Wake-up Show

Richard Gage of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth is interviewed respectfully for seven minutes on KMPH FOX 26, Fresno.

Transcript courtesy of Sheila Casey:

female anchor:  He’s an architect experienced in steel structures.  Now Richard Gage is touring the country with a controversial message about September 11. 

male anchor:  Richard Gage is here to show us why he’s calling for a more thorough investigation into the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings.  Thank you so much for joining us.

Gage:  You’re very welcome, it’s great to be here.

male anchor:  Well first of all give us a little bit more about your background.

Gage:  I’m an architect of twenty years, a member of the American Institute of Architects, and have been studying steel frame fire proof buildings for about that long. 

female anchor: We ask that for clarification because as we get into this we want people to make sure that you’re not just somebody with a wacky idea, you come with some science to you.  What is the official reason for the collapse of the World Trade Center towers?

Gage:  Well we’re told that the planes hit the buildings, and there was an explosion and a fire, and about a hour and a half later, in the case of the north tower, the buildings collapsed due to structural weakening, due to the fires.  The problem is that we don’t have large gradual deformations associated with collapses.  And fires in high rises have never brought down a steel frame high rise building at all, ever.  And what we have, unfortunately, is the evidence in the twin towers and the third skyscraper to collapse that day, which most people don’t know anything about it.  We have the evidence of the ten key features of controlled demolition.  In the case of building seven, it collapses straight down into its own footprint, at free fall speed, in the first hundred feet.  It’s dropping, as you can see symmetrically, smoothly, at free fall speed, in the first hundred feet.  Two and a half seconds.  This is uncanny, there’s forty thousand tons of structural steel designed to resist this collapse. 

female anchor:  So, what, a forty-seven story building?

Gage:  Yeah, it’s called Building Seven, a football field away from the Twin Towers. 

female anchor:  Okay, so what we’re showing is left, what happened in fact, and right is  controlled, where you are using or the people who made this happen, used demolition, explosive devices.  

Gage:  Indeed, this a direct comparison.  You can see that indeed, almost freefall speed, freefall acceleration, through forty thousand tons of structural steel.  That is uncanny.  So we have 700 architects and engineers demanding a new investigation as a result of this evidence and the evidence in the World Trade Center that is very explosive. Almost every architect and engineer we’ve showed this information to, agrees with us that these are controlled demolitions.  If we can get them to look at the information, because obviously the implications of a controlled demolition are…dark for our country.  Because that means somebody besides Al Qaeda was involved.  Because these have to be easily, three of the most highly secure buildings, outside of the Pentagon. 

Male anchor:  Now if that was a controlled demolition, would there not be any evidence at the ground level of explosives within the debris that’s left?

Gage:  Indeed.  And what we find down there is pools of molten iron.  Several tons.

male anchor:  What is that doing there?

Gage:  Exactly, what is it doing there?   The first responders see it, the structural engineers see it, it’s documented by FEMA.  The melting of steel.  Normal office fires is what’s supposed to have brought these buildings down.  Along with jet plane impacts.  Jet fuel and office fires don’t produce molten iron or molten steel.  It doesn’t begin to melt until three thousand degrees.  But what we have is, the fires only produce maybe fourteen, sixteen hundred degrees.  So what produced all that molten iron?  Well, it has in it the chemical evidence of a special incendiary, which is thermite, a high tech incendiary used to cut through steel like a hot knife through butter.

female anchor:  You found that?

Gage:  Indeed, in all the dust throughout lower Manhattan, we have a four to six inch thick layer of this dust, and throughout it we have evidence of tiny spheres, billions of them, several tons of previously molten iron.  Well how does that happen?  If you have molten iron…the by-product of thermite is molten iron and it’s dispersed through out all this dust. 

male anchor:  You were allowed to go in and get samples and examine it?

