Record­ed April 8, 2007
MP3 One seg­ment
REALAUDIO
NB: This stream con­tains both FTRs 592 and 593 in sequence. Each is a 30 minute broad­cast.

Intro­duc­tion: Begin­ning with dis­cus­sion of Steven E. Jones, the for­mer physics pro­fes­sor at Brigham Young Uni­ver­si­ty, this pro­gram sets forth his utter lack of pro­fes­sion­al cred­i­bil­i­ty. A hyper-reli­gious whack job of the first mag­ni­tude, Jones is arguably the most promi­nent advo­cate of the fan­ci­ful notion that the World Trade Cen­ter was brought down by a con­trolled demo­li­tion. Gov­erned by his all-encom­pass­ing reli­gious fun­da­men­tal­ism, has writ­ten a trea­tise weigh­ing the notion “Was there Death before Adam?” and feels there is archae­o­log­i­cal evi­dence that Jesus vis­it­ed the Native Amer­i­cans after his res­ur­rec­tion. After sam­pling Jones’ fanat­i­cal irra­tional­ism, the pro­gram sets forth the role of Liecht­en­stein in laun­der­ing mon­ey for the Sau­di roy­al fam­i­ly, some of whom fund al-Qae­da and oth­er Islam­o­fas­cist groups. Con­tin­u­ing with analy­sis of the fund­ing struc­ture and mech­a­nism of al-Qae­da and relat­ed groups, the pro­gram notes that bin Laden chan­neled fund­ing for Sheikh Rah­man through Abdu­rah­man Alam­ou­di and his so-called civ­il rights group the Amer­i­can Mus­lim Coun­cil. (Sheikh Rah­man was con­vict­ed in con­nec­tion with the first attack on the World Trade Cen­ter and Alam­ou­di enjoyed promi­nence in GOP cir­cles.) Con­clud­ing with analy­sis of the gen­e­sis of the bogus yellowcake/Niger claims that led to the inva­sion of Iraq, the pro­gram notes that the Ital­ian intel­li­gence ser­vice [Sis­mi] was push­ing the Niger/yellowcake dis­in­for­ma­tion with­in days of the 9/11 attacks. Be sure to check out respon­si­ble web­sites pro­vid­ing ratio­nal, sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly valid cri­tiques of the sort of fascis­tic, trea­so­nous non­sense being ped­dled by Jones and his ilk. Vis­it the For The Record Read­ing List. Note, also, the infor­ma­tion con­tained in para­graphs 5 and 6 below, deal­ing with the col­lapse of a Bay Area free­way inter­change. The phe­nom­e­non was vir­tu­al­ly iden­ti­cal to the dynam­ics of the col­lapse of the World Trade Cen­ter.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: Review of Abdu­rah­man Alamoudi’s strong links with GOP big­wig Grover Norquist; review of the links of the Sis­mi intel­li­gence ser­vice to Ital­ian fas­cism and the milieu of the P‑2 Lodge; review of the links between ter­ror­ist financiers and Ptech—the com­pa­ny that devel­oped the threat assess­ment soft­ware archi­tec­ture for the Air Force, FAA, NORAD and the Depart­ment of Ener­gy.

