Calls For Domestic Probe Into 9/11

Calls for domestic probe into 9/11

http://www.straight.com/article-1574...11-probe-urged

By Carlito Pablo
8/13/2008

On August 29, Drew Noftle and about a dozen other Vancouver-based 9/11 truth seekers will set out east on board a private bus, holding rallies in different cities along the way to Montreal. There they will link up with other crusaders from across the country for a march to Ottawa that will culminate on the day the world marks the seventh anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S.

As laid out in the 2004 report of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission created by American congressional legislation, “19 young Arabs acting at the behest of Islamist extremists headquartered in distant Afghanistan” carried out the deadliest terrorist strike ever on the U.S. mainland.

But according to Noftle, a founding member of the Vancouver 9/11 Truth Society, there has never been an official Canadian investigation into 9/11, which the 28-year-old English teacher noted is the principal reason why Canada is at war in Afghanistan.

“The main purpose of our group right now is we want to get a Canadian investigation into 9/11 in order to justify our war effort,” Noftle told the Georgia Straight. “If we don’t have a reason, we should pull out immediately.”

Those who are skeptical of the source of the attacks serve a purpose in society, according to SFU political scientist Anil Hira, even though they are usually shunned by left-wing activists and dismissed by others as conspiracy nuts.

“They’re very important for society because after an event like that, just like the Jews with the Holocaust or the Palestinian problem, there’s so much emotion involved…that you need people that are going to kind of commemorate them [the victims],” Hira told the Straight. “You don’t want people to just forget about them.”

Hira likened 9/11 to an event of “biblical proportions” that is bound to create “fascination”.

“Because it was something that was so new and unexpected, people cannot grasp the idea that a plane hit a building and the building collapsed, that it can be that simple, because it had so many implications and effects on our everyday life,” he said. “But that’s the way we mythologize these kinds of events and make meaning out of them.”

Hira has written a number of papers regarding the implications of 9/11. One of them, which he cowrote with fellow SFU political-science professor Douglas Ross, will form a chapter in a book to be published this year by the Connecticut-based Praeger Security International, an imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group.

In a chapter titled “Trilateralism at an End, Asymmetrical Bilateralism Restored? Canadian Ambivalence on U.S. Strategic Primacy After 9/11”, the authors take note of the “greatly increased U.S. demands for historically unprecedented bilateral cooperation in both military operations and national security surveillance and enforcement” with Canada.

“To the extent that Canadians have begun to share fears about a decline in world order and global security as well as a decline in relative American power, the willingness to align Canadian foreign and defense policies more closely with Washington actually may increase,” Hira and Ross write.

The authors recall that Canada’s military presence in Afghanistan started with the deployment of special forces in late 2001 and was followed by a far larger force in 2003, which was the same year the U.S. invaded Iraq.

“With troops in Afghanistan but none in Iraq, Canadian audiences could be told that Ottawa was standing up against American pressures while American officials could be mollified by the sacrifice of money and lives in Afghanistan,” Hira and Ross note.

On June 10 this year, the NDP’s Libby Davies read in Parliament a petition signed by approximately 500 Canadians asking for a government probe into 9/11. Davies wasn’t available for an interview, but a member of her staff, Rob Duffy, stressed in an e-mail to the Straight that the Vancouver East MP doesn’t endorse the contents of the petition.

The petition, which Noftle and company will be emphasizing on their cross-country journey, claims that “scientific and eyewitness evidence shows that the 9/11 Commission Report is a fraudulent document and that those behind the report are consciously or unconsciously guilty of covering up what happened on 9/11/2001”.

Notes on the Afghan war

• In 2005, U.S. and NATO forces used an average of 2,300 kilograms of munitions per month in air strikes.
• Since June 2006, their use of air-strike munitions has averaged 36,300 kilograms per month.
• Air munitions use peaked at 76,200 kilograms in December 2007.
• Civilian casualties rose by 62 percent in 2008 compared to figures in the first six months of 2007 because of increased use of air power by U.S. and NATO forces.
• A major challenge facing U.S. and NATO forces targeting insurgents is incomplete or faulty intelligence.
• From 2002 to 2006, insurgent-initiated attacks increased by 400 percent.
• Deaths resulting from these attacks jumped by 800 percent.
• There are approximately 65,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan.

Source: “Killing Friends, Making Enemies: The Impact and Avoidance of Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan” (United States Institute of Peace briefing, July 2008)