The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11

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Summary: A very credible, thought-provoking analysis of 911
Review: This book is extremely readable, in spite of the scientific and technical references used. Griffin has managed to assemble and analyze much of the available information on the enigma that is 911. The questions raised are thought-provoking and disturbing. Despite the fact that Griffin posits several possible scenarious, he leaves it up to the reader to form a conclusion; however, with the evidence presented it is impossible not to realize that many people, high up in our Administration, are obviously implicated in the greatest tragedy in the recent history of our nation, although many readers may be in denial -- unable to face the enormity of the probabilities.

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Summary: After reading this book, things started to make sense
Review: Think of this . . . after the space shuttle accident, 51 million dollars was allocated to the investigation. People walked across entire states picking up little pieces of shuttle, analyzing everything in an attempt to find out what went wrong so that it wouldn't happen again. This happens after every major transportation accident and alleged sexual tryst between elected official and intern.

On the other hand, look at what happened after the single greatest defense failure in American history. Bush went to Tom Daschle and asked that there be no investigation. A handful of 911 widows had to "shame" Bush into allocating 11 million dollars for an investigation who then tried to appoint Henry Kissinger as the head of the commission.

Since then, the Whitehouse has done everything in its power to stonewall the investigation while sending its press boy secretary (whose father recently wrote a very compelling book about LBJ's complicity in the murder of JFK ) out to say, "The Whitehouse has given unprecedented access to the 911 commission." This same press secretary told us that the prison abuse scandal was just, "a few bad apples".

I think the conclusion that any think person will come to after reading this book is, "There ought to be a new and truly independent investigation".

When I told my father, a retired physician, that I was reading this book he said, "Stop reading all that conspiracy crap". I said, "ok if you promise to at least try and read it". He read it cover to cover in two days and said, "I'm deeply disturbed." He isn't a nut. The evidence in this book is overwhelming. Open your brain, read this book and then make your own decision. I dare you.

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Summary: The missed story
Review: When I first heard the rumors that the Bush administration was complicit in 9/11 I dismissed it out of hand. My main reason was that I thought it would have been way to risky; imagine what would have happened if they got caught!

David Ray Griffin's "The New Pearl Harbor" poses so many, many unanswered questions and unanswerable "coincidents" that the reader comes away pretty convinced. At least this one did. This issue is too important to just dismiss with "no, it couldn't be." And the facts Griffin presents speak for themselves.

The one issue that it doesn't deal with adequately is: "Why is it that the mass media has completely failed to deal with this, and why is it that Congress and the politicians have also failed to deal with it?" To answer this, one must delve deeper into the nature of this period, something Griffin does not set out to do. Despite this, the facts are all there for anybody to see. This is a "must read" for those who want to consider themselves well-informed on current affairs.

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Summary: The fog of terrorist attacks
Review: This book offers the best narative of what happened on 9/11/01 to date. Indeed, he raises many questions that the Kean 9/11 Commission refuses to even ask.

I for one am curious how a tower, which was hit by a 60 ton jet at 350 mph, did not visibly move, yet less than an hour later it collapses within 0.8 seconds of freefall in a vacuum. Falling through parts of the building which had no fires and where constructed of steel up to 4 inches thick. It seems to me, that even if the buildings were going to collapse, they would have offered at least as much resistance as the area where the plane hit (near the point of greatest leverage I might add.) Wouldn't the weld joints, bolts and rivets have offered more resistance over it's 1362 foot height and 110 floors than 0.8 seconds? (He doesn't mention this in his book, but the thought came to me when reading it, so I'm not breaking one of the review rules.)

And what about World Trade Center Building 7? That's a mystery.

Now that the fog of the terrorists attacks has finally begun to lift, it's time for us to ask the really tough, an unsettling questions regarding 9/11.

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Summary: Connecting the wrong dots to make a paranoid picture
Review: Yet another of what will be a torrent of 9/11 conspiracy theories for years to come. This "research" is poorly selected, and cobbled together to present the author's nightmare scenario of the U.S. government's participation in this terrible event. Isn't the truth, unfolding from studies by credible engineering firms, historians, and eyewitnesses, bad enough for this "scholar?" Perhaps he can yet submit that the world is, indeed, flat. After all, Mr. Griffin could probably find evidence to support the case!

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Summary: Rational, reasonable, objective
Review: I'm not a fan of typical "conspiracy theory" literature and, while aware of this book, avoided it because I figured it was just another paranoid screed by some crank with a warped point of view. Finally, after some cajoling from a level-headed friend who raved about it, I picked it up and found, happily, that it is anything but what I'd expected. Griffin supplies a rational, reasonable, objective approach to the facts of 9-11 and simply clarifies the questions we should all be asking about that fateful event. Yes, we all lived the horror, but unless you've read this book, you've not treated yourself fairly in terms of trying to come to grips with what it was really all about.

