Ahmadinejad and the 9/11 attacks

[bigron]

Ahmadinejad and the 9/11 attacks    
 
Surveys show large segments of the world population agree with the Iranian leader's "US government involvement" claims.

Last Modified: 24 Sep 2010 10:39 GMT
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/09/201092484215227248.html


 
Like Iran's president, some Americans remain unconvinced about the official story on the 9/11 attacks [GALLO/GETTY]

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, has again managed to steal the global spotlight, after levelling a series of rhetorical attacks on the US and Israel - the "Zionist entity" in his words - during an address to the UN General Assembly.

Specifically, he told world leaders on Thursday that the "majority of the American people, as well as most nations and politicians around the world agree" that "some segments within the US government orchestrated" the September 11, 2001, attacks in order to "reverse the declining American economy" and to justify US military operations in the Middle East to "save the Zionist regime".

Western diplomats, including the US, Canada and the 27-member EU bloc, walked out during the tirade. PJ Crowley, the US assistant secretary of state, told Al Jazeera that the statement was "totally outrageous".

But, for better or worse, significant segments of the world's population are sympathetic to Ahmadinejad's "conspiratorial" view of the 9/11 attacks which killed about 3,000 people.

Standard view

The US government has determined that 19 hijackers, mostly born in Saudi Arabia and belonging to al-Qaeda, crashed two passenger jets into the World Trade Centre in New York City and one into the Pentagon, located outside Washington, DC, on September, 11, 2001.

A fourth plane crashed into a field in rural Pennsylvania after some of its passengers attempted to retake control of the aircraft. There were no survivors from any of the flights.

Some of the group's members, including Osama bin Laden, the head of al-Qaeda, had trained in Afghanistan prior to the attacks - training which precipitated the 2001 US-led invasion of the country.

Bin Laden initially denied, but later admitted in a taped statement aired on Al Jazeera in 2004, planning the attacks.

About 46 per cent of the world's people believe that al-Qaeda launched the 9/11 attacks, while 15 per cent think the US government was behind the assault, and seven per cent blame Israel, according to a
2008 world public opinion study carried out by the Program on International Policy (PIPA) Attitudes at the University of Maryland, which interviewed 16,063 people worldwide.

But Ahmadinejad views himself as a leader in the Arab and Muslim worlds. And, in these regions, surveys show significant sectors of the population believe that the US and Israel launched the 9/11 attacks to meet their own geopolitical goals.

In Jordan, 31 per cent of those polled by PIPA believe Israel was behind the attacks, while only 11 per cent blame it on al-Qaeda. Likewise, 43 per cent of Egyptians blame Israel, and 12 per cent
think the US was responsible, while only 16 per cent think al-Qaeda brought down the towers.

A 2006 poll from Scrippsnews says 36 per cent of Americans consider it "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that US government officials either allowed the attacks to be carried or launched the attacks
themselves.

'Alternative' perspectives

The most popular website on so-called alternative views on the September 11, 2001, attacks seems to be 911truth.org. The site acts as a clearing house for an array of various views and refuses to articulate an exact position on who it believes launched the attacks and why. Rather, it poses a series of questions, while offering readers the "Top 40 Reasons to Doubt the Official Story".

A "documentary" called Loose Change questioning the official 9/11 narrative, has been popular among activist groups and other more traditional doubters.

"That 19 hijackers are going to completely bypass security and crash four commercial airliners in a span of two hours, with no interruption from the military forces, in the most guarded airspace in the United
States and the world? That to me is a conspiracy theory," Korey Rowe, the film's director, told Time magazine.

Mainstream media in the West, and even the US government itself, have felt a need to respond to these theories. The US state department's Bureau of International Information Programs has a website devoted to debunking the "top September 11 conspiracy theories".
http://www.america.gov/st/webchat-english/2009/May/20060828133846esnamfuaK0.2676355.html

In a piece titled "Why the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Won't Go Away", Time argues that what many would call conspiracy theories are "not a fringe phenomenon".

'Planned demolition'

Some of the more unconventional claims include that the twin towers did not collapse from the impact of two Boeing 767s and the petrol stored in their tanks. Rather, the buildings collapsed in a planned, controlled demolition - perhaps through explosions in the basement.

Another popular theory is that a missile fired by elements from within the US government hit the Pentagon, rather than an aircraft. Some of the "alternative" or "conspiratorial" views come from people
who seem like serious scholars.

The Centre for Research on Globalisation,
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=theme&themeId=18
a site which frequently publishes articles critical of the "deliberate suppression" of answers on 9/11 and the "falsification of evidence" by the US government, has Dr Michel Chossudovsky, a professor at the University of Ottawa and author of the well-researched book The Globalisation of Poverty, as one of its leading members.

