Call For Bush, Rumsfeld & Meyers To Testify Publicly
Under Oath About Their Actions On 9/11
ratitor's note - the underlying nature of what we are dealing with here:
Bush et al are fundamentally vulnerable on the total abrogation of
their constitutional oaths of office vis-a-vis the 11 Sep 2001 debacle.
Yet practically no one occupying a media-visible public servant
position is uncompromisingly pursuing the following strategic course to
remove this illegitimate junta by way of their Achilles' heel. What
does this say about where the true power in this society resides?
An excerpt from the following:
The actions of President George Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Richard Myers
on their behavior towards and responses to 9-11 are indefensible
once they were told of the hijackings earlier that morning, before
any of the four planes had crashed during a period of nearly two
hours without any military response from fighter jets able to
exceed the speed of sound--jets that were in the air at the time
on East Coast training missions on September 11.
Americans and others around the world are concerned that those
with the most power to defend America on 9-11 and who failed to
act for nearly two hours while planes crashed one by one are not
being subpoenaed to testify publicly under oath instead of private
conversations--effectively shielding them from American citizens.
Such action permits elements of the final report to be adjusted
toward political considerations which protects individuals from
the kind of accountability that public testimony will undoubtedly
engender, since key documents and briefings have not been released
to the media even in redacted form. Contrast this with President
Clinton who was subpoenaed and questioned by career prosecutors
and who testified publicly under oath prior to his impeachment by
the House of Representatives in 1998.
Pretending the upcoming Presidential Sweepstakes Game Show will address
or resolve the current crisis of legitimacy ignores the stacked deck
being employed by the current band of usurpers as well as prior
usurpations of our self-governing authority going back to the founding
of this republic. In previous generations, most people understood
usurpation to mean the illegitimate seizure of public governing
authority by private forces.
The twenty-three questions posed below by the 911 Family Steering
Committee are a wedge that, if uncompromisingly pursued, will
deactivate the currently most pressing corporate governance timebomb.
And yet what will it take to reclaim and realize the fundamental
aspirations that drove the American Revolution? As Richard Grossman
and Ward Morehouse wrote in "When Corporations Wield the Constitution,"
The Revolutionary Era's propertied and slave-owning gentlemen who
wrote the Constitution used law to keep the histories, experiences,
needs, values and aspirations of the denied from being transformed
into public policy. Parading their stolen powers as "constitutional
rights," they provided future elites with the "legal" means to
expand their rule even after whole classes of people had won the
right to vote, to run for public office, to own property, to speak,
to go to school, to form unions, to serve on juries and testify in
court, to enjoy public accommodations, etc....
Why do corporations get away with it? Because with few
exceptions, civic activists have not looked closely at this
history. They have not contested the nation's corporate class over
its grab of governing authority.
and as Richard wrote concerning the USA Patriot Act and the Rule of Law,
This nation's constitutional history is overwhelmingly about denial
of people's collective rights to self-governance, and denial of
people's individual rights to participate in activities enabling
collective self-governance. There is documentation galore....
The Constitution was written by propertied men representing a
minority of other propertied men fearful of the decentralized
power and authority unleashed by the Revolution and written into
the Articles of Confederation. So they wrote a plan of governance
which made it easy for future generations of the propertied to
keep future masses in line using "the rule of law"--that is, by
"legally" employing state violence and other means to shape
people's values, thoughts and actions. Over time, they got
proficient at camouflaging their rule behind corporate fairy tales
and democratic myths. This work has of course been aided by their
control over the training of lawyers.
and as I wrote near the conclusion of "We're All In Prison, And Most
Of Us Don't Know The Door Is Unlocked,"
Many things are not what they appear to be. We Are Not At War--The
9/11 bombings Are Crimes Against Humanity. The sole case presented
against Osama bin Laden & Al Qaeda for those bombings would not
stand up in a court of law. Thus, We Do Not Know The Actual
Sponsorship of 9/11. Scrutinizing an extraordinarily detailed
timeline of 9/11 leaves any thoughtful person with a bulging list
of questions the U.S. government has steadfastly sought to avoid
answering. The super-set of this, our world of today gone awry, is
the fact that the Constitution of the United States, that we live
by and pledge our allegiance to, does not represent the democratic
aspirations that drove the American Revolution.
