Tatchell in Guardian on 9/11

[xmasdale]

Peter Tatchell has sent us this about his article for the Guardian Comment is Free website on the 6th anniversary. Ted and I, particularly Ted, have been lobbying him on the issue for the past couple of years. This article means that the Green Party candidate for Oxford SW (Cowley area I believe which probably includes our stronghold at Oxford Brookes University) fully supports the aims of the 911 Truth Campaign.

Peter also gave an interview to some of our supporters at the Urban Green Fair in Brockwell Park, Brixton, last Sunday, 9th September. His interviewers were most impressed with him and one stated he must be the most honest politician in Britain.

9/11 – The big cover-up?

Even the Chair of the 9/11 Commission now admits that the official evidence they were given was "far from the truth"

By Peter Tatchell

The Guardian – Comment Is Free – 11 September 2007



Six years after 9/11, the American public have still not been provided with a full and truthful account of the single greatest terror attack in US history.

What they got was a turkey. The 9/11 Commission
http://www.9-11commission.gov/
was hamstrung by official obstruction.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/04/AR2006 080401026.html
It never managed to ascertain the whole truth of what happened on 11 September 2001.

The Chair and Vice Chair of the 9/11 Commission, respectively Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, assert in their book, Without Precedent,
http://www.amazon.com/Without-Precedent-Inside-Story-Commission/dp/030 7263770
that they were "set up to fail"
http://www.cbc.ca/sunday/911hamilton.html
and were starved of funds to do a proper investigation.
They also confirm that they were denied access to the truth and misled
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/01/AR2006 080101300.html
by senior officials in the Pentagon and the Federal Aviation Authority;
and that this obstruction and deception
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/05/terror/main1868087.shtml
led them to contemplate slapping officials with criminal charges.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/01/AR2006 080101300.html

Despite the many public statements by 9/11 Commissioners and staff members acknowledging they were repeatedly lied to, not a single person has ever been charged, tried, or even reprimanded, for lying to the 9/11 Commission.

From the outset, the Commission seemed to be hobbled. It did not start work until over a year after the attacks. Even then, its terms of reference were suspiciously narrow, its powers of investigation curiously limited and its time-frame for producing a report unhelpfully short - barely a year to sift through millions of pages of evidence and to interview hundreds of key witnesses.

The final report
http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf
did not examine key evidence, and neglected serious anomalies in the various accounts of what happened. The Commissioners admit their report was incomplete
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/04/AR2006 080401026.html
and flawed, and that many questions about the terror attacks remain unanswered. Nevertheless, the 9/11 Commission was swiftly closed down on 21 August 2004.

I do not believe in conspiracy theories. I prefer rigorous, evidence-based analysis that sifts through the known facts and utilises expert opinion to draw conclusions that stand up to critical scrutiny. In other words, I believe in everything the 9/11 Commission was not.

The failings of the official investigation have fuelled too many half-baked conspiracy theories. Some of the 9/11 "truth" groups promote speculative hypotheses, ignore innocent explanations, cite non-expert sources and jump to conclusions that are not proven by the known facts. They convert mere coincidence and circumstantial evidence into cast-iron proof. This is no way to debunk the obfuscations and evasions of the 9/11 report.

But even amid the hype, some of these 9/11 groups raise valid and important questions that were never even considered, let alone answered, by the official investigation. The American public has not been told the complete truth about the events of that fateful autumn morning six years ago.

What happened on 9/11 is fundamentally important in it’s own right. But equally important is the way the 9/11 cover-up signifies an absence of democratic, transparent and accountable government. Establishing the truth is, in part, about restoring honesty, trust and confidence in American politics.

There are dozens of 9/11 "truth" websites and campaign groups. I cannot vouch for the veracity or credibility of any of them. But what I can say is that as well as making plenty of seemingly outrageous claims, a few of them raise legitimate questions that demand answers.

Four of these well known "tell the truth" 9/11 websites are:

1) Scholars for 9/11 Truth,
http://twilightpines.com//index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=70
which includes academics and intellectuals from many disciplines.

2) 250+ ‘Smoking Guns’
http://killtown.911review.org/911smokingguns.html
a website that cites over 250 pieces of evidence that allegedly contradict, or were omitted from, the 9/11 Commission report.

3) The 911 Truth Campaign
http://www.911truthcampaign.net/links.php
which, as well as offering its own evidence and theories, includes links to more than 20 similar websites.

