Kevin Barrett for Congress

Much of America's foreign policy since 9/11 has been based on the assumption that it was attacked by Muslims on that day. This assumption was used, most prominently, to justify the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is now widely agreed that the use of 9/11 as a basis for attacking Iraq was illegitimate: none of the hijackers were Iraqis, there was no working relation between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, and Iraq was not behind the anthrax attacks. But it is still widely believed that the US attack on Afghanistan was justified. For example, the New York Times, while referring to the US attack on Iraq as a "war of choice," calls the battle in Afghanistan a "war of necessity." Time magazine has dubbed it "the right war." And Barack Obama says that one reason to wind down our involvement in Iraq is to have the troops and resources to "go after the people in Afghanistan who actually attacked us on 9/11."

The assumption that America was attacked by Muslims on 9/11 also lies behind the widespread perception of Islam as an inherently violent religion and therefore of Muslims as guilty until proven innocent. This perception surely contributed to attempts to portray Obama as a Muslim, which was lampooned by a controversial cartoon on the July 21, 2008, cover of The New Yorker.

As could be illustrated by reference to many other post-9/11 developments, including as spying, torture, extraordinary rendition, military tribunals, America's new doctrine of preemptive war, and its enormous increase in military spending, the assumption that the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked by Muslim hijackers has had enormous negative consequences for both international and domestic issues.1

Is it conceivable that this assumption might be false? Insofar as Americans and Canadians would say "No," they would express their belief that this assumption is not merely an "assumption" but is instead based on strong evidence. When actually examined, however, the proffered evidence turns out to be remarkably weak. I will illustrate this point by means of 16 questions.

The picture of the hijackers conveyed by the 9/11 Commission is that they were devout Muslims. Mohamed Atta, considered the ringleader, was said to have become very religious, even "fanatically so."2 Being devout Muslims, they could be portrayed as ready to meet their Maker---as a "cadre of trained operatives willing to die."3

But this portrayal is contradicted by various newspaper stories. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Atta and other hijackers had made "at least six trips" to Las Vegas, where they had "engaged in some decidedly un-Islamic sampling of prohibited pleasures." These activities were "un-Islamic" because, as the head of the Islamic Foundation of Nevada pointed out: "True Muslims don't drink, don't gamble, don't go to strip clubs."4

One might, to be sure, rationalize this behavior by supposing that these were momentary lapses and that, as 9/11 approached, these young Muslims had repented and prepared for heaven. But in the days just before 9/11, Atta and others were reported to be drinking heavily, cavorting with lap dancers, and bringing call girls to their rooms. Temple University Professor Mahmoud Ayoub said: "It is incomprehensible that a person could drink and go to a strip bar one night, then kill themselves the next day in the name of Islam. . . . Something here does not add up."5

In spite of the fact that these activities were reported by mainstream newspapers and even the Wall Street Journal editorial page,6 the 9/11 Commission wrote as if these reports did not exist, saying: "we have seen no credible evidence explaining why, on [some occasions], the operatives flew to or met in Las Vegas."7

2. Do Authorities Have Hard Evidence of Osama bin Laden's Responsibility for 9/11?

Whatever be the truth about the devoutness of the hijackers, one might reply, there is certainly no doubt about the fact that they were acting under the guidance of Osama bin Laden. The attack on Afghanistan was based on the claim that bin Laden was behind the attacks, and the 9/11 Commission's report was written as if there were no question about this claim. But neither the Bush administration nor the Commission provided any proof for it.

Two weeks after 9/11, Secretary of State Colin Powell, speaking to Tim Russert on "Meet the Press," said he expected "in the near future . . . to put out . . . a document that will describe quite clearly the evidence that we have linking [bin Laden] to this attack."8 But at a press conference with President Bush the next morning, Powell reversed himself, saying that although the government had information that left no question of bin Laden's responsibility, "most of it is classified."9 According to Seymour Hersh, citing officials from both the CIA and the Department of Justice, the real reason for the reversal was a "lack of solid information."10

That same week, Bush had demanded that the Taliban turn over bin Laden. But the Taliban, reported CNN, "refus[ed] to hand over bin Laden without proof or evidence that he was involved in last week's attacks on the United States." The Bush administration, saying "[t]here is already an indictment of Osama bin Laden" [for the attacks in Tanzania, Kenya, and elsewhere]," rejected the demand for evidence with regard to 9/11.11

The task of providing such evidence was taken up by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who on October 4 made public a document entitled "Responsibility for the Terrorist Atrocities in the United States." Listing "clear conclusions reached by the government," it stated: "Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, the terrorist network which he heads, planned and carried out the atrocities on 11 September 2001."12

Blair's report, however, began by saying: "This document does not purport to provide a prosecutable case against Osama Bin Laden in a court of law." This weakness was noted the next day by the BBC, which said: "There is no direct evidence in the public domain linking Osama Bin Laden to the 11 September attacks. At best the evidence is circumstantial."13

After the US had attacked Afghanistan, a senior Taliban official said: "We have asked for proof of Osama's involvement, but they have refused. Why?"14 The answer to this question may be suggested by the fact that, to this day, the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorist" webpage on bin Laden, while listing him as wanted for bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, makes no mention of 9/11.15

When the FBI's chief of investigative publicity was asked why not, he replied: "The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden's Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11."16

It is often claimed that bin Laden's guilt is proved by a video, reportedly found by US intelligence officers in Afghanistan in November 2001, in which bin Laden appears to report having planned the attacks. But critics, pointing out various problems with this "confession video," have called it a fake.17 General Hamid Gul, a former head of Pakistan's ISI, said: "I think there is an Osama Bin Laden look-alike."18 Actually, the man in the video is not even much of a look-alike, being heavier and darker than bin Laden, having a broader nose, wearing jewelry, and writing with his right hand.19 The FBI, in any case, obviously does not consider this video hard evidence of bin Laden's responsibility for 9/11.

What about the 9/11 Commission? I mentioned earlier that it gave the impression of having had solid evidence of bin Laden's guilt. But Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, the Commission's co-chairs, undermined this impression in their follow-up book subtitled "the inside story of the 9/11 Commission."20

Whenever the Commission had cited evidence for bin Ladin's responsibility, the note in the back of the book always referred to CIA-provided information that had (presumably) been elicited during interrogations of al-Qaeda operatives. By far the most important of these operatives was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), described as the "mastermind" of the 9/11 attacks. The Commission, for example, wrote:

Bin Ladin . . . finally decided to give the green light for the 9/11 operation sometime in late 1998 or early 1999. . . . Bin Ladin also soon selected four individuals to serve as suicide operatives. . . . Atta---whom Bin Ladin chose to lead the group---met with Bin Ladin several times to receive additional instructions, including a preliminary list of approved targets: the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the U.S. Capitol.21

Kean and Hamilton, however, reported that they had no success in "obtaining access to star witnesses in custody . . . , most notably Khalid Sheikh Mohammed."23 Besides not being allowed to interview these witnesses, they were not permitted to observe the interrogations through one-way glass or even to talk to the interrogators.24 Therefore, they complained: "We . . . had no way of evaluating the credibility of detainee information. How could we tell if someone such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed . . . was telling us the truth?"25

An NBC "deep background" report in 2008 pointed out an additional problem: KSM and the other al-Qaeda leaders had been subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques," i.e., torture, and it is now widely acknowledged that statements elicited by torture lack credibility. "At least four of the operatives whose interrogation figured in the 9/11 Commission Report," this NBC report pointed out, "have claimed that they told interrogators critical information as a way to stop being "-tortured.'" NBC then quoted Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, as saying: "Most people look at the 9/11 Commission Report as a trusted historical document. If their conclusions were supported by information gained from torture, . . . their conclusions are suspect."26

Accordingly, neither the White House, the British government, the FBI, nor the 9/11 Commission has provided solid evidence that Osama bin Laden was behind 9/11.

Nevertheless, many readers may respond, there can be no doubt that the airplanes were taken over by al-Qaeda hijackers, because their presence and actions on the planes were reported on phone calls by passengers and flight attendants, with cell phone calls playing an especially prominent role.

The most famous of the reported calls were from CNN commentator Barbara Olson to her husband, US Solicitor General Ted Olson. According to CNN, he reported that his wife had "called him twice on a cell phone from American Airlines Flight 77," saying that "all passengers and flight personnel, including the pilots, were herded to the back of the plane by . . . hijackers [armed with] knives and cardboard cutters."27

Although these reported calls, as summarized by Ted Olson, did not describe the hijackers so as to suggest that they were members of al-Qaeda, such descriptions were supplied by calls from other flights, especially United 93, from which about a dozen cell phone calls were reportedly received before it crashed in Pennsylvania. According to a Washington Post story of September 13,

[P]assenger Jeremy Glick used a cell phone to tell his wife, Lyzbeth, . . . that the Boeing 757's cockpit had been taken over by three Middle Eastern-looking men. . . . The terrorists, wearing red headbands, had ordered the pilots, flight attendants and passengers to the rear of the plane.28

A story about a "cellular phone conversation" between flight attendant Sandra Bradshaw and her husband gave this report:

She said the plane had been taken over by three men with knives. She had gotten a close look at one of the hijackers. . . . "He had an Islamic look," she told her husband.29

From these calls, therefore, the public was informed that the hijackers looked Middle Eastern and even Islamic.

Still more specific information was reportedly conveyed during a 12-minute cell phone call from flight attendant Amy Sweeney on American Flight 11, which was to crash into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.30 After reaching American Airlines employee Michael Woodward and telling him that men of "Middle Eastern descent" had hijacked her flight, she then gave him their seat numbers, from which he was able to learn the identity of Mohamed Atta and two other hijackers.31 Amy Sweeney's call was critical, ABC News explained, because without it "the plane might have crashed with no one certain the man in charge was tied to al Qaeda."32

There was, however, a big problem with these reported calls: Given the technology available in 2001, cell phone calls from airliners at altitudes of more than a few thousand feet, especially calls lasting more than a few seconds, were not possible, and yet these calls, some of which reportedly lasted a minute or more, reportedly occurred when the planes were above 30,000 or even 40,000 feet. This problem was explained by some credible people, including scientist A.K. Dewdney, who for many years had written a column for Scientific American.33

Although some defenders of the official account, such as Popular Mechanics, have disputed the contention that high-altitude calls from airliners were impossible,34 the fact is that the FBI, after having at first supported the claims that such calls were made, withdrew this support a few years later.

With regard to the reported 12-minute call from Amy Sweeney to Michael Woodward, an affidavit signed by FBI agent James Lechner and dated September 12 (2001) stated that, according to Woodward, Sweeney had been "using a cellular telephone."35 But when the 9/11 Commission discussed this call in its Report, which appeared in July 2004, it declared that Sweeney had used an onboard phone.36

Behind that change was an implausible claim made by the FBI earlier in 2004: Although Woodward had failed to mention this when FBI agent Lechner interviewed him on 9/11, he had repeated Sweeney's call verbatim to a colleague in his office, who had in turn repeated it to another colleague at American headquarters in Dallas, who had recorded it; and this recording---which was discovered only in 2004---indicated that Sweeney had used a passenger-seat phone, thanks to "an AirFone card, given to her by another flight attendant."37

This claim is implausible because, if this relayed recording had really been made on 9/11, we cannot believe that Woodward would have failed to mention it to FBI agent Lechner later that same day. While Lechner was taking notes, Woodward would surely have said: "You don't need to rely on my memory. There is a recording of a word-for-word repetition of Sweeney's statements down in Dallas." It is also implausible that Woodward, having repeated Sweeney's statement that she had used "an AirFone card, given to her by another flight attendant," would have told Lechner, as the latter's affidavit says, that Sweeney had been "using a cellular telephone."

Lechner's affidavit shows that the FBI at first supported the claim that Sweeney had made a 12-minute cell phone call from a high-altitude airliner. Does not the FBI's change of story, after its first version had been shown to be technologically impossible, create the suspicion that the entire story was a fabrication?

This suspicion is reinforced by the FBI's change of story in relation to United Flight 93. Although we were originally told that this flight had been the source of about a dozen cell phone calls, some of them when the plane was above 40,000 feet, the FBI gave a very different report at the 2006 trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker. The FBI spokesman said: "13 of the terrified passengers and crew members made 35 air phone calls and two cell phone calls."38 Instead of there having been about a dozen cell phone calls from Flight 93, the FBI declared in 2005, there were really only two.

Why were two calls still said to have been possible? They were reportedly made at 9:58, when the plane was reportedly down to 5,000 feet.39 Although that was still pretty high for successful cell phone calls in 2001, these calls, unlike calls from 30,000 feet or higher, would have been at least arguably possible.

If the truth of the FBI's new account is assumed, how can one explain the fact that so many people had reported receiving cell phone calls? In most cases, it seems, these people had been told by the callers that they were using cell phones. For example, a Newsweek story about United 93 said: "Elizabeth Wainio, 27, was speaking to her stepmother in Maryland. Another passenger, she explains, had loaned her a cell phone and told her to call her family."40 In such cases, we might assume that the people receiving the calls had simply mis-heard, or mis-remembered, what they had been told. But this would mean positing that about a dozen people had made the same mistake.

An even more serious difficulty is presented by the case of Deena Burnett, who said that she had received three to five calls from her husband, Tom Burnett. She knew he was using his cell phone, she reported to the FBI that very day and then to the press and in a book, because she had recognized his cell phone number on her phone's Caller ID.41 We cannot suppose her to have been mistaken about this. We also, surely, cannot accuse her of lying.

Therefore, if we accept the FBI's report, according to which Tom Burnett did not make any cell phone calls from Flight 93, we can only conclude that the calls were faked---that Deena Burnett was duped. Although this suggestion may at first sight seem outlandish, there are three facts that, taken together, show it to be more probable than any of the alternatives.

First, voice morphing technology was sufficiently advanced at that time to make faking the calls feasible. A 1999 Washington Post article described demonstrations in which the voices of two generals, Colin Powell and Carl Steiner, were heard saying things they had never said.42

Second, there are devices with which you can fake someone's telephone number, so that it will show up on the recipient's Caller ID.43

Third, the conclusion that the person who called Deena Burnett was not her husband is suggested by various features of the calls. For example, when Deena told the caller that "the kids" were asking to talk to him, he said: "Tell them I'll talk to them later." This was 20 minutes after Tom had purportedly realized that the hijackers were on a suicide mission, planning to "crash this plane into the ground," and 10 minutes after he and other passengers had allegedly decided that as soon as they were "over a rural area" they must try to gain control of the plane. Also, the hijackers had reportedly already killed one person.44 Given all this, the real Tom Burnett would have known that he would likely die, one way or another, in the next few minutes. Is it believable that, rather than taking this probably last opportunity to speak to his children, he would say that he would "talk to them later"? Is it not more likely that "Tom" made this statement to avoid revealing that he knew nothing about "the kids," perhaps not even their names?

Further evidence that the calls were faked is provided by timing problems in some of them. According to the 9/11 Commission, Flight 93 crashed at 10:03 as a result of the passenger revolt, which began at 9:57. However, according to Lyzbeth Glick's account of the aforementioned cell phone call from her husband, Jeremy Glick, she told him about the collapse of the South Tower, and that did not occur until 9:59, two minutes after the alleged revolt had started. After that, she reported, their conversation continued for several more minutes before he told her that the passengers were taking a vote about whether to attack. According to Lyzbeth Glick's account, therefore, the revolt was only beginning by 10:03, when the plane (according to the official account) was crashing.45

A timing problem also occurred in the aforementioned call from flight attendant Amy Sweeney. While she was describing the hijackers, according to the FBI's account of her call, they stormed and took control of the cockpit.46 However, although the hijacking of Flight 11 "began at 8:14 or shortly thereafter," the 9/11 Commission said, Sweeney's call did not go through until 8:25.47 Her alleged call, in other words, described the hijacking as beginning over 11 minutes after it, according to the official timeline, had been successfully carried out.

Multiple lines of evidence, therefore, imply that the cell phone calls were faked. This fact has vast implications, because it implies that all the reported calls from the planes, including those from onboard phones, were faked. Why? Because if the planes had really been taken over in surprise hijackings, no one would have been ready to make fake cell phone calls.

Moreover, the FBI, besides implying, most clearly in the case of Deena Burnett, that the phone calls reporting the hijackings had been faked, comes right out and says, in its report about calls from Flight 77, that no calls from Barbara Olson occurred. It does mention her. But besides attributing only one call to her, not two, the FBI report refers to it as an "unconnected call," which (of course) lasted "0 seconds."48 In 2006, in other words, the FBI, which is part of the Department of Justice, implied that the story told by the DOJ's former solicitor general was untrue. Although not mentioned by the press, this was an astounding development.

This FBI report leaves only two possible explanations for Ted Olson's story: Either he made it up or else he, like Deena Burnett and several others, was duped. In either case, the story about Barbara Olson's calls, with their reports of hijackers taking over Flight 77, was based on deception.

The opening section of The 9/11 Commission Report is entitled "Inside the Four Flights." The information contained in this section is based almost entirely on the reported phone calls. But if the reported calls were faked, we have no idea what happened inside these planes. Insofar as the idea that the planes were taken over by hijackers who looked "Middle Eastern," even "Islamic," has been based on the reported calls, this idea is groundless.

4. Was the Presence of Hijackers Proved by a Radio Transmission "from American 11"?

It might be objected, in reply, that this is not true, because we know that American Flight 11, at least, was hijacked, thanks to a radio transmission in which the voice of one of its hijackers is heard. According to the 9/11 Commission, the air traffic controller for this flight heard a radio transmission at 8:25 AM in which someone---widely assumed to be Mohamed Atta---told the passengers: "We have some planes. Just stay quiet, and you'll be okay. We are returning to the airport." After quoting this transmission, the Commission wrote: "The controller told us that he then knew it was a hijacking."49 Was this transmission not indeed proof that Flight 11 had been hijacked?

It might provide such proof if we knew that, as the Commission claimed, the "transmission came from American 11."50 But we do not. According to the FAA's "Summary of Air Traffic Hijack Events," published September 17, 2001, the transmission was "from an unknown origin."51 Bill Peacock, the FAA's air traffic director, said: "We didn't know where the transmission came from."52 The Commission's claim that it came from American 11 was merely an inference. The transmission could have come from the same room from which the calls to Deena Burnett originated.

Therefore, the alleged radio transmission from Flight 11, like the alleged phone calls from the planes, provides no evidence that the planes were taken over by al-Qaeda hijackers.

5. Did Passports and a Headband Provide Evidence that al-Qaeda Operatives Were on the Flights?

However, the government's case for al-Qaeda hijackers on also rested in part on claims that passports and a headband belonging to al-Qaeda operatives were found at the crash sites. But these claims are patently absurd.

