Kerry CIA Foe's Dossier Spans Films, 9/11 Hearing

By John C. Drake
Boston Globe
October 24, 2008

Republican Jeff Beatty, a former CIA agent, faults the US political response to national security challenges. (MARK WILSON/GLOBE STAFF)

Republican Jeff Beatty says he has been compared to Jack Bauer of Fox TV's "24," the antiterrorism agent who rushes headlong across the small screen to foil evil networks intent on destroying America.

Now, after a career providing antiterrorism advice to governments and Hollywood, the Army veteran and former CIA agent has embarked on the ultimate long-shot mission: toppling US Senator John F. Kerry.

Beatty is a Cape Cod resident with no experience in public office who was trounced by US Representative William D. Delahunt in a House campaign in 2006. This year, he won the state's GOP nomination for the US Senate race by default. The party favorite, Jim Ogonowski, did not collect enough signatures to get on the ballot.

So Massachusetts residents this fall find the unproven Beatty stumping around the state and airing a smattering of television spots that try to blame Kerry, who is seeking his fifth term, for the nation's economic crisis.

Beatty also launched an aggressive assault on Kerry on Monday night in a live NECN debate, accusing the senator of playing presidential politics when he voted to authorize the Iraq war in 2002. Beatty is hoping he can eat into the 32-point advantage Kerry had in a recent Rasmussen poll.

"I still think we can win this race, because we still have the opportunity to get the word out to people," Beatty said last week during a campaign swing through his hometown of Harwich.

Beatty said he decided to run for office because he grew tired of issuing warnings about vulnerabilities in the nation's security systems that went unheeded.

"I'm frustrated about seeing and understanding these national security challenges and seeing politicians who don't get it," Beatty said. "We need people in Washington who don't just throw money at a problem."

Beatty pitches himself to voters as a middle-class veteran and businessman. An easygoing, divorced man with a soft spot for dogs, the 56-year-old lives in the 1,200-square-foot Cape Cod house that his parents retired to in 1973. The ranch-style house sits just off the seventh green of a public Harwich golf course where a tree is planted in memory of his adoptive father, Sergeant Raymond Beatty, a World War II veteran who died of a heart attack on the course's sixth green.

"You'll have to dynamite me out of this house," Jeff Beatty said.

Beatty was an ROTC member at Rutgers and joined the Army after graduating with a sociology degree in 1974. He was awarded a Purple Heart after taking part in the 1983 rescue of American medical students taken hostage in Grenada, a Delta Force operation in which the Black Hawk helicopter he was riding in was shot down. In the run-up to the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, he served as a special adviser to the FBI's hostage rescue team. And for seven years until 1992, he conducted counterterrorism training and operations as a CIA agent based in the Middle East and Europe.

In 1992, he formed Total Security Services International, which conducted security training and provided consulting services to government agencies, operators of National Football League stadiums, and even school bus drivers.

"When I got out [of the CIA], I was a little frustrated that I didn't think we were as serious about preventing terrorism as we ought to be, so I decided that I would go form my own business and try to consult [for] people, people who we thought were likely targets," Beatty said.

The company also sold a few products, including blast-proof trash cans at a cost of about $1,600 apiece. The MBTA, which had retained Beatty as a consultant, bought about 250 of the trash cans in late 2001, a no-bid sale Kerry's campaign has lambasted as a waste of taxpayer money. Beatty defends the product as a fairly priced, essential tool for subway systems, saying trash cans are a well-established hiding place for bombs.

As a consultant, he says, he issued dire warnings about some of the country's worst terrorist attacks. As an adviser to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Beatty said, he warned organizers that the openness of Centennial Olympic Park left them vulnerable to a package-bomb attack that could injure dozens. It did happen, on July 27, 1996. And before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Beatty warned that a terrorist attack was likely, saying in a January 2000 Boston Herald op-ed: "When the terrorist improves his logistics to be as effective as the drug smuggler, more death will come across our borders."

