In honor of our veterans, we again call for truth

September 11, 2007
Opinion/Editorial piece by the Ashland Tidings

On this date six years ago, a stunned citizenry gave President Bush a blank check to seek and destroy anyone or any nation suspected of causing the attacks of Sept. 11. That day we were too busy mourning the loss of nearly 3,000 fellow Americans to notice something peculiar about three towers collapsing into their own footprints, a small hole being punched into the headquarters of the world's most powerful military by a large passenger airliner, and four planes disintegrating, all due to 19 hijackers with box cutters.

Six years later, Americans want this administration to account for its massive expenditures. Those expenses include more than the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; there has also been an incalculable loss of lives. Bush and company have reached the end of a very long line of credit.

We have witnessed one of the largest expansions of power by the executive branch in our lifetime. Legislation pushed through Congress has created a new massive power structure under the Office of Homeland Security answerable only to the president himself. America has changed to such a degree that we now detain suspects without juridical process for indefinite time periods. We advocate kidnapping, secret imprisonment and torture.

The administration's acts of stonewalling, concealing evidence, denying access and offering evolving explanations ought to be reason enough to compel journalists and congressional representatives to launch an unbiased independent investigation into the attacks of Sept. 11 — which have become the bedrock foundation upon which the administration justifies the spread of fear and expansion of power for security reasons.

Over the past six years, a fledgling group of patriotic citizens scattered across the fruited plains has ballooned into a massive army of millions of skeptics that include experts in science and engineering, architecture, demolitions and aeronautics. Adding to an exceptional jury of accomplished peers are military veterans, academic scholars, lawyers, former covert agents and CIA officials, and even those formerly connected with government offices that were instrumental in convincing a gullible public that there was nothing else to see.

Within the groups listed above is Lynn Margulis, Ph.D., the mother of Tidings columnist Jennifer Margulis. The former is a world-reknowned scientist and member of the National Academy of Sciences. Lynn Margulis has characterized the official account of Sept. 11 as a "fraud." She is joined by many others of her caliber, including Joel S. Hirschhorn Ph.D. (12 years on the staff of the Congressional Office of Technology/Assessment) and James Quintiere Ph.D., former Chief of NIST's Fire Chief Division, who says the official conclusion made by his office is "questionable."

Maybe it went exactly as we've been told. Maybe. But without our Congress, our representatives calling for an unfettered investigation, the wounds of doubt and uncertainty continue to fester.

We can't ignore or dismiss the rationale of so many professionals who clamor for a serious probe into the most serious issue any news agency can cover. We owe the truth to every member of the armed forces risking his or her life following orders, and to their families and loved ones. So we add yet another call to media across America to join us in pushing for an unbiased independent investigation into the events of Sept. 11.

It is more than a matter of justice; the truth is a matter of life and death. In honor of our veterans, we again call for truth.

http://911truth.org/article.php?story=20070919215534930