Review of Marc Estrin's Skulk

Progressive Press, P.O. Box 126, Joshua Tree, California, 2009

by Charles R. Simpson - State University of New York, Plattsburgh

Marc Estrin's Skulk is a darkly entertaining comedy of misguided if well-intentioned political fumbling. Its unlikely pair of protagonists, coming from opposite ends of the political spectrum, hatch a scheme to make a complacent America ask, "Who really bombed the Pentagon and the World Trade Center?" But wait, wasn't the question of 9/11 answered in 2004 by a the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, otherwise known as the 9/11 Commission? Didn't they analyze 2.5 million pages of documents and interview 1,200 people to conclude that a global conspiracy operating under the name "Al Qaeda" orchestrated the attacks, helped along by U.S. intelligence failures? Why would Estrin push against this juggernaut of political analysis when expert scrutiny and our own eyes--via images of the day from the broadcast networks--have established the contours of this rubble-strewn landscape? And isn't a novel a rather lightweight vehicle with which to plow back the weight of settled history? Estrin's project is ambitious.

http://www.worldnewstrust.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=...

9/11 AND AMERICAN EMPIRE: Intellectuals Speak Out, Reviewed
by Carolyn Baker
Monday, 22 January 2007

"...As a member of academia myself, I am buoyed by the caliber of scholars included in the Griffin-Scott volume, particularly in the light of what I consider higher education’s abject paranoia regarding skepticism of the official story of 9/11. As I stated when recently interviewed by Jason Miller at Civil Libertarian Blogspot, professors at the end of their academic preparation often emerge with rigid concepts of how they “should” think or how they “should” teach, to such an extent that they become almost terrified of being viewed as conspiracy theorists and develop what I call “conspiracy phobia” in which case, they become as intellectually stilted and irrelevant as the tormenters of Galileo during the Spanish Inquisition. At one time in history the notion that microscopic organisms called bacteria even exist, let alone foster and spread disease, was considered an outlandish violation of reason and logic, as was the theory that the earth was not flat or that human beings would someday travel around the globe in “flying machines.” Academics of those eras took enormous pride in their ability to think critically and not engage in fallacies of logic, but history has proven that for these individuals, things were anything but what they seemed...

...Currently in so-called progressive discourse about 9/11, there appear to be two perspectives regarding the political, economic, geopolitical, Constitutional, and social significance of the event. The first group believes that 9/11 was used opportunistically by the Bush administration to extend its global domination project and that the administration knew the attacks were coming but allowed them to happen; the second group believes that more than having foreknowledge, the Bush administration, in fact, orchestrated the event. Within these two perspectives, there exist myriad theories regarding the evidence for either allowing the event or orchestrating it.

Some individuals believe that physical evidence is important to analyze, while others do not. Still others believe that some other object besides a plane hit the Pentagon on the morning of September 11, while other individuals are virulently opposed to that notion. I personally believe that a consideration of the physical evidence, although it has virtually all been destroyed and removed from any possibility of examination, is relevant, and I disagree with those who assert that debates regarding the physical evidence are a distraction from the analysis of motive, means, and opportunity. For me, it is not either/or but both/and. Critical thinking demands an inclusive examination of all facets of any crime..."

Continued...
http://www.worldnewstrust.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=...

Older review;
http://www.911blogger.com/node/3168

Posted over at 911truth.org;

Book Review: Peter Lance Indicts FBI/DoJ, but Leaves CIA as Unindicted Co-conspirator

Saturday, January 6 2007

by Michael Richardson

Most of the journalistic foundation for the 9/11 truth movement is a vast mosaic of articles, each containing one or more significant fragments, and most have been written by journalists who had no particular dedication or greater awareness of 9/11. Those who have written in depth about 9/11 have used this mosaic (and of course have been aided considerably by resources like Paul Thompson's Complete 9/11 Timeline), but few actually do on-the-ground journalism. Peter Lance is one of the few investigative journalists who has dedicated himself to the historical thicket of 9/11. In addition to using the mosaic, he travels to interview people, develops contacts inside the key agencies, gets his hands on damning FBI 302 documents, and bothers people who deserve to be bothered. For the last four years, he has obsessed on 9/11 and many of its deep-political tendrils, producing the equivalent of dozens of rich, original articles.

