If you have a spare few minutes, peruse http://patriotsquestion911.com/ and see that more than 130 senior military (including generals), intelligence (including CIA and FBI) and governmental figures (all the way to cabinet level), 490 engineers and architects, 120 pilots, 260 academics, 210 survivors and families (includes fire, police and emergency medical personnel) and 140 celebrities and media professionals question the 9/11 Commission Report. Really, scroll down and read the sometimes scathing commentary.
Now add to these the many top level military figures from around the world including defense ministers and secretaries from Britain, Germany, Canada and Russia ( http://www.sf911truth.org/ and scroll down).
"Conspiracy nuts" needing Paxil? Absolutely not! These are people with insider understanding and with technical and research expertise. Many have devoted much of their lives to ferreting out facts and data that standard information sources suppress. A good source of technical information is architect Richard Gage's presentation at the University of Manitoba in May, 2007 ( http://www.ae911truth.org). Gage leads a group of over 400 architects and engineers who have amassed indisputable evidence that internal demolition brought down the World Trade Center and Building 7. No matter what one's views regarding the attacks and who might have been responsible, the mere fact that so many people in such positions openly stand against the official account is, in itself, worthy of substantial news coverage.
Because those in government and academe take professional risks in expressing disdain for an official explanation that is insulting to one's intelligence, it is reasonable to surmise that there are many more who fear to express similar judgments. Now add the fact that some polls show that as many as 100 million Americans believe the government is covering up information about the 9/11 attack or are in some way complicit. Not worthy of some serious investigative journalism?
Recalling CIA Director William Colby's famous comment "The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media", it is not difficult to understand why the O'Reillys, Hannitys, Williams', Gibsons and Courics would not deal with such an issue. After all, these millionaire "talking heads" speak for their owners: Rupert Murdoch, General Electric, Inc., Disney, Inc. and the aptly named National Amusements, Inc., respectively. Mainstream print media likewise.
What is so astonishing is that "progressive" outlets long considered reliable sources of information of the sort avoided by corporate-owned media are also evidently involved in a willful silence about the issue. They continue to turn a collective blind eye to information that virtually shouts out for major coverage.
Consider, for example, a 2007 exchange between Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman and professor Kevin Barrett following her speech at the University of Wisconsin, Madison ( 3-minute clip at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2yC4xgeVMM ). From the floor, Barrett mentioned that the "countdown" for demolition of Building 7 was heard on police radio, that BCC reported the collapse of Building 7 20 minutes before it fell, and that Goodman, being in the area at the time, was in a particularly good position to question the event. Goodman parried with a humorous quip that brought laughter from the audience: "I did not demolish Building 7". Following Barrett's question "When are you going to get around to doing some ground zero reporting about Building 7?", she was vague with "... I agree there are a lot of questions that have to be answered."
Later, at a book signing, Barrett approached Goodman with a book to be signed. One can hear these snippets as he tries to interest her in 9/11 and she avoids the issue:
Goodman: "I guess you're famous here".
Barrett: "If you break this story, I think it's going to be historic"
Goodman: "I don't want to mess up your page."
Barry Zwicker, the Canadian journalist who has organized conferences on 9/11, is so bewildered by Goodman's refusal to tackle the issue that he simply guesses that there must be "some other agenda" about which he's unaware
But it's not just Goodman. The Nation, In These Times and Mother Jones, all three trusted "progressive" periodicals of long standing, have joined in countering those trying to bring 9/11 to the forefront. In December of 2006 The Nation published "9/11: The Roots of Paranoia" in which author Christopher Hayes, senior editor of In These Times, calls the 9/11 Truth Movement "a rabbit hole of delusion". This September, James Ridgeway, of Mother Jones magazine, published the incredibly inept "Homeland Insecurity: The 9/11 Conspiracy File: Myths and Facts" in which he dismisses a veritable army of physicists, engineers and architects regarding the collapse of the World Trade Center, parroting instead a FISA report that even FISA insiders question.
Many investigative journalists have taken rude shots at the 9/11 Truth Movement. Greg Palast (http://www.911blogger.com/node/9029 ) stated on camera that "Controlled demolition I could rule out ... stone cold, nothing, nothing there", and he calls physicist Steven Jones "a complete, utter fraud." Britain's George Monbiot ( http://transitionculture.org/2007/02/09/monbiot-911-and-notions-of-truth/ ) writes of the Truth Movement as "an ocean of nonsense [that] sucks their brains out through their eyes and turns them into gibbering idiots." Monbiot's assertion of "the complete absence of scientific advice" in the Truth Movement is absolute proof that he has not taken the time to look.
It is this insufferable refusal to look at the mountains of "scientific advice", and to dismiss the 9/11 issue with bland acknowledgment of "a lot of unanswered questions", that describes the most prominent and significant personalities of the "establishment left". And it makes one wonder about how far CIA tendrils extend, and what, exactly, Colby might have meant by "everyone of any significance".