Gage:  Oh, there’s plenty of dust.  A lot of people have this dust, and four of these samples have been sent to physicist Steven Jones, formerly of Brigham Young University. And they find in it, not only these spheres, which others have found too, USGS, RJ Lee, doing toxicology studies.  These spheres have iron, aluminum, fluorine, manganese, very unusual elements associated only with thermite. And there are small chips of unignited thermite as well.  This is very high-tech thermite, nano-thermite, it’s not found in a cave in Afghanistan, it’s produced in very sophisticated defense department contracting laboratories. 

female anchor:  Okay, well, we have an enemy here, the finger has been pointed to, this was the work of Al Qaeda, this was the work of Osama bin Laden, at least to get the planes all going into the buildings and into the field in Pennsylvania and into the Pentagon.  Is there no way that they then could still be the enemy that placed those in the buildings first, and then did the incendiary device via a plane second?

Gage:  What you have to ask is who had access to the buildings?  Did Al Qaeda have access to these highly secure buildings?  Probably not.  Did they have access to sophisticated nano-thermite, where the particles are one thousand times smaller than a human hair?  Probably not.  Somebody else has to be investigated. That’s why we have 700 architects and engineers demanding a real investigation.  We don’t have the whole theory as to how this happened, who did it, why.  We just lay out the facts, like we did last night in the Veterans Memorial Auditorium, and we demand a real investigation, and they’ll find out who, why, how, et cetera. 

male anchor:  Now let me ask you, I’m person X, I want to place something in one of those buildings.  Where would I carry it, how big would it be?  Is it that visible that I would be spotted by security?  Can I place it in one of my tooth fillings?

Gage:  We’re talking about several tons of nano-thermite and ordinary thermite.  One would have to have access through security.  So the security company involved for the World Trade Center should be thoroughly investigated.  It turns out to be Securi-com, Stratesec, somebody should look and see who’s on the board of those companies. Some very interestings individuals turn out to be.  In addition, one would have to have the cover, of say, an elevator modernization, which was in fact going on nine months prior to 9/11, so that there were workers throughout the World Trade Center, that had access to the hoistway that was immediately adjacent to the core columns and beams in the building. 

female anchor:  You’re not trying to freak out the country, but you can’t help but feel a little freaked out by this. 

Gage:  Yeah, you’re getting it. 

female anchor:  And of course this is something we want to talk to you about a whole lot more, and we’re out of time.  We do have a great deal of information on our website, kmph.com.  Thank you very much for your time today.  You’re opening  up a lot to think about.

http://www.ae911truth.org/

http://stj911.com/

http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM

Torture and 9/11

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article22684.htm

By John S. Hatch

It could be argued that of the panoply of evil of which human beings find themselves uniquely capable, nothing is as abominable as the deliberate infliction of mental or physical pain on a helpless captive person.

That a nation grandiosely referring to itself as the world’s lone ‘superpower’ would, on the basis of very thin manufactured evidence stoop to such behavior as using sodomy (even against innocent children), cramming people into coffin-like boxes, chaining them in stress positions, karate-kicking them (even to death), suffocating them, slamming their heads into walls, taking away their clothing, freezing them, using sensory deprivation and drowning, plus a hundred other cruel measures gives the lie to that assertion. An evil power, certainly. Hardly a ‘shining city on a hill’.

And now that we know that orders for torture came right from the very top of the unrepentant Bush Administration even before the twisted entitlement of the Yoo/Bybee memos, and even as it is revealed that torture was employed not to gain information but to bolster the false assertion that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al-Qaeda and thus justify the indefensible invasion of Iraq, we are treated to ad nauseam appearances by the previously mute and bunkered Dick Cheney defending his cretinous actions and calling for more of the same. It is unbelievable that a nation that calls itself Christian could even countenance a debate on torture, and, after killing perhaps a million innocent Iraqi citizens in an illegal war, call for more of the same in Afghanistan. Or to employ white phosphorous and other war crime weapons in either location. The combination of hypocrisy and self-serving delusion is stunning. These ‘Christians’ are statistically more likely to favor torture than non-believers.

