Action For Liberty

Archive for May, 2010

• Senate Not Intended to Be a Rubber Stamp

  Monday, May 31st, 2010

  By Thomas Woods

  Here’s a good article in Human Events by Kevin Gutzman on Elena Kagan, why she should be rejected, and in particular why the Senate was not intended to be a rubber stamp for the president’s nominees.

• Senate Not Intended to Be a Rubber Stamp

  Monday, May 31st, 2010

  By Thomas Woods

  Here’s a good article in Human Events by Kevin Gutzman on Elena Kagan, why she should be rejected, and in particular why the Senate was not intended to be a rubber stamp for the president’s nominees.

• ‘Continuity of Government’ Planning: War, Terror and the Supplanting of the U.S. Constitution by Peter Dale Scott

  Monday, May 31st, 2010

  Source:  japanfocus.org/-Peter_Dale-Scott/3362

  In July 1987, during the Iran-Contra Hearings grilling of Oliver North, the American public got a glimpse of “highly sensitive” emergency planning North had been involved in. Ostensibly these were emergency plans to suspend the American constitution in the event of a nuclear attack (a legitimate concern). But press accounts alleged that the planning was for a more generalized suspension of the constitution.

  As part of its routine Iran-contra coverage, the following exchange was printed in the New York Times, but without journalistic comment or follow-up:

  [Congressman Jack] Brooks: Colonel North, in your work at the N.S.C. were you not assigned, at one time, to work on plans for the continuity of government in the event of a major disaster?

  Both North’s attorney and Sen. Daniel Inouye, the Democratic Chair of the Committee, responded in a way that showed they were aware of the issue:

  Brendan Sullivan [North's counsel, agitatedly]: Mr. Chairman?

  [Senator Daniel] Inouye: I believe that question touches upon a highly sensitive and classified area so may I request that you not touch upon that?

  Brooks: I was particularly concerned, Mr. Chairman, because I read in Miami papers, and several others, that there had been a plan developed, by that same agency, a contingency plan in the event of emergency, that would suspend the American constitution. And I was deeply concerned about it and wondered if that was an area in which he had worked. I believe that it was and I wanted to get his confirmation.

  Inouye: May I most respectfully request that that matter not be touched upon at this stage. If we wish to get into this, I’m certain arrangements can be made for an executive session.¹

  But we have never heard if there was or was not an executive session, or if the rest of Congress was ever aware of the matter. According to James Bamford, “The existence of the secret government was so closely held that Congress was completely bypassed.”² (Key individuals in Congress were almost certainly aware.)

  Brooks was responding to a story by Alfonzo Chardy in the Miami Herald. Chardy’s story alleged that Oliver North was involved with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in plans  to take over federal, state and local functions during a national emergency. This planning for “Continuity of Government” (COG) called for “suspension of the Constitution, turning control of the government over to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, emergency appointment of military commanders to run state and local governments and declaration of martial law.”³

  To my knowledge no one in the public (including myself) attached enough importance to the Chardy story. Chardy himself suggested that Reagan’s Attorney General, William French Smith, had intervened to stop the COG plan from being presented to the President. Seven years later, in 1994, Tim Weiner reported in the New York Times that what he called “The Doomsday Project” — the search for “ways to keep the Government running after a sustained nuclear attack on Washington” — had “less than six months to live.”⁴

  To say that nuclear attack planning was over was correct, But this statement was also very misleading. On the basis of Weiner’s report, the first two books on COG planning, by James Bamford and James Mann, books otherwise excellent and well-informed, reported that COG planning had been abandoned.⁵ They were wrong.

  Mann and Bamford did report that, from the beginning, two of the key COG planners on the secret committee were Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the two men who implemented COG under 9/11.⁶ What they and Weiner did not report was that under Reagan the purpose of COG planning had officially changed: it was no longer for arrangements “after a nuclear war,” but for any “national security emergency.” This was defined in Executive Order 12656 of 1988 as: “any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States.”⁷

  In other words extraordinary emergency measures, originally designed for an America devastated in a nuclear attack, were now to be applied to anything the White House considered an emergency. Thus Cheney and Rumsfeld continued their secret planning when Clinton was president; both men, both Republicans, were heads of major corporations and not even in the government at that time. Moreover, Andrew Cockburn claims that the Clinton administration, according to a Pentagon source, had “no idea what was going on.”⁸ (As I shall explain later, this sweeping claim needs some qualification.)

  The expanded application of COG to any emergency was envisaged as early as 1984, when, according to Boston Globe reporter Ross Gelbspan,

  Lt. Col. Oliver North was working with officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency . . . to draw up a secret contingency plan to surveil political dissenters and to arrange for the detention of hundreds of thousands of undocumented aliens in case of an unspecified national emergency. The plan, part of which was codenamed Rex 84, called for the suspension of the Constitution under a number of scenarios, including a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua.⁹

  Clearly 9/11 met the conditions for the imposition of COG measures, and we know for certain that COG planning was instituted on that day in 2001, before the last plane had crashed in Pennsylvania. The 9/11 Report confirms this twice, on pages 38 and 326.¹⁰ It was under the auspices of COG that Bush stayed out of Washington on that day, and other government leaders like Paul Wolfowitz were swiftly evacuated to Site R, inside a hollowed out mountain near Camp David.¹¹

   

  <div style=”position: absolute; top: 0px; right: 0px; width: 30px; height: 30px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-image: url(http://japanfocus.org/images/xmag.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: 50% 50%; “>    Site R, Raven Rock Complex

   

