Global Research

“If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.” JFK, 1963[1]

In September 2001 President George Bush II declared, “Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated.”

In the headlong rush to defeat terror, the US Constitution and Bill of Rights have been gutted, torture has become routine, and spying on citizens and allies has become rampant.

The “war on terror” has been described as “a war both on an unknown enemy, and on an abstract noun — and therefore it’s a war with no end and a war that cannot be won.”[2]

Regarding war, Thomas Jefferson advised the country regarding principles in his first inaugural address, 1801:  “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.”

If anything has the power to halt the wars manufactured by 9/11, and to restore democracy and world friendship, it is Massimo Mazzucco’s unassailable evidence that 9/11 was a false flag operation designed to support a new generation of US imperialism.

Upon this knowledge, we have the opportunity to rebuild justice both at home and abroad.

A year after its release, the exhaustive documentary, “September 11- The New Pearl Harbor,” is widely considered to be the definitive historical record of the events of that day.

Seldom does a masterpiece of such scope, gravity, and sheer brilliance arrive on the scene.

And almost never does truth emerge so clearly – a truth with the potential to resurrect our world.

Veteran Italian film-maker Massimo Mazzucco’s encyclopedic work integrates, in three fast-paced DVD’s, a vast collection of original media reports, mutually supportive witness testimonies, and declassified government documents.

In doing so, it presents the most complete videotaped evidence that has been assembled in one place about the extraordinary – and until now – mostly hidden events of September 11, 2001.

I. Introduction: Why 9/11 Still Matters

a ) 9/11 Has Undermined World Unity and Cooperation

In the present century, nothing has contributed more to a rift in the universal human family than 9/11.

Since that day, the US government and media have maintained a steady drumbeat of anti-Muslim innuendo – in spite of the fact that “tips from the Muslim-American community are the largest single source of initial information to authorities” about the few threatened al Qaeda plots since 9/11.[3]

Yet both the timing of this rupture in world relations, and our immense preoccupation with it, have collided with the urgent need for a coordinated international response to global warming.[4]

b) Millions of People are Actively Seeking the Truth

Thirteen years after the event, millions of people around the world are still confused and conflicted by nagging questions about 9/11.[5]

Confused, because while polls show that nearly 50% of Americans doubt the official story and are opposed to US involvement in the Middle East, the 9/11 story is constantly revisited on the airwaves, and continues to prod the country into illegal occupations abroad.

Conflicted, because they are required to support the media-sanctioned violence, mayhem, and East-West strife that has prevailed since the dubious event that set the tone for this century.

Confidence in the official story has eroded still further since Edward Snowden revealed the shocking extent of clandestine “deep state” spying on citizens and foreign leaders.

Since 2001, NSA has been violating the encryption protection that Internet providers guarantee their clients – thus bringing medical records, financial data, phone calls and personal email to unseen eyes, and to all manner of potential abuse.

In 2013,  NSA defended itself by invoking  9/11 to justify its controversial programs, recommending that its staff use “sound bites that resonate” such as, “I much prefer to be here today explaining these programs, than explaining another 9/11 event that we were not able to prevent.”[6]

Recently, a former senior NSA official who blew the whistle on unconstitutional surveillance in October 2001 has called for a new investigation into 9/11.[7]

Now, many formerly unsuspecting people feel deceived and debased by revelations of the shadowy purposes riding upon the uncertain story of 9/11.

Awakened, they want the real truth – and again, Mazzucco delivers.

c) Access to Public Debate Has Been Denied by the Media

All the while there has been an eerie disconnect between the corporate media – which with iron consistency dismiss independent 9/11 research as “conspiracy theory” – and nearly half the population, which suspects that 9/11 was a lie.[8]

Many, deprived of an open and honest public debate, are earnestly pursuing answers, as seen by the enormous number of public comments on films and articles dealing with the issue.[9]

This trend apparently alarmed the editors of Newsweek, whose May 15, 2014 cover read, “THE PLOTS TO DESTROY AMERICA: Conspiracy Theories are a Clear and Present Danger.”  The first-listed “conspiracy theory” in the article inside was 9/11.[10]

I personally have been told by journalists, including one on the staff of Canada’s national weekly Maclean’s magazine in 2009, and another on the staff of Victoria’s Times Colonist in 2013, that the subject of 9/11 “did not fit their editorial guidelines”.

Others in the US have reported that they would lose their jobs if they pursued suspicious questions about 9/11.