A week after the attacks, the FBI reported that a search of the streets after the destruction of the World Trade Center had discovered the passport of one of the Flight 11 hijackers, Satam al-Suqami.53 But this claim did not pass the giggle test. "[T]he idea that [this] passport had escaped from that inferno unsinged," wrote one British reporter, "would [test] the credulity of the staunchest supporter of the FBI's crackdown on terrorism."54

By 2004, when the 9/11 Commission was discussing the alleged discovery of this passport, the story had been modified to say that "a passer-by picked it up and gave it to a NYPD detective shortly before the World Trade Center towers collapsed."55 So, rather than needing to survive the collapse of the North Tower, the passport merely needed to escape from the plane's cabin, avoid being destroyed or even singed by the instantaneous jet-fuel fire, and then escape from the building so that it could fall to the ground! Equally absurd is the claim that the passport of Ziad Jarrah, the alleged pilot of Flight 93, was found at this plane's crash site in Pennsylvania.56 This passport was reportedly found on the ground even though there was virtually nothing at the site to indicate that an airliner had crashed there. The reason for this absence of wreckage, we were told, was that the plane had been headed downward at 580 miles per hour and, when it hit the spongy Pennsylvania soil, buried itself deep in the ground. New York Times journalist Jere Longman, surely repeating what he had been told by authorities, wrote: "The fuselage accordioned on itself more than thirty feet into the porous, backfilled ground. It was as if a marble had been dropped into water."57 So, we are to believe, just before the plane buried itself in the earth, Jarrah's passport escaped from the cockpit and landed on the ground. Did Jarrah, going 580 miles per hour, have the window open?58 Also found on the ground, according to the government's evidence presented to the Moussaoui trial, was a red headband.59 This was considered evidence that al-Qaeda hijackers were on Flight 93 because they were, according to some of the phone calls, wearing red headbands. But besides being absurd for the same reason as was the claim about Jarrah's passport, this claim about the headband was problematic for another reason. Former CIA agent Milt Bearden, who helped train the Mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan, has pointed out that it would have been very unlikely that members of al-Qaeda would have worn such headbands:

[The red headband] is a uniquely Shi'a Muslim adornment. It is something that dates back to the formation of the Shi'a sect. . . . [I]t represents the preparation of he who wears this red headband to sacrifice his life, to murder himself for the cause. Sunnis are by and large most of the people following Osama bin Laden [and they] do not do this.60

We learned shortly after the invasion of Iraq that some people in the US government did not know the difference between Shi'a and Sunni Muslims. Did such people decide that the hijackers would be described as wearing red headbands?

6. Did the Information in Atta's Luggage Prove the Responsibility of al-Qaeda Operatives?

I come now to the evidence that is said to provide the strongest proof that the planes had been hijacked by Mohamed Atta and other members of al-Qaeda. This evidence was reportedly found in two pieces of Atta's luggage that were discovered inside the Boston airport after the attacks. The luggage was there, we were told, because although Atta was already in Boston on September 10, he and another al-Qaeda operative, Abdul al-Omari, rented a blue Nissan and drove up to Portland, Maine, and stayed overnight. They caught a commuter flight back to Boston early the next morning in time to get on American Flight 11, but Atta's luggage did not make it.

This luggage, according to the FBI affidavit signed by James Lechner, contained much incriminating material, including a handheld flight computer, flight simulator manuals, two videotapes about Boeing aircraft, a slide-rule flight calculator, a copy of the Koran, and Atta's last will and testament.61 This material was widely taken as proof that al-Qaeda and hence Osama bin Laden were behind the 9/11 attacks.

When closely examined, however, the Atta-to-Portland story loses all credibility.

One problem is the very idea that Atta would have planned to take all these things in baggage that was to be transferred to Flight 11. What good would a flight computer and other flying aids do inside a suitcase in the plane's luggage compartment? Why would he have planned to take his will on a plane he planned to crash into the World Trade Center?

A second problem involves the question of why Atta's luggage did not get transferred onto Flight 11. According to an Associated Press story that appeared four days after 9/11, Atta's flight "arrived at Logan . . . just in time for him to connect with American Airlines flight 11 to Los Angeles, but too late for his luggage to be loaded."62 The 9/11 Commission had at one time evidently planned to endorse this claim.63 But when The 9/11 Commission Report appeared, it said: "Atta and Omari arrived in Boston at 6:45" and then "checked in and boarded American Airlines Flight 11," which was "scheduled to depart at 7:45."64 By thus admitting that there was almost a full hour for the luggage to be transferred to Flight 11, the Commission was left with no explanation as to why it was not.

Still another problem with the Atta-to-Portland story was the question why he would have taken this trip. If the commuter flight had been late, Atta, being the ringleader of the hijackers as well as the intended pilot for Flight 11, would have had to call off the whole operation, which he had reportedly been planning for two years. The 9/11 Commission, like the FBI before it, admitted that it had no answer to this question.65

The fourth and biggest problem with the story, however, is that it did not appear until September 16, five days after 9/11, following the collapse of an earlier story.

According to news reports immediately after 9/11, the incriminating materials, rather than being found in Atta's luggage inside the airport, were found in a white Mitsubishi, which Atta had left in the Boston airport parking lot. Two hijackers did drive a blue Nissan to Portland and then take the commuter flight back to Boston the next morning, but their names were Adnan and Ameer Bukhari.66 This story fell apart on the afternoon of September 13, when it was discovered that the Bukharis, to whom authorities had reportedly been led by material in the Nissan at the Portland Jetport, had not died on 9/11: Adnan was still alive and Ameer had died the year before.67

The next day, September 14, an Associated Press story said that it was Atta and a companion who had driven the blue Nissan to Portland, stayed overnight, and then taken the commuter flight back to Boston. The incriminating materials, however, were still said to have been found in a car in the Boston airport, which was now said to have been rented by "additional suspects."68 Finally, on September 16, a Washington Post story, besides saying that the Nissan had been taken to Portland by Atta and al-Omari, specified that the incriminating material had been found in Atta's luggage inside the Boston airport.69

Given this history of the Atta-to-Portland story, how can we avoid the conclusion that it was a fabrication?

Still another type of evidence for the claim that al-Qaeda operatives were on the planes consisted of frames from videos, purportedly taken by airport security cameras, said to show hijackers checking into airports. Shortly after the attacks, for example, photos showing Atta and al-Omari at an airport "were flashed round the world."70 However, although it was widely assumed that these photos were from the airport at Boston, they were really from the airport at Portland. No photos showing Atta or any of the other alleged hijackers at Boston's Logan Airport were ever produced. We at best have photographic evidence that Atta and al-Omari were at the Portland airport.

Moreover, in light of the fact that the story of Atta and al-Omari going to Portland was apparently a late invention, we might expect the photographic evidence that they were at the Portland Jetport on the morning of September 11 to be problematic. And indeed it is. It shows Atta and Omari without either jackets or ties on, whereas the Portland ticket agent said that they had been wearing jackets and ties.71 Also, a photo showing Atta and al-Omari passing through the security checkpoint is marked both 05:45 and 05:53.72

Another airport video was distributed on the day in 2004 that The 9/11 Commission Report was published. The Associated Press, using a frame from it as corroboration of the official story, provided this caption:

Hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar . . . passes through the security checkpoint at Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Va., Sept. 11 2001, just hours before American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon in this image from a surveillance video.73

However, as Rowland Morgan and Ian Henshall have pointed out, a normal security video has time and date burned into the integral video image by proprietary equipment according to an authenticated pattern, along with camera identification and the location that the camera covered. The video released in 2004 contained no such data.74

The Associated Press notwithstanding, therefore, this video contains no evidence that it was taken at Dulles on September 11.

Another problem with this so-called Dulles video is that, although one of the men on it was identified by the 9/11 Commission as Hani Hanjour,75 he "does not remotely resemble Hanjour." Whereas Hanjour was thin and had a receding hairline (as shown by a photo taken six days before 9/11), the man in the video had a somewhat muscular build and a full head of hair, with no receding hairline.76

In sum: Video proof that the named hijackers checked into airports on 9/11 is nonexistent. Besides the fact that the videos purportedly showing hijackers for Flights 11 and 77 reek of inauthenticity, there are no videos even purportedly showing the hijackers for the other two flights. If these 19 men had really checked into the Boston and Dulles airports that day, there should be authentic security videos to prove this.

What about the passenger manifests, which list all the passengers on the flights? If the alleged hijackers purchased tickets and boarded the flights, their names would have been on the manifests for these flights. And we were told that they were. According to counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke, the FBI told him at about 10:00 that morning that it recognized the names of some al-Qaeda operatives on passenger manifests it had received from the airlines.77 As to how the FBI itself acquired its list, Robert Bonner, the head of Customs and Border Protection, said to the 9/11 Commission in 2004:

On the morning of 9/11, through an evaluation of data related to the passenger manifest for the four terrorist hijacked aircraft, Customs Office of Intelligence was able to identify the likely terrorist hijackers. Within 45 minutes of the attacks, Customs forwarded the passenger lists with the names of the victims and 19 probable hijackers to the FBI and the intelligence community.78

We were able to pull from the airlines the passenger manifest for each of the four flights. We ran the manifest through [our lookout] system. . . . [B]y 11:00 AM, I'd seen a sheet that essentially identified the 19 probable hijackers. And in fact, they turned out to be, based upon further follow-up in detailed investigation, to be the 19.79

Bonner's statement, however, is doubly problematic. In the first place, the initial FBI list, as reported by CNN on September 13 and 14, contained only 18 names.80 Why would that be if 19 men had already been identified on 9/11?

Second, several of the names on the FBI's first list, having quickly become problematic, were replaced by other names. For example, the previously discussed men named Bukhari, thought to be brothers, were replaced on American 11's list of hijackers by brothers named Waleed and Wail al-Shehri. Two other replacements for this flight were Satam al-Suqami, whose passport was allegedly found at Ground Zero, and Abdul al-Omari, who allegedly went to Portland with Atta the day before 9/11. Also, the initial list for American 77 did not include the name of Hani Hanjour, who would later be called the pilot of this flight. Rather, it contained a name that, after being read aloud by a CNN correspondent, was transcribed "Mosear Caned."81 All in all, the final list of 19 hijackers contained six names that were not on the original list of 18---a fact that contradicts Bonner's claim that by 11:00 AM on 9/11 his agency had identified 19 probable hijackers who, in fact, "turned out to be. . . the 19."

These replacements to the initial list also undermine the claim that Amy Sweeney, by giving the seat numbers of three of the hijackers to Michael Woodward of American Airlines, allowed him to identify Atta and two others. This second claim is impossible because the two others were Abdul al-Omari and Satam al-Suqami,82 and they were replacements for two men on the original list---who, like Adnan Bukhari, turned up alive after 9/11.83 Woodward could not possibly have identified men who were not added to the list until several days later.84

For all these reasons, the claim that the names of the 19 alleged hijackers were on the airlines' passenger manifests must be considered false.

This conclusion is supported by the fact that the passenger manifests that were released to the public included no names of any of the 19 alleged hijackers and, in fact, no Middle Eastern names whatsoever.85 These manifests, therefore, support the suspicion that there were no al-Qaeda hijackers on the planes.

It might appear that this conclusion is contradicted by the fact that passenger manifests with the names of the alleged hijackers have appeared. A photocopy of a portion of an apparent passenger manifest for American Flight 11, with the names of three of the alleged hijackers, was published in a 2005 book by Terry McDermott, Perfect Soldiers: The 9/11 Hijackers.86 McDermott reportedly said that he received these manifests from the FBI.87 But the idea that these were the original manifests is problematic.

For one thing, they were not included in the evidence presented by the FBI to the Moussaoui trial in 2006.88 If even the FBI will not cite them as evidence, why should anyone think they are genuine?

Another problem with these purported manifests, copies of which can be viewed on the Internet,89 is that they show signs of being late creations. One such sign is that Ziad Jarrah's last name is spelled correctly, whereas in the early days after 9/11, the FBI was referring to him as "Jarrahi," as news reports from the time show.90 A second sign is that the manifest for American Flight 77 contains Hani Hanjour's name, even though its absence from the original list of hijackers had led the Washington Post to wonder why Hanjour's "name was not on the American Airlines manifest for the flight."91 A third sign is that the purported manifest for American Flight 11 contains the names of Wail al-Shehri, Waleed al-Shehri, Satam al-Suqami, and Abdul al-Omari, all of whom were added some days after 9/11.

In sum, no credible evidence that al-Qaeda operatives were on the flights is provided by the passenger manifests.

Another type of evidence that the alleged hijackers were really on the planes could have been provided by autopsies. But no such evidence has been forthcoming. In its book defending the official account of 9/11, to be sure, Popular Mechanics claims that, according to a report on the victims of the Pentagon attack by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology: "The five hijackers were positively identified."92 But this claim is false.

According to a summary of this pathology report by Andrew Baker, M.D., the remains of 183 victims were subjected to DNA analysis, which resulted in "178 positive identifications." Although Baker says that "[s]ome remains for each of the terrorists were recovered," this was merely an inference from the fact that there were "five unique postmortem profiles that did not match any antemortem material provided by victims' families."93

A Washington Post story made even clearer the fact that this conclusion---that the unmatched remains were those of "the five hijackers"---was merely an inference. It wrote: "The remains of the five hijackers have been identified through a process of exclusion, as they did not match DNA samples contributed by family members of all 183 victims who died at the site" (emphasis added).94 All the report said, in other words, was that there were five bodies whose DNA did not match that of any of the known Pentagon victims or any of the regular passengers or crew members on Flight 77.

We have no way of knowing where these five bodies came from. For the claim that they came from the attack site at the Pentagon, we have only the word of the FBI and the military, which insisted on taking charge of the bodies of everyone killed at the Pentagon and transporting them to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.95

In any case, the alleged hijackers could have been positively identified only if samples had been obtained from their relatives, and there is no indication that this occurred. Indeed, one can wonder why not. The FBI had lots of information about the men identified as the hijackers. They could easily have located relatives. And these relatives, most of whom reportedly did not believe that their own flesh and blood had been involved in the attacks, would have surely been willing to supply the needed DNA. Indeed, a story about Ziad Jarrah, the alleged pilot of Flight 93, said: "Jarrah's family has indicated they would be willing to provide DNA samples to US researchers, . . . [but] the FBI has shown no interest thus far."96

The lack of positive identification of the alleged hijackers is consistent with the autopsy report, which was released to Dr. Thomas Olmsted, who had made a FOIA request for it. Like the flight manifest for Flight 77, he revealed, this report also contains no Arab names.97

Another problem with the claim that the 19 hijackers were correctly identified on 9/11, or at least a few days later, is that some of the men on the FBI's final list reportedly turned up alive after 9/11. Although Der Spiegel and the BBC claim to have debunked these reports, I will show this is untrue by examining the case of one of the alleged hijackers, Waleed al-Shehri---who, we saw earlier, was a replacement for Adnan Bukhari, who himself had shown up alive after 9/11.

In spite of the fact that al-Shehri was a replacement, the 9/11 Commission revealed no doubts about his presence on Flight 11, speculating that he and his brother Wail---another replacement---stabbed two of the flight attendants.98 But the Commission certainly should have had doubts.

On September 22, 2001, the BBC published an article by David Bamford entitled "Hijack "-Suspect' Alive in Morocco." It showed that the Waleed al-Shehri identified by the FBI as one of the hijackers was still alive. Explaining why the problem could not be dismissed as a case of mistaken identity, Bamford wrote:

His photograph was released by the FBI, and has been shown in newspapers and on television around the world. That same Mr Al-Shehri has turned up in Morocco, proving clearly that he was not a member of the suicide attack. He told Saudi journalists in Casablanca that . . . he has now been interviewed by the American authorities, who apologised for the misunderstanding.99

The following day, September 23, the BBC published another story, "Hijack "-Suspects' Alive and Well." Discussing several alleged hijackers who had shown up alive, it said of al-Shehri in particular: "He acknowledges that he attended flight training school at Daytona Beach. . . . But, he says, he left the United States in September last year, became a pilot with Saudi Arabian airlines and is currently on a further training course in Morocco."100

In 2003, an article in Der Spiegel tried to debunk these two BBC stories, characterizing them as "nonsense about surviving terrorists." It claimed that the reported still-alive hijackers were all cases of mistaken identity, involving men with "coincidentally identical names." This claim by Der Spiegel depended on its assertion that, at the time of the reports, the FBI had released only a list of names: "The FBI did not release photographs until four days after the cited reports, on September 27th."101 But that was not true. Bamford's BBC story of September 22, as we saw, reported that Waleed al-Shehri's photograph had been "released by the FBI" and "shown in newspapers and on television around the world."

In 2006, nevertheless, the BBC used the same claim to withdraw its support for its own stories. Steve Herrmann, the editor of the BBC News website, claimed that confusion had arisen because "these were common Arabic and Islamic names." Accordingly, he said, the BBC had changed its September 23 story in one respect: "Under the FBI picture of Waleed al Shehri we have added the words "-A man called Waleed Al Shehri...' to make it as clear as possible that there was confusion over the identity."102 But Bamford's BBC story of September 22, which Herrmann failed to mention, had made it "as clear as possible" that there could not have been any confusion.

These attempts by Der Spiegel and the BBC, in which they tried to discredit the reports that Waleed al-Shehri was still alive after 9/11, have been refuted by Jay Kolar, who shows that FBI photographs had been published by Saudi newspapers as early as September 19. Kolar thereby undermines the only argument against Bamford's assertion, according to which there could have been no possibility of mistaken identity because al-Shehri had seen his published photograph prior to September 22, when Bamford's story appeared.103

The fact that al-Shehri, along with several other alleged hijackers,104 was alive after 9/11 shows unambiguously that at least some of the men on the FBI's final list were not on the planes. It would appear that the FBI, after replacing some of its first-round candidates because of their continued existence, decided not to replace any more, in spite of their exhibition of the same defect.

At this point, defenders of the official story might argue: The fact that some of the men labeled hijackers were still alive after 9/11 shows only that the FBI list contained some errors; it does not prove that there were no al-Qaeda hijackers on board. And although the previous points do undermine the evidence for such hijackers, absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence.

Evidence of absence, however, is implicit in the prior points in two ways. First, the lack of Arab names on the Pentagon autopsy report and on any of the issued passenger manifests does suggest the absence of al-Qaeda operatives. Second, if al-Qaeda hijackers really were on the flights, why was evidence to prove this fact fabricated?

Beyond those two points, moreover, there is a feature of the reported events that contradicts the claim that hijackers broke into the pilots' cabins. This feature can be introduced by reference to Conan Doyle's short story "Silver Blaze," which is about a famous race horse that had disappeared the night before a big race. Although the local Scotland Yard detective believed that Silver Blaze had been stolen by an intruder, Sherlock Holmes brought up "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." When the inspector pointed out that "[t]he dog did nothing in the night-time," Holmes replied: "That was the curious incident."105 Had there really been an intruder, in other words, the dog would have barked. This has become known as the case of "the dog that didn't bark."

A similar curious incident occurred on each of the four flights. In the event of a hijacking, pilots are trained to enter the standard hijack code (7500) into their transponders to alert controllers on the ground. Using the transponder to send a code is called "squawking." One of the big puzzles about 9/11 was why none of the pilots squawked the hijack code.