Finding out whose interests were served and how they engineered
and directed the 9/11 bombings is critical to the world's well-
being. The resultant bid to establish a Pax Americana abroad and
further degradation of people's rights inside America must likewise
be duly examined. However, unless we understand and acknowledge that
the basic founding principles of this country--especially people's
right to and responsibility for self-governance--were railroaded
from the start, then all that is toiled for to address the
increasing imbalances generated by 9/11 will be for naught.
The degree to which most everyone is propagandized today here in
consumer-central is unequaled. Of course the dynamic of being
influenced by mis-direction has always been present in human culture.
But the enormous degree to which our society, our civilization, is
propagandized at this juncture is unique, given the heretofore
unparalleled power of the one speaking to the many through the medium
of commercial media. As David Korten observed in Seattle in 1999,
I suggest we be clear that our goal is not to reform global
corporate and financial rule--it is to end it. The publicly traded,
limited liability corporation is a pathological institutional form
and financial speculation is inherently predatory. As a first step
both must be regulated. The appropriate longer term goal is to rid
our economic affairs of these institutional pathologies--much as
our ancestors eliminated the institution of monarchy.
Nina and I are privileged to attend an upcoming Democracy School
weekend being held in Boston starting a week from today. Both Richard
Grossman & Thomas Alan Linzey will be presenting. They are also two of
the authors of the significant and unprecedented "Model Legal Brief to
Eliminate Corporate Rights." I consider this document one of the most
momentous recent developments in the authentic work of overturning
corporate constitutional rights and the resulting era of governance
that is consuming our earth and our souls. It is unique both as an
educational as well as an organizing tool. After the Democracy School,
Thomas Linzey will speak on Sunday night in Boston on more of what we
all must face up to and change.
Pollution, agribusiness and the loss of family farms, war in Iraq
and Afghanistan, destruction of habitat, union-busting,
globalization and the race to the bottom, genetic engineering,
climate change, media monopolies--all of these dire developments,
and many more, have one powerful force in common: corporate claims
to the rights granted to people in our Constitution.
Corporations can collect far more wealth than individuals, they
have unlimited lifespan, their liability is limited, they possess
no conscience nor morals, they have no need to eat or drink or
breathe clean and safe food, water or air. Corporations are
property pretending to be a person. They have only one driving
force: profit. Terminal consequences to humans and future
generations are irrelevant.
Tom Linzey is an attorney at the forefront of legal battles on
corporate constitutional rights--you can read more about his work
defending rural communities in Pennsylvania against corporate hog
farms & toxic sludge on the CELDF website. He has helped two
threatened rural Pennsylvania townships pass ordinances outlawing
corporate constitutional rights in their jurisdiction.
The discussion will include how the thousands of battles that
we have been fighting (and all too frequently losing) for peace,
justice and sustainability may be focused on this one root cause.
Tom will talk about the history, the work, and the organizing
that we will be doing in Massachusetts to rescind corporate
constitutional rights.
The future is for each one of us to make and claim. We would do well
to proceed with a beginner's mind that is open to the unknown
possibilities of existence. Martin Luther King's calm came from his
awareness that he was a free man, that he was his own sovereign, and
that his obligation in life was to follow his own conscience. When we
are born we are free human beings. We know the experience of autonomy
by our birthright as self-reflecting, sentient beings. It is left to
each of us to live by, follow, and answer to our consciences. It alone
is the final arbiter of what we make of our time here; of what we
value and give significance to, what we cherish, what we honor.
The great events of world history are, at bottom, profoundly
unimportant. In the last analysis, the essential thing is the life
of the individual. This alone makes history, here alone do the
great transformations first take place, and the whole future, the
whole history of the world, ultimately spring as a gigantic
summation from these hidden sources in individuals. In our most
private and more subjective lives we are not only the passive
witnesses of our age, and its sufferers, but also its makers. We
are our own epoch.
