Searching For Truth In Wayne
(Gold9472: This article will be appearing on the front page of tomorrow's issue (2/13/2008) of Main Line Life. To my knowledge, an article like this has never appeared in a newspaper before. Never. Not in the United States, and not in the World. This is what journalism should be. Honest, with no agenda. I would like to give Jeff Cobb my sincerest thanks. You have shown courage and integrity the likes of which haven't been seen in journalism for a very long time. I would like to thank Main Line Life for publishing this article. Hopefully more newspapers across the country, and the world will follow your example. Thank you to Jaime, and everyone at the Anthony Wayne Theater. You have been such a big help. Congratulations, and a HUGE thank you to Betsy Metz for making all of this possible. You are a true American Hero.)
Searching for truth in Wayne
Documentaries question official explanations of the Sept. 11 attacks.
http://www.mainlinelife.com/WebApp/a..._Story_1587183
By Jeff Cobb
2/13/2008
They realize their topic is big; its implications disturbing, but they are compelled by inner conviction.
On Tuesday nights in downtown Wayne, since Jan. 1, Betsy Metz, of Devon, and Jon Gold, of Plymouth Meeting have been sponsoring documentaries at the Wayne Theater that dispute the official explanations of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
They intend to show the videos through February and describe themselves as everyday citizens accruing out-of-pocket costs. Theirs is one effort among several around the country attempting to spur interest and they plan to donate all proceeds to the “FealGood Foundation.”
While, as with any controversy, there are those who discount the credibility of its proponents, their movement has grown, and continues to mount evidence asserting that the truth about the attacks was deliberately concealed.
Included in their numbers are professional architects, structural engineers, physicists, college professors, airline pilots, military officials, journalists, New York firefighters, emergency service personnel, government officials and workers from many levels, and more.
Their allegation? Insufficient investigations were conducted into the destruction of these buildings, and the – now seldom mentioned by the press – WTC 7 building that also collapsed at "near free fall speed into its own footprint."
That 47-story, steel-reinforced structure was not struck by an airplane but did catch fire from the Twin Towers 300 feet away.
Unexplained, however, was how the description of WTC 7’s collapse was fed to major news outlets well in advance of its actual falling.
Jane Stanley, a BBC news reporter, appeared live that day with the building standing in full view behind her, as she was describing it in past tense as already having collapsed. A seven minute, 15 second video clip of her report has been widely circulated on YouTube as particularly damning evidence among hundreds of smoking guns. Other news sources also described the collapse of the building while it still stood.
Up until Sept. 11, no steel-reinforced buildings had collapsed due to fire.
But Gold and Metz are clear, that they do not need to "go there" in order for their suspicions to have been aroused.
They said they realize how outlandish what they are implying could sound, and they avoid the term “conspiracy theory” as one filled with negative connotations.
Their motivations, they said, are first out of sympathy for the 2,900-plus that died that day, the many family members left behind, and secondarily, for the sick and dying 9/11 first responders.
So rather than focusing on speculations, Metz and Gold insist on sticking first to the facts: events that cannot be disputed.
For example, they cite the Bush administration’s initial reluctance to investigate the matter more fully.
In the days following the attacks, it was reportedly decided that just $3 million would be enough to finance the investigation, while money allocated to the inquiry into the Clinton-Lewinsky affair had been estimated at no less than $40 million.
It was not until grieving family members who formed a 12-person “steering committee” pressured Washington legislators that they increased the budget to $14 million and formed the 9/11 Commission 441 days after the attack.
“Why wouldn’t the President of the United States of all people want to know how and why that happened so as to makes sure it never happened again?” Metz said, “Yet they were the ones, who according to the families were their biggest adversary.”
Critics of the 9/11 Commission have since called it a “sham” that did not dig deep enough. An estimated 70 percent of the questions posed by the steering committee were not answered.
According to a recent book titled, The Commission by New York Times reporter Phil Shenon, the families’ fears may have been justified when they called for Executive Director Philip Zelikow’s resignation at the time of the 9/11 Commission. Apparently he had closer ties to the White House than even they realized.
It is suggested this may explain why reams of eyewitness testimony, including from first responders that might have suggested foul play were omitted from the official record.
Accounts of numerous explosions in the basement and on other floors – despite the absence of known explosive sources – were squelched by those entrusted to provide answers to the American people, say critics.
And attempts by “whistleblowers” offering contradictory testimony, such as Sibel Edmonds, Coleen Rowley and Robert Wright were suppressed as well.
Also undisputed was the initial reaction by White House officials to the attacks.
Then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, and President Bush himself all said no one could have imagined anyone assuming control of aircraft and using them as guided missiles.
These statements were later contradicted by other administration and military sources, and it was shown the Pentagon had circulated anti-terrorism training booklets with a drawing of the Twin Towers in the crosshairs. The Pentagon was also the subject of mock war game projections called the “Mass Casualty Exercise” (MASCAL) Oct. 24 to Oct. 28, 2000. In this anti-terrorist training scenario held by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, readiness was tested based on a hypothetical airplane being crashed into its center courtyard. Photographs of this facsimile of an anticipated disaster are publicly available.
So did officials know or didn’t they?
Were they truly unaware, or incompetent, or complicit?
These are the questions of Metz, Gold, and many others, not least of which are the family members who never received bodies to bury.
“We want them to have closure,” Gold said, “How dare they deny them closure?”
Gold said it is remarkable how the resultant “War On Terror” began with the accusation of Osama bin Laden, who while on the FBI’s most wanted list, has not been indicted for the actual crime of the Sept. 11 attacks.
This coupled with other pretexts, such as alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were also soon presented to justify that country’s invasion.
Gold also cited a 2000 document titled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” the result of a “neoconservative” think tank called the Project For The New American Century. Members include Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and many other prominent members and former members of the Bush Administration. The study postulated ways to aggressively increase and assert America’s power globally. A pretext “like a new Pearl Harbor” was written in this now publicly available document as being needed to rally support by the American people.
“These people are not incompetent, they wanted to go to war, they went to war; they wanted to make billions for their corporate friends, they managed to make billions for their corporate friends,” Gold said.
But just when the implications started to sound really far out and frightening, Gold stopped himself, and came back to his core message.
“I want truth, accountability and justice,” said Gold who has researched the topic for the last five years. “I am furious at the American people for being apathetic to this.”
A new, independent investigation would be in order, he said.
Of the 9/11 Commission Report, some have accepted the official story on face value, he said, but he and other thinking people are saying things just don’t add up.
For more, visit: www.911truth.org, www.ae911truth.org, www.911pressfortruth.com, www.cooperativeresearch.org. Several video documentaries are available online, and the Internet is replete with information.
