David Ray Griffin v. Cass Sunstein: A New Book Dealing with Tough Truths

David Ray Griffin v. Cass Sunstein

by Stephen Lendman

 http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/

Griffin is Professor of Philosophy of Religion and Theology, Emeritus, Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA where he's still co-director of the Center for Process Studies.

He's authored and/or edited three dozen books, mainly in his field, but notably and heroically on 9/11 truth, Osama bin Laden, and his newest titled, Cognitive Infiltration: An Obama Appointee's Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory.  More on it below.

Cass Sunstein is a well-known University of Chicago and Harvard Law School Professor before being appointed Obama's Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, in charge of "overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality, and statistical programs," among other duties.

Distinguished Law Professor, activist, and international law and human rights expert Francis Boyle said this about both law schools and the University of Chicago's political science department, steeped in neo-con Straussianism:

"Do not send your children to the University of Chicago where they will grow up to become warmongers like (Paul) Wolfowitz and (John) Ashcroft. The University of Chicago is an intellectual and moral cesspool," referring to its political science department and law school. Its extremist economics department is much the same, indoctrinating students with predatory capitalist ideology.

Boyle's "Harvard's Gitmo Kangaroo Law School: The School for Torturers" article advised: 

"Do not send your children or students to Harvard Law School where they will grow up to become racist war criminals! Harvard Law School is a Neo-Con cesspool."

"Harvard is to Law School as Torture is to Law."

Commenting on Sunstein when he was mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee, Boyle, calling him a "Neo-Con," said he'd be a "lethal" choice.

Professor Emeritus James Fetzer, Founder, Scholars for 9/11 Truth, took sharp issue with Sunstein's attempt to discredit its proponents, saying his "Conspiracy Theories" report (discussed below) is a "corrosive approach" and "massive blunder" to believe they're "obviously false!" In fact, "No one can know which theories are true or false without investigating them." That a Harvard Law professor would suggest it "is simply stunning," yet unsurprising given the source. 

Fetzer's article can be accessed through the following link:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Birds-of-a-Feather-Subver-by-Jim-Fetzer-100121-980.html 

Sunstein is a notorious neo-con, abhorrent of First Amendment and other democratic freedoms, believing the rule of law is best served by subverting it.

Glen Greenwald's "The Horrible Prospect of Supreme Court Justice Cass Sunstein" article said:

"From the beginning of the War on Terror, Cass Sunstein turned himself into the most reliable Democratic cheerleader for Bush/Cheney radicalism and their assault on the Constitution and the rule of law." He also supports military commissions, illegal surveillance, and "mock(ed) the notion that Bush had committed crimes while in office." 

One of his former students added: "I think (he's) an extremely ambitious man (who'd) run over his grandmother for a seat on the Supreme Court."

Apparently over the country as well, trashing it and the public interest for power, clearly the aim of his "Cognitive Infiltration" proposal.

...In January 2008, he and Adrian Vermeule published a controversial report titled, "Conspiracy Theories," they define as "an attempt to explain an event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role."

"Many millions of people hold (them); they believe that powerful people have worked together in order to withhold the truth about some important practice or some terrible event."

Citing 9/11 truth, the reason for their report, they say believers "may create serious risks, including risks of violence....rais(ing) significant challenges for policy and law....The existence of both domestic and foreign conspiracy theories, we suggest, is no trivial matter, posing real risks to the government's antiterrorism policies, whatever the latter may be."

His solution - debunk and undermine them by "cognitive infiltration of extremist groups," his modern-day version of COINTELPRO, the FBI's infamous 1960s and 1970s counterintelligence program to neutralize political dissidents, including the American Indian Movement, Black Panthers, and communists, as well as anti-war, human and civil rights activists, among others.

Rebranded, COINTELPRO flourishes more than ever against new targets, including Muslims and others in the "war on terror;" environmental and animal rights activists, and supporters of democratic freedoms over despotism and imperial wars, among others.

Sunstein wants conspiracy advocates neutralized, using "independent groups to supply rebuttals, and by cognitive infiltration designed to break up the crippled epistemology of conspiracy-minded groups and informationally isolated social networks." In other words, destroy them by conspiring against them from within, using illegal and extralegal tactics.

"Government agents (and their allies) might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action."

