Bozzio - you are absolutely right that there is no restriction on debating 911 and we do discuss geo-politics as it affects peak oil on this forum; there's lots of interest about the US-Iran situation for instance. As you say, all completely legitimate and interesting.
As you also say, this is a public forum, and as such there are likely to be many people browsing it who are new to peak oil. It would defeat Powerswitch's primary aim - "Raising awareness of Britain's energy future..." - if people quickly dismiss peak oil because they think we are all X or Y types. One of the things that gave the peak oil message credibility for me in the early days was precisely that the people talking about it seemed to come from a variety of perspectives. As you probably know yourself, when introducing people to peak oil, most are quick to put this new and troubling information into a familiar box (green, conspiracy, doomster, anti-capitalist, anti-technology etc. etc)...anything to avoid actually thinking about it. If we mix up peak oil with 911, it will put off so many people who need to become aware of this. I saw this first hand at a screening of Oil, Smoke and Mirrors, organised by Transition Town Brixton a few months ago. See http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/vie ... php?t=4488 - I had the feeling thinking back to the event later, that the 911 Truthout people did not really accept the reality of peak oil. It was almost as if their interest in 911 kept them in their comfort zone and away from the more troubling issues raised by peak oil.
Monbiot - Reappraisal at Heathrow
Moderator: Peak Moderation
Could you expand further on this please?clv101 wrote:You say ?that climate change has nothing to do with PO either unless we discuss the direct impact of PO on it?. This I strongly disagree with, the two issues are intricately related especially in the most important area of how we react, what actions we take. Not to simultaneously consider PO and CC in very decision about the future is to make bad decisions.
As you have already stated, PO will play a significant part in climate change, i.e. in bringing a forced reduction in CO2 emissions. Without PO, climate change would be more significant and so I'd agree that how we react and what actions we take would be more critical. But since PO will happen and probably soon, why expend so much energy on the subject of CC?
By the way, Monbiot took it upon himself to attack the 9/11 movement - twice!. For someone desperate to maintain credibility, why did he discuss it at all. Monbiot is very hypocritical when you consider he has written the following at the top of his website "Tell people something they know already and they will thank you for it. Tell them something new and they will hate you for it." Mind you, I guess he's right. As for Meacher, I'd never heard of him before he chose his current path.
Last edited by Bozzio on 07 Sep 2007, 11:12, edited 1 time in total.
Your final words hold much truth. I live very much between a rock and a hard place with my views. Fellow truth movement people are generally scathing of peak oil theory as they view it as just another conspiracy. It is this fact where I have to agree with Vortex when he implies that conspiracy theorists rely on bad evidence. I can't argue with this concept because in many cases they do. For this reason, I keep a distance from the most outrageous theories.Adam1 wrote:Bozzio - you are absolutely right that there is no restriction on debating 911 and we do discuss geo-politics as it affects peak oil on this forum; there's lots of interest about the US-Iran situation for instance. As you say, all completely legitimate and interesting.
As you also say, this is a public forum, and as such there are likely to be many people browsing it who are new to peak oil. It would defeat Powerswitch's primary aim - "Raising awareness of Britain's energy future..." - if people quickly dismiss peak oil because they think we are all X or Y types. One of the things that gave the peak oil message credibility for me in the early days was precisely that the people talking about it seemed to come from a variety of perspectives. As you probably know yourself, when introducing people to peak oil, most are quick to put this new and troubling information into a familiar box (green, conspiracy, doomster, anti-capitalist, anti-technology etc. etc)...anything to avoid actually thinking about it. If we mix up peak oil with 911, it will put off so many people who need to become aware of this. I saw this first hand at a screening of Oil, Smoke and Mirrors, organised by Transition Town Brixton a few months ago. See http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/vie ... php?t=4488 - I had the feeling thinking back to the event later, that the 911 Truthout people did not really accept the reality of peak oil. It was almost as if their interest in 911 kept them in their comfort zone and away from the more troubling issues raised by peak oil.
I hear what everyone is saying and I'll keep quiet about 9/11. It has never been popular and I get very tired of maintaining the effort needed to debate the subject. I think all those who supported me in tha past, of which there used to be a few, have jumped ship now anyway so I'm completely outnumbered.
Sorry, I couldn't resist. Actually, I thought it was quite a good article. The original has links and a thread below it that probably won't shed much light on the issue.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/pet ... verup.html
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/pet ... verup.html
Peter Tatchell in the Guardian wrote: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'.
Peter Tatchell
September 12, 2007 10:30 AM
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 was hamstrung by official obstruction. It never managed to ascertain the whole truth of what happened on September 11 2001.
The chair and vice chair of the 9/11 Commission, respectively Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, assert in their book, Without Precedent, that they were "set up to fail" and were starved of funds to do a proper investigation. They also confirm that they were denied access to the truth and misled by senior officials in the Pentagon and the federal aviation authority;
and that this obstruction and deception led them to contemplate slapping officials with criminal charges.
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 did not examine key evidence, and neglected serious anomalies in the various accounts of what happened. The commissioners admit their report was incomplete and flawed, and that many questions about the terror attacks remain unanswered. Nevertheless, the 9/11 Commission was swiftly closed down on August 21 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 its 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, which includes academics and intellectuals from many disciplines.
2) 250+ 9/11 'Smoking Guns' 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 that, as well as offering its own evidence and theories, includes links to more than 20 similar websites.