Lance's implied theory of 9/11 — that the 9/11 hijacking plot basically slipped past the greasy fingers of a corrupt and egotistical DOJ/FBI — no doubt irritates many in the movement for truth about 9/11 for whom the "inside job" theory is creed, yet he has unearthed some of the most important gems in the struggle to bring real truth and justice to 9/11. Most importantly, he has shown how the efforts of the Southern New York division of the Justice Department, since the early 90s, have been half-baked, ridiculously negligent, and at times blantently criminal. His work has been instrumental in fleshing out the continuum between the New York cell of the Blind Sheikh (proto-al Qaeda) in the early 1990s and the crimes of September 11, 2001, tracking the FBI all along in its failures and refusals to expose, arrest, and convict. In Triple Cross, a whole chapter is given to a New Jersey check cashing store which, had the FBI used common sense and monitored the place once they knew, early on, that it was a hub of al Qaeda activity, they probably would have snuffed out the 9/11 plot before Clinton had left office. Lance has also definatively fingered Dietrich Snell as the 9/11 Commission staff member who forged the Commission's official timeline into a deception by claiming that the 9/11 plot was conceived in 1998 — two years after Snell's DOJ office had known of a planes-as-missiles plot from interrogations of Abdul Hakim Murad.

Ali Mohamed is a neglected rosetta stone for understanding al Qaeda, and with Triple Cross Lance has created the most expansive and detailed account of this "master spy" to date. He also shows how Mohamed's U.S. exploits were interwoven with key people and events covered in Lance's two previous books (1000 Years for Revenge and Cover Up), as Mohamed had trained the Blind Sheikh's followers in New York in the early 1990s during the time Mohamed was stationed at Fort Bragg. The re-telling of earlier narratives makes this book Lance's definative oeuvre on 9/11, but Triple Cross still reads like a new book, first because most of us would need a refresher on the sprawling material, but also because Lance has unearthed quite a few more fascinating nuggets. For example, he further solidifies the case that Ramzi Yousef, from his New York jail cell in 1996, orchestrated the timed bombing of TWA Flight 800. After the publication of his last book, Sibel Edmonds put him in touch with a "recently retired NSA staffer" who saw a translation of an NSA intercept originally spoken in Baluchi (Yousef's native tongue) which read, "Flight 800 . . . what had to be done has been done." This intercept had also been mysteriously, temporarily removed from the normal translation stream long enough to exclude it from the FBI's Flight 800 investigation.

Ali Mohamed was involved with most of the major al Qaeda attacks against U.S. interests: the assassination of Rabbi Meier Kahane in 1990, the 1993 WTC bombing, the African Embassy bombings in 1998 and, even though he was arrested in late 1998, Lance proposes that he also helped train some of the 9/11 hijackers in hijacking techniques. Astoundingly, Mohamed participated in these operations while also being a U.S. citizen, being enlisted in the U.S. military (serving at Fort Bragg on two occasions), and being an FBI informant in California. Importantly (and much more on this below), he also had ties to the CIA. Lance shows Mohamed moving snake-like between U.S. agencies and military postings, often flaunting his activities with al Qaeda at a time when the FBI certainly knew what this meant. Importantly, in the early 90s, Mohamed was debriefed about Bin Laden and al Qaeda by FBI and NSA counter-terrorism officers, but all records of this interview — which would prove that the government was aware of Bin Laden's anti-U.S. intentions years earlier than it has claimed — have been "lost"...

Continued...
http://911truth.org/article.php?story=20070106133625637

(Thanks, Elizabeth for sending this in.)