CNN provided a good treatment of this issue, saying with regard to the first flight:

Flight 11 was hijacked apparently by knife-wielding men. Airline pilots are trained to handle such situations by keeping calm, complying with requests, and if possible, dialing in an emergency four digit code on a device called a transponder. . . . The action takes seconds, but it appears no such code was entered.106

The crucial issue was indicated by the phrase "if possible": Would it have been possible for the pilots of Flight 11 to have performed this action? A positive answer was suggested by CNN's next statement:

[I]n the cabin, a frantic flight attendant managed to use a phone to call American Airlines Command Center in Dallas. She reported the trouble. And according to "The Christian Science Monitor," a pilot apparently keyed the microphone, transmitting a cockpit conversation.107

If there was time for both of those actions to be taken, there would have been time for one of the pilots to enter the four-digit hijack code.

That would have been all the more true of the pilots on United Flight 93, given the (purported) tapes from this flight. A reporter at the Moussaoui trial, where these tapes had been played, wrote:

In those tapes, the pilots shouted as hijackers broke into the cockpit. "Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!" a pilot screamed in the first tape. In the second tape, 30 seconds later, a pilot shouted: "Mayday! Get out of here! Get out of here!"108

According to these tapes, therefore, the pilots were still alive and coherent 30 seconds after realizing that hijackers were breaking into the cockpit. And yet in all that time, neither of them did the most important thing they had been trained to do---turn the transponder to 7500.

In addition to the four pilots on Flights 11 and 93, furthermore, the four pilots on Flights 175 and 77 failed to do this as well.

In "Silver Blaze," the absence of an intruder was shown by the dog that didn't bark. On 9/11, the absence of hijackers was shown by the pilots who didn't squawk.

For prosecutors to prove that defendants committed a crime, they must show that they had the ability (as well as the motive and opportunity) to do so. But several political and military leaders from other countries have stated that bin Laden and al-Qaeda simply could not have carried out the attacks. General Leonid Ivashov, who in 2001 was the chief of staff for the Russian armed forces, wrote:

Only secret services and their current chiefs---or those retired but still having influence inside the state organizations---have the ability to plan, organize and conduct an operation of such magnitude. . . . . Osama bin Laden and "Al Qaeda" cannot be the organizers nor the performers of the September 11 attacks. They do not have the necessary organization, resources or leaders.

Bin Laden does not have the capabilities for an operation of this magnitude. When I hear Bush talking about al-Qaida as if it was Nazi Germany or the communist party of the Soviet Union, I laugh because I know what is there.

Similar statements have been made by Andreas von Bülow, the former state secretary of West Germany's ministry of defense, by General Mirza Aslam Beg, former chief of staff of Pakistan's army, and even General Musharraf, the president of Pakistan until recently.109

This same point was also made by veteran CIA agent Milt Bearden. Speaking disparagingly of "the myth of Osama bin Laden" on CBS News the day after 9/11, Bearden said: "I was there [in Afghanistan] at the same time bin Laden was there. He was not the great warrior." With regard to the widespread view that bin Laden was behind the attacks, he said: "This was a tremendously sophisticated operation against the United States---more sophisticated than anybody would have ascribed to Osama bin Laden." Pointing out that a group capable of such a sophisticated attack would have had a way to cover their tracks, he added: "This group who was responsible for that, if they didn't have an Osama bin Laden out there, they'd invent one, because he's a terrific diversion."110

The inability of al-Qaeda to have carried out the operation can be illustrated in terms of Hani Hanjour, the al-Qaeda operative said to have flown Flight 77 into the Pentagon.

On September 12, before it was stated that Hanjour had been the pilot of American 77, the final minutes of this plane's trajectory had been described as one requiring great skill. A Washington Post story said:

[J]ust as the plane seemed to be on a suicide mission into the White House, the unidentified pilot executed a pivot so tight that it reminded observers of a fighter jet maneuver. . . . Aviation sources said the plane was flown with extraordinary skill, making it highly likely that a trained pilot was at the helm.111

But Hani Hanjour was not that. Indeed, a CBS story reported, an Arizona flight school said that Hanjour's "flying skills were so bad . . . they didn't think he should keep his pilot's license." The manager stated: "I couldn't believe he had a commercial license of any kind with the skills that he had."112 A New York Times story, entitled "A Trainee Noted for Incompetence," quoted one of his instructors as saying that Hanjour "could not fly at all."113

The 9/11 Commission even admitted that in the summer of 2001, just months before 9/11, a flight instructor in New Jersey, after going up with Hanjour in a small plane, "declined a second request because of what he considered Hanjour's poor piloting skills."114 The Commission failed to address the question of how Hanjour, incapable of flying a single-engine plane, could have flown a giant 757 through the trajectory reportedly taken by Flight 77: descending 8,000 feet in three minutes and then coming in at ground level to strike Wedge 1 of the Pentagon between the first and second floors, without even scraping the lawn.

Several pilots have said this would have been impossible. Russ Wittenberg, who flew large commercial airliners for 35 years after serving as a fighter pilot in Vietnam, says it would have been "totally impossible for an amateur who couldn't even fly a Cessna" to fly that downward spiral and then "crash into the Pentagon's first floor wall without touching the lawn."115 Ralph Omholt, a former 757 pilot, has bluntly said: "The idea that an unskilled pilot could have flown this trajectory is simply too ridiculous to consider."116 Ralph Kolstad, who was a US Navy "top gun" pilot before becoming a commercial airline pilot for 27 years, has said: "I have 6,000 hours of flight time in Boeing 757's and 767's and I could not have flown it the way the flight path was described. . . . Something stinks to high heaven!"117

The authors of the Popular Mechanics book about 9/11 offered to solve this problem. While acknowledging that Hanjour "may not have been highly skilled," they said that he did not need to be, because all he had to do was, using a GPS unit, put his plane on autopilot.118 "He steered the plane manually for only the final eight minutes of the flight," they state triumphantly119---ignoring the fact that it was precisely during those minutes that Hanjour had allegedly performed the impossible.

A further question is: Even if one of the al-Qaeda operatives on that flight could have executed that maneuver, would he have done so? This question arises out of the fact that the plane could easily have crashed into the roof on the side of the Pentagon that housed Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and all the top brass. The difficult maneuver would have been required only by the decision to strike Wedge 1 on the side.

But this was the worst possible place, given the assumed motives of the al-Qaeda operatives: They would have wanted to kill Rumsfeld and the top brass, but Wedge 1 was as far removed from their offices as possible. They would have wanted to cause as much destruction as possible, but Wedge 1---and only it---had been renovated to make it less vulnerable to attack. Al-Qaeda operatives would have wanted to kill as many Pentagon employees as possible, but because the renovation was not quite complete, Wedge 1 was only sparsely occupied. The attack also occurred on the only part of the Pentagon that would have presented physical obstacles to an attacking airplane. All of these facts were public knowledge. So even if an al-Qaeda pilot had been capable of executing the maneuver to strike the ground floor of Wedge 1, he would not have done so.

15. Could al-Qaeda Operatives Have Brought Down the World Trade Center Buildings?

Returning to the issue of competence, another question is whether al-Qaeda operatives could have brought down the Twin Towers and WTC 7?

With regard to the Twin Towers, the official theory is that they were brought down by the impact of the airplanes plus the ensuing fires. But this theory cannot explain why the towers, after exploding outwards at the top, came straight down, because this type of collapse would have required all 287 of each building's steel columns---which ran from the basement to the roof---to have failed simultaneously; it cannot explain why the top parts of the buildings came straight down at virtually free-fall speed, because this required that the lower parts of the building, with all of their steel and concrete, offered no resistance; it cannot explain why sections of steel beams, weighing thousands of tons, were blown out horizontally more than 500 feet; it cannot explain why some of the steel had melted, because this melting required temperatures far hotter than the fires in the buildings could possibly have been; and it cannot explain why many firefighters and WTC employees reported massive explosions in the buildings long after all the jet-fuel had burned up. But all of these phenomena are easily explainable by the hypothesis that the buildings were brought down by explosives in the procedure known as controlled demolition.120

This conclusion now constitutes the consensus of independent physicists, chemists, architects, engineers, and demolition experts who have studied the facts.121 For example, Edward Munyak, a mechanical and fire protection engineer who worked in the US departments of energy and defense, says: "The concentric nearly freefall speed exhibited by each building was identical to most controlled demolitions. . . . Collapse [was] not caused by fire effects."122 Dwain Deets, the former director of the research engineering division at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, mentions the "massive structural members being hurled horizontally" as one of the factors leaving him with "no doubt [that] explosives were involved."123

Given the fact that WTC 7 was not even hit by a plane, its vertical collapse at virtually free-fall speed, which also was preceded by explosions and involved the melting of steel, was still more obviously an example of controlled demolition.124 For example, Jack Keller, emeritus professor of engineering at Utah State University, who has been given special recognition by Scientific American, said: "Obviously it was the result of controlled demolition."125 Likewise, when Danny Jowenko---a controlled demolition expert in the Netherlands who had not known that WTC 7 had collapsed on 9/11---was asked to comment on a video of its collapse, he said: "They simply blew up columns, and the rest caved in afterwards. . . . [I]t's been imploded. . . . A team of experts did this."126

If the Twin Towers and WTC 7 were brought down by explosives, the question becomes: Who would have had the ability to place the explosives? This question involves two parts: First, who could have obtained access to the buildings for all the hours it would have taken to plant the explosives? The answer is: Only someone with connections to people in charge of security for the World Trade Center.

The second part of the question is: Who, if they had such access, would have had the expertise to engineer the controlled demolition of these three buildings? As Jowenko's statement indicated, the kind of controlled demolition to which these buildings were subjected was implosion, which makes the building come straight down. According to ImplosionWorld.com, an implosion is "by far the trickiest type of explosive project, and there are only a handful of blasting companies in the world that possess enough experience . . . to perform these true building implosions."127

Both parts of the question, therefore, rule out al-Qaeda operatives. The destruction of the World Trade Center had to have been an inside job.

Finally, we can also ask whether, even if al-Qaeda operatives had possessed the ability to cause the World Trade Center buildings to implode so as to come straight down, they would have done so? The answer to this question becomes obvious once we reflect upon the purpose of this kind of controlled demolition, which is to avoid damaging near-by buildings. Had the 110-story Twin Towers fallen over sideways, they would have caused massive destruction in lower Manhattan, destroying dozens of other buildings and killing tens of thousands of people. Would al-Qaeda have had the courtesy to make sure that the buildings came straight down?

All the proffered evidence that America was attacked by Muslims on 9/11, when subjected to critical scrutiny, appears to have been fabricated. If that is determined indeed to be the case, the implications would be enormous. Discovering and prosecuting the true perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks would obviously be important. The most immediate consequence, however, should be to reverse those attitudes and policies that have been based on the assumption that America was attacked by Muslims on 9/11.

David Ray Griffin is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy of Religion at Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University. He has published 34 books, including seven about 9/11, most recently The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2008).

Notes Here

3rd District Libertarian candidate Kevin Barrett congratulated Democratic victor Ron Kind and Republican challenger Paul Stark, and announced that he would "take a break from politics to focus on family and spirituality."

"I think Ron Kind is a decent guy who wants to do the right thing," Barrett said. "Like most Americans, he has so far failed to stand up to the criminals behind the 9/11 wars and the trashing of our Constitution. But he did have the courage to show up for a debate in which he knew I was going to rake him over the coals. (Watch it here: http://www.radiodujour.com/people/barrett_kevin/index.shtml) He would have won just as big if he'd ducked that debate. It took guts to show up and take what he knew was coming. I hope he'll show even more guts by considering some of the points I made, and then standing up more for what's right, and less for what's expedient."

Barrett called on Kind to support fellow Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich's call for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for 9/11 and the 9/11 wars. He also urged Kind to support Richard Cook's proposals for currency reform, including phasing out the Federal Reserve and treating currency as a public utility, not the world-conquest weapon of a private monopoly of international bankers.

Barrett also said: "I would like to thank Paul Stark for his lively, provocative campaign. The real reason I ran was to raise important issues and ideas, and Paul Stark also did that by banging the drums for the elimination of the income tax and its replacement by the Fair Tax. I think the Fair Tax proposal deserves a fair hearing, and I congratulate Paul Stark for successfully drawing attention to this important proposal."

Barrett said his campaign had been a success. "Those who followed it from all over the world know that this was one of the most exciting political campaigns ever, with more truth, humor, and creativity than a thousand ordinary campaigns put together. Unfortunately it wasn't a good year for third parties. Given that, I did pretty well. I understand that I got about double the votes of the other major Wisconsin Libertarian congressional candidate, Joe Kexel; seven times the votes of Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr; and about the same as Mike Munger, the biggest non-presidential Libertarian candidate in the country, who ran for Governor of North Carolina. Additionally, I got more total votes than Jeff Zastrow, who ran in my district in 2002 on the coattails of Ed Thompson, the all-time record-breaking Libertarian vote-getter. So it looks like mine was the most successful Libertarian campaign in the country."

He added: "I taught college from 1991 through 2006, and hope to return to my career of teaching and scholarship. Now that my campaign is over, I will be applying for teaching positions in hopes that the neo-McCarthy era will soon end, and academic freedom will return to these shores."

Kevin Barrett Spanks Ron Kind on Banker Bailout, War, ~~Campaign Contributions~~ Bribes

Watch the debate here.

National Poll: 79% Prefer Bailing Out the People Rather than the Bankers

79% of the registered voters in the United States believe it would be a better idea to spend $30 billion dollars to bail out most homeowners who can’t pay their mortgages, rather than to spend $700 billion to bail out bankers, according to a scientific poll released today. The poll was conducted by Voice Broadcasting, Inc. out of Arlington, Texas, and was commissioned by the Kevin Barrett for congress campaign. The poll was conducted on October 14 and 15, 2008.

“It will cost the taxpayers more than 700 billion dollars to bail out the bankers. But for only 30 billion dollars, we could bail out most of the people who can't pay their mortgages. Who would you rather bail out, the bankers or the people?”

“This poll proves that the republicrats are out of touch with the people. It’s time to elect Libertarians, Independents, and Third party candidates to congress.”

Other Key Poll Findings

Complete Poll Results

It will cost the taxpayers more than 700 billion dollars to bail out the bankers. But for only 30 billion dollars, we could bail out most of the people who can't pay their mortgages. Who would you rather bail out, the bankers or the people?

Bail out the people 79% [Barrett’s preference]

Do you support the 9/11 family members' call for a new, independent investigation of 9/11?

Governor Jesse Ventura is a trained military demolitions expert. He and hundreds of engineers, scientists, and architects think the World Trade Center skyscrapers were probably taken down with explosives. Do you agree?

I agree that these were probably controlled demolitions 19% [Barrett’s position]

If the election for president of the United States were held today, and your choices were Libertarian party candidate Bob Barr, Green party candidate Cynthia McKinney, Constitution party candidate Chuck Baldwin, or Independent candidate Ralph Nader, who would you vote for?

Independent candidate Ralph Nader 54%

How many giant skyscrapers fell at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001?

Yes 53% [Barrett’s position]

Should Third party or Independent candidates for president be invited to televised debates?

Does the so-called war on drugs endanger civil liberties or our United States constitution?

Does the so-called war on terror endanger civil liberties or our United States constitution?

1527 S Cooper St.
Arlington, TX 76010
Telephone: 817-462-0717
Mr. Madison’s War Versus Mr. Bush’s War

A comparison of James Madison and his war to George Bush and his war

Here

Richard Hayes Phillips will present findings from his new book “Witness to a Crime: A Citizens’ Audit of an American Election.”

The book comes with a CD containing 1200 photographs of actual forensic evidence: ballots, poll books, voter signature books, and other election records from Ohio.

“Richard Hayes Phillips worked day and night for three years compiling irrefutable evidence of how the Republicans stole the 2004 presidential race in Ohio. This landmark investigation is a testament to what private citizens can accomplish when government officials fail to protect our right to vote and to count those votes as cast. Every American – Republican and Democrat – should read this book, and join the fight for democracy’s most fundamental right.”

Kevin Barrett Unveils Campaign Reform Plan to End Legalized Bribery

For Immediate Release – September 29, 2008 – Kevin Barrett for Congress
www.barrettforcongress.us
Contact: Dr. Kevin Barrett; Libertarian candidate, Third Congressional District, Wisconsin715-333-7319; kbarrett@merr.com
Rolf Lindgren; Barrett Campaign Manager608-279-5889; rolfusaugustusadolphus@yahoo.com

Remember the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law? Well, we haven’t heard much about it lately even though John McCain is running for president. The McCain-Feingold law is not talked about because it doesn’t work.

We propose a new, simple kind of campaign finance reform that will actually work. We propose that giving any publicly elected official more than $200 dollars in one calendar year be re-classified in the criminal codes as a legally presumed bribe. We also propose that the legal fiction of a difference between a public official and a campaign be eliminated. Giving money to a campaign is the same thing as giving money to a person. Giving large amounts of money to an elected official is not a “contribution”; it’s a bribe.

That’s it. Now let’s take a look at some possible objections, implications, and benefits of this reform.

Question: Wouldn’t the Supreme Court declare this reform an infringement of free speech rights?

Answer: No, the Supreme Court has never considered bribery of public officials to be free speech. Legal presumptions are common, especially in the co-called war on drugs, where a certain amount of drugs presumes you’re a drug dealer, rather than just a drug user.

Answer: You can’t bribe someone who doesn’t hold public office. The $200 contribution limit would not apply to those not in office. Non-public office holding challengers get an advantage under this reform to offset advantages of incumbency. Since incumbents are limited to $200 contributions, fewer would be elected, and fewer would accumulate million dollar war-chests.

Question: Would this reform promote the rotation in public office envisioned by our Founding Fathers?

Answer: Yes. This system would encourage a public office holder to leave office if they wanted to try for another office. There would be more open seats and more competitive elections.

Question: Would this reform make elected officials less beholden to special interest money?

Answer: Yes. Once in office, the flow of special interest money would be severely curtailed. Special interests might help someone get elected, but once elected, the special interests would lose control.

Answer: Issue ads are protected free speech. They’re already regulated and not allowed to be coordinated with political campaigns. It’s better for someone to spend money on their political cause with an issue ad, then to bribe public officials with the same money.

Answer: Yes. Since incumbents are limited to $200 contributions, they will be spending less time raising money and more time doing the public’s business. No one can campaign full time and focus on their official duties at the same time. Good examples of that are John McCain and Barack Obama. They should either leave the Senate or pull back on campaigning.

Answer: Yes. The easiest first step would be for 38 state legislatures to pass a constitutional amendment that applied this reform to federal elections. The worst abuses of power seem to be occurring at the federal level. The reform would cause more open seats in the federal congress. State legislators might be more inclined to challenge for federal office, giving them an incentive to pass the amendment.

These simple reforms are constitutional and practical, and combined with clean Internet fundraising, will end legalized bribery of our public officials.

For Immediate Release – September 17, 2008 – Kevin Barrett for Congress

22% of the people living households with two registered voters in Ron Kind’s congressional district (3rd district, Wisconsin) think 9/11 might be an inside job, according to a scientific poll released today. The poll was conducted by Voice Broadcasting, Inc. out of Arlington, Texas, and was commissioned by the Kevin Barrett for Congress campaign.