In June 2009, Sunstein and Vermeule updated their scheme in The Journal of Political Philosophy titled, "Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures." The cause - psychological conditions. The cure - elimination by cognitive infiltration, including with "independent experts with information and perhaps prod(ding) from behind the scenes....(but not) too close (to avoid being) self-defeating" if exposed.

In fact, what Sunstein proposed is illegal under statutes prohibiting internal government propaganda, aimed at the public, though legal technicalities have never before been a deterrent.

Nonetheless, according to a March 21, 2005 Congressional Research Service report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) defines "publicity or propaganda" as either official self-aggrandizing, partisan activity, or "covert propaganda," the latter government-originated, disguised to appear otherwise, including by enlisted journalists, corrupting their profession by accepting cash to cooperate, a practice used by the Bush and earlier administrations as well as the CIA and perhaps FBI.

Griffin's New Book - A Powerful Truth Antidote

His new book is an invaluable analysis of Sunstein's proposal to undermine democratic freedoms, airbrush truth, impose censorship, and criminalize individuals who challenge official versions of patent lies, specifically 9/11, the seminal one of our time.

Critics agree, including Professor Peter Phillips, President of the Media Freedom Foundation and Project Censored saying:

Griffin's book should be "entitled 'the Courage of David Ray Griffin' (for) His continuing efforts to speak truth to power regarding issues" as vital as 9/11. Project Censored strongly recommends it at a time our democratic freedoms are at risk, including dissent, what Howard Zinn called "the highest form of patriotism."

Professor Emeritus Peter Dale Scott called Griffin our "preeminent (9/11) expert....his research....consistently careful, thorough, and objective." His new book provides "a patient, point-by-point and much needed refutation" of Sunstein's dangerous proposal. "He relentlessly shows how (he's) guilty of the very mentality he warns against: close-mindedness and refusal to debate. Those who seek to prevent 2010 from becoming 1984" must read this invaluable book.

Professor Emeritus Richard Falk said Griffin wrote "a devastating critique, (using) his formidable philosophical and theological skills."

Cyril H. Wecht, past President, American Academy of Forensic Sciences and the American College of Legal Medicine called the book "brilliantly written....a scholarly dissection of (Sunstein's) sociopolitical proposal....," one essential to expose and oppose.

Discussing Sunstein's 10 theses, Griffin deconstructs their flaws, contradictions, and dangers to a free society.  He also explains the legitimacy of 9/11 truth, and Sunstein's inability to refute it by disinformation, lies, suppression of facts, stifling debate, and attacking proponents.

What Obama did on September 23, calling Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's 9/11 truth comments to UN General Assembly:

"hateful (and) inexcusable, particularly for him to make the statement here in Manhattan, just a little north of Ground Zero, where families lost their loved ones, people of all faiths, all ethnicities who see this as the seminal tragedy of this generation...."

Others attacked the comments as "abhorrent and delusional," no matter that millions around the world share them (including Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth), calling the event a crime, debunking the official account as deceitful, untrue, and destructive to democratic freedoms.

Ahmadinejad, in fact, suggested "three (possible) viewpoints:"

1. "That a very powerful and complex terrorist group" successfully circumvented US intelligence, Washington's position.

2. "That some segments within the US government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy and its grips on the Middle East in order to save the Zionist regime."

He said most Americans "as well as other nations and politicians agree with this view." European polls suggest it. US polls vary and have largely ducked the issue by not asking precise questions.

3. "It was carried out by a terrorist group but the American government supported and took advantage of the situation."

Ahmadinejad "proposed that the United Nations set up an independent fact-finding group...." He also criticized Washington for using the attack as a pretext for war against Iraq and Afghanistan. These views are verboten in the West, those expressing them pilloried as unpatriotic or worse.

Griffin is the preeminent 9/11 truth proponent and consummate scholar. Using his masterful skills, he demolishes Sunstein's arguments, ones based on disinformation, deceit, and bad analysis, not up to the standards of an accomplished liar, and no match for Griffin.

Thomas Fletcher summed it up saying:

Griffin's book "is a lucid and compelling exposure of the contempt held by the official (9/11 myth) defenders for dissenters who have seen through their Big Lie." They also fear truth that reveals their ugly agenda. "These officials expect that no one will be able to penetrate the murk of Sunstein's latest defense of the pretext for the US wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq, now covertly expanding" globally. Truth is a powerful disinfectant, what government conspiracists most fear.