His media savvy and antiterrorism expertise landed him on CNN the afternoon of 9/11 and increased demand among government agencies for his consulting work. In October 2001, he testified at a US Senate hearing on protecting mass transit systems from terrorist attacks, winning public praise from Senator Joe Biden, now the Democratic nominee for vice president.

Beatty said he also has been sought out by Hollywood. He was tapped to consult on "The Siege," a 1998 film starring Denzel Washington and Annette Bening about a string of terrorist attacks in New York City, getting his name in the film credits. He was also an adviser for Martin Lawrence's "Big Momma's House," a 2000 action comedy about an undercover FBI agent.

Beatty's Hollywood work, he said, led to an October 2001 meeting in California in which directors like Oliver Stone and Dick Wolf dreamed up nightmare terrorism scenarios for the government to plan for at an Army-funded research center.

Despite a military and professional career defined by national security issues, Beatty is also trying to speak to voters' economic worries by criticizing Kerry's personal wealth. A critic of the federal bailout package, he has hit the Kerry family's financial investments in insurance giant AIG, which has received its own bailout. Kerry said a firm handling his wife's finances once placed some of her assets in AIG stock but that the family no longer has a stake in the troubled insurance giant.

Beatty generally holds close to traditional Republican positions on domestic issues: He opposes abortion, supports gun rights protection, backs giving parents school choice through vouchers, and wants to reduce income taxes. He also supports Question 1 on the November ballot in Massachusetts, which would repeal the state income tax.

"I want to see everybody get a tax cut," he said, suggesting he could find significant cost savings in the federal government's Homeland Security budget to help pay for tax reductions. "We've got to do the [Barack] Obama tax cuts and do the Bush tax cuts."

But his campaign - directed by a small coterie of paid advisers and Cape Cod-area volunteers often working out of the candidate's home - is largely on its own, with the cash-strapped party offering only token support.

Beatty had $58,000 in his campaign account this week, compared with Kerry's $5.3 million, the Associated Press reported yesterday. He will get another shot at Kerry in a debate on Oct. 27, on WTKK-FM.

John C. Drake can be reached at jdrake@globe.com.

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/2008/10/24/kerry_foes_dossier_spans_films_911_hearing/?page=2

Kean and Hamilton Invited to Participate in “a Real 9/11 Commission/Investigation"

By Paul J. Landis
http://arkansas.indymedia.org/newswire/display/22725/index.php
14 Oct 2008

A May 2006 Zogby U.S. poll found that 42% of adults polled believe the U.S. government and the 9/11 Commission "concealed or refused to investigate critical evidence" that contradicts the official explanation of the attacks. 9/11 Commission chairs Kean and Hamilton were upset with their own commission.

The original press release below has been updated to be consistent with the new “A Real 9/11 Commission Will Help Free America Now! - ISBN: 097604-0825, April 2007, our new web site www.wethepeoplewethemedia.com and the just released “We the people – We the Media Tribune Gazette, www.wethepeoplewethemedia.com/tg.htm

Tuckahoe, NY (PRWEB) October 19, 2006 -- As I announced updates to my April, 2005 “A Real 9/11 Commission,” “it seemed appropriate to suggest that Mr. Kean and Hamilton join the 42% of us who ‘believe the U.S. government and the 9/11 Commission "concealed or refused to investigate critical evidence" that contradicts the official explanation of the attacks.’ See note 1. The April 2007 edition has significant new information and additional content covering a number of critical current issues, thus justifying the new title “A Real 9/11 Commission Will Help Free America Now!” (ISBN 0-9760408-24; US $14.75, UK, £ 9.85), now available.

In addition to the 42% above, the same May 2006 national Zogby respondents show that “More than 40 percent of Americans believe that the 9/11 Commission Report that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks is a cover-up”.

