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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Devil in the Details, August 7, 2008
THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF 9-11, edited by Paul Zarembka, professor of economics at SUNY Buffalo, is a revised and updated second edition of an important early contribution to the growing scholarly analysis of 9/11. The first, hardback edition is so expensive that few have been able to read the book until now, so its entire content will be new to virtually everyone. It presents detailed analyses by academics of the official account of what happened on that day, highlighting innumerable serious problems that demonstrate that the official story is clearly false. The book contains three contributions from David Ray Griffin, and one each from Kevin Ryan and Nafeez Ahmed, all well-known to seekers of 9/11 truth. In addition it presents worthy contributions from Zarembka himself, Jay Kolar, Don Jacobs, David MacGregor, Bryan Sacks and Diana Ralph.
"Part I: Hijackers - Who Were They?" consists of one article, "What We Now Know About the Alleged 9-11 Hijackers" by Jay Kolar, a film scholar who brings his expertise to bear on the photo and video evidence presented by the US government to substantiate its account. He finds numerous serious problems with the video evidence for the hijackers purportedly taken at airport boarding gates by security cameras, concluding that "no evidence exists that any of the `hijackers' ever boarded planes that crashed on 9-11" (p.9). He concludes that the "confessional" video of "Osama bin Laden" taking responsibility for the attacks is a forgery (p.10). He then provides a detailed analysis of the FBI's identification of the hijackers, pointing out that at least ten of the 19 men on the official list of hijackers were alive four years after 9/11, and that contradictions in the official account of their activities prior to the attacks show that "doubles" were used to build up false "legends" for them.
"Part II - The Morning of 9-11" consists of three articles. The first, by Zarembka, "Initiation of the 9-11 Operation", looks at the evidence for actual takeoff and hijacking of each flight, concluding that all flights did indeed depart from the claimed airports and were indeed diverted from their planned flight paths. He then usefully explores three different methods by which planes could have been flown into the WTC towers and (allegedly) the Pentagon, by suicide pilots, by remote control ("homing"), and by substitution of drones for the claimed airliners. Finally, Zarembka analyzes the evidence for insider trading in the stocks of United and American airlines during the week before the attacks (the "put options"), concluding that the 9/11 Commission's dismissal of this possibility is unconvincing.
In "The Destruction of the World Trade Center," David Ray Griffin, emeritus professor of philosophy of religion and theology at Claremont, provides a detailed summary of the wide array of physical and eye-witness evidence for controlled demolition of the the Twin Towers and Building 7. After establishing that no steel-framed skyscrapers had ever collapsed due to fire before 9/11, he surveys the multiple evidence for controlled demolition of the WTC buildings, including: the sudden onset of collapse; the straight-down fall of the buildings (these giant towers did not topple over, but fell vertically into their "footprints"); the almost free-fall speed of the collapses, a physical impossibility unless the steel support columns had lost integrity throughout their length (hard to explain by fires restricted to a few upper floors); the total collapse, involving all of the interior and exterior columns, despite the fact that the planes which struck the two towers would have damaged just a few columns (and of course, WTC 7 was not struck by any plane); the sliced steel from the columns, into sections short enough to be trucked away; pulverization of concrete and other materials, with massive dust production and huge dust clouds energetically ejecting outward (a physical process requiring vastly more energy than was available from gravity alone); horizontal ejections of huge steel beams outward for hundreds of feet; demolition rings (i.e., continuous series of explosions running rapidly around a building) and associated explosive sounds witnessed by many first responders; and large pools of molten metal in the subbasements of each building for weeks afterward. Griffin provides testimony from the oral histories collected by the Fire Department of New York from first responders to substantiate each type of indicator of controlled demolition. The chapter concludes with a succinct survey of the collapse of Building 7 (never even mentioned by the 9/11 Commission), in an obvious classic controlled demolition. This article provides the best overview available of the physical evidence for demolition of the three WTC buildings.
In "The Military Drills on 9-11", Don Jacobs (a.k.a. "Four Arrows"), professor at Fielding Graduate University, surveys the evidence concerning an array of military exercises that were in operation on 9/11, which could have provided cover for the attacks by confusing air defense personnel, so that the normal response to intercept the planes in the flight emergencies could not occur (perhaps rendering a "stand down" order unnecessary). He identifies the following drills in operation that day: Vigilant Guardian, Vigilant Warrior, Northern Vigilance, Northern Guardian, Tripod II, Amalgam Virgo, Timely Alert II, and an exercise at the National Reconnaissance Office simulating the crash of a plane into the NRO headquarters building. He shows that there has been a "big hush" about the exercises, with little official information about them made available (almost no mention of any of them is made by the 9/11 Commission, of course), and that the potential impact of the drills on normal air defense procedures was likely to have been highly significant and deleterious. Jacobs then argues that Dick Cheney was ultimately in charge of the military drills in operation on 9/11.
