Gold9472
09-06-2006, 05:14 PM
The Truth is Out There Somewhere
Five years after 9/11, a local movement of skeptics takes shape.
http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2006-09-07/cb.shtml
by Andy Greenberg
9/7/2006
Wendi Polinow has never considered herself a radical. A 46-year-old mother of two, she works as a quality-control manager for an outsourcing corporation and part-time as a barista. She drinks fluorinated tap water like the rest of us and doesn't wear tinfoil hats.
But on September 11, 2001, she became a conspiracy theorist.
"I was watching the news like everyone else and I was horrified like everyone else," says Polinow, who recently relocated from Norristown to New York. "But I remember a newscaster saying, 'Clearly this an act of terrorism.' I had a gut feeling that this was all wrong, that it was all falling into place too easily. I didn't want to admit it to myself then, but now I know that there was government involvement, and I believe that there was controlled demolition."
http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2006-09-07/cb-1.jpg
HEALTHY SKEPTICISM: Sacks theorizes that the U.S. government consciously allowed the destruction to occur.
In June, Polinow founded PA 9/11 Visibility, a Philadelphia-based grassroots organization devoted to increasing awareness of the "true" events of Sept. 11. (In fact, members of the truth movement had planned to hold a conference at Temple University this weekend, but it has since been canceled. Some say it was dropped because of political reasons, but organizers denied any such interference in an e-mail, saying money was the stumbling block.) In the past three months, the group has attracted around 40 members from the Delaware Valley and beyond, all of whom believe that the mainstream media have failed to uncover the whole story behind 9/11's horrific events.
So, what is that whole story? Polinow isn't sure, but she cites gaping holes in the official account that she says point to U.S. government complicity with an al-Qaida scheme at best, and at worst, an active government role in the attacks.
Among the more convincing loose threads that Polinow and her cohorts are tugging on:
The collapse of 7 World Trade Center, a 47-story building adjacent to the Twin Towers, around 5:20 p.m. on Sept. 11. 7 WTC was not struck by planes, but nonetheless imploded into its own footprint. This third WTC collapse was not addressed in the 9/11 Commission's report.
The FBI's failure to investigate threats of domestic terrorism. Agents were even prevented from searching the laptop of purported 20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui prior to the attacks. This failed to happen despite the "Phoenix Memo," an internal agency document calling for the investigation of suspicious flight-school students.
Officials associated with the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, allegedly wired $100,000 to lead hijacker Mohamed Atta just prior to Sept. 11. The morning of 9/11, then-Senator Bob Graham and then-U.S. Rep. Porter Goss met with ISI chief Mahmud Ahmed, but the 2002 congressional investigation (headed by Graham and Goss) failed to address the Pakistani connection.
Prior to their terms as Bush administration officials, several neoconservatives including Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz were involved in a group called the Project for a New American Century. PNAC's publications include "Rebuilding America's Defenses," a document that calls for regime change in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. It mentions the necessity of a "new Pearl Harbor."
These threads may not tie into a single plausible story, but a single plausible story isn't Polinow's goal.
"I don't want to try to argue between wild theories," she says. "I just want to get the public aware that something's up. There's something wrong with this picture. It isn't rocket science."
For Frankie Vetrone, a radio host turned podcaster based in Willingboro, N.J., rocket science is exactly what's at issue, even if people put him into that wild-theory category Polinow mentions.
BULLSHIT ALERT
On his Web site, FrankieVradioshow.com, he argues that the Twin Towers were struck by missiles disguised as airplanes through the use of holograms projected from UFOs. The illusory plane collisions were used to cover up the subsequent demolition of the buildings using internal explosives.
"How many Americans do you think were involved in this plot?" he asked me during a recent interview.
"Maybe 15 elite officials in some sort of secret organization?" I offered.
"Multiply that by 100,000," Vetrone said. "Yeah. Three-quarters of the FBI, three-quarters of the CIA, three-quarters of the Fire Department of New York. At least a couple million people were involved in this."
