This essay is Chapter 13 of Kevin Barrett, John Cobb Jr., and Sandra Lubarsky, eds., 9/11 and American Empire: Christians, Jews, and Muslims Speak Out (Olive Branch Press, 2007).
AMERICAN MUSLIMS AND 9/11 TRUTH: THE PARALYSIS OF DISCOURSE, THE INCOMPETENCE OF ACADEMIA, AND THE NEED FOR AN ACCURATE DIAGNOSIS
Faiz Khan
“Ye who are conscious of God—If a fasiq1 comes with alarming news, make sure you verify their word, lest you afflict people out of your ignorance, and regret your actions.” Qur’an, Verse 49:6
“At some point, silence before a lie becomes betrayal.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
MOST AMERICAN MUSLIMS, BOTH LAY AND EDUCATED HAD LOST THEIR way from the very start. However, for a few American minds of various religious persuasions—or no religious persuasion—from September 12, 2001, onward, the widely displayed “good Muslim–bad Muslim” dialectic just didn’t cut it as an explanation of why the attacks of 9/11 occurred and succeeded. Their instincts served them well.
The surest sign of intellectual incompetence within the mass of 9/11 discourse is blindly to accept the limits that have been constructed in discussing the phenomenon, especially when this blind acceptance occurs in the face of clear and compelling evidence that the limits of discourse must be expanded to explain the operation and success of the attacks. Unfortunately, from September 12 onward there emerged a sustained yet unbelievably ludicrous mainstream explanation of the factors that produced 9/11, followed by a frantic inquiry of various people or groups that purportedly represented American Islam, asking how such an event could have been born of the nebulously frightful geographic and ideological Islamic world. I was one of those interviewed by various media outlets and others, and I quickly became silent because I came to the conclusion that the premise of the question, often asked by well-meaning journalists, was false and even deceitful: that the main cause of the 9/11 assaults and their success came from the Islamic world. As a medical doctor, my profession involves diagnostic reasoning and educating not only other doctors, but most importantly, the patients whom I serve (doctor etymologically comes from the Latin docere plus tor, “one who teaches”). To answer questions, offer therapies, counsel, or elaborate explanations to them such that a deceitful or erroneous premise tacitly or explicitly is maintained in the response is first of all to become an agent of disinformation. In cases where lives are at stake—or in the case of interpreting 9/11 to a public yearning to understand the nature of such conflict—the consequences of endorsing deceit or error (consciously or ignorantly) are grave. Nevertheless, naively, yet predictably, the American Muslim scene performed its role by reeling onto the defensive and sucking the bait. Prominent Muslims busied themselves trying to explain “real Islam,” distracted by and then swallowing the mainstream explanation of 9/11. Most completely neglected the grotesque inconsistencies and outright lies of the official story, which suggest that the success of the attacks had less to do with “militant Islam” and more to do with the inescapable fact that 9/11 was an inside job.
The “9/11 truth” thesis categorically rejects the mainstream thesis and asserts that the prime factor for the success of the criminal mission known as 9/11 did not come from the quarter known as “militant Islam,” although the phenomenon known as “militant Islamic networks” may have played a partial role—the role of scapegoat and perhaps the role of patsy.
Moreover, the rise and popularization of these so-called militant Islamic networks, including their funding, the apparatus of their ideological propaganda, their logistical, and material empowerment, and the relationships linking them to corporate driven transnational covert operations that co-opt government infrastructure and policies of various nation states: these relationships need to be seriously examined and boldly elucidated by anyone who cares at all about humanity. All authentic religions care deeply about humanity—as a Muslim, one is duty-bound to pursue this avenue of inquiry. The 9/11 truth thesis forces these issues onto the table.
Let me be clear about my opinion here, as it relates to the phenomenon of “militant Islamic networks,” just in case the poorly trained minds I encounter all too frequently within the Islamic activist scene confuse my promotion of the 9/11 truth thesis with a denial on my part of the very real need to “clean out our own house” of the ills of militant Islamic networks. The usual response by those American Muslims who are mentally conditioned by the official 9/11 story is, “Let us point the finger inward on ourselves—shame on ‘the Islamic world,’ and these extremists amongst us. Let us root them out.” This kind of accusatory self-righteous indignation obstructs clear thinking. Such sentimental nonsense has no place in legitimate discourse.
So, to those who myopically conclude that remedying the forces behind 9/11, and even more broadly, the phenomenon of militant Islam, equates with reforming the Muslim world in whatever proposed fashion, I must say the following: I do not deny the reality of an ideological trend related to the so-called militant Islamic networks and the grave pathos that arises from this trend. Any sincere Muslim must be disgusted with the ideology that feeds this medley of “militant Islamic networks,” most of which continue to receive tactical, logistical, and financial support from Western quarters, usually by proxy.1 The arms they use don’t simply materialize—these “counterfeit religionists” have often been directly armed by Western governments that are themselves proxies for ideological and corporate agendas. I use the term counterfeit because 1) I am unsure of the origins of this “extremism in modern militant Islamic form” and 2) these militants openly preach and practice aggression, despite wearing the right costumes, using Arabic terms, and growing the beard to the specified length. Hence the term counterfeit, implying both ersatz-religious and counter-religious (the descriptive Islamic religious term in Arabic dajaaliyyat carries a meaning that reflects both counterfeit and counter-religious.)
Now, if I must use this term counterfeit, I must be fair: So-called American foreign policy is counterfeit American for the same reasons the policies of these militant networks are counterfeit Islamic, since the agendas and consequences of current US foreign policy lie squarely opposed to the principles enshrined in our American Constitution, as well as our American Declaration of Independence. I wish the term “American” would be dropped from the foreign policy that originates on Wall Street and is enacted through Washington, DC. For the sake of completeness, let me also speak clearly about the supposedly Islamic nation-states, because it takes more than cosmetics to function in accord with Shariah. The “Islamic Republics,” in terms of their domestic and foreign policies, are no more in accord with the tenets of authentic Islam than Israel is in accord with the Sublime Way of Moses, authentic Judaism.
Getting back to 9/11 truth, we understand that militants exist who label themselves as “Islamists” and they are generally a most vile lot. But it is more than a stretch, indeed outright false, to conclude it was this bunch alone who brought the WTC down on 9/11. The crime of 9/11 was most definitely an inside job far more than it was an outside one.
Who’s Doing the Talking Anyway?
Nearly all of those within the American Islamic community who were asked, or felt prompted to respond to the mainstream were, and are, for the most part outside their areas of competence when it comes to explaining the crime of 9/11. From activists, to religious scholars, to academics, most have done far more harm than good through deluding themselves into believing that they are qualified to discuss the crime of 9/11. As I will explain, at best their input into the mainstream discourse elucidates only a small part of an equation. Only the entire equation and subsequent explanation, constructed appropriately, will begin to dismantle the official story. This means making use of a database far more extensive than that offered by the official story, and using minimal standards of intelligent inquiry and diagnostic reasoning. When those appointed as spokespeople of Islam in America begin to condemn the actions of radical Islamists, and correctly point out the counterfeit nature of the militant Islamic ideology, they are elucidating only a tiny portion of the equation. However, their comments and expositions, with their either tacit or explicit approval, are plugged into the official story—which is disastrous.
In this case, partial explanations are false explanations because they are presented to, or taken by, an audience as complete explanations. The numerous glaringly inconsistent aspects of the mainstream thesis are largely ignored by the self-appointed American Muslim leaders who use the mainstream thesis to “explain things” to the public—a public that is represented by media figures who turn to “American Islam” to ask “Why did your co-religionists do these things?” These spokespeople are either consciously or out of ignorance neglecting the evidence compiled by the 9/11 truth movement of the glaring inconsistencies in the official story. Such evidence would force them to modify their responses if they were honest in their analysis. Those who respond by limiting themselves to the mainstream thesis without assessing its legitimacy feel a terrible need to speak and comment prematurely without examining the facts of the case. One thing to note is that most “explicators of Islam and 9/11” who limit themselves to responding to the mainstream 9/11 thesis are basing their response on a thesis that is essentially false. They are incompetent responders; however, since the mainstream 9/11 explanatory thesis is layered with valid premises, this gives it, and those who respond within the false construct, a veneer of legitimacy.
We agree, as do the incompetent responders, with the following premises of the mainstream explanation of 9/11: Yes—Islamic militancy does exist; Yes—the third world does indeed hate American corporate-driven foreign policy and American corporate state-sponsored terror; Yes—there is tremendous bureaucratic obstruction and inefficiency in our national security apparatus, mainly at non-essential levels. From here, they would add: “But the actions of those terrorists led by their fanatical ringleader are not reflective of true Islam.” The 9/11 truth movement would offer what has become its counter-thesis: “But if you think we’re the factors responsible for 9/11—well, you got another think coming!”
Hence, at best, the mainstream thesis is full of accurate observations but false as an explanation of why 9/11 was successful. When American Muslims use a largely false thesis as a premise to respond, the explanations put forth are a priori prevented from digging deeper and uncovering the truth about why the 9/11 attacks occurred and succeeded. This is also dangerous because this hasty error leaves the real explanations uncovered and prevents us from facing the important conclusion that 9/11 was an inside job, a conclusion that would force a sincere individual to search for the guilty parties. Most individuals from the American Islamic activist and academic groups have utterly failed to address the issue of 9/11 truth.