"Part III: The Context of 9-11 and Meaning for the Future" contains four articles surveying the deep background and broader implications of the attacks. In "Terrorism and Statecraft: Al-Qaeda and Western Covert Operations after the Cold War" Nafeez Ahmed, executive director of the Institute for Policy Research and Development (London), lays out a detailed critique of mainstream analyses of the origin and nature of Al Qaeda. Ahmed argues that Al Qaeda is not a centralized organization, but rather a "database of pseudo-Islamist covert operations" created by the CIA to manage the "covert destabilization ... in new theatres of operation strategically close to Russian and Chinese influence, namely Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Central Asia" (p. 146). "Al-Qaeda is therefore a euphemism for Western covert operations specializing in destabilization" (p. 155). After detailing the secret history of this strategic "destabilization" in Central Asia and the Balkans, as well as in North Africa, Ahmed then examines the official account of the "Al Qaeda hijackers" on 9/11, critiquing the evidence presented by the US government for the identities of the hijackers and their purported fundamentalist Islamism, and highlighting their prior ties to US covert operations and military training.
In "September 11 as `Machiavellian State Terror'", David MacGregor, professor of sociology at King's University College, presents a theory of "Machiavellian state terrorism" (MST) as the basis of a leftist analysis of the events of 9/11. He defines MST as "terror/assassination performed for reasons different from the publicized ones; often initiated by persons or groups other than those suspected of the act; and ... secretly perpetrated by or on behalf of the violated state itself" (p. 184). On this basis he is able to provide a sorely-needed critique of the lame response to the 9/11 attacks by the established "Left" in the US, represented by Noam Chomsky and progressive organs like Z Magazine (and their many fellow-travelers), who accept the official story and view the attacks as "blowback" for US imperial policy. After presenting a detailed historical overview of recent acts of state terrorism in Europe (mostly sponsored by the covert arms of the US government) and Canada, MacGregor concludes that "The left embraces a distorted notion of political violence that sees it as an understandable response of the weak to provocations of the powerful. Yet ... acts of terror are vulnerable to manipulation, and far more likely to be a weapon of state rulers and their agents, than [of] the oppressed masses. As a legitimized protection racket, the state may be tempted to inflict harm secretly on its own citizens ... to achieve ... highly desired goals" (p. 209).
In "Making History: the Compromised 9-11 Commission", Bryan Sacks, adjunct professor of philosophy at Drexel University, demonstrates in detail that the 9/11 Commission was both structurally and procedurally "compromised" from its inception, as required to guarantee a thorough whitewash of the US government's role in the 9/11 attacks. He surveys the evidence of severe "conflicts of interest" of principal members of the Commission, including its director Philip Zelikow, its vice-chair Lee Hamilton, commissioner Jamie Gorelick, and staffer Dietrich Snell. He then provides a useful overview of the suppression and obfuscation of evidence in the 9/11 Commission Report. He concludes that the Commission has produced a thoroughly false "history" of the events in order to establish and maintain ideological hegemony over all thought about them.
In "Islamophobia and the "War on Terror: the Continuing Pretext for U.S. Imperial Conquest", Diana Ralph, associate professor of social work at Carleton University, provides a succinct and useful survey of the evidence for the long preparation...
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The HIDDEN HISTORY of 9-11, July 29, 2008
· AMAZON PRODUCE NUMBER:
· ISBN-10: 158322825X / ISBN-13: 978-1583228258
THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF 9-11 / July 29, 2008
Edited by Paul Zarembka
"
FIVE STAR RATING BY REVIEWER JIM BARLOW
Paul Zarembka is a professor of economics at the State University of New York at Buffalo. In his new book on the seminal events of September 11, 2001 and the ensuing "War On Terror." he has shown courage, skill and leadership in pulling together the careful research of many writers.
This affordable book with its updates provides an understanding of why we should question the "official conspiracy" theory of what happened on September 11, 2001 and the resulting endless "war on terror" that has turned America into a police state.
Especially pertinent is Diana Ralph's words on page 274 on the contrived Bush doctrine of Islamophobia. We need an enemy to replace the commies of the Cold War. When you understand that, you begin to understand the slant of the daily commercial news.
On page 145, we read, "The Observer's chief reporter, Jason Burke concludes that: `al-Qaeda' is a messy and rough designation, often applied carelessly in the absence of a more useful term."
This book should be on the reference shelf of every political scientist, journalist and anyone concerned about the disastrous path America is taking.
INSIDE THE BOOK:
· How much insider trading occurred in the days leading up to 9-11?
· How compromised is the evidence against the hijackers?
· Why were there no military interceptors?
· To what extent does the testimony of more than five hundred firefighters differ from the official reports of what happened at the World Trade Center buildings that day?
· How inseparably connected are Western covert operations to al-Qaeda?
· How is Islamophobia used to sustain American imperialism?
· What was the 9-11 Commission?
With contributions from Nafeez Mossaddeq Ahmed, Four Arrows, David Ray Griffin, Jay Kolar, David MacGregor, Diana Ralph, Kevin Ryan, and Bryan Sacks, this path breaking work examines 9-11 and its background, showing how much remains unknown and where further investigation and debate is needed.
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CONTENTS
PREFACE - Paul Zarembka
SIXTEEN REASONS TO QUESTION THE OFFICIAL STORY ABOUT 9-11 - David Ray Griffin
PART I: HIJACKERS - WHO WERE THEY?
