Wis. Lawmaker Wants Lecturer Fired For 9/11 Conspiracy Views

[borepstein]

To the Editor,

Ryan Foley's AP article about me, "UW instructor under fire basks in publicity for 9/11 view" contained several mis-statements that may border on libel, or perhaps even cross the line

Foley wrote: "Kevin Barrett also told The Associated Press he was elated the controversy has given his cause long-sought publicity." I did not use the word "elated."

Foley attributes to me the statement, "I've been trying to get publicity for years." Again, I certainly did not use those words. I did tell Mr. Foley that the 9/11 truth movement has spent years trying to get the media to pay attention to the many dozens of smoking guns of 9/11, including over-insured WTC owner-of-six-weeks Larry Silverstein's nationally-televised confession that he demolished the 47-story WTC-7 with explosives. I most certainly did not say that I, personally, was seeking publicity. In fact, the opposite is the case; I would have much preferred not to go through this unpleasant media circus, and endure the insults of the likes of Mr. Foley.

Foley also wrote: "Barrett, active in a group called Scholars for 9/11 Truth, is among a small group that believes the attacks were carried out by U.S. government officials, not al-Qaida terrorists." A "small group"?! Actually a recent Zogby poll showed that 42% of Americans believe that the official story that "al-Qaida terrorists perpetrated the attacks" is a cover-up, and that the 9/11 Commission concealed evidence. That is far more people than voted for Cheney-Bush in the last election. Elsewhere in the world, the figures are much higher. An educated guess would be that the majority of the world's population either suspects or believes that 9/11 was an inside job. Among Muslims, we know the figure is at least 60% -- a conservative estimate based on a recent poll whose wording seems to have been selected to minimize the number answering "inside job." An earlier al-Jazeera poll had shown that 89% of its audience believes the US government committed the 9/11 attacks, while only 11% blames al-Qaida.

Given these facts about public opinion in the US and around the world, it would be the height of irresponsibility for any class that touches on Islam, the "war on terror" or related subjects not to critically examine the various interpretations of 9/11, including the "inside job" hypothesis that the great majority of Muslims, and a probable majority of the world's population, subscribes to.

Sincerely,

Kevin Barrett

Excellent!

Do you have a link for this, Jon?

[Gold9472]

No. Kevin sent it to me.

[Gold9472]

Doyle's office releases letter from controversial UW instructor

http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/du...s/14990469.htm

RYAN J. FOLEY
Associated Press
7/7/2006

MADISON, Wis. - A University of Wisconsin instructor under fire for his views on the Sept. 11 attacks sent a sarcastic letter to Gov. Jim Doyle this week, a spokesman for the governor said Friday.

Doyle's office has forwarded the July 5 letter from Kevin Barrett to UW-Madison Provost Patrick Farrell, who is reviewing whether Barrett should be allowed to teach a course on Islam this fall, said Doyle spokesman Matt Canter.

"This further highlights the governor's concerns about whether somebody who is touting these outlandish views is fit to teach in the classroom," said Canter, who released a copy of the letter Friday.

Barrett, active in a group called Scholars for 9/11 Truth, is among a small group that believes the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks were carried out by U.S. government officials, not al-Qaida terrorists.

Some lawmakers called for his firing as a part-time instructor after he spoke on a Wisconsin radio talk show and acknowledged he presented the theory to students in the past.

Doyle also blasted Barrett and questioned his competence but stopped short of demanding he be fired. Barrett responded with the letter to the governor's office.

In it, he ridicules Doyle for political posturing and sarcastically includes a questionnaire for UW-Madison instructors to help Doyle "weed out dissenters from the ranks of UW-Madison instructors."

The questionnaire includes 20 questions about government conspiracy theories dating to the 1800s and sarcastically suggests any teacher who believes them should be fired.

"This shows that he has no regard to facts," Canter said. "In the academic world, theories must be based on some factual evidence and it appears that Mr. Barrett draws conclusions without any factual basis."

Farrell, who launched the review after Barrett's talk show appearance, expected to have the review complete by Friday but decided he needs more time, said UW-Madison spokesman Brian Mattmiller. He said the review should be complete next week and he will take all materials, including the letter to Doyle, into consideration.

In the meantime, Barrett is scheduled to speak Sunday at the Midwest Social Forum at UW-Milwaukee about his belief that the twin towers were destroyed by explosives detonated by U.S. government officials.

The introductory course on Islam is the only one he is scheduled to teach at UW-Madison this fall. He is also scheduled to teach a similar course at Edgewood College in Madison.

[Gold9472]

Government by the Consent of the Governed
Lecturer Threatens Governor’s Job

http://mujca.com/governordoyle.htm

(U.W.-Madison lecturer's letter to Governor Doyle warning that the Governor may be fired from his job for his intemperate statements.)