1. Much of the first part of the pro­gram address­es the pre­pos­ter­ous claim by the so-called 9/11 “Truthers” that the World Trade Cen­ter was brought down by a con­trolled demo­li­tion. The most vis­i­ble advo­cate of this non­sense is a fel­low named Steven E. Jones, until recent­ly a pro­fes­sor of physics at Brigham Young Uni­ver­si­ty. “Truthers” view his sta­tus as a pro­fes­sor of physics as estab­lish­ing his cred­i­bil­i­ty and, as a result, that of the “con­trolled demo­li­tion” claim. What the “Truthers” over­look is the fact that Jones is a hyper-reli­gious crack­pot with no sci­en­tif­ic cred­i­bil­i­ty what­so­ev­er! Jones has writ­ten exten­sive­ly of his view that the res­ur­rect­ed Christ vis­it­ed the Native Amer­i­cans after his res­ur­rec­tion. “ . . . Fol­low­ing the vis­it of Christ to the Amer­i­c­as, as out­lined in the Book of Mor­mon, Anoth­er Tes­ta­ment of Christ, one might antic­i­pate that an age of peace and har­mo­ny would ensue. Con­sis­tent­ly, we find that a ‘gold­en era’ is indeed preva­lent in the tra­di­tions of Mid­dle Amer­i­ca: ‘The Aztecs and most oth­er Cen­tral Mex­i­can peo­ple believed that there had once been a more glo­ri­ous era, when the Toltecs had reigned at Tol­lan, or Tula, as it is also called. ...All across Mesoamer­i­ca, from the Chichimecs to the Maya, noble lin­eages claimed descent and legit­i­ma­cy from Tol­lan and the Toltecs. Who were the Toltecs, and where exact­ly was Tol­lan? ‘Accord­ing to the Aztecs, these Toltecs were held to be the inven­tors of all artistry, from writ­ing to gold­work­ing to med­i­cine, and the very word ‘toltec’ meant artist or crafts­man. They lived in unpar­al­leled majesty, reigned over by Quet­zal­coatl...’ Miller and Taube p.170. Com­pare this descrip­tion with that of the Book of Mor­mon ‘gold­en era’: ‘...there were no con­tentions and dis­pu­ta­tions among them, and every man did deal just­ly one with anoth­er. ...And the Lord did pros­per them exceed­ing­ly in the land...[and they] did mul­ti­ply exceed­ing­ly fast, and became an exceed­ing­ly fair and delight­some people...they were in one, the chil­dren of Christ [Quet­zal­coatl, I think]...’ (4 Nephi 2–17) Dur­ing the time when the recent­ly res­ur­rect­ed Christ walked the Amer­i­c­as, it is record­ed that the peo­ple trav­eled to the site where he was: they did ‘labor exceed­ing­ly all that night, that they might be on the mor­row in the place where Jesus should show him­self’ — - at the tem­ple. (3 Nephi 19:3) . . .”

(“The Gold­en Era of Mesoamer­i­ca” by Stephen E. Jones; Inter­net Archive; 3/8/2001.)

2. More about “Pro­fes­sor” Jones (be sure to read the entire paper, avail­able in the FTR Sup­ple­men­tal sec­tion): “The Book of Mor­mon makes the bold state­ment that Jesus Christ, short­ly fol­low­ing His res­ur­rec­tion, vis­it­ed peo­ple in the New World and invit­ed them to ‘feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am...the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world. ... Ye are they of whom I said: Oth­er sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice...’ (3 Nephi 11:14, 15:21). The Bible states that Jesus ‘showed him­self alive after his pas­sion by many infal­li­ble proofs, being seen of them forty days’ and that this wit­ness of Christ would be ‘unto the utter­most part of the earth.’ (Acts 1:3–8) and that Jesus would indeed vis­it ‘oth­er sheep’ (John 10:16). Sev­er­al years ago, an idea popped into my head: Would peo­ple in the New World who also saw Jesus Christ leave memo­ri­als of this super­nal expe­ri­ence by show­ing marked hands of Deity in their art­work? So I began a search with the fol­low­ing hypoth­e­sis-to be test­ed: Ancient art­work por­tray­ing a deity with delib­er­ate mark­ings on his hands will be found some­where in the Amer­i­c­as. A crazy idea, maybe — but wait till you see the art­work of the ancient Maya! . . .’
(“Behold My Hands” by Steven E. Jones; Orig­i­nal­ly post­ed on the web­site of BYU (Brigham Young Uni­ver­si­ty); 11/24/2005.)