Wow! And now, hold on to you hats. Based upon a review of their book “Without Precedent”, we have significant doubts being expressed by these two 9/11 commissioners. See note 2

With this perspective, a reminder that “Bush and Cheney asked then Senator Daschle to limit 9/11 Investigations”. See note 3

Join us Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton for “A Real 9/11 Investigation”.

“A Real 9/11 Commission”, see note 4, or if you like, a new, trustworthy 9/11 commission, what would it do differently?

Participants in “A Real 9/11 Commission” are invited to review evidence, before it gets filtered by Bush and Cheney or hidden behind the “New Iron Curtain Around the U.S.A., a Media Iron Curtain”, see note 5. They are invited to see documentaries of footage that was shown on live TV the morning of 9/11/2001. Then these participants are given the opportunity to “Render their Decision”, to participate and be a part of the tabulated results. See note 6.

How would or could, Don Rumsfeld prove to the American people that the 757 he says hit the Pentagon really did? If asked, participants in “A Real 9/11 Commission” would say, “he can’t!” Not only are there NO pictures showing a 60 to 80 ton 757 on the lawn of the Pentagon, we would play for Don the 9/11/2001 AM CNN Live report on “Loose Change 2nd Edition”, www.loosechange911.com, “there is no evidence that a 757 has hit anywhere near the Pentagon!”.


There is also now a You-Tube video clip from a VHS tape made on September 11, 2001. It shows CCN and Jamie Mcintyre stating that “No 757 hit the Pentagon!” see note 4

We would also remind Don that the famous collapsed Pentagon wall section, if that is where he tells us the plane is; that section collapsed twenty minutes after the explosion. Did the 757 just wait around for a hole to climb into?

So Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton, have you any comments?

The New York City Twin Towers, where 3,000 people lost their lives, we were told ‘collapsed’ because of the planes that hit them. If we asked Don or Dick Cheney to prove this, what could they use? There is a NTST report that supports this claim. But does the evidence support this report?

Briefly: No. We now know that molten steel, 3,000 degrees, was found in the sub-basements of both Towers (and WTC 7) four and five weeks after their collapse. Jet fuel burns at maximum at about 1,400 degrees. We can only suggest in the space available here, that the reader look at the Special Report I at www.wethepeoplewethemedia.com/areal911commission.htm and in “A Real 9/11 Commission Will Help Free America Now” on pages 42 to 47.

You will see photographs of the buildings ‘collapse’ and can compare these pictures with live TV statements by TV news reporters: “this looks as though the buildings are being demolished”. We have pictures of multi-ton steel columns projected horizontally into near-by buildings and multi-ton steel structures thrown 600 feet or two football fields away from the ‘collapse’. Is this how you would envision the ‘collapse’ of these massive structures?

There are photographs of the Towers ‘collapse’ with the sounds of the ‘demolition charges’. Would that help Don and Dick? Obviously not, “911 Eyewitness”, www.911eyewitness.com by Mr. Ricard A. Siegel.

We might ask the commissions: How is it that the collapse of these structures produced only pulverized debris and steel beams conveniently cut into sections that fit on the backs of the trucks used to haul them away. And if the Towers ‘collapsed’, where did the 2,600 pollutants come from that have thus far claimed the lives of dozens of NYC Ground Zero First Responders and have caused 70,000 illnesses?

For the assertion that Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania, we will just suggest you see statements by coroners on the scene in Pennsylvania saying “there was no blood or evidence of human remains at the site”, Loose Change 2nd Edition, www.loosechange911.com.

So Don and Dick appear to have no EVIDENCE to justify the statements they made. How about Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton, perhaps they want to explain their lapse of not considering the above EVIDENCE or any EVIDENCE that the 42% of poll respondents say was ignored?