Poll results: Barrett 86%, Doyle 14%
http://www.channel3000.com/news/9457154/detail.html

A Letter to the Governor
July 5th, 2006
Dear Governor Doyle,

It has come to my attention that you have suggested that I ought to be fired from my job as a University of Wisconsin-Madison lecturer. You apparently believe that I am incapable of performing well as an instructor of Islam 370 because I am convinced that the 9/11 Commission Report is a farcical cover-up, and that overwhelming evidence suggests top US officials were complicit in the attacks of September 11th, 2001.

I understand that you are under political pressure from your right flank, and that you may feel you have no choice but to call for my dismissal. You may be surprised when the 42% of the American people who believe the 9/11 Commission Report is a cover-up – and we may be over 50% in Wisconsin – decide to cast their votes for a candidate with more integrity. I understand that there are Green and Libertarian candidates running for governor, and I predict that the controlled demolition of our corrupt two-party system by the 9/11 truth movement may begin here in Wisconsin this fall, with you and Mr. Green serving as first victims.

Meanwhile, since you believe that those who dissent from the government line on these matters are unable to perform their duties at teachers, I have decided to help you in your crusade to weed out dissenters from the ranks of U.W.-Madison instructors. (Doesn’t that plaque on Bascom Hill say we need to do a lot of “sifting and winnowing” of the faculty in search of the politically incorrect?) To that end, I have prepared a questionnaire for immediate distribution to all U.W.- Madison professors, lecturers and TAs.

Sincerely,

Kevin Barrett

Questionnaire for Instructors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Please note that your answers to the following questions will be used to determine your eligibility to teach at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

1) Do you believe that the Warren Report performed a thorough and unbiased investigation of the murder of JFK, and that its conclusion—that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone—is correct?

2) Do you believe that allegations of government involvement in the assassinations of Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, John Lennon, Mel Carnahan, and Paul Wellstone, and the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, have been conclusively disproven?

3) Do you believe that Timothy McVeigh acted alone in Oklahoma City, and that the military officers, and others who deny this, and who who say his truck bomb could not possibly have done so much damage are crazy?

4) Do you believe that reports of massive CIA drug trafficking by Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Gary Webb--who committed suicide a few years ago with two gunshots to the head—are crazy?

5) Do you refuse to believe that the US government, at its highest levels, is just as corrupt as most other governments?

6) Do you believe that rumors of Western intelligence involvement in the Bali, Madrid, and London bombings are just that—rumors?

7) Do you believe top US officials, including LBJ, did everything they could to expose the truth about the attack on the USS Liberty by Israeli forces, and to gain justice for the victims?

8) Do you believe that FDR did everything in his power to protect the lives of our sailors at Pearl Harbor before the Japanese attack, and that the attack came as a complete surprise to him?

9) Do you believe your government always tells you the truth about gravely important matters?

10) Do you think that questions about the Constitutionality of the Federal Reserve—a private consortium of banks that creates money out of nothing, backed by nothing, at interest, thereby controlling the 80% of the world’s currency that is in US dollars—are just a bunch of crazy conspiracy theories?

11) Do you agree that it is the Executive Branch, not the Legislative Branch or the people, that ought to have the power to decide when, where, how, and why the nation goes to war under the US Constitution?

12) Do you agree that the oath to defend the Constitution “against all enemies, foreign AND DOMESTIC” is referring to domestic enemies like Communists and Muslims, not top US officials who violate the Constitution?

13) Do you believe that Spanish forces sunk the Maine in 1898, and that the US invasion, occupation and annexation of Spanish colonies was a justified response to this outrage?

14) Do you believe that the US government did everything it could to protect the lives of the passengers on board the SS Lusitania?

15) Do you believe that the North Vietnamese attacked a US ship in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964, and that the subsequent US escalation of the war was a justified response to this outrage?

16) Do you think that those who believe in Operation Northwoods -- 1962 plan for war-trigger fake terror attacks involving mass murders of Americans by covert US military forces -- are crazy?

17) Do you believe that Iraqi forces in Kuwait threw babies out of their incubators to die, and that the congressional authorization for Gulf War 1 based on the baby-incubator outrage was justified?

18) Do you believe that questions about the “October Surprise,” in which George Bush 1 was rumored to have negotiated a deal with the Iranians to keep US hostages locked up until Reagan defeated Carter and took office, have been fully answered, and that the story has been conclusively debunked?

19) Do you believe that the US invaded Iraq in order to prevent Iraq from using WMDs against the US, and that the Iraqi threat was real and immanent?

20) Do you believe that the 9/11 Commission Report fully, truthfully, and adequately answered all of the serious questions that have been raised about the possibility of official complicity in the September 11th attacks?