Vetrone searched through a large mound of printed Web pages strewn across a table outside a coffee shop in University City. He pulled out a still-frame picture that he says comes from a leaked video of the Pentagon crash.
Pointing to a shadow stretching out from a small pillar in the photograph, he says he's offering $1,000 to anyone who can explain the source of the shadow, which doesn't match the shadow length of other pillars in the video. But Vetrone doesn't expect to pay the reward; he says he believes the leaked video was faked, designed to cover up the truck bombing that actually took place outside the Pentagon.
"Look at this thing," he said, laughing. "You would have to be on acid to put this in!"
"So why do you think the shadow was put in?" I ask.
"Acid," he repeated, suddenly serious. "Really. Someone in the FBI who was dropping acid doctored this video. Believe me, everyone in media uses acid."
Some might suggest that acid plays a central role in all of Vetrone's theories.
END BULLSHIT ALERT
Bryan Sacks, an adjunct professor at Drexel University who has written widely on 9/11 skepticism, conspiracies and the media, argues that there's good evidence of planes colliding with both the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The "No Planes Theory," he says, is one of many misleading ideas that muddy the pond in the 9/11 Truth Movement.
Sacks leans towards an account in which al-Qaida is solely responsible for the attacks, but the U.S. government consciously allows the destruction to occur. He notes that it is not easy to disentangle the United States and groups like al-Qaida, whose members have received U.S. support and been used as proxies in other U.S. campaigns. But, like Polinow, he's most interested simply in demonstrating that an independent investigation of the events of 9/11 is needed. To make that point, no UFOs or holograms are necessary.
"There's a propensity in the media to lump us all together, and let the most spectacular of the stories stand in for the rest," he says. "It makes good copy, and it allows you to write off everything as kooky."
Still, Sacks won't discount any particular theory.
"What's been said most to discredit 9/11 skeptics is, 'You're a conspiracy theorist,'" he says. "'Conspiracy theorist' is a term like 'terrorist,' a word that stops thought and conversation. And that creates the perfect environment for real conspiracies to evolve."
Five years after 9/11, a local movement of skeptics takes shape.
http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2006-09-07/cb.shtml
by Andy Greenberg
9/7/2006
Wendi Polinow has never considered herself a radical. A 46-year-old mother of two, she works as a quality-control manager for an outsourcing corporation and part-time as a barista. She drinks fluorinated tap water like the rest of us and doesn't wear tinfoil hats.
But on September 11, 2001, she became a conspiracy theorist.
"I was watching the news like everyone else and I was horrified like everyone else," says Polinow, who recently relocated from Norristown to New York. "But I remember a newscaster saying, 'Clearly this an act of terrorism.' I had a gut feeling that this was all wrong, that it was all falling into place too easily. I didn't want to admit it to myself then, but now I know that there was government involvement, and I believe that there was controlled demolition."
http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2006-09-07/cb-1.jpg
HEALTHY SKEPTICISM: Sacks theorizes that the U.S. government consciously allowed the destruction to occur.
In June, Polinow founded PA 9/11 Visibility, a Philadelphia-based grassroots organization devoted to increasing awareness of the "true" events of Sept. 11. (In fact, members of the truth movement had planned to hold a conference at Temple University this weekend, but it has since been canceled. Some say it was dropped because of political reasons, but organizers denied any such interference in an e-mail, saying money was the stumbling block.) In the past three months, the group has attracted around 40 members from the Delaware Valley and beyond, all of whom believe that the mainstream media have failed to uncover the whole story behind 9/11's horrific events.
So, what is that whole story? Polinow isn't sure, but she cites gaping holes in the official account that she says point to U.S. government complicity with an al-Qaida scheme at best, and at worst, an active government role in the attacks.
Among the more convincing loose threads that Polinow and her cohorts are tugging on:
The collapse of 7 World Trade Center, a 47-story building adjacent to the Twin Towers, around 5:20 p.m. on Sept. 11. 7 WTC was not struck by planes, but nonetheless imploded into its own footprint. This third WTC collapse was not addressed in the 9/11 Commission's report.