Honest scholars remain silent when they are outside the limits of their competence; they are intelligent enough to refrain from comment. Anyone who would dare attempt to offer diagnoses, or therapeutic interventions on the medical wards for a patient under my care while being unaware of the patient’s database would be immediately thrown off my team, not allowed to handle a living patient, and be forced to repeat the classroom portions of their medical education. Yet these various scholars, analysts, clergy, conflict resolution experts, and Islamists, attempt to do just that—opine on matters which they have not reviewed carefully, and do so with an air of expertise. There seems to be a terrible need, or want, to speak by folks who don’t possess the insight, qualifications, or discipline to adequately address this topic.
Perhaps an analogy is in order here to illustrate the gravity of the error. What would you think of a physician who addressed your cough and fever by explaining the afferent and efferent neural pathways of the laryngeal cough reflex as it relates to mucus production, and then proceeded to give you a great cough suppressant, but all the while missed the pneumonia? How about a physician who addressed the cough as above, and then elucidated the various interactions between your immune system and the invading microbes in the alveoli of your lungs, gave you a great cough suppressant and antibiotic for the pneumonia, but neglected to address the 30-pound weight loss accompanying your symptoms, thereby missing the cancerous lung tumor etiologically responsible for both the cough and pneumonia? Let us gloss over the question of what forces are at work in our above analogy that cause the doctor to miss these crucial diagnoses, or rather delude him into not entertaining these other diagnoses. What is clear, however, is that partial explanations are dangerous, and the MD in our example is guilty of serious incompetence. Pursuing the analogy further, if this were a primary care doctor, he ought to have deferred to an opinion of a lung specialist once he realized that his diagnoses were not adequate to explain the given symptoms, rather than maintaining his own ill-informed diagnosis.
To be intellectually honest in offering a diagnosis of why 9/11 occurred, what in the Good Lord’s name are we doing building our explanations on foundations laid down by professors and academics, and even lay, semi-educated or pseudo-educated scholars or commentators on Islam? I use the term pseudoeducated because the whole host of religionists, academics, and “policy studies majors” who have never worked in the realm of overt and covert geopolitical conflict don’t really offer much and waste a lot of ink when they try to pose as authorities and analysts of geopolitical catastrophes and conflicts. To become competent analysts, they and anyone else interested in analyzing 9/11 should study geopolitics, especially the role of financial forces, covert operations, and elite criminality as key factors in the etiology of war.
To seek opinions from academic Islamologists in the case of 9/11 is analogous to looking for a Ph.D. lung physiologist for a friend stricken with cough and fever. In stark contrast to the Islamologists’ irrelevancies are the opinions of experts in various disciplines that cover the following arenas: covert conflicts, the history of false-flag operations, espionage, demolition sciences, military response protocols, aviation, journalism, immigration policy, corporate financial money flow, the emergence and real world operations of militant Islamic networks, securities trading, and finally the governing dynamics of geopolitical warfare, which recurrently show that on levels known as “deep politics,” nominal allegiances are completely subordinate to functional allegiances. In other words, functional allegiances may exist between nominally opposing parties due to a symbiosis based on mutual self-interest between upper-strata members of both groups. This self-interest is aimed at maintaining conflict in order to preserve elite hegemony—the common denominator of such hegemony being a desired distribution of some form of wealth, be it political, fiscal, or social wealth. In other words, two groups who are nominal enemies may at the upper policy-making level be functioning cooperatively to maintain tension and conflict. Specifically, on 9/11, it seems that allowing the enemy a blow, or more likely manufacturing the blow, fueled an agenda fruitful not only for the socio-economically and financial elite, but for all of us who are tied into this house-of-cards economy.
It would be wonderful to assemble such a panel of experts in genuinely relevant disciplines, who could then be consulted to shed light on the reality of 9/11. Until now, the only such efforts consist of those launched by academics and researchers allied with the 9/11 truth movement.2 If some members of such a panel happen to be experts on Islamic theology or Qur’anic exegesis, all the better, but Islam, even militant Islam, is a very small part of the picture of why the attacks occurred.
The lack of authority of those aforementioned academics who have elected to pontificate on the subject of 9/11 is beautifully illustrated by a scene from the 1985 Rodney Dangerfield comedy “Back to School.” In this film, Rodney Dangerfield plays an elderly, self-made business tycoon. His character never got past high school, so he decides to enroll at the college where his son is studying, hoping to get closer to his son and complete his education. One of the most memorable scenes has Dangerfield’s character sit through a lecture on business economics by a prestigious “expert” professor. The topic of the class is starting a business enterprise. After every statement the professor makes, Dangerfield cannot but comment on its incompleteness or outright falsity given the actual world of business. During one such interruption, the class actually begins to turn around away from the prestigious professor and his chalkboard and take notes on what Dangerfield elaborates: the reality of labor cost differentials, political implications of securing raw materials, zoning laws that would need to be negotiated or circumvented, and so on. This is too much for the “expert academic” to handle, and the professor finally reprimands Dangerfield and states that what the lecture is about is the “legitimate business world.” After the professor regains his composure, he asks the class to choose a name for the site of this enterprise. From the back we hear Dangerfield’s classic response: “How ‘bout Fantasy Land?” The class cracks up.
I am a diagnostician, and trained to be extremely careful in arriving at a diagnosis. I cannot help this. I cannot, and will not, turn away from the proverbial elephant in the living room; I am aghast at the silence of the American Muslim activist scene in its lack of support of 9/11 truth. The first step in accurate diagnosis is always to build as thorough a database as possible, and maintain what in medical diagnostics is called a “broad differential”—which means a full range of possible diagnoses to explain a given phenomenon (symptom complex). If you walk into my ER with a severe headache, it can be a spontaneous intracranial hemorrhage, or a simple tension headache, and until I am sure it is not the former, you are not leaving my ER. Going to an Islamic scholar for a diagnosis of what happened on 9/11 and why is quite absurd. It is less absurd to walk into the ER with a crushing headache and ask to be seen by a neuroscience professor instead of a trained emergency physician. The neuroscientist may be able to explain a little, and even offer some answers and potential remedies, but as an academic, this neuroscientist cannot and should not try to offer definitive diagnoses nor attempt to find what is wrong based on a theoretical expertise that covers a limited knowledge base (neuroscience) when it comes to headaches (remember, headaches can be caused by non-neurological disorder that can be just as deadly as a neurological one).
The Defective Package
When you build on a flawed foundation, the structure is always unsound.
We begin with what is offered by our mainstream (corporate sponsored) media as to the etiology of 9/11. All such explanations can be boiled down to the following equation:
[Muslims gone bad] + [incompetent/overwhelmed surveillance] = 9/11
Based on the overwhelming amount of evidence, pulled from mainstream sources, investigative journalism, and foreign mainstream press, the 9/11 truth thesis maintains the following critical differences:
[Maybe Muslims gone bad, or persons impersonating them] + [facilitation by members of our own national security apparatus] = [9/11 blamed on “militant Islam”]
The massive impact of 9/11 in the daily life of the world cannot be overstated. Specifically, for American Muslim activists, its distal effects (such as the PATRIOT Act) have been quite devastating, and these folks work tirelessly and for the most part fruitlessly to alleviate the symptoms produced by 9/11, without ever addressing the cause. I find it astounding that they are so silent about questioning the legitimacy of the mainstream thesis—for it is from this very thesis that all the misery for the American Muslim activists began.
Covering the evidence contradicting this thesis is beyond the scope of this essay; however, the following general lines of inquiry will aid a truth seeker in trying to make an accurate diagnosis as to the why and what of 9/11. In addition, sources for further reading will be listed at the end of this section.
Required Topics for Understanding the Background of 9/11
1. Wall Street/corporate America/the banking industry. All the directors and highest-ranking officials of the national security apparatus (e.g., the CIA) are from this sector. The CIA is a creation of Wall Street/corporate America, designed specifically to ensure a fiscal inertia securing a one-way flow of cash, labor, and resources. It is cosmetically presented and conceived of as looking out for national security, but functionally speaking, it behaves as described. If you have no understanding of the difference between cosmetic and functional definitions, then don’t bother with the topic of 9/11. You may happily go on believing the mainstream thesis.
2. Violent modalities used (past and present) in sustaining our US economy. The implication is that violence may be sanctioned on US soil because the drive for fiscal inertia cannot logically be constrained by loyalties based on citizenship; when fiscal logic dictates that livelihoods or actual lives must be sacrificed, then they must be sacrificed, whether in Indonesia, Iraq, Chile, Nicaragua, or in the World Trade Center. For those who question whether anyone would so betray their loyalty to their fellow citizens, ask the employees of ENRON or the thousands who have lost their pension funds, or tens of thousands whose share of Social Security or health benefits have literally disappeared. Or ask the surviving crew of the USS Liberty, or the sufferers of Gulf War Syndrome, or the families of the victims of the USS Lusitania or Pearl Harbor.
3. Related to the aforementioned: one must also consider the inherent instability of fiat money (paper currency whose fabrication is divorced from any traditional store of value, such as gold), which culminated in the rise of fractional reserve banking and a blatantly usurious financial system. Sustaining the supremacy of the US dollar in terms of exchange, as well as the global reserve currency, has been linked to many geopolitical and domestic criminal actions and loss of life.3
4. The hydrocarbon industry and interests in the Caspian basin. The Afghans were explicitly warned in July 2001 by US officials that by October 2001, they were either going to receive carpets of gold or carpets of bombs, depending on the degree of their cooperation with various geostrategic corporate-driven agendas. Troops had already mobilized into Uzbekistan, and other allied military were scrambled, headed toward Central Asia prior to 9/11.
5. The geopolitical implications of post–peak production of oil (peak oil).
6. The $500 billion, if not more, inflow of liquid cash per year laundered through correspondent US banks by the heroin industry, of which Afghanistan is largest proximal supplier. 2002—after the US invasion—was the biggest export year ever.