Some Final Comments

On September 12, Professor Denis Rancourt titled an article, "Why we love to hate conspiracy theories: 911 Truth as threat to the intelligentsia," saying:

Many on the left share guilt with the right by "vehemently attack(ing) and ridicul(ing) 'conspiracy theories' such as the present 911 Truth movement."

Why, he asks? "Is that not the modus operandi of power? Is it so difficult to believe that (the 911 attack) was not orchestrated by....religious zealot(s)? Or that those who measurably benefitted" had everything to gain? "What ever happened to 'war is a racket' and 'follow the money?' "

At issue is that "power owns the media, (and) more importantly....our jobs" and lives in other respects. Even more important than truth is how it's used - to "rebel, actually rebel and individually take back power over (our) lives." Instead, too many of "the intelligentsia" protect themselves and "the system" by being "a visceral opponent of 911 Truth....in order for power to save face."

Let others fight the good fight they may feel, but unless enough do, putting a lot on the line, wrong will prevail over right and squeeze harder for even more of what they want.

Perhaps the next "9/11" will be a mushroom-shaped cloud or other comparable state-sponsored "disaster," again blamed on foreign adversaries as a pretext for more war. Why not, given America's permanent war agenda, a topic addressed in an earlier article, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/03/americas-permanent-war-agenda.html

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Even Your Best Friends Won't Tell You: Ahmadinejad's UN General Assembly Speech

Jerry Mazza, an independent journalist in New York, has written another brilliant piece about the truth of 9/11 in relation to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's observations that an international investigation should be conducted to determine who was responsible for 9/11.  President  Barack Obama promply called Iranian President Ahmadinejad's remarks at the United Nations yesterday "offensive" and "hateful." According to NEWSMAX, "In his first comments on the Iranian leader's statement that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks may have been orchestrated to bolster the U.S. economy and "save the Zionist regime," Obama told BBC Persian that "for him to make a statement like that was inexcusable." But Ahmadinejad was simply saying what American politicians are afraid to say.

 What is truly "inexcusable" is that a President of the United States should be so massively ignorant of what the rest of the world already  knows, which is that 9/11 was the joint product of American Neo-Cons (and possibly even European Neo-Cons) working together with the Mossad to bring about consequences that would be beneficial to Israel, not to the USA. We have gained nothing by these reckless wars in violation of international law, the UN  Charter, and even the US Constitution.  When Obama announced that he was going to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan because that was  the region from which we were attacked and that we were still searching for Osama bin Laden, I knew we were in trouble. Osama died on or about 15 December 2001 and al Qaeda had nothing to do with it.He must think he is presiding over a nation of saps.

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Even your best friends won’t tell you

by Jerry Mazza

As I remember, that has been a headline for everything from bad breath to dandruff sufferers to those suffering from body odors. The headline was ideal shame-making for manufacturers of mouthwashes, dandruff shampoos, deodorants and antiperspirants. And now it applies to our purported worst enemy, the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. That is, he’s telling us what none of our “best friends” in our government are saying, “that the American government may have been behind the 9/11 attack.” 

After being greeted by a round of applause as he entered the U.N. General Assembly recently, on September 23, Ahmedinejad was applauded again after his remarks. During his U.N. General assembly address he called for a “U.N. fact finding group to investigate 9/11.” I hope their findings (if a group should ever come about) won’t be treated like the fact-finding results of Hans Blitz, head of the UN’s United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission. His claims of no WMD in Hussein’s Iraq were ignored. As were the claims of orthodox Jewish Justice Richard Goldstone’s report on Zionist overkill in Gaza. 

How about a fact-finding group of U.S. 911 Scholars, academics, scientists, architects, engineers, journalists, even celebrities who know? After all, it is about our country. 

Meanwhile, Ahmedinejad went on to say what our “best friends” would never say, that “the majority of the American people as well as most nations and politicians around the world” believe that “some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining of the American economy and its grips on the Middle East in order to save the Zionist regime” (read Israel). Sounds on the money to me and to 1200-plus architects and engineers for AE911ruth.org, Pilots, retired military officers, and journalists for 911 Truth.

Certainly, any mention of this will draw AIPAC out with fangs and claws in striking media positions to further discredit the truth-telling Ahmedinejad and ask for Zionist Israel’s right to bomb Iran back into the stone-age. That is so the Zionists can become the scourge of the entire Mid East, not just Iraq (whom they prompted the U.S. and George Bush to attack), and as they have engulfed and are devouring Palestine, that is, the fragments of what is left of the nation that now is Israel, and, as they tell us, “our best friends.”

