NYCCAN Press Conference at City Hall + Testimony from 9/11 Survivor by Eileen Coles

Dandelion Salad

by Eileen Coles
crossposted at www.docudharma.com/diary
July 16, 2009

Today I attended the press conference that NYCCAN (NYC Coalition for Accountability
Now) held on the steps of City Hall in Manhattan. Press were there
from 1010 WINS, WOR, NY1 and WFUV. I don’t know if what we had to say
will make it past the phlanx of mainstream media editors, but we’ll
see.

NYCCAN has collected 68,000 signatures from the citizenry of New York
City on a petition to request a new, impartial and scientific
investigation of the events on 9/11. The petition has been presented
to the City Council and it is very likely to be approved for addition
to the November 3rd ballot. If you are a resident of New York City, it
is not too late to add your
signature to the petition. If you are someone who lost a family
member or friend; a first responder who assisted at the sites; or a
survivor of the attacks you can also sign a different petition
to show your support for a new investigation.

As a survivor of the attacks with an unique perspective on the whole
thing due to my military background, I was one of the people asked to
present a statement to the press. It’s below the fold for those who
care.

The 9/11 Truth movement has picked up an enormous amount of
steam and is becoming more legitimized due to a
peer-reviewed paper that was published in April by an international
team of scientists which reveals that nanothermite particles were
found in four different samples of dust from the World Trade
Center. In this interview for Russia Today, one of the team
members, Danish chemistry professor Niels Harrit, explains what was
found and the questions this raises about the credibility of the
official story.

[See video: Niels Harrit: Nano-thermite took down the WTC?]

In parallel with NYCCAN, Richard Gage of Architects and Engineers for 9/11
Truth, is presenting this evidence at the National
Convention of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in Washington
DC this week. He and other members of AE911Truth have also brought
this testimony to members of Congress.

NYCCAN and AE911Truth are not wild-eyed conspiracy theorists. The
objective is to point out the fallacies and gaping holes in the logic
of the official story, and to demand an application of the scientific
method to answer the many questions that never have been answered
concerning 9/11.

Given the sheer amount of prevarication and dishonorable behavior the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have engendered, it is only common sense
to also closely scrutinize the events of 9/11 which served as the
impetus for these invasions. The focus of NYCCAN is on asking
questions in a scientific and methodical fashion and obtaining the
answers to those questions. Their ultimate goal is to establish a new
commission with subpoena power and the ability to place people under
oath.

Many activists here and elsewhere are concerned with the long list of
war crimes committed by the Bush administration: torture of prisoners
of war; abductions, renditions, “disappearances” and “suicides”;
warrantless wiretapping and illegal surveillance; the deliberate
outing of a CIA agent; no-bid contracts; legal contractor loopholes
that allow them to get away with rape and murder; the CIA flooding our
streets with heroin and cocaine and illegal handguns in order to
foster the artificial continued need for a police state; the
extortionate cost of prioritizing military and “security” objectives
at the expense of our growing numbers of homeless, jobless, sick and
hungry people; the list could go on but I am sure the reader gets the
point.

Should it come to light that it was a conscious subversion of our
intelligence community which contributed to the deaths of innocent
civilians and noncombatants on 9/11/01; last I noticed that too is a
war crime according to the Geneva Convention, and it would be that war
crime which led to many of the others. The people responsible for this
war crime MUST be brought to justice if we are to restore full faith
in the ability of our government to truly protect it’s citizens.

From a personal perspective, working with NYCCAN is difficult,
although this is hardly a reflection on the friendly, eminently sane
and compassionate people I met today. While I am a pretty tough
cookie, 9/11 was not a walk in the park. It’s not easy to deal with
the memories and the emotions. It really is the hardest thing I’ve
ever done. However I am mindful that I am not alone in what I have to
face as I work for this goal, and it is as much a duty to those who
share my burden and to the country I originally oathed myself to serve
as anything I ever had to do during my enlistment.

Those of you who are in a position and of a mind to do so, I hope that
you will join me in support of NYCCAN.

My statement to the press follows.

My name is Eileen Coles. I am the third generation of my
family to serve in the American military. I am a US Air Force Desert
Storm veteran and served as the administrator of the US Air Force’s
Top Secret/SCI intelligence message handling system at HQ USAFE,
Ramstein Germany as my first duty assignment. I hold an honorable
discharge and my rank when I left was Sergeant.

In September of 2001 I was working for Sun Microsystems, which had
it’s offices in Tower 2 of the WTC. I saw the collapse of the towers
that morning.

While at that time not much was known about the nature of the attack,
due to my military background, one thing I did know was that there was
no way the United States intelligence community did not see this
coming.

When I was in the service 20 years ago it was my job to maintain the
top secret system that was used by our Air Force major command in
Europe to do exactly this type of terrorist threat assessment. 20
years ago the intelligence community had the full capability to
anticipate and successfully defend against an attack such as this. I
worked directly with the people and the data, and I know that what we
had would have caught this.

The certain knowledge that there had been an unexplainable subversion
of our intelligence community resulting in the death of thousands of
innocent people, and the sheer horror associated with that knowledge
made me sick to my stomach. For three days, I could not eat and spent
most of the time in bed, in shock.

There are still far too many unanswered questions about the events
of 9/11. We have been left with an official story that entire sections
of the government, academic community and press refuse to hold up to
the light and question despite the presence of gaping holes in logic
and a severe lack of scientific evidence. So long as this situation
remains it must be assumed that the United States government, in
particular the military and intelligence communities are either
incapable of performing this duty, or unwilling to do so.

The stature of our nation as a leader in liberty and democracy, paid
for with the precious blood of millions of honorable American
veterans, has been shamefully diminished.

Our only way forward to restore our national honor is to answer the
questions and demand accountability. This will not happen without a truly impartial and scientific examination of the evidence.

Thank you.

see

Cindy Sheehan Supports a New Investigation into the 9/11 attacks