After three years of discussing murder cases on my blog, I have learned a lot about “circumstantial evidence” and how it is given the same probative weight in a trial as “direct evidence.” Circumstantial evidence includes a myriad of interconnecting facts and situations from which inferences or conclusions can be made. In isolation, one link of circumstantial evidence does not make or break a case; but taken in the context of other related events, many coincidences or decisions form a composite chain of evidence.
Direct evidence includes eyewitness statements and valid photographs or videos that capture events, as well as taped confessions. Timelines, maps, models, and scientific tests that recreate situations or explain the properties of motion, thermodynamics, fires, and ballistics are often used in trials to demonstrate how an event could or could not have occurred based on inelastic data: time, the laws of physics, mechanical realities, and limitations of the human body.
The Scholars for 9/11 Truth and other scientific organizations have compiled an overwhelming “preponderance of evidence,” including circumstantial and direct, that disputes the official findings of the 9/11 Commission. In his 2004 release The New Pearl Harbor, David Ray Griffin, one of the Scholars for 9/11 Truth, presents a thorough and very readable exposé of government complicity in the events of September 11. Griffin’s shocking and well researched work is recommended reading for anyone who is confused about disparate conspiracy theories or needs a place to begin. Griffin presents a nice summary of the evidence in The New Pearl Harbor that thoughtful readers would agree call for a full investigation.
The number of unlikely coincidences that occurred just prior to and after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have already filled pages of books and web sites, but let’s review a few especially interesting ones presented in Griffin's book:
- Plans to invade Afghanistan and Iraq were already in place before September 2001. The attack on 9/11 provided the pretext for invading Afghanistan (and later Iraq), but the geopolitical motives were primarily based on protecting and accessing vast sources of gas and crude oil. There is a plethora of evidence for this, not least of which is the blatant imperialist agenda of “The Project for the New American Century,” aka PNAC.
Article comments
1 - ryan
great job...not explaing or proving a single one of the bullet points...which, you actually just copied from a book.
2 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Loretta,
I'm not criticizing your work here. So, please don't take this the wrong way.
I've seen every single one of the bulleted points in your article elsewhere (not the same precise wording, of course) in lectures at the Root & Branch English Lecture Series. And the attack on the World Trade Center is not something I've covered very closely or paid a great deal of attention to.
It strikes me that the author of the this book has finally raised the questions that need to be raised about the attack on the World Trade Center in an intelligent way, without wild coinspiracy theories that throw credibility upon the raising of the questions. But how long will it be before the public starts to ask these questions in an intelligent way?
3 - loretta
The more people who are aware of the discrepancies between the "official" story and the facts, the better. This investigation is long overdue. The trail is getting cold.
Maybe you knew about all this before, but I can assure you that millions did not, and we need to get the word out.
4 - Greg in Germany
You know, there's also a whole body of work implicating FDR in the original Pearl Harbor. These opinions should be cataloged in the Alternative History section along with the admitted fantasists. The fever-brained conspiricy theorists will always be among us.
So, don't you know that the whole business is really being manipulated by UFO's?
5 - Chris
You have got to be kidding me, oliver stone lives!!
6 - loretta
Here's an interesting petition for a new investigation.
7 - Edward Rynearson
I've read:
"Crossing the Rubicon" by Michael Ruppert
"The New Pearl Harbor" by David R Griffin
"911 Commission, Omissions and Distortions" by David R Griffin
Recommended films:
"Why We Fight"
"In Plane Site"
"Loose Change 2"
I've dedicated my homepage (select URL) to displaying Loose Change 2 and have had over 3000 visitors in the past two weeks.
Take a look for yourself. And keep in mind how many times you've been lied to by the current rulers.
Today's headlines had an investigation opening up regarding NFL star Tillman's death by friendly fire. They told us he died heroically. NOw it seems there is a problem with the official story.
They told us that Iraqis pulled down the statue of Sadamn Hussein when it was done by American CIA Iraqis as a photo op infront of the hotel housing all the journalists.