  What few have recognized is that, nearly a decade later, some aspects of COG remain in effect. COG plans are still authorized by a proclamation of emergency that has been extended each year by presidential authority, most recently by President Obama in September 2009. COG plans are also the probable source for the 1000-page Patriot Act presented to Congress five days after 9/11, and also for the Department of Homeland Security’s Project Endgame — a ten-year plan, initiated in September 2001, to expand detention camps, at a cost of $400 million in Fiscal Year 2007 alone.¹²

  At the same time we have seen the implementation of the plans outlined by Chardy in 1987: the warrantless detentions that Oliver North had planned for in Rex 1984, the warrantless eavesdropping that is their logical counterpart, and the militarization of the domestic United States under a new military command, NORTHCOM.¹³ Through NORTHCOM the U.S. Army now is engaged with local enforcement to control America, in the same way that through CENTCOM it is engaged with local enforcement to control Afghanistan and Iraq.

   

  <div style=”position: absolute; top: 0px; right: 0px; width: 30px; height: 30px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-image: url(http://japanfocus.org/images/xmag.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: 50% 50%; “>    Northcom. US Northern Command Headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado

   

  We learned that COG planning was still active in 2007, when President Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD 51). This, for the sixth time, extended for one year the emergency proclaimed on September 14, 2001. It empowered the President to personally ensure “continuity of government” in the event of any “catastrophic emergency.” He announced that NSPD 51 contains “classified Continuity Annexes” which shall “be protected from unauthorized disclosure.” Under pressure from his 911truth constituents, Congressman Peter DeFazio of the Homeland Security Committee twice requested to see these Annexes, the second time in a letter signed by the Chair of his committee. His request was denied.

  The National Emergencies Act, one of the post-Watergate reforms that Vice-President Cheney so abhorred, specifies that: “Not later than six months after a national emergency is declared, and not later than the end of each six-month period thereafter that such emergency continues, each House of Congress shall meet to consider a vote on a joint resolution to determine whether that emergency shall be terminated” (50 U.S.C. 1622, 2002). Yet in nine years Congress has not once met to discuss the State of Emergency declared by George W. Bush in response to 9/11, a State of Emergency that remains in effect today. Appeals to the Congress to meet its responsibilities to review COG have fallen on deaf ears.¹⁴

  Former Congressman Dan Hamburg and I appealed publicly last year, both to Obama to terminate the emergency, and to Congress to hold the hearings required of them by statute.¹⁵ But Obama, without discussion, extended the 9/11 Emergency again on September 10, 2009;¹⁶ and Congress has continued to ignore its statutory obligations. One Congressman explained to a constituent that the provisions of the National Emergencies Act have now been rendered inoperative by COG. If true, this would seem to justify Chardy’s description of COG as suspension of the Constitution.

  Plans drafted by a secret committee, including corporation heads not in the government, have provided rules that allegedly override public law and the separation of powers that is at the heart of the Constitution. Congress is derelict in addressing this situation. Even Congressman Kucinich, the one Congressman I have met, will not answer my communications on this subject.

  Yet as I see it, the only authorization for the COG planning was a secret decision by President Reagan (NSDD 55 of September 14, 1982) which in effect federalized the counterinsurgency planning (called Cable Splicer), which he had authorized in California when governor there.

  It is clear that the planning by Cheney, Rumsfeld and others in the last two decades was not confined to an immediate response to 9/11. The 1000-page Patriot Act, dropped on Congress as promptly as the Tonkin Gulf Resolution had been back in 1964, is still with us; Congress has never seriously challenged it, and Obama quietly extended it on February 27 of this year.

  We should not forget that the Patriot Act was only passed after lethal anthrax letters were mailed to two crucial Democratic Senators — Senators Daschle and Leahy — who had initially questioned the bill. After the anthrax letters, however, they withdrew their initial opposition.¹⁷ Someone — we still do not know who — must have planned those anthrax letters well in advance. This is a fact most Americans do not want to think about.

  Someone also must have planned the unusual number of war games taking place on 9/11. COG planners and FEMA had been involved in war games planning over the previous two decades; and on 9/11 FEMA was again involved with other agencies in preparing for Operation Tripod, a bioterrorism exercise in New York City.¹⁸

  Someone also must have planned the new more restrictive instructions, on June 1, 2001, determining that military interceptions of hijacked aircraft had to be approved “at the highest levels of government” (i.e. the President, Vice-President, or Secretary of Defense).¹⁹ The Report attributes this order to a JCS Memo of June 1, 2001, entitled “Aircraft Piracy (Hijacking) and Destruction of Derelict Airborne Objects.” But the written requirements had been less restrictive before June 1, 2001, and I am informed that the change was quietly revoked the following December.

  In The Road to 9/11 I suggest the change in the JCS memo came from the National Preparedness Review in which President Bush authorized Vice-President Cheney, together with FEMA, “to tackle the … task of dealing with terrorist attacks.”²⁰ Not noticed by the press was the fact that Cheney and FEMA had already been working on COG planning as a team throughout the 1980s and 1990s.²¹

  As I wrote above, it is necessary to qualify a Pentagon official’s claim (to author Andrew Cockburn) that the Clinton administration had “no idea what was going on” in COG.  Let me quote from my response to Cockburn’s book in my own, The Road to 9/11:

  [Weiner's] article persuaded authors James Mann and James Bamford that Reagan’s COG plans had now been abandoned, because “there was, it seemed, no longer any enemy in the world capable of . . . decapitating America’s leadership.”²² In fact, however, only one phase of COG planning had been terminated, a Pentagon program for response to a nuclear attack. Instead, according to author Andrew Cockburn, a new target was found:

  Although the exercises continued, still budgeted at over $200 million a year in the Clinton era, the vanished Sovietswere now replaced by terrorists. . . . There were other changes, too. In earlier times the specialists selected to run the “shadow government” had been drawn from across the political spectrum, Democrats and Republicans alike. But now, down in the bunkers, Rumsfeld found himself in politically congenial company, the players’ roster being filled almost exclusively with Republican hawks. . . .”You could say this was a secret government-in-waiting. The Clinton administration was extraordinarily inattentive, [they had] no idea what was going on.”

