How safe do you feel compared to five years ago?

More Safe
14%

Less Safe
39%

Same
46%

Also, by a four-to-one margin (48 percent to 12 percent), Americans think the war in Iraq has made the threat of terrorism against the United States worse rather than better.

Five years after 9/11, most Americans say life has returned to the way it was before the attacks, at least in part. However, some behavior has changed: One in four Americans say they are less likely to fly now, and one in five are less likely to attend large events with thousands of people.

Has life in America returned to what it was before the 9/11 attacks?

Mostly Returned
28%

Somewhat Returned
48%

Has Not Returned
23%

Nearly one in four people say they still feel nervous and edgy. Women are more likely than men to say their behavior has been affected.

Both the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan are viewed as having created breeding grounds for terrorists. Fifty-four percent say the wars have created more terrorists, while just 15 percent say they've eliminated terrorists.

There's also increased pessimism about the overall war on terrorism, with 21 percent - the highest number ever - saying the terrorists are winning. Thirty-six percent say the United States is winning and 38 percent say neither side is winning.

Fewer than half of Americans are confident the United States will capture Osama bin Laden, the man believed responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

Still, a majority of Americans, 55 percent, say they approve of how President Bush is handling the war on terror - his highest rating in more than a year, but a sharp decrease from December 2001, when 90 percent approved.

About half of those polled say Bush administration policies have made America safer, but one in four say they've made the United States less safe. A similar number say they've had no effect.

One explanation for that skepticism may be that nearly half of Americans don't think terrorism is a problem a president can do much about.

Americans are split on how prepared the United States is to deal with another terrorist attack: 49 percent think the country is prepared, 43 percent think it is not. Americans are especially worried about a potential biological or chemical attack - 73 percent say the United States is not prepared for that.

The number of Americans who say another attack on the United States is likely has dropped to 59 percent, down from a high of 78 percent in the weeks after 9/11. People in the Northeast, where the attacks on the World Trade Center occurred, are the most concerned that their area will be targeted, while those in the Midwest are the least concerned.

Nearly six in 10 say the government has not done all it could to make the country safe from future attacks.

Chronicling events leading to the September 11 attacks, the movie suggests the Clinton administration was too distracted by the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal to deal properly with the gathering threat posed by Islamic militants.

The furor comes as Democrats and Republicans jockey for political position in advance of the November 7 congressional elections over who can best secure the United States from another attack.

Democrats have chided Republicans for failing to implement security recommendations by the 9/11 commission, and Republicans have portrayed Democrats as soft on terrorism.

In recent days, former members of the Clinton administration also lodged complaints with Iger, urging ABC and Disney to fix or eliminate what they called errors and fabrications.

ABC issued a statement saying the production, "The Path to 9/11," was still being edited and that criticism of the film's specifics were thus "premature and irresponsible."

'DRAMATIC LICENSE'

Executive Producer Marc Platt acknowledged that "there is dramatic license taken" in the docudrama to "render the program effective and accessible for viewers."

"But we do try within the boundaries of what is fair and reasonable to communicate the essence of what occurred (and) the intentions of those individuals involved," he told Reuters in a telephone interview from London. "We have no intention or desire to be political, to intentionally distort."

Platt also said one scene singled out for criticism by Democrats -- depicting CIA operatives and Afghan fighters coming close to capturing Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, only for then-national security advisor Samuel Berger to refuse authorization of the mission -- was a "conflation of events."

Berger said in a letter to Iger earlier this week that "no such episode ever occurred, nor did anything like it."

The September 11 attacks occurred about eight months after Clinton turned over the presidency in January 2001 to Republican George W. Bush.

For several years, Democrats have complained the Bush administration failed to capture or kill bin Laden when he reportedly was cornered in Afghanistan's Tora Bora region in late 2001. They also argue the war in Iraq later took away resources for tracking down bin Laden.

ABC said its movie was not a documentary but a dramatization drawn from the official 9/11 commission report, personal interviews and other materials.