Please note that “no” answers to any of the above questions indicate absurd beliefs and poor judgment, and may be grounds for immediate dismissal and/or non-renewal of contract.

Signed,

Steve Nass, Reichschancellor
Thoughtcrime Division
University of Wisconsin-Madison

[Gold9472]

Instructor’s Job Threatened over 9/11 Comments

http://progressive.org/mag_mc070906

By Matthew Rothschild
July 9, 2006

Kevin Barrett is an instructor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on occasion. But after he talked about his 9/11 views on radio recently, a state legislator called for his immediate firing, and the governor of Wisconsin called into question his fitness to teach.

Barrett, who has been a lecturer in Arabic language and in folklore, is scheduled to be a lecturer in Islamic studies in the fall. During that class, he was planning on discussing differing views of what happened on 9/11. Barrett has strong feelings on the subject. As he said on the radio show, he believes it was “an inside job.”

So he may not get to teach that course.

The controversy began with an interview on June 28 on WTMJ, a popular rightwing talk radio station in Milwaukee.

Barrett, the coordinator of a group called Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth and a member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, was asked to come on Jessica McBride’s show.

“She called me up and asked me to talk about my activism and was curious about my teaching job and asked for a copy of the syllabus for my fall course, which I proceeded to give her,” he tells me. “When I got on her show, I was kind of surprised to hear her introduction. She introduced me as ‘Wisconsin’s Ward Churchill,’ with ideas even worse than Ward Churchill.”

During the interview, Barrett said “9/11 is an inside job,” and “Vice President Cheney is my prime suspect.” He defended many of the claims of the 9/11 conspiracy crowd. He talked about what he called the suspicious collapse not only of the twin towers but of a nearby building. He said there was “very little evidence that foreign terrorists flew planes into buildings,” and that “11 of the 19” suspected hijackers are “still alive.” He referred to the event as the “9/11 coup d’etat.”

McBride asked him about his discussions in class on this subject. “I don’t try to inflict my own ideas on the students,” Barrett said. The very next day, Republican State Representative Steve Nass called for Barrett to be summarily fired.

"The fact that Mr. Barrett uses his position at UW-Madison to add credibility to his outlandish claims is an unacceptable embarrassment to the people of Wisconsin and the UW System," Nass said, as first reported in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

“It was kind of shocking,” Barrett says. He says his first reaction was: “Oh, no, here we go, it’s going to get crazy, but then maybe this is what we need for people to take a look at this issue. We’ve been banging our heads against the wall to get the media to pay attention to the falsehoods in the official story of 9/11.”

Nass, a Republican, was joined by fellow Republican Mark Green, a member of the Wisconsin delegation to the House of Representatives, who is running for governor against Democrat Jim Doyle.

"Not a dime of either taxpayer or tuition dollars should be going to Kevin Barrett so he can tell students that September 11 was a creation of the government, and that the most murdering terrorist organization in the world is a myth created by the CIA,” said Green.

Doyle, for his part, said the university should take a “hard look” at “whether he has the capacity to teach students,” according to the Capital Times of Madison.

Barrett told the Capital Times that Doyle “is making himself into another McCarthyite.”

Barrett met on July 7 with University of Wisconsin Provost Pat Farrell.

It was their second meeting on this issue, Barrett tells me, adding that the university has “behaved very professionally.” He says Farrell “made it clear that their bottom line is concern with the educational experience students are getting, not with my free speech activities outside of class.”

Farrell did not return a phone call for comment.

Barrett says the university is undergoing a ten-day review process.

“I expect that I’ll be allowed to teach,” he says. “It would be a blatant violation of academic freedom if I were not.”

[Gold9472]

Wisconsin instructor's job in peril over odd views

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...calchicago-hed

Associated Press
Published July 9, 2006

MADISON, Wis. -- A University of Wisconsin instructor under fire for his views on the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks sent a sarcastic letter to Gov. Jim Doyle last week, a spokesman for the governor said.

Doyle's office has forwarded the July 5 letter from Kevin Barrett to UW-Madison Provost Patrick Farrell, who is reviewing whether Barrett should be allowed to teach a course on Islam this fall, said Doyle spokesman Matt Canter.

"This further highlights the governor's concerns about whether somebody who is touting these outlandish views is fit to teach in the classroom," said Canter, who released a copy of the letter Friday.

Barrett, active in a group called Scholars for 9/11 Truth, is among a small group that believes the attacks were carried out by U.S. government officials, not Al Qaeda terrorists.

Some lawmakers called for his firing as a part-time instructor after he spoke on a Wisconsin radio talk show and acknowledged he presented the theory to students in the past.

Doyle also blasted Barrett and questioned his competence but stopped short of demanding he be fired.