7. The rise of militant Islamic networks, of Salafi/Wahaabi ideology, and their empowerment both financial and military, with particular emphasis on Afghanistan, the Pakistani ISI, and its liaison with US covert operations that are themselves always governed by corporate, industrial, and banking interests.
8. The use, frequency, and utility of false-flag operations (see David Ray Griffin’s essay in this volume).
9. The petrodollar relationship—the prototypical example being the ruling elite of Saudi Arabia.
10. The ISI (the Pakistani equivalent of the CIA). The ISI is a creature of CIA, and the head of ISI has to be approved by our security apparatus. It is well known that all of the backing for the militant Islamic networks in the ’80s and ’90s went from the CIA to the ISI to the militants—most notably the mujahideen and thereafter the Taliban.
11. The State of Israel—its crime syndicates, secret service, and false flag operation history and capability.
12. Our American mainstream media and its egregious conflicts of interests between honest journalism and the corporate-sponsored mainstream agenda. The absence of a thesis from the mainstream media cannot be taken as a sign of its illegitimacy; if anything, absence of a thesis is probably an indication of its authenticity.
13. The bin Laden group, and the Saudi elite’s relationship to our economy. Investigations of Saudi elites are continuously thwarted from within our own security apparatus. (The bin Ladens lived in Falls Church, VA—next door to CIA headquarters.) Clinton’s regime specifically mandated that the FBI back off from investigating anything that involved the bin Ladens or the Saudi elite. They were quickly flown out of the country several days after 9/11, while private air flight was suspended.4
14. Reports in the mainstream foreign press that Osama bin Laden met with CIA officials in July 2001 during his hospitalization in the American hospital in Dubai. This is when he was supposedly wanted dead or alive. The press has not retracted the story to this day.
15. FBI agent complaints and accusations that some of their superiors suppressed action based on terrorist leads; many of these complaints and the persons issuing them have been silenced or gagged (Coleen Rowley, Sibel Edmonds, and others).
16. That the 50 or so documented warnings of terrorists’ strikes scheduled for the week of 9/11 were not heeded, including those from the intelligence services of Israel, Egypt, and four other nations. Required Knowledge: The Disturbing Questions and Anomalies Surrounding 9/11 Proper, All Based on Mainstream Press Reports
17. Who were the hijackers, given that at least six of the nineteen alleged hijackers are still alive and had their identities stolen? How was their continued entry into the US allowed if they were on security risk lists? How are we to explain the debaucheries in their behavior if they were Islamists? Why were some reported to be at two different ends of the US at the same time?5
18. Why, according to cell phone conversations, did the seat numbers not match the names of the hijackers?6 Why haven’t the original flight passenger manifests been made public record? Why were the cell phone calls allegedly made from distressed passengers considered anomalous, and how is that there were extended conversations flowing smoothly from altitudes greater than 8000 feet?7 Why weren’t any hijack signal codes, or radio communications, relayed to ground control? What about the fact that based on what is recorded of their alleged flight training (some of which was received in US military schools) none of the hijackers could functionally fly a Boeing commercial airliner?8 (Hani Hanjour allegedly piloted a Boeing 757 through a 270-degree spiral during a steep dive, followed by an over-400-miles-per-hour cruise parallel to the ground so low that it clipped lamp posts 500 feet from the Pentagon—yet he was so incompetent at the alleged flight school he attended that he was not allowed to fly. Some expert pilots reviewing the trajectory data declared it near impossible, or flat out impossible, to conduct such a maneuver.)
19. Why did different US grade-school students (of foreign descent) proclaim the WTC was going to be bombed the week of the tragedy while our intelligence agencies were allegedly taken by surprise?9 Why did top Pentagon officials stop flying commercial flights the week of 9/11?10
20. Why did investigators not pursue the massive, record-breaking dump of United and American airline stock during the week before 9/11 during the activity (monitoring real-time suspicious activities of stock trades is standard procedure), or after the event of 9/11? Why did the SCC stop the investigation after it discovered the transactions were carried out through Deutsche Bank, whose head is A.K. Krongard, ex–deputy director of the CIA? Why did Mayo Shattuck (CEO of Deutsche Bank) abruptly retire following 9/11?11
21. What about the Israelis in the white van who were arrested in New Jersey on 9/11? They were seen taking celebratory photographs and videos with the WTC burning in the background; they were reported to the police, arrested, and interrogated. They were suspected to be Mossad agents, yet released without investigation.12 And why were there forty Mossad agents literally living within hundreds of yards of some of the hijackers, in the tiny town of Hollywood, Florida?13 Why were all the witnesses who knew the hijackers in Florida either silenced by the FBI or made to disappear to “the island of lost witnesses” as reported in Daniel Hopsicker’s Welcome to Terrorland? Why were the “hijackers” apparently being run by a CIA-linked drug cartel that owned the “flight schools”—actually fronts for drug smugglers—where they were posing as Muslims learning to fly? Why the attempted cover-up of the fact that the “hijackers” were brought to the US by the CIA and trained at US military facilities?14
22. Why the scores of documented accounts of foreknowledge of this event from a diverse source base? To assume “we were taken by surprise” is ludicrous. For example. one New York–based military communications operator left his post, phoned his brother who was in WTC 2, and told him to leave immediately. It seems that he knew a second plane attack was imminent, yet no one was sounding any alarms to evacuate the thousand or so people who were alive at the time.15
23. What hit the Pentagon? As this book is going to press, five years after the tragedy, there is still zero evidence it was a Boeing. The place is sprawling with video surveillance, yet no video is available, except for the few frames from a parking lot surveillance camera that do not suggest a commercial airplane hit the Pentagon.16 Why were there so many contradictory eye-witness statements as to the physical appearance and other characteristics of the alleged plane? Why was there no mention of the White House Annex fire that was broadcast on network television that morning?17
24. Why did Mr. Bush behave so oddly that day? Why had the president apparently been removed from the chain of command, and the vice president put in his place, that day? Why have the vice president and the 9/11 Commission apparently lied about evidence reflecting this unconstitutional and deeply damning shift in the chain of command? Specifically, why have they apparently lied in inventing a nonexistent phone call between Bush and Cheney, and by making up a false story about Cheney’s whereabouts—lies whose apparent purpose is to conceal the fact that Cheney was in command throughout the 9/11 operation?18
25. Why does the wreckage from Pennsylvania (Flight 93) indicate that the “fourth plane” was indeed shot down, or suffered a midair explosion?19 Why did Mr. Rumsfeld recently say that Flight 93 was shot down, and then quickly correct himself?20
26. Why did WTC 7 collapse? This happened long after the strikes, and in a manner that suggested it was demolished. Why did its owner say on TV, “they told me they had to ‘pull the building’”—which is an expression for demolishing a building? Who were “they”? Why did the fire rescue personnel also state that WTC 7 was demolished? If this happened, when were the explosives planted?21
27. Why have so many civil engineers, including one that worked for the steel company that built the WTC, stated there was no way such a crash could have caused the whole structure to fall without any teetering or sign of partial collapse? Why does video analysis of the collapse suggest that the towers could not have “pancaked down” with such speed? The fires were dying down, and never has fire ever caused the collapse of a re-enforced steel skyscraper. Why was the steel whisked away without a forensic analysis (the one conducted was called “a half-baked farce” by the editor of Fire Prevention Engineering22)? What of the credible reports that the black boxes had been found—not unlikely, since black boxes almost always survive crashes, and that a “hijacker’s passport” of paper and plastic supposedly survived the crash and fire?
28. What of the completely contradictory official versions of what transpired in the sky around Washington23—and why hasn’t anyone inquired why the air-defense response took so long, since Vice President Cheney has revealed that the Secret Service, FAA, and NORAD keep the lines of communication open 24/7?
29. How do we explain the complete incapacitation and stand-down of standard air-space defense protocols (which functioned effectively over 60 times the previous year) and the lies and contradictions between NORAD, the FAA, Secret Service, and the Air Force? How is it that there were “war game” scenarios based on hijacked Boeings going on as the real events were taking place?24 When asked about these issues, General Eberhardt’s response was simply “no comment.”25
30. Why has the current regime obstructed any serious attempt to investigate the circumstances that led to 9/11? Why was known war criminal and cover-up specialist Henry Kissinger Bush’s first choice to lead the investigation? Why was the Kean commission comprised of members who had egregious conflicts of interest by their presence on such a panel? Philip Zelikow, who exerted near total control over much of the investigation as well as the final report, is a crony of Secretary of State Rice and a White House staff appointee—was he expected to oversee an impartial critique of the performance of the administration?26 Why did one member, Max Cleland, resign from the commission after accusing it of incompetence and lack of dedication, saying “The Warren Commission blew it... I will not be part of that”?27
31. Why have all pressing inquiries been completely ignored, and inquirers gagged? Sibel Edmonds (a former FBI employee, presently under several gag orders) posited relations between illicit drug profiteering, the flight schools, and the “terrorists” themselves, as indicated by the fact that 43 pounds of heroin were found at one “flight school”—and records of operations of that school were moved out of the country, as per orders of governor Jeb Bush.28 The 9/11 family steering committee has explicitly stated their dismay at the incompetence and inability of the Kean Commission to even address these serious questions.29
32. Why was an FAA supervisor found destroying evidence of flight patterns and other data that was crucially relevant to any investigations?30
These are just a few leads; there are so many more, any one of which causes serious doubts or completely disproves the mainstream 9/11 thesis. It is the job of authentic journalism to chase these leads, and these are quite simply the tips of many, many icebergs. The mainstream corporate press did not just drop the ball, it hid the ball. The only arena where these leads are pursued is by intrepid independent media outlets and journalists—who often don’t have the training or funding to produce analyses that would reach and penetrate the public mind.9/11 truth seekers are, from the global perspective, in the majority. Reports from the Islamic world indicate that the majority reject the official theory.31 Domestically, a 2004 Zogby poll demonstrated that 49 percent of New York City residents and 41 percent of New York state residents believe that members of the federal government were complicit in the 9/11 attacks in that they consciously failed to act to prevent them; more than 56 percent of New York state residents (66 percent of NYC residents) believe an independent investigation should be re-opened.32 A more recent Scripps-Howard poll shows that 36 percent of Americans think it “very likely” or “somewhat likely” that federal officials either participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or took no action to stop them because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East.33 And they are right. For there is no doubt that the official version of 9/11 does not stand up to even the most elementary scrutiny.34
Now, we turn to an analysis as to why the “American Muslim academic/activist scene” has been grossly negligent in their lack of support for 9/11 truth.
