9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out, Vol. 1 (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Practically from the moment the dust settled in New York and Washington after the attacks of September 11, a movement has grown of survivors, witnesses, and skeptics who have never quite been able to accept the official story. When theologian David Ray Griffin turned his attention to this topic in his book The New Pearl Harbor (2003), he helped give voice to a disquieting rumble of critiques and questions from many Americans and people around the world about the events of that day. Were the military and the FAA really that incompetent? Were our intelligence-gathering agencies really in the dark about such a possibility? In short, how could so much go wrong at once, in the world's strongest and most technologically sophisticated country?

Both the government and the mainstream media have since tried to portray the 9/11 truth movement as led by people who can be dismissed as "conspiracy theorists" able to find an outlet for their ideas only on the internet. This volume, with essays by intellectuals from Europe and North America, shows this caricature to be untrue. Coming from different intellectual disciplines as well as from different parts of the world, these authors are united in the conviction that the official story about 9/11 is a huge deception manufactured to extend imperial control at home and abroad.

Contributors include Richard Falk, Daniele Ganser, David Ray Griffin, Steven E. Jones, Karin Kwiatkowski, John McMurtry, Peter Phillips, Morgan Reynolds, Kevin Ryan, Peter Dale Scott, Ola Tunander.

About the Author

Peter Dale Scott is a former Canadian diplomat and professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. His most recent book is Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina. His next book is entitled The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America. A poet, he was a winner in 2002 of the Lannan Poetry Award.

Product Details

• Paperback: 247 pages
• Publisher: Olive Branch Press (August 23, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566566592
• ISBN-13: 978-1566566599
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #162,990 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

138 of 155 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the important books you'll ever read, September 10, 2006

By	G. Espada (Somerville, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The essays in this timely and essential volume are written by a variety of intellectuals from academia, the military, the sciences, and beyond. To read this book is to discover the reality that is kept from consumers of watered-down and even deceptive mainstream news sources (remember WMD?) There is no question that a conspiracy was involved in perpetrating 9/11--the government itself assures us this conspiracy involved 19 young Arab Muslims and a few ringleaders like Osama bin Laden (FBI says no hard evidence to link him, hence no indictment) and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (whose "testimony" was provided to the 9/11 commission by the CIA, and makes up most of the official case for the Muslim/Arab conspiracy theory.) The flimsy official story is contradicted by historical precedent of false-flag terror committed routinely by nations such as the U.S., Italy, and Israel, among others throughoiut history (search for the Lavon Affair, e.g.) This issue, as well as the inexplicable collapse of building number 7 and the twin towers are dealt with by examining facts surrounding the events, not speculation or conjecture. The conclusion that is evidently correct is that elements of the U.S. government with help from the intelligence services of Pakistan, Israel, and others engineered a spectacular attack in order to draw the U.S. into a war our people would otherwise never have supported. This issue is changing the world as I write these words and this book, which I own and will treasure as part of my collection of true 9/11 investigative work along with David Griffin's other books and books like the Terror Timeline by Paul Thompson, is an invaluable introduction to the issues for those just becoming aware of this historic hoax. Because of purposely deceitful "theorists" out there whose aim is to give the truth movement a bad name by for example claiming no planes hit the towers, volumes such as this are key to sorting fact from fiction and beginning on the path of restoring our democracy, exposing corporate media complicity in government corruption, and most importantly effecting a long-needed reconciliation with the Arab and Muslim peoples we have allowed to be unjustly persecuted for these crimes.

56 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most deeply disturbing book I have ever read...., October 30, 2006

By	Chasey (Zurich, Switzerland) - See all my reviews

Speaking as a middle-class, hard-working, sensible, sane and intelligent person, the referenced facts that are presented in this book provides evidence that is, quite frankly, shocking.

Being one who previously treaded very carefully over believing such consipracy theories as Princess Diana, Roswell etc, this book has certainly captured my imagination like no other.

The book tends to steer well clear of conspiracy stirring, instead asking some very basic common sense questions which, since 9/11 are staring us all in the face, and questions which most of us (myself included) had failed to address having been caught up in the horror of 9/11.

It also focuses on, and takes to pieces, the official 9/11 report with such surgical efficiency that you wonder how on earth it was ever allowed to stand as an 'offical account'.

This book asks all the questions, and I for one am very glad that these people have put their reputations on the line to bring us perhaps the most compelling read ever.

And to Seth J. Frantzman - You obviously feel that as an official Amazon reviewer, you somehow know more than phd qualified experts with years of specialist experience. The only lunatic ramblings have come from your dismissive, and totally inaccurate, review of this title.

79 of 92 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascism has taken root in the US, October 21, 2006

By	Luc REYNAERT (Beernem, Belgium) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is a very courageous and hard-hitting book about the 9/11 massacre, its global context and its catastrophic aftermath.
Beyond any doubt, the official account of the 9/11 incident is false; e.g. the 3 WTC towers (WTC 7 wasn't even hit) were brought down by controlled demolition (S.E. Jones).
The put options affair constitutes considerable evidence that some US officials had foreknowledge of the attacks.

Those attacks were used to support an agenda worked out in advance: the invasion of Iraq, `a supreme crime under international law'. Moreover, they served to heighten the existing `strategy of tension', spreading fear among the population for further terrorist attacks.
A strategy of `terrorist' killings of innocent civilians in order to achieve political objectives, to discredit opponents or to justify anti-freedom laws, is a very well-known policy all over the world, e.g. the Berlin `La Belle' disco or the Bologna railway explosions.

But, cui bono? The strategy generated fabulous pay-offs to the military and oil corporations.
The investigations of different authors unveil the existence of a US global dominance group of a good 200 people (the `deep' state) who are trying to impose a Pax Americana, a militarized world order under total US dominance. This group controls the military contractors and the media, constituting a watchdog of acceptable ideological messages, news and information contents.
They should also be behind fraudulent elections (P. Philips), because a deviation of more than 5 % between the exit polls and the ultimate results is a statistical impossibility.

The conclusion of this book is far from rosy: the US is on the brink of totalitarian fascist corporatism, based on a `deeply perverted value system' (D.R. Griffin) with anti-freedom laws, blatant lies, false witnesses, cynical thefts and indiscriminate killings.

This deeply black investigation is a must read for all those interested in the future of mankind.