22% of registered voters in Ron Kind’s district represents about 64,000 voters.

1400 people were polled with a statistical margin of error of about 2%. The sample size is almost three times the size of most standard polls.

“Households with two registered voters represent the heart of the American family. These are usually married couples that own a home and have a landline phone. They tend to be more conservative about controversial issues. The Barrett campaign believes a poll of all registered voters would show numbers even greater than 22%.”

The poll also found that 47% think that the Bush Administration might be telling significant lies about what happened on 9/11, and 24% think the Bush Administration may have known about the 9/11 attacks in advance, and let them happen on purpose.

Dr. Barrett is targeting the 22% who think 9/11 might be an inside job for their votes. In a three-way race for Congress, you can theoretically win with 34% of the vote and are likely to win with 40% of the vote.

“It seems inconceivable that anyone who thinks 9/11 might be an inside job would vote for Ron Kind. He has done nothing to find the truth about 9/11 nor has done anything to stop the war in Iraq.”

Dr. Barrett will also target those voters who think the Bush Administration might be telling significant lies about 9/11.

“25% think Bush may be telling lies about 9/11, but don’t think it’s an inside job. If Barrett can capture one-half of those voters, Kevin Barrett has a chance to win. If he can capture three-fourth, he will win.”

“If you think 9/11 might be an inside job, speak up! You have strength in numbers.”

Please contact the Barrett campaign for additional details on the methodology of the poll.

When I tell people that I'm running for Congress and my motto is "truth in politics, what a concept" they tell me I'm crazy. "Truth in politics," one said, "is an oxymoron, just like 'military intelligence' and 'jumbo shrimp.' You don't win elections by telling the truth. You win by telling people the lies they want to hear."

I beg to disagree. Our nation is drowning in a sewer of lies, and voters in Wisconsin's 3^rd District Libertarian congressional primary just signaled they're about ready to come up for air.

I beat popular long-time Libertarian Ben Olson by telling the voters the cold, hard truth: The war in Iraq is a criminal war of aggression that has wrecked our economy. 9/11 was an inside job. And universal, single-payer health care is the best available solution to our current health-care disaster. Oddly, of those three inconvenient truths, it was single-payer health care that Libertarian voters had the most trouble with.

To understand why, you need to grasp the deep, healthy skepticism of government that is at the core of the Libertarian Party's identity. To a party-line Libertarian like Ben Olson, the notion that top government officials could botch a murderous false-flag operation and get us into a disastrous war is unpleasant but not especially outrageous. Libertarians know that governments have two main occupations: killing people and taking away their freedom. Seen in that light, 9/11 and what followed are pretty much par for the course.

The power of government to murder human beings, and murder freedom, ultimately stems from its power to make war. As Randolph Bourne put it, "war is the health of the state." Unfortunately, the Libertarian aversion to big government often focuses on the relatively benign things governments do, such as maintaining infrastructure and taking care of the less fortunate among us.

While I agree that government spending, and government involvement in people's lives, needs to be kept under control in all areas, I believe that there are certain things that governments sometimes do better than the private sector. Antitrust enforcement, acting as referee in the free market game, maintaining roads and dams and bridges, developing and maintaining energy-saving means of transit, providing a social safety net in tough times, keeping agricultural commodity price swings under control, regulating international trade to benefit American workers, and making sure that all Americans have access to education and basic health care are areas where government can sometimes play a constructive role.

To Libertarians, the fact that single-payer health care systems work better for roughly half the price is an inconvenient truth. But a simple comparison of Americans to citizens of all other advanced industrial nations, who pay on average just over half what we do for health care yet live longer, healthier lives, is proof that Libertarian ideology should be applied very cautiously to the health care sector.

As Don McCanne, MD said of me: "At least one Libertarian who distrusts government has looked at the options and has decided that, if his fellow Americans are going to receive the health care that they need, and the government will have to be involved, then we might as well go ahead and chose the option that is the most efficient and most effective: 'a single payer health care system run by the government.'

Sometimes your true friend--the one who really cares about you--is the one who has the guts to look you in the eye and tell you the truth, however inconvenient it may be.

Kevin Barrett is the peace-and-truth candidate for Congress in Wisconsin's 3^rd District

Thanks to all of you who contributed time, energy, money, and votes to this effort! Now we're heading for the big time...

PS Keep those contributions coming - money gets the message out, and my peace-and-truth message can WIN in a three-way race with the other two guys splitting the pro-war vote.

Kevin Barrett, the apparent winner of the 3rd District Libertarian congressional primary with over 60% of the vote, thanked opponent Ben Olson for what he called "a terrific campaign." "Ben Olson is a wonderful guy, and I'm glad this campaign gave me a chance to get to know him," Barrett said. "Our debate on Captain Soma's riverboat was a memorable experience. I have nothing but good things to say about him. I hope to stay in touch with him, and I will continue to work with him and his supporters in an attempt to rein in this out-of-control government."

Barrett also thanked Governor Jesse Ventura for his last-minute endorsement. "Next time I take on Hannity and O'Reilly, I want Jesse Ventura on my tag-team," Barrett said. "Seriously, Jesse Ventura is the only true statesman I see anywhere on today's political landscape, and I'm honored by his endorsement. I hope he'll run for president and win in 2012."

Barrett cited the popular Libertarian mayor of Tomah, Ed Thompson, a regular guest on Barrett's radio shows. "Ed Thompson said this primary was a referendum on 9/11. I don't know if I'd go that far...but any landslide victory for the 'conspiracy professor' Hannity and O'Reilly and the rest of the controlled media love to beat up on is very good news for the 9/11 truth movement."

Barrett added that he planned to hold incumbent Ron Kind responsible for "consistently voting for a criminal war of aggression that has wrecked our economy," and added that he had just sent the following email to Kind:

Now that I have won the Libertarian primary, I am writing to request that you ask one of your staffers to schedule the debate to which you agreed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_dCg_QYEeA

I hope you will be prepared to truthfully defend your pro-war votes, in light of the recent announcement that thousands of Wisconsin guardsmen will soon be sent to Iraq in the biggest call-up since World War II.

Governor Jesse Ventura Endorses Kevin Barrett for Congress

'At least he's not boring'

By Patrick Marley

Friday, Aug 29 2008, 11:06 AM

Madison -- As part of his unusual campaign for Congress, Libertarian Kevin Barrett is planning to robo-call 30,000 people to talk about how annoying robo-calls are.

While he's at it, he's asking for their vote in the Sept. 9 primary. And he's reminding them he believes the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were orchestrated by the U.S. government.

"I've had it up to here with the boring, cowardly, mealy mouthed, lying scalawags that call themselves politicians," Barrett says in the calls that will go out Tuesday. "If they call me one more time, I'm going...to tell them: 'You dirty, lying, thieving jackals of Washington, D.C., wasted $5 trillion on that idiotic war in Iraq and you destroyed our economy.'"

He asks people to visit FireCongress.org, a site that urges people to vote against incumbents.

Barrett also claims 9/11 was an inside job. Barrett was enmeshed in controversy when he taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for his views on those terrorist attacks.

Barrett slips into a falsetto voice during the recording so he can sound like a second person urging them to vote for Barrett. The call ends with: "At least he's not boring."

In a second round of calls that will go out Sept. 8, the day before the primary, Barrett accuses U.S. Rep. Ron Kind (D-La Crosse) of lying about his views on the war, saying Kind is "100% pro war."

Barrett faces fellow Libertarian Ben Olson III in the primary. The winner will face Kind and Republican Paul Stark, an Eau Claire home builder, in the Nov. 4 general election for the western Wisconsin district.

Wisconsin Public Radio Listeners Support Barrett's "Peace and Truth" Candidacy!

Don't miss my recent Wisconsin Public Radio interview with Joy Cardin. Joy did an extremely fair-minded interview, and every single caller was supportive. She even said she had to turn away calls and emails because they were only calling to say they agree with me! The interview was broadcast statewide on 29 affiliates blanketing the whole state of Wisconsin. Check it out at: http://www.radiodujour.com/people/barrett_kevin/ (You can hear her earlier interview with my Libertarian primary opponent, Ben Olson here.)

Arson in WTC 6

According to the testimony of John Peruggia:  "I saw 6 World Trade Center fully involved with fire."  Peruggia describes a fire after the South Tower, WTC 2, falls at 9:59 a.m., but before the North Tower, WTC 1 falls at 10:28 a.m. The fire in WTC 6 was ostensibly started by flying debris from WTC 2. Based on Peruggia’s timeline, WTC 6 was "fully involved with fire" by the midway point between the Twin Tower collapses. So WTC 6 was "fully involved with fire" by 10:15 AM. [Note to no-plane shills, on page 6, Peruggia describes airplane parts he sees from the first plane crash.]  

Also testifying about fire, smoke, and explosions in WTC 6 is EMP Patricia Ondrovic. She describes fleeing immediately after the collapse of WTC 2 and running into a building on Vesey Street (WTC-6) where "there was smoke, there was debris, there was everything flying around" and where "stuff's blowing up." Suspiciously, her testimony is redacted on pages 9, 12, and 13.  

Despite the censorship of the official oral history, you can get her full story here about the explosions in WTC-6 she witnessed as she was fleeing the destruction of the first collapsing Tower: "I tried to run into the lobby of 6 World Trade, but there were federal police -- maybe 4 to 6 of them -- standing in the open doorways. As I tried to run in, they wouldn't let me, waving me out, telling me 'you can't come in here, keep running.' As I turned to start running west again, I saw a series of flashes around the ceiling of the lobby all going off one-by-one like the X-mass lights that 'chase' in pattern."

WTC 6 was about 400 feet from WTC 2 and mostly screened by WTC 1. It supposedly caught fire from the flying debris. Yet WTC 1, which is only a little over 100 feet away from WTC 2 and not screened, did not catch on fire from flying debris. The only fires in WTC 1 were above the 95^th floor of where the plane hit.

We know the intensity of the flying debris decreases with the inverse cube of the distance, so the blast that hit WTC 1 was 50 times greater than the blast that hit WTC 6, when WTC 2 fell.

This chart shows how little of WTC 6 was exposed to flying debris from WTC 2.  Chart of locations of WTC 1, WTC 2, and WTC 6

Assuming that debris from building collapses cause fires, WTC 1 should have caught on fire, and WTC 6 should not have caught on fire. If WTC 6 did catch on fire, only a small part of it should have been in flames by 10:15.

The eyewitnesses to arson and/or explosives in WTC 6 complement the eyewitnesses of explosives in WTC 7 (Barry Jennings and Michael Hess) and WTC 1 (William Rodriguez and others).

The arson hypothesis for WTC 6 has been tested for accuracy at the JREF "debunker" forums:

The JREFers are the most able and informed "debunkers" (not saying much), yet even the JREF army of debunkers could not muster a single good rebuttal of the arson in WTC 6 hypothesis.

Because WTC 6 was on fire, it provided a smokescreen for other events on 9/11. The smoke from WTC 6 obscured explosions on the lower floors of WTC 1, and obscured the south face of WTC 7.

Anthrax US Attorney Jeff Taylor was sweating on August 6, as he laid out his case against the late Dr. Bruce Ivins at a news conference—and with good reason. Anyone familiar with the case is well aware that Dr. Ivins was railroaded, and that the news conference was a flimsy web of lies.

Ivins had nothing to do with the 2001 anthrax attacks. The attacks were almost certainly carried out by the only group that had the means to produce the highly weaponized anthrax in the letters: the CIA, its contractor Battelle Memorial Institute of West Jefferson, Ohio., and the Army at Dugway in Utah.

(The author is a senior military affairs journalist, and former White House Policy Analyst and Special Assistant to the President in the first Reagan Administration. She is the author of the 9/11 expose “The Pentagon Attack Papers” http://physics911.net/pdf/honegger.pdf and October Surprise (Tudor, 1989), the first book to reveal the true origins of the Iran side of the Iran/Contra scandal.)

With the Government’s claim that Bruce Ivins, a bio-warfare scientist at the Army’s Ft. Detrick bio-laboratory, is behind the anthrax attacks, the Bush Administration has now officially acknowledged the attacks were not perpetrated by ‘Al Qaeda’ – or by Iraq — but were their own false flag inside job.

We already know from the evidence compiled by the 9/11 Truth movement that the 9/11 attacks were also a false flag inside job, and the FBI itself has said ‘Al Qaeda’ didn’t do it: Both Director Mueller and the FBI's top investigative spokesman have stated publicly for the record that “There is no hard evidence” linking bin Laden – and thus Al Qaeda – to 9/11, and bin Laden has never been wanted for 9/11 on the FBI’s ‘Most Wanted Terrorists’ page. http://www.twf.org/News/Y2006/0608-BinLaden.html

As both the anthrax attacks and 9/11 were inside jobs – now admitted by the Bush Administration for the anthrax — any evidence directly linking the acknowledged-inside-job anthrax attacks to 9/11 would be an effective official admission that Sept. 11 itself was also an inside job. And if there is evidence linking the anthrax to 9/11, we can infer that the Government/military individuals who planned and perpetrated the anthrax attacks also planned and perpetrated 9/11.

The hand-written date on the letters mailed with the anthrax is Sept. 11, 2001. Though the official story that the ‘first’ anthrax attack — on Florida photo journalist Bob Stevens, from which he died — wasn’t mailed until at least a week after 9/11 (though the FBI claims that letter has never been found) and therefore that the anthrax is not directly linked to 9/11, it’s clear from the date on the letters that whoever wrote and mailed them and added the super-weaponized US military anthrax wants you to believe there was a direct connection.

So is there any evidence that there actually is a direct connection between anthrax and 9/11 itself? Yes, there is:

The day before 9/11, Sept. 10, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld announced that Project Jefferson, a secret and illegal U.S. Gov’t offensive bio-weaponization program begun in 1999, had achieved ‘success’ in creating hyper-weapon-grade anthrax. In early Sept. 2001, a classified dispersal test of the anthrax had been run in the Nevada desert.

Mayor Giuliani's New York City Office of Emergency Management (OEM) had a pre-planned bio-chem-terrorism emergency response exercise called TRIPOD II scheduled, he testified to the 9/11 Commission, to begin the day after 9/11. But the special personnel, including from FEMA and the National Guard, who were to take part in the exercise were already in NYC on Sept. 10^th— the day before 9/11 — and OEM personnel had been cleared out of their offices on the 23^rd floor of WTC 7 on Sept. 11 and moved to the command and communications center for the bio-chem-terrorism exercise on a New York pier, and so were out of the bldg. that was brought down by controlled demolition on 9/11 using preplaced charges later that day. An Army base just across the water from NYC, New Jersey’s Ft. Monmouth, also, held a ‘II’ exercise on the morning of 9/11 called TIMELY ALERT II (like Giuliani’s TRIPOD II). http://www.amc.army.mil/amc/pa/oct01.html

Jerome “Jerry” Hauer – a bio-warfare expert and one of the signers of the pre-9/11 PNAC Manifesto calling for a "new Pearl Harbor” (such as 9/11) who had been director of Giuliani’s Office of Emergency Management conveniently moved to the pier on 9/11 just before its offices were destroyed by pre-placed demolition charges — had been a central player in creating the bio/chem attack scenario for TRIPOD II; became a National Security adviser to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) beginning on Sept. 10, the very day TRIPOD II personnel began amassing in New York City, from which new NIH post he managed the government’s ‘response’ to the imminent anthrax attacks and the initial cover up of the true anthrax killers; zealously pushed the ‘bin Laden did it and planes brought down the towers’ official story on CBS News on 9/11 in the immediate aftermath of the attacks before anyone could have possibly determined the actual cause of the collapses,taking pains to state that explosives were not involved, when they were; and according to reports personally advised White House officials and staff to take anti-anthrax Cipro on 9/11. http://www.judicialwatch.org/1967.shtml

Did Hauer recommend that the White House be put on an anti-anthrax antibiotics on 9/11 because he had reason to believe 9/11 would also involve an anthrax attack and/or because he had advance knowledge that there would be an actual anthrax attack – against Bob Stevens in Florida – just one week later?

It was Hauer, also an expert in the response to building collapses (New York Times, July 27, 1999) http://truthmovecom.blogspot.com/2008/07/jerome-hauer-911-suspect-awaiting.html, who insisted, despite the 1993 terrorist attack on WTC1, that Giuliani still locate his Office of Emergency Management, from which a response to another terrorist attack would have to be orchestrated, in WTC7 — which collapsed on 9/11 from pre-placed controlled demolition charges — next door. The OEM opened on the 23^rd floor of WTC7 in June 1999, where Hauer, its director, had his office. Hauer was also managing director of Kroll Associates before and on 9/11, the company that provided ‘security’ for the World Trade Center, including all three buildings brought down by controlled demolition that morning, and thus had complete access to pre-place the explosive charges he adamantly insisted on national TV on 9/11 were not involved.

Is it possible that the 9/11-period TRIPOD II bio/chem-terrorism-attackexercise scenario involved anthrax? Yes, it is:

On Sept. 11, Janette MacKinlay lived in a fourth floor apartment overlooking what was soon to become the ‘pit’ of the WTC. Her neighbor and close friend Bruno told her that he was pulled into a bank lobby off the street next to the WTC towers by an FBI agent on the morning of Sept. 11 to protect them from the dust cloud from the collapsing tower, and was told by the agent that “We were told this was going to happen and that it would involve anthrax.” Another FBI agent told a woman about to enter the NBC Bldg. that she should leave because “there are explosives in the bldg as well as in the WTC.” The FBI clearly was pre-alerted because their offices were in WTC 7, which was pre-wired for a controlled demolition take down that day. MacKinlay had the presence of mind to collect the dust from the cloud that poured into her 4th floor apartment, and it is this dust that physicist Steven Jones has analyzed and in which he found military-grade thermate as well as other high explosives, proving the presence of controlled demolition charges throughout the towers to which ‘Al Qaeda’ could not have had access to place. Though no anthrax has been reported in the dust – though it may not yet have been tested for – if TRIPOD II were at least in part on an anthrax attack scenario, it wouldn’t have used actual anthrax, but an anthrax simulant – an anthrax-like powder that would disperse through the air in a similar way to the real thing. Experts should be consulted for the chemical composition of anthrax simulants and the dust from the WTC collapses tested for these simulants.

In the minds of the script writers for the TRIPOD II emergency response exercise of Sept. 2001, an attack on the World Trade Center was already associated with bio/chem terrorism. According to respected New York Times science writer William Broad, the plan for the 1993 attack on WTC1, for which alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheihk Mohammed’s nephew Ramzi Yousef is in prison for life, involved a plot to push cyanide out into New York City. This is reported in Germs, Broad’s book co-authored with Judith Miller. Though the latter’s credibility has been seriously compromised, Broad remains a respected journalist.

There are additional reasons to believe the TRIPOD II bio/chem-terrorism exercise was at least in part on an anthrax attack scenario, using an anthrax simulant, and that the letters that ended up being mailed slightly later with real anthrax may have been written for that exercise.