"As such, for dramatic and narrative purposes, the film contains fictionalized scenes, composite and representative characters and dialogue and time compression," ABC said.

Former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, a Republican who chaired the 9/11 commission and served as a consultant for the ABC miniseries, defended the production as politically balanced.

"People in both parties didn't particularly like the commission report, and I think people in both parties aren't going to love this one," he said.

The cast of the film includes Harvey Keitel as an FBI agent and expert on Islamic militants, Donnie Wahlberg as a covert CIA operative, Amy Madigan as a high-ranking CIA analyst, Patricia Heaton as a U.S. diplomat and Stephen Root as White House counter-terrorism advisor Richard Clarke.

"The Path to 9/11" is not the first historical TV drama to draw a partisan outcry. CBS canceled a miniseries about Ronald and Nancy Reagan after Republicans complained that it unfairly and inaccurately portrayed the former president. "The Reagans" ended up airing on sibling cable channel Showtime.

When participants were given the option of choosing more than one cause for the attacks, two-thirds blamed Islamic fundamentalists and their anti-Western views, while a third pointed the finger at Israel and its position in the Middle East.

Canadian opinions have hardened against the United States and its role on the world stage, said Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Association for Canadian Studies. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have contributed to a change of heart among people, he said.

But Canadians are divided on whether their government should pay more attention to issues fuelling extremist organizations in the Middle East, he said.

"There are a lot of people who think we should be listening closely [to extremist groups] and that there is an opportunity to dialogue with these sort of groups," said Jedwab Wednesday. "So it is showing a real ideological divide on some of these issues."

There's a growing need since the Sept. 11 attacks for balanced public education about terrorism, added Jedwab. "There is a tendency to see in these movements something more romantic than actually exists. That's something we need to keep debating in the country."

Léger Marketing interviewed 1,508 Canadian adults from Aug. 22 to Aug. 27. The poll results are considered accurate within 2.5 percentage points 19 times out of 20.

Zwicker is a lifelong journalist who was a media critic for 35 years and who often appeared on Canadian national TV and radio.

His book explains that these covert operations are designed to appear as if they are being carried out by other entities, such as other countries or terrorist groups, to help demonize them and justify wars for geopolitical reasons and for financial gains.

The term "false flag" is derived from the naval warfare concept of flying false colors; that is, flying the flag of a country other than one's own.

The ABC News article dated May 1, 2001 explains that Operation Northwoods was approved and signed by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Eisenhower appointee Army General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, and was presented to Kennedy's Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962.

A year earlier, President Eisenhower, apparently aware of such dangers, had warned the nation during his January 17, 1961 farewell address:

"In the counsels of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military Industrial Complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together." http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/farewell.htm

General Lemnitzer, the Eisenhower appointee and highest ranking officer of the US military in 1962, recommended that Operation Northwoods be run by the military. It was signed and approved by all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the panel comprising the highest-ranking members of each major branch of the Armed Forces.

As per the ABC News article, the only reason why Operation Northwoods did not materialize in 1962 was because it was apparently turned down by President John F. Kennedy.

By law, the President of the United States is the commander in chief. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Army, the Marine Corps, the Navy, the Air Force and the Coast Guard, are all under his command.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff website explains that based on the Goldwater-Nichols DOD Reorganization Act of 1986, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is today the principal military adviser to the President but doesn't exercise military command over any combatant forces. http://www.jcs.mil/#

The ABC News article quotes author of "Body of Secrets - Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency," James Bamford, a former Washington Investigative Producer for ABC's World News Tonight. He says that if such war plans against American cities were put into operation, it would have amounted to treason.

Article III, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution states: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them..." http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.articleiii.html

Bamford goes on to say that around that time, "the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee published its own report on right-wing extremism in the military, warning a 'considerable danger' in the 'education and propaganda activities of military personnel' had been uncovered. The committee even called for an examination of any ties between Lemnitzer and right-wing groups. But Congress didn't get wind of Northwoods..."