3. Indica­tive of Jones’ sci­en­tif­ic per­spec­tive is this paper debat­ing whether death exist­ed before Adam! “Many LDS stu­dents face a dilem­ma: ani­mal fos­sils and oth­er evi­dence seems to show that death occurred hun­dreds of thou­sands of years ago. Yet the Book of Mor­mon and oth­er scrip­tures speak of the fall of Adam as intro­duc­ing death into the world. The appar­ent con­tra­dic­tion trou­bles many. Nor is the tim­ing of death’s entry into the world a minor point, for it strikes at the cen­tral doc­trine of Christ’s atone­ment, as Elder McConkie suc­cinct­ly stat­ed the issue: ‘Now if Adam did not fall and bring death into the world, there would be no need for the aton­ing sac­ri­fice of Christ. If there were no atone­ment to ran­som fall­en beings and crea­tures from the effects of the fall, there would be no res­ur­rec­tion, no immor­tal­i­ty, no sal­va­tion, no eter­nal life; and if all these things should van­ish away, we could dis­card God him­self, and our faith would be vain.’ [B.R. McK­onkie, Mor­mon Doc­trine, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966, p. 254.] . . .”
(“Was there Death Before Adam?” by Steven E. Jones; 3/19/2007.)

4. CORRECTION: In the orig­i­nal broad­cast, Steven E. Jones (fun­da­men­tal­ist Mor­mon) was incor­rect­ly iden­ti­fied as the author of a forth­com­ing book attack­ing Dar­win. That forth­com­ing book is by a Stephen E. Jones, dis­tinct from the Steven E. Jones. Both are reli­gious fun­da­men­tal­ists, both irra­tional and both devoid of cred­i­bil­i­ty. “Ther­mite” Jones is not the prospec­tive author of the forth­com­ing book attack­ing Dar­win. Mr. Emory stands behind the sub­stance of his crit­i­cism of Jones—that he is a hyper-reli­gious whack job, whose analy­sis of 9/11 is not only devoid of mer­it, but obscures the very real com­plic­i­ty in those attacks by some mem­bers of the Bush admin­is­tra­tion.

5. A serendip­i­tous occur­rence hap­pened on 4/29/2007. A gaso­line tanker truck explod­ed after an acci­dent, melt­ing the steel gird­ers sup­port­ing a key Bay Area free­way inter­change. A clever lis­ten­er put togeth­er a clever, sub­stan­tive and very rel­e­vant pho­to-lam­poon of the so-called “Truth Move­ment.”

6. A physi­cist not­ed the nature of the free­way meltdown—basically the same as the col­lapse of the World Trade Cen­ter! “ . . . The fire­ball appar­ent­ly erupt­ed pre­cise­ly at the Achilles’ heel of the sky­way — the under­side of the pier where all of the sup­port­ing steel gird­ers are bare and unpro­tect­ed by con­crete or any­thing else, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia-Berke­ley civ­il engi­neer­ing Pro­fes­sor Abol­has­san Astaneh-Asl said. The free­way col­lapsed more or less for the same rea­sons that the World Trade Cen­ter tow­ers did on Sept. 11, 2001. The steel sup­ports were baked at, and prob­a­bly beyond, 1,000 degrees Fahren­heit, the point at which steel turns to rub­ber, said Astaneh-Asl, who stud­ied the trade cen­ter col­lapse for the Nation­al Sci­ence Foun­da­tion. ‘It’s not to say the steel melt­ed. Some por­tions may have melt­ed, but the steel got soft, like rub­ber,’ he said. ‘When steel gets that warm, it los­es its strength and can­not car­ry its load any more.’ [Empha­sis added.] . . .”
(“Road Ahead: Plot­ting a Repair Strat­e­gy” by Erik Nel­son; San Jose Mer­cury News; 4/30/2007.)