  Cockburn’s account requires some qualification. Richard Clarke, a Clinton Democrat, makes it clear that he participated in the COG games in the 1990s and indeed drafted Clinton’s Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) 67 on “Enduring Constitutional Government and Continuity of Government.” But COG planning involved different teams for different purposes. It is quite possible that the Pentagon official was describing the Department of Defense team dealing with retaliation.

  The Pentagon official’s description of a “secret government-in-waiting” (which still included both Cheney and Rumsfeld) is very close to the standard definition of a cabal, as a group of persons secretly united to bring about a change or overthrow of government. In the same era Cheney and Rumsfeld projected change also by their public lobbying, through the Project for the New American Century, for a more militant Middle East policy. In light of how COG was actually implemented in 2001, one can legitimately suspect that, however interested this group had been in continuity of government under Reagan, under Clinton the focus of Cheney’s and Rumsfeld’s COG planning was now a change of government.²³

  Understandably there is great psychological resistance to the extraordinary claim that Cheney and Rumsfeld, even when not in government, were able to help plan successfully for constitutional modifications, which they themselves implemented when back in power. Most people cannot bring themselves even to believe the second, known half of this claim: that on September 11, 2001, COG plans overriding the constitution were indeed implemented. This is why the first two print reviews of The Road to 9/11, both favorable and intelligently written, both reported that I speculated that COG had been imposed on 9/11. No, it was not a speculation: the 9/11 Commission Report twice confirms that COG was instituted on the authority of a phone call between Bush and Cheney of which they could find no record. No record, I did speculate, because it took place on a secure COG phone outside the presidential bunker — with such a high classification that the 9/11 Commission was never supplied the phone records.

  A footnote in the 9/11 Report says

  “The 9/11 crisis tested the U.S. government’s plans and capabilities to ensure the continuity of constitutional government and the continuity of government operations. We did not investigate this topic, except as needed to understand the activities and communications of key officials on 9/11. The Chair, Vice Chair, and senior staff were briefed on the general nature and implementation of these continuity plans.²⁴

  The other footnotes confirm that no information from COG files was used to document the 9/11 report. At a minimum these files might resolve the mystery of the missing phone call which simultaneously authorized COG, and (in consequence) determined that Bush should continue to stay out of Washington. I suspect that they might tell us a great deal more.

  What is the first step out of this current state of affairs, in which the constitution has in effect been superseded by a higher, if less legitimate authority? I submit that it is to get Congress to do what the law requires, and determine whether our present proclamation of emergency “shall be terminated” (50 U.S.C. 1622, 2002).

  An earlier polite, judiciously worded appeal to this effect failed. It may be necessary to raise the issue in a larger, albeit more controversial context: the scandal that a small cabal was able to supersede the Constitution, and Congress has failed, despite repeated requests, to do anything about it. I would hope that Americans concerned about this matter would raise it with all the congressional candidates in the forthcoming elections. At a minimum, candidates should promise to call for a full discussion of the proclaimed national emergency, as the law requires.

   

  Peter Dale Scott, a former Canadian diplomat and English Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of Drugs Oil and War, The Road to 9/11, The War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics of War. His American War Machine: Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection and the Road to Afghanistan is in press, due  in fall 2010 from Rowman & Littlefield.

  He wrote this article for The Asia-Pacific Journal.

  Recommended citation: Peter Dale Scott, “‘CONTINUITY OF GOVERNMENT’ PLANNING: War, Terror and the Supplanting of the U.S. Constitution,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, 21-2-10, May 24, 2010.

  Notes

  ¹ New York Times, July 14, 1987.

  ² James Bamford, A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America’s Intelligence Agencies (New York: Doubleday, 2004), 74:  ”The existence of the secret government was so closely held that Congress was completely bypassed. Rather than through legislation, it was created by Top Secret presidential fiat. In fact, Congress would have no role in the new wartime administration. ‘One of the awkward questions we faced,’ said one of the participants, ‘was whether to reconstitute Congress after a nuclear attack. It was decided that no, it would be easier to operate without them.’” Cf. James Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Viking, 2004), 145.   

  ³ Miami Herald, July 5, 1987. In October 1984 Jack Anderson reported that FEMA’s plans would “suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, effectively eliminate private property, abolish free enterprise, and generally clamp Americans in a totalitarian vise.”

  ⁴ Tim Weiner, New York Times, April 17, 1994.

  ⁵ Bamford, A Pretext for War, 74; cf. James Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Viking, 2004), 138-45.

  ⁶ Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007), 183-87.

  ⁷ The provisions of Executive Order 12656 of Nov. 18, 1988, appear at 53 FR 47491, 3 CFR, 1988 Comp., p. 585, link. The Washington Post (March 1, 2002) later claimed, falsely, that Executive Order 12656 dealt only with “a nuclear attack.” Earlier there was a similar misrepresentation in the New York Times(November 18, 1991).

  ⁸ Andrew Cockburn, Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy (New York: Scribner, 2007), 88.