Media critic Zwicker says that today, Congress and journalists have access to the declassified documents of Operation Northwoods and that the media must indeed reflect on Eisenhower's warning of vigilance and be willing to learn and investigate more, publish more and broadcast more information about false flag operations to help prevent such acts of treason from being committed in the future.

In his controversial book critical of both the 9/11 "official story" and the media coverage of the events, Zwicker goes through the history of false flag operations dating back to the 1600s, and among many examples, cites the February 27th,1933 fire of the German Parliament (Reichstag fire) three days prior to Germany's federal election.

Historians later documented that the fire had been authorized by right-wing Nazis where Hitler used the event to declare a state of emergency and pressured the German President, Hindenburg, to sign a decree abolishing most of the human rights provisions of the Constitution.

Recently, on August 29th 2006, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recounted what he called "the lessons of history," including the failed efforts to appease the right-wing Adolf Hitler regime of the 1930s.

"I recount this history because once again we face the same kind of challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism," said Rumsfeld.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/08/29/rumsfeld.ap/index.html

As a senior media critic, Zwicker strongly recommends that all media people indeed follow Rumsfeld's suggestions in learning the lessons of Nazi history. He points to researching Hitler's rise to power and how he created a fascist state where there was suppression of the opposition through secrecy, terror, torture and censorship, all justified under nationalism and patriotism.

He also believes that journalists should research and publish more about how Hitler's Nazis manipulated the German population into wars, using psychological manipulation and behavior modification by inducing trauma and fear in others, a process of trauma-based mind control referred to in the now declassified
CIA files of "MK ULTRA." To order declassified MK ULTRA documents from the CIA, go to: http://www.wanttoknow.info/mindcontrol10pg#ciadocs

Zwicker believes that the media must investigate and report on whether these fear-based psychological manipulation techniques have been or are being put into application by US leaders in our post 9/11 world, as they appear to be. 9/11 caused much trauma and fear.

Concerned with the direction that the US has headed since 9/11, Dr. Robert M. Bowman, referring to the Bush / Cheney administration during a radio interview, said: "I think there's been nothing closer to fascism than what we've seen lately from this government." http://www.govinfo.bnet-newmedia.co.uk/opinions_Articles.php?IDVal=50

Bowman is a retired United States Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, a recipient of the Eisenhower Medal, a former head of the US "Star Wars" space weapons program during the Reagan administration and one of America's foremost experts on National Security.

He commented about the Patriot Act as having, "Done more to destroy the rights of Americans than all of our enemies combined."

Bowman is part of a group of notable experts called the "Scholars For 9/11 Truth" made up of professors, engineers, former intelligence and military personnel, journalists, attorneys and many other professionals who say that the 9/11 attacks raise a red flag because they have many elements of false flag operations, such as a "stand-down" of the military defense on that day, one that must be questioned.

The group, made up of several dozen scholars, believes that the media must no longer ignore the fact that a growing number of them are calling for truly independent investigations into 9/11, including investigations to look into the evidence that points towards a possible false flag operation.

For more information about the evidence that the group claims raise serious new questions, readers can visit their website: http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/

The group's call for a truly independent 9/11 investigation appears to resonate with a growing number of mainstream Americans.

A May 2006 Zogby poll of 1,200 adults nationwide found that 45% of those surveyed said that Congress or an International Tribunal should re-investigate the attacks, including whether any US government officials consciously allowed or helped facilitate their success.

Part of the popularity of this growing awareness may be due in part to the millions of people who have viewed one of the most watched online videos of all time, called "Loose Change," which addresses false flag operations and raises serious new questions about the official government 9/11 story. See: http://www.loosechange911.com/

The Zogby poll also showed that more than 42 percent believe that the government and the 9/11 Commission concealed or refused to investigate critical evidence that contradicts their official explanation of the September 11th attacks.

