Tuesday, June 17, 2008

THE ZEIT GIST
Lawmaker takes 9/11 doubts global

By JOHN SPIRI
Special to The Japan Times
In a September 2003 article for The Guardian newspaper, Michael
Meacher, who served as Tony Blair's environment minister from May
1997
to June 2003, shocked the establishment by calling the global war on
terrorism "bogus." Even more controversially, he implied that the
U.S.
government either allowed 9/11 to happen, or played some role in the
destruction wrought that day. Besides Meacher, few politicians have
publicly questioned America's official 9/11 narrative — until Diet
member Yukihisa Fujita.

Speaking out: Democratic Party of Japan lawmaker Yukihisa Fujita
addresses the Diet and Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on his doubts
about
the official story of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. COURTESY
OF YUKIHISA FUJITA

In January 2008 Fujita, a member of the Democratic Party of Japan,
asked the Japanese Parliament and Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda to
explain gaping holes in the official 9/11 story that various groups —
including those who call themselves the "911 Truth Movement" — claim
to have exposed.

Fujita, along with a growing number of individuals — including
European and American politicians — are leading a charge to conduct a
thorough, independent investigation of what happened on Sept. 11,
2001.

"Three or four years ago I saw some Internet videos like 'Loose
Change' and '911 In Plane Site' and I began to ask questions," Fujita
said in an interview, "but I still couldn't believe this was done by
anyone but al-Qaida.

"Last year I watched more videos and read books written by professor
David Ray Griffin (a professor emeritus of philosophy of religion and
theology at Claremont Graduate University who wrote the most famous
Truth Movement book, 'The New Pearl Harbor') about things such as the
collapse of World Trade Center No. 7. This building, which was never
hit by an airplane, collapsed straight down. Between the videos
showing the way it fell, and the numerous reports of explosions, many
are convinced that this building was demolished."

Fujita's presentation to the Diet and Fukuda focused a great deal on
yet another aspect of 9/11 that now quite a few around the world find
extremely suspicious: the Pentagon crash.

"I don't think (a) 767 could have hit the Pentagon," Fujita reckons.
"There is no evidence of the plane itself. Almost nothing
identifiable
was left on the lawn or inside. The official story says the entire
plane disintegrated, but the jet engines in particular were very
strong (two 6-ton titanium steel turbine engines). And the damage to
the building is much smaller than the size of the supposed airplane.
The official claims just don't fit the facts."

While some label that claim "wacky" and label critics of the official
9/11 story "conspiracy theorists," Fujita has impressive company. For
one, former Maj. Gen. Albert Stubblebine, who was commanding general
of U.S. Army Intelligence and Security until 1984, is quoted on the
"Patriots Question 911" Web site as saying, "I look at the hole in
the
Pentagon and I look at the size of an airplane that was supposed to
have hit the Pentagon. And I said, 'The plane does not fit in that
hole.'

"So what did hit the Pentagon? What hit it? Where is it? What's going
on?"

Fujita urges the Bush administration to put the issue to rest simply
by showing videos that show the plane that hit the Pentagon. Instead,
only a few grainy images have been released to the public. More
disconcertingly, many videos taken by surrounding businesses were
confiscated by the FBI immediately after the Pentagon explosion.

The Pennsylvania crash, like the Pentagon explosion, also yielded
virtually no recognizable plane parts at the crash site. Rather,
small
pieces of debris were found up to 10 km away. The official story —
that the plane "vaporized" when it hit the ground — is inconsistent
with the evidence left by every other plane crash in the history of
aviation.

Plane crashes always yield plane fragments, Fujita explained, which
can be identified by the plane's serial number, but that's not the
case for the four planes which crashed on 9/11. Strangely, the U.S.
government managed to produce passports and DNA samples of
individuals
killed, but no identifiable plane parts. In an online article
entitled
"Physics 911," 34-year U.S. Air Force veteran Col. George Nelson
notes, "It seems . . . that all potential evidence was deliberately
kept hidden from public view."