According to mainstream press reports on Ivins’ alleged involvement in the anthrax attacks, the anthrax in the mailed letters — but not the ‘first’ anthrax allegedly mailed to Florida photo journalist Bob Stevens — was traced back to a flask in his laboratory. In fact, the FBI claims that no letter was found in connection with the anthrax found on Stevens’ computer, though a ‘missing’ letter is assumed.

The Stevens Florida anthrax is therefore critical, both to proving that Ivins, if he was involved at all, did not act alone, as the Florida anthrax doesn’t trace back to his lab, and because it’s the 'first' known anthrax and therefore the closest in time to 9/11 and so most likely to be directly linked to 9/11.

Contrary to the FBI's claims, anthrax was found throughout the American Media building in Florida — I have interviewed America Media workers whose desks were nearest Stevens'; the bldg. was therefore condemned, and the FBI — who, remember, “were told 9/11 was coming and that it would involve anthrax”— told the publisher that they, not the taxpayers, would have to clean it up, at a huge expense. According to the New York Times, this same American Media building – the first anthrax attack crime scene with its evidence still in place – was then bought at an anthrax sale price by former NYC Mayor Giuliani, overseer of the reported Sept. 12 (really Sept. 11?) TRIPOD bio/chem-terrorism (anthrax?) exercise, who had just formed a partnership with a decontamination expert qualified to decontaminate the building. Giuliani, who oversaw the TRIPOD II bio-chem terrorism exercise of Sept. 10-12 thus oversaw the destruction of evidence at ‘the’ crime scene of the 9/11 attacks, the WTC, ordering the steel that containedtraces of controlled demolition explosives to be removed, and the destruction of evidence at ‘the’ anthrax attack crime scene, America Media, Inc. in Florida.

The FBI had already joined the conspiracy to obstruct its own investigation by ‘agreeing to the request’ of Iowa State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine in Ames, Iowa, to destroy their ‘library’ of over 100 vials of Ames strain anthrax dating back to 1928 necessary for a definitive scientific match against the anthrax in the mailed letters, which evidence was destroyed on Oct. 12, 2001, one week after Bob Stevens died of the strain in Florida. http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/Bioter/theamesstrain.html

There have also been reports that, prior to 9/11, official story ‘lead hijacker’ Mohammed Atta was treated in Florida for what could have been anthrax; that Atta had an apartment in Boca Raton, Florida, where Amerian Media was located; and even that there was a landlord-tenant relationship between Atta and an employee of American Media.

A reasonable case can therefore be made that there is a direct link between Sept. 11 and at least the ‘first’ anthrax attack in Florida; that Giuliani is complicit in both, which is why he bought and therefore controlled the FBI-sealed Florida anthrax attack crime scene and ordered the destruction of evidence at the NYC 9/11 crime scene as well; that Giuliani’s close friend and colleague Jerome Hauer — former head of Giuliani's OEM who became a National Security adviser to the NIH the day before 9/11 just as TRIPOD II personnel were arriving in NYC for a probable anthrax-scenario exercise — advised, or even personally took, anti-anthrax Cipro to Cheney and his White House staff on 9/11 because they were afraid the anthrax attack exercise scenario might ‘go live’, just as both the NORAD hijacked-plane ‘exercise’ and the NRO plane-crashing-into-tower ‘exercise’ had already just ‘gone live’ earlier the morning of Sept. 11 as their 'game' scenarios suddenly turned horribly real.

If the Florida anthrax doesn’t link back to Ivins’ Ft. Detrick flask and Ivins, who worked on anthrax vaccines — bio-defense – and not its weaponization — bio-offense – wasn’t behind the attacks, and neither was Hatfill, whom the FBI just paid $5 million to settle his case for publicly naming him a ‘person of interest,’ then who was?

Battelle Memorial Institute, a bio-defense contractor located in West Jefferson, Ohio, has exclusive control of the Ames strain contained in the mailed anthrax letters http://alexconstantine.blogspot.com/2008/08/project-anthrax-cover-up-part-five.html and, in partnership with the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency, ran Project (Operation) Jefferson, the government’s covert and illegal offensive bio-weapons program whose goal was to develop a hyper-weaponized form of the anthrax Ames strain found in the letters.

William Patrick, a former top scientist at Ft. Detrick, a close colleague of former Giuliani OEM Director Jerry Hauer and mentor of initial FBI ‘person of interest’ in the anthrax attacks Steven Hatfill, personally holds five classified patents on weaponizing anthrax, including one that produces the 1 trillion spores per gramcontained in the anthrax letters mailed to Democratic Congressional leaders Daschle and Leahy. After leaving Ft. Detrick, Patrick was contracted by Battelle to research and write a special report on how the mails could be used as the ‘vector’ for targeting the hyper-weaponized milled spores of the anthrax Ames strain produced by Project Jefferson. In early Sept. 2001 the super-weaponized Ames strain was tested in the Nevada desert, and on Sept. 10, the day before 9/11, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld announced the ‘success’ of Battelle’s anthrax weaponization Jefferson Project. Patrick worked with his close friend and colleague, former Soviet bio-weapons expert Ken Alibek, at Battelle, which also ran Project Clear Vision, a secret program to reverse engineer dry powder anthrax bombs produced by the former Soviet Union. Patrick and Alibek were the FBI’s first suspects in the anthrax attacks, and rightly so. But the initial FBI investigative team was taken off the case and replaced by a new team headed by Richard Lambert that refocused attention on intentional diversions Hatfill and Ivins. Director Mueller himself assured a Senator that the FBI “was not investigating, nor intending to investigate, anyone with, or formerly with, BMI (Battelle).” http://www.worldnewsstand.net/news/anthrax.htm Battelle, a contractual partner with BioPort and Scientific Applications International Corporation (SAIC), also directs the anthrax experimentation at the U.S. military’s Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, the second ‘home’ in addition to Ft. Detrick of the Ames strain contained in the anthrax letters. Hauer and Hatfill had worked together at SAIC. www.tetrahedron.org/articles/anthrax/open_letter_mueller.html www.tetrahedron.org/articles/anthrax/anthrax_espionage.html

Another top candidate is Thomas Monath, former head of Ft. Detrick’s Virology Division and the chief scientist and vice president of BioVax, since renamed Acimbis. A friend of Hatfill’s, he was introduced to Giuliani by Hauer to Giuliani. Project Jefferson, in fact, began at a 1998 meeting attended by William Patrick, Hauer, Monath and then Secretary of Defense William Cohen.

Yet another top candidate for the team behind the anthrax latter attacks is Battelle’s former Chief Scientist for Special Programs, Dr. Barry Erlick, who also served as Chief Scientist for Biological and Chemical Warfare at the Defense Intelligence Agency, a Battelle partner in Project Jefferson, until June 2001 — shortly before 9/11. In the summer of 2001 leading up to 9/11 and on Sept. 10, the day before 9/11, top U.S. military and military contractor bio-defense experts held a series of terror response planning meetings and exercises in connection with the U.S. Marine Corps Systems Command’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) Consequence Management Interoperability System (CMIS) — renamed the Disaster Management Interoperability Services (DMIS) after 9/11 — in which Erlick and Battelle’s then Director of Department of Defense Operations Richard D. Munnikhuysen played key roles. Many of the summer 2001 ‘terror planning meetings’ were held in Johnstown, Penn., near Shanksville, site of the ‘crash’ of one of the four 9/11 planes. A terror workshop involving Erlick and the head of CMIS, Dr. Scott Eyestone, was held in Johnstown on July 9, 2001, and another was held there on Sept. 10, the day TRIPOD II bio/chem-terror attack exercise personnel arrived in another 9/11 attack target, New York City.Between 1978 and 1982, Erlick was a Principal Research Investigator and Deputy Chief of Viral Biology at Ft. Detrick. In 1982 he joined the U.S. Army Medical Information and Intelligence Agency, renamed the Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center (AFMIC) in 1986. After 1982, Erlick served in numerous senior level positions for AFMIC and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), including Chief of the Scientific and Technical Division and Chief Scientist, AFMIC; Chief of the Department of Defense Biological Threat Analysis Center; Chairman of the Chemical and Biological Warfare Subcommittee of the Weapons and Space Systems Intelligence Committee of the Director of Central Intelligence; and Senior Scientist and Deputy Chief of the Chemical and Biological Warfare Analysis Division of the Defense Intelligence Agency, as well as Battelle’s Chief Scientist for Special Programs.

Given the timing, is almost certain that the false flag anthrax attacks were the engineered pretext for the still secret warrantless domestic wiretap program that Bush signed the first ‘authorization’ for on Oct. 23, 2001 – right in the middle of the anthrax scare. Senator McCain had just gone on ABC on Oct. 18, 2001, to push the intentional disinformation that a nonexistent additive bentonite, purportedly marking the anthrax as having come from Saddam Hussen, meant that Iraq was behind the attacks. The White House still refuses to provide this alleged 'first' presidential authorization for the warrantless inside-the-U.S. taps program to Congress, and for obvious reason. This is the alleged authorization that we now know claims that 4th Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures do not apply to U.S. military operations inside the U.S. The fact that the Bush Administration continuedthis secret domestic spying program long after its was publicly known that the anthrax attacks were an inside job is strong evidence the attacks were perpetrated by the same individualswho then used them to justify the illegal taps program – the White House. Exposing the links between the inside job anthrax attacks and the false pretext for the domestic warrantless wiretap program is thus critical to bringing the Administration to full accountability for its attacks against thousands of innocent American civilians as well as its ‘Reichtag (Parliament) Fire’attack on Congress via the anthrax letters to Senators Daschle and Leahy, then resisting the Administration’s railroading of the Patriot Act – the analog to Hitler’s Enabling Act passed in the wake of the Reichtag Fire – through Congress.

The anthrax attacks and Sept. 11 were both inside jobs. ‘Al Qaeda’ didn’t do either.Anthrax was part of a bio-terrorism attack ‘exercise’ scenario planned for 9/11 itself or at the very latest the next day. We have seen the terrorists, and they are U.S. It’s time for ‘pre-impeachment’ hearings to interrogate these suspects, and others who worked with them, under oath to expose who among them wears The Scarlet A.

So is there any evidence that there actually is a direct connection between anthrax and 9/11 itself? Yes, there is:

Is it possible that the 9/11-period TRIPOD II bio/chem-terrorism-attackexercise scenario involved anthrax? Yes, it is:

Just what the bleep did the Bush Leaguers think they were doing when they ordered their pathetic puppet Saakashvili to attack Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia?

That the Bush Administration approved Saakashvili's attack cannot be doubted. Stratfor.com reports: "The United States is Georgia’s closest ally. It maintained about 130 military advisers in Georgia, along with civilian advisers, contractors involved in all aspects of the Georgian government and people doing business in Georgia. It is inconceivable that the Americans were unaware of Georgia’s mobilization and intentions."

If elected, I will call for an immediate all-out congressional investigation of the anthrax attacks as well as the 9/11 attack they were so obviously linked to. In fact, I hope that by the time I reach Congress, a no-holds-barred investigation of FBI misconduct in the anthrax affair will have already brought down this lying, murdering administration.

A growing legion of skeptics, including more and more mainstream journalists, say the government's case against suicided anthrax fall-guy Dr. Bruce Ivins has more holes than a Dunkin' Donuts factory. World Net Daily reports that Ivins passed two lie detector tests, and that a comparison of his handwriting with the handwriting on the anthrax letters shows that he wasn't the one who scrawled "Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah is great" on the toxic missives.

By blaming Ivins, who was not Muslim, the government is admitting that the anthrax scare was a false-flag terror attack, presumably one designed to demonize Muslims and grease the skids for war and fascism. The anthrax attacks targeted Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, the two biggest obstacles in the path of the Patriot Act, and helped convince ordinary Americans who have mailboxes, but who don't work in skyscrapers, that their lives were endangered by murderous Muslim madmen.

But was Ivins the real false-flag terrorist? RawStory reports that Ivins' erratic behavior appears to have been the result of FBI stalking and persecution. As a Democrat, why would Ivins target Democratic leaders? And why would he want to make people afraid of Muslims? In short, where's the motive? The government's claim that only Ivins had access to the anthrax used in the attack is falling apart, following reports that 16 labs had the strain of anthrax used in the attacks, which did not even originate at Fort Detrick. Though the FBI has threatened all currently employed Fort Detrick scientists, saying they will be fired if they speak to the media, one brave whistleblower isn't afraid to tell the truth.

Today (August 9), I spoke with a PhD scientist who works at Fort Detrick. The scientist knows Dr. Bruce Ivins very well and has worked with him for many years.

The scientist is a specialist in infectious diseases, including airborne diseases.

The scientist does not want their name given out. The FBI has told all the scientists at Fort Detrick they cannot speak with the media or they will be fired.

[Its interesting to note that scientists at Fort Detrick can't exercise their first amendment rights, but the FBI can illegally leak confidential investigative information to the media. Its also interesting that some of the info leaked to the media by FBI informants is not legitimate investigative material, but instead, material meant to character-assassinate Dr. Ivins. It's also interesting that the FBI leakers can avoid detection, given the Patriot Act.]

The scientist's eyewitness statements and expert opinions are based on personal knowledge, not media reports, and the scientist has hardly read any news articles about Dr. Ivins. The scientist has heard media reports that have character-assassinated the good name of Dr. Ivins. I will be sending some important news articles regarding the anthrax case to the scientist today.

The scientist's political views tend to lean to the right side, while the views of Dr. Ivins tend to lean toward the left side. This is based on the fact that the scientist tends to vote Republican or conservative Libertarian, while Dr. Ivins was a regular voter in Democratic primaries. Therefore, the statements of the scientist have nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with the facts.

The scientist says that "Dr. Bruce Ivins is innocent and all the scientists who worked with him know he is innocent."

The scientist says that "Dr. Ivins didn't have a motive to kill anyone", and was instead, "dedicated to saving lives by making anthrax vaccines." "Dr. Ivins has 30 years of service in protecting human life."

The scientist says that "Dr. Ivins did not make weaponized anthrax, did not know how to make weaponized anthrax, and did not have the equipment to make weaponized anthrax."

The scientist says that this holds true for every scientist at Fort Detrick, "none made weaponized anthrax, none know how to make it, nor do any have the equipment to make it."

The scientist says all the scientists at Fort Detrick have been harassed by the FBI. The scientist says that the "FBI harassment has been totally awful and it's disgusting the way the scientists were treated."

The scientist says that "two doctors who came over from the Soviet Union and work at the facility think the FBI's behavior is worse than the KGB."

The scientist says that "Dr. Ivins was driven crazy and racked with fear from the FBI harassment which amounted to psychological torture."

The scientist says the "FBI essentially murdered Dr. Ivins by driving him crazy."

The scientist says that "Dr. Ivins innocent and doesn't know who sent the anthrax."

To hear authors Kevin Barrett and Rolf Lindgren discussing this article on Barrett's radio show, go to http://mp3.wtprn.com/Barrett08.html and click on Sat., August 9 2008, hr. 2.

By Rolf Lindgren and Dr. Kevin Barrett

To many, a large conspiracy involving unthinkable actions cannot happen. And if it could, the people involved would never get away with it, especially if they seem too incompetent to pull it off. But the 1919 Chicago Black Sox scandal is proof that this is not true. (Click here for full article)

Will Bush Play "Get-Out-of-Jail-Free" Card?

I just listened to Vincent Bugliosi talking to Bobby Kennedy about his plan to prosecute Bush for murder. (Listen here.)

It sounds like Bugliosi has an airtight case. If Bush leaves 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue next January, there should be a squad car waiting to pick him up.

Even if he somehow dodges the murder rap, sooner or later Bush will face dozens of charges of war crimes, kidnapping, torture, electoral fraud, maybe even high treason against the Constitution of the United States of America. Bush is a good bet to be our first ex-president to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

I say IF Bush leaves office next January because...well, he'd have to be crazy to step down.

Set off a nuclear or biological weapon on American soil. Blame the usual suspects, "Muslim terrorists," and link them to Pakistan or Iran. Attack Pakistan or Iran, invoke Presidential Directive 51, suspend the Constitution, declare martial law, intern dissidents and Muslims in FEMA camps, seize control of the other branches of government, and suspend the elections "until order has been restored."

There are several reasons why Bush and his consigliere/puppetmaster Cheney might think they could get away with it. First, the economy is tanking, raising the specter of civil disorder. Elites, threatened by the prospect of disorder, reflexively search for an authoritarian, iron-fisted strong-man. And guess what? Obama ain't it. Bush could count on the support of much of America's corporate and military elite if he declared himself dictator during a national emergency.

Even a self-inflicted national emergency? Well, who's going to know the difference? 9/11 had all the telltale signs of being a false-flag inside job, which serious students of the issue now know it was -- yet America's military, corporate and media institutions continue to pretend to believe in the official story.

An untraceable nuclear or biological attack would make evidence-based debate even more superfluous than it already is. Since there would be no evidence to debate, people would have to go with their gut feeling: Was this done by an outside enemy, or by our own leaders? If enough people accepted the "outside enemy" scenario -- which is natural primate behavior when threatened -- we could witness a resumption of the orgy of flag-sucking that followed 9/11, and Our Fearless Leader would once again be the man of the hour. Since the corporate media would be tirelessly parroting the official story, it stands to reason that the roughly two-thirds of Americans who don't seriously dispute the official 9/11 legend would go along with Bush's next mythical enemy attack.

Could this happen despite Bush's abysmal popularity ratings? Yes, because, as Naomi Klein points out in The Shock Doctrine, a massive shock can wipe the slate clean. The shock of a nuclear or biological attack on an American city would make Americans forget how much they hated Bush the day before. They would feel themselves in a whole new world, and everything they valued yesterday -- Constitutional government, peace, Obama, what-have-you -- would instantly seem like shards of an ancient, long-vanished past viewed dimly through the mist. As 9/11 cover-up commissar Philip Zelikow wrote in a 1998 Foreign Affairs article: "Like Pearl Harbor, such an event would divide our past and future into a 'before' and 'after.'"

We are already living in Zelikow's "after" with respect to the 9/11 false-flag attack. The "after" of another, larger, untraceable attack would be even less pleasant.

That is why we need to make every American understand that Bush is likely to play his get-out-of-jail-free card sometime during the next four months. If enough people expect it, and are ready to blame Bush for it, he may decide that exile in Paraguay is a safer bet.

The League of Women Voters just sent me their Fall 2008 Voter Guide Questionnaire. They may have gotten more than they bargained for. Below are their questions and my answers. For more about my positions on the issues, see http://www.barrettforcongress.us/issues.htm Constructive feedback appreciated: kbarrett @ merr.com

I am a Ph.D. Arabist-Islamologist and have taught American Civilization, American and English Literature, Religious Studies, Humanities, and many other topics at colleges and universities in Wisconsin, France, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Since 2006, I have been blacklisted and forced out of academia by a McCarthy-style witch-hunt, purely on account of political views I expressed on a radio program. Since the politicians have made it impossible for me to practice my chosen profession, I have decided to run for office on a "fire all incumbents" platform.