Drawing the Lessons of 9-11 (book review, Sid Shniad)

The Hidden History of 9-11-2001
Research in Political Economy
2006 Volume 23.
Ed. by Paul Zarembka

Governments have long found it useful to manufacture rationale for pursuing war and repression. The sinking of the Battleship Maine at the outset of the Spanish-American-Cuba War is the classic example. When President Harry Truman wanted to offer assistance to anti-Communist forces in Greece and Turkey in 1947, Republican senator Arthur Vandenburg promised his support if Truman would “scare the hell out of the American people.” In 1962, the Pentagon mounted Operation Northwoods, a plan involving false-flag actions, state-sponsored terrorism and the hijacking of planes on U.S. and Cuban soil designed to generate American public support for an invasion of Cuba. Then there was the case of the distraught young Iraqi woman testifying before U.S. Congressional hearings in the run-up to Gulf War I about babies being tossed out of incubators by Saddam Hussein’s soldiers.

The essays included in The Hidden History of 9-11-2001 lead to the conclusion that the attack on the World Trade Center may have been the biggest false-flag operation of them all. This 2006 issue of Research in Political Economy examines different aspects of 9-11, which, taken together, provide a serious challenge to those who dismiss the possibility that a government-based conspiracy was behind the events of 9-11.

Amazon's #1 Non-fiction Reviewer: Tarpley's 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA is "strongest of the 770+ books I have reviewed"

Progressive Press announced that its "9/11 Synthetic Terror" has just been cited as the best non-fiction book ever by Amazon's top non-fiction book reviewer, intelligence professional Robert Steele, in a 5-star review at http://www.amazon.com/dp/0930852370 .

Progressive specializes in books that contend 9/11 was an "inside job." Publisher John Leonard says "it's a coup to have Steele with us on this. Here you have a level-headed, respected insider, lifelong Republican, veteran spy, and he's breaking the taboos. It's a great tribute and a vindication of the work we put into 9/11 Synthetic Terror."

Steele's statement that 9/11 was a "US-based conspiracy" may be a first coming from a senior US intelligence community figure. He came to this conclusion "with great sadness" after reading "9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA," which he praises as "without question, the most important modern reference on state-sponsored terrorism."

(visit the link for the full press release)

From wikipedia:

Robert David Steele Vivas (b. July 16, 1952 New York City), is a former Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer for twenty years and was the second-ranking civilian (GS-14) in U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence from 1988-1992. Steele is a former clandestine services case officer Central Intelligence Agency.[1] He is the founder and CEO of OSS.Net, Inc. as well as the Golden Candle Society.[2] Steele also was a member of the Adjunct Faculty of Marine Corps University in the mid-1990's.

From Strategic Strategy Research Military site:

ROBERT D. STEELE is a retired Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer. He is the founder and president of Open Source Solutions, Inc., and is an acknowledged expert on computer and information vulnerabilities. Mr. Steele holds graduate degrees in International Relations and Public Administration from Leigh University and the University of Oklahoma. He has also earned certificates in Intelligence Policy from Harvard University and in Defense Studies from the Naval War College.

From Steele's Amazon review:

It is with great sadness that I conclude that this book is the strongest of the 770+ books I have reviewed here at Amazon, almost all non-fiction. I am forced to conclude that 9/11 was at a minimum allowed to happen as a pretext for war (see my review of Jim Bamford's "Pretext for War"), and I am forced to conclude that there is sufficient evidence to indict (not necessarily convict) Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and others of a neo-conservative neo-Nazi coup d'etat and kick-off of the clash of civilizations (see my review of "Crossing the Rubicon" as well as "State of Denial"). Most fascinatingly, the author links Samuel Huntington, author of "Clash of Civilizations" with Leo Strauss, the connecting rod between Nazi fascists and the neo-cons.

This is, without question, the most important modern reference on state-sponsored terrorism, and also the reference that most pointedly suggests that select rogue elements within the US Government, most likely led by Dick Cheney with the assistance of George Tenet, Buzzy Kronguard, and others close to the Wall Street gangs, are the most guilty of state-sponsored terrorism.

Big congrats to Webster Tarpley for this incredible review!