7. Next, the pro­gram revis­its the sub­ject of the nation of Liecht­en­stein, whose pri­ma­ry indus­try is mon­ey laun­der­ing. The Sau­di roy­al fam­i­ly has laun­dered con­sid­er­able wealth through Liecht­en­stein, a coun­try with con­nec­tions to the fund­ing mech­a­nism of Al Qae­da. (For more about the Liechtenstein/Al Qae­da con­nec­tion, see—among oth­er programs—FTR#536.) “West­ern banks may refuse deposits from mem­bers of the Sau­di roy­al fam­i­ly under guide­lines drawn up to iden­ti­fy ‘polit­i­cal­ly exposed’ wealthy indi­vid­u­als whose assets could in future be con­fis­cat­ed. The move comes as details emerge of how King Fahd — head of the dynasty and one of the world’s rich­est men — has trans­ferred large sums through anony­mous trusts in Liecht­en­stein where secre­cy laws allow the Alpine mini-state to func­tion as a bolt hole for rich clients. The Guardian has found that the banks, notably in Switzer­land, are increas­ing­ly wary. ‘We do not accept busi­ness from politi­cians in con­tro­ver­sial coun­tries,’ said one banker. . . . Dr Saad Al-Fag­ih, the Lon­don-based head of the non-vio­lent dis­si­dent group, the Move­ment for Islam­ic Reform in Ara­bia, said: ‘The way the coun­try is run gives the roy­al fam­i­ly full chance to con­fis­cate as much mon­ey as [it wants].’ One of the secre­tive Liecht­en­stein trusts, the Astu­ri­on Foun­da­tion, has been used by King Fahd for over 25 years to shel­ter his mon­ey abroad. It con­sti­tutes a legal enti­ty that holds bank accounts of which he is the ben­e­fi­cia­ry; it also owns his world­wide prop­er­ty port­fo­lio. It is not known exact­ly how much mon­ey the foun­da­tion holds but among the assets reg­is­tered in Britain under the foun­da­tion’s name is Ken­stead Hall, a mock Tudor man­sion in north Lon­don’s ‘Bil­lion­aire’s Row’ — The Bish­op’s Avenue in Hamp­stead. . . .”
(“Banks to Shut Doors on Sau­di Roy­al Cash: King Fahd Is Mov­ing Large Sums through Liecht­en­stein”; by David Pal­lis­ter and Owen Bow­cott in Liecht­en­stein; The Guardian; 7/17/2002.)

8. It has long been Mr. Emory’s view that one of the pri­ma­ry inves­tiga­tive keys to 9/11 is the inves­ti­ga­tion of the financ­ing of Al Qae­da and oth­er Islamist groups. In that con­text, an inves­ti­ga­tion of the Ptech com­put­er soft­ware firm might well shed light on some of the anom­alies con­cern­ing the per­for­mance of air defense ele­ments on 9/11. The devel­op­er of the threat-assess­ment soft­ware archi­tec­ture for the Air Force, NORAD, the FAA and the Depart­ment of Ener­gy (which over­seas the secu­ri­ty of nuclear pow­er plants), Ptech’s financ­ing has been accom­plished in con­sid­er­able mea­sure by ter­ror­ist-relat­ed ele­ments. (For more about Ptech, see—among oth­er programs—FTR#’s 462, 464, 467, 587.) Of par­tic­u­lar sig­nif­i­cance is the alle­ga­tion from the Blind Sheikh’s for­mer speech­writer that Al Qae­da funds for the Blind Sheikh were chan­neled through Abdu­rah­man Alamoudi’s Amer­i­can Mus­lim Coun­cil. Alamoudi’s lob­by­ist was GOP king­mak­er Grover Norquist, who may very well have con­vert­ed to Islam him­self. (For more about the GOP/Muslim Brotherhood/Al Qae­da con­nec­tion, see—among oth­er programs—FTR#’s 435, 454, 467, 515, 560.) “ . . . Short­ly after 1994, US Learns Bin Laden Gave Promi­nent Mus­lim Activist Mon­ey for Blind Sheikh: Abdo Mohammed Hag­gag, speech­writer for the ‘Blind Sheikh,’ Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rah­man, makes a deal and agrees to tes­ti­fy against Abdul-Rah­man in an upcom­ing US tri­al. [New York Times, 6/26/1994] He soon reveals that bin Laden has been pay­ing for Abdul-Rahman’s liv­ing expens­es since Abdul-Rah­man moved to the US in 1990 (see July 1990). This is one of the first things that caus­es US intel­li­gence to become inter­est­ed in bin Laden. [Miller, Stone, and Mitchell,spacer2002, pp. 147–148edit] Fur­ther, Hag­gag reveals that the mon­ey was fun­neled through Abdu­rah­man Alam­ou­di and his orga­ni­za­tion, the Amer­i­can Mus­lim Coun­cil. ‘Inves­ti­ga­tors tried to prove Alam­ou­di was a ter­ror mid­dle­man but could not find ‘smok­ing gun’ evi­dence. That allowed Alam­ou­di to became a polit­i­cal­ly con­nect­ed Mus­lim activist and co-founder of the Amer­i­can Mus­lim Armed Forces and Vet­er­an Affairs Coun­cil, which helps the US mil­i­tary select Mus­lim chap­lains.’ [New York Post, 10/1/2003] This same year, Alam­ou­di will be one of the founders of Ptech, a US com­put­er com­pa­ny with sus­pect­ed ter­ror­ism ties (see 1994). It will lat­er be alleged that he was able to oper­ate with impuni­ty for years due to his close ties to Grover Norquist, a pow­er­ful Repub­li­can lob­by­ist (see March 20, 2002). [Empha­sis added.] In 2004, the US will sen­tence him to 23 years in prison for ille­gal deal­ings with Libya (see Octo­ber 15, 2004). . . .”