4) Patriots Question 9/11,
http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/
perhaps the most plausible array of distinguished US citizens who question the official account of 9/11, including General Wesley Clark,
http://securingamerica.com/node/692
former NATO Commander in Europe, and seven members and staffers of the official 9/11 Commission, including the Chair and Vice Chair. In all, this website documents the doubts of 110+ senior military, intelligence service, law enforcement and government officials; 200+ engineers and architects; 50+ pilots and aviation professionals; 150+ professors; 90+ entertainment and media people; and 190+ 9/11 survivors and family members. Although this is an impressive roll-call, it doesn’t necessarily mean that these expert professionals are right. Nevertheless, their scepticism of the official version of events is reason to pause and reflect.

More and more US citizens are critical of the official account. The respected Zogby
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1354
polling organisation last week found that 51% of Americans want Congress to probe President George Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney regarding the truth about the 9/11 attacks; 67% are also critical of the 9/11 Commission for not investigating the bizarre, unexplained collapse of the 47-storey World Trade Centre Building 7 (WTC7). This building was not hit by any planes. Unlike WTC3, which was badly damaged by falling debris from the Twin Towers but which remained standing, WTC7 suffered minor damage but suddenly collapsed in a neat pile, as happens in a controlled demolition.

In a 2006 interview
http://www.cbc.ca/sunday/911hamilton.html
with anchorman Evan Soloman of CBC’s Sunday programme, the Vice-Chair of the 9/11 Commission, Lee Hamilton, was reminded that the Commission report failed to even mention the collapse of WTC7 or the suspicious hurried removal of the building debris from the site – before there could be a proper forensic investigation of what was a crime scene. Hamilton could only offer the lame excuse that the Commissioners did not have "unlimited time" and could not be expected to answer "every question" the public asks.

There are many, many more strange unexplained facts concerning the events of 9/11. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to be puzzled and want an explanation, or to be sceptical concerning the official version of events.

On the sixth anniversary of those terrible events, the survivors, and the friends and families of those who died, deserve to know the truth. Is honesty and transparency concerning 9/11 too much to ask of the President and Congress?

What is needed new and truly independent commission of inquiry to sort coincidence and conjecture from fact, and to provide answers to the unsolved anomalies in the evidence available concerning the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. Unlike the often stymied first investigation, this new commission should be granted wide-ranging subpoena powers and unfettered access to government files and officials. George Bush should be called to testify, without his minders at hand to brief and prompt him. America - and the world - have a right to know the truth

[xmasdale]

Hi Noel and Ted,

Here's an attached advance copy of my 9/11 article. It should be on the
Guardian's Comment Is Free website by about 6pm today (Tuesday).

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/index.html

Scroll down the left column to find the article.

Please post comments at the end of the article.

Get your friends to post too.

Lots of small posts are more effective than a few big ones.

If we get over 100 comments posted, the article will get special mentions by The Guardian, which will attract and get more readers.

Cheers! Peter

[Justin]

Well done Ted, Noel and Peter. The Green Party of England and Wales will now have to start taking 9/11 Truth seriously. I will contact my former colleagues, MEPs Caroline Lucas and Jean Lambert, asking them to start being pro-active, like the American Greens, in calling for a new impartial, independent and international enquiry into the actual events of 9/11.

[xmasdale]

Dear Peter

Thank you very much for submitting this article to the Guardian website. I can't find it on there, so it looks like it has been pulled which, judging by the Guardian's previous treatment of this topic, is what I had feared would be the response.

I have posted your article on the Peacing it Together website, http://www.nineeleven.co.uk/board/viewtopic.php?p=88504#88504 the one where all the 9/11 gossip goes and is the most widely read by the truth activists, though I think it deserves being on other websites. I'll investigate that and let you know what happens.

Thank you very much for the interview you gave to some of our 9/11 Truth Campaign activists on Sunday at the Urban Green Fair. They were most impressed with your knowledge of and attitude toward the 9/11 issue and said they would put the interview on the web. I'll send you the URL when that has been done. One of them commented that you must be the most honest politician in Britain

Gratefully

Noel

[gareth]

[Skeptic]

Can't seem to find the article on the site.

Does anyone have a link.

Would like to put it up on underthecarpet.co.uk

Thanks

[karlos]

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_tatchell/2007/09/911_the_big _coverup.html

[Skeptic]

thanks stelios

[xmasdale]

It is there. Click the link below.

Peter Tatchell has just sent us this.

Dear Noel and Ted

My 9/11 article is up on the Guardian website - http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_tatchell/2007/09/911_the_big _coverup.html

Can you please alert all your friends and get them to post comments?

