Some Of My Dearest And Cherished Friends!

Some of my dearest and cherished friends are atheists and agnostics. They are also among the most sensitive, the gentlest and most generous folk I know. Lovingly they endure my, “Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.” Their patience will permit my posting one of my favorite 17th century hymns: “O Sacred Head Sore Wounded.”

O sacred head sore wounded, defiled and put to scorn;
O kingly head surrounded with mocking crown of thorn:
What sorrow mars thy grandeur? Can death thy bloom deflower?
O countenance whose splendor the hosts of heaven adore!

Thy beauty long desired, hath vanished from our sight;
Thy power is all expired, and quenched the light of light.
Ah me! For whom thy diest, hide not so far thy grace:
Show me, O Lord most most highest, the brightness of thy face.

In thy most bitter passion my heart to share doth cry,
With thee for my salvation upon thy cross to die.
Ah, keep my heart thus moved to stand thy cross beneath,
To mourn thee well –beloved, yet thank thee for thy death.

What language shall I borrow to thank thee dearest friend,
For this thy dying sorrow, thy pity without end?
Oh, make me thine forever, and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never, outlive my love for thee.

My days are few, O fail not, with thine immortal power,
To hold me that I quail not in death’s most fearful hour:
That I may fight befriended, and see in my last strife
To me thine arms extended upon the cross of life.

Note: Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676) wrote stanzas 1-2 and 5 while James Waddell Alexander (1804-1859) wrote stanza 4.

James Wilson Beaty
Jeremiah 22:16
September 17, 2012

The 11th Anniversary of the End of Accountable Government in the US

The following article, “The 11th Anniversary of 9/11” is the work of Paul Craig Roberts. Mr. Roberts is no three-eyed crank scrambling for attention. Rather, he is former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury under President George W. Bush and former Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. His columns are at http://www.paul craigroberts.org. Every word that follows prior to my note comes from the pen of Paul Craig Roberts.

The 11th Anniversary of 9/11

If people despite their brainwashing and lack of scientific education are able to absorb the information made available to them, perhaps the US Constitution and peace could be restored. Only informed people can restrain Washington and avert the crazed hegemonic US government from destroying the world in war.

The article below was written for the JOURNAL OF 9/11 STUDIES for the eleventh anniversary of September 11, 2001, the day that terminated accountable government and American liberty. It is posted here with the agreement of the editors.

In order to understand the improbability of the government’s explanation of 9/11, it is not necessary to know anything about the force or forces that brought down the three World Trade Canter buildings, what hit the Pentagon or caused the explosion, the flying skills or lack thereof of the alleged hijackers, whether the airline crashed or was shot down, whether cell phone calls made at the altitudes could be received, or any other debated aspect of the controversy.

You only have to know two things.

One is that according to the official story, a handful of Arabs, mainly Saudi Arabians, operating independently of any government and competent intelligence service, men without James Bond and V for Vendetta capabilities, outwitted not only the CIA, FBI, and National Security Agency, but all 16 US intelligence agencies, along with all security agencies of America’s NATO allies and Israel’s Mossad. Not only did the entire intelligence forces of the Western world fail, but on the morning of the attack the entire apparatus of the National Security State simultaneously failed. Airport security failed four times in one hour. NORAD failed. Air Traffic Control failed. The US Air Force failed. The National Security Council failed. Dick Cheney failed. Absolutely nothing worked. The world’s only superpower was helpless at the humiliating mercy of a few undistinguished Arabs.

It is hard to imagine a more far-fetched story – except for the second thing you need to know: The humiliating failure of US National Security did not result in immediate demands from the President of the United States, from Congress, from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and from the media for an investigation of how such improbable failure could have occurred. No one was held accountable for the greatest failure of national security in world history. Instead, the White House dragged its feet for a year resisting any investigation until the persistent demands from 9/11 families for accountability forced President George W. Bush to appoint a political commission, devoid of any experts, to hold a pretend investigation.