As I remember, the Five Dancing Israelis, who were celebrating the 9/11 attack by dancing on a white van and cam-cording it in a park directly across the Hudson River, with the smoking, crumbling Towers in the background, and dressed as Arabs, one flicking his cigarette lighter to the havoc behind him just for laughs. Yes, he/they said words to the police that had been called by onlookers to the effect of why are you arresting us, we’re your friends. Now you know what it’s like.

After being arrested and held by the FBI for 72 days, ironically “our friends,” who probably were involved with the remote control flying of whatever crafts or drones those “airliners” were on that day, went on television in Israel to say they were just there to “document” the event. How would they know there was going to be an event if they weren’t involved in its planning and execution? But then, despite the traces of explosives sniffing k-9’s found in the first white van (then two others), they found a goodly amount of cash, maps of our subways, bridges and tunnels.

The second van was found in an off-ramp of the George Washington Bridge with similar evidence of explosives, some cash, maps of subways, bridges and tunnels. And the third van was found parked on King Street between Sixth Avenue and Varick, which leads in only minutes down to the Lincoln Tunnel. Only this van had a realistic picture painted on its panel of an airliner crashing into the Towers, and two more idiots dressed like Arabs sitting inside. They tussled with the NYPD, who arrested them as the others. Yet all of “our best friends” were released once they returned to Israel.But then our “best friends” on whom we’ve showered hundreds of billions of dollars for defense, including free “surplus” jet fighters and other military hardware, unsecured loans, etc., since Israel’s inception in 1948, wouldn’t say a word about 9/11, only to point fingers at their Muslim enemies, as ex P.M. Ehud Barak did on national TV only minutes after the Towers were hit. He said that it was Osama bin Laden that did it. How did he know that so quickly? And if he did, why didn’t he and his government warn us in advance in a convincing manner, like best friends should?

So is it any wonder that everybody knows what our national media helps them not to know, that 9/11 was an Inside Job, but few like Ahmedinejad will tell us. The last one was the former president of Italy, who had grown up in Italy’s intelligence agencies. His announcement blew through our media like the proverbial fart in the breeze. Ahmadinejad’s missive is going from Fox News Applause for Ahmedinejad to US Fury At Ahmadinejad's 9/11 Speech, and more in line with setting a wildfire of fear and anger.

The latter was referenced by our State Department spokesman, P.J. Crowley who said “a short distance from here, nine years ago, three-thousand people were killed in an attack perpetrated by nineteen people, and an attack that was orchestrated by Al Qaeda. We know exactly who did it, they’ve admitted it, the facts are not in dispute. So for the President of Iran to come here and make the suggestion somehow this was an American plot, is simply outrageous.”

 First of all, Mr. Crowley, the death toll was 2,752 victims who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center, which included 343 firefighters and 60 police officers from New York City and the Port Authority. 184 people were killed in the attacks on the Pentagon. The overwhelming majority of casualties were civilians, including nationals of over 70 countries. Also 900 first responders have also died since that day from fatal diseases caused by their exposure to the chemical and thermite infected dust of Ground Zero. Their deaths were due to wearing (or not wearing) paper face masks given to them instead of real respirators. Plus, tens of thousands more who worked “on the pile” at Ground Zero and off are sick unto dying. So the facts are disputed, and widely.

 Then, too, Osama bin Laden has been taken off the FBI’s Most Wanted List* for the crime of 9/11.  The 19 Muslim purported perpetrators and their pictures were pulled from an FBI file pell-mell and days later convicted in the press. Subsequently FBI Chief Robert Mueller said words to the effect that we could not be sure these were the men. So those facts are in dispute too, including that seven or eight of the men have been living in Mid East countries during the attacks, and were victims of identity thefts.ue to lack of evidence. dditionally 15 of the purported attackers were said to be Saudis. Yet we never attacked Saudi, Arabia, but we did attack Afghanistan, have not found Osama bin Laden (our stated purpose, who is said to be dead by the dean of 9/11 Scholars David Raye Griffin in his book Osama bin Laden – Dead or Alive), having passed in late December of 2001 and been buried, with notices in Pakistan newspapers, in an unmarked grave (in Muslim tradition) somewhere in Pakistan. Perhaps he makes a better poster boy than corpse.