Thanks and much appreciation, Peter


Peter Tatchell is the Green Party parliamentary candidate for Oxford East
www.greenoxford.com/peter and www.petertatchell.net
PETER TATCHELL HUMAN RIGHTS FUND

Donations are requested to help fund Peter Tatchell's campaigns promoting
human rights, democracy and global justice. Peter is unpaid and receives no grants.

To continue his human rights work, he depends on donations from friends and supporters.

Please make cheques payable to: "Peter Tatchell Human Rights Fund".

Send to: Peter Tatchell Human Rights Fund, PO Box 35253, London E1 4YF

To download a donation form or a standing order mandate, go to Donations at:
www.tatchellrightsfund.org

To email PTHRF:
info@tatchellrightsfund.org

Thank you. Richard Kirker, Treasurer PTHRF

For information about Peter Tatchell’s campaigns:
www.petertatchell.net

[xmasdale]

Just had a phone call from Peter Tatchell. He is most anxious that we get folk to rebut the argument, so far argued convincingly to many, that the WTC7 collapse was due to fires ignited from the twin towers.

Please can folk get refuting here: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_tatchell/2007/09/911_the_big _coverup.html

[mr nice]

just came upon this thought it was at least a start to see this clearly cynical journo at least pointing out that the commission report was deliberately knobbled.
Shame he didnt link to this forum

link
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_tatchell/2007/09/911_the_big _coverup.html

[conspiracy analyst]

[xmasdale]

deleted

[xmasdale]

[blackbear]

Say it ain't so, Peter
Posted by Gene

Sorry, Peter. I didn't like it when Robert Fisk did his "I'm not a 'truther,' I'm not a conspiracy nut, I'm just raising questions..." routine.

And I can't say I like it any better when you do it.

http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/

Over 300 comments ......enjoy.

......I am very surprised and disappointed by the way some of the posts on this list have seriously misrepresented what I wrote in my Guardian article.

They have used the insinuation of “conspiracy theorist” (which I am not and which I reject) as a convenient way to evade serious engagement with the issues I have raised.

What I tried to do in my Guardian article is make a clear distinction between wild, unfounded conspiracy theories, and legitimate, credible questioning of the official account.

You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to realise that there are serious unanswered questions concerning the 9/11 attacks. To point this out, and to ask for answers, does not make me or others a conspiracy theorist. Indeed, I explicitly criticised the conspiracy theorists and the sloppiness of many of the 9/11 truth websites in my post on Comment is Free.

Contrary to some insinuations on this thread, asking questions and seeking answers is not a sign of conspiratorial madness. An inquiring mind used to be the axiom of progressive politics. To hold government to account was once a good thing. Not anymore for some people on HP. Seeking answers and the truth now, apparently, marks one as a loon. My, how quickly the worm has turned.

Posted by Peter Tatchell at September 12, 2007 05:16 PM

Look out for the Kapo.......David T's postings.

[conspiracy analyst]

[ian neal]

I see peter's letter supporting the call to re-investigate 9/11 as very welcome. It is inevitable that questions will be asked about peter's motivation or wider work or would wish he expressed his opinions differently (that goes with the territory), but being able to show that the call for a reinvestigation has wide support including from a high profile human rights campaigner is a positive development in my book.

Out of interest does anyone know what Peter lectures on at sandhurst? I can't imagine its military strategy somehow.

[conspiracy analyst]

[John White]

I don't care about whether Tatchell lectures at sandhurst: I'm not going to idolise or hero worship him, same as I don't idolise or hero worship anyone else, most definately including ANY 9/11 personality that could be mentioned. On that basis, any notion of "truth purity" is irrelvant

What I care about is its more water pouring through the hole in the dyke (no pun intended!)

[Rowan Berkeley]

I shouldn't really point this out, since it will give the trolls valuable feedback, but I just can't resist it : the majority of the hostile comments to the Tatchall piece completely bypass the arguments and go directly to the 'ad hominem reductum ad absurdum', if that is proper latin grammar, viz. "Peter, it must be awful for you to see your baby smeared with excrement" etc.

[mr nice]

[xmasdale]

Thanks Mr Nice. I reckon that is the mutually supportive attitude we need. I think Peter did guage it about right, not to be written off entirely as a nut-case by the more open-minded Guardian readers.

Also, though the initial comments on the website were mainly negative, mostly constituting juvenile, vitriolic, ad hominem attacks rather than looking at the evidence, as the debate has gone on the number of such posts has lessened and the majority have of them become supportive of what he has written. I reckon that means we are winning the debate. But it is not over yet. You can still post comments there every half hour and if we continue to do so we are likely to break the record for the number of comments on a Guardian CIF article and Peter reckons that should earn us the right to have a hard-copy article in the main newspaper. So do keep posting here: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_tatchell/2007/09/911_the_big _coverup.html

Peter is away campaigning in Ireland at the moment and is extremely grateful for the supportive comments people have posted, but rather uncontactable until he's back. Next time I speak to him I'll ask him what he lectures on at Sandhurst. BTW we have some Sandhurst graduates in the campaign, don't we? Isn't Justin one?