A September 2013 Russia Today newscast from the Truthseeker program, which interviewed professionals from three scholarly organizations showing 9/11 to be a false flag operation, was quickly buried on the Internet when it started to go viral September 8th. Viewing instantly fell off. (The original RT video is no longer available at all.)[11]

Little wonder this newscast had started to escalate.  For 12 years a mass of peer-reviewed academic evidence refuting the whitewash 9/11 Commission Report and the incoherent NIST building studies had swamped the Internet and fed the curiosity of the millions who had qualms about what they were told.  Finally a major network had done a news story on “inside job.”[12]

Frustration with the utter and irresponsible failure of the corporate media to address this issue of signal importance[13] has driven journalists of scruple and grit, such as Mazzucco, to spend years of their lives bridging the gap.[14]

His evidence-based 5-hour investigation has the power, scope, and credibility to settle the persistent doubts about September 11th and to lay the controversies to rest.

d) The US Constitution and Democracy Have Floundered in the Wake of 9/11  

As a result of September 2001, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights have been severely weakened; the Geneva Convention has been discarded; and the U.N. Convention Against Torture has been flagrantly violated.  In the name of 9/11, US presidents have “dismantled the rights that are fundamental to the identity of the United States and the security of its people.”[15]

The restoration of these rights requires concerted action by myriad people.

The Mazzucco documentary arms the viewer with the necessary evidence to demand a return to the Constitution and free democratic institutions – including a free press.

e)  9/11 Has Fostered a Military Economy to Displace a Human Services Economy

One of the worst legacies of 9/11 has been to divert attention and resources from urgent issues such as global warming, the ecological crisis, poverty, and disease, to a never-ending war on terror.

A unified response to the climate emergency and to pressing human problems  requires a new economic model to replace the outmoded military economy.

Until the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, the superpower arms race (which the US led) had provided a justification of sorts for a military economy.  As one might expect following the Soviet dissolution, US defense spending dropped off from 1991- 2001.

But in the decade after 9/11, US military spending rose sharply and steadily to 38% higher than it had been at the end of the Cold War in 1991.[16]

Given that the era of heightened militarism triggered by 9/11 is continuing to block a world response to critical human problems, it is more important than ever to have our facts straight about this perpetual war on an unknown enemy and an abstract noun.

II. How the Documentary Evidence is Formatted

Mazzucco makes the point very early that the onus of proof for what happened on 9/11 rests with those who produced and promoted the official story – not with those who challenge it.

If the official claims do not stand up, therefore, it is not the job of independent investigators to prove what happened instead.  Rather, it is the job of the original accusers to make their evidence stick.

Mazzucco brings order to 9/11’s swirling controversies by systematically contrasting both sides of 50 disputes generated by the official portrayal of events.

Each official claim is subjected to a kind of mini-trial. The claim is first presented through government documents and vocal advocates. Then the claim is balanced by opposing witness testimonies, early media reports, and declassified documents that the official sources had often failed to mention.

Finally the audience, in jury fashion, is asked a question.

For example:  The official story denied the possibility of controlled demolition in the tower collapses.  However, a first responder relates that on the evening of September 11 they found severed steel columns sticking up out of the ground at 45 degree angles, “far before the removal operations had started.”[17]  Ironworkers had not yet been brought in to do the removal, nor acetylene torches to cut the steel.

Another witness is shown explaining “V” cuts in the steel, which are used in controlled demolition to guide a building’s collapse.

The film viewer is then asked:

“Can you suggest a good reason why iron workers would need to perform “V”` cuts and a 45° cut on this piece of structure just to remove it from the rubble? “[18]

If, after seeing this documentary, the “audience” (the people of the world) declares the evidence against the official account to be gravely in doubt, then the onus of proof  is upon the US government and its media supporters to re-investigate the events of September 11 and to produce an accurate account.

III. The Film’s Depth of Documentation and Indexing

The enduring misery of the war on terror coupled with widespread doubts about its cause require that evidence on both sides of the 9/11 issue be universally available in a first-class reference work.

Indeed, Mazzucco has supplied a truly exhaustive degree of documentation seldom found outside peer-reviewed academic studies.

On virtually every topic for which evidence is cited the source is displayed as a subtitle.

In lieu of footnotes for written material, the camera zooms in on highlighted text from a host of newspaper accounts, government and FBI documents, FOIA releases, and expert studies.

The film is presented in seven parts and formatted as three DVD’s. Viewing is freely available on YouTube,[19] and on the film-maker’s website, where a detailed index allows for pinpoint access to 25-30 topics per DVD.[20]

IV. The Evidence Itself (Selected Highlights)

The evidence is presented in a unique reinforcing style that brings each contradiction into precise focus from many directions, thus creating virtually unassailable conclusions.

