Notes from "Confronting the Evidence" 9/11 Forum Sat. night in NYC.

milkyway

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Sun Sep-12-04 12:54 AM
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Notes from "Confronting the Evidence" 9/11 Forum Sat. night in NYC.

This was sponsored by 911 Truth.org. Speakers included DU's own Paul Thompson, Robert Bowman, John Prados, Webster Tarpley, David Von Kleist, and Barry Zwicker. It was hosted by Ed Begley, Jr. and Jamey Hecht. Clips of some videos were interspersed during the evening.

The event took place at The Manhattan Center Ballroom on W. 34th St. and was free to the public. I estimate there were 1,000-1,500 people in attendance. It was a very nice setting with folding chairs for the audience. Almost all seats were taken. There were several large cameras filming the event.

Here's some random quotes I jotted down. Most are word-for-word with some occasional paraphrasing.

In introducing the first speaker, Jenna Orkin, who spoke of the environment around the WTC in the days after the attacks, Ed Begley, Jr. said, "If you don't believe our government would do this <9/11> to our people, consider what they did to people right after 9/11."

Paul Thompson spoke about the conflicts of interest of the 9/11 Commission's members. "The final report of the Commission was supposed to be a unanimous report, so if one member objected to something it was dropped. Everything in the final report was approved by the bush administration."

Christopher Scheer of the L.A. Times spoke of the mainstream media's acquiescence about 9/11. "This conference is taking place because of the Internet. You guys are all part of the media now."

Jamey Hecht: "The last remaining supplies of oil and natural gas are the prize at the end of the rainbow for dick cheney's war that will not end in our lifetimes."

Paul Thompson: "There is not a single mention of the warnings from foreign governments in the 9/11 Commission's reports. We cannot trust the report."

David Ray Griffin spoke on video to the forum: "People say the report reads like a novel. That's true. It's a work of fiction."

Griffin said that there are two basic theories regarding 9/11. One is the official conspiracy theory put out by the bush administration. The other says the attacks were made possible by complicity of the bush administration. The 9/11 Commission assumed the bush theory was true and used it to determine what evidence was relevant. The Commission was not independent. The Executive Director <bush hack Philip Zelikow> directed the staff about which lines of inquiry should be looked into."

Paul Thompson spoke about Pakistan and the ISI. "ISI is largely funded by drug money...It is a state within a state...it has close ties to the CIA." Paul made a reference to Osama bin Laden receiving advance warning from the ISI when Clinton launched his missile strikes at bin Laden's camp. Paul spoke of Porter Goss and Bob Graham having breakfast with the head of the ISI on the morning of 9/11. He said that their Intelligence Committee's report investigated Saudi involvement with 9/11, but made no mention of Pakistan and the ISI.

Robert Bowman said of the bush administration, "The kindest thing we can say is that they were aware of the impending attacks and let them happen. That is high treason...It is up to us to investigate 9/11."

Karl Schwarz, a repug, spoke about the financial aspects of 9/11. He also said that he had spoken to Sibel Edmonds before she received a gag order. She told him, "she found drug trafficking and money laundering, involving foreign names and American names, that financed 9/11." Schwarz said there is $11-12 trillion dollars of oil and natural gas in the Caspian Sea area. That's why the Taliban had to be taken out.

Kristina Borjesson said, "Colin Powell is trying to get Bob Woodward to write his mea culpa."

Michael Kane on video, quoting a demolitions expert, said the collapse of WTC 7 was "a work of art." Tenants of the building included the CIA, Secret Service, Giuliani, and the SEC. He mentioned that it was possible that documents relating to Enron were destroyed. The owner of the building, Larry Silverstein, is shown saying on a PBS video that because of the fires, they made the decision to pull <a controlled demolition> WTC 7. Kane made the point that a controlled demolition of a large building is not something that can be put together in a few hours. It takes weeks to prepare for it.

A reporter from American Free Press (I believe his name was Christoper Berlin) spoke of the flight that supposedly hit the Pentagon. He said Flight 77 took off from Washington and went to Ohio, where it disappeared. Based in Ohio are Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles. He theorized that a missile might have been fired at the Pentagon from a Global Hawk, which then trailed it into the building. The evidence, or lack of it, at the Pentagon is much more in keeping with an attack of this kind than with a 757.

There were some drawbacks to the event. There were numerous technical problems with the microphones and slide shows. The event was supposed to last two hours, but lasted nearly four. Some speakers spoke for much longer than they should have.

A break for audience questions devolved into near chaos. Three microphones were placed in the aisles and people were told to line up if they had a question. The moderators only meant to take a handful of questions, but dozens of people lined up and were quite vocal in getting the opportunity to have themselves heard. While this was annoying to most of the other members of the audience, it is perhaps a sign of the frustrations that have built inside people for so long about 9/11. While there were certainly many "Internet" people such as myself at the event, I had the impression that a number of the audience members had only corporate media as their news outlets. The near complete silence by the mainstream media on the issues presented this evening have left some people hungry for a way to be heard about what they think happened on that day.