Why The Silence?
Incompetence and mediocre analysis are, by definition, more common than excellent, high intelligence and penetrating analysis. When the former dominate the discourse, it results in an impotent response that falls prey to underlying agendas. The forms of mediocrity and incompetence come in the following guises:
Not accumulating data before arriving at a conclusion. This is synonymous with getting the story from FOX or CNN, or the New York Times and then assuming one is ready to effectively respond and discuss 9/11.
Confining the analysis to allegiance based on nation-states.. When it comes to geopolitics, the concept of the nation-state is largely superfluous. The governing dynamics of geopolitical conflict transcends allegiances based on the idea of nation-states. Indeed, the concept of nation-state is more of a public relations tool at this level than anything else. Simply looking at fiscal flow, how else can you explain the unbelievable sums of taxpayer money (and now jobs) that flow to other lands and peoples, while the “citizens of this country” often live in poor conditions, especially in rural and inner-city areas? From this perspective alone, the nation-state based on geographical borders has very little meaning. The architects of the agendas that cause geopolitical conflicts are rarely seeking above all to serve the nation-state.
Without digressing into a historical account of the concept of the nation-state, it is necessary to observe that this concept functions as little more than an effective propaganda tool with relation to the geostrategic ploys that we examine, and that allegiance to the nation-state is subordinate to other agendas in relation to global conflict, both low-intensity and overt, and hence has no effective meaning in analyzing the basis for conflicts of the magnitude under discussion.35 In this model, agendas that require conflict are initiated, and subsequently one or multiple nation state apparatus—executive, military, judiciary, legislative—are often co-opted to effectuate the necessary policies. In this manner, many of the heads of state and other government officials become, in reality, middle management or public relations personnel for the agendas that trickle down through their orders or words. The lower-level human resource and labor for conflict (soldiers, grassroots activists, functionaries, technocrats) may be galvanized through the psychology of allegiance to the nation-state. If the public of a given nation benefits from effectuating such policies, great; but if a policy calls for harm to some, tough luck. Much of the American public does benefit from the global policies of financiers and corporations that act via co-option of government. Thanks to the greed of financiers and the multinationals, standards of living for the middle classes and above are high, and retirement funds stay nice and plump.
The reason the meaninglessness of nation-state needs to be emphasized is that some who are critical of the 9/11 truth thesis ask, “Do you really believe that America attacked itself?” To this question, which suffers from the delusional error of misapplying the notion of nation-state to an arena where it has no meaning, we can only respond, “Can you please define America?” Or, we can say that we, part of America, is blaming another part of America for allowing harm to come to yet another part of America. So to those who cannot see past this idea of the nation state, we say “America attacked itself, and America is looking for that cancerous part of itself that was complicit.” Assuming the 9/11 truth thesis is correct, we may ask, “Which party is America? Those complicit in the attacks or the truth seekers?”
Rejection of the 9/11 Truth Thesis: The Etiologies
The 9/11 truth thesis often meets with a priori disbelief. This disbelief is irrational at best; its roots have far less than to do with lack of evidence contradicting the mainstream explanation, and more to do with the psychological obstructions that exist in those facing these difficult truths. This disbelief has the following etiologies:
Disbelief etiology A: “You don’t expect me to believe in this conspiracy theory, do you?”
“It’s fine if you want to call me a conspiracy theorist, as long as I can call you a coincident theorist.”-- 9/11 researcher John Judge
We are dealing less with conspiracy theory than with conspiracy facts. Moreover, many conveniently overlook the fact that the mainstream explanation of 9/11 is a conspiracy theory. The data documented above, and in the numerous works available, are facts that any twelve-year-old with sufficient mental capabilities can put together in an effort to formulate a diagnosis of what happened, or at least realize that the mainstream thesis is utterly false. The term “conspiracy theory” is often used to discredit valid lines of inquiry—and the uninformed usually are dissuaded from using their intelligence in evaluating data they believe relates to “conspiracies.” But conspiracies are all around us. Any time more than one party act in concert and without publicity for a given agenda it is conspiracy. And if the actions or agenda involve any activities that are against the law, the behavior fits the legal definition of criminal conspiracy. Conspiracy is actually one of the most common criminal legal terms used in this country. To believe that such behavior is nonexistent or uncommon at high levels of power is the height of naïveté.
Along the same lines of naïve a priori rejectionism, we hear: “How can this be so hidden, I mean—wouldn’t it take far too many people to pull this thing off?” The short answer is no. Brigham Young University physicist Steven Jones has pointed out that ten men carrying ten forty-pound loads each could easily place the 4,000 pounds of explosives necessary to bring down the Twin Towers.36 As for conspirators in government agencies, bureaucracy and hierarchies are structured in such a way that there are key nodal positions, which are akin to a narrow part of a funnel. If you imagine a funnel upside down, narrow side up, there is a gatekeeper, usually the superior, who sits at this nodal position, and all activity/information goes through this node to the next layer. It was severe criticism of people in such positions that characterized the complaints by such FBI field officers as Coleen Rowley, who used such words as “obstruct,” and “sabotage,” and “undermine” to describe the behavior of certain personnel involved in concealing terrorist activities, and pointedly mentioned FBI field agents joking that al-Qaeda must have a mole at FBI headquarters. FAA, NORAD, NSA, CIA, and other organizations are structured in the same manner.37
Disbelief etiology B: How could a group of people actually do this to others?
This type of reaction is sheer sentimental naïveté. Anyone who asks this question has been distracted by the spectacular and horrifying drama of the attacks. In essence, this was a murder of almost 3,000 people and the destruction of an infrastructure closely related to US covert operations. (The WTC possessed many departments related to such activities—including building 7, which was nowhere near the attacks, and whose collapse cannot be rationally explained except as a controlled demolition with explosives.) In order to overcome this naïve sentimentality, which keeps so many minds from arriving at an accurate diagnosis, one must understand that we are exposing a faceless, cold mentality that operates as necessary.
Most folks cannot handle associating the faces of our leaders as seen on TV with committing wrong. The idea that they may be in tacit approval of, cooperation with, or actually design policies which involve harming other human beings, let alone their fellow citizens, is unimaginable. First, let me reiterate that those leaders seen in the media are best thought of as middle management or public relations folk for such policies. Moreover, I dealt with the mistake of introducing the idea of allegiance to the nation-state above. We are then forced to examine a cold, pragmatic, dispassionate mentality that invariably justifies its actions to itself and other like-minded individuals. These actions may be of omission or commission. They may involve the following behavior: looking the other way in the face of suspicious, anomalous, or criminal activities; passively or actively cooperating with enacting a harmful policy in order to preserve or secure one’s sociopolitical or financial position37; or designing policies that actively harm other human beings. I speak of a mentality and behavior pattern that can co-opt the psyche of humans once, recurrently, or chronically. It often takes possession of individuals and collectivities devoted to maintaining financial or political hegemony.
One must understand that this same faceless mentality promoted the nuclear incineration of hundreds of thousands of human beings; it sponsored the genocide of literally millions of people in Asia, and hundreds of thousands in Europe and on this continent. This mentality has been around for millennia, and in truth has its origin in metaphysical realms described in the ontological precedents of all faith traditions—and has expressed itself through people of all skin colors, ethnicities, times, climes, and colors. Loyalties and allegiances (least of all to fellow citizens of any nation-state) are not in the mindset of this mentality. It is eminently practical.
If need be, it will express itself on US soil. It does so all the time in the form of looting taxpayers and honest citizens who are victimized by financial scams and deceptive accounting practices that ruin livelihoods and destroy lives. Most Arab and South Asian nations are impoverished because of these practices, which lead to suffering and loss of life in so many ways. If, for this mentality, maintaining hegemony means absorbing losses of life on US soil—so be it. Pearl Harbor provides an excellent example, and may have provided a model for the perpetrators of the 9/11 operation.38
One of the driving forces of the mentality that we are describing is the desire for sustained material wealth—securing a net one-way flow of cash, resources, or labor. We may term this drive “fiscal inertia”—and this inertia is a compulsion of such weight and might that all of the world’s prophets, saints, and scriptures have warned about it over, and over, and over again. There is a reason for such dire warning of what happens to the human psyche dominated by pursuit of material wealth. Unguarded, the human psyche, collective or individual, falls prey to the criminal mentality of which we speak. And this is what is behind so many events of mass killing and destruction. Let us not make the mistake of pointing fingers. The criminal mentality lurks in most of us, and expresses itself often in different forms. Put another way: If we found ourselves in the same position as the perpetrators, we too might well succumb to this mentality. Humans do remarkably dishonorable things when getting or staying ahead financially is at stake.