In August of 2001, Bin Laden had been in the American Hospital where he met his CIA handler (from his Mujahadeen days), but then he was in the hospital for dialysis for a serious kidney disease. Purportedly he ran the 9/11 op from a cave on the Pak/Afghan border from a laptop. Whether or not his aides trotted his dialysis machine to the cave is in doubt.

In fact, when the U.S. Army had him cornered him in Tora Bora, they were unable to catch him and, fleet-footed, he slipped away into the eternal night of no real facts and the cloud of the government conspiracy, in question by intelligent human beings all over the planet. So, making the statements you did, Mr. Crowley, signifies you don’t read or perhaps are simply an idiot born to high places, and not a friend at all. And lastly, Osama’s so-called confession was admitted to be a fake by no less than the CIA recently, thanks to voice-morphing technology, and the simple facts that the man in the video had a fuller face, flatter nose, and wore a gold ring and chain, a no-no for an orthodox Muslim.

As to the other confessions you may be referring to, Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s for instance, it was obtained in 2003 when he was tortured by water-boarding some 183 times. President Bush subsequently asked for a non-torture confession and, surprise, got it. As for Zacharias Moussaoui, a wanna-be top-gun, his testimony was given to the court as he wore a stun belt under his robes. Originally, the FBI refused to pick him up based on his laptop evidence gathered by FBI woman Colene Rowley’s group in Minnesota. Her whistle-blowing efforts eventually lead to her resignation for FBI inaction. She has subsequently become an activist for 9/11 Truth.

Osama Bin Laden is still on the FBI "Most Wanted List" as a terrorist, with a $25 million dollar bounty on his head, as of Sept. 25, 2010, but prior references to 911 are now missing. 

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Kurt Sonnenfeld in Exile: A Witness for the Persecution

It was my pleasure to meet Kurt Sonnenfeld and his wife, Paula, just before the International Symposium on 9/11 Truth and Justice held at The National Library in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 11 September 2009.  This was my second visit to this beautiful country, since I had been flown there the year before to present a series of three lectures on 9/11 and one on JFK, which had received considerable attention in the media, with seven substantial articles in the press, including two in TELAM, the National News Service of the Republic of Argentina.  I had also been featured during a 20-minute television interview that was broadcast across South America. 

On this occasion, Kurt and I were among the members of a panel of experts who were concerned about the events of 9/11.  Kurt's wife, Paula, served as my translator as I presented a Powerpoint lecture, "Was 9/11 an 'Inside Job'?", which has been archived several places, including on the home page of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, http://911scholars.org.  Kurt and Paula are a wonderful pair and their daughters are terrific children.  The symposium was a very successful event, with more than 200 concerned citizens in the audience and six or seven television cameras covering the event.  I believe in Kurt and expect that his footage, which has now been made public, will eventually reveal clues as to how the towers were destroyed, which the government has yet to explain.
--------------------------------------
9/11, nine years later  
Kurt Sonnenfeld: A witness for the persecution by Thierry Meyssan*, Gaia Edwards* 
Kurt Sonnenfeld’s case is outstanding for at least two reasons. He is in possession of official documentation that contradicts the U.S. Government’s account of the 9/11 events. He is a high-profile U.S. citizen forced to seek refugee status because of his government’s dogged persecution. Any relation between these two facts is not purely coincidental. Voltaire Network’s second exclusive interview of Kurt Sonnenfeld, conducted in Buenos Aires, is presented below

Former high-ranking FEMA official, Kurt Sonnenfeld, arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, seven years ago with a return ticket in his pocket. All he wanted was a short break from the ineffable injustice and increasing harassment which had been mounted against him in the United States. He hoped his troubles would drift away by the time he returned.He dropped into his suitcase the rough footage from his five-week Ground Zero assignment as official videographer, with unlimited access to the scene of the crime. Because of Sonnenfeld’s emotionally and physically lacerating ordeal, which began shortly after the 9/11 events, he never turned the tapes over.For the U.S. Government, Kurt Sonnenfeld is a troublesome witness on the loose, whose documented evidence can expose its fraudulent account of the attacks. This places him in a unique, but extremely vulnerable, position. Washington’s determination to do whatever it takes to retrieve Sonnenfeld’s material and to silence him has converted him into the refugee he never intended to become. Only from reading his book “El Perseguido” (Persecuted) is it possible to fully appreciate the hell that Kurt Sonnenfeld has been suffering at the hands of his Government since before leaving his country.

