folded it, put down her purse, and climbed up the maintenance ladder on the back of the 50-foot-high letter H.

She stood atop it for a moment, looking over the lights of the glamorous city below, then leaped to her death.

Peg probably died instantly, and her body was found the next day by a hiker. But that's not the last Peg Entwistle has been seen - not alive anyway. Her ghost has been sighted many times in the vicinity of famous Hollywood landmark, still wandering slowly in her melancholy.

A Promising Actress

Born in 1908 in Port Talbot, Wales, U.K., Millicent Lilian Entwistle, nicknamed Peg, saw more than her share of tragedy. She was just a child when her mother died unexpectedly, after which she moved with her father to New York City. A few years later, he was struck down by a hit-and-run car on Park Avenue and killed.

In her late teens, Peg began to pursue an acting career on the stage and was talented enough to win roles with the Boston Repertory company and on Broadway in the renowned Theater Guild productions.

(Bette Davis said that Peg Entwistle was her inspiration to pursue acting.) At age 19, she married actor Robert Keith, only to discover that he had been married previously and had a six-year-old son. They divorced.

Peg was able to find stage work in productions featuring such stars as Dorothy Gish and Laurette Taylor but was already battling the demons of depression.

Nevertheless, she set her sights on Hollywood and moved to Los Angles in 1932 in hopes of landing roles in motion pictures. At first, she found work again on the stage, but then it seemed her destiny had really changed when RKO signed her to appear in the film Thirteen Women, starring Irene Dunne. When previews of the film received poor reviews, the studio re-edited it, and much of Peg's part was left on the editing floor. RKO subsequently dropped the options on her contract.

And on the night of September 18, 1932, after a bout of heavy drinking fueled by her depression and despair, 24-year-old Peg Entwistle told her uncle (with whom she was living) that she was going to meet some friends at a local drug store. Instead, she made her way to the Hollywood sign to meet her fate.

Peg's Ghost

Sometimes, sad lives that end in tragic deaths later manifest as ghosts that haunt the locations where they once enjoyed life... or where they died. In the case of Peg Entwistle, her spirit apparently still roams the hill around the sign that symbolized her dream.

Here are some of the documented sightings of Peg's ghost:

The Hollywood sign stands atop Mount Lee in Griffith Park, just west of the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale. Over the years, park rangers and have reported seeing a pretty blonde woman dressed in 1930s clothing wandering the park's paths. She is described as looking sad, and when she is approached, she vanishes.

As a couple was walking their dog along the Beachwood Canyon trail of the park, their dog began to behave strangely, whimpering and cowering behind them. Suddenly, a woman in out-of-date clothing appeared on the trail in front of them, appearing dazed or confused. She vanished before their eyes.

John Arbogast, a park ranger, claims to have seen Peg's ghost on several occasions. He says she most often appears late at night when conditions are foggy, and she is often accompanied by the strong scent of gardenias, said to be Peg's favorite fragrance.

Devin Morgan, a resident of Beachwood Canyon, also can verify the gardenia connection. One afternoon she was taking an exercise hike up the trail near the sign. As she made her way around one of the switchbacks, she noticed the figure of a woman on another part of the trail.

"She looked very strange to me," Morgan said. "She had a very etheric quality. Instead of walking, she seemed to almost glide. She wasn't floating... she didn't look like she was a ghost, but there was something very, very strange about her, and very soft looking." Morgan attempted to catch up with this woman, but she had vanished, and the only thing in her place was the intense scent of gardenias.

Most recently, four friends encountered the ghost, a story that was featured on Syfy's Paranormal Witness. The friends - Tina, Alain, Brian, and Al - after a game at Dodger Stadium, decided to go touch the famous Hollywood sign. Although the area is off-limits to trespassers, they jumped the fence and headed up.

On their way back down, Brian slipped and fell part way down the hill. As he began to make his way back toward the others, he saw someone on the path walking toward him. "It was a woman, wearing a dress similar to the style of the 1930s," according to the Syfy story. "She wore heels and a veil over her face. She walked effortlessly up the hill. Her footsteps made no sound." It was only later that they read about the story of Peg Entwistle.

There are two odd, synchronistic postscripts to this story:

Pat Entwistle's short-time husband, Robert Keith, was the father of actor Brian Keith (Nevada Smith and Family Affair) - he was the six-year-old son mentioned. In 1997, Brian Keith also committed suicide, ten weeks after his daughter committed suicide.

Very soon after Peg Entwistle's death, a letter arrived at her house from the Hollywood Playhouse, offering her a part in a play. The role was of a woman who commits suicide.

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Who Was the Ghost of the Hollywood Sign?

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As a promising actress, Peg Entwistle gained only moderate fame, but her ghost has become the stuff of Hollywood legend. On the night of September 18, 1932, actress Peg Entwistle made her way up the steep slope of Mount Lee in Los Angeles to the site of the famous Hollywood sign (back then it spelled out "Hollywoodland").

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Definition: When people view ordinary things differently and see patterns, such as faces or objects.

Connection: If you look closely at this leaf, it appears to look eerily like "Scream" from the Scream movies