--Carl Jung, Collected Works, Vol X, "The Meaning of Psychology for
Modern Man," 1934, Bolligen Series XX, 2nd Edition, 1970, para 315
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Call For Bush, Rumsfeld & Meyers To Testify Publicly
Under Oath About Their Actions On 11 September 2001
Worldwide 9-11 Phone, Fax, Email Campaign
initiated by Tom Flocco and Bill Douglas
4 March 2004
Please Post and/or Email Widely:
There are six individuals who have the power to influence whether
President George Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, General Richard Myers, will
publicly testify under oath before the American people to explain
why they sat at their desks and in a school classroom, failing to
take decisive action on September 11, 2001, until after four
planes attacked the United States and killed 3,000 Americans.
This, despite knowledge of the hijackings earlier that morning
before any of the four planes crashed.
Below are contact numbers and questions to initiate weekly
communication with those who have the over-sight responsibility,
public microphone, and/or power to influence the strength of the
9-11 Commission investigation. These actions may well determine
whether those in charge on 9-11 publicly testify under oath and
submit to questioning by Commission-assisted and experienced
career prosecutors rather than appointed former government
bureaucrats and/or legislators. Lawyers with prosecutorial skills
prepare intensely for specific areas of interrogation and will be
able to elicit truth and facts via their questioning techniques
regarding the 3,000 death mass-murder investigation.
Sporadic public testimony and soft interrogation along with
blatant conflicts of interest still exists on the Commission, even
as key government officials and other players mostly meet with
members in private behind closed doors -- away from the scrutiny
of the media and the public. The mere fact that Congress has not
employed career prosecutors and a grand jury to be involved
indicates that it is not serious about real accountability.
Moreover, Congress -- via its appointed Commission surrogates --
may well be providing cover for members of the joint intelligence
committee, many of whom also had access to the same pre-attack
briefings about "planes used as weapons to be flown into
buildings" seen by President Bush, Mr. Rumsfeld and General Myers.
The actions of President George Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Richard Myers
on their behavior towards and responses to 9-11 are indefensible
once they were told of the hijackings earlier that morning, before
any of the four planes had crashed during a period of nearly two
hours without any military response from fighter jets able to
exceed the speed of sound -- jets that were in the air at the time
on East Coast training missions on September 11.
Americans and others around the world are concerned that those
with the most power to defend America on 9-11 and who failed to
act for nearly two hours while planes crashed one by one are not
being subpoenaed to testify publicly under oath instead of private
conversations -- effectively shielding them from American
citizens. Such action permits elements of the final report to be
adjusted toward political considerations which protects
individuals from the kind of accountability that public testimony
will undoubtedly engender, since key documents and briefings have
not been released to the media even in redacted form. Contrast
this with President Clinton who was subpoenaed and questioned by
career prosecutors and who testified publicly under oath prior to
his impeachment by the House of Representatives in 1998.
During your contacts, request that Mr. Bush, Mr. Rumsfeld, General
Myers and other high government officials be subpoenaed
immediately to testify publicly under oath with the assistance of
career prosecutors; and ask that Congress and the Commission not
accept invocations of presidential immunity or use immunity, which
was not afforded to President Clinton.
Starting immediately, we are asking Americans and others around
the world who also seek truth and accountability regarding the
mysteries of 9-11 to phone, fax and/or email the following six
individuals once or twice per week until Mr. Bush, Mr. Rumsfeld,
General Myers, Dr. Condoleezza Rice and other top government
officials testify publicly under oath and are questioned by career
prosecutors like those who interrogated President Clinton.
