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FILMMAKERS NOTEBOOK 114
PRESENT THE MASSIVE PRIMA FACIE CASE ON 9/11 TO THE COURT OF PUBLIC
OPINIION
(But don’t piss up a rope)
Ralph Schoenman
A 911 Grand Jury and other strategies.
Author, political-analyst and activist Ralph Schoenman gives the
concluding remarks of the grand jury strategy workshop June 3, 2006 at
the 9/11: Revealing the Truth/Reclaiming Our Future conference held at
the Embassy Suits Hotel/O’Hare Rosemont, in Chicago. The 3-day event
was hosted by 911Truth.org and MUJCA-NET. Other workshop speakers were
Kathleen Ferrick Rosenblatt, Lynn Pentz and Phil Berg. (A
Snowshoefilms transcription; filmmakers notebook #120).
RALPH SCHOENMAN: Let me say first of all that we have to understand,
examine and look at the events of 9-11 not as sui generis, not as
something unique or distinct or separate or ‘new’ with respect to the
conduct of policy by those who have structural power and control of
our society.
One of the functions of that commission [the ‘National Commission on
Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States’] was to assimilate
antecedent such events to that ‘demonic other’. All of that effort by
that commission was to look at 1993 [WTC bombing for which the prime
patsy was the blind Egyptian cleric Sheikh Omar A. Rahman] or the
bombing of the embassies in Nairobi [Kenya] and Dar es Salaam
[Tanzania] or the attack upon the U.S.S. Cole, or the blowing up of
the La Belle discotheque in Berlin [West Berlin, April 5, 1986; the
neo-cons running Pres. Reagan blamed Gaddafi then bombed Libya,
killing 15 including Gaddafi’s infant daughter], and all of those were
again assimilated to the category of terror when in each instance they
were false flag operations involving United States authorities with
ample evidence on the record with respect to that.
And I have to emphasize in this regard that those events, which were
templates for the events of 9-11 preceded under a prior
administration: Nairobi and Dar es Salaam were under Clinton. 1993 was
under Clinton. The same apparatus of implementation was present
irrespective of what nominal administration was in office, without
power.
THE SYSTEMIC NATURE OF THESE EVENTS
So we have to be clear about the systemic nature of these events. And
in this regard, let me just make reference here to a prior such
operation, namely the execution of the Kennedy brothers. I’m not even
going to speak here about the murders of Martin Luther King Jr. or
Malcolm X and countless others who are witnesses or material figures
in relation to those events. I mean there’s a 4-volume book by Penn
Jones called Forgive My Grief, which simply itemizes the material
witnesses in relation to the Kennedy execution who were killed in a
space of 18 months.
So I think we have to be clear about what we’re addressing here which
is a systemic issue. It has to do with preserving the power of a
besieged handful of people in control of a system in terminal decay.
And in understanding that, we also, I think, have to look at a
particular aspect of what it means to carry out education, agitation
and struggle against these particular kinds of crimes. This criminal
conspiracy which is the operation of power and its structure in this
society. One percent controlling more than 95 percent of the
population combined. As Bill Pepper [a conference keynote speaker and
author of An Act of State] cited a particular statistic that I like to
cite and have done over the years, Robert Townsend’s documentation
about what he called the 5,000 who have control of what he called the
commanding heights of the U.S. economy, averaging 14 corporate
directorships per person. As Townsend, who was the head of Avis and
American Express, said who look upon this country as their own private
whorehouse and treat each president as their private towel boy. That
has to be born in mind.
With respect to the execution of Kennedy, massive evidence; evidence
as massive as we are finding now in relation to 9-11. And many people
had the expectation – I would call it an illusion – that out of a
Congressional investigation or some formal juridical arena, we would
find redress in this regard.
You know, paradoxically, when we want reform or change or concessions
on the part of the rulers, they are never obtained by suborning
ourselves to their decisions or pleading for these things, or asking
for them, or coming before them. Oh, on the contrary as Clarence
Thomas used to say – the real Clarence Thomas of ILWU Local 10 [San
Francisco], ‘We didn’t get to vote by voting.’ It’s only when a
movement is independent of control of the established order, when
people are mobilized, when they are fearful of the extent such a
movement is escaping their control that concessions are made in the
form of reforms. And the moment that movement is deflected and
re-absorbed and co-opted and channeled and contained, why they take
the reforms back. Concessions are retrieved. They’re always probing,
those who have control, to see how far they go, what can they get away
with, and how they can accomplish demobilizing and demoralizing their
victim population.
