from Bill Douglas
Founder of 911Visibility.org
and former Outreach Director for 911Truth.org

        Former National Defense Minister of Canada, the Honourable
        Paul Hellyer whom I spoke with after 9/11/2001, asks a critical 
question,
        "Where the hell was the US Airforce that day?!"

National Defense Minister of Canada;  Paul Hellyer comments on 9/11/2001 (mov)
 

Your recent story, "The 9/11 deniers," focused on perhaps the weakest link in 
the 9/11 skeptics concern of the events of 9/11.  Unfortunately following a 
pattern of major corporate media of focusing on the lunatic fringes of the 9/11 
truth movement rather than on the disturbing facts that really are without 
question.  Facts that should be disturbing to any rational person, who isn't a 
glossy eyed devotee of the 9/11 Commission's investigation.  In this response, 
I'll address four areas of concern 1) The 9/11 Commission's unsatisfactory 
report.  2) The US massive air defense failures on 9/11/2001.  3) The dubious 
pilot who pulled off a baffling aeronautics feat on 9/11/2001.  4) The physical 
evidence compiled by BYU Physics Professor, Steven Jones.

THE 9/11 COMMISSION:
Quickly on the 9/11 Commission, your article intimated the idea that 
challenging the 9/11 Commission was the exercise of lunatics advancing some massive 
conspiracy, too big to be possible.  Realize that the evidence that the 9/11 
Commission focused on was the result of, not the "part-time" Commissioners, but 
rather of Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the National Commission on 
Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, better known as the "9/11 
Commission."  Philip Zelikow had a gross conflict of interest that in a real
democracy, 
with a real skeptical media, would have excluded him from taking that 
position.  Philip Zelikow and Condoleeza Rice were not only coauthors of a book 
concerning German unification, but had enjoyed close ties in the Bush
Administration 
where Zelikow was a member of the prestigious President's Foreign 
Intelligence Advisory Board and confidant of then-national security adviser
Condoleezza 
Rice.

The point is that Zelikow decided the direction of the 9/11 Commission 
investigations.  The Commissioners only followed what his office led them to
examine.  I spoke with 9/11 Commission staff members on numerous occasions working 
under him who were stressed and equally dismayed that the Commission refused to 
ask the tough questions regarding the USAF failures on 9/11, and the hard 
questions about how the 3 WTC towers became the 1st three steel reinforced 
skyscrapers in engineering history before or since to fall because of fire.  Your 
article's assertion that the entire 9/11 Commission had to be part of some vast 
conspiracy is bogus.

[Philip Zelikow, a member of the prestigious President's Foreign Intelligence 
Advisory Board and confidant of then-national security adviser Condoleezza 
Rice (and later Executive Director of the 9/11 
commission)--http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/48/17505]

[new unresolved conflict of interest charges leveled against 9/11 Commission 
Executive Director Philip Zelikow who has enjoyed close ties to Condoleeza 
Rice and to the National Security Council he is charged with investigating; and 
Sept. 11 Panel Defends Director's Impartiality - Concerns of Victims' Relatives 
Over Zelikow's National Security Ties Are Dismissed, by Dan Eggen, Washington 
Post, 14 October 2003 ]

THE AIR DEFENSE FAILURES OF 9/11/2001:
If Cheney ordered an Air Force stand down, and Zelikow steered the direction 
of the 9/11 Commission . . . that involves TWO PEOPLE.  Why, you may ask 
aren't USAF staff coming forward?  One is that if each individual in the military 
works on a need to know basis, they have no smoking gun testimony to tell.  Of 
course even if one did, they've seen the corporate media savage anyone who 
challenges the 9/11 Commission's dubious investigation, or the official 9/11 
story in any way.  Anyone who watches television has seen 9/11 truth seekers 
unfairly savaged time and time again.

Your writer obviously didn't want to understand what went wrong, and why no 
one has been held accountable for the defense failure, or why Kevin Ryan was 
fired from UL (see below) for telling the truth about the WTC's collapse, or why 
the 9/11 Commission failed to mention the collapse of WTC 7, or if Zelikow 
played a role in that.  No, your writer throws out the red herring of "this is 
too vast a conspiracy, these people must be crazy to think such a thing is 
possible."  Look at the facts.

My hope is you will rise to the occasion and do a "real" 9/11 investigative 
article.

I met with former National Defense Minister of Canada, the Honorable Paul 
Hellyer in Toronto a couple of years after the 9/11 attacks, and when I asked him 
about the events of 9/11, after expressing his sadness and grief over it, 
immediately launched into an impassioned demand, "Where the hell was the US Air 
Force that day?"  Mr. Hellyer in essence was part of NORAD as Canadian National 
Defense Minister, and knew how NORAD works.  He exclaimed you had four major 
airliners flying over the most protected airspace in the world for nearly an 
hour and a half, with no USAF fighter interceptor jets arriving until it was 
too late.  Hellyer's not the only military man of stature to wonder this. 
Robert Bowman, USAF Lieutenant Colonel (rtd.) has demanded answers on this as well. 
 Both men have asked, with such a colossal failure of air defenses, why has 
no one been held accountable?

