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COMMENTARY:A New 9/11 Investigation in New York City? The Voters Will Decide—If the Lawyers Let ThemFirst published in his blog Unsilent Generation on 10 September 2009
Truth was obviously censored and incomplete in the original 9/11 Commission's report. If anyone deserves the opportunity to press on for answers, it is the people of the City of New York. The next few weeks will tell whether they are at long last given that opportunity. In the five years since the 9/11 Commission released its studious but timid report, Americans of all political stripes have advocated for a new investigation into the attacks of September 11, 2001. Since Obama seems intent upon putatively pardoning the Bush Administration for all of its crimes and misdemenors, such an investigation will clearly not take place at the federal level. But a New-York based organization has been pursuing a local effort—and on the eve of the eighth anniversary of the attacks, it has achieved what could be an important step toward its goal. The New York City Coalition for Accountability Now (NYC CAN), which describes itself as “a group comprising 9/11 family members, first responders, and survivors,” has gathered signatures to place a referendum for a new 9/11 investigation on the November ballot in New York City. The Bloomberg administration fought the effort by claiming that only about 26,000 of the 52,000 signatures submitted by NYC CAN were valid, leaving the group some 4,000 short of the requirement for a ballot measure. After the New York courts appointed a “referee” to review the tossed-out petitions, NYC CAN scrambled to validate thousands of signatures, and submitted 28,000 more. And just yesterday, the group announced in a press release that “in a last minute decision, lawyers for the City of New York have conceded that [NYC CAN] indeed did submit over 30,000 valid signatures...The City’s concession...paves the way for lawyers for both sides to argue the legality of the petition.” There are several more hurdles ahead: New York City has a long history of blocking citizen-generated ballot initiatives on the grounds of legal technicalities. And all legal issues must be resolved by September 30 for the measure to make it onto the November ballot. But if the referendum were to be presented and passed, it would lead to the creation of what its authors describe as “a local, independent commission with subpoena power that would be tasked with comprehensively reinvestigating the attacks.” Believing that such an investigation is necessary and vital doesn’t require a subscription to any particular conspiracy theory about the attacks. In my 2006 book The Five Unanswered Questions About 9/11: What the 9/11 Commission Report Failed to Tell Us, I focused on straightforward, even obvious questions: Why was the airline industry, with its army of well-connected lobbyists, permitted to resist safety regulations that could have saved lives? How did our foreign policy, and “allies” like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, help pave the way for the attacks? Why did a politically driven, Iraq-obsessed administration ignore repeated warnings of the coming danger? Who was in charge as the attacks unfolded?
In a just-released book called Ground Truth, John Farmer, senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission and now dean of Rutgers Law School, declares that at an early stage in its investigation, the Commission
It should come as no surprise that the 9/11 Commission conceded to this decision and limited its investigations accordingly. As I wrote in the conclusion to my own book, when it comes to the September 11 attacks and the lies and obfuscations that followed:
If anyone deserves the opportunity to press on for answers, it is the people of the City of New York. The next few weeks will tell whether they are at long last given that opportunity. Born in 1936, James Ridgeway has been reporting on politics for more than 45 years. He is currently Senior Washington Correspondent for Mother Jones, and recently wrote a blog on the 2008 presidential election for the Guardian online. He previously served as Washington Correspondent for the Village Voice; wrote for Ramparts and The New Republic; and founded and edited two independent newsletters, Hard Times and The Elements. Ridgeway is the author of 16 books, including The Five Unanswered Questions About 9/11, It’s All for Sale: The Control of Global Resources, and Blood in the Face: The Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, Nazi Skinheads, and the Rise of a New White Culture. He co-directed a companion film to Blood in the Face and a second documentary film, Feed, and has co-produced web videos for GuardianFilms. Additional information and samples of James Ridgeway’s work can be found on his web site, http://jamesridgeway.net. This article is republished in the Baltimore Chronicle with permission of the author. Copyright © 2009 The Baltimore News Network. All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent. Baltimore News Network, Inc., sponsor of this web site, is a nonprofit organization and does not make political endorsements. The opinions expressed in stories posted on this web site are the authors' own. This story was published on September 11, 2009. |
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