Specifically I want to cite the example of Fletcher Prouty. Many of
you may be aware of [USAF] Col. Prouty who had been in the Eisenhower
administration, the liaison between Central Intelligence and the White
House for the implementation of programs of assassination, political
assassination. That was his desk. Well, Prouty had been reassigned on
the eve of the Kennedy execution, to New Zealand for some nominal
operations that had to do with the South Pole and what-have-you. Yes,
when the Kennedy execution unfolded he recognized the MO -- notably
because the newspapers in New Zealand and Australia were carrying the
information about the culpability of Lee Harvey Oswald prior to the
event. There was a time gap.
Prouty… was called before the Church Committee. Frank Church, the
Senate committee on assassinations… [United States Senate Select
Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to
Intelligence Activities, 1975]. Now of course Church himself had
himself prior been in the Central Intelligence Agency. But what
Fletcher described was that when he appeared before the Church
Committee, and prior to that going into the offices where it was being
administered, there he saw amongst those who are establishing its
agenda, were three of his own functionaries, aides in the program with
which he had been associated in his Eisenhower years, the plug-uglies,
they were essentially running the operation.
What we found with the Rockefeller Commission* or for that matter the
congressional committee that Robert Blakey was assigned to conduct
[U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, 1977-1979], they
wanted to obtain what we knew, establish where that evidence came
from, who were the witnesses coming forward with that? To shut it
down.
This is not an arena, I suggest to you, where we will find redress.
What we did with respect to the crimes against the population of
Vietnam was to establish a tribunal, yes, but on a model of what
you’ve heard here before, namely a grand jury. We did not assume that
we were in a position with state power to bring in a juridical
indictment. We couldn’t establish arbitrarily and adversary
proceeding. This would in effect have been a mock trial. You cannot
compel --we don’t have subpoena power – witnesses to come forward. Or
obligate them to select lawyers in their own defense. This is not a
useful method of procedure.
We had a prima facie case, massive evidence, a great crime. Nor did we
affect some putative objectivity that none of us can lay claim to
possessing. Everyone is shaped and formed by their own experience,
their own predilections, their own class position; every judge, every
jury of people shaped and formed by… The only criterion is the
availability of the evidence, the massiveness of the evidence and its
verifiability by others. Some putative objectivity which has never
existed is a futile pursuit. In fact, it’s only a means through which
the captive media seek to impugn the activity of those who were
engaged… If you were not concerned about…. You talk about crime,
McNamara in the recent film The Fog of War acknowledges, well, about
2.7 million people were killed in Vietnam. What is that, about 29
million people in the United States, equivalent? Hm? I mean these
genocidal pursuits are rooted deeply within a structure of imperial
control and power, the pursuit of exploitation of resources and cheap
labor, and the imposition of military occupation to achieve those
ends. And above all, the addiction to war. It’s an economy that since
the 30s is unable to escape its dependence upon arms production and
pursuits. Trillions upon trillions of dollars… You can’t… What about
the trillion dollars a year, which is an official estimate, that is
involved in the drug traffic that enters the United States? Every
principal bank is monitoring and laundering and dealing with these
proceeds. You can’t distinguish this from the workings of finance
capital…
[film break]
[…any]body, who in the face of such evidence affects a sort of,
‘Wouldn’t it be nice to find out what is happening in Vietnam?’ That’s
an agnostic position that is totally incompatible with the evidence
which is so massive and in everybody’s presence. No, that is a
criterion for not being entitled to being involved in pursuit of these
issues.
If you affect an agnostic position with reference to the events of
9-11, you are indicating that you are involved in what the Jesuits
call invincible ignorance because all of the major media have already,
in their own pages, provided a huge documentation for the nature of
these events. Wall Street Journal is a principal source for the
relationship between the Bushes and the Clintons and Jackson Stevens,
and Osama bin Laden’s family and the investments thereof. The BCCI and
the drug trafficking, all of this in the Houston Chronicle, the Boston
Chronicle and Sentinel…ad nauseum. The reference to the hands of
intelligence all over the patsies who were established [as] the
putative hijackers. The Washington Post, Knight-Ridder newspapers and
Newsweek, yeah Brooks Air Force Base, Maxwell Air Force Base,
crypto-security clearance, Pensacola Naval Station as their address.