  ⁹ Ross Gelbspan, Break-ins, Death Threats, and the FBI (Boston: South End Press, 1991), 184; cf. New York Times, November 18, 1991.

  ¹⁰ 9/11 Commission Report, 38, 326; Scott, Road to 9/11, 228-29.

  ¹¹ Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11 (Washington: Department of Defense, 2007), 132.

  ¹² Scott, Road to 9/11, 238, 240-41.

  ¹³ U.S. Department of Defense, “U.S. Northern Command.” Cf. John R. Brinkerhoff, PBS, Online Newshour, 9/27/02: “The United States itself is now for the first time since the War of 1812 a theater of war. That means that we should apply, in my view, the same kind of command structure in the United States that we apply in other theaters of war.” Brinkerhoff had earlier developed the martial law provisions of REX 84 in the Reagan era.

  ¹⁴ Cf. Peter Dale Scott and Dam Hamburg, “To All Readers: Help Force Congress To Observe the Law on National Emergencies!!!,” 911Truth.org, March 24, 2009.

  ¹⁵ Peter Dale Scott, “To All Readers: Help Force Congress To Observe the Law on National Emergencies!!!” (with Dan Hamburg), http.//www.truth.org, March 24, 2009.

  ¹⁶ White House Press Release, September 10, 2009, link. A press briefing by Obama’s spokesman Robert Gibbs the same day did not mention the extension.

  ¹⁷ Cf. Time, Nov. 26, 2001: “While Daschle, the Senate majority leader, could have been chosen as a representative of all Democrats or of the entire Senate, Leahy is a less obvious choice, most likely targeted for a specific reason. He is head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is involved in issues ranging from antitrust action to anti-terror legislation” [emphasis added]. See also Anthony York, “Why Daschle and Leahy?” Salon, November 21, 2001.

  ¹⁸ Brian Michael Jenkins and Frances Edwards-Winslow, “Saving City Lifelines: Lessons Learned in the 9-11 Terrorist Attacks” (San Jose, CA: Mineta Transportation Institute, San José State University, 2003). 

  ¹⁹ 9/11 Report, 17; cf. fn. 101, 458.

  ²⁰ Houston Chronicle, May 9, 2001; Road to 9/11, 209.

  ²¹ James Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Viking, 2004), 139; James Bamford, A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America’s Intelligence Agencies (New York: Doublesday, 2004).

  ²² Mann, Rise of the Vulcans, 144.

  ²³ Scott, The Road to 9/11, 186-87.

   

• Dusting-off Corley: Is this the official response to the discovery of energetic materials in the WTC dust?

  Monday, May 31st, 2010

  It has been over a year since the most recent peer-reviewed scientific article was published on the finding of energetic materials in the WTC dust.[i] During this time, the article was personally delivered to members of Congress and others in positions of power.[ii] Some of those leaders, like 9/11 Commission co-chairman Lee Hamilton, have repeatedly declined invitations to discuss the evidence.[iii] But ultimately, there has been no official response by the U.S. government, and we have seen only apathy or feigned ignorance in response to these explosive findings. In the last few months, however, one of the people who did the most to cover-up the crimes of 9/11 has surfaced again, and is requesting samples.

   

  Immediately after the article was published, it appeared that a response might be forthcoming due to inexplicable damage to several packages sent, via the US Postal Service, between some of the investigators who were involved. When my colleague Steven Jones sent a sample of the red-gray chips to my post office box in late April 2009, the samples had been removed from the double envelope package through a series of slits just barely big enough to slide the small vial out. The postal inspector never responded to my complaint. But when I later mailed something to my colleague James Gourley, the envelope arrived with a corner ripped out, in a gross kind of damage that neither of us had ever seen.[iv] 

   

  Over the next few months we saw unprecedented attacks levied on the journal that published the paper. The editors of the journal were pummeled with email and blog attacks and one of them, who had not been involved in review of the paper, resigned. Some attackers even sought to discredit the Bentham Science family of journals, of which the Open Chemical Physics journal was one member, by submitting phony articles to see if they could get published. Discrediting Bentham Science would not have fully removed the threat to the official story, however, because the evidence for energetic materials at the WTC is supported by peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals other than just Bentham.[v]^,[vi] 

   

  It is not certain if the mail tampering or the attacks against Bentham Science were responses from those who created the official reports. More recent events, however, suggest that our corporate-funded politicians might have decided to produce an official response to the article after all. 

   

  In January of this year, one of the independent sample collectors who provided WTC dust to our investigative team wrote to me about an inquiry.

   

  “I got a call last night from a guy named Jay Levin, the founder of the LA Weekly. …He recently interviewed a Gene Corley…[who] is a forensic engineer and was hired by FEMA to look for (certain) things in the dust. Evidence of explosives wasn’t one of them. …apparently, he now wants to have another look. If this is potentially a whistle-blower scenario, it could be a wonderful thing…”

   

  Jay Levin is an editor and writer who has done a few articles on the 9/11 Truth movement and, in doing so, has earned the trust of some of the movement’s leaders.[vii]^,[viii] Although Levin’s articles have been more fair to the cause of truth than the average mainstream media hit pieces have been, that’s not saying much.   And according to one of these articles, Levin is also writing a book about the “WTC scientific dispute.” 

   

  Levin’s former company, LA Weekly, is now owned by Village Voice Media, a conglomeration of weekly newspapers. This conglomeration includes the Phoenix New Times, which has published some of the most abysmal attacks against the 9/11 Truth movement.[ix]^,[x],[xi] The current New Times executive editor and Village Voice majority owner is Michael Lacey, who has run rough-shod over the organization and worked to dumb-down the news products since he took over the organization in 2005.[xii]^,[xiii] Levin is apparently not associated with that company any longer.

