Wednesday, 10 September 2008 04:23
Seven years ago, criminal terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers, the
Pentagon were carried out on September by hijacked planes led to the
deaths of thousands of people. A month later, key figures in the print
and broadcast media and members of Congress were sent envelopes
containing very lethal and highly weaponized anthrax, which led to the
deaths of journalists and postal employees. After the initial shock
diminished, there were calls for explanations, investigations,
accountability and a reasoned response that did not include war. The
administration ignored or openly opposed them. Instead we went into a
call for permanent wars hat would last beyond our lifetime, changes in
civil liberties both overt and covert, a takeover of state power by the
executive branch, and the creation of a national security emergency
state that would somehow protect us.
Cynthia McKinney was one of the few voices of reason during that time in
the Congress. Long an opponent of militarism and wars abroad, she also
called for explanations and accountability when information began to
come to light about multiple advanced warnings and apparent
foreknowledge of the imminence and methods of the attack inside
government intelligence agencies that still failed to prevent it. She
supported calls by the families of the 9/11 victims for an official
investigation in what was being termed a "failure of intelligence" even
though it more closely resembled a failure of response, of standard
operating procedures, and of government officials and agencies to
respond and prepare for, or even comprehend the source of these attacks.
With the formation of the 9/11 Commission at the insistence of the
families and the public, press attention and investigative journalism
began to reveal much more about the historical relationship of our CIA
and Pentagon with the same terrorists who were allegedly behind the
attacks, about the role the US has played in the history and
international relations in the Middle East since WWII, about illegal
covert operations that were hidden from the people and the Congress and
funded by profits from illegal drugs, about the obstruction of
investigations into the hijackers prior to the events, and about the
inexplicable failure of defenses during the attacks. When the official
9/11 Commission Final Report was released, it got wide attention and
acclaim from the press, but the families said that 70% of their
questions remained unanswered by this flawed investigation, and called
for more hearings to get at the truth and to establish oversight and
accountability.
Vilified and misquoted in the press at the time, McKinney had raised the
first of many serious questions about the events and accountability in
an atmosphere of denial. But she was vindicated when others began to ask
the same questions in light of the evidence. Unable to get the
Republican controlled Congress to allow further hearings, she organized
a day-long briefing on the remaining questions and the flawed
assumptions, investigation, conclusions and recommendations of the 9/11
Commission drawing on experts from across the country. A full transcript
of that briefing appears at:
http://archives.allthingscynthiamckinney.com/mckinney.house.gov/20050722transcript.pdf
Long an opponent of government secrecy and an advocate of transparency
in democracy, McKinney introduced legislation to release all the
government classified files on Dr. Martin Luther King’s life and death.
When she discovered at another public examination of the 9/11 Commission
findings, held in New Yoirk City as a Citizens Commission, that every
footnote at the end of the official report refers to interviews,
documents and forensic materials that were sealed from public view by
the Commission until 2009, she began to call for release of the records
and evidence that are the only way to verify the conclusions of the
official investigation. Most of these files were not classified or
secret to start with. An effort to use the Freedom of Information Act to
file requests of all the agencies involved for each document failed to
release a single record to date. She continues to push for a release of
all pertinent records in the case.
At this point, Cynthia McKinney stands in full support of the 9/11
famlies groups and the public who are seeking to establish a fully
independent and transparent public investigation into the historical
background, the events, the official response and aftermath of 9/11. The
full truth is not yet known or established in this critical event that
has shaped American domestic and foreign policy in the last seven years
and may for decades to come.
McKinney is featured in a new British award-winning documentary called
The Elephant in the Room
(http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4701757632630708538) about the
public efforts to understand 9/11 and the Truth Movement.
She will be speaking out on these issues in New York City on the
anniversary of the attack. In the Truth TV section on this site there
are videos of her earlier comments about 9/11.
9/11
Press Conference
2:00pm
St. Marks Church,
131 East 10th Street (2nd Avenue & 10th Street, Manhattan)
New York, NY 10003
Vigil and Speeches
http://www.2008nowornever.com/events.html#911
6PM McKinney Speech
Judson Memorial Church
55 Washington Square South (this is just below West 4th Street so it’s
just a few minutes away from the above)
New York, NY 10012
Buzzer Thirty event
http://www.boomantribune.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2008/9/1/205653/8542
8-9:30PM – Tentative
Waltz-Astoria
23-14 Ditmars Blvd. (Queens)
Astoria, NY 11105
9/12
1PM –- 5PM
http://www.2008nowornever.com/events.html#912
The Madison
27 W 24th St (Between 6th Avenue and Broadway)
New York, NY 10010
Dee's 'Dotes~Anecdotes of a Green Activist 