Newsletter No. 877
News-Analysis
January 16, 2008

 

9.11 REVISIONISM REACHES THE FLOOR OF THE JAPANESE DIET

A Canada-based outfit called the Centre for Research on Globalization has posted an English-language transcript of an interesting exchange that took place on January 9th on the floor of the Diet. A DPJ House of Councillors member named Yukihisa Fujita, as part of the deliberations about the MSDF bill, used the occasion to question the generally-accepted accounts of 9.11.

Photo: Yukihisa Fujita
Source: Unknown

I’m sure that most of us have heard one or another conspiracy theory about 9.11 over the years. Personally, this is one case where I fully believe the official, standard account. I’ve never heard anything from the conspiracy theorists that is remotely as credible as the accounts found in Steve Coll’s Ghost Wars or even the official 9.11 Commission Report itself. I think that those sources do an extremely good job as regard the whos and hows and wheres and whens of the 9.11 story.

The only place that the official accounts tend to fall short is on the question of why -- in other words, they don’t necessarily provide the full context that explains why Islamic militancy has come about, and what has been the US role in cultivating it over the past half-century or so.

At any rate, I don’t give much credence to Mr. Fujita’s doubts about the facts surrounding the 9.11 attacks, and I think that this is a very ill-advised route of inquiry for the Democratic Party of Japan or other Japanese opponents of the War on Terrorism. If I were to advise them, I would tell them to stick to the generally-accepted facts, as those are quite damning enough of US policy even without all the conspiracy stories.

I must admit that I have little patience for the 9.11 conspiracy stories in any case, precisely because they tend undermine the credibility of real world, fact-based critiques of the War on Terrorism.

Reading this transcript, however, there are some points of interest other than Mr. Fujita’s 9.11 revisionist theories.

I do agree with him that Japanese leaders need a thoroughgoing reconsideration of what its “War on Terrorism” policy is supposed to be doing, and whether the current methods are actually achieving those goals, or running counter to them.

I also agree with the broad point that Japan should not over-rely on the United States for crucial information about its foreign policies. I really think that Tokyo needs to invest much more in its foreign intelligence-gathering systems and improve the quality of their independent analyses. The arguments in the Yomiuri that Japan needs MSDF officers stationed in Bahrain in order to understand what is going on in Iran and Pakistan, for example, is a pretty clear indication that Japan’s current political intelligence-gathering systems are too weak and dependent on the US. We heard much the same thing about the GSDF when it was stationed in Samawa. Even if one prefers a peace policy like that of Social Democratic Party, Japan needs a strong and independent intelligence system.

The problem here with Mr. Fujita is that he is combining legitimate criticisms of US policy with (what I regard as) basically crackpot notions of some 9.11 conspiracy. Usama Bin Ladin and Ayman Zawahiri have been quite open and even gleeful about their own role in attacking the United States on 9.11. Both the accusers and the accused are in agreement on those facts. So what is the real logical basis of Fujita’s argument here?

This is a shining example of the wrong way to attack US policy and the War on Terrorism.

THE TRANSCRIPT

Committee Chairman: We will now begin the first session of the defense and foreign affairs committee. We will now start discussing the special anti-terror law. We now call on Mr. Yukihisa Fujita…

Yukihisa Fujita: This will be the last televised broadcast of this committee, so I would like to talk about the origin of the War on Terrorism which was the attacks of 9.11. On September 11 of 2002 I went to a theater house for a charity concert to help build a school in Afghanistan. They chose to have the charity concert on that day as a gesture of respect for the dead. Normally 9.11 commemorative events are for the people who died in New York, but the people who held this event decided that more innocent people had died as a result of 9.11 in Afghanistan than in New York, so they built a grade school near where the statue of Buddha was destroyed in Bamiyan. The name of the school is the “School of Hope." They also lit candles to commemorate the dead both in Afghanistan and in New York in the year 2002, one year after the attacks. So, when discussing these anti-terror laws, we should ask ourselves: What was 9.11? What is terrorism? So today, I would like to talk about the beginning of the War on Terror.

I would like to ask the people who call this law an “anti-terror law” to realize that the biggest victim of the War on Terrorism has been the people of Afghanistan, and I believe that helping the people of Afghanistan should be our biggest priority. I would like to ask Mr. Inuzuka about this.