Ironically, fiscal inertia was a great peacekeeper in many traditional civilizations. Such fiscal inertia, used for honorable ends, was the basis of the “blood penalty” that kept the peace in traditional societies. In many tribal societies, if a member of one clan was slain wrongfully, the aggrieved clan had the right to forego instituting punitive measures and demand hefty financial compensation. This option was often taken, and since the desire to stay fiscally sound was powerful, manslaughter and murder were extremely rare in such societies, because would-be perpetrators knew that acting on their impulses would bring their families great hardship—and often cost the perpetrator a falling out with his clan, a social connection that provided critical support for individuals.39
Fiscal inertia is terribly real. I witness the aforementioned mentality, and people succumbing to it, day in and day out, harming and betraying the people of this nation, through increasing morbidity and mortality, in a field that I know intimately—health care. Parasitic folks with a corporate mentality have assaulted what was once a sacred relationship between healers and healed—and because of the “worship” of fiscal inertia, this mentality wreaks havoc by consciously forcing decisions by handcuffed and cowardly policy makers that result in sustaining sickness, and even loss of life—be this through hospital policies that prioritize profits over patient care, or through stamping out medical progress that would threaten profits for industries that have entrenched themselves in health care, or through promoting the pharmaceutical industry based on flimsy or even fraudulent data. This is one of the reasons why the 9/11 truth thesis was not too surprising for me to grasp. Health care is ridden by forces promoting sickness and slow loss of life and suffering for the sake of fiscal inertia; 9/11 exemplified the same process in acute form.
Disbelief etiology C: Are we still naïve outsiders?
The American Muslim community has been unable to come to grips with 9/11, and speak out for truth, for a variety of reasons. The whole American Islamic culture is based on the residues of the flavor and mentality brought to these shores by the immigrant generation hailing mainly from the Arab world and Indian Subcontinent. The major exceptions are the African-American and white American converts, whose role in the build-up and maintenance of mainstream American Islamic sentiment and ethos is (unfortunately) at best marginal or contained in a separate sub-culture.
These immigrant residues are just beginning to wear off from the second generation, the immigrants’ children—most of whom are slowly improving their understandings not only of Islam but of the dynamics of Western foreign policy.40 Though there are many areas of understanding that still need improvement, we will focus on a few that have enormous bearing on understanding the silence and lack of vigorous support for 9/11 truth by American Islam.
The first and dominant factor is fear. The great majority of American Muslim immigrants came to this country looking to better their lives through opportunities afforded by American society. Thankfully, many have found success. For them, the reality is that the US is the best place on earth in terms of opportunity, returns on hard work, honesty, and the rule of law. They see that the blatant nepotism, corruption, bribery, and cutthroatedness necessary to ascend socioeconomically in their home countries are relatively absent here. This is true—and as an American, I am proud of this. However, this feeling of gratitude does not absolve anyone from his or her spiritual responsibility to speak out against crime. This gratitude, this “thank God I’m here and not there” mentality has led to an “I don’t care to rock the boat by sticking up for justice in the manner My Prophet would ask of me” mentality, or an “I am not going to bite at the hand that feeds me” mentality. The logical unsoundness of this position is obvious, so I won’t bother exposing it. The hand that feeds us is not the same hand that killed almost 3,000 people on 9/11. The reason why the immigrants are doing so well is thanks to a nation state which some intrepid, bright men and women set into motion circa the late 1700s—and those same men and women would be crying bloody murder at the attitudes “American” Muslims display in their avoidance of 9/11 truth. “Don’t call yourself American,” they would tell us. “Don’t call yourself Muslims, either” may be a voice some of us hear in our hearts when we realize what transpired and our lack of response.
The second psychological complex some of the Muslim immigrants suffer from—which has left its residues on the American Muslim response, or rather lack of response, to 9/11 truth—has to do with a naïveté and inferiority complex that most of this group feels before the “shiny, modern white man’s world.” What people who are in the grip of such a complex (the majority) need to do is to talk to those of us who have had access to the arenas where the maintenance of fiscal inertia is the only guiding precedent—and if fiscal inertia dictates the creation of a false-flag operation that sacrifices some lives on US soil for “a greater good,” so be it. In the context of the world of health care, if it means keeping certain beneficial breakthroughs or beneficial knowledge away from the public markets—so be it, let some lives be sacrificed, let some people remain sick. Such arenas, where fiscal inertia demonstrably reigns supreme over the public welfare, and where policies dictating such inertia originate, are accessible to those of us who have had the distinct pleasure to sit in on board meetings at the top of the hierarchies of a given institution that has a for-profit component.
Most folks have no such experience. Such folks suffer from a delusional perception that confuses the “glitter” of living in a society with functional infrastructure and institutions, with a guarantee of ethical conduct when fiscal inertia is at stake. Indeed, there are scores of examples showing that within large bureaucracies and hierarchical organizations, some individuals, groups, and agendas can quite literally get away with murder. Those of us who have witnessed the functioning of this dynamic need no further proof that it is possible for groups to be so socio-politically and financially insulated and manipulated that tacitly approving and getting away with even mass murder and hiding within the blitz of hierarchy, bureaucracies, plausible deniability, excuses of incompetence, and so on is certainly a plausible scenario. Remember, fiscal inertia is a most powerful compeller.
It is an interesting paradox, because in the developing world, the corruption and criminality that have leeched into policymaking institutions, be they governmental or corporate, is so much more transparent and intuitively expected by those who live there. But in the West, this immigrant Muslim generation that influences the tone of American Islam somehow believes all of that has magically disappeared. In short, most folks who have been imprisoned in this thought pattern need to learn that there are indeed cracks and cobwebs in the walls at Disneyland, and underneath, Mickey and Goofy are not Mickey and Goofy—they are two guys getting paid 10 dollars an hour, and they do take their masks off once they are in the sub-basement underneath the Magic Kingdom. Such folks ought to listen to those who have been to the sub-basement.
The last harmful residue left upon an American Muslim struggling to understand the nature of 9/11 is an “outsider” mentality (transposed onto our psyches from an immigrant generation), which leads to the notion that the way to combat terrorism is to “clean up our own back yard”—as though our backyard were not also the United States of America. Ironically, this alienating mentality is expressed by many who claim they are emancipated from “backward traditional mentalities” and integrated into modern American culture while still in retention of their Islamic identity. Such folks want to rid the Islamic World of “the baddies.” “This should be our priority,” so the proponents claim, “We should have the courage to criticize our own.” Indeed we should—when the criticism is justified. But if you have been paying attention, I hope you are open to the fact that when it comes to 9/11 and many other such events, to assume that the Islamic community is solely responsible for these crimes is false. These crimes are the stuff of covert operations involving parties that cannot be neatly categorized. To speak of a community’s responsibility for its own in the above fashion when it comes to such events as 9/11 is sheer nonsense.
What is the Islamic backyard anyway? Since I am an American Muslim, my backyard is just as much the halls of the American executive branch, Congress, the judiciary, the NSA, the Pentagon, and the CIA (all sustained by my tax dollars) as it is the ideological trends within Islamic thought.
If we are going to be intelligent about addressing the problems within our own communities, we must recognize that our communities do not divide along the ethnic, religious, or political lines we traditionally recognize, but are formed by people’s moral choices. There are those among us who are willing to go to great lengths—even to commit murder—for financial, political, or social gain. There are others who would never do so and whose lives are defined by their concern for their fellow man. This first, malignant element includes folks in suits, in robes, in thawbs, clean shaven or shariah-bearded—as does the second, virtuous element. The first includes people who speak English, who speak Arabic, who speak just about every language there is; so does the second. The phrases “Allahu akbar,” “jihad,” and “sunna” are heard in each, as are the phrases “God bless America,” “national interest,” “democracy,” and “freedom.” Both elements include people from all socioeconomic classes and all religious backgrounds. It is no longer possible to say that terrorism or violence, or any problem, belongs then to one community—whether Islamic or American—it must belong to all. Our problems must be addressed by attending to our common human virtues, and addressing our common human failings.
Disbelief Etiology D: Can we afford to acknowledge this 9/11 truth?
Many individuals who consider themselves activists, academics, or commentators have found a niche for themselves. There is a great deal of personal energy, egoistic pride, and even financial interest invested into the niche within which they operate. Suppose a thesis comes along and exposes the very basis of your activist, academic, or analytic platform as misdirected, diluted in comparison to an alternative path of activism, or patently false. The whole construct of your work is pulled out from beneath you. This does not take away from any of the good work that you may do, but the very basis of your perceptions and diagnosis of a given problem that you are trying to remedy has been found to be profoundly lacking, and it may be time to face the facts and reorganize if you are sincerely committed to dealing with the issue (in this case, 9/11). The problem for a given activist may be that he/she has so many material and non-material factors (or other psychological obstructions—see below) invested in sustaining a given misdiagnosis, a misdiagnosis that yields the coveted opportunities to soapbox, pontificate, lead, organize, rally, dialogue, or be the spokesperson in the limelight.
The moderate Muslim response to terror has become an industry of its own—an offspring of the movement to bring healing between “Islam” and “the West.” This industry has grown exponentially due to 9/11. After all, the mainstream thesis, which 9/11 truth exposes as false, is based on a terrible thing done to the West by angry Muslims. “Please, let us try to understand each other’s grievances,” cry the darling moderates, be they Muslim, Jewish, or Christian American activists, clergy, or academics. On their proverbial soapboxes, in the spotlight, and at times seduced by the notoriety and ego massage, you can hear the American Muslim activist: “Shame on those bad Muslims.... Islam means peace... damn those Wahhabis.... We have got to clean out our own house and take dar al-Islam back from these bad apples, or else nasty terror attacks will keep on happening, to Shias, and Sunnis, and Americans, and Hindus, and Jews, and us!”