One would think that such aberrant leaders would be held to task by an outraged public and by their political replacements. Instead, the American people are offered more of the same. Quantanamo will not close anytime soon, and contrary to Mr. Obama’s statements, the outrages there have not ceased, but if anything have become worse. He has upheld the Bush policy of denying all human rights to prisoners at Bagram and elsewhere. He has attempted every means to suppress details of American torture, such as the use of scalpels on genitals. Officials would rather keep innocent people imprisoned until they die, untried, rather than to admit to the embarrassment of having illegally imprisoned and tortured them. Bagram continues to be a hell-on-earth. We don’t know how many others even exist. In Iraq children as young as eight remain imprisoned. Children are mercilessly abused as a method to intimidate their parents. And this is to keep scared-rabbit America safe? How?

But Mr. Obama wants to ‘move forward’ even as remote control drones (they’re Obama drones now) kill around 140 innocent Afghanis, including 93 children, one of them 8 weeks old. As usual the military denies, lies, and then admits limited culpability while stressing how very much they value Afghan civilian lives. They even attempt to keep a straight face. Mr. Obama can’t move forward when he’s mired and sinking in innocent cold blood.

If Mr. Obama were to take a deep breath, look back and take a lesson from some of America’s darkest days, here’s what he would find:

The Iraq invasion was conceived long before 9/11 which was simply used as a pretext for achieving ‘full spectrum domination’ of land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace as outlined in The Project for a New American Century, of which Dick Cheney was a founding member, and President Bush a willing dupe. The goal was nothing short of attempted world domination, and Iraq and Afghanistan were pawns on a list which included Syria and Iran. PNAC spoke longingly of a ‘new Pearl Harbor event’ as a catalyst to galvanize fearful American opinion to allow the former to have its way, which is exactly what happened after 9/11 (and don’t forget that mailed weaponized Lawrence Livermore anthrax, that ‘bonus terror’ that hurried the Patriot Act unread through Congress and that was since so conveniently blamed on a dead guy).

An investigation would reveal (indeed we already know) that torture was employed to establish a false link between Saddam and Al-Qaeda in order to make a preconceived invasion more acceptable to the American people. (Lots of troops in Iraq still think that Saddam was responsible for 9/11, and still exact bloody revenge against innocent people.)

Since everything the people were told turned out to be lies, questions would inevitably arise regarding the ‘catalyst’ itself, the new Pearl Harbor event so useful to PNAC and the Bush Administration.

This, I submit is what officials in the Obama Administration fear the most. An investigation of torture would inevitably lead to questions about what 9/11 was really about. We know with certainty that the official version of events is a pack of lies; what if America had to confront the fact that 9/11 really was an inside job? (The recent finding of nano-thermite in WTC dust is just one more compelling argument.) It’s even possible that Cheney has threatened to spill the beans if anyone comes after him for torture for which he has openly and brazenly taken credit. Would a torturer refuse to stoop to blackmail? If that seems farfetched wouldn’t torture itself have seemed so a relatively short time ago? Cheney et al have ‘enhanced interrogated’ at least a hundred people to death. To paraphrase the Bard, ‘Cheney crap by any other name would smell as foul’. Torture is torture, even by their twisted Bybee/Yoo definitions.

Such a finding would so undermine Americans’ core beliefs as to have profoundly unpredictable consequences. It would mean that no American is safe from its own terrorist government. It would mean that government is not only corrupt to its very foundations, but also that it is a force of malevolence toward its citizens. It would mean that there is nothing in which to place one’s political faith. It would mean that the same forces that killed 3000 Americans on that day (and many subsequently) still operate behind the scenes in Washington, and ‘change’ is only cosmetic. It would prove that over the last two terms, democracy was a cruel illusion in America (and some would say since November 22, 1963). It would mean that for the patriotic American citizen, at last there’s nothing left to lose.

That’s what they’re rightly afraid of.

That’s why they want to allow the Bush putsch to get away with murder.

And to look even further into the abyss.

The gas must flow

http://www.aprodex.com/pipeline-opens-new-front-in-afghan-war-1028-n.aspx

To prepare for proposed construction in 2010, the Afghan government has reportedly given assurances it will clear the route of land mines, and make the path free of Taliban influence.

In a report to be released today, energy economist John Foster says the pipeline is part of a wider struggle by the United States to counter the influence of Russia and Iran over energy trade in the region.