2. As a member of the the US House of Representatives from Wisconsin, what priorities will you have in the next two/six years, and how will you address them?

I am running as a peace candidate. I want to end the war NOW, bring ALL our troops home, and close all 700 US military bases in all 130 foreign countries. We can afford to defend our borders, but we can't afford the neocon plan to conquer the world. Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz predicts that the Iraq war will cost us a total of five trillion dollars. The Fed is printing tons of money to pay for the war, which is destroying the value of the dollar and pushing gas prices to all-time highs. If we do not quickly cut back on out-of-control military spending, our economy will collapse completely. My top priority will be to save this country by returning to fiscal sanity. End the empire, restore the Republic!

While our national economy is being destroyed by military spending, Wisconsin's state economy is getting hit extra-hard. Here in Wisconsin we have almost no military industry. That giant sucking sound you hear is your military tax money being siphoned out of Wisconsin toward high military-spending states, and from there into the black hole in Iraq. Send me to Congress and I will campaign tirelessly for ending the military-industrial complex's pillaging of the Wisconsin taxpayer.

I also strongly support a new investigation of the crimes of September 11th, 2001. We owe it to the victims' family members, who are clamoring for a real investigation, as well as to the thousands of Americans and the more than one million Iraqis and Afghanis who have died in the 9/11 wars.

3. What should be done, if anything, at the federal level to reduce our use of and dependence on fossil fuels?

While current high gas prices are almost entirely the result of the war in Iraq, and the threatened war on Iran, the near future is likely to bring ever-higher fossil fuel prices as global demand eclipses supply. We need to retool our military-industrial complex into an infrastructure-industrial complex, and put all that brain power and labor power to work developing alternative energy sources, rebuilding our railroads, fixing our decrepit dams and bridges and highways, developing sustainable agriculture, building super-efficient cars and buildings, and otherwise preparing for the post-fossil-fuel world. I will introduce legislation to shut down all but the genuinely defensive parts of our military, and put the trillions of dollars we're spending on empire into retraining soldiers and scientists to prepare us for a sustainable future.

4. What should the federal government do, if anything, to ensure that every American has health coverage?

I favor single-payer health care, following the Canadian model, because it costs half as much and yields better results. The reason we are spending twice as much per capita on health care as every other developed nation, and getting a far worse product, is that the multi-billion dollar insurance companies are bribing Congress to keep the current system, which is lining their pockets and emptying ours.

5. Please explain why you do or do not support setting spending limits for political campaigns and providing a set amount of public funding for all candidates who agree to take no private contributions.

My plan for campaign finance reform is simple: Just as possession of more than a given amount of drugs is considered evidence of drug dealing, any office holder who accepts more than $200 from anyone should be automatically prosecuted for taking a bribe. This would not apply to non-incumbents who are not office holders. The result would be to free our system from the grip of incumbents, and from the system of legalized bribery that keeps them in Washington forever. I support the Kick Them All Out Project (firecongress.org) and urge voters to fire every single incumbent in the 2008 election. I also support strict term limits -- one term for Senators, two terms for Representatives. If elected, I promise to serve no more than two terms.

I support legislation strictly penalizing employers who knowingly or negligently employ illegal aliens. Such legislation would end the illegal immigration problem overnight. The reason Congress has not yet passed such legislation is that virtually all of our Senators and Representatives are taking huge bribes from the employers of illegal aliens. I repeat: We need to fire Congress and end the system of legalized bribery that keeps them permanently in Washington. As long as we have a government of bribe-takers, we will not be able to solve any of our pressing problems.

Today, while campaigning in Lone Rock, Wisconsin, 3rd District Congressional Candidate Dr. Kevin Barrett predicted that quarterback Brett Favre would return to the NFL, throw at least 20 touchdown passes, and lead the Green Bay Packers back to the Super Bowl.

Barrett believes that the marketing opportunities Favre brings to the table will be too much to resist for both Favre and Packers management. Since the Packers had the youngest team in the NFL last season, with Favre, they could be favored to win the Superbowl.

Barrett also believes that time has healed the wound felt by Favre, who was angry that greedy Packers management refused to sign wide receiver Randy Moss last season. The Packers could have gotten Moss for a 4th round draft pick, but instead, tried to hold out for a 5th round pick. Moss caught an NFL record 23 touchdown passes last season for the New England Patriots.

Kevin Barrett says; "A Brett Favre comeback will be good for the war-ravaged Wisconsin economy."

1) The Milwaukee Brewers will make it to the World Series and possibly win it, further boosting Wisconsin's economy.

2) Barrett refuses to predict a championship for the Milwaukee Bucks next season, noting that the NBA East has several stronger teams and that the San Antonio Spurs always win the title in odd-numbered years.

3) Barack Obama's flip-flop on the FISA bill and telecom immunity will be proven to be just the tip of the iceberg, for those who think Obama may be an anti-Empire candidate.

4) Despite the flip-flop, Obama will win the presidential election by more than 10%. Hence, since John McCain won't win, Barrett urges you to invest your vote with either Libertarian Bob Barr or Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney.

5) Man will someday colonize the Moon, and life will be found somewhere else in the universe.

7) In 2020, Wisconsin farmers will lead the nation in producing hemp for fiber, food and fuel, and more than half the milk sold in Wisconsin will be raw milk, which scientists will have determined to be healthier.

9) Supercomputers will determine that the Ramsey number R(6,6) = 117. Current scholarship places the value of R(6,6) to be between 102 and 165, inclusive.

11) The final NIST report on WTC 7 will not appear until George Bush is out of office.

12) Based on comparisons with the Soviet and Roman Empires, the United States central government will collapse in the year 2125 (approximately), because of economic problems brought on by high taxes, budget deficits, and militarism.

"If an alien spaceship were to come to Earth and demand that we tell them the answer to R(5,5) or they will kill us all, it would take all the computing power in the world to find the answer for the aliens. If they ask for R(6,6), we should try to kill them."

(anonymous)

The one-hour BBC program The Third Tower should have a positive effect on spreading the truth about what happened to WTC 7. Despite its attempt to debunk by twisting and omitting facts, there is much to cheer about.

7) Barry Jennings was told while in WTC 7 "Get out of there, get out of there now", which sounds very suspicious.

8) Barry Jennings' time-line is not contradicted by anything Barry Jennings says.

9) After seven years, no final report on the collapse of WTC 7 has appeared. The 9/11 Commission never mentioned the collapse of WTC 7.

11) The program will help raise the profile of Dylan Avery, Richard Gage, and Steven Jones.

12) The profile and web hits for Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth will be raised.

13) New experts not well known are introduced, including Scott Grainger and Kamal Obeid of www.ae911Truth.org.

14) WTC 7 housed offices of the CIA, Secret Service, Department of Defense, and the Mayor's Office of Emergency Management.

15) WTC 7 was the only steel-framed building ever alleged to fall from fire damage.

17) One large piece of partially evaporated steel from WTC 7 was saved and is shown.

18) Thermal maps showing temperatures greater than 700 degrees Celsius five days after 9/11 are shown. Water poured over the area is shown.

19) Despite protests that fire took down WTC 7, little fire is shown in the program.

20) In the early morning of 9/11, the alarms in WTC 7 were placed on test status, meaning all fire alarms to WTC 7 would be ignored. One alarm went off, but since the alarms were on test, the location of the fire could not be pinpointed.

22) Dylan Avery has a great put-down of Richard Clark -- a classic, blunt, and to the point call-out.

24) The BBC claims that they put one of their most valuable media tapes, the day of 9/11, on the wrong shelf, with no evidence to back it up.

25) Larry Silverstein is quoted as saying "pull it." While the most important part of the quote ("and we watched the building collapse") is edited out, the full quote is widely available and well-known.

27) Scientific tests on steel beams with fires hotter than in WTC 7, didn't cause collapse.

28) The issue of skyscraper safety and building codes, assuming WTC 7 really fell from a fire, is breached.

30) A video (with audio) of a loud explosion that occurred in between the collapses of the North tower and WTC 7 is played.

Many of these facts were included in the BBC trailer, and most were included near the beginning of the program. Since more people watch the trailer than the actual program, and many people start watching a program, but never finish, these facts are, in effect, emphasized.

Because the BBC has confirmed on national TV many facts long advocated by the 9/11 Truth movement, The Third Tower may accelerate the slow, controlled demolition of the official 9/11 conspiracy theory.

Kevin Barrett is a Ph.D Arabist-Islamologist, academic freedom-fighter, talk radio host, and well-known 9/11 truth advocate. He is currently running for Congress as a Libertarian against pro-war Democratic incumbent Rep. Ron Kind:

Rolf Lindgren is Barrett's Campaign Adviser and has a degree in Mathematics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a defender of Galileo and James Madison and an expert on WTC 7.

Controversial Barrett 'supports the truth,' backers say

Samara Kalk Derby — 6/24/2008 10:00 am: http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories/292988

Michael Anthony, a self-employed handyman who lives in the Madison area, can't vote for Kevin Barrett, who is challenging U.S. Rep. Ron Kind in western Wisconsin's 3rd District, but did donate $10 to his campaign Monday night during a campaign event at the Dardenelles restaurant on Monroe Street.

"He's got guts. He's not afraid of controversy. A lot of people will run from controversy, especially if it means doing so on national television," Anthony said. "He has faced those Fox people with bat in hand."

Anthony was referring to Barrett's 2006 appearance on Fox News' "Hannity & Colmes" program, in which Sean Hannity called Barrett a "conspiracy nut" and an "extremist" and Barrett shot back, "Fox News is the biggest bunch of extremists on the planet."

Barrett, the controversial former UW lecturer who believes the U.S. government was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, is running as a Libertarian and promises to call for an investigation into the terrorist attacks.

Anthony, the handyman, doesn't necessarily believe the government perpetrated or was complicit in 9/11, but said the government knows "a whole lot more than they have said. They certainly had a hand in it."

Andy Albrecht, a UW-Madison student of political science, made a $20 donation to the campaign Monday night. Albrecht's parents live in the 3rd District, and that is where he is registered to vote, although has never voted before.

Albrecht said he appreciates Barrett's tenacity and his anti-war stance.

"I like that he supports the truth. He really pushes the truth. He's not afraid to stand up for what he believes in," said Albrecht, who added that he doesn't necessarily believe 9/11 was "an inside job," but does think the government is withholding information.

Taking a page from Russ Feingold's 1992 "endorsement" from Elvis Presley, Barrett got Tim Biancalana, a dead ringer for John Lennon, to perform at the Dardanelles. About 30 people attended the event and watched the 2006 documentary, "The U.S. vs. John Lennon."

Biancalana, who is based in the Los Angeles area, performed Lennon's "Working Class Hero" and his original song, "Samsara."

"Behind every war there is a great big lie," Biancalana said. He is supporting Barrett, he said, because of "his truth."

"He's actually doing something for truth. When we have truth, we can get the peace we want," he said. "Everything today is about divide and conquer," but Barrett stands for the unity of people, said Biancalana, who has appeared on one of Barrett's radio programs.

Barrett, of Lone Rock, has three talk radio shows and spends eight hours a week on the air. The programs are broadcast, respectively, on Republic Broadcasting Network (RBN), Genesis Communications Network (GCN) and We the People Radio Network (WTPRN). None of them are broadcast locally, but all can be found on the Internet. He also does a daily five-minute news headline show strictly online at www.noliesradio.org.

Barrett's motto is, "Truth in politics. What a concept!"

"If we don't know what is going on we can't get peace and prosperity," Barrett told his supporters Monday night.

Kind has repeatedly voted for the war and against his own party's attempts to limit the duration of the war, Barrett said.

"He's also voted against the Constitution," Barrett said, noting that Kind has voted for Patriot Act I, Patriot Act II and HR 1955, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007.

Kind, D-La Crosse, has represented the 3rd District in Congress since 1996.

That's "too long," said Barrett. "His blow-dry has petrified on his head. He is way too comfortable. I promise when elected not to blow dry my hair."

Barrett needs 1,500 signatures to get on the ballot and has collected about 940, with a few volunteers helping him.

He considers himself a "new Libertarian candidate," calling himself much more moderate on economic issues than most libertarians.

"With the current imploding economy, the government will have to help people survive," he said. "We can't just shut down the social programs. We might even have to expand some of them."

Barrett's opponent in September's Libertarian primary is Ben Olson III of Wisconsin Dells, a longtime Libertarian party activist. If Olson weren't a Libertarian, he'd be a Republican, whereas Barrett would be a Democrat, Barrett said.

"Both parties are terminally corrupt at this point," he said.

Barbara Wright, who owns the Dardanelles, said she and Barrett have some things in common. Both are married to Moroccans and have a foot in the Muslim world. Barrett converted to Islam, while she has not, Wright said.

When Barrett told her he was going to run for Congress, she offered to host a fund-raising event at her restaurant.

"There needs to be some truth spoken about what is going on with our government, about the repression in society and the move toward fascism, the gutting of the middle class and the truth behind 9/11," Wright said. "I think that one of the ways you fight the fear that people feel is to get together as a community and talk about things."

Samara Kalk Derby — 6/24/2008 10:00 am

Barrett misses Nass in would-be confrontation  By Patrick Marley  

9/11 conspiracy theorist Kevin Barrett today tried to confront a lawmaker who he said ended his academic career. And just to make the encounter that much more strange, Barrett was joined by a John Lennon impersonator. ... - http://blogs.jsonline.com/

"While I don't agree with the guy - he is effective at getting his message out

Kevin Barrett, the controversial former UW lecturer who is big on the 911 conspiracy truth stuff, is running for congress. Check out this story in the Cap Times. I have not really examined the arguements much, and it appears pretty half baked, I have to give this guy a hand at his effective PR campaign for his cause. He has radio shows, gets in the news, gets supporters from all over to help him and then as he runs for congress he will get some good media coverage to promote his idea. Maybe after this campaign, he should start his own PR firm.

Election-fraud expert Richard Hayes Phillips, author of Witness to a Crime, will be my guest Wednesday, June 18^th on 9/11 and Empire, 8-10 pm, http://www.wtprn.com. Dr. Phillips documents that the Republican party has become a criminal syndicate, and that the 2004 election was blatantly stolen.

One explanation for the outrageous criminality we have witnessed in recent years is that psychopaths often rise to the top of power hierarchies, corrupting the people and institutions around them. This happened in Hitler's Germany, Stalin's USSR, Pol Pot's Cambodia, and many other places. It may also be happening in today's USA. For more details, check out my widely-read article Twilight of the Psychopaths (Barrett Twilight Psychopaths now generates 111,000 google hits).

Bush and Cheney, of course, are classic, clinical psychopaths. But John McCain? Isn't he a campaign finance reformer? Doesn't he have a reputation as a straight shooter?

In the article below, Douglas Valentine discusses evidence that McCain bombed Vietnamese civilians without remorse, collaborated in a borderline-treasonous way with his Vietnamese captors, regularly experiences outbursts of extreme rage, and has never cared about anything but his own ego, his own advancement in the power hierarchy - whether that hierarchy is run by his Vietnamese captors or his current neocon captors. In short, according to this analysis, McCain is, at minimum, a borderline psychopath.

McCain - a neocon-controlled psychopath calling for a 100-years-war - is hardly a credible choice for President of the United States. Honest conservatives should vote for Libertarian candidate Bob Barr.

If you have no idea what war is about, thank your gods. It is not what you see in Mel Gibson movies, nor is it hidden within the Big Lie Big Brother tells you about Pat Tillman’s heroic “Army of One” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When my father was in New Guinea with the 32nd Division in 1942, his fellow American soldiers would point their long Springfield rifles skywards and shoot at American pilots flying overhead.

The pilots had comfortable quarters beside the airstrip in Port Moresby. When orders for a mission came down, they’d climb in their planes, rattle down the runway, and soar over the Owen Stanley Mountains with the clouds in spotless uniforms, breathing fresh clean air. The Glory Boys weren’t trapped in the broiling jungle, in the mud and pouring rain, their skin rotting away, chewed by ghastly insects, bitten by poisonous snakes, stricken with cerebral malaria, yellow fever, dysentery, and a host of unknown diseases delivered by unknown parasites.

If the Fly Boys perished, it was in a blaze of glory, not from a landmine, or a misdirected American mortar, or a Japanese bayonet in the brain.

One day my father and his last remaining friend, Charlie Ferguson, were walking through the jungle up to the front line. One the way they passed a group of bare-chested Aussies in khaki shorts sitting round a grindstone sharpening their knives. Every once in a while one of the Aussies would hoist his rife and casually put a bullet into a Japanese sniper who had tied himself into the top of a nearby tree. Not in any place that would outright kill him, but some place painful enough to make the point.

A little further toward the front line, my father and Charlie came upon Master Sergeant Harry Blackman, an adult man in his forties, regular army, a grizzled combat veteran. A few days earlier in a fight with the Japanese, a young lieutenant, a “90-Day Wonder,” had curled up in a fetal position when he should have been directing mortar fire. As a result, US mortar rounds landed on several US soldiers. Blackman, in front of everyone, took the lieutenant behind a tree and blew his brains out.

As my father and Charlie waked through the jungle they saw Harry Blackman perched on the lower limb of a huge tropical tree, babbling incoherently among the butterflies and flowering vines, driven stark raving mad by sorrow and jungle war with the Japanese.

Several days later my father was sent on a patrol into Japanese held territory. He was the last man in a formation moving single file through the jungle. Plagued by malaria and exhaustion, he kept falling behind. Around noon, a group of Japanese soldiers sitting high up in trees dropped concussion grenades on the patrol. As he lay on the ground, unable to move, my father watched the Japanese slide down the trees. Starting with the point man on patrol, they pulled down the pants and castrated each man, before clubbing him to death with their rifle butts or running a bayonet into his gut.

War. If you’re a Glory Boy like John Sidney McCain III, you really have no idea what it is. You drop bombs on cities, on civilians, maybe on enemy forces, maybe on your own troops. Glory Boys like John McCain rarely get a taste of the horror they inflict on others. Their suffering rarely extends beyond the high anxiety that they might get shot down and that some bombarded mob on the ground might take its revenge.

Magically, my father was spared that day when his patrol was slaughtered. Against regulations, he had stolen a cross-swords patch and sewn it on his shirt sleeve. At the age of 16, he thought it looked cool. On the morning of the patrol, when the new “90-Day Wonder” told him to take it off, my father said “Sure.” He and the lieutenant stared at each other for a while and then the lieutenant moved away. Insubordination was the least of anyone’s worries. No one expected to survive the patrol, anyway.

When the Japanese who had ambushed the patrol got to my father, they stood poised to mutilate and kill him. Then they saw the cross-swords patch. They apparently felt that dear old dad was an important person with inside information about American forces. Instead of killing him, they took him prisoner. When they realized he was just a stupid kid, the Japanese sent him to a POW camp in the Philippines.

Being a POW is what my father and John McCain have in common; although their experience as POWs was as different as their class and their character.

Class indeed has privileges, and while the government refused to provide my combat-veteran father with medical benefits for his malaria, McCain, who spent ten hours of his life in mortal danger, was decorated with the Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star Medal and the Purple Heart.

