The Dam Breaks

Miracle in Venezuela -- Chavez Returns After Attempted U.S.-backed Coup

McKinney Breaks the Ice on 9-11, Stuns Critics

Major Names Speak Out on 9-11 Foreknowledge and Empire: Nightline, Vidal, Hersh, Moore

Major Disruption in 9-11 Congressional Investigations

It’s happening.

The weight of evidence that was so apparent to me and others -- from the moment the second hijacked airliner hit the World Trade Center -- has grown steadily for eight months and has begun to reach the minds of recognized opinion makers. This is one genie that cannot be put back in the bottle.

But the toughest battles may lie ahead.

In mid-April, Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., was the subject of a Washington Post article as a result of statements she had made on Berkeley radio station KPFA on March 25. Her position: Congress needs to take a thorough look at what was known by the Bush Administration before the attacks of 9-11, and who has profited from them. Reaction from the major media: horror, shock, outrage, scorn, ridicule. Reaction from the people: surprising levels of agreement and support for McKinney (See full story, this issue).

On April 22 best-selling author Michael Moore, whose brilliant book, "Stupid White Men," is holding near the top of the NY Times list, was speaking in Eugene, Ore. He was asked about FTW and our work. His response: "I've read his [Mike Ruppert’s] website. He's asking some good and scary questions, much scarier than mine. We should all be asking these questions."

On April 25 and 26, ABC News Nightline ran a two-part series looking into the history of Caspian Sea oil in the Central Asian Republics and started connecting dots to current events. The series mentioned the unrequited Unocal pipeline across Afghanistan that is now being built, and it reported that the new Afghani prime minister, Hamid Karzai, is a former Unocal employee. And it talked about the major oil companies’ need to recoup billions in investments that had been frustrated for a decade by the Taliban.

The legendary writer Gore Vidal was interviewed on April 24 in Salon magazine (www.salon.com). He had reached many of the same conclusions we have. Among his more notable quotes:

"But the whole story in Afghanistan is not about Osama and his religious views, although they have some bearing, but is about a great coup on the part of the United States to grab all of the oil and natural gas out of Central Asia. And that is what we set out to do…But far larger than the Persian Gulf is the Caspian Sea oil, and Uzbekistan, and all the other -stans that used to be part of the Soviet Union. We have been deliberately encircling that section of the world…

"What we have been looking for is a trigger. We had already planned to go into Afghanistan in October of ’01. We had been desperately trying to put a pipeline that runs through Afghanistan, Pakistan, down to Karachi and the Indian Ocean...

"Well, the giveaway was, when Tommy Franks, the commanding general of our forces there, arrived in Afghanistan, people kept asking, ‘Where is Osama bin Laden?’ And he said, well, it would be nice if we found Osama bin Laden, but that’s not really why we’re here…

"Ordinarily we’d have hearings…there would be hearings immediately, as there were after Pearl Harbor, an investigation into why we spend $30 billion a year on intelligence and we didn’t know about what was obviously a plot that took about four years…

"Well any sane country is going to investigate, particularly with such a vast and proud military as we’ve got, why it took 90 minutes before the planes were in the air. Something is going on…"

When asked if he believed that there was American foreknowledge of the attacks, Vidal replied, "Of course there was."

When asked if, because of FDR’s foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack, he felt the Bush Administration would have permitted the attack of 9-11 as a pretext to invade Afghanistan, he replied, "You have said it. I didn’t say it. I think it’s a possibility. I would rather the Congress found out for me; that’s what we pay them for."

And about halfway through the lengthy interview Vidal observed, "And unfortunately, we have no government in the U.S. We have no foreign policy. We have oil policy. We have a lot of Realpolitik stuff going on, which has to do with our national wealth and private wealth as well…"

On May 2, Chicago Magazine scored a coup by securing an interview with the dean of American investigative journalists, Seymour Hersh. In commenting on the evisceration of the Constitution since 9-11, especially in the case of the so-called 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, Hersh commented, "We have an attorney general that is, I don’t know, how would you describe him, demented? We have an attorney general who doesn’t seem to understand the law…

"I don’t know about you, but I think one of the great costs of 9-11 has been this tremendous attack on the Constitution…"

After noting that Moussaoui, who did not participate in the attacks, has been held in a windowless, six-by-six cell with the lights on 24 hours a day for eight months and has been denied free access to counsel, Hersh commented, "The justification for this extraordinary procedure of not letting his lawyers unfettered access to him is because, the government says again and again he is capable of passing a message -- ‘By God, if we let him have an unfettered exchange that we don’t monitor, even with a lawyer, the Sears Tower will go down tomorrow.’ You have to understand what’s driving this. What’s driving this is fear…

"So there was a hearing that you all read about. When the hearing began he raised his hand and the judge let him speak, and for 50 minutes he buried himself. This is what’s interesting to me about it. This is a man who the federal government says cannot be allowed to communicate with anybody unfettered in any way, because he’s gonna pass the message…He spoke for 50 minutes. It was live on the Internet. Hundreds of reporters were listening…Not once did it [the government] say, ‘Your Honor, let’s go into chambers with this. He has a right to speak but we can’t have him speak publicly because we think he’s capable of doing something…’"

On the entire course of events since 9-11 Hersh was more pointed.

"Al Qaeda was not destroyed in the war. Afghanistan was…

"Where are the Democrats? Where are the Republicans who know better?…

"And I’m telling you right now, it’s gonna get much worse…"

As most of you know, FTW has been the object of some blistering, if impotent and feeble, attacks as a result of the effectiveness we have had in reaching large numbers of people since 9-11. However, that people and institutions such as those described above have begun to acknowledge the abundant and clear evidence of the Bush Administration’s guilt before and during the attacks, as well as its abhorrent conduct after the attacks, is a clear sign that the dam of denial has cracked -- much more quickly than I had expected. But it would be both naïve and short sighted to believe this means we have won.

The beast has only been mildly wounded, and wounded beasts are the most dangerous. Aside from possessing enormous wealth, the Bush Administration and those it represents also possess incredible technology and power. As these recent statements from opinion-molders affirm the position FTW has taken from day one and begin to seep into the mainstream consciousness, the real fight has just begun. There must be reactions. They will not be pleasant, and those who have been fighting for these breakthroughs must now realize the point has been reached where challenges have been issued, the gloves are off and it is time for a fight.

At this time I would also like to thank and acknowledge all of those who have helped to bring the fight to this point: Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, Jared Israel, Dan Hopsicker, Dr. Len Horowitz, Mike Davidson, Greta Knutzen, Joe Taglieri, Tom Flocco, Kyle Hence, Larry Chin and so many more. As authentic journalists you have put your names and lives on the line and I am honored to be on the field with you. And special thanks to so many more who have helped with research, like Virginia Raines and Patricia Dole, Ph.D. -- and to the hundreds of people who fill my in-box daily with stories, documents and leads from all over the world. Please don’t stop. My deepest thanks go out to all of the Internet warriors who have taken the FTW model of using mainstream and unquestioned documentation to wage the unpleasant, but necessary battles that demonstrate that liberated minds, with access to good information, can not only think for themselves -- but defend themselves and the truth nobly in the face of shameless spin-mongering and the tyrannical tactics of deceit and distraction.

The top-down, authoritarian model of waging intellectual warfare is not capable, either in its structure or conception, of defeating a people who know how to think and speak for themselves.

To quote Winston Churchill, "This is not the end. This is not even the beginning of the end. But it is the end of the beginning."