A former Princeton international law professor has been condemned by the UN Secretary General and the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations for alluding to “an apparent cover-up” of the events of September 11th, 2001.
On January 11, 2011, UN Special Envoy to Palestine Richard Falk posted on his personal blog an article entitled “Interrogating the Arizona Killings from a Safe Distance.”[1]
Dr. Falk made a tangential point in his blog-post that governments too often abuse their authority by treating “awkward knowledge as a matter of state secrets”.
To illustrate the point, he referred to gaps and contradictions in the official account of the 9/11 attacks, which have been documented in the scholarly works of Dr. David Ray Griffin, a professor emeritus of philosophy of religion and theology.
“What seems most disturbing about the 9/11 controversy is the widespread aversion by government and media to the evidence that suggests, at the very least, the need for an independent investigation that proceeds with no holds barred,” wrote Falk.
On January 20th, executive director Hillel Neuer of UN Watch, a European NGO, called upon UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to condemn the remarks made by Falk, and to fire him, claiming that Falk had “endorsed the conspiracy theory that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were orchestrated by the U.S. government and not Al Qaeda terrorists.” [2]
On January 24th, in a reply to Hillel Neuer, Vijay Nambiar, Ban Ki-moon’s Chief of Staff, responded that the Secretary-General “condemns these remarks. He has repeatedly stated his view that any such suggestion is preposterous — and an affront to the memory of the more than 3,000 people who died in the attack.”[3]
The US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, called for Falk’s removal, stating that “Mr. Falk’s comments are despicable and deeply offensive, and I condemn them in the strongest terms.” [4]
Surely, in light of what Falk actually said, these indignant cries on behalf of the victims seem more than a little apoplectic.
If Falk’s suggestions were so “preposterous” and “offensive”, they might have been dismissed as the ravings of a madman.
So why did officials bring out their cannons to shoot at a sparrow?
Well, turning to the work of Professor Griffin we find that there were 115 omissions and distortions in the 9/11 Commission Report, though Falk did not, in his brief remarks, provide details. [5]
A search of the Internet reveals 12 professional organizations calling for a new investigation, including Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (with over 1,400 professional members), Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, Intelligence Officers for 9/11 Truth, Lawyers for 9/11 Truth, Medical Professionals for 9/11 Truth, Pilots for 9/11 Truth, Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth, Military Officers for 9/11 Truth, and Scientists for 9/11 Truth.
In August, 2005, the New York Times printed the oral testimonies of 118 firefighters and emergency workers who reported stunning, graphic evidence of enormous explosions, including mysterious blasts in the deep sub-basements of the buildings long before the towers fell.[6]
More recently, a nine-author peer-reviewed study, which showed that the World Trade Center dust appeared to contain residue of explosive material (nanothermite), made headlines for the first week of February 2010 in major Danish newspapers. [7]
This news never reached the North American media.
A December 2010 poll by the prestigious Emnid Institute showed that 89.5% of Germans doubt the US official story about the September 11th attacks.[8]
The 9/11 commissioners themselves, in a 2008 op-ed piece to the New York Times, bemoaned the withholding of witness evidence to the 9/11 Commission by the CIA:Â “What we do know is that government officials decided not to inform a lawfully constituted body, created by Congress and the president, to investigate one the greatest tragedies to confront this country. We call that obstruction.” [9]
Perhaps this sparrow is worth a cannon or two.
In other words, was Falk attacked so strongly to try to make people fear suggesting in public even the possibility that the official story is problematic?