   

  In any case, Gene Corley was not hired by FEMA to examine the WTC dust. He was hired by FEMA to lead the entire WTC investigation, which at the time was termed an “assessment.” Six years earlier, Corley had also led the investigation into what happened at the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, and the resulting report was found to have been very poorly done.[xiv] 

   

  For years after 9/11, Corley was the voice of the ever-changing, but always non-explosive, story for what happened at the WTC. 

   

  • He led the FEMA investigation which gave us the now defunct “pancake theory”
  • Five months later he was a member of the Silverstein-Weidlinger insurance claim team that produced the “columns only” theory (opposite of the pancake theory).
  • He was the primary official theory spokesman in all the mainstream media video programs, including those produced by NOVA and the AE/History Channel, that were for years used as the major vehicles for public consumption.
  • Leftist commentators like Matthew Rothschild turned to Corley to provide “independent” confirmation of the official story.[xv]
  • He provided “public comments” in support of the NIST investigation.
  •  And last but not least, he posed as a reporter during NIST media sessions, lobbing softball questions to kill the time.[xvi]

   

  Considering these facts, promoting Corley as an independent scientist for a new WTC investigation is like promoting 9/11 Commission director Phillip Zelikow, or suspect Osama Bin Laden, for the same job.

   

  I wrote back to the sampler and suggested to him that Corley could probably obtain his own WTC dust samples. After all, Corley had supposedly waded through WTC dust for months. Why was he asking for our samples?

   

  Mr. Levin replied to our sampler saying that he understood the hesitation to send samples to Corley, because, “to be honest,” Corley was a supporter of the official “collapse” theory. Levin went on,

   

  “I have found a lot of good and knowledgeable people with no connection to the government, just as there are many similar people who argue with it. NIST’s behavior re the testing might be atrocious but whether you want to believe it or

  not, not everyone who examines the world trade data and concludes the collapse happened without explosives is covering up something. There is a genuine disagreement among independent experts.”

   

  But Gene Corley is not a good person with “no connection to the government”, and he is certainly not an “independent expert.” On the contrary, he represented the government as he created a false engineering report for what happened at OKC, and later several false and contradictory engineering reports for the WTC. 

   

  Corley is also an alumnus of the military establishment at Fort Belvoir[xvii], which has many connections to 9/11 including the Able Danger[xviii], al Qaeda[xix], and Ali Muhammed.[xx] Others who have served as 9/11 debunkers are Fort Belvoir alumni as well, like John Fisher, who was one of the few actual engineering experts for Popular Mechanics, and apparently, Frank Greening.[xxi]

   

  In his attempt to promote Corley’s involvement, Levin went on to explain to our sampler how it would not be of any risk to the independent investigators.

   

  “To my way of thinking if Corley tests and says he came up with nothing, it will change nothing. Steve Jones and everyone else will still maintain that NIST has to test in a manner credible to outsiders. And if Jones does come up with something and announces it, that is a potential game changer - and a hell of a story for a journalist.”

   

  Oddly enough, Mr. Levin forgot to mention what would happen if Gene Corley tested our samples and “found” something quite the opposite of what we found.

   

  Our sampler reported these comments from Levin with “a growing sense of dread.”

   

  Steven Jones took the liberty of responding to Mr. Levin at this point, suggesting that Corley use his influence to get some samples from an “official” source.

   

  “Jay, Here is my recommendation: request that Mr. Corley acquire several ‘official’ WTC dust samples directly from the USGS, and scrutinize these for red/gray chips as defined in our paper. Based on our scientific team’s experience, those samplings taken nearer to ‘ground zero’ will be more likely to contain larger numbers of these red/gray particles, so the ‘nearest samples’ should be sought.”

   

  Apparently Corley did not like that suggestion, because although Mr. Levin did not respond for several weeks, he approached our sampler again. This is how it went as reported by the sampler.

   

  “Now, the strange news: Jay Levin, who first called me as Janette was about to go in for her biopsy, called me again just minutes after she came out of surgery last night, claiming that he came across my email, but couldn’t remember who I was (apologies for his uncharacteristic lack of organization), so I “reminded” him of our last emails and that I’m not giving up any dust to Dr. Corley. Once the phony formalities were out of the way, he bent my ear for about 20 minutes as my Indian food got cold. He was saying that if his findings were to corroborate your findings, that would be big news! I won’t bore you with all the details, but will say that I came away with a bad feeling not only about Gene Corley, but about him as well. He did say that Corley would follow up on Steven’s advice, if he can, but isn’t sure that he can get his hands on the necessary equipment. This too seems a little odd..”

   

  Needless to say, the samples were not sent to Mr. Corley or Mr. Levin. However it does seem unlikely that Levin couldn’t remember the earlier conversation about what would have been “a hell of a story for a journalist.”

   

  Three months later, Levin approached Steven Jones again. He appeared to have found another independent analyst to test the WTC dust and confirm our findings. Unlike Corley, this one seemed to have read our paper but was skeptical.

   

  “I spoke to Don Broton again at the CTL lab about what he needs to test with an xray defraction cross section. He said a piece that was a few millimeters and referenced the 4 millimeters he said was mentioned in your research report. And he added “of course the bigger piece the better” for the purposes of the cross-section. 

   

  As to the specifics, he said he can find “striklingly (sic) similar” element compositions in fly ash where the “map scans are kind of similar in their peak indentifications (sic)” to yours. .