Now, keep the above in mind, when you remember that Norman Minneta, who was 
with Cheney in the bunker on 9/11 witnessed a young aid who repeatedly reported 
to Cheney as the passenger jet drew closer to the Pentagon, "Sir, it is 50 
miles out.  Sir, it is 30 miles out.  Sir, do the orders still stand?" 

Cheney nearly bites the kids head off shouting, "Of course the orders still 
stand.  Has anyone told you any different?"  What orders? A rational 
inquisitive journalistic organization like Salon.com might ask.  We know they
made no 
effort to shoot the plane down, and it flew unimpeded right into the Pentagon. 
In fact, if the order were to shoot it down, would the young aid be asking as 
the plane drew nearer?  Of course not, the interceptors or missile defenses 
would have been in action.  Therefore, the only explanation is that the orders 
were "not to shoot down" the plane.

This goes against all FAA and DOD operational plans for such an emergency. 
When an aircraft threatens to do more damage by striking a populated area, 
shoot down is the natural action.  However, normal procedures were thwarted 
deliberately apparently by Dick Cheney on 9/11.  I'd say this begs for a few 
questions to be asked by intrepid reporters like yourselves.

I haven't personally verified the following, but it would be worth Salon 
investigating (if you really want truth).  The Administration claimed that no US 
fighters were at Andrews Air Force base on 9/11, however a 9/11 researcher 
claims to have captured the website image of the DOD website showing that indeed 
there were interceptor jets at Andrews on 9/11/2001.  However, when that story 
came out, the researcher alleges that the DOD then altered the website after 
his article appeared to reflect the Administration's claim that there were no 
interceptors there to be called upon on 9/11.

3) THE AMAZING FLIGHT SKILLS OF A "TERRIBLE PILOT" ON 9/11/2001:
You may or may not be aware that a consortium of professional pilots in 
Portugal that met a year or so after 9/11.  All agreed that they doubted that with 
all their years of professional experience as commercial or military pilots, 
that they would have been able to execute the amazing aeronautics displayed by 
the pilot flying into the Pentagon on 9/11.  And remember the trainers at the 
flight school he attended where he trained on small aircraft, not a major 
passenger jet, said he was the worst pilot they'd seen and should have his license 
revoked.
 

PHYSICAL EVIDENCE OF THE WTCs COLLAPSE:
Why not focus on Kevin Ryan, formerly a department head at Underwriter 
Laboratories, which was the company that inspected the steel that went into the 
WTCs, and also was the company that inspected the steel after the building's 
collapse?  Although Kevin Ryan wasn't on that inspection team, he did request the 
internal UL documents relating to the post 9/11 WTC steel inspections.  The one 
thing all inspectors agreed on, according to Ryan was, "the fires could not 
have brought down the WTCs on 9/11."

Kevin Ryan was fired from UL two days after leaking this information to 
911Truth.org and media.

This corroborates the concerns of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, specifically BYU 
Physic Professor, Steven Jones.  At http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/ where 
Professor Jones meticulously explains in detail with visual support, why the 
official 9/11 story is false, you'll find information on the temperatures of jet 
fuel fires being substantially cooler than what would be required to bring 
down a massive steel reinforced skyscraper built to withstand several jumbo jet 
strikes.

You could redeem yourself and really look at the disturbing facts and 
unanswered questions regarding 9/11/2001.  Just the four points referred to here
are 
enough to launch a serious investigation by media throughout the United 
States.  Or you could keep a stream of irresponsible hit pieces spewing out that 
diminish the needed national debate on this issue.  The future of our nation and 
world depends on the truth.  I hope that Salon.com is an agent of truth, and 
not an agent of the powers that be, or simply too naive and comfortable to do 
what is uncomfortable in demanding answers.

Most of the 9/11 truth seekers who I've known have been reluctant citizens 
forced into this maelstrom by facts that were too disturbing to ignore.  I for 
one did not seek out this task.  I wish I had no need to take this on.  I wish 
our mass media would focus on serious questions and dig for real answers, 
rathering than attempting to paint those who ask as wild eyed conspiracy nuts. 
None of the people I've worked with at 911Visibility.org or 911Truth.org are 
anything of the kind.  Just concerned Americans who want the best for our nation 
and its people.  I hope that is what Salon.com represents as well.  Time will 
tell.

Bill Douglas,
Founder of 911Visibility.org
Previous Staff Member of 911Truth.org
Kansas City, Kansas
913-648-2256