EVIDENCE shows us that “We the People” were not given accurate accounts of the events of 9/11. We were mislead by the same people who recently made us ‘Torturers’, who are using in Iraq, their own Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD), the radioactive weapon called Depleted Uranium. This WMD is killing OUR soldiers and causing their wives to give birth to deformed babies. We were mislead by the same people who have their own Non-U.S. Constitution – the “Project for the New American Century” (PNAC), see note 7. These people are not Osama bin Laden or Al-Qaeda. They are Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their friends who support the Non-U.S. Constitution the “Project for the New American Century”. It is PNAC that provides their motivation for the attacks of 9/11/2001.

Please, see also, the just completed “We the People – We the Media Tribune Gazette” at

www.wethepeoplewethemedia.com/tg.htm,with significant 9/11 evidence and supporting information.

Note 1: Opinion split over 9/11 report by: Keith Phucas, Times Herald Staff, 05/28/2006
www.timesherald.com/site/news.cfm

Note 2: Book: “Without Precedent" - Sept. 11 Panel Doubted Officials
By HOPE YEN The Associated Press August 4, 2006
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/04/AR2006080401026.html

Note 3: Bush - and Cheney - ask Daschle to limit 9-11 investigations!!
www.wethepeoplewethemedia.com/limit.htm

Note 4: “A Real 9.11 Commission”
www.wethepeoplewethemedia.com/areal911commission.htm
And www.youtube.com/paullandis, the first clip, also available at
The above web site

Note 5: “A New Iron Curtain Around the U.S.A. - A Media Iron Curtain”
www.wethepeoplewethemedia.com/corporate_control.htm

Note 6: “A Real 9/11Commission” Render your Decision
www.wethepeoplewethemedia.com/areal911commission.htm

Note 7: The Constitution of Bush and Cheney is not the Constitution of the United States. Major articles about their Non-U.S. Constitution, the “Project for the New American Century” (PNAC) www.wethepeoplewethemedia.com/pnac1.htm

Also: “We the people – We the Media," Tribune Gazette, www.wethepeoplewethemedia.com/tg.htm

Review: "Blocking 'The Path to 9/11': The Anatomy of a Smear"

By BRIAN LOWRY
Variety
Oct. 10, 2008

A Citizens United Prods. presentation. Produced by David N. Bossie, John Ziegler. Executive producer, Bossie. Directed, written by John Ziegler.

In "Blocking 'The Path to 9/11'" -- the latest in a string of conservative documentaries still irritated by Michael Moore's success -- former talkradio host John Ziegler seizes on a legitimate point worthy of perhaps a newsmagazine segment, then beats at it for a laborious 93 minutes. There's obvious passion behind the message, but all Ziegler ultimately proves is that ABC didn't stand behind a controversial miniseries and that playing the victim of big, bad media grows tedious quickly, whether the aggrieved party hails from the left or the right.

To recap, ABC commissioned an expensive miniseries ostensibly based on the 9/11 Commission's findings to mark the five-year anniversary, reconstructing the failures and missteps by both the Clinton and Bush administrations that preceded the terrorist attack. Writer-producer Cyrus Nowrasteh, however, expanded his research beyond the report to indict Clinton for missed opportunities to neutralize Osama bin Laden in the 1990s.

Subjected to withering criticism, ABC made minor edits in the film, seeking to quell the controversy, and eventually aired the project without advertising. The network has not yet released it on DVD.

Anybody who watched the entire miniseries knows both administrations are depicted as having dropped the ball in the run-up to Sept. 11. But because Nowrasteh went beyond the 9/11 Commission report to paint an unflattering portrait of the Clintons, he came under fire, and his political leanings were scrutinized, including his relationship with conservative talkshow host Rush Limbaugh. (An early screening in Washington, D.C., of the miniseries' first part, devoted to the Clinton years, also fed the impression that this was a one-sided right-wing hit job.)

Ziegler's goal, ultimately, is to expose the fact that the project was prejudged and its producers were unfairly tarred in the process and thrown under the bus by ABC and parent Disney. The only real news here, however, is that such a reaction could emanate from the left, inasmuch as conservatives regularly employ such tactics by criticizing what they haven't seen in regard to movies and television (Lionsgate's "W." comes to mind).