Posting on Twitter, a user called Martynnorris says: "Which is more childish, the rantings of Ahmadinejad or the faux shock and the offended face?"

Regardless of what polite opinion thinks inside the Washington, DC, beltway, Ahmadinejad is speaking to a significant global constituency. There is little evidence to suggest that they include "the majority of the American people, as well as most nations and politicians around the world", as the Iranian leader said in his UN speech. But the 9/11 "conspiracy theories" are not a fringe phenomenon either.
 
 
Source: Al Jazeera

[bigron]

Media Disinformation: The Facts About Ahmadinejad's UN Speech

By Jack A. Smith
 
Global Research, September 26, 2010
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=21198


The Iranian leader did not accuse the U.S. of conspiring to murder thousands of its own people to create a pretext for launching wars as conveyed by the US media. 

A large portion of the American people, on  the basis of media reports, probably think that during his UN speech Sept. 23 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that the U.S. government secretly arranged for the 9/11 attacks. He did not say that, however.

 

In its Sept. 24 article about the speech The New York Times headline read: "Iran Leader Says U.S. Planned 9/11 Attacks." The first paragraph declared: "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran made a series of incendiary remarks in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, notably the claim that the United States orchestrated the Sept. 11 attacks to rescue its declining economy, to reassert its weakening grip on the Middle East and to save Israel."

 

On the basis of his remarks the U.S. led 33 nations in theatrical walk out from the General Assembly while he was talking. And the next day, in an interview with the BBC's Persian service, President Barack Obama said Ahmadinejad's 9/11 remarks were "offensive. It was hateful. And particularly for him to make the statement here in Manhattan, just a little north of Ground Zero, where families lost their loved ones, people of all faiths, all ethnicities who see this as the seminal tragedy of this generation, for him to make a statement like that was inexcusable.”

 

On Sept. 25, the Times published a correction: "A headline on Friday with an article about an incendiary speech in the United Nations General Assembly by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran summarized his remarks about the Sept. 11 terror attacks incorrectly. In his speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad asserted various theories about the origin of the attacks, including the possibility that they had been planned by the United States. He did not say that the United States had planned the attacks."

 

The Times was one of many U.S. newspapers, TV and radio news reports that suggested Ahmadinejad accused the U.S. government of secretly instigating the attack — a conspiracy theory believed by some Americans and others. Following are the few paragraphs pertaining to this matter from the Iranian leader's text:

 

"It was said that some three thousands people were killed on the 11 September for which we are all very saddened. Yet, up until now, in Afghanistan and Iraq hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, millions wounded and displaced and the conflict is still going on and expanding.

 

"In identifying those responsible for the attack, there were three viewpoints.

 

"1- That a very powerful and complex terrorist group, able to successfully cross all layers of the American intelligence and security, carried out the attack. This is the main viewpoint advocated by American statesmen.

 

"2- That some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy and its grips on the Middle East in order also to save the Zionist regime. The majority of the American people as well as other nations and politicians agree with this view.

 

"3- It was carried out by a terrorist group but the American government supported and took advantage of the situation. Apparently, this viewpoint has fewer proponents. The main evidence linking the incident was a few passports found in the huge volume of rubble and a video of an individual whose place of domicile was unknown but it was announced that he had been involved in oil deals with some American officials. It was also covered up and said that due to the explosion and fire no trace of the suicide attackers was found."


Ahmadinejad did not suggest these were his views. He was incorrect to claim that a majority of Americans subscribe to a well known conspiracy theory that is strongly held by a l minority in the United States.

 

In a 2009 poll conducted by Public Policy Polling, 14% of the American people believe "President Bush intentionally allowed the 9/11 attacks to take place because he wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East.” Many of the people who hold this view are war opponents, but it is not the perspective of the large majority of the U.S. peace movement.

 

In 2006, a Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll reported that "more than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East."

 

In a 2008 poll conducted in 17 countries by WorldPublicOpinion.org, majorities in nine countries blamed al-Qaeda. In all countries there were minorities which blamed the U.S. The percentage of many who blamed Washington was in single digits or teens but in Germany, for instance, it was 23%, South Korea 17%, Mexico, 30%, and Turkey 36%. The average of all countries as to the responsible party was al-Qaeda 46%, U.S. 15%, Israel 7%, Other 7% and Don't Know 25%.

 

So while not putting forward such arguments himself, Ahmadinejad exaggerated or misspoke regarding the proportion of those who think that the Bush Administration was involved in a 9/11 conspiracy that is evidently being covered up by the Obama Administration. If it was true, how could Obama not know? Many Americans, accustomed to Washington's long demonization campaign against Ahmadinejad and Iran, now believe the Iranian leader grotesquely accused  the U.S. of conspiring to murder thousands of its own people to create a pretext for launching wars.