On 9/11 Doubts Were Immediate

Paul Craig Roberts

On September 11, 2001, a neighbor telephoned and said, “Turn on the TV.” I assumed that a hurricane, possibly a bad one from the neighbor’s voice, was headed our way, and turned on the TV to determine whether we needed to shutter the house and leave.

What I saw was black smoke from upper floors of one of the World Trade Center towers. It didn’t seem to be much of a fire, and the reports were that the fire was under control. While I was trying to figure out why every TV network had its main news anchor covering an office fire, TV cameras showed an airplane hitting the other tower. It was then that I learned that both towers had been hit by airliners.

Cameras showed people standing at the hole in the side of the tower looking out. This didn’t surprise me. The airliner was minute compared to the massive building. But what was going on? Two accidents, one on top of the other?

The towers – the three-fourths or four-fifths of the buildings beneath the plane strikes – were standing, apparently undamaged. There were no signs of fire except in the vicinity of where the airliners had hit. Suddenly, one of the towers blew up, disintegrated, and disappeared in fine dust. Before one could make any sense of this, the same thing happened to the second tower, and it too disappeared into fine dust.

The TV news anchors compared the disintegration of the towers to controlled demolition. There were numerous reports of explosions throughout the towers from the base or sub-basements to the top. (Once the government put out the story of terrorist attack, references to controlled demolition and explosions disappeared from the print and TV media.) This made sense to me. Someone had blown up the buildings. It was completely obvious that the towers had not fallen down from asymmetrical structural damage. They had blown up.

The images of the airliners hitting the towers and the towers blowing up were replayed time and again. Airliners hit the top portions of the towers, and not long afterward the towers blew up. I turned off the TV wondering how it was that cameras had been ready to catch such an unusual phenomenon as an airplane flying into a skyscraper.

I don’t remember the time line, but it wasn’t long before the story was in place that Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda gang had attacked the US. A passport had been found in the rubble. Another airliner had flown into the Pentagon, and a fourth airliner had crashed or been shot down. Four airliners had been hijacked, meaning airport security had failed four times on the same morning. Terrorists had successfully assaulted America.

When I heard these reports, I wondered. How could a tiny undamaged passport be found in the rubble of two skyscrapers, each more than 100 stories tall, when bodies, office furniture and computers could not be found? How could airport security fail so totally that four airliners could be hijacked within the same hour? How could authorities know so conclusively and almost immediately the names of the perpetrators who pulled off such a successful attack on the world’s only superpower, when the authorities had no idea that such an attack was planned or even possible?

These questions disturbed me, because as a former member of the congressional staff and as a presidential appointee to high office, I had high-level security clearances. In addition to my duties as Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury, I had FEMA responsibilities in the event of nuclear attack. There was a mountain hideaway to which I was supposed to report in the event of a nuclear attack and from which I was supposed to take over the US government in the event no higher official survived the attack.

The more the story of 9/11 was presented in the media, the more wondrous it became. It is not credible that not only the CIA and FBI failed to detect the plot, but also all 16 US intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency, which spies on everyone on the planet, and the Defense Intelligence Agency, Israel’s Mossad, and the intelligence agencies of Washington’s NATO allies. There are simply too many watchmen and too much infiltration of terrorist groups for such a complex attack to be prepared undetected and carried out undeterred.

Washington’s explanation of the attack implied a security failure too massive to be credible. Such a catastrophic failure of national security would mean that the US and Western Europe were never safe for one second during the Cold War, that the Soviet Union could have the entire West in one undetected fell swoop.

As a person whose colleagues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington were former secretaries of state, former national security advisers, former CIA directors, former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I was troubled by the story that a collection of individuals unsupported by a competent intelligence had pulled off the events of 9/11.

As a person with high-level government service, I knew that any such successful operation as 9/11 would have resulted in immediate demands from the White House, Congress, and the media for accountability. There would have been an investigation of how every aspect of US security could totally fail simultaneously in one morning. Such a catastrophic and embarrassing failure of the national security state would not be left unexamined.