Tadashi Inuzuka: As Mr. Fujita says, the main purpose of this law is to provide peace and security to Afghanistan. And, as he says, the biggest sufferers have been the people of Afghanistan. Afghanistan has 1.7 times the land area of Japan and some twenty million people live there. Also, because of a drought on the Eurasian continent, close to five million have died due to water shortages. Even now, one million people live close to the main battlegrounds. So, the main purpose is to provide stability to those war zones, and so in that context, what should Japan do? However, instead of providing support by providing fuel to the US forces, we at the Democratic Party have decided that providing water is more important. The philosophy behind our anti-terror law is to get the ruling party to help deal with this problem.

Committee Chairman: Mr. Fujita.

Yukihisa Fujita: I would like to talk about the origins of this War on Terrorism. You may recall that in November I asked you if terrorism was war or if it was a crime. And the whole start of this War on Terrorism was 9.11. What I want to know is if this event was caused by Al-Qaida or not. So far, the only thing the government has said is that we think it was caused by Al-Qaida because President Bush told us so. We have not seen any real proof that it was Al-Qaida. I would like to know why the Prime Minister thinks it was the Taliban who was responsible for 9.11. Committee Chief, I want to ask the Prime Minister because he was chief cabinet secretary at the time.

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda: Since the attacks we have communicated with the US government and other governments at different levels and exchanged information. According to secret information obtained by our government and reports put together by foreign governments, the 9.11 attacks were carried out by the international terrorist organization known as Al-Qaida.

Yukihisa Fujita: So, you are talking about both secret and disclosed information. My question is, has the Japanese government carried out its own investigation using the police and other resources? It is a crime, so surely an investigation needs to be carried out. When a Japanese journalist was shot in Myanmar, you carried out an investigation. In the same way over twenty Japanese people died on 9.11, so surely the government carried out its own investigation and decided that Al-Qaida was responsible. So, what kind of investigation did you carry out? At the time you were chief cabinet secretary, so surely you would know better than anybody, so I want to ask you about your investigation.

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda: After the 9.11 attacks, the National Police Agency sent an emergency anti-terror team to New York. They met with US government officials and gathered information about missing Japanese.

Yukihisa Fujita: So you are saying over twenty people died as a result of a crime, and most of those people were working in New York. Also, there were some Japanese who died in the four airplanes that were hijacked. I would like to know exactly how many people died in the buildings and how many died in the airplanes. I also want to know how you confirmed this. I would like the Foreign Minister to answer me.

Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura: We found the bodies of over a dozen Japanese following the simultaneous terror attacks carried out on September 11, 2001. We were also informed about the deaths of eleven more people by the US authorities. In total, twenty-four Japanese died in those attacks. Of those, two were in the airplanes.

Yukihisa Fujita: I would like to ask what flights the two Japanese who died in the airplanes were on, and how you determined who they were. If the foreign minister does not know it is OK to get a bureaucrat to answer.

Foreign Ministry Division Chief Ryoji Tanizaki: Since this a question of fact, I will answer. As the Foreign Minister said, of the twenty-four people who died, two were on the airplanes. One of them was on United Flight 93 and the other was on American Airlines Flight 11. As for how we know this, well, I do not have the information in front of me, but we were told by US authorities and, in general, they use DNA testing. So we believe that is how we know about those two people.

Yukihisa Fujita: So you are saying you do not know because you do not have the documents. Also, you say you believe there was DNA testing, but you do not know. So what I want to say today is that this was a crime and crimes are supposed to be investigated. So the government needs to inform the victims’ families of the results of their investigation. Also, instead of just observing the anniversary of 9.11 every year you must be gathering information and reacting to it. So, during the past six years have you been supplying the families of the deceased with information? I would like to ask the Foreign Minister to answer.

Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura: So you do not want to ask any more about how we confirmed the deaths of Japanese, but want to know about reports to the victims’ families? We provided the families with information about the bodies and about compensation funds. Also, for the thirteen Japanese whose remains we found, we helped the families deal with the bodies. We also financially support visits to the World Trade Center site for the families on every anniversary.

Yukihisa Fujita: Since I do not have much time, I would like to ask about the suspicious information being uncovered and the doubts people worldwide are having about the events of 9.11. Many of these doubters are very influential people. In such circumstances, I believe that the Japanese government, which claims that the attacks were carried out by Al-Qaida, should be providing the victims’ families with this new information. In that context I would like to ask several questions.