As the doc's hero, Nowrasteh also exhibits what can at best be construed as naivete about the potential response, given the polarized political climate and how raw the wounds from Sept. 11 remain, especially when he acknowledges ad-libbing portions of a crucial scene that presents Clinton officials -- in full cover-your-ass mode -- failing to act when they have bin Laden in their sights.

The filmmakers "took sort of the highlights of a number of different episodes and incidents and coordinated them into one, which is what you do when you write a docudrama," Nowrasteh explains. Yet it's precisely such bastardizations of history that outsiders (and that would include Washington) view with rightful suspicion, not trusting a mass audience to do the requisite homework to distill fact from fiction.

To the extent the Clintons and their associates overreacted to the miniseries, Ziegler makes his point. He overreaches, however, in his eagerness to provide Nowrasteh redemption, and conveniently overlooks a long history of docudramas evoking similar responses, while padding his witness list with right-wing attack dogs like David Horowitz and Mark Levin.

Disney and ABC refused comment for the project, which is also hardly a surprise. All this might be news to Ziegler, but "Blocking the Path to 9/11" is an awfully slow road to a pretty obvious conclusion.

Anthony Marinelli. Reviewed on DVD, Sherman Oaks, Calif., Oct. 2, 2008. Running time: 93 MIN.
Narrator: John Ziegler.

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117938666.html?categoryid=1263&cs=1

"Authorized" Biography of Warren Buffett Traces his Road to Wealth

Caveat: Warren Buffett's avuncular centrist image is a lie. Buffett has a secret life. The Berkshire Hathaway billionaire is a covert operator like his Nazi father, Bircher/Senator Howard Buffett, and I've documented this fact time and again over the years. The Great Brainwashed admire his gross wealth and media-propelled seedcorn persona, but deep down Buffett himself doesn't care all that much about money - he lives in a $100,000 house. That's in Omaha, where he is involved in a CIA-operated national pedohile ring with ties to the RNC (see The Franklin Cover-Up, by John DeCamp). Buffett's alleged co-conspirator, Robert Wadman, the disgraced former police chief of Omaha, filed a frivolous lawsuit recently against my publisher in a failed attempt to silence me. Both are linked to the "suicides" of Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake, "conspiracy theorists" in the process of connecting the founder of AT&T Cable to the aforementioned pedophile network when they supposedly checked out. No, truth be told, Buffett doesn't care about money - like his father, he cares about covert operations and the nurturing of fascism in America. The rich "Uncle Warren" PR is a cover story for stock manipulation and worse. The media perform the same service for Dr. Kissinger, another fascist covert operator.

As long as these slimy predators are perceived as credible "experts," body bag futures will remain a lucrative investment.

- AC

Biography traces Warren Buffett's road to wealth
BY JOHN MARK EBERHART
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
OCTOBER 19, 2008

"The Snowball" is a fast-paced, precisely drawn profile of a man who, despite his high visibility in the financial world, isn't someone we've known much about.

We do now. And unless we've been hoodwinked, Warren Buffet lives here, warts and all, on the pages of this authorized biography by Alice Schroeder.

The young Buffett was a financial prodigy but also something of a juvenile delinquent, and the book makes it clear that the man who went on to make a fortune could have wound up in jail instead.

He peddled chewing gum door to door, sold soft drinks and was a newspaper delivery boy. Mostly, though, he saved money. And saved. And saved. By 14, he was filing federal tax returns on his income.

But in junior high, when a new Sears store opened in Omaha, Buffet and some buddies became shoplifters. "We'd just steal the place blind," Buffett recalls. "We'd steal stuff for which we had no use. We'd steal golf bags and golf clubs. I stole hundreds of golf balls."