NORAD failed. The US Air Force could not get jet fighters in the air. Air Traffic Control lost sight of the hijacked airliners. Yet, instead of launching an investigation, the White House resisted for one year the demands of the 9/11 families for an investigation. Neither the public, the media, nor Congress seemed to think an investigation was necessary. The focus was on revenge, which the Bush neocon regime said meant invading Afghanistan which was alleged to be sheltering the perpetrator, Osama bin Laden.

Normally, terrorists are proud of their success and announce their responsibility. It is a way to build a movement. Often a number of terrorist groups will compete in claiming credit for a successful operation. But Osama bin Laden in the last video that is certified by independent experts said that he had no responsibility for 9/11, that he had nothing against the American people, that his opposition was limited to the US government’s colonial policies and control over Muslim governments.

It makes no sense that the “mastermind” of the most humiliating blow in world history ever to have been delivered against a superpower would not claim credit for his accomplishment. By September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden knew that he was deathly ill. According to news reports he underwent kidney dialysis the following month. The most reliable reports that we have are that he died in December2001. It is simply not credible that bin Laden denied responsibility because he feared Washington.

But Osama bin Laden was too useful a bogeyman, and Washington and the presstitute media kept him alive for another decade until Obama needed to kill the dead man in order to boost his sinking standings in the polls so that Democrats would not back a challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Numerous bin Laden videos, every one pronounced a fake by experts, were released whenever it was convenient for Washington. No one in the Western media or in the US Congress or European or UK parliaments was sufficiently intelligent to recognize that a bin Laden video always showed up on cue when Washington needed it. “Why would the ‘mastermind’ be so accommodating for Washington?” was the question that went through my mind every time one of the fake videos was released.

The 9/11 “investigation” that finally took place was a political one run from the White House. One member of the commission resigned, declaring the investigation to be a farce, and both co-chairman and the legal counsel of the 9/11 Commission distanced themselves from their report with statements that the 9/11 Commission was “set up to fail,” that resources were withheld from the commission, that representatives of the US military lied to the commission and that the commission considered referring the false testimony for criminal prosecution.

One would think that these revelations would cause a sensation, but the news media, Congress, the White House, and the public were silent.

All of this bothered me a great deal. The US had invaded two Muslim countries based on unsubstantiated allegations linking the two countries to 9/11, which itself remained uninvestigated. The neoconservatives who staffed the George W. Bush regime were advocating more invasions of more Muslim countries. Paul O’Neill, President Bush’s first Treasury Secretary, stated publicly that the Bush regime was planning to invade Iraq PRIOR to 9/11. O’Neill said that no one at a National Security Council meeting even asked the question, why invade Iraq? “It was all about finding a way to do it.”

The leaked top secret Downing Street Memo written by the head of British intelligence (M16) confirms Paul O’Neill’s testimony. The memo, known as the “smoking gun memo” whose authenticity has been confirmed, states that “President George W. Bush wants to remove Saddam Hussein, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” In other words, the US invasion of Iraq was based on nothing but a made up lie.

As an engineering student I had witnessed a controlled demolition. When films of the collapse of WTC building 7 emerged, it was obvious that building 7 had been brought down by controlled demolition. When physics instructor David Chandler measured the descent of the building and established that it took place at free-fall acceleration, the case was closed. Buildings cannot enter free fall unless controlled demolition has removed all resistance to the collapsing floors.

If airliners brought down two skyscrapers, why was controlled demolition used to bring down a third building?

I assume that structural architects, structural engineers, and physicists would blow the whistle on the obviously false story. If I could see something was amiss, certainly more highly trained people would.

The first physicist to make an effective and compelling argument was Steven Jones at BYU. Jones said that explosives brought down the twin towers. He made a good case. For his efforts, he was pressured to resign his tenured position. I wondered whether the federal government had threatened BYU’s research grants or whether patriotic trustees and alumni were the driving force behind Jones’ expulsion. Regardless, the message was clear to other university experts: “Shut up or we’ll get you.”