First of all, I would like to get all members of the committee to look at this panel and look at the pictures I have provided you with. This is concrete evidence in the form of photographs and other types of information. The first photograph has computer graphics attached to show how large the plane that hit the Pentagon was. A 757 is quite a large airplane with a width of thirty-eight meters. So, as you can see, even though such a large plane hit the Pentagon, there is only a hole that is too small for the airplane. This is a photograph taken of firemen at work, and you can also see there is no damage of the sort an airplane that large should make. I would also like you to look at the lawn in front and notice that there are no airplane parts on it. Let us now look at the third picture, which is also of the Pentagon, taken from a US TV news report that has captions that shows the roof of the Pentagon is still intact. Again even though a huge airplane is supposed to have hit, there is not enough corresponding damage. Now let us move to the next photograph. Here is a photograph of a hole. As Minister Komura knows, the Pentagon is a very strong building with many walls. Yet the airplane has pierced them. But as you know, airplanes are made of the lightest possible material. An airplane made of such light material could not make a hole like that. Next, I would like to show a photograph of how the airplane hit the building. The airplane made a U-turn, avoiding the Defense Secretary's office and hitting the only part of the Pentagon that had been specially reinforced to withstand a bomb attack.

Also, in the middle of page five, we have a comment from a US Air Force official. He says he had flown the two types of airplane used on 9.11, and he could not believe it would be possible for someone who is flying one for the first time to be able to carry out such a maneuver. Also, as you know, they have not recovered the flight recorders from most of these four airplanes. Also, there were more than eighty security cameras at the Pentagon, but they have refused to release almost all of the footage. In any case, as you have just seen, there is no picture of the airplane or of its wreckage in any of these photographs. It is very strange that no such pictures have been shown to us.

As you know, Japan's Self-Defense Forces have their headquarters in Ichigaya. Can you imagine if an airplane hit a major city, if an hour and a half after an airplane hit New York, that an airplane could hit the Pentagon? In such a situation, how could our allies allow such an attack to take place? I would like the Defense Minister to answer this.

Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba: I have not prepared, so I will have to answer ad-lib. If such a situation took place, then the Air Force would send fighters up to shoot down any airplanes. This is what happened with an attack on the German constitutional court. In the case of Japan, our reaction would depend on what kind of airplane it was, who was flying it, and what their purpose was. However, according to our laws, it might be hard to order an airplane to be shot down just because it was flying at a low level. We would probably have Self-Defense Forces fly with it, and ask for a cabinet decision. Since an airplane would have many people on board, we would have do discuss what to do. This happened a long time ago, when a Cesna airplane was flown into the house of a person called Yoshio Kodama. There was also an All Nippon Airways flight bound for Hakodate that was hijacked and had the pilot killed. It would be best if such a thing never happened, but we need to prepare new laws for such situations and discuss them in the Diet.

Yukihisa Fujita: Since we are running out of time, I would like to present a new piece of evidence. Please look at this panel. The first picture is one you see often of the two towers that were hit by hijacked airplanes. I could understand if this happened right after the airplanes hit, but here we can see large piece of material flying a large distance through the air. Some flew 150 meters. You can see objects flying in this picture as if there was an explosion. Here is a picture I took from a book. This lets you see how far the objects flew. The third picture is of a fireman who was involved in the rescue talking about a series of explosions in the building that sounded like a professional demolition. We cannot present video today, so I have written a translation of what the fireman said. Here he is saying, “It went boom, boom, boom like explosions were going off.”

Here is something said by a Japanese research team of officials from the fire department and the construction ministry. They interviewed a Japanese survivor who said that while she was fleeing there were explosions. This testimony appears in a report prepared with the aid of the construction ministry and the fire department. Now, I would like you to see the following picture. Normally it is said that the twin towers collapsed because they were hit by airplanes. However, one block away from the twin towers is Building Number 7. It can be seen in the following map a block away from the WTC. This building collapsed seven hours after the WTC buildings were attacked. If I could show you a video, it would be easy to understand, but take a look at this photograph. This is a forty-seven story building that fell in this manner [He drops and object to demonstrate]. The building falls in five or six seconds. It is about the same speed as an object would fall in a vacuum. This building falls like something you would see in a Kabuki show. Also, it falls while keeping its shape. Remember it was not hit by an airplane. You have to ask yourself if a building could fall in that manner, due to a fire, after seven hours. Here, we have a copy of the 9.11 Commission Report. This is a report put out by the US government in July of 2004, but this report does not mention the collapse of the building I just described. It is not mentioned at all in here [he waves the book]. FEMA also issued a report, but they also fail to mention this building. Many people believe, especially after seeing the story about Building Number 7, that something is strange here. Since this is an incident where many people died, people think it should be investigated.