The so-called Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline has strong support from Washington because the U.S. government is eager to block a competing pipeline that would bring gas to Pakistan and India from Iran.

The TAPI pipeline would also diminish Russia’s dominance of Central Asian energy exports.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/world/asia/07afghan.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

American airstrikes that Afghan officials and villagers said Wednesday had killed dozens and perhaps more than 100 civilians in western Afghanistan threaten to stiffen Afghan opposition to the war just as the Obama administration is sending 20,000 more troops to the country.

“We have some other information that leads us to distinctly different conclusions about the cause of the civilian casualties,” said the senior American commander in Afghanistan

“The governor said that the villagers have brought two tractor trailers full of pieces of human bodies to his office to prove the casualties that had occurred,” Mr. Farahi said. “Everyone at the governor’s office was crying, watching that shocking scene.”

Mr. Farahi said he had talked to someone he knew personally who had counted 113 bodies being buried, including those of many women and children. Later, more bodies were pulled from the rubble and some victims who had been taken to the hospital died, he said.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/08/terror/main5001358.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_5001358

A local official said that he collected from residents the names of 147 people killed during fighting on Monday night and Tuesday. If true, it would be the deadliest case of civilian casualties in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban regime.

But the U.S. military described that toll from the fighting as over the top.

“The investigators and the folks on the ground think that those numbers are extremely over-exaggerated,” U.S. military spokeswoman Capt. Elizabeth Mathias said. “We are definitely nowhere near those estimates.”

http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2009/05/jones-imprudent.html

President Barack Obama’s national security adviser Gen. Jim Jones told me this morning that it would be “imprudent” to end U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan.

During his visit to the U.S. this past week, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan demanded all U.S. airstrikes end. He said a recent airstrike may have killed as many as 130 civilians.

“I think that we’re going to take a look at trying to make sure that we correct those things we can correct, but certainly to tie the hands of our commanders and say we’re not going to conduct air strikes, it would be imprudent,” Jones said in his first television interview.

“That’s part of the combined arms package and so we probably would not do that.  But we are going to take very seriously the — and redouble our efforts to make sure that innocent civilians are not killed.”

Of Karzai’s demand, Jones said, “I think he understands that we have to have the full complement of our offensive military power when we need it. ”

—————————————————————————————

Yes, General Jones. I think he understands:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123879462053487927.html

National Security Adviser James Jones reported $900,000 in salary and bonus from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as well as director fees from a number of corporations. He received, for example, $330,000 from Boeing Corp. and $290,000 from Chevron Corp.

We will not submit.

http://www.911blogger.com/node/20013

Intellectual Dishonesty In The Age Of Universal Deceit:
a message to the corporate media and our elected officials.

By Daniel Sunjata – May 4, 2009

“The inert masses are mentally and spiritually ill equipped to deal with reality, so they block it out of their minds – aided of course, by the corporate media and the propaganda apparatus of the government itself. This is why fantasy is frequently substituted for reality, plutocracy is mistaken for democracy, and the majority of the people do not know the difference. Millions of good people thus refuse to allow into their psyche the suffering and misery that U.S. policies have produced and exported to the world, even as that reality is closing in upon them.” – Charles Sullivan

“They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality…and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening.” – George Orwell, 1984

“Article XXXIV OBSTRUCTION OF INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001” – From the 35 articles of impeachment introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on 06/09/08 in H.Res. 1258 by Congressman Dennis Kucinich

The list is not a short one. It includes professors, architects, aerospace and aviation professionals, structural/mechanical/& aeronautical engineers, demolition experts, firefighters and other first responders, scientists, theologians, senior members of both the military and intelligence communities, Republican administration appointees, state department veterans, and other government officials from the United States and abroad; credible experts of impeccable pedigree with impressive track records from relevant fields of expertise, whose coolly rational intellects are not easily given to an unfounded belief in outlandish, unsubstantiated, or unverifiable claims. Individuals such as these are numbered among the ranks of skeptics and critics of the official theory of conspiracy regarding the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Some pose questions, others draw conclusions, still others (like Congressman Kucinich) go so far as to level accusations and to substantiate them with evidence.