Monterey Defense Language School, Monterey, California – this is the
mainstream newspapers that have provided this documentation over a
space of time.
We ferreted it out. We draw the implications of this, all of us do
that, but there’s no single member of Congress, no single member of
the media who can say to me that they’re not aware of this data, it’s
all over the place. It’s established data…
KATHLEEN FERRICK ROSENBLATT (panelist): Ralph, we only have a few
minutes left and I’d love to hear about the international tribunal
that you’re working on.
RALPH SCHOENMAN: Well, I, the international tribunal… I’m not working
on an international tribunal, frankly… I was secretary general of the
International Tribunal on U.S. War Crimes in Indochina,
rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/RMM04285.html and time is, you
know, we don’t have the time.
PRESENT THE MASSIVE PRIMA FACIE CASE
TO THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINIION
I had, during those years, given a description of what it was that
went into the forming of this tribunal, the premises with which we
were working, and the basic point I wanted to make to you about that
is that we did not affect or pretend to have any juridical objective
here. No, it was an agitational objective… we had very imposing people
with enormous credentials, both in terms of their intellectual
contribution and their competence to examine the bacteriological
weaponry that was being used, the impact on dikes and on the
agricultural infrastructure, the presence of torture, the genocidal
nature of that war, its purpose and such… we had people with great
authority and competence to document and to establish and to
demonstrate this reality. But that was by way of presenting a massive
prima facie case to the court of public opinion for the purpose of
mobilizing people for political struggle, for a struggle that would
challenge those in authority around this reality.
And I think that, as with your description of the grand jury, and so
with respect to any tribunal, I don’t myself think that the courts are
going to be an arena in which we will obtain redress in this regard.
Because the nature of the court system and indeed of the…. what passes
for Congress and such is that there is a vested and necessary interest
in not permitting that to occur. We’ve seen this repeatedly, and
inevitably. But it’s not to say that you don’t use them as an arena
with which to agitate, through which to agitate. But redress from
these bodies will not be fast in coming.
TALK ABOUT A KLEPTOCRACY!
You know, with respect to Watergate itself, Watergate as we are
increasingly aware is an inside-job, I mean the setting up of the
Nixon people, this is part of the internecine struggle within the
class about various events, I mean…. Look, Patrick Fitzgerald is what?
With Chertoff he’s involved in the FBI office in New York in the sting
operation that was the bombing of 1993 in the World Trade Center. Emad
Ali Salim is an Egyptian intelligence officer, a high-level FBI
operative who’s wearing a wire when he goes in to the mosque of the
blind Egyptian sheikh. This is something they set up by design.
Chertoff is deeply involved with that. Chertoff was representing, by
the way, one of the principal financers in a conduit for CIA funding
of Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaida apparatus. He did his for years.
Patrick Fitzgerald is the point main with respect to the indictments
and the prosecution around the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam bombings but
we…. Ali Muhammad, and these people, I mean, it’s all over the San
Francisco Chronicle and any number of places, these guys are long
stand[ing]…. Ali Muhammad is Fort Bragg, Central Intelligence, FBI.
He’s providing for CIA the bodyguards for Osama bin Laden. The hands
of intelligence are all over these events.
What is Fitzgerald about right now with these indictments? This is
relevant to what we are discussing here. He’s basing himself upon what
is called the ‘Lone Wolf Act,’ http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?j109:I04259:j109FALLON.html
namely making it a federal crime to out the, what Harrison Salisbury
called ‘The Gentlemen Killers of the CIA.’ The gentlemen killers of
the CIA are not very gentlemanly. You know, I mean Valerie Plame was
very much known for her adeptness with an AK-47 when she was doing….
you know, she was not an administrator-functionary in North Africa.
She was operating death squads in North Africa.
Joseph Wilson was a point man for Bush Sr. with respect to setting up
Sadaam. Not April Glaspie, the diplomatic cover. Wilson was talking to
[Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq] Tariq Aziz and
Sadaam about, you know, ‘You’ve got a grievance here. The Kuwaiti
emir, he moved his arbitrary borders 900 square kilometers north; he’s
sitting on the edge of the Ramallah oil fields, the largest in Iraq.