Voltaire Network interviewedKurt Sonnenfeld for the first time in June 2009, when his book had just been published and after the decision of the Argentinian judicial authorities to twice deny the extradition requests presented by the U.S. under specious pretenses. Unfortunately, this chapter is far from closed. Shortly before the ninth anniversary of 9/11, Voltaire Network paid Kurt Sonnenfeld a visit in Buenos Aires, where he still lives with his Argentinian wife Paula and two twin daughters Natasha and Scarlett, knowing that he will never return to the United States, if he can help it.

He replied to our questions, up-dating us on the recent developments that continue to put him and his family in harm’s way despite the round-the-clock police protection outside their door. 
-------------- INTERVIEW------------ 
Voltaire Network: At the time of our first interview, you still felt like the title of your book, “Persecuted”. How would you characterize your situation today? 
Kurt Sonnenfeld: In some ways it has improved because news of this injustice is spreading and our base of support is growing worldwide. In other ways, however, our situation has worsened because of the ongoing campaign of “dirty tricks” undertaken by US authorities. Fraudulent documents have been introduced into the courts, usually in an illegal manner — or at best, outside of protocol. This happened again just recently when Interpol Washington made a secret and unconstitutional intervention. In addition, we’ve been followed, our mail has been opened, our website was hacked, and even our garbage has been stolen.  A while ago a radio station here — notorious for its close ties to the US embassy — issued a completely false report that there was an order for my capture. Just a couple of weeks ago we received an e-mail from someone claiming to be an American living in Buenos Aires who wanted to meet with us. We checked the IP address and discovered that the server was located just outside of Langley and is registered to the Department of Defense! It’s a difficult way to have to live. Our twin daughters are ready to begin kindergarten and we are extremely preoccupied about that.
VN: As you suggest, the latest extradition request from Interpol Washington is totally groundless and completely out of line. Could it be seen as an attempt to undermine Argentina’s sovereignty and override the previous court rulings in your favor? 
KS: Absolutely! It wasn’t so much a request as it was an order to just go ahead and ignore the Argentine legal process and send me to the US. The Interpol agency has no place whatsoever in making such an order — their role is merely to act as a liaison. In fact, their own constitution prohibits them from intervening in any way in the judicial process of a sovereign nation. What’s most disconcerting is that it was very insidiously introduced during a period of recess in the courts, obviously with the hope of catching some inexperienced stand-ins off guard and pressuring them to concede to their demand. Of course, that didn’t happen. They also introduced it outside of the proper channels, violating legal protocol, and marked it “confidential” — in a court process where transparency is the rule. 
Incidentally, Interpol has a rather sinister background. Former presidents of Interpol include Otto Steinhäusl and Ernst Kaltenbrunner (both generals in the SS of Nazi Germany), Reinhard Heydrich (also a general in the Nazi SS, and chief executor of the "Final solution to the Jewish question"), and Arthur Nebe (yet another general in the Nazi SS and leader of the Einsatzgruppen, under whose command at least 46,000 people were exterminated). Very recently (July 2010), Interpol President Jackie Selebi was found guilty of corruption for accepting bribes from a drug trafficker. 
VN: A campaign to collect signatures was launched on 25 August from Plaza de Mayo, in the heart of bustling Buenos Aires, which has been garnering widespread support.What is it about?