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Summary: Either this sinks the President or we face Armageddon
Review: A theologist raising a lone voice against a high crime of state reminds one immediately of the Nazi scourge and the almost lone voice of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whom Hitler hanged a few days before the end, to rob him of any sense of victory or redemption that he might have enjoyed.

The Bush regime presented a similarly hard face of universalist missionary zeal, albeit not uniformed, with a messianic vision of putting the world to rights, an enormous military machine with which to do it, curfew-lite civil rights, and a consumer economy in a state of overheated boom. The post-9/11 regime granted the attacks religious icon status, with pictures of brave firemen at Ground Zero being played to children in school across the nation over the sound of the Stars and Stripes every morning.

The so-called War on Terror was declared, although it was strangely at odds with the Americans' indulgent attitude to terror as practised by the US-funded IRA in the UK, with the government of Mrs Thatcher being blown out of their beds at three in the morning at the Grand Hotel, Brighton, and vast swathes of commercial real estate gutted in Manchester and London. Suddenly, America was rising up in righteous fury.

It now seems that America's righteous fury was directed into wars that the Bush regime had long been planning behind the scenes. Indeed, the 9/11 attacks might have been a pre-emptive measure against a war in Afghanistan that the Pentagon was already plotting. Or, perish the thought, did they occur as a pretext for that war?

Dr Griffin, a student of "postmodern process theology", whose latest academic work was entitled "Reenchantment without Supernaturalism: A Process Philosophy of Religion", does not come down either way in his study of the "disturbing questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11".

Neatly timing his book to coincide with the Presidential elections, Dr Griffin is content simply to rehearse all the arguments long published on the internet and to categorise them by stages of criminality, rather like a judge would in a court when considering the sentence. Judgement in this book would start with impeachment, disgrace and exile, and end with stringing from a lamp-post like Mussolini.

If any misdeed mentioned by Dr Griffin in this cool, rational appraisal of the evidence is ever endorsed by a brave whistle-blower, Bush and his team are toast.

Dr Griffin freely admits that he is advocating the writings of others, from Jared Israel and Mike Ruppert to Thierry Meyssan and Paul Thompson, author of the enormous 9/11 timeline. Unlike them, however, he does not get mixed up in detail. For example, he ignores whether there were hijackers or not, because it is not vital to the argument. He never mentions Israel or Mossad, thus avoiding the wrath of the ADL, Harvard university and a huge chunk of the American intelligensia. He sifts out the nuggets and lays them out in a beautifully organised case, categorising the charges by eight degrees of complicity. The logic of the evidence is inexorable, starting with the most screaming fact of all: standard procedure was ignored in all four hijackings, meaning that the airliners cruised to their targets without being intercepted---and the administration first said that no scramble was ordered until after Flight 77 had hit the Pentagon, then changed their story. That very fact is the most egregious case of gross incompetence, yet nobody's head has rolled. Indeed, the incompetence argument is denied every time by the absence of consequences for the culpable.

Dr Griffin presents the evidence that no airliner ever hit the Pentagon, and suggests that Flight 93 was only shot down when it appeared that the "Let's roll!" crowd of rebellious passengers were about to beat the hijackers.

He examines the evidence that the Twin Towers were felled by demolition charges, as was WTC 7, crammed with top-secret offices, seven hours later.

He examines all the evidence of collusion before the event, including the implication of Pakistan's security service, and lists all the benefits to the regime afterwards.

Finally, he takes his whole case and puts all the arguments that dismantle it, e.g. if only Ted Olsen's evidence suggests Flight 77 was hijacked, did Ted Olsen sacrifice his celebrity wife for the White House? This and many other examples could easily be put straight by the independent inquiry that Griffin is calling for. Finally, Griffin turns to the incompetence theory (already scuppered by the complete absence of rolling heads) and points out the enormous number of major coincidences that have to be accepted to allow it. They defy belief.

This book should put the Bush team on the run; perhaps they already are. Things have moved on radically since this work was conceived about a year ago. Bush's enemies have a leader in John Kerry, and they have missiles, in the form of torture photographs and videos obtained from perverts at Abu Ghraib jail. The images are being leaked almost daily, and Bush's poll ratings plunge with every fresh issue. He is holed below the water-line and sinking visibly. Senior Pentagon figures are calling for the whole team to be fired. Their days seem to be numbered.

However, another aspect of Dr Griffin's book holds true. If any of the "disturbing questions" have equally disturbing answers, we can expect a huge affirmation to occur in the form of an atrocity that will apotheosize the dim-witted president, enshrine his administration in the sacred blood of unending war and condemn Grifin's questions to the rubbish dump of history.

