Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace

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Loose Change Forum on August 3, 2006
Bethlehem Library, Delmar, NY

Photos by Bruce Bushart
	Interview of Korey Rowe, Producer of Loose Change, on his personal experiences serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Click here for Part 1 of 2	Interview of Korey Rowe, Producer of Loose Change, on his personal experiences serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Click here for Part 2 of 2

Read the August 6, 2006 front page article in the Times Union!

Photos by Barbara Wickham

To join a discussion of Loose Change and other issues related to war, peace and justice, go to BNP forums.

9/11 Truth Video Draws 150 to Delmar Public Library

by Mark A. Dunlea

More than 150 residents crammed into the Delmar Public Library on a steaming Thursday night to view a screening of the 9/11 Truth Movement video, Loose Change 2nd Edition. The video’s producers - Dylan Avery, Korey Rowe, and Jason Bermas - answered questions afterwards. Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace sponsored the event.

The three twenty-year olds from Oneonta created the video with $6,000 and a laptop computer. The video has become a sensation on the Internet, rising to the 13th most watched video. The film had over 10 Million viewings on the Internet in May alone, and has prompted Vanity Fair to say it is maybe “The first Internet Blockbuster Movie”. You can view it at http://www.loosechange911.com.

The screening came just as several reports were published this week, starting with Vanity Fair, that documents that the lies told by the Pentagon to the 9/11 Commission about how NORAD and others responded to the hijacking were so evident that many of the Commission members wanted them to be criminally prosecuted. As a compromise, the Commission agreed to ask various government agencies to decide whether to bring criminal perjury charges; those investigations are still going on.

Vanity Fair was finally able to force the release of real-time audiotapes from the NORAD Command Center on the morning of 9/11. One of the things the tapes does is make many Americans aware for the first time that numerous war games were being played that morning, involving fake hijackings, which led to increased confusion among NORAD, FAA, air controllers and other security forces, making it more difficult to respond to the hijackings. The tapes show that the government was completely confused in their response, usually not scrambling to pursue the hijacked planes until after they had already hit their targets. See

http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/articles/060731roco01

http://www.vanityfair.com/features/general/060801fege01

The video falls clearly on the side that elements in the Bush administration, most likely the rouge elements clustered around the neoconservatives starting with Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, actively carried out the attacks to provide the pretext for their planned invasions of Iraq and the Middle East.. The video starts with a presentation of official U.S. government documents highlighting previous efforts to manufacture false “terrorist” attacks to generate popular support for military invasions of foreign countries (e.g., Cuba). The video also presents evidence that the FBI actively participated in the prior 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, overriding the pleas of their FBI informer that he should build a fake bomb rather than a real one.

A significant part of the video focuses on the theory that World Trade Center Towers and Building 7 were “pulled down” in a controlled demolition. Numerous video clips of firefighters and other rescue members moments after the collapse are presented with the witnesses saying they heard additional explosions – statements which apparently have since been expunged from the official record. Several videos of the collapse of the World Trade Center are presented that show numerous flashpoints on the towers as they quickly collapse that would be consistent with a controlled collapse. In a perfect controlled demolition free fall, the towers would collapse in 9.6 seconds; the actual time was 10.2 seconds.

The filmmakers urged the skeptics in the crowd to be the ones to ask questions in the Q and A session after the event. They also implored the crowd not to take their word. “We want you to take nothing we say at face value. We highly encourage you to research this information yourselves and come to your own conclusions. There is plenty of information out there that you can research.”

One of the scenarios that prompted several questions from the audience was the suggestion that Flight 93, which allegedly crashed in the field in Pennsylvania, was first landed at an airport in Cleveland and the passengers unloaded before taking off again. As crazy as that sounds, they did provide a surprising amount of supporting evidence. The airport in question was completely evacuated, with civilians forced to walk miles to leave. A number of audiotapes of the cellphone calls sound suspicious, with passengers talking to their moms repeatedly using their last names to identify themselves. And no body parts were ever found at the crash site, a first in aviation history, with the coroner being puzzled that he couldn't even find a drop of blood. The producers admitted they had no idea where the passengers of the flight are.

The video producers noted that they spent the earlier part of the day visiting a new 9/11 exhibit at the New York State Museum. While contending that the exhibit has a number of incorrect information, they were very excited to see a picture of several of the black boxes from the hijacked airplanes, taking their own picture of the picture. In their video, the government contends that most of the black boxes were not found, a highly unusual occurrence, claiming they were incinerated in the fire of the crash – though this is exactly what they are designed to survive. The producers noted however that the government claims the paper passport of one of the hijackers did manage to survive the fire and floated down unscathed to the streets of Manhattan.

We know that the Bush administration has lied about 9/11. The only question is how pervasive are the lies. It is well documented that the Bush administration misled the American people and the world about the reasons for invading Iraq, starting with the existence of weapons of mass destruction. Early on in the investigation, the FBI was forced to admit to family members of the victims that they had not been truthful in their statements about the hijackers and other details. It has also been established that the EPA misled the public about the environmental dangers after 9/11.

While the audience and the video producers were critical of the mainstream media for ignoring 9/11 for five years other than to beat the drum for war, they also criticized the left and the left-stream media such as Amy Goodman and Michael Moore from refusing to cover the 9/11 truth movement. For instance, when Goodman several years ago agreed to have David Ray Griffin, author of the New Pearl Harbor, on her Democracy Now show, she took the unusual step of turning the interview over to a 9/11 truth movement critic.

The media overwhelming dismisses those who raise questions about 9/11 as kooks. Yet a recent national poll by Zogby International found that "42% believe there has indeed been a cover up" (with 10% unsure) and 45% think "Congress or an International Tribunal should re-investigate the attacks, including whether any US government officials consciously allowed or helped facilitate their success" (with 8% unsure). " An August 2004 Zogby poll of New Yorkers showed nearly half believe certain U.S. officials 'consciously' allowed the attacks to happen and 66% want a fresh investigation. Such polls dutifully go unreported by the media and ignored by elected officials of both major parties.

It is well known of course that the neoCons in the Bush administration – led by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Vice-President Cheney – publicly wrote in their Project for a New American Century policy documents that America needed another Pearl Harbor to provide an excuse to launch various military invasions, starting with going to Iraq to seize the oil fields.