A "junta de firmas" to support Kurt Sonnenfeld’s continuing plight, Buenos Aires, 8 September 2010
 KS: Actually, there is a sizable campaign underway to collect petitions demanding that this injustice be stopped, spearheaded by Professor Luis D’Elia, who heads an umbrella group of many social and human rights movements. He’s conducted several “juntas de firmas” and so far several thousand signatures have been collected. The number is growing daily. This past week alone we picked up a few thousand more.
VN: Are you satisfied with the letter recently sent by the Argentinian authorities in response to Interpol’s abusive meddling?
KS: Yes. It was essentially a signal to them that they cannot intervene. And the court of course followed the correct protocol, which is important.
VN: It should be crystal clear by now that what Washington really wants is your Ground Zero footage which it fears may contain evidence countering it’s version of 9/11. Not only does that single you out as the most credible witness in a position to testify against the United States, but also as one of the few, if not the only, U.S. citizens, who has formally applied for refugee status vis-à-vis the world’s most powerful nation. That’s quite a burden!
KS: It’s obvious to me by their actions that they’re equally as motivated by vengeance at this point. I am sure there are many people (entire nations even!) who wish to be protected from unjust persecution by the United States. I am not sure how many there are who could be actual citizens of the United States. But nationality should not be factored in to the decision to grant a person refugee status. If a person is being unjustly persecuted by any government, he or she should be granted permanent refugee status, regardless of which country he or she is from. The problem is that the entities involved in granting refugee status are closely tied to the United Nations, which is completely under the financial and political control of the United States.
VN: Have you ever envisaged the possibility that you could be used as a bargaining chip between the two countries?
KS: Knowing how America operates, of course I have. But my wife Paula, knowing full well Argentina’s commitment to the protection of Human Rights (the result of being subjected to a US-backed dictatorship a few decades ago), completely discounts that possibility and affirms that the current administration of President Cristina Kirchner would never use a human being as a “bargaining chip”. Rejecting my extradition is a testament to the Argentine government’s independence and commitment to human rights.Aside from that, there are two different edicts written by the highest authorities of Argentina’s National Ministry of Human Rights establishing that the extradition cannot be conceded due to the “international responsibility that this would imply for the Nation of Argentina” and stipulating that my “migratory situation” must be regularized as well — as I have an Argentine wife and two Argentine daughters and we therefore comprise an Argentine family, deserving of protection. All of that is in ADDITION to two strong rulings in my favor by the Argentine Federal Court and two by the Argentine Supreme Court. If you include in that number the initial decision by the Denver court to dismiss the case against me back in 2002, you have a total of FIVE impartial courts that have now looked at the true evidence and have subsequently ruled in my favor.
VN: Last year you said that you had decided to go public in order to protect your family. In hindsight, would you do it again.
KS: Yes!
VN: Sticking to the same logic, have you taken any steps to release your material?
KS: In fact, I have released photos, documents and videos to important investigators around the world — in the US, Argentina, Western Europe, Central Europe, etc. I’m in contact with many analysts, investigators and documentary producers, whose names, of course, I cannot reveal.I’ve read a lot of commentaries asking why I don’t just upload everything on YouTube. But I have some moral issues with that. It’s not for entertainment and should not be treated superficially. Secondly, you have to remember that the first time I agreed to show some of my footage and talk about my experiences on television back in 2004, I was arrested just days before the show was to air and imprisoned for 7 months. Since then my life and the lives of those close to me have been consumed by this fight against injustice and the world’s only superpower. We are in the midst of an ongoing legal battle. It’s like walking on a razor’s edge. I’m not in a position to just throw it out and see what happens.
VN: Have you heard from any of your former FEMA colleagues who were with you at Ground Zero?
KS: Initially, many of my colleagues rallied in my support and we were in frequent contact — through telephone, e-mail and even face-to-face. But one by one, they’ve dropped away. In a way, I expected that. I do know that at least one of them was recently awarded a fat “anti-terrorism” contract with the FBI. Still, I have many supportive and loyal friends in the United States outside of government. VN: As a U.S. Government employee, you were also detailed to a number of secret military and laboratory facilities where you filmed things which your government would certainly want you to keep quiet about. Is it part of the material that you are likely to release?
KS: Although many of my large format tapes were stolen during my first imprisonment, I still have some videos that were in a box of junk cassettes marked “recyle” that I kept under the stairs in my basement. They were not just from FEMA assignments. Some were from other contracts I had. Jobs I did for the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, etc. etc. For example, I still have footage of bunkers full of sarin VX and GB warheads, “tonne” containers full of neurotoxins and mustard gas, all of which were banned by the Chemical Weapons Ban Treaty. In addition I have footage of the disassembly of a nuclear weapon, nuclear transport vehicles, Department of Defense radars along the Bering Strait in Alaska, etc., etc. I’ve been to all of the national laboratories created in relation to the Manhattan Project, proving grounds, test sites and a lot of other very interesting places in addition to the World Trade Center. 

Bunker containing M55 rockets armed with Sarin VX

VN:When it comes to Ground Zero, the majority of experts have focused exclusively on WTC1, WTC2 and WTC7. Yet, you also referred to a bizarre phenomenon relating to WTC6 which few appear to have paid attention to. What was so strange about it?
KS: Building Six struck me (and many others) as bizarre from my first days inside Ground Zero, and there are still no answers. Looking at aerial and satellite photos, you can see that there is a huge, nearly-empty crater from the roof all the way down to the ground floor. It looked like a gigantic crane had scooped out the insides. What happened to all the rubble that should have been inside that crater? I can’t explain it.