4) Patriots Question 9/11, perhaps the most plausible array of distinguished US citizens who question the official account of 9/11, including General Wesley Clark, 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 polling organisation last week found that 51% of Americans want Congress to probe President Bush and Vice-President 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 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.
Six years on from 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 is a 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 - has a right to know the truth.
Hi Adam1,
Thanks for posting that and I'd agree that it is a good article.
It was interesting to watch the news reports from the remembrance ceremony yesterday. One journalist in New York being interviewed for ITN at 10pm made the point that without 9/11 the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq would not have happened, as if to emphasize, just like Bush does, how important 9/11 was as an event in changing world history. He also went on to say that the memory of 9/11 remains strong in the minds and psyche of every American and means so much more to them than we in the UK might appreciate.
With reference to the article and in case anyone has any doubts about whether there could be discrepencies in the 2004 Commission report they could do no worse than watch this testimony (link below) by Norman Mineta (Democrat) which was given to the investigation team but never included in the final report. Mr Mineta can be seen describing how he witnessed Dick Cheney managing the situation from an emergency room in the White House just prior to the attack on the Pentagon and how Cheney appeared to know that an aircraft was approaching. Now this contradicts what the Commission then wrote which was that the government was given only "one or two minutes" notice of an impending air strike and so was in no position to react. The Commission, in fact, made it explicitly clear that Cheney had no time to speak to anyone with regard to this event, either to request the plane be shot down or for military jets to be scrambled and therefore could take no blame for what happened but of course this testimony contradicts that. Now this could just be a cover up by the Commission to hide Cheney's foreknowledge in the light of the fact that the plane wasn't shot down in the end as we know or it could be that Mineta's words revealed how Cheney knew a plane was approaching and had actually requested that it was 'not' shot down. Whatever the reason, Cheney obviously knew about the event and yet the Commission report chose to hide the truth. One has to wonder why.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDfdOwt2v3Y
Mind you, who needs a piece of evidence like this when you only have to look at who ran the Commission investigation of 2003/2004. The man in charge was none other than Philip Zelikow, a republican, and close associate of Condoleezza Rice. Zelikow had in fact already worked for Bush as the author of the 2002 report, 'The National Security Strategy of the United States of America for 2002' (NSS 2002), a doctrine, sometimes referred to as the 'Bush doctrine', which changed the way the US reacted to potential threats from overseas and which started the first steps by the US government for making war with Iraq. Basically, the NSS 2002 changed the international law which declares that any country must follow UN rules about attacking another country only if an external threat can be proved to be in place, by stating that the US would begin acting preemptively instead whenever suspicion of a threat was made. As Zelikow was then put in charge of the 9/11 investigation a year or so later having already been used to make the case for going to war with Iraq based upon the events of 9/11 he was hardly going to allow a Commission report to expose the events of 9/11 as being flawed.
Thanks for posting that and I'd agree that it is a good article.
It was interesting to watch the news reports from the remembrance ceremony yesterday. One journalist in New York being interviewed for ITN at 10pm made the point that without 9/11 the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq would not have happened, as if to emphasize, just like Bush does, how important 9/11 was as an event in changing world history. He also went on to say that the memory of 9/11 remains strong in the minds and psyche of every American and means so much more to them than we in the UK might appreciate.
With reference to the article and in case anyone has any doubts about whether there could be discrepencies in the 2004 Commission report they could do no worse than watch this testimony (link below) by Norman Mineta (Democrat) which was given to the investigation team but never included in the final report. Mr Mineta can be seen describing how he witnessed Dick Cheney managing the situation from an emergency room in the White House just prior to the attack on the Pentagon and how Cheney appeared to know that an aircraft was approaching. Now this contradicts what the Commission then wrote which was that the government was given only "one or two minutes" notice of an impending air strike and so was in no position to react. The Commission, in fact, made it explicitly clear that Cheney had no time to speak to anyone with regard to this event, either to request the plane be shot down or for military jets to be scrambled and therefore could take no blame for what happened but of course this testimony contradicts that. Now this could just be a cover up by the Commission to hide Cheney's foreknowledge in the light of the fact that the plane wasn't shot down in the end as we know or it could be that Mineta's words revealed how Cheney knew a plane was approaching and had actually requested that it was 'not' shot down. Whatever the reason, Cheney obviously knew about the event and yet the Commission report chose to hide the truth. One has to wonder why.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDfdOwt2v3Y
Mind you, who needs a piece of evidence like this when you only have to look at who ran the Commission investigation of 2003/2004. The man in charge was none other than Philip Zelikow, a republican, and close associate of Condoleezza Rice. Zelikow had in fact already worked for Bush as the author of the 2002 report, 'The National Security Strategy of the United States of America for 2002' (NSS 2002), a doctrine, sometimes referred to as the 'Bush doctrine', which changed the way the US reacted to potential threats from overseas and which started the first steps by the US government for making war with Iraq. Basically, the NSS 2002 changed the international law which declares that any country must follow UN rules about attacking another country only if an external threat can be proved to be in place, by stating that the US would begin acting preemptively instead whenever suspicion of a threat was made. As Zelikow was then put in charge of the 9/11 investigation a year or so later having already been used to make the case for going to war with Iraq based upon the events of 9/11 he was hardly going to allow a Commission report to expose the events of 9/11 as being flawed.