   

  He said the reason your tests are not definitive is that virtually all the elements were present in the WTC and various element bondings may have occurred. (By the way he is the third chemist I know of who has said this.) He said man made nano-thermite would have a very distinct pattern would likely be revealed by x-ray defraction which I told him I gather you understood as you had sent some dust to another lab for the test.”

   

  What Mr. Levin didn’t say is that the independent analyst he found worked for Gene Corley’s company, CTL Group. Gene Corley is the Senior Vice President of CTL Group,[xxii] and the new independent analyst, Don Broton, works for Gene Corley.

   

  The “fly ash” statement was also interesting. This was the exact same “debunker” response to the microspheres found in the WTC dust, long before the red-gray chips had been found. Perhaps Corley and Broton had their stories mixed up.

   

  In any case, Gene Corley, someone who for years was the leading spokesman for the official engineering reports on the WTC, is now intent on getting samples from the independent investigators leading the scientific investigation into what happened at the WTC. This suggests that Corley will be providing the official response to the discovery of energetic materials in the WTC dust. 

   

  Additionally, the fact that Jay Levin doesn’t appear to know who Gene Corley is suggests that Levin might not be the best person to write additional articles and a book on the “WTC scientific dispute.” We can hope, however, that he is honest enough to admit that.

  ---

  [i] Niels H. Harrit, et al, Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe, The Open Chemical Physics Journal, Vol 2, 2009, doi: 10.2174/1874412500902010007, http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM

  [ii] This article has been hand delivered to Vice President Biden, Senator John Kerry, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, Representative Barney Frank,, Senator JD Rockefeller, Senator Richard Lugar, Senator Lindsay Graham, and Senator John Kyl. The article has been confirmed to be delivered through email to Senator Evan Bayh. Senator Harry Reid was handed the article and refused to take it, as occurred with Newt Gingrich.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-SSRzk12NQ

  [iii] Kevin R. Ryan, Will Lee Hamilton Examine the evidence?, 911blogger.com, 3/13/2010, http://911blogger.com/node/22907

  [iv] Was someone looking for samples in the US mail?, ULtruth.com, http://www.ultruth.com/Mail%20damage.htm

  [v] Kevin R. Ryan, et al, Environmental anomalies at the World Trade Center: evidence for energetic materials, The Environmentalist, Volume 29, Number 1 / March, 2009, http://www.springerlink.com/content/f67q6272583h86n4/

  [vi] Steven E. Jones et al, Extremely High Temperatures During the World Trade Center Destruction, Journal of 9/11 Studies, January 2008 http://www.journalof911studies.com/articles/WTCHighTemp2.pdf

  [vii] Jay Levin and Tom McKenzie, Twin Towers, Twin Myths?, Santa Barbara Independent, September 17, 2009, http://www.independent.com/news/2009/sep/17/twin-towers-twin-myths/

  [viii] Jay Levin and Tom McKenzie, Explosive Theory: Eight years after 9/11, a growing organization of building trades professionals suspect that there was more to the event than the government will admit, MetroActive, September 9, 2009, http://www.metroactive.com/metro/09.09.09/cover-0936.html

  [ix] Stephen Lemons, The Yoda of 9/11: Pat Curley slices through the loony conspiracy theories at his influential “Screw Loose Change” Web site, Phoenix New Times, Aug 9 2007, http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2007-08-09/news/the-yoda-of-9-11/1

  [x] Stephen Lemons,, Noam Chomsky and the 9/11 nutbars: Why they suck and he doesn’t., Phoenix New Times, Aug 15 2007,

  [xi] Stephen Lemons, 9/11 “Troof,” Ed Begley, Jr., and Why Van Jones Needed to Go, September 11, 2009, http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2009/09/911_truth_dylan_avery_vs_pat_c.php

  [xii] Mark Jacobsen, The Voice from beyond the grave, New York Magazine, November 6, 2005, http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/14987/ 

  [xiii] Bruce Brugmann, Lacey’s Wednesday night massacre, SF Bay Guardian, 11/06/06, http://www.sfbayguardian.com/bruce/2006/11/06/laceys-wednesday-night-massacre-la-weeklys-harold-meyerson-says-all-staffers-l7-voi

  [xiv] Oklahoma Bombing Committee, Final Report on the Bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building, http://www.okcbombing.net/books&videos.htm

  [xv] Kevin R. Ryan, Looking for Truth in Credentials: The Peculiar WTC “Experts”, Globalresearch.ca, March 13, 2007, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5071

  [xvi] Archived webcast video of NIST press briefing, NIST News Release website, June 23, 2005 (http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/wtc_briefing_june2305.htm), 01:15:10.

  [xvii] Testimony of Gene Corley before the House Subcommittee on Environment, Technology and Standards, March 6, 2002, p 10, http://www.asce.org/uploadedFiles/Communications/3-6-02wtc_testimony.pdf

  [xviii] Wayne Madsen, Able Danger and DIA had advanced knowledge of 9/11, Online Journal, Sept 11th, 2009, http://www.prisonplanet.com/able-danger-and-dia-had-advanced-knowledge-of-911.html

  [xix] J.M. Berger, Al Qaeda Recruited U.S. Servicemen: Testimony Links Plot To Saudi Gov’t, IntelWire.com, July 01, 2004, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1164071/posts

  [xx] Peter Dale Scott, 9/11, JFK, and War: Recurring Patterns in America’s Deep Events, Journal of 9/11 Studies, http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2007/ProfScottJFK,911,andWar.pdf