Steven Jones was vindicated when chemist Niels Harrit of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark reported unequivocally that the scientific team in which he participated found nano-thermite in the residue of the twin towers. This sensational finding was not mentioned in the US print and TV media to my knowledge.

Several years after 9/11, architect Richard Gage formed Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, an organization that has grown to include 1,700 experts. The plans of the towers have been studied. They were formidable structures. They were constructed to withstand airliner hits and fires. There is no credible explanation of their failure except intentional demolition.

I also found disturbing the gullibility of the public, media, and Congress in the unquestioning acceptance of the official stories of the shoe-bomber, shampoo and bottled-water bomber, and underwear bomber plots to blow up airliners in transit. These schemes are farcical. How can we believe that al Qaeda, capable of pulling off the most fantastic attack in history and capable of devising improvised explosive devices (IEDs)that kill and maim US troops and destroy US military vehicles would rely on something that had to be lighted with a match? The shoe and underwear bombers would simply have pushed a button on their cell phones or laptops, and the liquid bomb would not have required extended time in a lavatory to be mixed (all to no effect).

None of this makes any sense. Moreover, experts disputed many of the government’s claims, which were never backed by anything but the government’s story line. There is no independent evidence that anything was involved other than firecracker powders.

The case of the underwear bomber is especially difficult to accept. According to witnesses, the underwear bomber was not allowed on the airliner, because he had no passport. So an official appears who walks him onto the airliner bound for Detroit on Christmas day. What kind of official had the authority to over-ride established rules, and what did the official think would happen to the passenger when he presented himself to US Customs without a passport? Any official with the power to over-ride standard operating practices would know that it was pointless to send a passenger to a country where his entry would be rejected.

The circumstantial evidence is that these were orchestrated events designed to keep fear alive, to create new intrusive powers for a new over-arching federal policy agency, to accustom US citizens to intrusive searches and a police force to conducting them, and to sell expensive porno-scanners and now more advanced devices to the Transportation Safety Administration. Apparently, the expensive collection of high-tech gadgetry is insufficient to protect us from terrorists, and in August 2012 the Department of Homeland Security put in an order for 750 million rounds of ammunition, enough to shoot every person in the US 2.5 times.

Naïve and gullible Americans claim that if some part of the US government had been involved in 9/11 “someone would have talked by now.” A comforting thought, perhaps, but nothing more. Consider, for example, the cover-up by the US government of the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty that killed or wounded most of the crew but failed to sink the ship. As the survivors have testified, they were ordered in a threatening way not to speak about the event. It was twelve years later before one of the USS Liberty’s officers, James Ennes, told the story of the attack in his book, ASSAULT ON THE LIBERTY. I continue to wonder how the professionals at the National Institute of Standards and Technology feel about being maneuvered into the unscientific position NIST took concerning the destruction of the WTC towers.

What will be the outcome of the doubts about the official story raised by experts? I worry that most Americans are too mentally and emotionally weak to be able to come to grips with the truth. They are far more comfortable with the story that enemies attacked America successfully despite the massive national security state in place. The American public has proved itself to be so cowardly that it willingly, without a peep, sacrificed its civil liberty and the protections of law guaranteed by the Constitution in order to be “safe.”

Congress is not about to expose itself for having squandered trillions of dollars on pointless wars based on an orchestrated “new Pearle Harbor.” When the neoconservatives said that a “new Pearl Harbor” was a requirement for their wars for American/Israeli hegemony, they set the stage for the 21st century wars that Washington has launched. If Syria falls, there is only Iran, and then Washington stands in direct confrontation with Russia and China.

Unless Russia and China can be overthrown with “color revolutions,” these two nuclear powers are unlikely to submit to Washington’s hegemony. The world as we know it might be drawing to a close.

If enough Americans or even other peoples in the world had the intelligence to realize that massive steel structures do not disintegrate into fine dust because a flimsy airliner hits them and limited short-lived fires burn on a few floors, Washington would be faced with the suspicion it deserves.