Notes
[1] Richard Falk. “Interrogating the Arizona Killings from a Safe Distance.” http://richardfalk.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/interrogating-the-arizona-killings-from-a-safe-distance/
[2] “U.N. Chief Urged to Fire Official for Promoting 9/11 Conspiracy Theory” http://www.unwatch.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=bdKKISNqEmG&b=1316871&ct=9039887
[3] Letter to Mr. Neuer, January 24, 2011, http://blog.unwatch.org/index.php/2011/01/25/ngo-says-richard-falk-has-zero-credibility-urges-un-chief-to-fire-him/
[4] Rice calls for removal of U.N.’s Palestine rapporteur, JTA, January 26, 2011, http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/01/26/2742718/rice-calls-for-removal-of-uns-palestine-rapporteur
[5] David Ray Griffin. The 9/11 Commission Report:Â Omissions and Distortions, Olive Branch Press, 2004.
[6] “The September 11 Records,” New York Times, August 12, 2005, http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/met_WTC_histories_full_01.html
[7] Niels H. Harrit, Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones, et al., “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe,” Open Chemical Physics Journal, Vol. 2 (April 3, 2009): 7-31 http://www.bentham.org/open/tocpj/articles/V002/7TOCPJ.pdf.
[8] “Exklusiv-Umfrage des Wissensmagazins Welt der Wunder: Wem glauben die Deutschen noch?” December 22, 2010, http://www.bauermedia.de/weltderwunder.html?&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=750&tx_ttnews[backPid]=4&cHash=6e15318bbc#content
[9] Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, “Stonewalled by the C.I.A.,” New York Times, January 2, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/opinion/02kean.html
9/11 was the work of CIA/Mossad. The truth is coming out, slowly but surely.
Excellent article. I think your last sentence provides clear motivation. One more professional organization you didn’t list is Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth, of which I am a signer.
Rev. John Shuck
http://rl911truth.org/
Why is it that people seem to indulge in easily discredited conspiracy theories such as the ones surrounding the event in 9/11? Mr. Falk has no ground to stand on his claims as well as no evidence to back up the conspiracy theory which he seems to believe. It his belief in these conspiracy theories that leads many to question his competence and probity
It might pay readers to read this article in popular mechanics which shreds the conspiracy theories quite thoroughly.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/1227842
William, please quote which claim of Falk’s you think is “easily discredited”. You would do well to actually READ what Mr. Falk wrote:
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/01/13/interrogating-the-arizona-killings-from-a-safe-distance/
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/01/28/supplemental-blog-on-arizona-shootings/
As for the Popular Mechanics series, anyone who has done any serious research into 9/11 knows this is a joke. They mostly just tackle the most bizarre claims that serious 9/11 researchers don’t propagate, like the “pod” claim, or claims that those flights didn’t hit the towers. Yeah, PM is right, that’s all nonsense.
Their “debunking” of the “stand down order” is totally inadequate. They only “debunk” a strawman argument, but its an uncontroversial fact that NORAD lied to the 9/11 Commission, and PM doesn’t even mention all the exercises taking place.
PM tries to imply intercepts weren’t routine before 9/11, saying during the previous 10 years, only one civilian plane had ever been intercepted over North America (Payne Stewart). But that’s a strawman. As the GAO has observed in 1994, during the previous four years, NORAD’s alert fighters scrambled 1,518 times. Intercepts WERE routine. (http://www.fas.org/man/gao/gao9476.htm). PM very carefully words this section, but the bottom line is that we are talking about planes that were KNOWN to have been HIJACKED, and to imply, as PM does, that it is not unusual for them not to have been intercepted is not honest, and they themselves show that it was protocol to intercept planes in distress, even if that was rare. PM simply does not address the real issue here.
PM goes on like this. Their “debunking” of the claim that steel melted is particularly hilarious. The “claim” debunked is that the public has been lied to, because the public was told the jet fuel melted the steel, and that’s what brought the building down. Only problem with this “debunking” is that it is true; there were ‘experts’ who did say the steel “melted”, like on NOVA’s “How the Towers Fell” special, etc. Of course, jet fuel and office fires don’t burn at nearly high enough temperatures to melt steel, which is what PM says. Yeah, that’s right. But then, what is the molten metal pouring out of WTC 2 just before its collapse? NIST claims this is molten aluminum, but molten aluminum is silver. Also, proof of temperatures above 1500C is in the presence of iron-rich spheres in the WTC dust. So, if jet fuel and office fires didn’t create those spheres, what did? PM ignores the question.
