Here is the transcript from yesterday's 9/11 segment on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, including the discussion with Gerald Posner (who interestingly, had not one but 2 copies of the 9/11 Commission Report standing neatly on the bookshelf behind him, probably right next to his own book “Why America Slept: the Failure to Prevent 9/11” )
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6452480/There is one more terror-related story that strikes close to home as it possibly could. One dispute that may never be resolved is the exact cause and timeline of the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. Has the chance of resolution been increased or decreased in the last month? You may have seen the following paid advertisement on this network or others between October 20 and November 2.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: A third tower two blocks from the world trade center.
Crumbled into dust at 5:25 on September 11. It was not hit by any plane. It had no significant fire. No explanation for its collapse has been given. The collapse looks just like a typical demolition by explosives. Call 888-investigate or go to ReOpen911.com to reopen the investigation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: A second commercial suggests that no plane flew into the Pentagon. As ever, when the subject of 9/11 comes up, we‘re fortunate to turn to the most respected authority on the subject, the author of “Why America Slept” and before that the book that overwhelms almost every aspect of the various JFK assassination conspiracy theories, “Case Closed,” Gerald Posner. Good evening, sir.
GERALD POSNER, SCHOLAR: Good to be with you, Keith.
OLBERMANN: What are these ads and who is responsible for them?
POSNER: These ads are sort of straight out of “X-Files.” They are the types of things that warm the cockles of Oliver Stone‘s heart. Who is responsible for them is a multi-millionaire, a fellow, James Walter out of Santa Barbara, California. He is worth about $7 million. Mostly inherited from his family. He had a building construction company in Tampa, Florida. And he has been a social activist in the past, good causes, things like voter registration, prison reform. But this time he‘s gone off the far end.
We‘re talking about ads that in essence are saying, World Trade Center 7, a building two blocks away from the World Trade Center Towers, really wasn‘t destroyed by the damage from the planes that went into the other two towers that day. But somehow, the owner of that building must have thought, gee, you know what? I don‘t have enough people filling that building. I have too many vacancies and sent in a secret team to plant explosives and bring it down on 9/11 with nobody noticing and the government should be investigating that.
And the plane we all thought went into the Pentagon with all those people that died onboard, that‘s just a bit of fiction made up. This is really pretty far down the field. One of his own friends recently described James Walter as an eccentric sweetheart. I can‘t speak to the sweetheart part but eccentric would be a mild term to describe these ads.
OLBERMANN: He was also, this man, James Walter, was quoted in “The New York Times” yesterday as saying “It just isn‘t possible that 19,” this is the quote, “19 screw-ups with box cutters pulled this whole thing off.” Is he right to raise an issue like that that might be in the backs of people‘s minds for the last three years but has gone off on a tangent here? Or is the whole premise damaging to the continuing research into 9/11?
POSNER: The whole premise is damaging in this sense. Look, there are plenty of legitimate questions about 9/11. You know I have raised some of them that remain unanswered to this day in my own book. I‘ve got the dead Saudi princes and the dead head of the Pakistani air force and the 9/11 Commission gave a pass to the Saudis. There are plenty of things leading up to 9/11 and after 9/11 that I would love to have investigated.
But the exact details of what happened that day, those planes taken by 19 hijackers, that‘s not in doubt. And when he says that he can‘t believe that 19 screw-ups did it, first of all, he underestimates our enemies. This was a clever plan, years in the making. They weren‘t screw-ups. And secondly, he has the mind of the conspiracy theorists. They can‘t believe something that large can happen and have a simple explanation.
People can‘t believe Princess Diana died in a car wreck. But she did. They can‘t believe single a assassins killed John Kennedy and Martin Luther King. But they did. And they can‘t believe in the end that flight 800 was just an accident, but it was. And that‘s the problem we have here.
OLBERMANN: Most of the ads were seen by what are called local buys. They were sold by the cable systems operators in New York and Washington during the local breaks. Not by the cable networks themselves. Is there culpability here? Especially when it comes to 9/11, should anybody be able to put out advertising as news, as long as they have enough money?
POSNER: Boy, I certainly don‘t think so. I‘m a believer in free speech and you should get a right to stand up on the corner soapbox and say whatever you want, but just because you have money, we have families of victims. And these families of victims are the ones who created the 9/11 panel. They‘re the pressure for finding out the truth in this case. But nobody should be using it for what I call a wild and completely unsupported hunch in this matter. And these cable shows that are putting them on and selling time and profiting the money, they would not be putting on an advertisement from an American neo-Nazi that said the Holocaust was a hoax. They would draw the line there. So why we are allowed to put on something that has no basis in fact, in which there are answers and explanations for all of this, just generating more confusion over the legitimate problems of 9/11. I‘m not sure why.
OLBERMANN: Investigative journalist and author, Gerald Posner. As always, sir, pleasure having you on the program.
POSNER: Good to be with you.
:eyes:
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