Letter to academics and religious leaders regarding Professor David Ray Griffin's London lecture, April 14th

Dear Sir/Madam 

We have contacted you to bring to your attention an important forthcoming lecture by Professor David Ray Griffin, who is widely regarded as the most scholarly and credible academic exponent of the 9/11 truth movement. The 9/11 truth movement has gained sufficient grass roots momentum and professional support to be described by TIME magazine as '...not a fringe phenomenon, it is a mainstream political reality." Indeed the latest scientific poll by World Public Opinion, based at the University of Maryland shows that there is no international consensus as to who is exclusively responsible for 9/11, and that within the European nations, the percentage that cite Al Qaeda's sole responsibility is not overwhelming. This lecture will be an opportunity to learn more about a movement that is still poorly understood and is frequently met with reflexive incredulity, prior to engaging responsibly with the argumentation and evidence - both circumstantial and forensic, cumulative and peer reviewed. Following the lecture there will be an opportunity to ask questions. 


9/11 was a pivotal event in modern history. There is broad agreement that the war in Afghanistan would not have happened without the attacks of 9/11, and it is very arguable that the Iraq war was similarly contingent on those attacks, especially given the Bush administration's sustained campaign to falsely tie Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime to Al Qaeda and 9/11. Why then does a correct understanding of 9/11 still matter? It matters because it has led to extremely dangerous precedents - torture, the stripping away of civil rights, prolonged imprisonment without charge and the criminalization of dissent. 9/11 unleashed a chain of events that have resulted in over a million dead, threats of nuclear war and an intrusive and costly Orwellian surveillance state that shows no sign of abating. Perhaps most importantly, 9/11 was the direct cause of the new pre-emptive war strategy, according to which the United States and we in the United Kingdom, as their staunch ally, have essentially granted ourselves the right to invade any country at will - no matter how tenuous the claims of a direct threat to our national security - in violation of hard won International legal standards of war. If we take a closer look, beyond the media fanfare and the triumphant rhetoric of the Obama administration, we find that these disturbing developments now manifest themselves in different ways, yet they fundamentally remain as state policy. There can be no doubt then that 9/11 continues to this day to reverberate throughout the world in myriad ways. 


You may be aware that the internet is awash with information and theories - ranging from the plausible to the absurd - pertaining to the events surrounding the attacks of September 11th 2001. It is understandable that with such a mass of information to sift through, much of it spurious, the reaction is sometimes to avoid the headache of discerning what is true and retreat wholesale into uncritical acceptance of the official narrative provided by the Bush administration. This is unwise however, both for the relevance of 9/11 truth to contemporary events referenced above, and because the Bush administration long ago forfeited any reasonable expectation of our trusting belief. For this is the same administration that we now know lied to the U.N assembly and went so far as to concoct manufactured evidence of weapons facilities and sophisticated militarised cave networks. Fortunately Professor Griffin, as someone who has taught epistemology (the theory of knowledge and weighing evidence) has assembled a solid and large body of well sourced, footnoted information. This has enabled those with 'even a 30% open mind' - as described by Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International law at Princeton - to cut straight to the central issues. The calibre of people who have taken the time to investigate the matter and who support Professor Griffin's work and the 9/11 truth movement should provide ample reassurance that there is much compelling evidence of which you are likely unaware. For ideas unworthy of our attention, conspiratorial or otherwise, simply do not garner such support, and the staking of such reputations. Your consideration of this matter, along with that of many influential people that we are reaching out to, could herald a course towards a saner foreign policy and less counterproductive ways of dealing with harmful ideologies, of both states and dissident groups.


www.timeforasecondlook.com