Organizations like Medical Professionals for 9/11 Truth (MP911truth.org), Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth (AE911Truth.org), Lawyers for 911 Truth (L911T.com), The Journal of 9/11 Studies (journalof911studies.com), Pilots for 911 Truth (PilotsFor911Truth.org), Fire Fighters for 911 Truth (FireFightersFor911Truth.org), and Veterans for 911 Truth (V911T.org), have posted carefully crafted signing statements for all the world to see, and online petitions calling for a new and independent investigation with power of subpoena. Their unanswered questions, the consequent implications that arise, and the fundamental inadequacies they point out in the official reports issued by FEMA, NIST, and the now infamous 9/11 Commission are disturbing to say the very least. Even more disturbing, however, is the corporate media’s revolving door of silence and violence with which those who pose such questions have been greeted. In most cases they are completely ignored, and what might otherwise be front-page news goes virtually unreported. Feigned and transparently disingenuous gestures aimed at affecting the appearance of fair and balanced news coverage occasionally result in an arguably credible expert being granted an interview only to be condescended to, constantly interrupted, shouted down, and verbally abused in the process. Examples abound. Thus, in spite of having shouted their findings from the proverbial rooftops for years, and in spite of such notorious historical precedents as the now declassified Operation Northwoods, there has yet to be any substantive debate, journalistically integrous investigation, or scrutinous inquiry by the establishment or its media into the claim that 9/11 bears all the hallmarks of a complex covert operation of state intelligence; false flag terror; an inside job.

This is not to say, however, that the issue has gone entirely unaddressed by mainstream sources. Hand in hand with the marginalization of informed dissent and deep concern expressed by qualified skeptics like Lt. Col. Robert M. Bowman, PhD (Director of Advanced Space Programs Development under Presidents Ford and Carter), Paul Craig Roberts (Assistant Sect. Of Treasury under Pres. Reagan), Lynn Margulis (National Medal of Science recipient), James Quintiere (former Chief of NISTs Fire Science Division), Commander Ralph Kolstad, U.S. Navy (retired fighter pilot and Topgun Air Combat Instructor), and Sibel Edmonds (former FBI translator specializing in counter-terror, and gag-ordered whistleblower) is the corporate media’s rabid eagerness to confront, shame, condemn, and discredit celebrities and other citizens who have tried to draw public attention to the same issue. Marion Cotilliard, Martin and Charlie Sheen, Rosie O’Donnell, Ed Asner, Willie Nelson, and former Governor Jesse Ventura among many others, have uniformly fallen under swift and venomous attack upon questioning the official theory of conspiracy, and for daring to utter the blasphemous assertion (recently echoed in sentiments expressed by Melissa Rossi in her recent Huffington Post article titled ‘Obama: Reopen The 911 Investigation’) that a new investigation is warranted given the innumerable inconsistencies, omissions, and outright distortions that permeate the aforementioned “official” reports.

Unfairly attacked based not upon the substance of the arguments they have advanced, but rather upon the basis of inane irrelevancies related to their private lives and public personas, they have been dismissed out of pocket as paranoid conspiracy fanatics, drug addicts, Nazis, and narcissists who should stick to playing their position as entertainers and leave the thinking up to the grown-ups when it comes to things they could not possibly understand. This is the classic ad hominem approach – to dismiss the source as a means to dismissing the message. Consequently, nothing of what they have actually said has been given its due diligence by our supposedly free press. Even though their questions and conclusions rest upon broad-shouldered analysis, expert testimony, diligent research, peer reviewed scientific studies (most notably that of Danish scientist Niels Harrit, whose findings on undetonated nano-thermite explosive residues found in WTC dust samples can be read online in The Open Chemical Physics Journal), and a preponderance of other damning forensic and circumstantial evidence, such prominent skeptics have been greeted with outright hostility and the most virulent brands of journalistic irresponsibility and intellectual dishonesty. This in fact is anti-journalism; the exact opposite of what one would expect to find in a society aspiring to exemplify the democratic ideal. If I didn’t know any better, I might think that such tactics were being employed just to shut these experts and celebrities up, and to keep the general public from paying them any mind. I might think that childish insults, character assassination, reductionist clichés, insipid platitudes, necessary illusions and emotionally potent oversimplifications had taken the place of journalistic integrity, objective scrutiny, and investigative rigor.