There is a tremendous amount of secondary gain to be had if one successfully assumes this position. One enters the world of lecture tours, book contracts, TV interviews, financial incentives, meetings with prominent officials (middle management), and of course a national and even international celebrity-type notoriety and acceptance. From a psycho-spiritual perspective, these are very potent intoxicants and pitfalls (extremely attractive, their gravity underestimated, habit-forming, and difficult to reject), which quite often muddy the vision and determination to pursue truth. From the criminally strategic perspective of those who actually designed 9/11, one engaged in this moderate position becomes a duped (or, if they do realize the truth, complicit) disinformation and propaganda agent who serves to keep the truth concealed. The moderate Muslims’ impulse to “shame those bad Muslims” as if 9/11 occurred solely by the hands of Muslim extremists, ignores the fact that the very existence of these alleged extremists, as Muslims and as hijackers is in serious doubt, and that Muslim fundamentalism can by no means be seriously considered responsible for the success of the 9-11 attacks.41
Many such activists do not engage in the profound reassessment that ought occur to a sincere, lucid mind when confronted with the arguments of the 9/11 truth movement. This is not because of their lack of their intelligence, nor the lack of evidence. Rather, the obstruction is likely more than anything psycho-social or socio-economic in etiology and based on losing any one of the aforementioned, coveted fruits of being labeled “a true, moderate Muslim.” But at a certain point, we all have to ask, “Do I care about what comes with my role, being seen as a leader, being seen as having the right answers? Or do I care about the truth?” I have been vulnerable to being cast in a negative light as an MD for refusing to subscribe to much of what is and what is not considered standard medical practice (usually influenced by industry). My resolve has always been fueled by the same sort of self-examination: Do I care more about the truth of what heals or harms my patient, or do I care about what others perceive as the proper roles and protocols of an MD?
The good Muslim–bad Muslim dialectic that supposedly moderate Muslim commentators use is a direct result of uncritically swallowing the mainstream thesis. When moderate Muslims adopt this dialectic, they are letting the devil win: By defining themselves in relation to the very religious extremist stance they wish to reject, they in fact legitimize it. On the other hand, Muslims prone to a simplistic jihaadist geopolitical view that sees the Western–Israeli–Arab puppet regime alliance as a monolithic implacable enemy to the Islam and its adherents, and as an entity that has murdered millions of Muslims over the past five decades, are liable to feel some degree of justice in the success of the attacks. For them, 9/11 was a kick to the groin of the Great Satan. This political view may at first seem completely opposed to the moderate Muslim stance that sees 9/11 resulting simply from an ideological aberrancy within the Muslim world. The moderate Muslims would indeed condemn the jihadist view. What is tragically ironic is that these two stances are actually flawed in precisely the same way, and in effect are two opposite sides of a profoundly counterfeit coin. They both inject religious discourse into the discussion because they both accept the element of mainstream thesis that uses religious discourse as a false flag and motive. The only argument between them is on the subject of whether the alleged perpetrators were martyrs or condemned to burn in hell.
The jihadists may be categorized as belonging to two types. The first is convinced that since the Western–Israeli–Arab puppet regime is an implacable enemy to Islam, false-flag terror ops may be part of their game. To this perspective, it matters little that 9/11 may not truly have been committed by martyrs; it was still a providential payback for dar al-Islam. The second type may actually believe that 9/11 was indeed a successful martyrdom operation as the mainstream thesis posits. Either way, whether the response be moderate or either version of jihadist, religion stays in the foreground and there is no impetus to get to 9/11 truth; this is precisely what the true criminals prefer.
I must explicitly state that both categories of jihadists stand condemned from an Islamic doctrinal perspective. It is categorically sinful and punishable by death deliberately to target non-combatants during armed conflict. Interestingly enough, this categorical forbiddance calls into serious question the permissibility to participate in modern warfare period, which as a rule uses tactics and weaponry that by necessity kill indiscriminately. I wonder why the moderate Muslims remain silent on this manner.
The mainstream thesis must be rejected, and 9/11 must be seriously rethought as a crime perpetrated for strategic reasons, in which religious discourse was not in fact a motive but a false flag, a scapegoat, a smokescreen to which both so-called extremist and moderate Muslim responders have fallen victim. As has been stated, and bears repeating: to proceed with a discussion when its premise is an outright lie is in this context to do nothing more than spread disinformation.
Being moderate does not mean we must use only a moderate amount of intelligence. Nor does being moderate mean compromising the truth of things, or neglecting the facts of a case. Being moderate means politely presenting one’s thoughtfully considered view, and condemning all forms of aggression. What is needed is a platform of intelligent moderation. Such a platform rejects the good Muslim–bad Muslim dialectic as distracting, and instead considers the evidence against the official story.
It is necessary to reiterate that the proponents of 9/11 truth dutifully acknowledge the existence of the phenomenon known as the “militant Islamic networks” and the ideologies that espouse such a phenomenon—“the bad Muslims.” We also realize the real need to re-educate those that have been mentally conditioned by the various covert operations–funded madrassas. But assigning full blame to them for the attacks of 9/11 is patently false.
I am not suggesting that we should stop defending the religion of Islam from the slanderous implications that spring directly from the mainstream thesis; even pre-9/11, clarifying the Islam of Muhammad from its counterfeit forms and the various misperceptions promoted, whether ignorantly or deliberately, by various actors with agendas has been mandatory for anyone who loves Muhammad. It is important heal the relationship between Islam and the typical modern Western psyche.
Many activists choose to use their limited resources to address the symptoms of 9/11. But if you feel compelled to address symptoms, why do you not care about the cause? It makes no therapeutic sense to dilute resources by treating only symptoms, without exposing the actual perpetrators and their agenda—what in the world of pathology is known as etiology. Not only will chasing after symptoms while allowing the etiology to thrive waste and further consume your precious resources, but striking at the etiology will most definitely cure the symptoms, not just alleviate them. Heightened Islamophobia is a symptom. Public embrace of the so-called PATRIOT Act is a symptom. Public willingness to allow detention camps to hold those arrested without charges, trial, or elementary rights is a symptom. Public pro-war sentiment is a symptom. These are all linked directly to the false 9/11 mainstream thesis. The 9/11 truth thesis cures the disease. And the 9/11 truth movement is out there, alive and inexorably gaining ground. Ironically, the 9/11 truth movement is led almost entirely by non-Muslim Americans. They are doing almost all the work—certainly the hardest part—and they badly need our support.
It is both pathetic and tragic that so many activists, especially Muslim activists, ignore the vast positive potential of the 9/11 truth movement.
Disbelief etiology F: Disinformation patterns
The most useful kind of disinformation is that which is full of accurate information, but contains just the right amount of falsehood, either by omission of key facts, or addition of wrong information, such that perpetrators may continue their course. The best counterfeit is that which best mimics the real thing. In this light, we need to look at the phrase formerly used to swear in witnesses in a court of law: “I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.” This phrase protected against the basic forms of disinformation. First, the promise to tell the truth. Next, this was qualified by a request to reveal the truth in its entirety, because it is possible to misinform through telling the truth, but not the whole truth. Moreover, it is possible to tell the whole truth while embellishing it in a way that misinforms a jury about a given situation; hence the additional pledge of telling nothing but the truth. There you have the basic forms of misinformation: to not tell the story, or not tell the whole story, or tell the whole story while embellishing it with the aim of keeping people in the dark.
In the context of 9/11, let us just mention two misinformation patterns that have arisen. In bringing these up, I am not accusing their proponents of consciously disseminating disinformation; what I am stating is that in light of the corpus of data found by the 9/11 truth movement, the following explanations must be seen as misinformation.
Misinformation pattern #1: The “blowback” hypothesis: This essentially acknowledges that the US government, under the influence of US corporations, did help to create and sustain militant Islamic networks, and that the US should be ashamed of its one-time ties to these “Muslim rogues.” This hypothesis acknowledges that the US trained, financed, and armed these militants, and argues that now they, like the monster Frankenstein, have turned against us. This position has been proven false by evidence showing widespread foreknowledge of 9/11 among US officials, evidence of continued liaisons and support of so-called militant Islamic networks, and the obstructive behavior of the present regime and various oversight committees toward investigations of 9/11.42
Misinformation pattern #2: “Damn those Saudis!”: This was one of the recurrent themes of Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 911.”43 I am not accusing Mr. Moore of consciously purveying misinformation—but not telling the whole story can be misleading. Mr. Moore stuns the audience in exposing just how deep the US corporate–Saudi ties run, and how much of our economy the Saudis influence. Typical American viewers are thus led to believe that their country has been economically invaded by the Saudis.
Mr. Moore was partially describing the US–Saudi petrodollar relationship. The crux of this relationship lies in a dynamic that commands the Saudis to sell oil to the Western corporate sector at massively subsidized prices; the cash the Saudis get from this is reinvested back into Western banks and Wall Street. These petro-dollars play a large role in keeping our economy afloat. Corporations and banks need the Saudis to re-invest the cash they get from selling us oil back into our economy. The corporate/banking element needs petro-dollars and uses our government to ensure that only regimes willing to perpetuate this system occupy seats of power (i.e., the Saudi royals, whose petrodollars finance much of our economy).44 Yet, as in Moore’s film, the Saudis are often depicted as an autonomously imposing threat.45 In actuality, it is a rigged game, rigged to ensure that hydrocarbons, and cash, keep flowing in a one-way fashion into Wall Street, with the Saudi regime taking a cut for its own use. If US corporations and banks get even a slight inkling that the Saudis are planning to take the cash from oil sales and proceed to some other market, or direct them toward developing local Arab educational systems and infrastructures, it will be bye-bye for that particular regime, and hello to another “friendlier” one. The leaders of US client regimes are never allowed to forget that we have the guns to enforce this, and use them with regularity. This “regime change” for the sake of keeping profit margins plump, and our economy afloat, makes complete business sense, and has been implemented plenty of times.46
The last thing to realize is that these dynamics have nothing to do with America or Saudi Arabia. People who describe situations in terms of nation-states often get thrown off by believing that at this level, the nation-state, or the citizens of a particular nation-state, have any authority. To say the behavior of Western corporate interests has anything to do with Americans is quite wrong. To say the behavior of the Saudi regime has anything to do with the Arabs that live in the Arabian Peninsula is equally wrong. What we are dealing with are corporations, sleazy profiteers, and those willing to “play ball” with them. For such agendas, there is no essential allegiance to nation-states, except as a tool to increase profit margins.
