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Gold9472
11-10-2008, 08:31 AM
9/11: More than meets the eye
Discussion of the very real doubts over the World Trade Center attacks was conspicuously absent from the US presidential race. But America's international image will always be tainted as long as the uncertainty remains

http://www.journal-online.co.uk/article/5056-911-more-than-meets-the-eye

Richard Falk
11/9/2008

Every so often attention is called anew to the doubts surrounding the true character of the events surrounding the 9/11 attacks. Recently, the report of the collapse of Building 7 represented such an occasion. Any close student of 9/11 is aware of the many serious discrepancies between the official version of what took place and the actual happenings on that fateful day in 2001. David Ray Griffin and others have analyzed and assessed these discrepancies in such an objective and compelling fashion that only wilful ignorance can maintain that the 9/11 narrative should be treated as a closed book, and that the public should move on to address the problems of the day.

To accept such a view is to acquiesce in what can be described at best as governmental evasiveness and irresponsibility, a resolve to leave the discrepancies unexplained. It is not paranoid under such circumstances to assume that the established elites of the American governmental structure have something to hide, and much to explain. What has not been established by the “9/11 Truth Movement” is a convincing counter-narrative – that is, an alternate version of the events that clears up to what degree, if at all, the attacks resulted from incompetence, deliberate inaction, and outright complicity.

For democratic government to work, citizens must never refrain from seeking answers to the most difficult questions. Here, what is at stake is enormous. It is not only the memory of those killed and deprived by the attacks, but also the fashioning of a climate of opinion that gave rise to international wars, as well as led to widespread denial of rights under the pretext of “homeland security” and counter-terrorism. There is also a profound challenge to the legitimacy of a governing process that stands accused of letting such crimes take place, if not aiding and abetting their commission and subsequent cover-up.

It might be asked whether it is not just an expression of morbid curiosity for non-Americans to harp on this issue of finding out the truth about what happened on 9/11. My response is that what takes place in the United States often has global reverberations, and never more so than in this instance. The US is the first truly global state in history, with its military presence established worldwide by more than 700 overseas bases, by navies in every ocean, and by the military domination of space.

The brighter side of US influence was revealed recently by the sense of peoples around the world that the election of Barack Obama as the new American president was a global event, and not just a national election. But what should be obvious is that the 9/11 experience has been relied upon to wage bloody wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to underwrite a disastrously conceived “war on terror” that should be concern of everyone on the planet.

From this perspective, and given the dark cloud of doubt that lingers over the official 9/11 narrative, why was the issue not even discussed during the many months of presidential campaigning? As far as I know it was never mentioned. And the explanation is not the urgency associated with the widening economic crisis or the tactical interest of the Democrats to avoid offending Republicans in their search for support across party lines. The truth is deeper, and far more disturbing.

As far as I can tell, the real explanation is a widely shared fear of what sinister forces might lay beneath the unturned stones of a full and honest investigation of 9/11. Ever since the assassinations in the 1960s of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X there has been waged a powerful campaign against “conspiracy theory” that has made anyone who dares question the official story to be branded as a kook or some kind of unhinged troublemaker. In this climate of opinion, any political candidate for high office who dared raise doubts about the official version of 9/11 would immediately be branded as unfit, and would lose all political credibility. It is impossible to compete in any public arena in the United States if a person comes across as a “9/11 doubter.”

A few talk show hosts, investigative citizens, and publishers have kept a low flame of controversy burning sufficiently to sustain a large and growing grassroots constituency that shares the view that the truth about the 9/11 events is not yet known, or more radically, that the truth is known but being actively suppressed. These doubters are determined to continue their difficult quest for truth, and this could possibly result in disclosures at some point that are sufficiently dramatic to force the issue onto the public stage – where it belongs.

The persisting inability to resolve this fundamental controversy about 9/11 subtly taints the legitimacy of the American government. It can only be removed by a willingness, however belated, to reconstruct the truth of that day, and to reveal the story behind its prolonged suppression. What exactly that truth would be is certainly unknowable at present, and even an honest, collaborative effort might never altogether remove doubts. But that honest effort is just what should be demanded and expected by persons of good will everywhere.

