Scepticism about the Official Explanation of 9-11 Spreads

Because there was no adequate official investigation into the cause of the 9-11 2001 tragedy an independent 9-11 research community is emerging

The events of 9-11, 2001 are still shrouded in mystery. Yet it is rare that the U.S. press will report on events challenging official U.S. government explanations of that day.

On Thursday evening, September 11, 2003, an estimated 800-900 people attended a program in New York City at the Riverside Church near Columbia University. It is not surprising that there was little press coverage of the event in the U.S. press. The program, the "Investigative Film Exhibition and Roundtable Program", was part of a larger 4 day event, continuing on September 12, 13, and 14 Reframing 9/11.

The program included films, and a panel of speakers. Among the documentaries shown, was an edited version of the questions presented by Mindy Kleinberg to the first hearing of the U.S. government's 9/11 Commission. Along with three other women who lost their husbands on 9-11, Kleinberg has been active in pressuring the U.S. government to provide answers to the questions, such as why no jets were scrambled according to the protocol, when the 4 planes were hijacked on September 11, 2001. The four have come to be known as the New Jersey Girls1

The panel included former U.S. Congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney; co-founder of the 911 Citizenswatch, John Judge; Publisher and Editor of "From the Wilderness", Mike Ruppert; former CIA analyst, Raymond L. McGovern; member of steering committee of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, David Mac Michael; author, Peter Lance, and filmmaker, writer, and media critique Danny Schechter.

The panelists presented the questions they felt were raised by the events of 9-11 and their views on the seriousness of the current post 9-11 political crisis in the U.S. One speaker compared the U.S. in 2003 to the period in Hitler's Germany just after the Reichstag Fire. Regardless of who was responsible for the criminal act on September 11, 2001, he maintained that the Bush administration has used it as the pretext to attack the right to dissent in the U.S. Others in the panel documented the poor quality of the U.S. press and the U.S. media's failure to provide the needed criticism of government officials and information for the public.

Among the questions raised was, what could help to challenge the dangerous political climate both within the U.S. and in the world. One of the panelists, John Judge, proposed that there was the need to practice democracy to be able to challenge the political attack within the U.S.

Kyle Hence, co-founder of 911 Citizenswatch, chaired the program. Discussing the impact of Thursday's program with him the following day, he commented about how the public in the U.S. has been in a state of shock after the events of September 11, 2001. Hence felt that the presence of the estimated 800-900 people at the program on 9-11 2003, however, is a sign that the shock is wearing off.

Discussing the events that are helping to overcome the post 9-11 shock and fear, Hence cited the role of some of the family members of those who died in the WTC tragedy. The testimony of Mindy Kleinberg, at the hearing for the 9-11 investigation and the testimony of Kristin Breitweiser at the Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry (JICI) about 9-11, were two of the recent events that have had an important impact. The Congress people were surprised at how knowledgeable and articulate the women were.

Also he noted that because there was no adequate official investigation into the cause of the 9-11 2001 tragedy, those interested in understanding what had happened and why, were forced to do their own research, and to link up with others they found doing similar research online. They became part of an independent 9-11 research community.

Hence also pointed out that this event represented a collaboration of some in the U.S. anti war movement with those who were trying to uncover the source of the attack of September 11. Similarly, he welcomed the work done by some in the anti war movement to uncover and spread knowledge of the lies and forgeries used by the Bush and Blair governments to falsify the reasons for their attack on Iraq. Such exposures help to make it clearer to an increasing number of people in the U.S. that there are U.S. government officials willing to lie and use forged documents, like the forged documents claiming that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from the African country of Niger, to conceal their real motives to attack democratic rights at home and to make war abroad.

One of the participants at the program on Thursday, was from Germany. He saw himself as a netizen, a citizen of an entity larger than one country, trying to help stem the spread of fascism in the U.S. He described how he and others were researching and spreading an understanding of what was behind the events of 9-11. They were also in the process of uncovering the names of the corporations who were benefiting from the 9-11 tragedy. These companies were collaborating with the Pentagon to support the so called "War against Terrorism", using the pretext of preventing another 9-11.

The organizations co-sponsoring Thursday's program, like the radio show Democracy Now and the radio station WBAI use the Internet to spread their programs. Less common in the U.S., however, are active online forums, like those at Telepolis in Germany, which encourage users to interact in online discussion about the issues and problems of our times.2

The pro-democratic opposition movement in the U.S., however, is still in the process of being born. There are many people making efforts in their own ways and trying to find ways to coordinate their work with others. Those in the U.S. need all the help they can get, as the U.S. government not only attacks citizens and governments abroad, but it is also attacking people who try to protest in the U.S. (For example, see Massive Anti-War Protest in New York City Demonstrates)

The NYC 9-11 Investigatory Film and Roundtable Program was sponsored in conjunction with events in Berlin, Germany, in several cities in Canada, and several other cities in the U.S. Such joint efforts are a promising sign that an international 9-11 research and documentation movement is emerging which will make it possible to learn the truth about the events of September 11, 2001.