In the fall of 1967, Navy pilot John McCain was routinely bombing Hanoi from an aircraft carrier in the South China Sea. On October 26, he was trying to level a power plant in a heavily populated area when a surface-to-air missile knocked a wing off his jet. Banged-up John McCain and what was left of plane splashed into Truc Bach Lake.

A compassionate Vietnamese civilian left his air raid shelter and swam out to McCain. McCain’s arm and leg were fractured and he was tangled up in his parachute underwater. He was drowning. The Vietnamese man saved McCain’s sorry ass, and yet McCain has nothing but hatred for “the gooks” who allegedly tortured him. As he told reporters on his campaign bus (The Straight Talk Express) in 2000, “I will hate them as long as I live.” (1)

Americans have to hate people, and dehumanize them as “gooks” or “rag-heads” in order to drop bombs on them. Stirring up such hatred is the forte of the US government, as witnessed by its Israeli-driven PR campaign against Arabs and Moslems. That’s why Bush and his media minions tied “brutal dictator” Saddam Hussein to 9/11 – so Americans would hate Iraqis enough to kill and abuse them in a thousand ways, everyday, for five years. Or, according to McCain, for 100 years if necessary.

The flip side to the equation is that people generally hate those who drop bombs on them. When the Germans dropped bombs on London, the Allies called it Terror Bombing. The French resistance especially hated the Germans, especially after the Gestapo set up shop in occupied France in 1940.

Likewise, Iraqi and Afghani resistance fighters hate the Americans (who more and more resemble the Germans of 1940) for occupying their countries. They especially hate our Gestapo – the CIA – and its torturers. But that’s War for you, and John McCain is lucky the locals didn’t eat him alive – like Uzbek nationalists trapped in a horrid prison camp in Afghanistan nibbled on CIA officer John “Mike” Spann shortly after Spann summarily executed a prisoner. Spann was killed in the ensuing riot, shortly before the CIA and its Afghan collaborators massacred the remaining Uzbek prisoners on 28 November 2001.

The Vietnamese had good reason to hate McCain. On his previous 22 missions, he had dropped God knows how many bombs killing God knows how many innocent civilians. “I am a war criminal,” he confessed on “60 Minutes” in 1997. “I bombed innocent women and children.” (2)

If he is sincere when he says that, why isn’t he being tried for war crimes by the U.S .Government?

In any event, the man who rescued McCain tried to ward off an angry mob, which stomped on McCain for a while until the local cops turned him over to the military. McCain was in pain, but suffering no mortal wounds. He was, however, in enough pain to break down and start collaborating with the Vietnamese after three days in a hospital receiving treatment from qualified doctors – something no other POW ever enjoyed.

War is one thing, collaborating with the enemy is another; it is a legitimate campaign issue that strikes at the heart of McCain’s character…or lack thereof.

There are certainly degrees of collaboration. As a famous novelist once asked, “If you’re a barber and you cut a German’s hair, does that make you a collaborator?”

Being an informant for the Gestapo, or its stepson the CIA in Iraq, and informing on the resistance and sending them to their death, is different than being a barber. In occupied countries like Iraq, or France in World War Two, collaboration to that extent is an automatic death sentence.

The question is: “What kind of collaborator was John McCain, the admitted war criminal who will hate his alleged torturers for the rest of his life?”

Put another way, how psychologically twisted is McCain? And what actually happened to him in his POW camp that twisted him? Was it abuse, as he claims, or was it the fact that he collaborated and has to cover up?

Covering-up can take a lot of energy. The truth is lurking in his subconscious, waiting to explode. A number of US officials, including Andrew Card, have commented on McCain’s inexplicable angry outbursts.

In a July 5 2006 NewsMax.com article, former Senator Bob Smith (R-NH), was quoted as having said about McCain: “I have witnessed incidents where he has used profanity at colleagues.... He would disagree about something and then explode.” Smith called it “irrational behavior. We've all had incidents where we have gotten angry, but I've never seen anyone act like that.'

So, you say, McCain has a short fuse behind the plastered TV smile. So he calls his colleagues assholes and shit-heads. In high school they called him “McNasty.” That’s just how he is. Always was, always will be.

Well, maybe. And maybe it’s not a quality we want in a president. And maybe that repressed anger actually has its roots in a Vietnamese POW camp, where John McCain betrayed his forefathers and his country.

In the forced-labor camp where my father was tortured by the Japanese, the POWs killed anyone who collaborated. Indeed, the ranking POW in my father’s camp, an English Major, made a deal with the Japanese guaranteeing that no one would attempt to escape. When four prisoners escaped, the Major reported it. The Japanese sent out a search party, which found the POWs and brought them back to camp, where they were beheaded on Christmas morning 1943.

The POWs held a war council that night. They drew straws, and the three who got short were given a mission. A few hours later, under cover of darkness, they crept to the major’s hut. My father had gotten one of the short straws and kept watch while the other two POWs strangled the Major in his sleep.

McCain, in his carefully prepared statements, claims he was tortured while in solitary confinement, and that is why he signed a confession saying, “I am a black criminal and I have performed the deeds of an air pirate. I almost died and the Vietnamese people saved my life, thanks to the doctors.” (3)

However, on March 25, 1999, two of his fellow POWs, Ted Guy and Gordon 'Swede' Larson told the Phoenix New Times that, while they could not guarantee that McCain was not physically harmed, they doubted it.

As Larson said, 'My only contention with the McCain deal is that while he was at The Plantation, to the best of my knowledge and Ted's knowledge, he was not physically abused in any way. No one was in that camp. It was the camp that people were released from.'

Guy and Larson’s claims are given credence by McCain’s vehement opposition to releasing the government’s debriefings of Vietnam War POWs. McCain gave Michael Isikoff a peek at his debriefs, and Isikoff declared there was “nothing incriminating” in them, apart from the redactions. (4)

McCain had a unique POW experience. Initially, he was taken to the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison camp, where he was interrogated. By McCain’s own account, after three or four days, he cracked. He promised his Vietnamese captors, 'I'll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital.'

His Vietnamese capturers soon realized their POW, John Sidney McCain III, came from a well-bred line of American military elites. McCain’s father, John Jr., and grandfather, John Sr., were both full Admirals. A destroyer, the USS John S. McCain, is named after both of them.

While his son was held captive in Hanoi, John McCain Jr., from 1968 to 1972, was the Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Pacific Command; Admiral McCain was in charge of all US forces in the Pacific including those fighting in Vietnam.

One can only wonder when the concierge at the Hanoi Hilton started taking calls from Admiral McCain. Rather quickly, one surmises, for the Vietnamese soon took John Boy McCain to a hospital reserved for Vietnamese officers. Unlike his fellow POWs, he received care from a Soviet doctor.

“This poor stooge has propaganda value,” the Vietnamese realized. The Admiral’s bad boy was used to special treatment and his captors knew that. They were working him.

For his part, McCain acknowledges that the Vietnamese rushed him to a hospital, but denies he was given any 'special medical treatment.'

However….two weeks into his stay at the Vietnamese hospital, the Hanoi press began quoting him. It was not “name rank and serial number, or kill me,” as specified by the military code of conduct. McCain divulged specific military information: he gave the name of the aircraft carrier on which he was based, the number of US pilots that had been lost, the number of aircraft in his flight formation, as well as information about the location of rescue ships. (5)

So McCain leveraged some details to get some medical attention. That’s not anything too contemptible. And who among us civilians is to judge someone in the position?

On the other hand, according to one source, McCain’s collaboration may have had very real consequences. Retired Army Colonel Earl Hopper, a veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, contends that the information that McCain divulged classified information North Vietnam used to hone their air defense system.

Hopper’s son, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Earl Pearson Hopper was, like McCain, shot down over North Vietnam. Hopper the younger, however, was declared “Missing in Action.” Stemming from the loss of his son, the elder Hopper co-founded the National League of Families, an organization devoted to the return of Vietnam War POWs.

According to the elder Hopper, McCain told his North Vietnamese captors, “highly classified information, the most important of which was the package routes, which were routes used to bomb North Vietnam. He gave in detail the altitude they were flying, the direction, if they made a turn… he gave them what primary targets the United States was interested in.” Hopper contends that the information McCain provided allowed the North Vietnamese to adjust their air-defenses. As result, Hopper claims, the US lost sixty percent more aircraft and in 1968, “called off the bombing of North Vietnam, because of the information McCain had given to them.” 6

McCain was held for five and half years. Collaborating during the first two weeks might have been pragmatic, but he soon became North Vietnam’s go-to collaborator for the next three years. Given the quality of the military information he allegedly shared, his situation isn’t as innocuous as the pragmatic French barber who cuts the hair of the German occupier. McCain was repaying his captors for their kindness and mercy.

This is the lesson of McCain’s experience as a POW: a true politician, a hollow man, his only allegiance is to power. The Vietnamese, like McCain’s campaign contributors today, protected and promoted him and in return, he danced to their tune.

Not content with divulging military information, McCain provided his voice in radio broadcasts used by the North Vietnamese to demoralize American soldiers.

Vietnamese radio propagandists made good use out of McCain. On June 4, 1969, a U.S. wire service headlined a story entitled 'PW Songbird Is Pilot Son of Admiral.” (7)

The story reported that McCain collaborated in psywar offensives aimed at American servicemen. 'The broadcast was beamed to American servicemen in South Vietnam as a part of a propaganda series attempting to counter charges by U.S. Defense Secretary Melvin Laird that American prisoners are being mistreated in North Vietnam.'

On one occasion, General Vo Nguyen Giap, the top Vietnamese commander and a nationalist celebrity of the time, personally interviewed McCain. His compliance during this command performance was a moment of affirmation for the Vietnamese. His Vietnamese handlers thereafter used him regularly as prop at meetings with foreign delegations.

In the custody of enemy psywar specialists, McCain became what he is today: a professional psywar stooge.

It is impossible to prove exactly what happened to McCain short of traveling to Vietnam and tracking down his captors, and picking up thee trail where it begins. According to The Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain, McCain says he only collaborated when he brutally tortured by his Vietnamese captors and a wicked Cuban he referred to as Fidel. (8)

“In the anguished days right after my confession,” McCain said in his autobiography Faith of My Fathers, “I had dreaded just such a discovery by my father.”

“I only recently learned that the tape I dreamed I heard playing over the loudspeaker in my cell had been real; it had been broadcast outside the prison and had come to the attention of my father,” McCain said. “If I had known at the time my father had heard about my confession, I would have been distressed beyond imagination, and might not have recovered from the experience as quickly as I did.”

But wait! McCain did not commit suicide. In fact, he’s alive, running for President on the “war hero” ticket, and promoting more war everywhere. The new McCain feels no distress at having been a collaborator or a war criminal – if he ever did.

According to Fernando Barral, a Cuban psychologist who questioned McCain in January 1970, “McCain was 'boastful' during their interview and 'without remorse' for any civilian deaths that occurred 'when he bombed Hanoi.' McCain has a similar recollection, writing in his [autobiography] that he responded, 'No, I do not' when Barral asked if he felt remorse.” (9)

McCain told [Barral] that he had not been subjected to “physical or moral violence,” and “lamented in the interview that ‘if I hadn't been shot down, I would have become an admiral at a younger age than my father.’”

“Barral said McCain boasted that he was the best pilot in the Navy and that he wanted to be an astronaut.” The Cuban psychologist concluded that McCain was [a] ‘psychopath.’” (10)

'He felt superior to the Vietnamese up there in his plane, with all his training,' Barral recalled.

Psychopath McCain emerges, now, as a contemptible elitist, stewing in the crucible of his class conscience, the ultimate right wing psywar stooge.

There are no public records from other POWs to confirm McCain's self-aggrandizing claims, but his detractors, like fellow POWs Ted Guy and Gordon 'Swede' Larson, and Colonel Hopper, have yet to be discredited or silenced by McCain’s PR team.

Hopper, Guy and Larson are part of a larger movement concerned with the fate of the 2,000 American veterans still missing in Vietnam. They’ve been pressing McCain to own up to his POW experience, drop the “war hero” posturing, and do more to provide a full accounting of the POWs and MIAs who were not as fortunate, privileged, or willing to collaborate as the would-be president.

McCain’s supporters are trying to quiet detractors by ignoring them. 'Nobody believes these idiots. They're a bunch of jerks. Forget them,' said Mark Salter, McCain's chief mythologist. Salter is credited by casting McCain as a modern Teddy Roosevelt, “the war hero turned domestic reformer.” (11)

By in large the Salter strategy has worked. The American media accepts McCain’s “war hero” myth as gospel and, in so doing, bolsters the “straight talk” image so essential to his success in politics. In a recent TV interview with John Kerry, victim of the Swift Boat Heroes for Truth Movement in the last election, another “fortunate son,” Chris Wallace, actually took umbrage when Kerry criticized McCain. Son of media admiral Mike Wallace, Chris made Kerry admit that McCain was a hero.

McCain learned his lesson well from the Vietnamese propagandists who used him for their psywar projects. But it’s not the collaboration that makes John McCain unfit for office; it’s the fact that he has managed to rewrite his collaboration into political capital. “He’s a war hero, respect him, or die.”

As a pedigree, the McCain family’s stature rests on the status and prestige of its achievements in the military: rank, medals, and most importantly to John McCain’s presidential campaign, the image of warrior masculinity: the straight talking maverick of the Republican Party, the 21st century rendering of Teddy Roosevelt.

Not exactly. In his current presidential campaign, he’s cozying up to the hate-mongering Christian right he once criticized. He’s reversed positions on so many issues that his Democratic rivals have assembled his contrasting statements into “The Great McCain Versus McCain Debates. (12)

Underlying the Jekyll-Hyde reversals is McCain’s hidden past of collaboration. Somewhere in the unplumbed human part of John Sidney McCain III, he knows his POW experience contradicts the war hero image he projects. This essential dishonesty, this lie of the soul, is a sign of a larger lack of character - like the major in my father’s POW camp, but without the come-uppance.

McCain is not some principled leader, not a maverick cowboy fighting the powerful. He’s a sycophant. He believes in nothing but power and will do anything to attain it. He explodes in anger when challenged because, when a criticism hits to close to home, it goes to straight his deep-seeded shame.

McCain’s handlers have turned his unspeakable reality into a myth worthy of Teddy Roosevelt. No wonder the Glory Boy has stuck around Washington so long.

Doug Valentine is the author of The Hotel Tacloban, the story of his father’s experiences in a Japanese POW camp in World War Two. The Hotel Tacloban is available at Mr Valentine’s websites http://www.DouglasValentine.com and http://valentine.sb2.authorsguild.net

Brendan McQuade assisted Mr Valentine by providing timely research for this article.

1. C W Nevius, Marc Sandalow, John Wildemuth, “McCain Criticized for Slur,” San Francisco Chronicle, 18 February 2000

4. Sydney Schanberg, APBNews.com, 25 April 2000, citing Isikoff, Newsweek, 1 January 2000.

5. Ted Sampley, “Luck Of The Admiral's Son Not For 'Grunts' U.S. Veteran Dispatch, October 1999.

9. Manuel Roig-Franzia, Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, March 11, 2008; C01

(Rodrigue Tremblay will be my second-hour guest on the Dynamic Duo radio show Monday, June 9^th. Scientist Frank Greening, the only qualified and honest critic I have found who is willing to critique the WTC controlled demolition hypothesis, will be the first hour guest. 4-6 pm Central, http://www.gcnlive.com Network 4)

"I believe that the Iraqi people will greet us as liberators." Sen. John McCain, (March 20, 2003)

"As you know, there are al Qaeda operatives that are taken back into Iran, given training as leaders, and they're moving back into Iraq." Sen. John McCain, 2008 presumptive Republican presidential nominee, (In Amman, Jordan, March 18, 2008)

“Iran obviously is on the path toward acquiring nuclear weapons." ...“At the end of the day we cannot allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."Sen. John McCain

“Anyone who worries about how long we [the United States]’re in Iraq does not understand the military.” Sen. John McCain

"McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit. What happened when they [the missiles] get to the ground? He doesn't know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues." Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.)

Many people write to me asking what I think of the current batch of presidential candidates in the U.S. —First, let me make a general observation. The American political process, especially at the presidential level, is inhuman and inefficient. It is a gruesome meat grinder where candidates have to campaign for months in primaries or caucuses in all 50 states, raise tens of millions dollars and see their private lives exposed and criticized. With such a system, it is no wonder that few Americans with high intellect and character are willing to submit themselves to such an ordeal. The current batch of presidential candidates is the result of such a system. You will find no great personalities of the caliber of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower or John F. Kennedy, even though the more nutty ones have been eliminated. The three remaining candidates are not the best of what America can offer and afford.

Let me begin with the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain (R-AZ). My appreciation is, on the whole, relatively negative.

On the positive side, Senator McCain has built a long history of independence in the U.S. Senate, so much so that he is often referred to as a maverick. For example, Sen. McCain has displeased many Republicans by supporting political finance reform, by denouncing state torture and even by criticizing initially the way the Bush-Cheney administration launched the Iraq war. On the last issue, however, it can be said that Sen. McCain has since backed off and he has aligned himself more closely with the current Republican White House.

On the question of torture, Sen. McCain has promised to close the detention center in Guantanamo Bay. He has declared that he would engage more actively in climate talks (as long as China and India agreed to emissions cuts). It can also be said that Sen. McCain does not consider himself a “religious” candidate, and I doubt very much that he will be holding weekly Bible sessions, as George W. Bush is reported having done within the walls of the White House. These may be inconsequential differences with the current administration, but I think they are real.

On the negative side, however, the issues on which Sen. McCain agrees with President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are much more numerous and much more important. On most of the important issues, it would be “more of the same” with John McCain. That is why President George W. Bush has said that he is ready to do anything to have Senator John McCain elected president and that he is going to raise funds for him. Bush knows perfectly well that a McCain presidency would be like a third term for his own failed presidency. Indeed, people who like what Bush has done or undone during the last eight years should vote for McCain with little fear of being disappointed. In particular, they would love his militarism and his bellicose character. On the other hand, those who have felt betrayed or have been the victims of the Bush-Cheney administration, and that includes the 81 percent of Americans who believe their country is on the wrong track, should think twice before de facto extending the disastrous Bush presidency one day further than necessary.

For one, Sen. McCain is expected, as one commentator put it, to behave as a George W. Bush on steroids. Some go as far as depicting him as a candidate who aspires to become President McBush, because so many of his policies would duplicate Bush's policies. For example, Sen. McCain is partisan of the imperial presidency theory, advanced and practiced in recent years by the Bush-Cheney administration. As recently as last May 6, he confirmed that if he were elected President, he would enthusiastically throw out the restraint on power established by the constitutional checks and balances and would embrace the Bush-Cheney's claim of near absolute executive power. McCain is especially worried that the courts could stick to the letter and spirit of the U.S. Constitution and reject attempts by the President to establish a quasi dictatorship while dismissing Congress' prerogatives. In McCain's words, presidential executive power in the U.S. is too constrained by a judiciary that "show[s] little regard for the authority of the president." On this very question, however, Sen. McCain seems to want it both ways. Is this sincere or is it solely a way to create confusion? For instance, on May 15, he tried to distance himself from the Bush-Cheney administration and professed that he now embraces the constitutional concept of checks and balances. Which McCain is the real McCain? Obviously, further clarifications are urgently needed.