To view a detailed copy of the Zogby poll report, visit: http://www.911truth.org/images/911TruthZogbyPollFinalReport.htm

The mainstream American public has not been alone in their frustration from lack of answers about the official 9/11 story. Addressing the White House commissioned 9/11 investigation, a September 1st, 2006 Associated Press article states that:

"The Sept. 11 commission's chairmen, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, said in their recently published book that the commission found it mind-boggling that authorities claimed that their air defenses had reacted quickly. In the book, 'Without Precedent,' Kean and Hamilton said the panel was so frustrated with repeated misstatements by the
Pentagon and FAA about their response to the 2001 terror attacks that it considered an investigation into possible deception."
http://301url.com/4LJ

On August 9th, 2006, referring to their book and to this issue, CNN's Lou Dobbs as saying: "But the fact that they were (would) continue and perpetuate the lie, suggests that we need a full investigation of what is going on and what is demonstrably an incompetent and at worst deceitful federal government." http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0608/09/ldt.01.html

The historic reality of the deception of false flag operations is confirmed by former Justice Department prosecutor, John Loftus, who once held some of the highest security clearances in the world with special access to
NATO Cosmic, CIA codeword, and Top Secret Nuclear files.

Loftus has been sought after for his terrorism expertise by Fox News, MSNBC, ABC, and many other media across the USA. In a radio interview, when asked about "Operation Northwoods," he said "Sure, yeah, yeah. But you know it, there were thousands of those plans." http://www.debatingforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=19356&sid=06afa63958692e6723c5d72393292cb7

In his book, Zwicker elaborates that false flag operations are the least-recognized, highest impact category of human deceit. He says: "False flag op is the indispensable, most dependable device rulers use to mobilize their populations, especially behind wars the rulers want."

According to a radio interview on Vancouver's Coop radio, Zwicker believes that it is not impossible that such future events have already been planned in order to move the US towards Martial Law. http://exopolitics.blogs.com/exopolitics_radio/

The media critic has concluded that not unlike Germany in the 1930s, a relatively small right-wing extremist group of rulers want more and more power, and will gradually further eliminate civil liberties by manipulating people's minds using more Orwellian language.

He says that if the media doesn't start paying more attention, there will be increased oppression of opposition that will likely move America, and perhaps other Western countries, towards a gradual further elimination of civil liberties. He calls this the path towards a new fascism, one controlled by a small group of ruling elites who perpetuate war after war, such as a never-ending "war on terror," to maintain their power and control.

Dr. Steven Greer has met and spoken to many intelligence, military, government and corporate whistleblowers who explain that to sustain and expand their existence in their current form, the military, industrial, intelligence, laboratory complex need a constant influx of new enemies.

Greer was told that conflicts would evolve "from Cold War, to Rogue Nations, to Global Terrorism, to the ultimate trump card: A hoaxed threat from space." http://www.disclosureproject.org/cosmicdeception.htm

On a brighter note, Zwicker believes that our current path of enmification, the art and consequence of enemy-making, can be reversed if, for example, the media investigates terrorist attacks to find out if they are false flag operations, expose deception, and keep the ruling elites and their circles accountable, not unlike how the Washington Post covered Watergate in the early 1970s.

The Washington Post did a story about Fred Burks in December 2004. He is a whistleblower and former senior State Department language interpreter to top-level politicians such as President
Bill Clinton and
President George W. Bush. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49449-2004Dec8.html

Based on his website that exposes cover-ups, Burks believes that we first need to speak candidly about what's happening in the world at present and move beyond secrecy and fear. He concludes that the more informed we are, the more difficult it will be to perpetuate the deception of any future false flag operations.

Burks supports choices that lead to a more spiritual and purpose-centered life of "Compassion In Action," as referred to by
President Bush on December 12, 2002. http://www.lightstreamers.com/Dannion_PresidentBush.htm

He also believes that when we walk our talk, we can inspire others to lead in a way that creates a brighter future for all.