We are running out of time, but I would also like to mention about the stock options. Just before the 9.11 attacks; that is, on September 6th, 7th, and 8th, there were options put out on the stocks of the two airlines United and American that were hit by hijackers. There were also options on Merrill Lynch, one of the biggest WTC tenants. In other words, somebody had insider information, and made a fortune selling options of these stocks. The head of Germany's Bundesbank at the time, who is equivalent to the Governor of the Bank of Japan, said there are lots of facts to prove the people involved in the terror attacks profited from insider information. He said there was lots of suspicious trading involving financial companies and others prior to the attacks. The head of the Bundesbank was willing to say this much. I would like to ask the Finance Minster about these options. Did the government of Japan know about this, and what do you think about this? I would like to ask Finance Minister Nukaga about this.

Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga: I was in Burkina Faso in Africa when I heard about this incident. I decided to fly immediately to the US, but when I got to Paris, I was told there were no flights to America. So I only heard what was reported later about the facts. I know there have been reports about the points you raise. So we made it obligatory that people provide ID for securities transactions and for suspicious transactions to be reported, and we made it a crime to provide money to terrorist organizations. We believe that the international financial system should not be abused. In any case, terrorism is a horrible thing, and must be condemned. This type of terrorism cannot be stopped by one country, but needs to be stopped by international society.

Yukihisa Fujita: I would like to ask our finance specialist, Mr. Asao, to tell me about the options. A group of people with large amounts of money, clear insider information, and financial expertise would have been necessary for such a thing to take place. Could a few terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan carry out such a sophisticated and large-scale set of transactions? I would like to ask Mr. Asao to respond.

Keiichiro Asao: I understand options are a deal to sell stocks at a fixed price. In this case, somebody must have had insider information to carry out such transactions, because nobody could normally predict these airlines would have their planes hijacked. So, I believe this was certainly a case of insider trading.

Yukihisa Fujita: Prime Minister, you were Chief Cabinet Secretary at the time, and as somebody has already noted, this was an incident of the sort that humanity had never previously experienced. Also, there appears to be a lot more information about this incident coming out now than came out in the months after the attacks. Now that we are an internet and visual society, this information is being made public, so if we look at the situation now, the whole starting point for these two laws, the start of the War on Terror itself, as you have seen from the information I have presented, has not been properly investigated or analyzed. So I do not believe that the government has acted properly in investigating this incident or asking the US government for an explanation. So far, we have not started refueling US ships yet, so I think we need to go back to the beginning and not just simply and blindly trust the US government explanations and indirect information provided by them. There were too many victims, so I think we need to start again from the beginning. We need to ask who the real victims of this War on Terrorism are. I think the citizens of the world are its victims. Here in Japan, we have disappearing pensions and disappearing records about victims of Hepatitis C contaminated blood, but everything I have presented is about facts and confirmable evidence. Let us talk about the vanishing black boxes, vanishing airplanes, and vanishing remains. Also, much of the remains of these buildings have disappeared. Even FEMA says that this prevented it from carrying out a proper investigation. We need to look at this evidence, and ask ourselves what the War on Terrorism really is. I can see the ministers nodding in agreement, but I would like to ask Prime Minister Fukuda. Please look at me! I have heard that when you were chief cabinet secretary at the time, you felt many strange things about these attacks. Do you not think it was strange?

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda: I never said I thought it was strange.

Yukihisa Fujita: Prime Minister, what about the origin of the War on Terror and the idea of whether it is right or wrong to participate in it? Is there really a reason to participate in this War on Terror? Do we really need to participate? I would also like to ask about how to really stop terrorism.

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda: We believe, based on evidence provided to us by the US government, that the attacks of 9.11 were carried out by Al-Qaida. We need to put an end to Al-Qaida terrorism. That is why international society is united in the fight against terrorism. Here, we are concerned with a law passed by the Democratic Party last year, and based on UN Resolution 16595. This is a resolution passed in response to the terrorist attacks on the US. You passed the law agreeing with the UN didn't you?

Yukihisa Fujita: Did you confirm about the bodies and the facts behind the resolution? That is why you claim to be participating in this War on Terrorism. So I believe to end terrorism we need to pass a law that actually helps the people of Afghanistan. I would like Mr. Inuzuka to talk about the law, and about the fight against terrorism.

Tadashi Inuzuka: Among the many problems raised by MP Fujita, the thing we need to worry most about is that the people in Afghanistan can live in peace and without worries. That is the core of the issue of ending terrorism. Without discussing this, but just operating behind the back lines by supplying oil and not thinking about the entire situation or the people involved, it is nonsense to debate this law. This law should be made for peace and security in Afghanistan. Our country needs to pass a real anti-terror law.

COMMENTARY

From Abd al-Salam al-Khatib, a Palestinian businessman, on January 28, 2008:

For the purpose of enriching the discussion in the Newsletter, I'd like to share few brief points regarding this Newsletter.