Disbelief etiology E: If 9/11 really was an inside job, isn’t the situation hopeless? What difference can we make?
The psychological need to maintain some feeling of control, to believe one possesses the ability to effect change, is quite powerful in those who answer the call of activism and address 9/11. This need is so strong that in light of the obvious evidence that suggests 9/11 was an inside job coordinated through our own US security apparatus, many still cannot admit that yes, perhaps there are rogue elements in our own US covert operations and security apparatus who helped make 9/11 happen, and that it is pressure from these same rogues that is squashing attempts at bringing 9/11 truth into the mainstream discourse.
The implications of the 9/11 truth thesis are very psychologically disempowering, for they imply perpetrators within the US and indeed the world who are above the law. People are notorious for avoiding a feeling of disempowerment at all costs—even to the extent that they are willing to look away from evidence that may break the “idol” of their delusional construct.47 People are so terrified of feeling disempowered that often they would prefer to cling to delusional constructs rather than face facts. The truth does indeed sometimes hurt. Even in individual social relationships, if we may use this as a microcosmic example, the capacity of individuals to delude themselves into maintaining dysfunctional relationships is astounding, when the alternative is facing a feeling of disempowerment. Those who avoid the issue of 9/11 truth have a similarly dysfunctional relationship with the topic.
So, how do our efforts, whether our symptomatic relief efforts or more etiology-focused efforts measure up in this case? As activists, do we have the courage to understand what we are up against? Or will we continue clinging to our delusion that things will get better if we just keep on writing, lecturing, sloganeering, marching, shouting, and chasing symptoms, convincing others that these were bad Muslims, but we are good Muslims because Islam is good.
The way to face this correctly, from the spiritual perspective, is fully to assimilate (not just mentally understand) one of the maxims taught in slightly different words by all of the great prophets and saints, be they in the Hindu, Parsi, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, or Islamic traditions. Since I try my best to adhere to the Islamic tradition, the words I always keep in mind are: La Hawla wa La Quwataa illa billahil Aleeyul Adheem (“There is no Power or Might Save through God the Most High and Magnificent”). That is, any temporal authority, command, or advantage is only possible through God’s Leave; it is borrowed; on loan—which means in the end, His Will is always Manifested. Sooner or later, Justice Cometh. In the face of such powerful perpetrators, then, our response can never be a feeling of disempowerment, and its attendant hopelessness or avoidance of facing facts. Rather, a rise to Holy Struggle against criminality ensues in the heart of one who is conscious of the Sacred. This call to righteous struggle is accompanied by a feeling of firmness, resolve, yet at the same time pity for the perpetrators, who have necessarily deluded themselves into thinking their schemes are leading them to success. The Divine Scheme (Makr-Allah) necessarily outdoes any scheming. They abuse the dominion and authority that is granted them, erroneously believing that they are the beneficiaries of nothing but their own cunning and devices. Ultimately this will be their ruin, whether we witness it or not; whether in this temporal life or not. While we work against their scheming, both by “relieving symptoms” that their actions cause, and trying to expose them directly (and thus cure the cause of the symptoms), we know that the effort, no matter how small or negligible the result here in the mortal phase of our existence, is always exalted in the Eyes of the Divine Audience, and bears fruit no matter what. I am reminded of the words of perhaps the most brilliant western Muslim metaphysician of the twentieth century, Rene Guenon (Abdul Wahid Yahya), who wrote:
“Those who might be tempted to give way to despair should realize that nothing accomplished in this order can ever be lost, that confusion, error and darkness can win the day only apparently and in a purely ephemeral way, that all partial and transitory disequilibrium must perforce’ contribute towards the great equilibrium of the whole, and that nothing can ultimately prevail against the power of truth.”48
“Our response to the criminals who perpetrated 9/11 is at first stern warning and pleading for them to stop their behavior and policies. If they persist in their crimes, we persist in opposing them by all legitimate means, while never stooping to the tactics which they use—tactics that promote lies, fear, terror and harm to innocents. We struggle while continually purifying our intentions, and mustering our actions of the heart, tongue (pen), and limbs, and say: ‘Wait then.... and we shall wait with you, for the Last Day’” (Qur’an 6:158).
Hence, from the theistic perspective there can be no feeling of disempowerment. Being free of this feeling allows us to face the facts of the situation. (From the perspective of secular humanistic activism, ways to avoid disempowerment also exist, but this is beyond the scope of our discussion.) In the words of another great expositor of traditional doctrines:
“...that an affirmation of truth, or any effort on behalf of truth, is never in vain, even if we cannot from beforehand measure the value or outcome of such an activity. Moreover, we have no choice in the matter. Once we know the truth, we must needs live in it and fight for it, but what we must avoid at any price is to let ourselves bask in illusions. Even if, at this moment the horizon seems as dark as possible, one must not forget that in a perhaps unavoidably distant future the victory is ours, and cannot but be ours. Truth, by its nature, conquers all obstacles.Vincit omnia Veritas.”49
“Verily is Truth Hurled against Falsehood, and Falsehood withers away, for Falsehood is ever bound to vanish” (Qur’an, 21:18).
“To live [indifferently] in co-existence with a zaalim50 is sinful”—-the grandson of Muhammad, the Saint Imam Hussain, who died in an act of state-sponsored terror.
Notes
1 A fasiq in this context is a person or thing that is untrustworthy or vicious. The term in its original sense meant a person or thing that is non/un-Godly. Persistent lying or hiding the truth for secondary gain is a sign of ungodliness. To say the mainstream media and temporal rulers (politicians) of the day are caught in cover-ups or persistent lies is an understatement.
2 For more on the subjects of the petrodollar, peak oil, fiat money, and dollar hegemony, please consult the following works: The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin (American Media, 1994); Man and Money by Elgin Groseclose (Fredrick Ungar, 1961); Money: Understanding and Alternatives to Legal Tender by Thomas H. Greco (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2001); Man and Money: Toward Understanding and Alternative Basis of Credit by Shaikh Mahmud Ahmad (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002); Gold Wars: The Battle Against Sound Money as Seen From a Swiss Perspective by Ferdinand Lips (Foundation for Monetary Education, 2001); When Corporations Rule the World by David C. Korten (Kumarian Press, 2001); Tragedy and Hope by Carroll Quigley (GSG & Assoc., 1966), and “Traditional Economics and Liberation Theology” by Rama Coomaraswamy, published In Quest of The Sacred: The Modern World in the Light of Tradition by S.H. Nasr and Ken O’Brien (Suhail Academy, 2001); Franklin Sanders’ Moneychanger.com; Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar by William R. Clark (New Society, 2005); A Century Of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order by F. William Engdahl (London: Pluto Press, 2004).
3 Mike Ruppert, “Oh Lucy!—You Gotta Lotta ‘Splain’ To Do: A Timeline Surrounding September 11—If the CIA and the Government Weren’t Involved in the September 11 Attacks, What Were They Doing?” From the Wilderness Publications (www.fromthewilderness.com), 2001, expanded and revised Sept. 4, 2004; Paul Thompson, The Terror Timeline (New York: HarperCollins 2004), 287.
4 Daniel Hopsicker, Welcome to Terrorland: Mohamed Atta and the 9/11Cover-up in Florida (Eugene, OR: Mad Cow Press, 2004).
5 Thompson, The Terror Timeline, 363.
6 911research.com, “Analysis: Cell Phone Calls” (911research.com/ planes/analysis/phonecalls.html); Michel Chossudovsky, “More Holes in the Official Story: The 9/11 Cell Phone Calls” (www.globalresearch.ca); Webster Tarpley, 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA (Joshua Tree, CA: Progressive Press, 2006), 321–324. Thompson, The Terror Timeline, 404.
7 Tarpley, 9/11 Synthetic Terror, 172–217.
8 Ruppert, “Oh Lucy!”; The Journal News, Oct. 11, 2001; Thompson, The Terror Timeline, 63.
9 Ruppert, “Oh Lucy!”; Thompson, The Terror Timeline, 99.
10 Ruppert, “Oh Lucy!”; Tarpley, 319.
11 Thompson, The Terror Timeline, 310.
12 Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil (Gabriola Island, British Columbia: New Society Publishers, 2004), 259–264; Tarpley, 332.
13 Hopsicker, op. cit.
14 Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon.
15 Tarpley, 249–259.
16 Thierry Meyssan, 9/11: The Big Lie (New York: Carnot USA, 2002).
17 See “Part II” in David Ray Griffin, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions (Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2005).