(Post­ing on Paul Thompson’s web­site. Thomp­son is the author of The Ter­ror Time­line.)

9. The broad­cast con­cludes with sup­ple­men­tal infor­ma­tion about the role of Sis­mi (the Ital­ian intel­li­gence ser­vice) in the gen­e­sis of the Niger/Yellowcake dis­in­for­ma­tion that was used to jus­ti­fy the inva­sion of Iraq. Sis­mi was gen­er­at­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion about the Iraqi/yellowcake con­nec­tion with­in a few days of the Sept. 11 attacks! (For more about the Sis­mi link to the Niger/yellowcake dis­in­for­ma­tion, see—among oth­er programs—FTR#535. For more about Sis­mi and its links to Ital­ian fas­cism and provo­ca­tions, see FTR#595.) “ . . . In ear­ly Octo­ber of 2002, a man mys­te­ri­ous­ly con­tact­ed Elis­a­bet­ta Bur­ba at her Milan office. ‘Do you remem­ber me?’ the deep voice said, with­out iden­ti­fy­ing him­self out­right. It was Roc­co Mar­ti­no, an old source who had proved reli­able in the past. He was once again try­ing to sell her infor­ma­tion. . . . One per­son who refused to meet with Bur­ba was the CIA chief of sta­tion. A few days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the Unit­ed States, Sis­mi, the Ital­ian intel­li­gence agency, had sent along infor­ma­tion about the alleged sale of ura­ni­um to Iraq. The sta­tion chief asked for more infor­ma­tion and would lat­er con­sid­er it far-fetched. On Oct. 15, 2001, the CIA reports offi­cer at the embassy wrote a brief sum­ma­ry based on the Sis­mi intel­li­gence, signed and dat­ed it, and rout­ed it to CIA’s Oper­a­tions Direc­torate in Lan­g­ley, with copies going to the clan­des­tine service’s Euro­pean and Near East divi­sions. . . .”
(“How Bogus Let­ter Became a Case for War” by Peter Eis­ner; The Wash­ing­ton Post; 4/3/2007.)

10. Two video pro­duc­tions are being gen­er­at­ed by a cou­ple of doc­u­men­tary film­mak­ers. One is a DVD of a three-lec­ture series called “The First Refuge of a Scoundrel: The Rela­tion­ship Between Fas­cism and Reli­gion.” To learn more about this, vis­it The Anti-Fas­cist YouTube.com page. In addi­tion, there will soon be a doc­u­men­tary about Mr. Emory, titled “The Anti-Fas­cist.” For more about this project, vis­it theantifascist.com.