 

We have never believed the conspiracy theory, not least for two reasons:

 

• Washington hardly needs an excuse of such magnitude to launch a war against small and basically defenseless nations. U.S. governments frequently attack such countries, and the usual excuses of  "spreading democracy" or "humanitarian intervention" suffice to deceive the majority of Americans time and again.

 

• If Washington sought to stage a pretext for invading poor, bedraggled Afghanistan it didn't have to engage in one of the most complex and dangerous conspiracies ever devised in history. It would take thousands of government operatives from many departments to plan and execute the attacks on the Pentagon, World Trade Center and the failed attempt on the White House. And if just one conspirator talked, out of all the people involved, the blowback would have destroyed the Bush Administration, the Republican Party, the cover-up Obama Administration, and completely discombobulate the entire country for decades. It's simply unnecessary and  illogical.

 

But there was a "conspiracy," of course.  It was a state conspiracy to dominate the entire oil-rich Middle East, overthrowing regimes in Iraq, Iran and possibly Syria in the process, and also extend U.S. hegemony into Central Asia to compete geopolitically with China and Russia. This conspiracy is known as U.S. foreign and military policy, and most of the details are available in a great many public government and media reports, assuming one has enough knowledge to read between the lines when necessary.

 

It is a fact the Bush Administration used 9/11 as an immediate rationale for gaining a foothold in Central Asia, and partially used 9/11 to replace the Ba'athist regime in Iraq with a government responsive to Washington's diktat in preparation for regime change in Iran. But the U.S. had been active in Afghanistan since 1979, and could have found any number of pretexts to take out the Taliban. And the planning to overthrow the Baghdad government began during the Clinton Administration in the 1990s, and would have taken place with or without 9/11, especially after Iraq was so weakened by U.S./British/UN sanctions that it was a military pushover, until the unexpected guerrilla insurgency forced a stalemate.

 

From time to time President Ahmadinejad is his own worst enemy because of his incautious remarks. In judging him it's more important to watch what he does than what he sometimes says. He has taken no aggressive foreign action and there is no proof Iran is building nuclear weapons. His government's military strategy is entirely defensive.

 

While the Obama Administration continues to complain about Ahmadinejad's 9/11 remarks, little is said about his simultaneous call for early negotiations about swapping enriched uranium. And his agreement with Brazil and Turkey earlier this year to achieve the uranium swap Obama was demanding encountered derision from Washington when it was announced, followed by the increased sanctions the U.S. and Israel considered more important than a settlement.

 

For different reasons, the U.S. even more so must be judged by its performance, not its words. While Washington talks peace, it is fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen, vastly increasing its drone attacks, and is now deploying Special Operations forces in 75 countries, 15 more than last year. And while Obama usually speaks softly. he constantly wields — directly in Ahmadinejad's face — the big stick of a potential crushing attack by the U.S. and Israel.

 
 

[bigron]

Ahmadinejad stands by 9/11 probe call

Mon Sep 27, 2010 11:10AM
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/144178.html

Iranian President Mahmoud AhmadinejadIranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has stood by his call for the establishment of an independent fact-finding committee to investigate the 9/11 attacks.


"An in-depth inquiry needs to be conducted into the incident," said the president at a gathering in the city of Abadan in Iran's southwestern Khuzestan Province on Monday.

"A tribunal should be set up where any [alleged] evidence and documents (on the 9/11 attacks) can be presented," President Ahmadinejad continued.

"If those on trial are found guilty, then justice should be served on them," he underlined.

The Iranian chief executive again underscored that the US-led invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan came under the pretext of the 9/11 incident.

"Under the same excuse, all Muslims, revolutionaries and justice-seekers around the world were accused, and the fiercest propaganda campaigns were launched against hem," he noted.

Hundreds of thousands of innocent people have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan so far, President Ahmadinejad highlighted.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the president said capitalism which was once seen as 'invincible' is on shaky ground now.

"Once, the Iranian nation was empty-handed and oppressed. However, the nation stood up to global hegemony and safeguarded its dignity with reliance on God," said the president.

"Today, the strong waves of the Islamic Revolution (of Iran) is crushing enemy bastions," the president said.

"Everyone knows that there is only one impenetrable stronghold to defend good and justice in the world, and that is the Iranian nation," President Ahmadinejad concluded.