Wednesday, 13 September 2006

Conspiracies Abound

Questioning everything about 9/11

By Kurt Brighton

“The Terror Conspiracy: Deception, 9/11, And The Loss Of Liberty”

By Jim Marrs, published by The Disinformation Company

The unthinkable happened five years ago on a balmy day in September, and reams of paper as well as thousands of terrabytes have been devoted to the subject. And when something unthinkable happens, people start to look outside of the realm of the thinkable.

In addition to triggering an instantaneous clamp-down on civil liberties, the expansion of domestic spying programs unheard of since the COINTEL program of the ’60s and ’70s, billions of dollars in increased Pentagon spending, billions of dollars dumped into private defense contracts, an ongoing war against a nebulous enemy that can never be shown to have been decisively defeated, and an ongoing war in a country that had little or nothing to do with the attacks, the events of 9/11 also spawned a surfeit of conspiracy theorists.

Funny thing is, once you get past the knee-jerk dismissal of alternative theorists as wild-eyed crackpots colluding in mom’s basement while wearing tinfoil hats, there’s a lot that doesn’t add up about the government’s official story. A whole lot.

Towers of Deception – a review by reprehensor

The Author

Barrie Zwicker is a household name among the growing chorus of people who have trouble accepting the “official story” of 9/11 – the story that is more or less embodied by the 9/11 Commission Report. Zwicker has been both a producer and critic of mainstream media for 30+ years.

Zwicker’s skepticism of the official story began on 9/11/2001, which puts him in a fairly small category of doubters. I think it’s fair to say that most people who take issue with the official narrative didn’t start seriously questioning things until later, some within days, for some it took years. For Zwicker, the alarm bells started going off after the second plane hit the Twin Towers. Zwicker has some related experience with air defense, he was an Air Cadet in Canada in his youth, and as a journalist he followed the evolution of NORAD very closely. To Zwicker, there is no incompetence theory that NORAD can concoct, which will explain away years of drills, SOP (Standard Operating Procedures), and literally hundreds of commercial aircraft intercepts that were successfully undertaken by North America’s air defense system prior to 9/11.

Rethinking 9/11

By Seth Sandronsky

Can time heal a democracy wounded by the September 11 attacks? Many Americans now distrust the Bush administration’s story of its need to invade Iraq for that nation’s ties to Arab terrorists who hijacked four planes to kill thousands of innocents.

A new volume of scholarly essays on 9/11, The Hidden History of 9-11-2001: Research in Political Economy, Volume 23, addresses what authors think is a deep government cover-up. “Let’s examine objective evidence,” writes Paul Zarembka, the volume’s editor and an economics professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Bryan Sacks, a professor of English at Philadelphia’s Drexel University, exposes the 9/11 Commission’s failure to gather crucial evidence. This was due to a lack of independence from the Bush I and Bush II White Houses. Philip Zelikow, the commission’s executive director, “was part of the Bush II transition team,” notes Sacks. Further, “Zelikow was instrumental in creating and maintaining an information vacuum regarding key evidence at the center of the 9-11 Commission.” The commission, for example, did not issue subpoenas for presidential daily briefings on Al Qaeda before 9/11.

(Originally posted at my blog at the guerrilla news network - Fri, 23 Jun 2006)

NINE-ONE-ONE This three number combination is etched into the public psyche and instantly conjures up images of America’s most recent Day of Infamy. The images of chaos and terror were speedily delivered via satellite to anyone near a television set. At first, these images burst into the minds of the TV audience without context, but television viewers were not left long to worry their beautiful minds with troublesome questions like: “Who perpetrated these crimes?”

The narrative vacuum was quickly filled by the “official” story. This version of the events of 9/11 is forever enshrined in the volume known as The 9/11 Commission Report.

Proceeding apace with the development of the official story was an entire universe of unofficial stories. These alternative points of view were helpfully framed by President George Walker Bush on November 10th, 2001;

“We must speak the truth about terror. Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th; malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists, themselves, away from the guilty.” (1)