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Summary: The Necessity to Investigate
Review: David Hill Griffin cogently presents the rationale for further independent investigation into the 9-11 tragedy in the wake of events and their aftermath. Griffin confronts the evidence and questions whether it is more likely that seemingly inexplicable events resulted from pure happenstance, mistake or design. His efforts leave us, as well as himself, concerned that what occurred on that fateful day that changed America occurred through at least some measure of design, and at the highest levels.

Griffin's intelligent exploration of the facts relating to the World Trade Center and Pentagon explosions leave readers in a state of great apprehension as well as seeking answers. The investigations of fire experts and structural engineers resulted in the conclusion that the temperatures of the buildings were not sufficient to cause the level of explosions that transpired. Also, what about the third building that exploded? As for the Pentagon, this is the most protected building in the nation. Andrews Air Force Base is located just a short distance away. How could it have been penetrated? Also, the damage sustained indicates that a missile rather than a plane struck the building. On a similar note, why was FAA regulations not followed, which called for scrambling any and all aircraft in such circumstances?

Griffin covers the question of what might have been known beforehand at the highest levels. He probes the link between Pakistan intelligence and the payment of $100,000 to one of the alleged hijackers. The protests on the part of Condoleeza Rice and other Bush administration figures that they had no indication that any terrorist attack was forthcoming by air is refuted by FBI cables. Griffin meticulously shows us that the warnings were numerous, and that those who provided them were often fired or reassigned.

Another major area of investigation that Griffin reveals is the suspicious market activity before 9-11, with put options placed in large amounts forecasting that United and American, the two airlines affected profoundly by 9-11, would experience major share declines. No explanation has been forthcoming explaining this suspicious economic activity.

Griffin has the eye and ear of the trained investigator. In one superbly laid out chapter he provides a series of points generating the probability that the 9-11 incidents occurred through design at the highest levels. He then poses other arguments in the direction that the actions resulted from mistakes. His analytical breakdowns serve as a superb review of the exhaustive information he earlier meticulously revealed.

Griffin's ultimate conclusion makes sense. He calls for an independent investigation providing the necessary funds to get the job done right. He points out the disadvantages incurred by the current commission headed by Thomas Kean, beginning with time and financial restrictions. Griffin notes the opposition direct and indirect provided by Bush, Cheney and others in the administration. The facts must be vigilantly pursued in a timely manner. Griffin's fine work makes that case in a cool, dispassionate manner, one that appeals to reason and decency rather than emotion.

Rating:
Summary: An informed and informative analysis
Review: Expertly authored by David Ray Griffin (Professor of Philosophy and Theology, Claremont School of Theology, California), The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About The Bush Administration And 9/11 is an informed and informative analysis gleaned from researchers and journalists from around the world. The ultimate conclusion is that print and media journalism failed rather badly in its collective duty to ask uncomfortable questions of the Bush Administration and the Federal Congress about the "who, what, where, when, how, and why" of the most audacious, provocative, and lethal attack upon the United States by foreign powers since the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. The issues considered range from the meltdown of air defense protocols, to the damaging revelations of dysfunctional American intel-ligence agencies, to the cover-my-butt political spinning that continues seemingly unabated more than two years later. The New Pearl Harbor should be considered "must" reading by every political activist, American politician, 9/11 Commission member, and concerned American citizen -- especially in light of the complex and controversial "War on Terrorism" which was (and remains) the consequence of that dark and infamous day.

Rating:
Summary: America is Seriously Broken
Review: Dr. Griffin really does a great job of putting a lot of the known evidence of 9/11 into focus. If this book is read with an open mind, it's difficult at the very least, not to admit the possibility that the 'super-arrogant', 'all knowing' Bush team, engineered 9/11 as the kickoff to their 'New American Century'. Why else are they fighting so hard to hide the facts from the American people?

Government engineered 'incidents' are nothing new, in American history, so this concept of 9/11 though chilling to contemplate, is far from impossible. It is most likely the only plausible explanation for what happened. This is why the founding fathers were so distrustful of government, and why we as Americans must always be so. It's the only way we will ever maintain a democracy! Some governments are perfectly capable of incidents such as 9/11 if the motive and ambition, reside at the top. The PNAC inspired Bush administration came into office with an unprecidented plan of empire, and therefore plenty of motive!

If we look at the strange behavior of key government agencies on the day of the attacks, and especially the FBI, in the run up to the attacks, their behavior supports government allowing the attacks to occur, rather than trying to stop them. The recent testimony of both the National Security Advisor Rice, and President Bush, before the 9/11 commission, illustrates either incompetence, or deliberate inaction, that in either case, ensured that the attacks took place!

Everything about the official version of 9/11 events just doesn't add up. With the current one-party rule in Washington, no one is accountable. On top of that, the government's 9/11 commission is well on it's way to an officially sanctioned white-wash; so we shouldn't look for much there either. This book on the other hand, is a must-read for anyone really interested in an objective examination of the facts of this national tragedy.