NN/MMA/HRF

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[bigron]

September 27, 2010
http://counterpunch.com/stahl09272010.html

Ahmadinejad Steals the Show


But Citigroup is the Real Culprit
 
By JAYNE LYN STAHL

All the furor, and media feeding frenzy over Ahmadinejad's comments at a meeting of the United Nations on Thursday couldn't have been better timed.

When Iran's Machiavelli decided to vent about the U.S. exploiting the bombing of the World Trade Center as a pretext for invading and toppling sovereign states in the Middle East, members of the U.S. delegation and those of several other European nations reportedly headed for the door. This makes for good copy, but does it make for good diplomacy? More to the point, such high theatrics steal the show rendering any other news coverage impossible.

So, when Ahmadinejad told FOX News, that it was time for a "fact finding mission" to find out who the real culprits were behind 9/11 as, in his opinion, the U.S. government was behind the attack, he was clearly stoking the fire of middle America by saying "such an insane and nutty thing." He was also driving up the ratings of all the major television news networks that covered the story.

While the president might consider the Iranian leader's comments "hateful" and "offensive," he allowed what was predictable, and won't even wind up as a footnote in history books, to hold America's attention captive for 48 hours.

What's more, the president did not deny Ahmadinejad's claim, as the Associated Press reports, that the U.S. has allocated $80 billion to upgrade our nuclear arsenal nor the hypocrisy of working with Russia, India, and Israel on their nuclear arsenals in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. He merely went along with the drama by instead focusing on the shamefulness of those remarks, especially so close to ground zero. What's really shameful is that the claim can't be refuted.

Nobody is defending Ahmadinejad's statements which were, at best, wildly inappropriate, but something else is being lost in the shuffle. The Obama administration and the mainstream media enabled furor over Ahmadinejad, as well as all the hooplah over the building of a Muslim community center at ground zero, at a time when Texas has decided to limit the number of references to Islam in future history textbooks. If we treat people as enemies, do they not become enemies?

Moreover, the news that poses the greatest threat to national security was eclipsed, deliberately or otherwise, by the visit of a the man who is, and has always been, essentially the fall guy for the Ayatollah.

On Friday, when most of America was preparing itself for the weekend, and after nonstop news coverage of Ahmadinejad's follies, it was announced that the feds have taken over three major credit unions.

It was also announced, on Friday, that Citigroup is awarding many of its executives with millions of dollars of salary raises in stocks. Citigroup, as you know, is partly owned by the government, and was the recipient, according to the AP, of $45 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) or government bailout money. So, in essence, your tax dollars are again going into the pockets of top executives with the stock market being used as a money-laundering operation.

While there is a federal pay cap on how much any chief executive can earn, one can supplement their compensation by awarding them millions in stock options which is precisely what Citigroup has done.

British deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, told the General Assembly that Ahmadinejad's "remarks were intended to distract attention from Iran's obligations and to generate media headlines."

The response by the United States and representatives of those other 27 other European nations who walked out of the United Nations, and those news outlets that covered the story nonstop, to Ahmadinejad's remarks effectively deflected attention away from the fact those who have been sticking their hands into our pockets to enrich themselves are still at it.

Jayne Lyn Stahl is a widely published poet, essayist, playwright, and screenwriter, member of PEN American Center, and PEN USA.



 

[bigron]

Iran ready to help nab 9/11 perpetrators

Sun Oct 3, 2010 7:46AM
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/144979.html

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has once again renewed a call for a probe into the 9/11 US terror attacks, insisting that facts about the event must be clearly established.


The US and its allies used the September 11 incident as a pretext to come to the Middle East region and carried out whatever they wanted, President Ahmadinejad said on Sunday.

The Iranian chief executive urged the United States to respond to hundreds of questions that still remain unanswered regarding the 9/11 attacks.

He emphasized that the US started a game in order to "attack our region," adding that Washington seeks to plunder regional assets and dominate the entire region.

President Ahmadinejad urged the United States to identify and execute the rouge elements involved in the 9/11 attacks that killed 3,000 people and declared, "We are ready to help Washington arrest them if it supplies us with the evidence."

He also pointed to US crimes in the region and urged Washington to apologize to the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan for its criminal measures.

The president demanded that the US stop committing crimes and pull out of the region before regional nations drive it out by force.

In his September 22 speech at the UN General Assembly in New York, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad raised serious doubts about the credibility of Washington's account of the source and nature of the attacks implying that a “very powerful and complex terrorist group, able to successfully cross all layers of the American intelligence and security, carried out the attack.”

Ahmadinejad said that despite US efforts to establish its own version of events as facts, many throughout the world remain unconvinced and believe that “some segments within the US government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy and its loosening grips on the Middle East in order to save the Zionist regime [of Israel].”

SF/MB/HRF

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