Aerial view of enigmatic WTC6 cavity

Some of the toasted cars lining FDR Parkway, half a mile from Ground Zero

VN: In addition to Building 6, there were a wide range of anomalies within the Ground Zero perimeter and beyond, which few people have actually dwelled on, but which could have a strategic value for a future investigation. For example, the tons of unburned paper when everything else had turned to dust and the cars that literally melted as far as a half-mile away from the site of the actual attacks. Were you struck by any of these phenomena at the time? 

"The man who saw everything ... and more"

KS: There were many things even to the casual observer that didn’t seem to make much sense. I’m not the one to make educated observations about many of the physical anomalies, though. I studied International Relations and Economics and not a lot of hard science. 
VN: In Argentina, you have made several television appearances denouncing U.S. imperialism and its expanding military agenda. What is your assessment of the Obama administration?
KS: Obediently following orders from above: the same very powerful people who profit by making machines that destroy and who then profit later by rebuilding the things that they destroyed! Haliburton recently was awarded a multi-billion dollar petroleum contract in Iraq. Blackwater (now Xe Services), the private “security company” which is actually a huge arms exporter, is raking in astronomical profits. Even Joe Allbaugh, Director of FEMA under Bush at the time of the attacks on the World Trade Center, is now doing lucrative business in Iraq. The war in Afghanistan continues, the occupation of Iraq continues. And more spoils are soon to be won! Drums of war are beating for Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Yemen, etc. etc. US military bases are being installed in every part of the world, and the CIA is now converted into a paramilitary organization which is conducting secret wars around the globe, generously funded by the unlimited and unaccountable “black budget” of the US Department of Defense. 
What’s different? Guantanamo continues. The “Patriot Act” continues. “Selective assassinations” and “extraordinary renditions” continue. The withering away of civil and human rights continues. The war on terrorism is still being used as an excuse by the United States to militarize the globe and subvert the sovereignty and culture of other nations. The true motivation is hegemonic expansionism. With Obama, everything is still going exactly according to plan. The “New American Century” is now.
VN: A campaign has been unleashed against the Argentinian government by some of the most powerful, privately-owned media which accuse it of interfering with the right of expression. Siding with the media, the U.S. Government expressed its concern over the situation. Would you comment on this?
KS: Of course the US Government is “concerned”. They’re protecting their own interests, which are the same as those of the oligarchs who are trying to control the media throughout the world.Argentina’s legislation is similar to the law that existed in the United States before Ronald Reagan “de-regulated” the media and cleared the way for oligarchic media monopolies. And now we see the result of Reagan’s “de-regulation”. The US corporate media are now so outrageously “entrenched” in their role of adoring propagandists that you can almost hear the music of John Philip Sousa emanating from the newsroom. As Goebbels said, “He who controls the medium controls the message. And he who controls the message controls the masses..
VN: Getting back to your personal situation, what do you think would happen to you in the event of a forceful return?
KS: Based on all of the malicious actions undertaken thus far by US authorities, it’s obvious that they have no intention of conducting a fair trial. They would probably claim that I “confessed on the flight back” — if in fact I actually made it back — or, worse still, that I “tried to escape” — and we know what that would mean. What is sure is that you would not hear from me again. Mission accomplished, as they say.
VN: What should ideally be the next step to guarantee your enduring safety and that of your family?
KS: Ideally, the next step would be that the prosecutor in Denver again requests the dismissal of the false charge against me, as she did in 2002 after studying the abundant evidence that exonerates me. But that’s highly improbable, since her ultimate boss at the time, Bush’s Attorney General John Ashcroft, intervened 2 years afterwords to pressure her to secure my return to US control.
Absent of that, my family and I will wait for the Argentine Supreme Court to do what is right, what we are confident they will do: reject for the third time the US request for my extradition so that our family can live in peace.
VN: Thank you for your interview. Let’s hope the next one will bring good tidings.

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Thierry Meyssan: French political analyst, founder and chairman of theVoltaire Network and the Axis for Peace conference. He publishes columns dealing with international relations in daily newspapers and weekly magazines in Arabic, Spanish and Russian. Last books published in English :9/11 the Big Lie and Pentagate. Gaia Edwards: Political researcher and Voltaire Network editorial assistant, based partly in Buenos Aires (Argentina).