For instance, when Joe Scarborough covers a story about a 9/11 demonstrator being arrested during an appearance by Bill Clinton in Corpus Christi, and he and his MSNBC ‘Morning Joe’ co-hosts utter things like “Where is the taser? Tase him!” and “Led away in handcuffs…hopefully taken to one of those secret prisons in Eastern Europe and never to be heard from again. I hope we have a special prison for 9/11 conspiracy theorists” it is quite difficult to grant them high scores for anything other than spewing fascistic rhetoric. Similarly only willful ignorance or a deliberate contempt for accuracy and logic can explain Glen Beck’s lumping together of Congressmen, law abiding citizens, highly decorated military personnel, prominent artists, and CIA veterans with violent radicals, in sweeping statements such as his ridiculous contention that 9/11 activists are “insane, dangerous anarchists” who comprise “”the kind of group a Timothy McVeigh would come from.” It is an easily verifiable fact that in the thousands of 9/11 protests that have taken place since 2001, not a single individual has ever been arrested for violent conduct or convicted of a violent crime. It is also, shall we say, less than candid to assert that a movement whose implicit moral imperative arises from a desire to protect constitutional integrity could in any way be considered anarchistic in nature. Also, in one of the most irresponsible acts of journalism on record, Geraldo Rivera conflated the notoriously non-violent 9/11 activist community with terrorists in the following statement he made on FOX News Channel’s ‘FOX and Friends’ program while covering the 03/08 Times Square Bombing of a US Armed Forces recruiting station:

“I think that this bomber isn’t Al Qaeda, isn’t anything like that… He’s more like those ‘9/11 was an inside job’ kind of guys… Protesting in a violent way, but in a violent way almost like the eco-terrorists… where they don’t intend to inflict casualties.”

The most egregious examples of this type of filth masquerading as responsible news commentary can perhaps be found emanating from the twisted and blusterous mouth of Bill O’Reilly. When the story broke that Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, was set to finance the distribution of ‘Loose Change 911’ (the most downloaded documentary in internet history) with Charlie Sheen set to narrate, O’Reilly (conceding his hypocrisy by admitting to not having seen the film or looked at the evidence) responded by unleashing a blitzkrieg of idiotic non-sequiturs, calculated ambiguities, and thinly veiled threats. After an erroneous and lame attempt to dismiss and discredit 9/11 Truth as “lunacy” from the “far-left fringe” (the movement transcends both liberality and conservatism alike, is a mainstream phenomenon, and its basic premise is in fact eminently sane), he compounded his ignorance by comparing 9/11-dissent to Nazi propaganda and holocaust denial. Like…dude…SERIOUSLY?! It is the very height of disingenuity to suggest that by demanding truth and accountability one is somehow offending and dishonoring the victims or their families, when the only way to honor them is by finding out the truth and holding the guilty parties responsible for their crimes. It would be more apt to compare Nazi propagandists and holocaust deniers to an administration that skewed intelligence about Iraq in order to fear-monger the American people into supporting the doctrine of preemption, while evading the initiation of any official inquiry into the most catastrophic day in our nations history, for 441 days. Either O’Reilly didn’t know or he didn’t care to know that Bill Doyle, founder of World Trade Center United Family Group (one of the largest 9/11 victims’ family organizations, comprised of over 7000 members from 2,573 families) believes that the government was complicit in the attacks. He has also publicly stated that at least half of his members harbor deep suspicions about what happened on 9/11 and why. Mr. Bill also saw fit to put Mark Cuban and Charlie Sheen on notice, so to speak. Sounding not altogether unlike a mafia don threatening to issue a hit, O’Reilly states “this is a warning to Mark Cuban, who is distributing that film in a few weeks. This is a warning to you Bud, okay, you pull that movie or I’m gonna be your worst nightmare, because this is gonna lead to death.” “We’re looking out for you, Charlie Sheen. Don’t do this. You’re not going to come back from it, if you do…”