PM’s debunking of dust puffs is funny, too, because they claim it was a “pancake” collapse, and so floors falling on top of one another pushed dust out windows. Sorry, PM, but NIST itself debunked the “pancake” collapse theory, replacing it with the theory that the top portion of the building acted as a piston, driving through the lower half of the building with crushing force (a la Bazant, et al).
PM sticks to the script on WTC 7. Sorry, PM, but free-fall acceleration means that 100% of the building’s potential energy was converted to kinetic energy, which means that there was no energy remaining to buckle columns, as must have been the case according to the fire-induced progressive collapse hypothesis. Which means that there must have been some other force acting on the columns to remove them. It’s elementary physics. The other problems with PM’s “fact” section on WTC 7 are too numerous to list here.
Three variants of a critique of Popular Mechanics’ ridiculous propaganda can be found at http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/gopm/index.html.
William,
Do you honestly believe, that the “official conspiracy theory” holds any sway at all?? C’mon dude, get your head out of your ass.
Bld. 7 fell at the rate of gravity for 8 storeys. This is a scientific fact admitted by NIST. Have you heard how they explain this?
Can you tell me how a building the size of a football field, standing up, can fall at the rate of gravity for over 100 feet….without the aid of some sort of explosive device to remove the support columns?
Far be it for me to correct those known for ignoring all evidence to the contrary of their fondly held belief in a conspiracy theory. 9/11 truthers exhibit the same sort of stubbornness as young earth creationists.
I’m not interested in rhetoric. We could discuss the facts if you like.
It is you who is ignoring all evidence to the contrary of your fondly held belief in a conspiracy theory. It is you who are being stubborn. It is you who are like the young earth creationists.
Projection is hell.
Of course I was referring to the post by William M. Dix. For some reason my reply did not appear indented immediately under his reply.
Funny Dix should compare “9/11 truthers” to “young earth creationists.” The young Earth creation theory is easier to sustain than the official 9/11 conspiracy theory.
The former is self-evident “living things reproduce themselves into things of the same species,” is valid for most sundry purposes, and loses validity only within the frameworks of the pursuit of scientific truth and biological engineering.
The latter falls apart by simply watching the videos of Building 7 and comparing them with the official video simulation of the event.
Love,
The truth stands for itself. All you need is a little effort and a little common sense to unearth it.
“Far be it for me to correct those known for ignoring all evidence to the contrary of their fondly held belief in a conspiracy theory. 9/11 truthers exhibit the same sort of stubbornness as young earth creationists.”
None is more guilty of ignoring evidence or fondly holding a belief in a conspiracy theory than Mr. William M. Dix.
Your are a tired disinformation shill.
The 9/11 story was a package deal offered by the U.S. government to explain or as some may say to explain away the facts of the happening. Very many people in the United States and the rest of the world accepted the official version. Why? Because Bush and Cheney as leaders of the free world and ‘the beacons of light for democracy and human rights in the world’ had declared so. But there has been a lot of technical and expert evidence that contradicts the governmental account.
Such an event is not merely a policy issue with which the U.S. policymakers can play around for their specific objectives but an issue that calls for a thorough investigation to clarify what to many still remains a puzzle. There has been no such thorough investigation.
Richard Falk is one of those who dared to raise questions about the official account, but he is not the only one to do so. However, we should give credit to him for what says and more importantly ask for a thorough independent investigation of a crime that led to two major wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan by the the Bush-Cheney administration.
In his article ‘Terrorising the laws of physics’, what Dr Bleher says is relevant to the ongoing discussion:
http://flyingimam.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html
well said
Mr. Dix is a pathetic liar, citing no facts, only spurious accusations of theories that he in fact knows nothing about.