Fair is fair. Please demand answers to the 23 questions below --
provided by the 9-11 Family Steering Committee. If one phone or
fax is busy, try the alternative contact numbers provided until
you get through to engage staff members with your concerns:
HOUSE SPEAKER J. DENNIS HASTERT SENATE MINORITY LEADER TOM DASCHLE
Speaker's Office Phone: 202-225-0600 Minority Leader's Office Phone:
Email: dhastert@mail.house.gov 202-224-5556
D.C. House Office Phone: 202-225-2976 / D.C. Senate Office Phone:
Fax: 202-225-0697 202-224-2321 / Fax: 202-224-6603
Batavia District Office Phone: Aberdeen District Office:
630-406-1114 / Fax: 630-406-1808 605-225-8823
Dixon Regional Office Phone: Rapid City District Office:
815-288-0680 / Fax: 815-288-0743 605-348-7551
Geneseo Regional Office Phone: Sioux Falls District Office:
309-944-3558 605-334-9596
HOUSE MINORITY LEADER NANCY PELOSI 9-11 NATIONAL COMMISSION CHAIRMAN
Minority Leader's Office Phone: THOMAS H. KEAN
202-225-0100 President of Drew University,
Email: sf.nancy@mail.house.gov Thomas H. Kean
D.C. House Office Phone: 202-225-4965 / Phone: 973/408-3100
Fax: 202-225-8259 Email: cadm@drew.edu /
San Francisco District Office Phone: Fax: 973-408-3068 / Fax:
415-556-4862 973-408-3242 / Fax: 973-408-3242
SENATE MAJORITY LEADER BILL FRIST DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE
Majority Leader's Office Phone: JOHN F. KERRY
202-224-3135 John Kerry for President, Inc.
D.C. Senate Office Phone: 202-224-3344 / Campaign Phone: 202-548-6800 /
Fax: 202-228-1264 Fax: 202-548-6801
Nashville District Office Phone: Email: info@johnkerry.com
615-352-9411 / Fax: 615-352-9985 D.C. Senate Office Phone:
Memphis District Office Phone: 202-224-2742 / Fax: 202-224-8525
901-683-1910 Boston District Office:
Knoxville District Office Phone: 617-565-8519
865-602-7977 Springfield District Office:
Chattanooga District Office Phone: 413-785-4610
423-756-2757 Worcester District Office:
Jackson District Office Phone: 508-831-7380
731-424-9655 Fall River District Office:
Kingsport District Office Phone: 508-677-0522
423-323-1252
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[Use these questions (and any others you may have) during your
weekly phone-fax-email contacts]:
Family Steering Committee Questions
Regarding 9/11 Commission Interview with President Bush
16 February 2004
The Family Steering Committee believes that President Bush should
provide sworn public testimony to the full ten-member panel of the
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.
Collectively, the Commissioners are responsible for fulfilling the
Congressional mandate. Therefore, each Commissioner must have full
access to the testimony of all individuals and the critical
information that will enable informed decisions and
recommendations.
Before an audience of the American people, the Commission must ask
President Bush in sworn testimony, the following questions:
1. As Commander-in-Chief on the morning of 9/11, why didn't you
return immediately to Washington, D.C. or the National
Military Command Center once you became aware that America
was under attack? At specifically what time did you become
aware that America was under attack? Who informed you of this
fact?
2. On the morning of 9/11, who was in charge of our country
while you were away from the National Military Command
Center? Were you informed or consulted about all decisions
made in your absence?
3. What defensive action did you personally order to protect our
nation during the crisis on September 11th? What time were
these orders given, and to whom? What orders were carried
out? What was the result of such orders? Were any such orders
not carried out?
4. In your opinion, why was our nation so utterly unprepared for
an attack on our own soil?
5. U.S. Navy Captain Deborah Loewer, the Director of the White
House Situation Room, informed you of the first airliner
hitting Tower One of the World Trade Center before you
entered the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota,
Florida. Please explain the reason why you decided to
continue with the scheduled classroom visit, fifteen minutes
after learning the first hijacked airliner had hit the World
Trade Center.
6. Is it normal procedure for the Director of the White House
Situation Room to travel with you? If so, please cite any
prior examples of when this occurred. If not normal
procedure, please explain the circumstances that led to the
Director of the White House Situation Room being asked to
accompany you to Florida during the week of September 11th.