As I said, examples abound. Such pathetically transparent diversionary tactics smack of cowardice and a reluctance to engage the subject of 9/11 based upon the facts at hand, and have no place in the realm of professional journalism (or info-tainment as the case may be). This must cease. If we are to have any hope of change as a nation, then we must recognize that turning the page on one of the darkest chapters in American governmental history without having properly read it, would be a grave and disastrous error. Regardless of how inconvenient, uncomfortable, or outlandish the implications may at first appear, this subject demands to be substantively addressed, free of spin or bias, for neither it nor its advocates are going to just fade away. Only a ship of fools would blatantly disregard the opinions of such highly qualified and erudite critics as those listed on sites like patriotsquestion911.com without closely examining their actual and factual claims. Now that Judiciary Committee Chairman Senator Patrick Leahy has officially introduced a proposal to investigate the Bush administration for war-crimes and the subversion of Constitutional Law, it stands to reason that 9/11 should also be soberly looked into once and for all. Given the swirling cloud of criminal accusations and populist rage regarding the legalization of torture, the illegal wiretapping of American civilians (including the intentional targeting of journalists and intellectuals according to NSA whistleblower Russell Tice) as well as other allegations of treasonous conduct, and taking into consideration the claims, statements, and research of critical thinkers across a wide spectrum of expertise who publicly doubt the government’s official explanation, it shouldn’t (although apparently it does) take a rocket scientist to see the disturbingly plausible connections between the inside job hypothesis and every Orwellian legislative and militaristic act for which 9/11 and its victims have been invoked as justification. Indeed the logic of context is fundamentally derailed by the prevailing ring-pass-not approach of investigating every area to which 9/11 is crucially relevant and intimately related, while treating the subject itself as sacrosanct. Clearly this should be part of any investigation into the alleged criminality of the previous administration; indeed it should be given priority. This above all else is President Obama’s litmus test of integrity and the quintessence of this nation’s hope for change. For if 9/11 was in fact an inside job, then it places all of the evils that flowed from and followed that event into vivid contextual focus. Bogus claims of executive privilege should offer no protection to those towards whom the preponderance of evidence points; chips fall where they may.

My own reasons for speaking out on this issue are fairly simple. I didn’t choose it; it chose me. Upon being hired to act the part of a post-9/11 NYC firefighter on Rescue Me, my research for the character led me to take a more objective look at what actually happened versus what we were told in the wake of the event. Nothing added up. No matter from which angle I approached 911, it invariably unraveled into contradictions and inconsistencies requiring the suspension of my logic and common sense in addition to several laws of physics. Slowly I came to the determination that I had no choice but to speak out, because (as Franco Rivera) I presume to represent the memories of the heroes who died that day, as well as the reality of the heroes who still mourn their loss. I work with these men; looking them daily in the eye. Therefore it is a citizen’s act of moral conscience and social responsibility, nothing more. To know or even to merely suspect, and yet remain silent, would be anti-American, unpatriotic, and tantamount to betrayal. Therefore this is no stunt on my part to gain publicity or to garner attention for myself by appearing edgy and controversial. Believe it or not, I rather covet my relative anonymity as a quasi-celebrity/working actor. I would much rather direct media and public attention to those most credible dissenting experts who have looked at and analyzed the facts (circumstantial as well as forensic) and found that they do not fit the government’s theory of conspiracy. People like Professor Emeritus David Ray Griffin, Richard Gage (AIA), Physics Professor Steven Jones (co-author of the above mentioned peer reviewed study proving that explosives were in fact used to implode the WTC towers as well as WTC 7), William Christison (former CIA Station Chief and Director of Regional and Political Analysis), Ray McGovern (27 year CIA vet., and former Chair of National Intelligence Estimates), Coleen Rowley (former F.B.I. Special Agent and Minneapolis Division Counsel), and Sibel Edmonds must be given fair and open forums on mainstream media platforms, as well as access to those with the power and responsibility to reopen the 9/11 investigation; or rather, to finally conduct one as the case may be. Until that happens we will not be silent. We will not go away. We will not submit.