In my opinion attempting to purport Popular Maniacs..er rather Mechanics’ diatribe to dispel scientifically proven flaws in the official ‘coincidence theory’, used to explain the events of that day, is akin to using William Carpenter’s ‘Flat Earth’ assertion to disprove Yajnavalkya, Pythagoras, or Galileo. Thank you William for making us all feel more unintelligent, and at once, proving yourself to be..
One of the sad aspects of all this is the extreme cowardice on the part of people who are “out there” in the media on a daily basis. I’m not talking about the standard “media” here, news organizations on tv, radio, newspapers and the internet. I’m talking of the shows that “dare” to go where the media won’t go – such as Jon Stewart and Bill Maher. These hosts are famous for “breaking through” the BS that litters our regular media. Yet why shrink from any legitimate consideration of the events of 9/11? Maher actually amplifies the head-in-the-sand mockery of anyone who questions the events of 9/11 by using the standard “conspiracy theorist” label.
I would challenge Stewart and Maher to interview Professor David Ray Griffin (when he’s recovered from his illness). Dr. Griffin’s well thought out and well presented views of the events of that day are very convincing, and hanging the conspiracy theorist label around his neck would be very difficult to do – impossible in my view.
donilo
We’d never seen anything like 9/11. Except we had, and didn’t recognize it. We needn’t go back to Operation Northwoods, the Lavon Affair, or the other false flag conspiracies of suppressed history. Just two summers before, nearly identical mechanisms of terror and control were deployed upon the Russian people to consolidate the transfer of power to Vladimir Putin, who was facing his first election, and to provide the pretext to invade Chechnya.
Four apartment complexes had been bombed and 300 killed. Putin promised to “liquidate all terrorists.” He proclaimed Russia was facing a war between “good” and “evil.” “It’s our boys,” said Putin, fanning war fever and hysteria, “against terrorists” belonging to an “international Islamic conspiracy.”
Residents in the city of Ryazan discovered a huge bomb in their basement and called the local police. Initially, federal authorities claimed terrorists had been thwarted, but when the perpetrators were apprehended shortly thereafter by Ryazan police, and found to be agents of Russia’s security service FSB, the story changed: it was now claimed to have been an “exercise,” and the sack of explosive hexogen was said to have contained nothing but “sugar.” In 2002, an incurious Duma voted against a parliamentary inquiry into the bombing campaign.
The war in Chechnya is ongoing. 10% of the Chechen population is dead. Thousands of Russian conscript soldiers are dead.
Disbelief, a documentary regarding the bombings and the revelation of state guilt, may be viewed here: http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=7658755847655738553&q=Disbelief
Not only by history’s precedence, but by current events, 9/11 isn’t really that extraordinary.
It’s interesting to note how Western pundits who would likely dismiss as nonsense the mere suggestion of a 9/11 conspiracy have no problem at all assessing the Russian apartment bombings as state terror. David Satter, a fellow of the Hoover Institution and the Hudson Institute and former Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times of London, wrote “The Shadow of Ryazan” with funding from the Smith Richardson Foundation, an abbreviated version of which was published by The National Review: http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-satter043002.asp
It’s funny how easily the generalized dismissals of conspiracy, such as how it “meets a psychological need,” or that “something so big couldn’t be kept a secret,” vanish into one’s political blind spots. That is, to the opinion makers, conspiracy can be the most reasonable explanation of events, so long as it’s OVER THERE, and it’s something THEY do. Satter finds the FSB guilty of waging a false-flag terror campaign against the Russian people, but don’t expect him to be called a kook in a tinfoil hat for it.
And just as in Russia’s 9/11, THE AGENTS ASSIGNED TO BLOW UP ONE OF THEIR TARGETS IN THE USA ON 9/11 WERE CAUGHT IN THE ACT BUT LATER RELEASED DUE TO A SUCCESSFUL GOVERNMENT COVERUP.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CHq6JocvDM&NR=1