If 9/11 was actually the result of the failure of the national security state to deter an attack, the government’s refusal to conduct a real investigation is an even greater failure. It has fallen to concerned and qualified individuals to perform the investigative role abandoned by government. The presentations at the Toronto Hearings, along with the evaluations of the Panel, are now available, as is the documentary film, “Explosive Evidence – Experts Speak Out,” provided by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.

The government’s agents and apologists try to deflect attention from disturbing facts by redefining factual evidence revealed by experts as the product of “a conspiracy culture.” If people despite their brainwashing and lack of scientific education are able to absorb the information made available to them, perhaps both the US Constitution and peace could be restored. Only informed people can restrain Washington and avert the crazed hegemonic US government from destroying the world in war.

Note: Jeremiah 5:30, 31 “A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land. The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way. But what will you do in the end?” Following the second “election” of George W. Bush to the White House, a brilliant person said to me, “Never underestimate the stupidity of the American public.” Congressman Eric Canter responding to a not too tough question answered, “I probably can’t speak to that in an exact way.” Consider please. Those words were spoken by a powerful member of Congress, elected more than once by Americans who were allowed to vote. Take for example the great state of Georgia. Poor people who can’t buy gas or put healthy food on their tables will rush to the polls to vote for Romney. I understand Mr. Romney leads in Georgia by 12 points. He will win by that margin or more in a state where poverty abounds and foreclosures are as high as any other state.

James Wilson Beaty
Jeremiah 22:16
September 14, 2012

“Jeremiah, look around downtown Jerusalem”

Diogenes, the Greek philosopher, carried a lantern lifting it eye level in hopes of finding an honest person. Now, in Chapter 5 of the Book of Jeremiah in the Hebrew Bible, Jeremiah becomes the Hebrew Diogenes. I don’t know that Jeremiah carried a lantern. I do know that Yahweh sent him to the streets of downtown Jerusalem in search of a rare commodity, a person who acted justly and who loved the truth.

Chapter 5 begins, (New Jerusalem Bible),
“Rove the streets of Jerusalem,
now look and enquire,
see in her squares
if you can find an individual ,
one individual who does right
and seeks the truth,
and I will pardon her,
Yahweh says.
Although they say, ‘As Yahweh lives,’
they are, in fact, swearing a false oath.
Yahweh, do your eyes not look for truth?
You have struck them; they have not felt it.
You have annihilated them, for they ignored the lesson.
They have set their faces harder than rock,
they have refused to repent.
I thought, ‘These are only the poor!
They behave stupidly
Since they do not know Yahweh’s way
Or the ruling of their God.
I shall approach the great men
And speak to them,
For these will know Yahweh’s way
And the ruling of their God.’
But these, too, have broken the yoke,
Have burst the bonds.
And so, a lion from the forest will slaughter them,
A wolf from the plains will despoil them,
A leopard will be lurking round their towns:
Anyone who goes out will be torn to pieces—
Because of their many crimes,
their countless infidelities.”

Note: Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) wrote his INFERNO nineteen centuries after the writing of the Book of Jeremiah. In Canto I of the INFERNO, Dante, age 35, finds himself in a dark forest of worldliness and sin. As he struggles to escape, the poet encounters three beasts, a leopard (luxury and lust), a lion (pride) and a she-wolf (greed and avarice). Jeremiah 5:6 says that a lion, a leopard and a wolf will tear to pieces anyone who goes out. Luxury, lust, pride, greed and avarice dealt Jerusalem a bad hand of doom in the form of Babylonian captivity. Jeremiah, the Hebrew Diogenes, could not find one citizen of Jerusalem who acted justly and loved the truth. Jerusalem’s rich and powerful downtown leadership of Jerusalem proved to be as stupid as the weak and helpless poor.