To read Burks' view on what is happening and what we can do about it, see: http://www.wanttoknow.info/brighterfuture

Burks' philosophy resonates with Zwicker's message about how, by working together in exposing the deception of false flag operations, the media and people from all levels of society can help prevent them, reduce the manufacturing of fear and hate, and improve the human condition. For more information about Zwicker's book, visit: http://www.newsociety.com/bookid/3932

Zwicker will be speaking at the Great Hall at Cooper Union in New York City on September 10th, 2006, a conference where he will be joined with Dr. Robert Bowman and other researchers who are encouraging the media to further learn about false flag operations. For more info: http://www.ny911truth.org/events/5th_anniversary.htm

The company was backed by an investment firm, the Kuwait-American Corp., also linked for many years to the Bush family. KuwAm has been linked to the Bush family financially since the Gulf War. One of its principals and a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, Mishal Yousef Saud al Sabah, served on the board of Stratesec.

Now, consider: The members of a small cabal owned the WTC complex, controlled its electronic security, and also controlled the security not only for one of the airlines whose aircraft were hijacked on 9/11, but the airport from which they originated.

Another little "coincidence" -- Mr. Silversten, who made a down-payment of $124 million on this $3.2 billion complex, promptly insured it for $7 Billion. Not only that, he covered the complex against "terrorist attacks".

Following the attacks, Silverstein filed TWO insurance claims for the maximum amount of the policy ($7B), based on the two -- in Silverstein's view -- separate attacks. The insurance company, Swiss Re, paid Mr. Silverstein $4.6 Billion - a princely return on a relatively paltry investment of $124 million.

There's more. You see, the World Trade Towers were not the real estate plum we are led to believe. From an economic standpoint, the trade center -- subsidized since its inception by the NY Port Authority -- has never functioned, nor was it intended to function, unprotected in the rough-and-tumble real estate marketplace. How could Silverstein Group have been ignorant of this?

The towers required some $200 million in renovations and improvements, most of which related to removal and replacement of building materials declared to be health hazards in the years since the towers were built. It was well-known by the city of New York that the WTC was an asbestos bombshell. For years, the Port Authority treated the building like an aging dinosaur, attempting on several occasions to get permits to demolish the building for liability reasons, but being turned down due the known asbestos problem. Further, it was well-known the only reason the building was still standing until 9/11 was because it was too costly to disassemble the twin towers floor by floor since the Port Authority was prohibited legally from demolishing the buildings.

The projected cost to disassemble the towers: $15 Billion. Just the scaffolding for the operation was estimated at $2.4 Billion!

In other words, the Twin Towers were condemned structures. How convenient that an unexpected "terrorist" attack demolished the buildings completely.

WTC Building 7 was a part of the WTC complex, and covered under the same insurance policy. This 47-storey steel-framed structure, which was NOT struck by an aircraft, mysteriously collapsed 8 hours later that same day into its own footprint at freefall speed - exactly in the manner of the Twin Towers.

How could this have happened? Mr. Silverstein gave the world the answer when he slipped up during a PBS television interview a year later, on 9/11/2002:

"I remember getting a call from the...er...fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, 'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.' And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse."

As anyone who knows anything about construction can tell you, "Pull" is common industry jargon for a controlled demolition.

One thing is for sure, the decision to 'pull' WTC 7 would have delighted many people. Especially because it has been reported that thousands of sensitive files relating to some of the biggest financial scams in history - including Enron and WorldCom -- were stored in the offices of some of the building's tenants:


US Secret Service
NSA
CIA
IRS
BATF
SEC
NAIC Securities
Salomon Smith Barney
American Express Bank International
Standard Chartered Bank
Provident Financial Management
ITT Hartford Insurance Group
Federal Home Loan Bank


The Securities and Exchange Commission has not quantified the number of active cases in which substantial files were destroyed by the collapse of WTC 7. Reuters news service and the Los Angeles Times published reports estimating them at 3,000 to 4,000. They include the agency's major inquiry into the manner in which investment banks divvied up hot shares of initial public offerings during the high-tech boom. ..."Ongoing investigations at the New York SEC will be dramatically affected because so much of their work is paper-intensive," said Max Berger of New York's Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann. "This is a disaster for these cases."

