What really happened on the morning of September 11, 2001? Why did the people at the top of the US military chain of command--Bush and Rumsfeld, Gens. Myers, Eberhard, Winfield and Mies--fail to act during the decisive portion of the attacks? Why did the air defense system fail to carry out its standard responses for intercepting errant planes, procedures which it had implemented some 67 times during the nine months prior to June 1, 2001?

How did the World Trade Center towers really come down? What brought down a third skyscraper, the 47-story WTC Building 7, which wasn't even hit by an airplane?

Why did it take four years for US officials to admit, only recently, that they had alleged hijacker Mohamed Atta under surveillance for years before the attacks, as part of the Pentagon's "Able Danger" operation? Why is there still no admission that the alleged hijackers of the "Hamburg Cell" were under surveillance by the CIA and other agencies for years before 2001?

Why were FBI investigators blocked from tracking the alleged hijackers before 9/11? Why was there no action on early, numerous and specific warnings from foreign governments that an attack was imminent? Who was protecting the men who would later be blamed for the "Attack On America," and why?

Why did The 9/11 Commission Report ignore most of the real questions posed by the September 11th victims' families? Who financed the hijacking operation, and why did the 9/11 Commission say "the question is of little practical significance"? Why did the Commission avoid bodies of evidence pointing to a circle of complicity within the US government and its covert agencies?

Immediately after 9/11 the US government ignored all questions and embarked on three broad policies. First, it marched us into a "pre-emptive," costly, open-ended "war on terror", with military invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, both planned and prepared long in advance of 9/11. Second, it brought the war home to America, in the form of the USA PATRIOT Act and related legislative assaults on our civil liberties and the Constitution.

Third, it shifted literally trillions in spending priorities (in the years since) from butter to guns. We have seen an economic transformation that amounts to a "new new economy," one based on war and confiscation of vital resources around the world, and an infinite surveillance apparatus at home. (The corporate sponsors, friends and relatives, and direct members of the Bush regime have been among the leading profiteers and beneficiaries of these policies.)

We, of the broad based "9/11 truth movement" across America and the world believe that getting justice for all the victims of 9/11 is the means by which which we can both achieve peace and secure our liberties. And yet, in order to do so we must confront and expose the role of the mass media in supressing the truth of 9/11.

As a consequence, we researchers, activists and ordinary citizens with common sense are compelled to make our case directly to you, the public, for only we, the people, can act to expose the 9/11 cover-up.

Every day we are warned of the potential for new horrors, targets of a strategy of panic designed to keep us quiet.

People in New York City, particularly people of color, are being subjected to random searches as they board subways, violations of our Fourth Amendment rights. These searches won't stop any terrorists, because they are not designed to do so, but may simply be one of the most extensive trial balloons for martial law in American history.

And this was before the horror of Katrina allowed an even greater test of military rule on our soil: The commander of US forces moving into New Orleans declared to the Army Times (Sept. 2) that the city will soon look like a little Somalia, and that it is currently in the hands of an "insurgency" that must be crushed.

That is America after 9/11. There is nothing new in governments that degenerate into tyranny and plunder, or who use the tools of fear, the "strategy of tension" to keep the people confused and ready to accept policies they would never otherwise desire. When did a "great power" launch a war, without a big lie to start it? There would be nothing new about a government that allowed or even engineered an attack on its own people for political and economic gain. The list of historical precedents for both "false-flag" terror attacks and for false "casus belli" is long and sorrowful, both in this country and around the world. The United States is not unique.

Shall we be ruled by fear and the urge for flight, or shall we get together with others and stand up and fight? Shall we stay on the road to perpetual war, fiscal ruin and a police state, or shall we build a world of freedom, justice and peace? Shall we remain ruled by the lie, or live together in the light of truth? Our democracy is under threat, it is in mortal danger. The truth of 9/11 can help reignite the fire of patriotic dissent in us all and help bring about justice for the victims of 9/11, both here and around the world.