1. DVD-1

The film opens with eerie parallels between the attacks on 9/11 and Pearl Harbor – each a series of chilling undercover tactics used by Presidents Roosevelt and George Bush to anticipate, manage, and finally exploit the attacks for strategic advantage.

Selected highlights from DVD-1 include:

• The catastrophic failure of the air defenses to intercept any of the four planes – which air traffic controllers confirm were being tracked – within 1 hour and 40 minutes.  The defense system was jammed by 4-10 pre-scheduled war games.  Such games took away so many fighters at one time – mostly over Canada and Alaska – that only four jets remained on alert to defend the entire North-Eastern sector of the country.
• In spite of repeated warnings of imminent attacks upon the US from foreign governments during the summer of 2001, six key members of the chain of command were replaced at the last minute by rookies, or were otherwise mysteriously absent from their posts.[21]
• The Secret Service tracked the incoming plane that was headed for Washington for 30 minutes and had the means to shoot it down, but Vice President Dick Cheney, who was at the helm, took no defensive action when it entered Washington’s restricted airspace and headed towards the Pentagon.
• Novice pilots barely trained on small planes were able to hand-fly miraculous ascents and plunges of giant commercial airliners, hitting their targets with pinpoint accuracy.[22]
• NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski had an office at the Pentagon.  After the second plane had hit the World Trade Center, he bumped into a US military intelligence official who whispered, “This attack was so well coordinated that if I were you, I’d stay off the E Ring for the rest of the day, because we’re next.”[23]

2. DVD’s 2 and 3

Selected highlights include:

• An official explanation for why the Towers fell is that raging jet fuel cascaded down the elevator shafts, weakening the structural steel all the way to the basements.

However, the elevators ran in stages, so that no regular elevators ran from the sub-basements to the floors where the planes hit.  Arturo Griffith, interviewed on CNN, was traveling up to the 49th floor in one of the two service elevators and felt massive explosions but was not burned by a fireball roaring down the shaft.[24]

• Physics teacher David Chandler explains there is only one way for the Towers to have fallen as fast as they did: “The fact that it’s coming down at freefall says all of the energy is being used to make it go straight down, which means it’s coming down through itself and not breaking up the building as it goes – something else has to be clearing the way.”[25]
• Ejections, including steel beams, hurtled sideways for hundreds of feet.  Where did the energy come from, given that it was all used in free fall?
• Many people reported massive secondary explosions.  (These are used in controlled demolitions, which require two sets of explosions:  one to weaken the major basement structure and the other to time the entire collapse.)

Dozens of on-the-spot interviews point to these deep characteristic booms. Incredulous people are shown pouring out from the one-acre North Tower lobby, shouting that the lobby “was gone” when they got down the stairs.

“There were wires hanging down where the ceilings had been.”

“Enormous multi-plated glass windows had blown outwards all around where the lobby had been.”

“It wasn’t from the jet fuel – no way!” yelled a fireman.[26]

• The film lists thousands of World Trade Center items, including 425,000 cubic yards of concrete that were pulverized to fine dust.  The firemen did not find a desk, a chair, a telephone, or a single filing cabinet; they never saw a door, a door-knob,  or a computer.  Only dust and metal.

Half of the victims were vaporized.  1100  bodies contained no fragments large enough to collect a single DNA sample.[27]

• New York State Governor George E. Pataki was incredulous:  “the concrete was just pulverized,” 2-3 inches thick, all over Manhattan.[28]

IV. The Film’s Sensitivity and Impact

A common reproach to 9/11 researchers is that they disrespect the families of the victims by raising painful doubts about why their loved ones died.

Mazzucco’s film offers the most moving expression of respect for the victims I have yet seen, with a two-minute requiem (using Albinoni’s “Adagio” coupled to frantic voices from the Towers) arousing poignant empathy for the anguish of those about to die.  It is immensely sobering, and is located at the beginning of DVD-2, The Twin Towers.

This remarkable exposé requires sustained courage to watch, for there’s no denying the subtitles that cement the evidence every step of the way, and thereby bar any escape through cognitive dissonance.

Thus parts of the work are emotionally overwhelming.  When mind and heart are so powerfully in sync, we know we are in the presence of truth.[29]

V. Conclusion:

Mazzucco – a true patriot – has freely given his magnum opus – three years in the making – to the world.

And with a genius touch he has produced the mother lode on 9/11.

Precise and powerful, this magnificent documentary is a classic work.

It is a film sorely needed by the world, and there is little doubt that it will become the standard work on 9/11, held in libraries and educational institutions for years to come.

Notes