18 Tarpley, 260–271.
19 Jamie McIntyre, “Pentagon: Rumsfeld Misspoke on Flight 93 Crash,” CNN.com, Dec. 27, 2004.
20 “9/11 Firefighters: Bombs and Explosions in the WTC,” Michael Rivero’s What Really Happened (website), June 7, 2006 (www.whatreallyhappened.com/911_firefighters.html); “Larry Silverstein, WTC 7, and the 9/11 Demolition, Aug. 14, 2005 (www. whatreallyhappened.com/ cutter.html). See also Alex Jones’s prisonplanet.com.
21 “Ground Zero: Talk of Rescue Used to Mask Destruction of Evidence,” 911Research.org, Aug. 8, 2006 (911research.wtc7.net/wtc/groundzero/index.html).
22 Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon, 308–330; Thompson, The Terror Timeline, 353–368; David Ray Griffin, “Disturbing Truths About 9/11,” lecture in New York City, 2003 (I was preliminary speaker and moderator).
23 Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon, 333–357; see also preface to Tarpley, 9/11 Synthetic Terror.
24 Michael Kane, “The Final Fraud: 9/11 Commission Closes its Doors to the Public; Cover-Up Complete,” From the Wilderness (website), July 9, 2004 (www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/071204_final_fraud.shtml).
25 Tarpley, 49–58. Michael C. Ruppert, presentation to the first Citizens’ 9/11 Truth Commission, September 2003, New York City (presented to me as one of the commissioners); Sander Hicks, The Big Wedding (New York: Vox Pop, 2005), 75–85.
26 Tarpley, 55.
27 Hicks, 38; Daniel Hopsicker, “The 9/11 Heroine Connection,” Mad Cow Morning News, September 2006.
28 Kyle Hence, “Open Letter from 9/11 Family Steering Committee Challenging 9/11 Commissioners: Commentary,” 911citizenswatch.org June 14, 2004 (www.911citizenswatch.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=302&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0). “The Family Steering Committee Statement and Questions Regarding the 9/11 Commission Interview with President Bush,” Feb. 16, 2005 (www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/FSCstmtQs.html).
29 Sara Kehaulani Goo, “FAA Managers Destroyed 9/11 Tapes: Recordings Contained Accounts of Communications With Hijacked Planes,” Washington Post, May 6, 2004 (available at portlandindymedia.org/ en/2004/05/287757.shtml).
30 On June 22, Pew Global Attitudes Project 2006 released the results of a survey that asked Muslims if they thought Arabs carried out the September 11 attacks. Only 17 percent of British Muslims, 48 percent of French Muslims, 16 percent of Indonesians, 32 percent of Egyptians, 16 percent of Turks, 39 percent of Jordanians, and 15 percent of Pakistanis answered “yes.”
31 Poll conducted by Zogby International, released August 30, 2004 (www.zogby.com/search/ReadNews.dbm?ID=855).
32 Thomas Hargrove and Guido H. Stempel III, “One in 3 Americans Say US Aided 9/11: Survey Shocker,” New York Post, Aug. 3, 2006 (www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/one_in_3_americans_say_u_s__aided_9_11_nationalnews_thomas_hargrove_and_guido_h_stempel_iii.htm).
33 I would like to offer some helpful references for those who are beginning their search. Websites: st911.org, 911research.wtc7.net, 911truth.org, unansweredquestions.org, physics911.ca, mujca.com, copvcia.com, historycommons.com, whatreallyhappened.com. Books: David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11 and The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions (Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2004 and 2005, respectively); Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, The War on Truth: 9/11, Disinformation, and the Anatomy of Terrorism (Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2005); Michael Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon (op. cit.); Paul Thompson, The Terror Timeline (op. cit.); Thierry Meyssan, The Big Lie (op. cit.) and Pentagate (New York: Carnot USA, 2003); Daniel Hopsicker, Welcome to Terrorland (op. cit.); Webster Tarpley, 9/11 Synthetic Terror Made in USA (op. cit.); Sander Hicks, The Big Wedding (op. cit.). Videos: 911 Eyewitness (www.911eyewitness.com); The Truth and Lies of 9/11 (copvcia.com); The Great Deception (Barry Zwicker); 9/11 Revisited: Scientific and Ethical Questions (Steven Jones); Truth and Politics and 9/11 and the American Empire (David Ray Griffin); Confronting the Evidence (reopen911.org); Loose Change (Louder Than Words Productions, 2005).
34 These ideas are essential to grasp and are effectively illustrated in Webster Tarpley’s 9/11 Synthetic Terror, G. Edward Griffin’s The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve, fourth ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: American Media, 2005), and Carroll Quigley’s magnum opus, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (San Pedro, CA: GSG & Assoc., 1975).
35 Steven Jones, 9/11 Revisited: Scientific and Ethical Questions, DVD of lecture at Utah Valley State College, February 1, 2006.
36 “Coleen Rowley’s Memo to FBI Director Robert Muller” (edited), Time magazine, May 21, 2002 (www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,249997,00.html).
37 Catherine Austin Fitts—-former director of housing and urban development, and a candidate to be on the board of governors for the federal reserve—-informed me of the routine use of control files, whereby sensitive and embarrassing information about government officials are used to blackmail them into complying with the desired role they need to maintain during the operation of a given agenda.
38 The case that the Roosevelt administration intentionally sacrificed 2,476 American lives at Pearl Harbor has grown ever stronger with time. See Robert Stinnett, Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001). The fact that the neoconservative Project for the New American Century openly yearned for a “new Pearl Harbor” in a document released in September 2000 is the source of the title of David Griffin’s first book on 9/11, The New Pearl Harbor, op. cit.
39 Conversation with traditionalist author Charles Le Gai Eaton, author of Islam and The Destiny of Man (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1986) and Remembering Allah: Reflections on Islam (Chicago, IL: Kazi Publications, 2001).
40 This discussion is drawn from the proceedings of the international conference sponsored by the American Society for Muslim Advancement, Copenhagen, Denmark, April 2006, and from the Imam’s session in dialogue with Islamic Scholars Feisal Abdul Rauf and Kecia Ali.
41 On 9/11 as a false-flag attack, see David Griffin’s essay in this volume. For some of the extensive evidence that the alleged 9/11 hijackers were not the Muslim extremists of the official myth, see Nafeez Ahmed’s and Yasmin Ahmed’s essays in this volume, as well as Hopsicker (op. cit.). For overwhelming evidence that the alleged Muslim extremist hijackers could not possibly have been responsible for the success of the 9/11 attacks, see the works cited earlier in this essay.
42 For evidence of continued interpenetration of Western intelligence and the so-called militant Islamic networks, see Nafeez Ahmed’s essay in this volume. For an analysis of the farcical official non-investigation of 9/11, see Griffin, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions. Evidence that US officials had extremely specific advance knowledge of 9/11 is cited in Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor, 69–74. Additionally, Hicks (The Big Wedding, 10) quotes FBI informant Randy Glass, who learned from various sources before and during the summer of 2001 that the Twin Towers were going to be destroyed, and was directed to then–State Department counterterror official Francis X. Taylor, who told him “we know all about the planes being flown into the World Trade Center” and told Glass to remain silent for reasons of national security. (Glass had said nothing to Taylor about planes, nor had he known that planes would be used.) Glass frantically contacted Senator Bob Graham (D-Florida) during the summer of 2001, speaking to Graham aide Charles Yonts more than six times and providing information about the plan to fly planes into the World Trade Center. Graham stated he turned over Glass’s information “to the appropriate intelligence agency.”
43 Released in 2004 by Lion’s Gate Entertainment.
44 That Saudi money is heavily invested in Wall Street is a well-known fact; see Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq, and the Future of the Dollar by William R. Clark (Gabriola Island, British Columbia: New Society Publishers, 2005). The assassination attempts and ultimate deposition and arrest of Iranian Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadegh and the installation of the Shah of Iran is documented as a CIA/British backed operation with the intent of foiling popular favorite Mossadegh’s assertion of control of the oil revenue and resources of Iran. When the Shah was initially overthrown by a clearly populist (non-Mullah) movement led by the intelligentsia, Wall Street immediately froze Iran’s assets. See, for instance, the Telegraph’s summary of events at www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/campaigns/iran/irankey.xml.
45 Following the post-9/11 discourse on mainstream media, one often heard occasional pushes for “bombing Saudi Arabia” because it was seen as the home of many of the hijackers. Lawsuits were leveled against the Saudi government by victims’ relatives. At the New York City 9/11 Truth Breakthrough Conference (Cooper Union, Grate Hall 2006), my friend and fellow 9/11 truth activist former Lt. Colonel Bob Bowman, democratic Florida congressional candidate, mentioned if the mainstream 9/11 truth thesis was true, the military invasion should have been targeted at Saudi Arabia.
46 The escalating violence of American imperial pressure on client/debtor states is vividly described in John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2004).
47 Islam holds idolatry (shirk) to be the most unforgivable and ontologically central sin. Clinging desperately to a comforting lie or illusion can make that illusion into a false god, turning the person into a mushrik or idolator. One of the highest names of the one true God is al-Haqq, “absolute truth” or “reality.” For a parallel Christian interpretation of idolatry, see John Cobb’s essay in this volume.
48 See Rene Guenon’s Crisis of the Modern World, fourth ed. (Sophia Perennis, 2004).
49 Frithjof Schuon. See Understanding Islam (London: Mandala, 1976) and www.frithjof-schuon.com/start.htm.
50 A criminal tyrant or oppressor.
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Faiz Khan, M.D., is a medical doctor, a Muslim scholar, an Assistant Imam, a peace activist, and a 9/11 educator. As a medical doctor in New York City with a dual specialty in emergency and internal medicine, he was a 9/11 first responder. As a Muslim scholar, educator, and peace activist, he has participated in a New York group called Muslims Against Terrorism, spoken and written widely about 9/11, and was a co-founder of MUJCA-NET, the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth.