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Summary: Esssential Reading
Review: Essential Reading!
Book Review by Dr. Gerald H. Slusser, Valley Center, CA. A new book written by David Ray Griffin, a professor of theology at Claremont School of theology, raises significant and pungent questions about the involvement of the Bush administration in the tragedy now known as 9/11. This book reads like a fine detective novel. Nonetheless, its author has done his research very carefully and it is in the marshalling of the evidence that the suspense is created. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this book in bringing to our attention facts that challenge any attempt of the administration to explain away its responsibility, or even complicity, in the events of 9/11. Whatever you now think of the Bush administration and its handling of 9/11., this book is must, essential reading because it presents in careful, scholarly manner facts that have to be dealt with in any further analysis of the 9/11 tragedy and its aftermath, the war on terrorism.
Griffin begins with a detailed account of the events of 9/11, which he says constitute "the strongest evidence provided by critics of the official account". At 8:46 AM, one hijacked airliner hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Seventeen minutes later, at 9:03, another crashed into the South Tower. Then at 9:38, forty-six minutes after the first event, something hit the Pentagon. The standard procedure for dealing with hijacked airplanes calls for the Air Force to scramble jet fighters immediately and to escort these planes to an airfield and, if they do not comply, to shoot them down. The standard procedure was not followed; why? There was adequate time for such interceptions, but the orders were not given when they could have been.
There are further questions as to whether it was possible for the airplanes crashing into the WTC to have caused two towers to collapse and a third building, which was not hit and was over a hundred yards distant, also to collapse. The towers were steel-framed buildings and no buildings of this type have ever collapsed due to fire. The theory advanced is that the airplanes had so much fuel aboard that the fire was enormous---enough to soften the steel girders. Analysis of this possibility was quickly made impossible by gathering up all the steel and selling it as scrap overseas. Further evidence cited makes a good case for the towers having been brought down by demolition bombs carefully placed within the buildings. Seismic evidence suggesting such explosions was recorded by local laboratories.
There are also some very curious facts regarding the hit on the Pentagon. Qualified witnesses said that what they saw was some sort of aircraft [or missile] observed on radar at 7000 feet above the Pentagon. This craft then made a spiral descending turn of about 360 degrees descending to ground level in two and one-half minutes, to strike the Pentagon. Experienced air traffic controllers said they believed it to have been some sort of military plane. On-site evidence suggests that it was not a Boeing 757, but a missile or guided fighter jet that actually crashed into the building. Also, the part that was hit was an area under repair in which there were few military officials working. The damage that was suffered by the building was entirely too small to have been the result of the impact of a 757 plane. For your own sense on this matter, check out the photos shown on "Hunt the Boeing. Test Your Perceptions", found at: www.asile.org/citoyens/numero13/pentagone/erreurs_en.htm
Griffin puts forward ample evidence that the Bush administration had motive for this. In the year 2000, the right-wing authors of the: "Rebuilding America's Defenses", written by The Project for the New American Century, expressed the opinion that the military expansion they desired would be difficult or impossible unless a "new Pearl Harbor occurred". This project envisioned a major imperial expansion of American power that included a vastly increased military budget and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The goal for such invasion was primarily to gain control of oil supplies and their assured delivery.
Griffin further cites adequate evidence for assuming that the Bush administration actually knew in advance that such an attack as occurred on 9/11 was planned. He notes that as early as 1995 there was a report from the Philippine police to the U.S. government that they had found certain information on an Al-Qaeda computer outlining a plan named "Project Bojinka". This project envisioned hijacking airliners and flying them into targets such as the World Trade Center, the White House and the Pentagon. By July of 2001 both the CIA and the FBI had intercepted information that such an attack was planned for that Fall. Other sources also sent to the U.S. information stating that such an attack was planned.
Notable in Griffin's account is the failure of the press. After Dubya Bush came into office, the press did virtually no investigative reporting and hence totally failed in their responsibility to the public. Griffin points out that one year after 9/11 the New York Times wrote "One year later, the public knows less about the circumstances of 2,801 deaths at the foot of Manhattan in broad daylight than people in 1912 knew within weeks about the Titanic." The Bush administration has been the most secretive in history and continually wraps around itself the flag of national security as its protection.
In closing this review I want to make two comments. First is to commend Professor Griffin for an independent, careful and systematic examination of the evidence. He has set before us sufficient data on which to base an impartial opinion of the 9/11 event. Secondly, the conclusions of this book make it abundantly clear that we have the greatest problem in our history on our hands, far greater than the Nixon Watergate scandal. We seem to be being led like sheep into an imperialist stance in which America is to rule the world for the sake of American business and profit. Rev. Gerald Slusser, Ph.D. is a professor emeritus of theology and education from Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis.
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Summary: Amazon needs a better blurb...
Review: Amazon needs to find a better review of the book than the one it is currently using. I tend to talk the line between LIHOP and MIHOP, but to say that no one can doubt a flight hit the pentagon is ludicrous. (It's called lack of wings and major debris... Check out the evidence at one of many sites, like physics911.org .) A little searching on the net will find AP photos from that tragic day... Look for wings from a large airliner. You won't find 'em...
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Summary: A "MUST READ"
Review: I have just read Professor David Ray Griffin's new book ("The New Pearl Harbor:Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11") and its Foreword by Professor Richard Falk. Griffin, a Professor of Philosophy and Religion at the Claremont School of Theology in California for over 30 years and the author and editor of more than 25 books, is an accomplished intellectual with impeccable credentials. And he now has written an extraordinary new book. In calm and objective style, he invites us to compare what the Bush Administration has told us about 9/11 with the facts of 9/11 as he (Griffin) has been able to unearth them via careful scholarly research of the highest professional standards. Except to argue that there is sufficient reason to insist upon a genuinely full and independent investigation of 9/11, he deliberately does not reach any conclusion. Rather, he suggests possible conclusions and leaves it to us, the reader, to decide for ourselves what is fact and what is fiction. This is, indeed, part of the power of the book. However, as I read the book, the disparity between Administration spin and researched fact is sufficiently glaring as to suggest the distinct possibility of a constitutional crisis unlike anything our country has ever known. (...)
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Summary: I shudder
Review: Having been kept awake nights in the Bachelor Officer's Quarters at McGuire Air Force Base, NJ, by both Air Force and Navy jet fighters revving and taking off through the night in defense of New York City, I have wondered why, contrary to standard operating procedure, no McGuire jets were scrambled on 9/11. The standard operating procedure is to intercept aircraft that are off course or out of communication, but - even after the first tower was hit - this was not done. Having read Griffin's book, and even though he does not claim to have a conclusive answer to my question, I am beginning to understand. In fact, I am aware of and beginning to understand much much else as well. And I shudder. It may be too hot for the popular media to handle, but everyone - especially Air Force and Navy Air Corps veterans - should read and think carefully about the evidence and arguments considered in this book.
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Summary: Superstition, not science
Review: People who are tempted to read this book and who are inclined to believe its claims ought to learn a bit about architecture or engineering first. There were clearly no 'bombs' in the World Trade Center - any towers would have collapsed with the fires and structural damage that those buildings sustained. It's a sad commentary on the lack of respect for the sciences, in our educational system and our culture, that people so willingly believe the claims in this book. Be skeptical, investigate all possible explanations. Science always trumps whatever conspiracy theories you believe because you -want- to believe in them. I would advise people to read any number of engineering sites on the web about the towers' collapse.
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Summary: A great read & SO important
Review: David Griffin's wake up call to the nation reads like a murder mystery. Sadly, we are the ones being murdered. Americans citizens have been targeted not only by Al Qaeda, Griffin speculates, but by even more sinister forces. The book presents a cogent and rational series of hypotheses as to what actually happened on September 11, 2001. While I pray that the evidence Professor Griffin provides is wrong, or leads to conclusions other than those suggested in the book, the service to our country that the author provides represents the highest level of patriotism. Will Governor Thomas Kean's investigation proceed with the benefit of this book? We must read this and make certain that the issues it raises are part of the nation's public discourse.
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Summary: This should be required reading for all voters
Review: This book is the most powerful and most disturbing book I have ever read. For the first time, after reading this book, I started to "connect the dots" of 9/11. To be honest, these were not "dots" that I wanted to connect. If you think this is just another conspiracy theory book printed in an election year, then I challenge you to do one thing before you dismiss it as hogwash. Go out and look up every photograph you can find of the post-attack Pentagon. Then, see if you can find a plane in any of those photos. Whether Republican, Democrat, or Independent - you should read this book to: 1) find out for yourself what you think of the information David Ray Griffin presents concerning the events of 9/11 (with 40 pages of references) and 2) do your part to make sure we don't have to suffer through another 9/11 again. Can we really afford to stick our heads in the sand because this information is too difficult to hear? If we don't examine the events of 9/11 with an open mind and rigorous methods, will we be condemned to repeat it? Keep in mind that "even hypochondriacs get sick." And sometimes, once in a blue moon, a conspiracy theory is true. There is compelling evidence that THIS particular theory, that 9/11 was allowed to happen by a few people within the United States *establishment* to "galvanize" our hearts and minds should be investigated further.
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Summary: The New Pearl Harbor - A Couldn't-Put-Down-Book
Review: David Ray Griffin, a professor at the School of Theology at Claremont is a respected scholar and researcher in his field who has an interest in the workings of government. Though an academic, he has written a very accessible book on the most complex event in the recent history of the United States - "The New Pearl Harbor, Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11". The book makes no accusations but presents the accumulative questions and the events on which they are based in a manner that is compellingly persuasive of the need for a new fully independent investigative commission to be struck; this time to look at the time prior to, during the day itself and since that terrible day. In total the questions and events ask - was the Bush administration complicit in the events of 9/11? Yes, no one wants to believe such a possibility but the unanswered questions are startling. For example since 1995 the government has had warnings of Al-Queda intentions to attack the United States. Why were they not acted upon? The authors of the "Project for the New American Century: Rebuilding America's Defenses" have said that this rebuilding would be difficult to sell to the public without a "new Pearl Harbor". Could they possibly be willing to orchestrate such an event? Standard procedures for intervention when a plane goes off course were not followed on the morning of 9/11. Why? But this just scratches the surface of the material inThe New Pearl Harbor. This is the most disturbing and chilling book I have ever read. In an election year these questions need to be answered not only for the American people but also for your neighbours next door in Canada. This is a must read !
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Summary: I WISH IT WERE NOT TRUE
Review: I found David Griffin's book deeply disturbing. The cumulative mass of evidence that he brings leads one to have to question whether our leaders were simply frighteningly inept or possibly criminally complicit in the events of 9/11. This book desderves a wider distribution than Clark's and Dean's.
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Summary: Important Questions Asked
Review: The current "National Commission Investigating Terrorist Attacks on the United States" is principally seeking explanations how and why the attacks were not anticipated and stopped by our and other intelligence agencies, prior to the event. In his new book, "The New Pearl Harbor - Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11", David Ray Griffin, Professor of Philosophy of Religion at Claremont [CA] College of Theology, explores a litany of discrepancies in the official record and account of the events of that day to consider the same questions from a different perspective.
This book is a concise synthesis and extension of three somewhat less readily available works - Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed's "The War on Freedom", Michel Chossudovsky's "War and Globalisation: The Truth Behind September 11", and Thierry Meyssan's "9/11: The Big Lie" - to make the essence of their combined content accessible to the general public. Griffin's approach is utterly admirable: coherently, systematically and objectively, he scrupulously and minutely documents the flaws, contradictions, inconsistencies and discrepancies in the 'official version' of the events of that day. Ultimately he assembles and tabulates a list of thirty-eight apparent irregularities in the timeline of, and evidence remaining from, these attacks and asks how they might plausibly be reconciled:
Why were the 'standard operating procedures' for the emergency scrambling of fighter jets in the event of a commercial airplane's highjacking not implemented until after the crash at the Pentagon?
Why was there no evidence of a passenger jet debris at the Pentagon crash site?
What happened on UA flight 93? Did the passengers regain control of the aircraft from the hijackers? If so, why and how did it crash in Pennsylvania?
Griffin refuses to disregard possibilities simply because they are outrageous, outlandish or shocking; he lets the evidence speak for itself. As the book's subtitle declares, the results are deeply disturbing.
He then examines the larger perspective, some of which has been publically considered by the "National Commission", but much of which appears not to have been, at least publically:
What relevant information did the administration have prior to the event and was its investigation obstructed?
What is the record and relevance of the financial markets in the days prior to the attacks?
Who would have benefited from the attacks and has an investigation into that question been obstructed after the fact?
Griffin proposes eight alternative scenarios to the official version of events and, although he obviously credits two or three over the others, is careful to maintain an air of objectivity, posing the questions for the reader to ponder rather than pronouncing judgment.
For conspiracy theorists, this will ultimately be an unsatisfying book: with admirable academic objectivity, Griffin refuses to indict or endorse any specific hypothesis. Rather he presents a substantial body of very disturbing evidence and calls for a real, open, hardnosed investigation that does NOT begin with the proposition that only those scenarios that assume our government or its members play only a benign and benevolent role - seeking only the welfare and best interests of its citizenry - will be considered.
"The New Pearl Harbor - Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11" is a book that ought to be carefully read and considered by every thinking, voting member of the electorate.
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