Is it so very wicked to lecture at Sandhurst or to graduate from Sandhurst?

[xmasdale]

Thanks Mr Nice. I reckon that is the mutually supportive attitude we need. I think Peter did guage it about right, not to be written off entirely as a nut-case by the more open-minded Guardian readers.

Also, though the initial comments on the website were mainly negative, mostly constituting juvenile, vitriolic, ad hominem attacks rather than looking at the evidence, as the debate has gone on the number of such posts has lessened and the majority have of them become supportive of what he has written. I reckon that means we are winning the debate. But it is not over yet. You can still post comments there every half hour and if we continue to do so we are likely to break the record for the number of comments on a Guardian CIF article and Peter reckons that should earn us the right to have a hard-copy article in the main newspaper. So do keep posting here: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_tatchell/2007/09/911_the_big _coverup.html

Peter is away campaigning in Ireland at the moment and is extremely grateful for the supportive comments people have posted, but rather uncontactable until he's back. Next time I speak to him I'll ask him what he lectures on at Sandhurst. BTW we have some Sandhurst graduates in the campaign, don't we? Isn't Justin one?

Is it so very wicked to lecture at Sandhurst or to graduate from Sandhurst?

[Thermate911]

Posting on the Grauniad is like farting in a hurricane - it means nothing much really, yet we do it in the hope that a few more individuals might just engage brain and fumbled slowly towards the light.

Simon Jenkins seems to be one such fumbler, if his article today is anything to go by:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2168991,00.html

I've read the comments and only one stands out for me - see if you can spot it...

The time has come for a concerted effort to remove from power those whose stated aims are to enslave a vastly reduced world population. Nothing else will suffice at this point - unless you are comfortable with the idea of frying Persia to a crisp and accepting the dictates of Fascism, with all the misery and horror that inevitably entails?

[Rowan Berkeley]

I've been banned twice so I don't feel too much like starting a new email account just so that i can register and get banned again ... tho I have a long way to go to catch up with the prodigious Adam29BansGaznavi.

If someone would post a link to Gordon Ross's analysis of how the towers would have been fitted with explosives mainly from inside the lift-shafts, that would be good, because many have posted comments saying the explosives could not have been fitted undetected by the workers.

[conspiracy analyst]

[karlos]

Let me just add a quick mention.
Peter Tatchell used to be a member of Militant tendancy and was in the eighties a Hard left Labour candidate.
Now he has reincarnated as a Green Party candidate.
I do find that a little strange firstly that the two parties have opposing views on many subjects.
I am glad he has discovered 911 truth to a degree but i feel his political CV must be mentioned.
Still good luck to him i hate Labour as everyone knows.

[Thermate911]

Gordon Ross: Top three hits from www.quintura.com:-

Momentum Transfer
I've published my theories on the Tower Demolition page and produced a narrative... page which shows the method that was used to bring down the twin towers . ...
http://gordonssite.com/, 20Kb

2. VIDEO: Gordon Ross (meng) presents mechanical evidence for the covert demolition of the World Trade Center - sci....
2007 analyses the destruction of the Twin Towers of the World Trade... sections at that storey and thence down the tower storey by storey. ...
http://groups.google.com/...7558a64435/a8d9d3a3166d11c5, 86Kb

3. The Twin Towers - Gallery of Evidence
Video: WTC Twin Tower Core Column Animation... by Gordon Ross , ME [1], June 4, 2007 * • Open Letter to Purdue President France Córdova...
http://www.ae911truth.org/twintowers.php, 49Kb

-------

Rowan you say you've only been banned twice from the Grauniad? A mere beginner, then, but you must be doing something right! ;-)

stelios - I'm just too tempted - here's my ecologist son's No.1 conversation stopper - "Hitler was an environmentalist, too"...

At this stage, I hardly think it matters who says what, so long as it is said and it sticks to the facts, as Peter did very well, IMO, with this CiF article.

[Rowan Berkeley]

They've closed the thread finally, and unfortunately I didn't see any references to Gordon Ross there, but I did see several links to Richard Gage and "Architects & Engineers For 911 Truth" which is almost as good, though not quite, since in his video'd lectures that I have seen, Gage never gets down to the nitty gritty of HOW the charges were placed, which is what everyone keeps demanding.

[ukginger]