Richard A. Falk is Professor of International Law and Practice at Princeton University, and an appointee to two United Nations positions on the Palestinian territories

Gold9472
11-12-2008, 10:23 AM
UN Rights Official Endorses 9/11 Conspiracy Theories
Richard Falk: 9/11 doubts "taint legitimacy of U.S. government"

http://www.unwatch.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=bdKKISNqEmG&b=1316871&ct=6315673

Geneva, November 11, 2008 — UN Watch, an independent human rights monitoring organization based in Geneva, today called on UN chief Ban Ki-moon and human rights commissioner Navi Pillay to condemn a United Nations official for endorsing conspiracy theories regarding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

In a new article published this week in a Scottish student newspaper, entitled “9/11: More than meets the eye”, Richard Falk, the UN Human Rights Council investigator of “Israel’s violations of the principles and bases of international law”, expressed unqualified support for the 9/11 conspiracy movement, pointing to “doubts surrounding the true character of the events surrounding the 9/11 attacks.”

Human rights activists expressed concerns over the potential damage of Falk's remarks. "The very credibility of the UN mission to preserve international peace and security is at stake," said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer. "The UN can't claim to oppose Al Qaeda terrorists while its officials seek to deny their most ghastly crimes.

"Dominated by Arab states, the 47-nation UN rights council appointed Falk to the only mandate that is immune from regular review, with Saudi Arabia, Cuba, and other member states voicing strong support for his work.

“How tragic that in the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN’s representative figures have gone from luminaries like Eleanor Roosevelt to loonies like Richard Falk.” said Neuer.

“Falk’s biased mandate, radical politics, and crackpot views are a microcosm of what has become of the UN’s highest human rights body, where the world’s worst abusers divert attention from their crimes, attacking Israel in 80 percent of the resolutions,” said Neuer. "Innocent victims are being slaughtered in Congo, yet the council just eliminated its scrutiny of that country, saying it wasn't needed."

Elaborating on previous remarks on the topic, Falk referred to the collapse of one of the World Trade Center buildings, endorsing one of the more popular 9/11 conspiracy theories. “Any close student of 9/11 is aware of the many serious discrepancies between the official version of what took place and the actual happenings on that fateful day in 2001.”

“It is not paranoid under such circumstances to assume that the established elites of the American governmental structure have something to hide, and much to explain.” Falk wrote that we need “answers to the most difficult questions,” and expressed hopes of “an alternate version of the events that clears up to what degree, if at all, the attacks resulted from incompetence, deliberate inaction, and outright complicity.”

According to Falk, “the real explanation” for the alleged suppression of his views is “a widely shared fear of what sinister forces might lay beneath the unturned stones of a full and honest investigation of 9/11.”

“The persisting inability to resolve this fundamental controversy about 9/11 subtly taints the legitimacy of the American government,” said the UN official.

The European Union has in the past expressed opposition to the one-sided focus of Falk’s mandate. When he appeared on October 23 before the UN in New York, however, the EU urged Israel to cooperate with his investigations.

UN Watch is a Geneva-based human rights organization founded in 1993 to monitor UN compliance with the principles of its Charter. It is accredited as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in Special Consultative Status to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and as an Associate NGO to the UN Department of Public Information.

Gold9472
11-12-2008, 01:05 PM
U.N. official boosts 9/11 conspiracy theorists

http://jta.org/news/article/2008/11/11/1000905/falk-boosts-9-11-truth

November 11, 2008

WASHINGTON (JTA)—The U.N. official who investigates Israeli human rights abuses said 9/11 conspiracy theorists deserved greater consideration.

“It is not paranoid under such circumstances to assume that the established elites of the American governmental structure have something to hide and much to explain,” Richard Falk, the U.N. Human Rights Council official who monitors allegations of Israeli abuse, wrote in the Nov. 9 edition of The Journal, a student publication in Edinburgh. “What has not been established by the ‘9/11 Truth Movement’ is a convincing counter-narrative – that is, an alternate version of the events that clears up to what degree, if at all, the attacks resulted from incompetence, deliberate inaction, and outright complicity.”

U.N. Watch, a Geneva-based watchdog that monitors extremism in the organization, called on U.N. leaders to condemn Falk, a retired Princeton University law professor who is the only investigator assigned to a single country by the Human Rights Council.

"The very credibility of the U.N. mission to preserve international peace and security is at stake," U.N. Watch said in a statement. “The U.N. can’t claim to oppose al-Qaida terrorists while its officials seek to deny their most ghastly crimes."

"Truth movement" theorists blame the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in whole or in part on the Bush administration; some extend the blame to Israel.

The United States has boycotted the U.N. council, a body dominated by non-democracies, in part because most of its focus has been on Israel.