Citigroup says some information that the committee is seeking [about WorldCom] was destroyed in the Sept. 11 terror attack on the World Trade Center. Salomon had offices in 7 World Trade Center. The bank says that back-up tapes of corporate emails from September 1998 through December 2000 were stored at the building and destroyed in the attack.

Inside WTC 7 was the US Secret Service's largest field office with more than 200 employees. "All the evidence that we stored at 7 World Trade, in all our cases, went down with the building," according to US Secret Service Special Agent David Curran.

What a neat, complete, and fortuitous turn of events was 9/11.

Incidentally, it's worth noting that one of Lucky Larry's closest friends - a person with whom it's said he speaks almost daily by phone - is none other than former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

More on that cozy little relationship later...

The report continues:

Afghans' anger at seeing no representatives from international organisations has only served in endearing the Taliban to the local people. The Taliban are often seen as doing their bit to help the Afghans, despite having much less money than the international community, while international troops are perceived as being in the country for their own purposes. Even those who do not want to turn to the Taliban are forced to do so in order to survive and support their families. After five years of no positive change, the overriding opinion is that this a war - originally supposed to "help" the poor people of Afghanistan - which only serves in making the rich richer, including all "foreigners". With children dying, people starving and family livelihoods being destroyed, there is an urgent need for a complete rethink on the part of the international community if Afghans are no longer to live in extreme poverty.

On another section, the devastating report reads:

The ousting of the Taliban regime five years ago was widely believed to mark a new era for Afghanistan. Plagued by decades of violence and poverty, the arrival of the international community heralded a bright future for Afghanistan, confirmed by speeches assuring that the Afghan people would forever be freed from insecurity and oppression. The United States claimed the removal of the Taliban as a humanitarian duty, and promised to deliver enduring freedom to the Afghan people. (...)

Total military spending vs. total development spending in Afghanistan 2002-2006
As this chart illustrates, despite the extreme poverty in Afghanistan, the majority of spending by the international community is on military rather than development and poverty relief projects.

With civilians being killed on a regular basis, Afghans are angry that the majority of international aid has been spent on the military purposes rather than poverty relief. Many believe that the military missions are misguided, having lost faith in the ability of the "foreigners" to bring stability to the country. A perceived lack of respect from international military troops has fuelled Afghans' resentment towards the international community. International troops' apparent unwillingness to study Afghan culture and co-operate with locals, has caused mass hatred of the "foreigners". Some believe that the ongoing fighting in Iraq and recent clashes in Lebanon are proof that the West is attempting to re-colonise the Muslim world. Many Afghans are now looking to the Taliban for leadership, declaring that they will "die fighting the foreigners".

Back in May 2003, the BBC reported:

A small sample of Afghan civilians have shown "astonishing" levels of uranium in their urine, an independent scientist says. (...) The scientist is Dr Asaf Durakovic, of the Uranium Medical Research Center (UMRC), based in Canada. Dr Durakovic, a former US army adviser who is now a professor of medicine, said in 2000 he had found "significant" DU levels in two-thirds of the 17 Gulf veterans he had tested. In May 2002, he sent a team to Afghanistan to interview and examine civilians there. The UMRC says: "Independent monitoring of the weapon types and delivery systems indicate that radioactive, toxic uranium alloys and hard-target uranium warheads were being used by the coalition forces. (...) Without exception, every person donating urine specimens tested positive for uranium internal contamination. The results were astounding: the donors presented concentrations of toxic and radioactive uranium isotopes between 100 and 400 times greater than in the Gulf veterans tested in 1999. If UMRC's Nangarhar findings are corroborated in other communities across Afghanistan, the country faces a severe public health disaster... Every subsequent generation is at risk."