He bought the Santa Fe Drilling Corporation of Alhambra California for
2.3 billion dollars.’ [Brent] Scowcroft is on the board of directors,
[Robert Adam] Mosbacher was on the board of directors. Talk about a
kleptocracy. He [the Kuwaiti emir] then sucks out about $14 billion of
Iraqi oil with his horizontal drilling equipment. And now, Wilson is
saying to Sadaam, ‘You’ve got a grievance here. You should rectify
that border.’ He says, ‘You know, with our navy in the Gulf and your
troops rectifying this,’ he says, ‘we’ll arrange cheap oil.’ They’re
setting him up.
CELEBRATING THE PREDATORS
But I raise this with you because these people who are being
celebrated in the Nation Institute and on Pacifica, Amy Goodman,
what-have-you, these are people who are elements of the means through
which policies of predation are inflicted. You know what they did in
Iraq with respect to the Gulf War, the magnitude of devastation, you
know in a space of nine weeks more firepower from the air than all of
World War 2. A country of 17 million people with one-ten thousandth
the military capacity of the United States, these things….
AUDIENCE MEMBER: And depleted uranium….
RALPH SCHOENMAN: Well, depleted uranium, yes, ancillary I have to tell
you, devastating though it is. I mean high-flaring magnesium bombs
that suck the oxygen out of the air; gossamer elements that when
ignited create a firestorm of such a magnitude everything is
devastated. You should look at the report of Matiat Asari [sp?] the
undersecretary of the United Nations. I mean, the shock about the
devas[tation]…. I mean this country is totally devastated by this air
bombardment and the air bombardment is the little beginning. This is a
procedure with both of the nominal parties are deeply involved. You
know, what did Madeleine Halfbright tell us with respect to the United
Nations’ sanctions/blockade of that country, 1.5 million civilians
dead, 750 thousand children through the blockade alone. Was it worth
it, she was asked [60 Minutes, Leslie Stahl]. She said, ‘Yes it was.’
These are people who are deeply imbedded in the preservation of a
system of control.
So in documenting this, in demonstrating this, and seeking arenas in
which to make it available to our population through tribunals….
Tribunals are in essence a means of grand jury-like presentiment to
our population for purposes of mobilizing people in their own self
defense, to address this criminal system as such. And if we look to
the perpetrators as an arena of redress, we will be pissin’ up a rope,
quite frankly.
THE NATURE OF OUR TASK HERE
I think it’s essential to bear in mind what the nature of our task
here which is to build a constituency for a political struggle for a
political instrument of change to sweep this entire oligarchy, this
corporate ruling class, out of control of our institutional life
because there is a root incompatibility between any kind of democratic
entitlement and a system which is dependant upon its eradication, its
nullification; its empty of any content, form without substance. So
this question of providing an agitational arena through tribunals and
hearings, yes it’s a very important task for us to undertake, but I
suggest to you that it’s a political task. It’s a mobilizing task.
It’s an agitational task. That’s where our political focus should be
because we have a vast population that is the primary target of this.
All of these terrible things, from depleted uranium to the bio-weaponization
of bacteria and the altering of genomes and the creating of the next
pandemic – this is targeting our population. It has for 40 years. We
are promised that the next pandemics are inexorable and will be
unleashed and they’re in the process of being unleashed. They have
been. That’s what a criminal system in terminal decay is compelled to
do. We understand this through looking at the data, for seeing how,
from our own experience, how these things are put together and how
they work.
So, yes, let’s assemble evidence, let’s mobilize people around that
understanding, let’s provide, as it were, instruments for
dissemination of this information. We certainly want to engage people
of some prominence in this process to the extent that we can, but the
institutional arena is not likely to be one friendly to our pursuits.
That is an arena for absorption, for deflection, and for shutting
things down. From our lived experience. Let’s go forward with respect
to building a genuine and ongoing movement for fundamental change.
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* Headed by Nelson Rockefeller, Gerald Ford’s vice president, the 1975
“United States President’s Commission on CIA activities in the United
States,” was a cover-up of 30 years of mind control experimentation by
the CIA et al. Nelson, of course, was integrally involved with
MK-ULTRA from the start, along with family employee Henry Kissinger. (Snowshoefilms
note).
** 1967, Participants, e.g., Charles De Gaulle, Gabriel Kolko, Norodom
Sihanouk, Jean Paul Sartre, Bertrand Russell
(Transcribed from the video (21:41) by snowshoefilms; bracketed
additions, snowshoefilms, 2006 |
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