Early on Buffett displayed an almost obsessive penchant for counting things; now he counted golf balls. But he found it hard to explain to his parents why his closet was overflowing with sacks of them.

Eventually, his father lowered the boom: Quit screwing around or I will forbid you from running your paper routes. Faced with losing his income, Buffet cleaned up his act and went on to make financial history.

Moving through Columbia Business School and a brief stint as a stockbroker, he acquired a textiles company. And part of the Washington Post. And the Buffalo Evening News. And a piece of ABC. And a portion of Coca-Cola.

Schroeder gets bogged down in details and that's the book's chief drawback: As good as her writing is, a good editor could have trimmed this book to a more manageable length.

http://www.freep.com/article/20081019/FEATURES05/810190317/1030/FEATURES

Maryland Navy Commander Sued over Funds for 9/11 Injury

www.insurancejournal.com
October 16, 2008

Federal prosecutors have filed a civil lawsuit against a Navy commander from Maryland's Anne Arundel County who was granted a Purple Heart for injuries he claimed to have suffered when a plane crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

The U.S. Attorney's office in Washington has filed the suit, claiming now-retired Navy Cmdr. Charles Coughlin, 49, of Severna Park, falsely claimed he suffered "a partial permanent disability'' after falling debris hit him on the head.

Coughlin received $331,000 from the Victim Compensation Fund after claiming injuries so severe he could no longer perform simple tasks and avoided activities "requiring abrupt turning of my head or raising my left arm above my shoulder for any length of time.''

However, Coughlin kept playing basketball and lacrosse and ran the New York City marathon in under four hours two months after the attacks, prosecutors said.

The lawsuit filed last month at the federal courthouse in Washington does not raise questions about Coughlin's actions during the Pentagon attack, but challenges the account of injuries he submitted to the compensation fund. Coughlin still has the Purple Heart, and the honors are not under review by the Navy, officials said.

Coughlin's lawyer denies the allegations and said the matter would be resolved in court.

Prosecutors claim the medical terminology he used to describe his injuries duplicated the language that a doctor used to diagnose him in 1998 and he had a "a history of neck and shoulder ailments predating September 11, 2001, including an injury as early as 1978 to his left shoulder.''

The compensation fund denied Coughlin's first application in February 2004, but reversed its decision when it was appealed and Coughlin was awarded $60,000. Prosecutors said Coughlin appealed again, citing services he had to pay for because of his injuries and his award was increased in June 2004 to $331,034, including $151,034 for economic losses.

Government attorneys are seeking to seize Coughlin's $1 million house, his Mercedes-Benz and minivan because he used money from the victims' fund to get them. Coughlin used at least $200,000 of the money to buy his home six months later and to pay off loans on the vehicles, prosecutors said.

The government has taken the vehicles pursuant to a seizure warrant, which is approved by a judge. Prosecutors want the court's permission to seize them permanently.

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/east/2008/10/16/94694.htm

Lies, Lies and More Lies

BY DAVE DARTON
www.rutlandherald.com
October 11, 2008

Seven years after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden's wanted poster still hangs in the post office. It lists him as a suspect in two African embassy bombings but 9/11 is not mentioned. According to FBI's head of investigative publicity, this is because there is no hard evidence linking bin Laden to 9/11. We know that the invasion of Iraq was on the agenda from the start of the Bush administration. However, Jane's Online and the BBC both had reported that regime change in Afghanistan was also in the works prior to 9/11, and it seems clear that the planning and mobilization for the invasion on Oct. 7, 2001, took considerably longer than three weeks.

After the 9/11 attacks, the two senators who could give Bush the most trouble received letters containing U.S. weapons-grade anthrax, as did two major news organizations. Bush finally agreed to authorize an investigation on the condition that administration insider Philip Zelikow be the commission's executive director.