First of all, I should state that I'm not supporting or defending any particular point of view expressed in the Newsletter (the 9.11 story, Mr. Fujita's view, etc.) But I do think that once we use the label "conspiracy theory" in describing someone's views, it creates gloomy, dark shadows that cover any serious consideration of what lies beyond. No serious reader is willing to waste their time reading or listening to thoughts labelled as being "conspiracy theories."

I don't know whether or not "revisionism" creates the same effect, in the light of the hostile atmosphere surrounding the word "revisionism" as it applies to the studies of World War II. But, personally, I think it's just "another point of view," and readers may take their own responsibility to investigate it further or ignore it. It is the duty of researchers to restlessly dig through the dirt until they can discover the real "diamonds."

In multi-dimensional and complicated issues (of which the "War on Terror" is a striking example) going back to the root of the problem is crucial in order to understand fully the big picture. It will arm us with effective weapons to analyze, deepen our understandings, and become more effective in sorting out problems. When we tackle the "fragmented" problems separately, we will most probably end up falling away from the main track.

Personally, I believe that one of the tactics of US policy is to sink the world in the innumerable details of fragmented problems. This "shower" of small problems robs us of the time to stand and ask the big questions which might clarify the big picture (let's think here of Darfur, Iraq, Palestine, etc.) The whole world is thus busy tackling the daily and more immediate problems (i.e. humanitarian crises, poverty, illiteracy, women/child abuse, etc.) Of course those things are extremely important too; but, as the saying says, "You can't keep saving the babies from the river if you're ignoring the one who's throwing them in."

Returning to the 9.11 story, I think that it is worth keeping all plausible (and even some rather implausible) scenarios open to discussion and further investigation.

For example, it was only after several decades that we came to know about Operation Gladio, and other NATO secret stay-behind networks. I imagine that if some researchers asserted in the 1970s that such operations existed, they would have been labelled as supporters of a "conspiracy theory" too.

It is very interesting (maybe ironic!) to know that the former Italian President Francesco Cossiga, who has declared his own involvement in setting up the Gladio network, is one of those who doubts the official story of 9.11 (see text below).

President Bush invaded two countries using lies and deception, and unmasking the true realities of the "War on Terror" is not less important that facing the direct, immediate, and catastrophic problems caused by this conflict. Deconstructing the propaganda machinery is not less important than trying to cure the wounds created by that machinery.

I would also like to make some remarks about Bin Ladin's admission of responsibility for the 9.11 attacks. I personally saw the tapes like millions of others, and I noticed the following points:

a. In one of the videos he stated plainly that he was NOT responsible, and in another you find him cheerfully explaining and praising those who did it. However, he never said anything that shows that he ordered or materially supported the attacks. What he did say were things like, "let America drink from the same cup," "let them feel the pain," "this is a lesson for them," etc.) The point is that he never said explicitly on these tapes something like "I did this."

b. It is obvious that Bin Ladin was and is the prime suspect for anything related to attacks on American interests, whether he issued tapes or kept silent (for example, he never claimed the bombing of the American warship in Yemen).

c. As a result, I don't think that we can be completely sure of his direct involvement just because the accused was cheerful about it, and even if he later tried to "ride the tide" and take advantage of the situation. Recent reports say that Khalid Shaikh Muhammad -- whom America says was the mastermind of 9.11 -- admitted planning some "exaggerated plots." That is, he was only doing these things for the sake of psychological warfare, and that Al-Qaida never had the capability to carry out those plots (the LA Airport plot, the Golden Gate Bridge plot, bio-chemical attacks, etc.)

d. My own overall feeling, therefore, is that Bin Ladin may or may not be behind all the attacks for which he is commonly accused, but based on the tapes alone, we cannot be 100% sure.

In any case, I do believe that our understanding of 9.11 will evolve in the future as more information comes to light.

Appendix

Comments by Francesco Cossiga in Corriere della Sera on November 30, 2007:

"From circles around Palazzo Chigi, nerve centre of direction of Italian intelligence, it is noted that the non-authenticity of the video is testified from the fact that Usama bin Ladin in it 'confessed' that Al-Qaida would have been the author of the attack of the 11 September on the Twin Towers in New York, while all of the democratic circles of America and of Europe, at the forefront of which are those of the Italian centre-left, now know well that the disastrous attack was planned and realized by the American CIA and Mossad with the help of the Zionist world to put under suspicion the Arab countries and to persuade the Western powers to intervene in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

These comments are currently available in English translation at Wikipedia.