The BBC report continues:

A second UMRC visit to Afghanistan in September 2002 found "a potentially much broader area and larger population of contamination". It collected 25 more urine samples, which bore out the findings from the earlier group. Dr Durakovic said he was "stunned" by the results he had found, which are to be published shortly in several scientific journals. He told BBC News Online: "In Afghanistan there were no oil fires, no pesticides, nobody had been vaccinated - all explanations suggested for the Gulf veterans' condition. But people had exactly the same symptoms. I'm certainly not saying Afghanistan was a vast experiment with new uranium weapons. But use your common sense."

It would be ungenerous though to thank only George W. Bush and his gang of psychopathic mass murderers for this exquisite example of Western friendship. As Bush reminded the Congress on that 20 September 2001, "America has no truer friend than Great Britain. Once again, we are joined together in a great cause. The British Prime Minister has crossed an ocean to show his unity of purpose with America, and tonight we welcome Tony Blair."

The winners of the Cold War took their responsibilities. The NATO, an organization started in 1949 "to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area", extended its nobility and generosity behind its geographical borders. In its "first mission outside the Euro-Atlantic area", NATO took command and co-ordination of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan in August 2003.

The role of ISAF in Afghanistan "is to assist the Government of Afghanistan and the International Community in maintaining security within its area of operation. ISAF supports the Government of Afghanistan in expanding its authority to the rest of the country, and in providing a safe and secure environment conducive to free and fair elections, the spread of the rule of law, and the reconstruction of the country."

A perfect example of much altruism was reported a few days ago. "NATO and Afghan forces killed more than 200 suspected Taliban guerrillas with air strikes and artillery fire in a major offensive in a volatile province in southern Afghanistan, the alliance said Sunday"

As in every real success, the friendship with Afghanistan could have never given its fruits without those journalists, writers, intellectuals, pundits, show business heroes, think tanks' analysts, scholars, experts, showgirls and clowns who have so bravely marched singing "United We Stand".

A particular thanks must also go to the many famous Hollywood stars who have traveled the world to "Support Our Troops".

More recently almost hundred of these modern maîtres à penser took out a full page advertisement in the Los Angeles Times to write:

"We the undersigned are pained and devastated by the civilian casualties in Israel and Lebanon caused by terrorist actions initiated by terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas."

The script goes on:

"If we do not succeed in stopping terrorism around the world, chaos will rule and innocent people will continue to die. We need to support democratic societies and stop terrorism at all costs."

The "pained and devastated" list of brave hearts included the actors Nicole Kidman, Michael Douglas, Dennis Hopper, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Danny De Vito, Don Johnson, James Woods, Kelly Preston, Millie Perkins, Patricia Heaton, James Woods, Gary Sinise and William Hurt; the directors Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Michael Mann, Dick Donner and Sam Raimi; the chairman and majority owner of Paramount Pictures, Sumner Redstone; media moguls Rupert Murdoch, Sumner Redstone and Haim Saban; and tennis star Serena Williams.

The Jewish News Weekly of Northern California reported:

"The project was initiated by Ehud Danoch, Israel's consul general in Los Angeles, who has made the entertainment industry a special concern. Danoch and his early partners on the project assumed that the ad would carry no more than 50 or 60 signatures. But the names kept coming in, until the organizers had to close the list at 84 names. Israeli Danny Dimbort, co-chairman of the Nu Image production company, contacted 28 people. Most signed on, he said, though "some were scared to do so." His company also paid for the full-page ad in the national and international news section of the L.A. Times - at a cost of $117,132, according to the paper's advertising department. Gottlieb, president of Samuel Goldwyn Films, said he received only positive feedback, with friends telling him they were moved by the ad. Some even chided him for not inviting them to sign the statement."

Presenting his new movie, World Trade Center, at the beginning of August in New York, director Oliver Stone said, "Many Americans, perhaps the majority, were really angry and wanted revenge... In fact, I did, too. I'm not a pacifist. I'd like to be one. I'd love to be in the best of all worlds. But we're dealing with reality here. I felt very angry, but I think the enemy was 5,000, 6,000 al-Qaeda. And I would go again to fight them. I wouldn't hesitate. And I'd send my son to fight them. That was the war, in Afghanistan. We didn't complete that war."