  [xxi] Did Frank Greening attend the US Army’s engineer officer candidate school at Fort Belvoir?, ULtruth.com, http://www.ultruth.com/Greening.htm

  [xxii] SkokieNet, Interview with Dr. Gene Corley - Internationally Renowned Structural Engineer Based in Skokie, April 22 2007,   http://www.skokienet.org/node/3876
  Feature Options

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  Recent Headlines

• Insiders Out

  Monday, May 31st, 2010

  By Daniel McCarthy

  The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake has an interesting item on grassroots voters rejecting the anointed candidates of the GOP establishment, citing not only Rand Paul’s primary win in Kentucky and Sharron Angle’s rising poll numbers in Nevada, but a (relatively) little-watched race in Idaho, where, “State Rep. Raul Labrador upset leading NRCC recruit Vaughn Ward on Tuesday in the race to face top-targeted Rep. Walt Minnick (D-Idaho).” According to Blake, Labrador “supports a repeal of the 17th Amendment, which provides for direct election of U.S. senators. He wants a return to the gold standard and would like for the United States to quit the United Nations.” The Post’s Chris Cilizza draws out the implications for the GOP leadership — and for 2012:

  If a Mr. Paul or a Ms. Angle does come to Washington, it’s almost a problem that McConnell and the Republican leadership would like to have, because it will mean more GOP seats. But remember that the last day of the 2010 campaign marks the first day of the 2012 presidential race, and the more tea party candidates elected to the Senate and House on Nov. 2, the more hue and cry there will be from like-minded activists to choose someone of (and for) the movement as the GOP nominee.

  As always, the Posties roll their eyes at the outsiders, but I take these stories to suggest quite accurately some big shakeups in the political landscape not far down the line. The political old guard has had its day. Yet in order for a new guard to be any better, there’s a lot of educational work that needs to be done to ensure that voters know what issues are ultimately at stake — war or peace, sound money or bankruptcy, the rule of law or arbitrary power. Hard as the work may be, this is a receptive environment for Campaign for Liberty’s efforts.

• Insiders Out

  Monday, May 31st, 2010

  By Daniel McCarthy

  The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake has an interesting item on grassroots voters rejecting the anointed candidates of the GOP establishment, citing not only Rand Paul’s primary win in Kentucky and Sharron Angle’s rising poll numbers in Nevada, but a (relatively) little-watched race in Idaho, where, “State Rep. Raul Labrador upset leading NRCC recruit Vaughn Ward on Tuesday in the race to face top-targeted Rep. Walt Minnick (D-Idaho).” According to Blake, Labrador “supports a repeal of the 17th Amendment, which provides for direct election of U.S. senators. He wants a return to the gold standard and would like for the United States to quit the United Nations.” The Post’s Chris Cilizza draws out the implications for the GOP leadership — and for 2012:

  If a Mr. Paul or a Ms. Angle does come to Washington, it’s almost a problem that McConnell and the Republican leadership would like to have, because it will mean more GOP seats. But remember that the last day of the 2010 campaign marks the first day of the 2012 presidential race, and the more tea party candidates elected to the Senate and House on Nov. 2, the more hue and cry there will be from like-minded activists to choose someone of (and for) the movement as the GOP nominee.

  As always, the Posties roll their eyes at the outsiders, but I take these stories to suggest quite accurately some big shakeups in the political landscape not far down the line. The political old guard has had its day. Yet in order for a new guard to be any better, there’s a lot of educational work that needs to be done to ensure that voters know what issues are ultimately at stake — war or peace, sound money or bankruptcy, the rule of law or arbitrary power. Hard as the work may be, this is a receptive environment for Campaign for Liberty’s efforts.

• Californians Somehow Split On Arizona Law

  Monday, May 31st, 2010

  Somehow, this is a split
  California voters are closely divided over the crackdown on illegal immigration in Arizona, with sharp splits along lines of ethnicity and age, according to a new Los Angeles Times/USC poll.
  Overall, 50% of registered voters surveyed said they support the law, which compels police to check the immigration [...]

• President Köhler resigns: “Afghanistan mission was partly motivated by commercial interests”

  Monday, May 31st, 2010

  http://www.thelocal.de/politics/20100531-27547.html President Köhler resigns Published: 31 May 10 14:12 CET Online: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20100531-27547.html German President Horst Köhler announced his surprise resignation on Monday after appearing to suggest the country’s unpopular Afghanistan mission was partly motivated by commercial interests. “I announce my resignation from the office of the federal presidency with immediate affect,” Köhler said in Berlin. He said the decision came after withering criticism of comments he made connecting Germany’s military deployment in Afghanistan with the country’s economy.
  