Secondly, on foreign policy more than anywhere else, McCain can be expected to be a McBush plus. He can be expected to be a mixture of a simplistic George W. Bush and of a rabidly nationalistic and interventionist Dick Cheney, the last two always ready to immorally bomb people and ask questions later. McCain stands ready to continue the Bush-Cheney's insane foreign policy. Therefore, no one should expect that he would be much different than what this duo has stood for over the last eight years, which is aggressive global interventionism, disastrous unilateralism and excessive militarism. Under McCain, the United States would still be the global bully of the planet. This will lead to more geopolitical instability worldwide, more debt for the United States, and more economic disruptions in trade, especially for oil and commodities. There will be a high economic price to pay with a McCain presidency, make no mistake about it. The current slowdown or recession may be only a harbinger of things to come.

Indeed, listening to him, one has the feeling that Sen. McCain has never met a war he didn't like. For instance, if it were only up to him, American soldiers would still be in Vietnam, where he was a pilot, flying fighter-bombers that dropped bombs over North Vietnam. He has also said that he would like to intervene even more directly in South America. And in the Middle East, he has said that he would not mind having an American military occupation of that region for another one hundred years. In McCain's view, Iraq is an American colony forever, thus making sure there will be permanent war and permanent military occupation in that part of the world. In 1999, McCain even lobbied the Clinton administration to have the U.S. invade Yugoslavia with ground troops. America's Founders would be turning in their graves if they could see their cherished republic becoming a militaristic empire!

Thirdly, Sen. McCain does not seem to know or care about international law. Indeed, not only is Sen. McCain constantly confusing the Sunnis and the Shi'ites in Iraq, after all these years, but he seems to be completely lost as to the true meaning of "preemptive" war versus "preventive" war. A preemptive war or a preemptive strike is a self-defensive measure which is taken against a foreign country that poses an imminent and inevitable threat because it is about to invade, or is threatening to attack shortly. A preventive war is rather a war of choice or a war of aggression that is launched in anticipation of a loss of security or strategic advantage in a more or less far away future, or to gain foreign territories and resources. While a preemptive war is essentially defensive in nature, a preventive war is fundamentally imperialistic. In McCain's vocabulary, the two notions are confused since he says that he would not rule out launching preemptive wars, when in fact he means launching preventive wars of aggression “against future enemies” who pose no immediate threat to the United States.

A preemptive war can sometimes be legal and justifiable, and be in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. But a preventive war, because it is a planned and overt act of aggression, is never legal according to international law.

Fourthly, it seems that Mr. McCain is a man who has a chip on his shoulder, which is also reminiscent of George W. Bush, and that makes him a dangerous man to be trusted as leader of a heavily armed country like the United States. For example, remembering his days as a Navy pilot and a prisoner during the Vietnam War, nearly fifty years ago, he now says that he would like to go to Cuba to “punish” those Cuban soldiers who hurt his buddies in Vietnam. The Cuban government has answered him that there were no Cuban soldiers in Vietnam, but he keeps the grudge.

Another parallel with Mr. Bush is the fact that Mr. McCain, who will be 72 years old in August, attended a naval academy at Annapolis where he ranked near the end of this class, 894th out of 899 students. Thus, he cannot be expected to be a "philosopher president," and would be expected to lead with his guts rather than his head.

Fifth, Sen. McCain is a neocon candidate. The Israel Lobby, indeed, and the Neocons, that is to say the small clique of misguided ideologues who have whispered advice into George W. Bush's ears for years, and who have begun whispering into McCain's ears, would be delighted to have a militarily hawkish and neoconservative McCain in the White House. For them, this would be a dream come true. Their pet project—a war against Iran—would become a reality.

Sen. McCain was born on a U.S. military base in a foreign country (Panama), and he is the son and grandson of military career individuals. That may explain why he is enamored with anything military. This is a man who believes there is a military solution to any political problem. He would be expected to follow the necon-inspired so-called "Bush Doctrine." He would also be expected to embrace the Neocons' imperialistic and extreme Right Wing Project for the New American Century (PNAC) that calls for American global dominance. Armed with these two “doctrines”, Sen. McCain, if elected President, would stand ready to launch future gratuitous and illegal wars of aggression around the world to ensure American supremacy. Those who liked George W. Bush will love John McCain. They will get all the fireworks and more. Whether this approach is good for the United States, for its economy and for its reputation, and for stability in the world, is another matter.

Sixth, a John McCain as president would be a gift from heaven to the American military industrial complex. It's easy to see why. —Sen. McCain is on record for advocating to increase the size of the U.S. armed forces from the current 750,000 to 900,000 members. Under his governance, the Pentagon and a host of defense contractors would see the U.S. defense budget, already bloated to a point of being larger than the defense spending of all 191 other countries taken together, would increase even further. Another red flag is the fact that McCain has surrounded himself with a host of far right lobbyists to run his campaign and raise money. This means that if ever he is elected, he will be a prisoner of these far right elements. Not a promising perspective.

Seventh, Senator John McCain has supported George W. Bush's huge tax cuts for the rich, which have resulted in large budget deficits and which have contributed so much to placing the United States in its current precarious economic situation, that is to say, being saddled with a falling currency and a spreading financial crisis. It is no wonder that George W. Bush has enthusiastically endorsed John McCain, although such an endorsement could prove to be a double-edged sword, since Bush's approval rating in the U.S. is the lowest of any American president, while a large majority of Americans believe their country is heading in the wrong direction.

Eighth, McCain's personal character is open to question. He is known, and this from his early childhood, to be prone to sudden and uncontrollable fits of temper tantrums. It is reported by biographer Robert Timberg (“John McCain: An American Odyssey”) that right up into his twenties, he remained a strikingly violent man, "ready to fight at the drop of a hat". This rage seems to be at the core of his personality: describing his own childhood, McCain has admitted to having a quick temper and a short fuse (see his book “Worth the Fighting for: A Memoir”) and he has confessed that as a youngster “at the smallest provocation I would go off into a mad frenzy, and then suddenly crash to the floor unconscious. When I got angry I held my breath until I blacked out!” Then, his parents would be forced to soak him in cold water, clothes and all, to wake him up.

A man with such a character is a dangerous man to be entrusted with the responsibility of custody of nuclear weapons. Even some of his Republican Senate colleagues say that he is too reckless to be commander-in-chief. And this is on top of his aggressive militarist stance in foreign policy and his obvious and avowed lack of knowledge in economic matters.

Ninth, there is the legitimate question of his age and personal health. The New York Times has recently been complaining about the lack of medical information regarding the presumptive Republican candidate and how little people know about his health. After all, this is not a trivial matter, since Sen. McCain will be 72 years old in August and he is recovering from an August 2000 surgery for a melanoma cancer, the deadliest of all cancers. A recently released medical report does not alleviate a bit concerns about this very issue.

And ten: Since the media have criticized Senator Barak Obama for his close association with an outspoken black minister, it is worth noting that Senator John McCain has also been endorsed by probably one of the worst right-wing religious bigots in the U.S. today, Texan anti-Catholic televangelist John Hagee.

Let us remember that televangelist (San Antonio megachurch) leader John Hagee, has said that the 2005 hurricane Katrina was God's punishment to New Orleans; he has also referred to the Roman Catholic Church as "the great whore" and called it a "false cult system" and "the apostate church." (There are 60 million Catholics in the U. S. and they could resent such insinuations.) And to top that, he has also declared that God sent [Adolf] Hitler to perpetrate the Holocaust in order to force Jews to move to Israel!

Therefore, it is certainly legitimate to ask why there is all the media attention on Senator Barack Obama's association with a controversial pastor, and hardly any directed at Senator McCain's association with another controversial pastor. Does this not smack of double standards?

In conclusion, when all the dots are connected, it would seem to be clear: Senator "100 Years" John McCain must be considered a man too dangerous and too unpredictable to be entrusted with the presidency of a heavily armed country. Do Americans really want a man whom some call "Senator Hothead", to become "President Hothead" and place him in a position of high responsibility? Let's hope that enough Americans will reflect about all that before the events unfold, not after. If Americans really believe that their country is headed in the wrong direction, does it really make sense to line up behind a candidate who wants to go even further in the same direction?

 Rodrigue Tremblay is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com

Ron Kind Brought You $4-a-gallon Gas!

Gas Prices Would be Under $2 Per Gallon If We Hadn't Invaded Iraq

Ron Kind is directly responsible for the price you're paying at the pump. He voted for it.

Ron Kind repeatedly voted for the Iraq war. He has voted against setting a deadline to bring the troops home. He is personally responsible for destroying the US economy by burning FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS in Iraq.

As a Democrat, Ron Kind is supposed to be a member of the opposition party. But he has given the Bush league war criminals a blank check - and YOU are paying for it.

Please read the article below, from the respected British newspaper the Independent. Check out my plan to cut gas prices in half. Then contribute to my campaign, spread the word, and help me give Ron Kind his pink slip!

The invasion of Iraq by Britain and the US has trebled the price of oil, according to a leading expert, costing the world a staggering $6 trillion in higher energy prices alone.

The oil economist Dr Mamdouh Salameh, who advises both the World Bank and the UN Industrial Development Organisation (Unido), told The Independent on Sunday that the price of oil would now be no more than $40 a barrel, less than a third of the record $135 a barrel reached last week, if it had not been for the Iraq war.

He spoke after oil prices set a new record on 13 consecutive days over the past two weeks. They have now multiplied sixfold since 2002, compared with the fourfold increase of the 1973 and 1974 “oil shock” that ended the world’s long postwar boom.

Goldman Sachs predicted last week that the price could rise to an unprecedented $200 a barrel over the next year, and the world is coming to terms with the idea that the age of cheap oil has ended, with far-reaching repercussions on their activities.

Dr Salameh, director of the UK-based Oil Market Consultancy Service, and an authority on Iraq’s oil, said it is the only one of the world’s biggest producing countries with enough reserves substantially to increase its flow....

[Full article here - it argues that we have passed "peak oil" and are heading into global economic chaos. But not all experts agree. In the articles below, F. William Engdahl argues that peak oil is a hoax, and that the prices we are paying at the pump have been engineered to maximize the profits of financiers and oil barons.]

"The price of crude oil today is not made according to any traditional relation of supply to demand. It’s controlled by an elaborate financial market system as well as by the four major Anglo-American oil companies. As much as 60 percent of today’s crude oil price is pure speculation driven by large trader banks and hedge funds. It has nothing to do with the convenient myths of Peak Oil. It has to do with control of oil and its price. How?"

"The hoax of Peak Oil—namely the argument that the oil production has hit the point where more than half all reserves have been used and the world is on the downslope of oil at cheap price and abundant quantity—has enabled this costly fraud to continue since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 with the help of key banks, oil traders and big oil majors."

Moderate Libertarians Poised to Become New Center-Right Opposition Party After Republicans Follow Whigs Into Oblivion

Richard Viguerie, the founding father of modern conservative strategy, has called on all Republican leaders, from Bush and Cheney on down, to resign immediately.

Viguerie's stunning statement, reproduced in full below, heralds the complete destruction of the Republican party. Top Republicans' involvement in the 9/11 cover-up, and their responsibility for the criminal 9/11 wars that have trashed our economy, our reputation, and our Constitution, is gradually being understood by the American people. The result: The Republicans are heading for an unprecedented electoral disaster followed by the complete and permanent demise of the party founded by anti-slavery activists in 1854.

The Democrats, who went along with the 9/11 coverup and the 9/11 wars, are equally guilty of high treason and crimes against humanity. Unfortunately, most voters, bombarded by corporate media lies, do not understand that the Democrats are nearly as morally and intellectually bankrupt as the Republicans.

The implosion of the Republican Party opens up a void on the right side of the American political spectrum. The party in the best position to fill that void - if its members are smart enough to rein in their ideologues and move to the sensible center - is the Libertarian Party.

The Libertarians are the natural heirs to the moribund Republicans for several reasons. First, unlike the other conservative third party, the Constitution Party, the Libertarian party has a left as well as a right wing, which makes it a potential party of moderation. Libertarians oppose empire, wars, and the excesses of the prison-industrial complex. They want to end the racist "war on drugs" and stop imprisoning half of America's young black males. They favor decriminalizing marijuana and legalizing hemp farming for paper, oil, fabrics, and biofuels. They generally oppose the racist, genocidal war on Islam. They are "progressive" in the sense of welcoming the transformative possibilities of new communications technologies. All of these attributes will help the Libertarian party move from the right fringe toward the center, and become a major party rather than a third party, by attracting support from the left as well as the right.

Along with their potentially centrist platform, the Libertarians, unlike today's Republicans, are bona fide fiscal conservatives. The single biggest thing the Republicans used to have going for them was their fiscal conservatism. While the Democrats were perceived as the big spenders, the Republicans were the party that could be trusted to spend the taxpayers' money sensibly. Today, the Democrats are still big spenders, but the Republicans are even bigger spenders! Reagan set the tone by outspending Carter with his foolish and costly military build-up - and now Bush and Cheney have completely bankrupted the country with their idiotic "war on terror." The new major party that replaces the Republicans will have to be grounded in fiscal conservatism, and Libertarians are strong fiscal conservatives.

The Republican-to-Libertarian shift will be driven by the Ron Paul phenomenon. Ron Paul is the only 2008 presidential candidate with significant grass-roots support. While it is true that Obama, like Dr. Paul, is getting lots of small contributions and exciting popular fervor, Obama's campaign is astroturf, not grass-roots. Obama, as Webster Tarpley explains in Obama: The Postmodern Coup, is the candidate of a "color revolution" orchestrated by the left wing of the City of London/Wall Street financiers and their intelligence assets. Obama's phony grassroots support will quickly fade, while Ron Paul's genuine grassroots base will continue to grow - and as the Republican Party collapses, it will move to its natural home, the Libertarian Party.

To succeed in replacing the Republicans as a major party, the Libertarians will need to move forcefully toward the center. Currently the Libertarian Party is too easily labeled as the home of extremists and ideologues. Many voters think Libertarians are people who want to take away Social Security and let poor old folks starve to death. They think Libertarians want to abolish public education and unions, and let the super-rich and the big corporations run rampant while ordinary people suffer.

To counter this image at a moment when ordinary people are hurting, and will be voting their pocketbooks, Libertarians need to reassure voters that, if elected, they will not quickly abolish all of the public enterprises and social safety nets that are providing a living for many tens of millions of people. (The safety nets will be even more important as the economy tanks due to Bush's wars.) Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine makes it clear that sudden impositions of libertarian economic principles are not only politically impossible except under conditions of brutal authoritarian rule, but also impose tremendous, unacceptable costs in human suffering. Libertarians should insist on gradual rather than sudden economic transformations, beginning with the most useless or harmful enterprises. The mass murder industry euphemistically known as "the military," the pork-laden mind-control program known as "Homeland Security," and the kidnapping and torture industry known as the prison-industrial complex, would be good places to start. As people from these unproductive sectors lose their jobs, there will still be a need for safety nets to tide them over until they can retrain and find productive employment.

As they move to the center, Libertarians will need to deliver the coup de grace to the Republican Party. They will have to bash it mercilessly from the center-right even harder than the Democrats are bashing it from the left. They will have to endlessly hammer the Republicans for abandoning true conservatism in favor of radical Straussian/Trotskyite neoconservatism, even as they slam the Democrats for fecklessness and irresponsibility. Finally, Libertarians will have to have the guts to nail the Republicans for 9/11 high treason. (A Libertarian party perceived as patriotic and center-right is in a better position to pursue treason charges against the Republicans than a Democratic party that is not only widely viewed lefty and less patriotic, but that is itself at least passively complicit in the same act of high treason.) Without such a concerted attack from the center-right, the Republicans might straggle on for a few years or decades, perhaps even regrouping before the Libertarians take their place. That would be a tragic missed opportunity not only for the Libertarian Party, but also for the USA.

The United States of America is a nation founded on an idea, not an ethnicity. That idea, in a word, is freedom. In the Libertarian Party, liberty isn't just our middle name - it's our first, last, and only name. At a time when the USA seems to have lost its identity, the Libertarian party's name, and the principle for which it stands, reminds us of what our nation is really all about. If the Libertarian party has the courage and vision to seize the day and become the new mainstream center-right party, it could go down in history as the salvation of a mortally-threatened nation.

Republican leaders in the White House, the Congress, and the Republican National Committee and its affiliates, along with most Republican leaders at the state level, have failed – or outright betrayed – the conservative voters who put them in their positions.

The result is that the party’s “brand” has become a negative, to an extent greater than in the Watergate era, perhaps worse than in the days of Herbert Hoover.

The number of new Republican voters is flat while Democratic voter registration is skyrocketing.

Contributions to GOP candidates and Republican parties are way off, while donations to Democrats are setting records.

In primaries, votes for Republican candidates at all levels are running far behind the Democrats.

And in recent special elections, the party lost long held congressional seats in Illinois, in Louisiana, and, yesterday, in Mississippi – all in districts carried overwhelmingly by President Bush. A single election can be a fluke, but when Republicans lose three seemingly safe seats in a row, disaster is looming.

The hard work of the last 50 years by millions of conservative campaign workers, donors, candidates, writers, intellectuals, and activists has been trashed. The conservative movement has been set back 10-20 years – possibly even permanently – by politicians consumed by power, including but certainly not limited to Denny Hastert, Tom DeLay, John Boehner, Roy Blunt, Mitch McConnell, Trent Lott, George W. Bush, Karl Rove, party chairman Mike Duncan, and their friends.

Some deserve more of the blame than others, but they are all part of a party Establishment that has brought the party down.

For things to change, for conservatives to be justified in giving our contributions, our volunteer efforts, our energy, and votes to the GOP, the party must clean house. The party leadership should resign immediately.

We must replace the Big Government/Big Business/Establishment Republicans with principled conservatives, most of them young. By “principled conservatives,” I mean leaders who will stand up to the liberals and fight for freedom and traditional values.

Republicans are doomed to wander in the political wilderness until this generation of weak-kneed, no-vision, inarticulate, afraid-of-the-liberal-media politicians are replaced mostly with principled conservatives in the mold of Bill Buckley, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.

The Democrats have firm principled beliefs. What motivates most Republican leaders? Nothing except a craving for power. What do Republicans offer voters? Nothing except “Elect us because we’re not Democrats.”

To Republican leaders, I say: You turned against the principles you once espoused – conservative principles – and, in turn, conservatives and the American people have turned against you. Things will not get better until you accept responsibility, and resign.

You have stayed too long. For the future of the Republican Party, for America and the cause of freedom: Go!

Richard A. Viguerie, president of ConservativeHQ.com: The Conservative Headquarters, is author of the new book, Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause. His email is rav@conservativesbetrayed.com.

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