They told us that private Jessica was abused by the Iraqis and heroically fought here way out. Turned out that she was saved by Iraqi doctors who treated her like a human being.
Weapons of Mass Destruction?
The battalions of trained Iraqi soldiers ready to take over.
The link between Sadamn Hussein and Osama Ben Forgotten?
The Bush administration is a made for TV movie (is about money and power - not gay marriage) and you may not like the ending. Get active!
8 - LunaC
Required Reading --> PNAC 101 - Rise of the Neocons - a concise history of the PNAC and the White House/Pentagon complicity in staging the 911 events.
9 - ryan
Look, if the government, not Bin Laden blew up the Pentagon, why would he have taken credit for it? Ultimately the guys goal is to inflict as much hurt, terror and chaos on our country, directly or indirectly. It would be a far bigger blow to find out our own people did it than a crazy stranger, and I'm certain he would be screaming from every rooftop if he didn't do it.
Here is the problem with your arguments, you want the Bush administration to be bumbling fools and diabolical villians at the same time. You're telling they had the skills to fake the largest American terrorist disaster--complete with planes and missles--but couldn't even plant WMDs in Iraq? They could fool millions of people who saw it happen with their own eyes? Half the pentagon? FBI? But couldn't pull a decent cover up thousands of miles away in the middle of a desert?
And for the record, Pat Tillman died heroically, friendly fire or not. I'm not sure how your accusing a gov't of lieing as they just opened another investigation.
Look, I realize the gov't lies to us, believe me I do. The logic, however, implicating them in Sept 11 is insane. It's not there, it doesn't make sense and its crap.
10 - LunaC
According to a retired Navy Lt Commander and 28-year veteran of the Defense Department (DoD), the US tried to plant WMDs but failed when the operation was taken out by “friendly fire”.
11 - LunaC
As for bin Laden, the Bush administration concluded, without supporting evidence, that he and al-Qaeda were prime suspects even though he never claimed responsibility for the 911 attacks.
It should be noted that bin Laden was recruited by the CIA via Pakistan’s ISI to fight Soviet invaders during the Soviet-Afghan war.
12 - LunaC
Furthermore, the CIA has maintained close ties to Pakistan to this day and General Mahmoud Ahmed, the head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta before the 9/11 attacks. In fact, Ahmed was actually in Washington on 9/11, and had a series of pre-9/11 top-level meetings in the White House, the Pentagon, the national security council, and with George Tenet, then head of the CIA, and Marc Grossman, the under-secretary of state for political affairs. When Ahmed was exposed by the Wall Street Journal as having sent the money to the hijackers, he was forced to "retire" by President Pervez Musharraf.
13 - LunaC
Then there’s Sibel Edmonds, the FBI intelligence translator who tried to
blow the whistle on the cover-up of intelligence that names some of the culprits who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks. She is now under two gag orders that forbid her from testifying in court or mentioning the names of the people or the countries involved but she has been quoted as saying: "My translations of the 9/11 intercepts included [terrorist] money laundering, detailed and date-specific information ... if they were to do real investigations, we would see several significant high-level criminal prosecutions in this country [the US] ... and believe me, they will do everything to cover this up".
The evidence is overwhelming and obvious for those who choose to stop drinking the kool-aid and buying into the “official” story.
14 - tommyd
The best and wildest conspiracy theories I've read about the attacks of 9/11....listen to this doozy......
19 suicidal Ay-rabs directed by a cave dwelling nomad broke through the 100 billion dollar US security apparatus to sucessfully surprise attack targets using 767 jets which ended up crumbling 2,110-story buildings to dust in the same exact manner. Thorough investigations of the event are halted because the evil mastermind is still alive and plotting to take over the world with Islamo-facsism directed from his cave in a remote Asian mountain range and US military bombardment is the only solution to this problem.
Now that's one of the wackiest and stupidest conspiracy theories I've ever heard in my life!!