James Wilson Beaty
Jeremiah 22:16
September 6, 2012

Downtown Jerusalem Doomed

Downtown Jerusalem Doomed

Downtown Jerusalem fell to its doom (586 b.c.e.) as a result of its abandoning Yahweh. My piece entitled “Scoundrels In Downtown Jerusalem” posted on September 4, 2012, cites Jeremiah 5:25-28. Verses 26-28 spell out atrocious deeds such as setting traps, lying in wait, taking goods from others, lurking like fowlers, judging without justice, failing to defend the cause of the orphan and ignoring the plight of the poor and needy. Committing these atrocities abandons Yahweh.
These people are the downtown leadership. They possess the wisdom, the power and the riches. They are the leaders whose wisdom qualifies them to make the decisions regarding downtown. They possess the power to enforce the caging and the taking of goods and property in downtown. Throw in their influence on Jerusalem’s judges and the sad picture of injustice heaped on the fatherless and the needy comes clear. Leaders charged with the protection of the poor have become rich and fat and sleek. Their houses are full of treachery like their jails that bulge with their victims.
Jeremiah 9:23-24 puzzles textual scholars. First, it has no contextual connection with the passages it follows or precedes. Second, it does not contain the stylistic markings of Jeremiah. However it contains the spirit of Jeremiah. Walter A. Brueggemann sees this unit as a specific expression of Jeremiah’s prophetic message. It very well may have come out of the exilic period while Jews were captive in Babylon.
Imagine with me for a moment that the writer or writers were indeed among those taken from their land of Judah whose capital was Jerusalem. These editors could have known the downtown leaders. They could have participated in the downtown injustices. Look at the power of Jeremiah 9:23-24:
“Thus says the Lord: Do not let the wise boast in their wisdom, do not let the mighty boast in their might, do not let the wealthy boast in their wealth; but let those who boast boast in this, that they understand and know me, that I am the Lord; I act with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the Lord.”
Whoever wrote this now understands that wisdom, power and wealth pale when compared to the person who practices kindness and justice and righteousness. Had downtown Jerusalem learned earlier the truth of this passage, seventy years of agonizing exile could have been avoided.

James Wilson Beaty
Jeremiah 22:16
September 5, 2012

Scoundrels In Downtown Jerusalem

Scoundrels In Downtown Jerusalem

The New Revised Standard Version translates the first noun in Jeremiah 5:26 as SCOUNDRELS. The first clause in that verse reads, “For scoundrels are found among my people;…” At least seven other translations that I know translate that Hebrew word as wicked men. A student in my class today suggested that “scoundrel” is a bit less harsh, even gentler than “wicked men.” Others in the class disagreed. So off to the dictionary we went. A SCOUNDREL turns out to be a “mean, immoral, wicked, unprincipled, dishonorable person. Scoundrel may very well have derived from the French infinitive, escondre which means “to abscond.” Scoundrels among other things are evil people who take from others.

This powerful passage 5:25-28 in the ever powerful fifth chapter of Jeremiah reads in the New Revised Standard Version as follows:
Verse 25: Your iniquities have turned these away, and your sins have deprived you of goods.
Verse 26: For scoundrels are found among my people: they take over the goods of others. Like fowlers
they set a trap; they catch human beings.
Verse 27: Like a cage full of birds, their houses are full of treachery; therefore they have become great
and rich,
Verse 28: they have grown fat and sleek. They know no limits in deeds of wickedness; they do not
Judge with justice the cause of the orphan, to make it prosper, and they do not defend the
rights of the needy.

What did these scoundrels do? What were their deeds?
1. They set traps for their fellow citizens.
2. The lay in wait to make money off them.
3. They stole their goods.
4. They lurked in waiting to catch them.
5. They judged not with justice.
6. They did not defend the cause of the fatherless.
7. They did not defend the poor and the needy.

What words describe these scoundrels?
1. They are fowlers, hunters who cage their prey.
2. They have houses that are full of deceit; their fullness are similar to their cages that hold people.
3. They are fat and sleek (shine).
4. The list of their evil deeds is without end, boundless.

James Wilson Beaty
Jeremiah 22:16
September 4, 2012

A Question For Chipper Jones

Must you go?

Note: Has there ever been another position player at age 40 as good as Chipper Jones?

James Wilson Beaty
Jeremiah 22:16
September 4, 2012