Even Arlen Specter did not believe that the failure to prevent the attacks was simply a failure to connect the dots. DIA project Able Danger had identified alleged plot leaders including Mohammed Atta, and the FBI was conducting 70 investigations of bin Laden-related activity within the U.S. During a period when the terror threat level was at a historic high, numerous highly credible whistleblowers have testified that these and other efforts were obstructed, sabotaged or ignored. A suicide hijacking had, in fact, been contemplated as a likely scenario, yet four jets were hijacked simultaneously with no mayday signals from the cockpits. Forty minutes after the towers were hit and it was clear the U.S. was under a coordinated air attack, no effort was put forth to defend the nation's capital.

It is also interesting that the twin towers and 47-story Building 7 somehow just happened to be symmetrical free-fall speed implosions. Only a handful of companies in the world can bring a skyscraper down in this manner and the odds that this type of collapse occurred on three instances in one day due to asymmetrical damage and fires on 9/11 is essentially zero. The molten metal found under the wreckage of all three buildings and the previously molten splatter found in WTC dust, which is chemically identical to the byproduct of the incendiary Thermate, presents solid forensic evidence that the buildings were professionally demolished.

The incredible lack of skepticism about 9/11 has been a result of the media's ongoing deference to the government: The press falsely promoted the idea that the 9/11 Commission was thorough and independent; and has been actively withholding coverage of the rapidly growing movement of highly credentialed Americans who question the official story of 9/11. There are Pilots for 9/11 Truth, Scholars for 9/11 Truth and by year's end there will be 500 architects and engineers who will be calling on Congress to authorize a new investigation.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081011/ELECTIONS12/810110369/

Video: The Political Abuse and Misuse of 9/11

Lumberjack Editorial Board
Issue date: 9/10/08 Section: Opinion

Over the last seven years, we have seen the events of September 11 progress from being a shocking tragedy in our nation's history to becoming an issue of policy and political agenda.

On Thursday, Sept. 4, prior to Republican presidential candidate John McCain's acceptance speech, the Republican National Convention aired a video entitled, "9/11: The Day The World Stood Still." Airing at 9:11 p.m. CST and lasting almost three minutes long, the video falsely linked the 9/11 attacks to Iran amid an ominous voice-over. Graphic footage from the day of the attack was played, including the initial impact and subsequent collapse of of the twin towers, individuals jumping from the buildings and blood-splattered displays of missing persons. A smattering of networks aired the tribute, including C-SPAN and MSNBC.

The creation and airing of this 'tribute video' was grossly inappropriate, a fear tactic and an obvious political statement. The video aired was propaganda.

Regardless of the video's political affiliation, this was a thoughtless act. Some of us lost friends, and others lost family members. Every American was touched by the tragedy. The images shown on television that day have been forever burned into our memories. After seven years, the pain is still raw - and for some, it will never go away.

Even though it was labeled as a 'tribute video,' it was not created as a tribute to the American and foreign men and women who were killed in the attacks and recovery efforts. The misrepresentation of Muslims in this piece of propaganda was racist.

The exploitation of 9/11 has been a political tool for the past seven years. It is unjust for any political party or candidate to continue to evoke the memory of 9/11 and use the fear associated with it to sway a political vote.

Before we are Republican or Democrat, Green or Independent, we are American and Americans stand up for what is "right." As Americans, we believe that this video, used in this manner, was not right.

It's time to practice the justice that we preach. Political parties and their members need to stop desecrating the memory of 9/11 and let the memory of those lost rest in peace.

America and the world needs to know that the values that unite us as a nation have not been lost. As a nation we see things differently, but share a commitment to freedom and democracy. Above everything else, we are Americans. Let's not let racism and fear keep us from realizing what 9/11 truly was and continues to be.
•••
The video below is the official video released by the RNC. Please be advised that the footage aired could be considered graphic by some.

Viewer discretion is advised.

http://media.www.thejackonline.org/media/storage/paper1142/news/2008/09/10/Opinion/The-Political.Abuse.And.Misuse.Of.911-3423147.shtml