  “This criticism had absolutely no justification,” said the 67-year-old former head of the International Monetary Fund. Looking emotional, Köhler asked for his supporters to understand his surprising resignation. The conservative Christian Democrats was nominated to be the country’s largely ceremonial head of state in 2004 and re-elected in 2009. “It was an honour for me to serve Germany,” he said. Chancellor Angela Merkel said she regretted his departure. “I tried to get the president to change his mind but unfortunately I was unsuccessful,” Merkel told reporters. “I always worked very well together with Horst Köhler. He was an important adviser, particularly in the financial and economic crisis, with his large international experience. I will miss this advice.” But his remarks just over a week ago prompted a furious debate about Germany’s military engagement – and whether Köhler had damaged the image of the NATO mission in Afghanistan. Köhler began by saying that Germany was in the country, alongside its allies, to ensure its security and that it was good and proper for these issues to be openly and robustly discussed. He then added: “But my estimation is that, on the whole, we are on the way to understanding, even broadly in society, that a country of our size, with this orientation toward foreign trade and therefore also dependence on foreign trade, has to be aware that when in doubt in case of an emergency, military deployment is also necessary to protect our interests. For example, free trade routes, for example to prevent instability in a whole region, which certainly have an negative impact on our opportunities via trade, jobs and income. All of that ought to be discussed and I believe that we are not doing too badly.” The remarks appeared to be a major departure from the political orthodoxy on the Afghanistan mission, which says the Bundeswehr is there to protect Germany from terrorist groups who would use the country as a base were it to descend into lawlessness or Islamist theocracy. Köhler said his comments were “misunderstood” and that he was not referring to the mission in Afghanistan, where Germany has 4,500 troops in a NATO-led force fighting a Taliban-led insurgency. But Wichard Woyke from the University of Münster told television station N-TV that he deserved the hefty criticism because he had spoken out of turn. “It is not the president’s job to get mixed up in political affairs but he did. He should not be surprised that the criticism was so severe,” said Woyke. According to the German constitution, the president of the upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, will temporarily take over Köhler’s duties. Currently that post is held by Bremen Mayor Jens Böhrnsen from the centre-left Social Democrats. The German president is elected by the Federal Convention comprising members of both houses of parliament. His replacement must now be elected within the next 30 days. AFP/DDP/The Local (news@thelocal.de)

• “YouTube Is UsTube”: Creators Step in to Defend YouTube

  Monday, May 31st, 2010

  Plenty of folks, from copyright lawyers to Internet entrepreneurs to investment bankers, have been watching the long-running legal battle between Viacom and Google/YouTube carefully, well aware that a decision in the case could have a profound effect on the future of the Internet. But most YouTube users probably haven’t given it the same attention. They should, and in an amicus brief filed in support of YouTube last week, a group of YouTube video creators explains why.

  Calling themselves “The Sideshow Coalition” (because Viacom has called their interests a “sideshow”), these creators tell their own personal stories of how YouTube has helped them find a broader audience than they had ever imagined they could reach, with all kinds of unexpected effects. A few examples from the brief:

  • Barnett Zitron, who created “Why Tuesday,” a political video blog focused on increasing voter turnout that has helped register over half a million college students to vote.
  • Mehdi Saharkhiz, who created a YouTube channel to spread awareness about government human rights abuses in Iran and frequently posts videos from contacts in Iran who record the videos on their cell phones.
  • Phillip de Vellis, who created and uploaded to YouTube a video supporting President Obama’s candidacy, hoping it would be viewed by a few thousand people. “Instead, millions viewed it and the San Francisco Chronicle described it as ‘a watershed moment in 21st century media and political advertising.’”
  • Arin Crumley, who could not get conventional financing for a film he wanted to make, and decided instead to self-produce it and post it to YouTube. The first full length movie ever uploaded to the site, it was viewed more than a million times, and then the Independent Film Channel picked it up.
  • Dane Boedigheimer, who wanted to be a filmmaker since he was 12 years old and would spend hours each day with his parents’ 8mm camera. “In the conventional media, it would have taken years before he might even have a chance to direct films. However, with YouTube, Boedigheimer was able to create a series called ‘Really Annoying Orange’ whose episodes have been viewed 130 million times.”

  These creators praise YouTube for removing the gatekeeper between them and their audiences. “We can now be our own television and cable stations and our own record labels and record stores. We suspect that the threat that truly concerns Plaintiffs is not copyright infringement but just competition.”

  Unlike most of the parties and amici who have filed in this case (including EFF), these friends of the court don’t focus on the legal doctrines at stake in this case. Instead, they remind us why these legal issues matter, i.e., what’s really at stake in a case that tries to hold intermediaries liable for what users post online:

  It is pretty clear that on a scale of incentives to censor, the billion dollars that Plaintiffs seek in this lawsuit rates pretty high. If YouTube is made responsible for everything that we say, then naturally YouTube will want to exercise control over what we say. No online service would risk enabling the universe of users to speak in their own words if it faced liability for anything that anyone said.

  Therefore, we ask that as the Court decides this case, it consider not just the interests of those who appear in the caption, but also our interests as creative professionals and the interests of the hundreds of millions of people who have viewed our work.

  We are not a sideshow. We are what YouTube is all about and what this lawsuit should be about.

  Just so.

• Memorial Day

  Monday, May 31st, 2010

  By Daniel McCarthy

  As we remember America’s fallen soldiers even while two wars continue overseas — three if you count the conflict in Pakistan separate from Afghanistan — two recent articles are especially worth contemplating. First is Andrew Bacevich’s “Suckered Again,” a look at how political symobolism encourages us to forget the real toll of the Vietnam War:

  to undertake a serious accounting would find Americans facing a plethora of discomfiting truths, not only about the knaves and fools who concocted the Vietnam War but about the American way of life and the premises on which it is based. Tell the whole truth about Vietnam and you crack open a door that few Americans wish to peer behind. To do so is to come face-to-face with troubling questions about the meaning of freedom and democracy as actually practiced in the United States.

  Bacevich is a veteran himself, as well as the author of several books on the roots and effects of militarism. (I think his American Empire is the single best work on U.S. foreign policy in the last decade, even though it was written before 9/11.)

  A second piece worth reading is Pat Buchanan’s column on soldiers who kept us out of wars and the politicians who got us into them. It’s not a highly polemical piece, just an honest accounting of U.S. wars since that of 1812 and what kind of leaders launched them. We have a lot to remember on Memorial Day, in part because our presidents’ ambitions have been so large. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines continue to pay the price for those ambitions.