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE ALLEGED 9-11 HIJACKERS - Jay Kovar
PART II: THE MORNING OF 9-11
INITIATION OF 9-11 OPERATIONS WITH EVIDENCE OF INSIDER TRADING BEFOREHAND - Paul Zarembka
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER: WHY THE OFFICIAL REPORT CANNOT BE TRUE - David Ray Griffin
THE MILITARY DRILLS ON 9-11: "BIZARRE COINCIDENCE" OR SOMETHING ELSE? - Four Arrows (aka Don Trent Jacobs)
PART III: THE CONTEXT OF 9-11 AND MEANING
FOR THE FUTURE
TERRORISM AND STATECRAFT: AL-QAEDA AND WESTERN COVERT OPERATIONS AFTER THE COLD WAR - Nafeez Mossaddeq Ahmed
SEPTEMBER 11 AS "MACHIAVELLIAN STATE TERROR" - David MacGregor
MAKING HISTORY: THE COMPROMISED 9-11 COMMISSION -
Bryan Sacks
ISLAMOPHOBIA AND THE "WAR ON TERROR": THE CONTINUING PRETEXT FOR U.S. IMPERIAL CONQUEST - Diana Ralph
PART IV: UPDATES
UPDATE: WHAT WE NOW KNOW ABOUT THE ALLEGED 9-11 HIJACKERS - Jay Kolar
UPDATE: INITIATION OF THE 9-11 OPERATION, WITH EVIDENCE OF INSIDER TRADING BEFOREHAND - Paul Zarembka
UPDATE: THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER: WHY THE OFFICIAL ACCOUNT CANNOT BE TRUE - David Ray Griffin
UPDATE: THE MILITARY DRILLS ON 9-11: "BIZARRE COINCIDENCE" OR SOMETHING ELSE? - Four Arrows (aka Don Trent Jacobs)
UPDATE: SEPTEMBER 11 AS "MACHIAVELLIAN STATE TERROR" - David MacGregor
A GOVERNMENT SCIENTIST SEES PHYSICS THAT DON'T EXIST -
Kevin Ryan
APPENDIX: 16 QUESTIONS ON THE JFK ASSASSINATION - Bertrand Russell
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373 pages, with extensive notes, author index and subject index.
SEVEN STORIES PRESS
WWW.SEVENSTORIES.COM
ISBN-978-1-58332-825-8
This book is a good beginning for the curious and concerned. Page xiii has a few of the recommended sites for additional information. To this list should be added http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/fiveisraelis.html, Barrie Zwicker's book, "Towers of Deception - The Media Cover-Up of 9/11" and Greg Felton's book, "The Host and The Parasite."
Highly Recommended By The Salmon Valley Observer
Jim Barlow, Editor
salmonvalley@att.net
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
How Much Reality Can we Bear?, October 18, 2008
The conspiratorial attacks of September 11, 2001 have been a Rorschach test: do you see two faces or a wineglass? a spiderweb, a flower--or a vortex?
George Bush and his cronies defined the attacks as acts of war, and justified two wars (thus far), against Afghanistan and Iraq. Some on the left see them as unfortunate but understandable acts of revenge against the American empire, snakes striking the heel that trampled them. Some (including me) see them as a wake-up call to capture international criminals and try them in the Hague, like the Serbian general who commanded the snipers above the city of Saravejo. (He's serving twenty years.)
But who were the conspirators, exactly? The 19 supposedly devout Muslims named by the Bush government, commanded by bushy Osama bin Laden in a cave? 37% of Americans don't believe that, according to a 2006 poll reported in the Washington Post by Michael Powell; skeptics believe the conspirators included not only the 19 and Osama, but inside members of the Bush administration itself, eager for a "new Pearl Harbor" to justify trillions for global domination, "full spectrum dominance."
The discussion continues--for those who can bear to think about it. Professor Paul Zarembka"s book provides 375 pages of thought-provoking information, including enough footnotes to choke a villain. His eight authors cover a lot of ground: evidence of insider trading beforehand, the collapse of the towers, the "compromised 9-11 commission," Islamophobia as a pretext for U.S. imperial conquest, Machiavelli's theory of state terror to drum up citizen support for government.
Three chapters were news to me.
1: Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed's "Terrorism and Statecraft; Al-Qaeda and Western Covert Operations after the Cold War";
2: Jay Kolar's "What We Now Know about the Alleged 9-11 Hijackers", including evidence that several are still alive, and several had "doubles"; and
3: Don Trent Jacobs "The Military Drills on 9-11: 'Bizarre Coincidence' or Something Else?" This last particularly fascinated me. At least four different U.S. "War Games" were planned on or around that September 11, including at least one involving hijacked planes.
The mind reels, we turn our attention elsewhere; as the poet T.S. Eliot wrote, "humankind cannot bear very much reality." But the three thousand who died on September 11 have borne the reality, as have the million or so who died in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. And it ain't over yet. Perhaps we should pay attention?
John Morearty, Ph.D. in Social Thought, University of Chicago, 1969; author of
Walking to Omega: Tales of a Peacenik Carpenter
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