A few days ago in Venice for the Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica, better known internationally as the Venice Film Festival, the director of Platoon was quoted by the Italian press saying, "L'America si è sentita oltraggiata, giustamente arrabbiata. Anche se io, personalmente, reputo sbagliato l'intervento in Iraq. Ma giusto quello in Afghanistan" [America felt outraged, rightly angry. Even though I personally consider wrong the military intervention in Iraq. But just the war in Afghanistan].

This bizarre position [the war in Iraq was wrong but the Afghanistan one was just] is even too common in the West, even within the anti-war movement and what is left of the left. The power of Hollywood, one might say.

After five years the truth about what happened on September 11, 2001 is still unknown. The US government has lied and deceived its own people and the world. But the official narrative has been used by Washington and London to wage war against innocent countries, to mass murder hundreds of thousands of innocent people, to reopen concentration camps, to kidnap and torture, and to curtail freedom and civil liberties at home. Tel Aviv has used the September 11 events to step up ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Palestinian People so to carry out the Zionist dream of the Greater Israel.

We need to remember that whatever happened that day of five years ago, Afghanistan had nothing to do with it. Waging a war against that country because of the attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was like waging a war against Denmark. Whoever is responsible for the September 11, 2001 events [and we don't know it yet!] the reason for the aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq must be found somewhere else.

Looking back at the comments made just after the attacks in New York and Washington, those made by former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the Government Reform Committee of the House of Representatives in Washington on September 20, 2001 have now the power of a prophecy. "What is at stake today is nothing less than the survival of our civilization." Netanyahu made a call for a total war against the Arab and Muslim world. [Rupert Murdoch's New York Post published a shorter version of Netanyahu's statement the following day.]

Of course he named the Palestinian territories. And thanks to Israel, the situation in the Palestinian territories is today worse than ever, with genocide taking place in Gaza in these very hours. He named Afghanistan, and Afghanistan was invaded and occupied. He named Iraq, and Iraq was invaded and occupied. He named Lebanon, and Lebanon was bombed and destroyed. On that list Netanyahu names a few other countries too, among them Syria and Iran. Those countries have not been bombed yet. But it's just a matter of time and "Benjamin Netanyahu, the head of the hard-line Likud Party who just five months ago was soundly defeated in elections, has now emerged as the most popular Israeli politician" according to a poll by the Dahaf Institute, published at the end of August in the Yediot Ahronot daily. "If elections were held now, Netanyahu's right-wing Likud would emerge as the strongest party... Right-wing and religious parties would form the largest bloc in parliament... When given a choice between Netanyahu and Olmert as prime minister, 45 percent chose Netanyahu and 24 percent supported Olmert. Netanyahu's renewed popularity comes after a year on the political fringe, following his opposition to Israel's unilateral pullout from the Gaza Strip last summer."

"Today we are all Americans", said Netanyahu five years ago. The West was quick to repeat this slogan, which had nothing to do with the solidarity with the victims of the September 11 attacks but a call for a total war that should have been fought by the US in Israel's interest. Is that what's been happening?

It's obvious that the control of the energy resources by our capitalist dictatorship is an important element to understand what's been happening in the last five years, but it cannot be the only reason to explain the geo-political complexity. Far from being a conspiracy theory, the Jewish-Zionist-Israeli lobby is a fact of life. Its power could be seen once again in all its deadly strength just a few weeks ago, when the whole world was condemned to be a powerless spectator in front of the destruction inflicted against Lebanon. This lobby exercises its power in many different countries and through many different ways and it's understandable that the lobby itself tries to suppress open discussion, dissent and freedom of speech through charges of anti-Semitism every time someone tries to question its role in today's world. More difficult instead it's to understand the reasons of the Jewish-Zionist-Israeli lobby's deniers among those who try to fight imperialism, in this historical moment that sees imperialism and Zionism allied against humanity.

Why don't we shout "Today we are all Afghans, Iraqis, Lebanese and Palestinians?"