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Reviewer: Dhouma Gupta Boobsies (see more about me) from Owls Head, Maine
Were the attacks of September the 11th the daring exploits of crazed Muslims seeking to deliver a fatal blow to the economic engine of the United States? Or were they a carefully crafted plan among elite insiders within the Bush Administration to kick start a war and invigorate a new American Imperium?

Both radical Muslims and Bush insiders (Neocons) have reasons to want a larger war, a "clash of civilizations," but did Muslims really have the means to carry out such a large terrorist operation while eluding the prying eyes of the NSA, CIA, foreign intelligence, and the FBI? David Griffin takes the details of 9/11 apart a piece at a time, looks it over, and comes to the conclusion that the standard storyline about Muslims hijackers simply strains credulity. In fact, I think most people have very little knowledge of the precise events of 9/11 and have too quickly and naively bought the government storyline. If there were a real investigation into the events of 9/11 it would not start with the premise of how did Arab hijackers get away with it, but were Arab hijackers really part of the story at all?

Why were the response times to the first hijacked airline, AA flight 11, so slow? We knew that the flight was hijacked by 8:18 a.m., but the Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., well over an hour later. Why were fighters not scrambled to protect the air space of New York and Washington D.C.? Did someone give orders for the fighters to "stand-down" or was it just bungling incompetence? Even if we concede there was a collapse in normal protocol, what tranformed pitiful Arab pilots into top gun showmen? The hijacker, Hanji Hanjour, who crashed flight 77 into the Pentagon was engaging in aerial manuevers that would bedazzle the best fighter pilots. Radio operator at Dulles, Danielle O'Brien, first thought Flight 77 was a US military aircraft heading to protect D.C. based on its speed and aerial acrobatics. The flight then descends 7000 feet and acts as if it's starting a landing approach, except it's moving at 450 mph, when it crashed perfectly into the lower wall of the Pentagon. Can a pilot who cannot land a Cesna align a Boeing 757 to perfectly impact the Pentagon, leaving the lawn in pristine condition?

Even if it's conceded that both towers could collapse solely due to the impact of two large Boeings, what brought down WTC7? The FEMA report was inconclusive, but owner, Larry Silverstein, in a PBS documentary, said he made the decision to "pull it." This is a frank admission, and suggests there were bombs already in WTC7 long before 9/11. Of course this also raises the possibility that there were also bombs, C-4 explosives, in the two world trade towers.

The Neocons in the Bush Administration have long sought a greater war with Islam, and believe it's paramount that America assume its role as the new Imperium. These ideas first began to germinate during the first Bush Administration when Paul Wolfowitz, now assistant Sec. of Dec, wrote a memo proposing a new strategy for American foreign policy: to prevent the emergenge of any new rival. Then we have a 1996 Foreign Affairs essay written by Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan arguing for a "benevolent global hegemony." In 1997 Bill Kristol formed a new think tank, Project for the New American Century, where the infamous essay Rebuilding America's Defenses called for incrases in defense spending, a new American cavalery to police the world, the development of space weapons, unilateralism, but the observation that this "tranformation" would require another "catastrophic and catalyzing event, like another Pearl Harbor." They got their wish.

It might be easier to think that only radical Muslims could carry out such a bloodthirsty attack, but evidence clearly shows the Neocons also have a motive and have benefitted from the terrorist attack. Before the ruins even finished smouldering we had Neocons like Norman Podhoretz writing essays entitled How to Win World War IV.

Griffin's book really eviscerates the mainstream story about 9/11, but another book needs to complement the information in this book with one that highlights neocon perfidy. At the end of the day, there is a good case to be made that the 19 hijackers were not suicidal Arab pilots, but key administrators who continue to walk the halls of power in the Bush Administration.

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Reviewer: gsluss from Valley Center, CA USA
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.

www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1566565529/002-7766009-2621646