Fujita has largely relied on the voluminous amount of video and
written material published in books and on the Internet, including
the
"Patriots Question 911" site, on which hundreds of allegations are
leveled against the official story by senior officials from the
military, intelligence services, law enforcement, and government, as
well as pilots, engineers, architects, firefighters and others.

While not many other Japanese have taken an interest in this story, a
few notable individuals besides Fujita have disputed the U.S.
government's version, including Akira Dojimaru, a Japanese writer
living in Spain. In his book, written in Japanese, "The Anatomy of
the
WTC Collapses: Flaws in the U.S. Government's Account," he uses
photos, drawings and blueprints of the WTC buildings to back up his
claim that buildings one and two could not have fallen in the manner
they fell due to the plane crashes and subsequent fires. "And even if
it was conceivable that they could fall due to the damage that day,"
Dojimaru wrote in an e-mail, "they never would have collapsed
horizontally, and would have scattered steel beams and smashed
concrete much farther than 100 meters."

For Fujita, it was Dojimaru's meticulous research, combined with the
aforementioned Web sites, that convinced him the official story was
nothing more than a house of cards.

One book that Fujita found unconvincing was the "9/11 Commission
Report."

"The head of the 9/11 Commission is close with (U.S. Secretary of
State) Condoleezza Rice and (Vice President Dick) Cheney. One
commission member (Sen. Max Cleland) resigned, saying the White House
did not disclose enough information."

On Democracy Now's radio show in March 2004, Cleland even went as far
as to say, "This White House wants to cover it (the facts of 9/11)
up."

More recently, a New York Times article in January quoted Thomas
Kean,
the chairman of the 9/11 Commission, as saying that "the CIA
destroyed
videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives," and concluded that
that "obstructed our investigation."

Following the lead of Fujita, Karen Johnson, a conservative
Republican
senator from Arizona, has publicly voiced her doubts about 9/11
before
the U.S. Senate. Inspired by Blair Gadsby — who on May 27 started a
hunger strike to bring attention to the 911 Truth Movement — Johnson,
like Fujita, is encouraging politicians to conduct a thorough,
independent investigation.

Fujita, who worked for more than 20 years for the international
conflict resolution NGO group MRA and the Japanese Association for
Aid
and Relief (AAR), has become something of a global cause celebre
since
his extraordinary questioning at the Diet. In February 2008, he
participated in a conference at the European Parliament led by EMP
Guilietto Chiesa calling for an independent commission of inquiry
into
9/11. While in Europe, he met with NGOs from 11 European countries to
discuss 9/11.

One month later Fujita spoke at the "Truth Now" conference in Sydney,
Australia. One focus of these meetings was the Italian documentary
"ZERO," whose release will mark the first time the 9/11 movement's
message has moved from the "cyberworld" to public venues. Fujita has
also spoken about his 9/11 doubts on two U.S. radio shows, one hosted
by Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, and another by Alex
Jones of infowars.com.

He is also making ripples in Japan. Fujita was featured in a March 2
article by well-known critic Takao Iwami on "How to deal with doubts
about 9/11" in the Sunday Mainichi weekly. He was also featured in a
March 26 Spa! magazine piece headlined, "European conference
discusses
9/11 doubts."

However, not everyone is enthralled with Fujita's bold line of
questioning.

"One person showed strong anger towards me," Fujita noted, "and
another (Japanese person) threatened my life. A few others advised me
to be extremely careful."

Still, Fujita says, the vast majority — around 95 percent — have been
positive.

"One man said, 'You're a true samurai.' Another man came all the way
from Okayama in western Japan to thank me personally. And among other
Parliament members, I received only words of encouragement and
support."

While in Europe, Fujita met British former MP Meacher, who dared to
question the official story when it was still considered gospel.
Time,
the Iraq war and well-sourced online videos are emboldening many
people, including politicians, to step out of the cyberworld and
voice
their doubts in newspapers, magazines, theaters, and — most
importantly — government chambers.

"Now Blair is gone, and Bush will soon be gone," Meacher told Fujita.
"Our time is coming."