The FBI's failure to investigate threats of domestic terrorism. Agents were even prevented from searching the laptop of purported 20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui prior to the attacks. This failed to happen despite the "Phoenix Memo," an internal agency document calling for the investigation of suspicious flight-school students.
Officials associated with the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, allegedly wired $100,000 to lead hijacker Mohamed Atta just prior to Sept. 11. The morning of 9/11, then-Senator Bob Graham and then-U.S. Rep. Porter Goss met with ISI chief Mahmud Ahmed, but the 2002 congressional investigation (headed by Graham and Goss) failed to address the Pakistani connection.
Prior to their terms as Bush administration officials, several neoconservatives including Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz were involved in a group called the Project for a New American Century. PNAC's publications include "Rebuilding America's Defenses," a document that calls for regime change in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. It mentions the necessity of a "new Pearl Harbor."
These threads may not tie into a single plausible story, but a single plausible story isn't Polinow's goal.
"I don't want to try to argue between wild theories," she says. "I just want to get the public aware that something's up. There's something wrong with this picture. It isn't rocket science."
For Frankie Vetrone, a radio host turned podcaster based in Willingboro, N.J., rocket science is exactly what's at issue, even if people put him into that wild-theory category Polinow mentions.
BULLSHIT ALERT
On his Web site, FrankieVradioshow.com, he argues that the Twin Towers were struck by missiles disguised as airplanes through the use of holograms projected from UFOs. The illusory plane collisions were used to cover up the subsequent demolition of the buildings using internal explosives.
"How many Americans do you think were involved in this plot?" he asked me during a recent interview.
"Maybe 15 elite officials in some sort of secret organization?" I offered.
"Multiply that by 100,000," Vetrone said. "Yeah. Three-quarters of the FBI, three-quarters of the CIA, three-quarters of the Fire Department of New York. At least a couple million people were involved in this."
Vetrone searched through a large mound of printed Web pages strewn across a table outside a coffee shop in University City. He pulled out a still-frame picture that he says comes from a leaked video of the Pentagon crash.
Pointing to a shadow stretching out from a small pillar in the photograph, he says he's offering $1,000 to anyone who can explain the source of the shadow, which doesn't match the shadow length of other pillars in the video. But Vetrone doesn't expect to pay the reward; he says he believes the leaked video was faked, designed to cover up the truck bombing that actually took place outside the Pentagon.
"Look at this thing," he said, laughing. "You would have to be on acid to put this in!"
"So why do you think the shadow was put in?" I ask.
"Acid," he repeated, suddenly serious. "Really. Someone in the FBI who was dropping acid doctored this video. Believe me, everyone in media uses acid."
Some might suggest that acid plays a central role in all of Vetrone's theories.
END BULLSHIT ALERT
Bryan Sacks, an adjunct professor at Drexel University who has written widely on 9/11 skepticism, conspiracies and the media, argues that there's good evidence of planes colliding with both the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The "No Planes Theory," he says, is one of many misleading ideas that muddy the pond in the 9/11 Truth Movement.
Sacks leans towards an account in which al-Qaida is solely responsible for the attacks, but the U.S. government consciously allows the destruction to occur. He notes that it is not easy to disentangle the United States and groups like al-Qaida, whose members have received U.S. support and been used as proxies in other U.S. campaigns. But, like Polinow, he's most interested simply in demonstrating that an independent investigation of the events of 9/11 is needed. To make that point, no UFOs or holograms are necessary.
"There's a propensity in the media to lump us all together, and let the most spectacular of the stories stand in for the rest," he says. "It makes good copy, and it allows you to write off everything as kooky."
Still, Sacks won't discount any particular theory.
"What's been said most to discredit 9/11 skeptics is, 'You're a conspiracy theorist,'" he says. "'Conspiracy theorist' is a term like 'terrorist,' a word that stops thought and conversation. And that creates the perfect environment for real conspiracies to evolve."