7. What plan of action caused you to remain seated after Andrew
Card informed you that a second airliner had hit the second
tower of the World Trade Center and America was clearly under
attack? Approximately how long did you remain in the
classroom after Card's message?
8. At what time were you made aware that other planes were
hijacked in addition to Flight 11 and Flight 175? Who
notified you? What was your course of action as
Commander-in-Chief of the United States?
9. Beginning with the transition period between the Clinton
administration and your own, and ending on 9/11/01,
specifically what information (either verbal or written)
about terrorists, possible attacks and targets, did you
receive from any source?
This would include briefings or communications from
o Out-going Clinton officials
o CIA, FBI, NSA, DoD and other intelligence agencies
o Foreign intelligence, governments, dignitaries or envoys
o National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
o Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism czar
10. Specifically, what did you learn from the August 6, 2001, PDB
[President's Daily Brief] about the terrorist threat that was
facing our nation? Did you request any follow-up action to
take place? Did you request any further report be developed
and/or prepared?
11. As Commander-in-Chief, from May 1, 2001 until September 11,
2001, did you receive any information from any intelligence
agency official or agent that UBL [Usama Bin Laden] was
planning to attack this nation on its own soil using
airplanes as weapons, targeting New York City landmarks
during the week of September 11, 2001 or on the actual day of
September 11, 2001?
12. What defensive measures did you take in response to pre-9/11
warnings from eleven nations about a terrorist attack, many
of which cited an attack in the continental United States?
Did you prepare any directives in response to these actions?
If so, with what results?
13. As Commander-in-Chief from May 1, 2001 until September 11,
2001, did you or any agent of the United States government
carry out any negotiations or talks with UBL, an agent of
UBL, or al-Qaeda? During that same period, did you or any
agent of the United States government carry out any
negotiations or talks with any foreign government, its
agents, or officials regarding UBL? If so, what resulted?
14. Your schedule for September 11, 2001 was in the public domain
since September 7, 2001. The Emma E. Booker School is only
five miles from the Bradenton Airport, so you, and therefore
the children in the classroom, might have been a target for
the terrorists on 9/11. What was the intention of the Secret
Service in allowing you to remain in the Emma E. Booker
Elementary School, even though they were aware America was
under attack?
15. Please explain why you remained at the Sarasota, Florida,
Elementary School for a press conference after you had
finished listening to the children read, when as a terrorist
target, your presence potentially jeopardized the lives of
the children?
16. What was the purpose of the several stops of Air Force One on
September 11th? Was Air Force One at any time during the day
of September 11th a target of the terrorists? Was Air Force
One's code ever breached on September 11th?
17. Was there a reason for Air Force One lifting off without a
military escort, even after ample time had elapsed to allow
military jets to arrive?
18. What prompted your refusal to release the information
regarding foreign sponsorship of the terrorists, as
illustrated in the inaccessible 28 redacted pages in the
Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry Report? What actions
have you personally taken since 9/11 to thwart foreign
sponsorship of terrorism?
19. Who approved the flight of the bin Laden family out of the
United States when all commercial flights were grounded, when
there was time for only minimal questioning by the FBI, and
especially, when two of those same individuals had links to
WAMY, a charity suspected of funding terrorism? Why were bin
Laden family members granted that special privilege -- a
privilege not available to American families whose loved ones
were killed on 9/11?
20. Please explain why no one in any level of our government has
yet been held accountable for the countless failures leading
up to and on 9/11?
21. Please comment on the fact that UBL's profile on the FBI's
Ten Most Wanted Fugitives poster does not include the 9/11
attacks. To your knowledge, when was the last time any agent
of our government had contact with UBL? If prior to 9/11,
specifically what was the date of that contact and what was
the context of said meeting.
22. Do you continue to maintain that Saddam Hussein was linked to
al Qaeda? What proof do you have of any connection between
al-Qaeda and the Hussein regime?
23. Which individuals, governments, agencies, institutions, or
groups may have benefited from the attacks of 9/11? Please
state specifically how you think they have benefited.
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/underOath.html (hypertext)
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/underOath.txt (text only)
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/underOath.pdf (print ready)