[.ca] The Big Wedding: 9/11, the Whistle-Blowers & the Cover-Up (ISBN 097527631X)

"My naivete was gone.":
I never bought the weapons-of-mass-destruction-so-let's-invade-Iraq story, and I never saw a connection between 9/11 and Iraq. Obviously, according to the media and all the brainpower in Washington, I must have missed something. On the other hand, with the US body count close to 2,000, Iraq on the brink of civil war, and no WMD anywhere, perhaps I didn't. The destruction of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre on 9/11 was a horrible, evil thing. I watched it--along with millions of other people--and wondered how could human beings do such a thing. Afterwards, I asked the question that occurred to everyone--how on earth did these people--these terrorists--slip by all the intelligence networks? If you had asked me then if I thought that this was an event that was ALLOWED to happen--I would have yawned and walked away--silently thinking that I was in the presence of one of the 'nut-fringe.' Well here it is four years later, and I've just finished reading "The Big Wedding: 9/11, The Whistleblowers, & The Cover-Up" by Sander Hicks. I read this book for 2 reasons: 1) I watched the excellent documentary "Horns and Halos", and found the kamikaze methods of publisher/journalist Hicks courageous, unusual and intriguing, and 2) I have some serious doubts about the event known as 9/11. Given the nature, the scope and the audacity of the World Trade Center attack, it would be surprising if there were NO rumours circulating about an upcoming attack prior to 9/11. Hicks proves that not only were there rumours galore, but they were ignored and quite deliberately and calculatingly squashed. In "The Big Wedding: 9/11, The Whistleblowers, & The Cover-up", Sander Hicks assembles a rogue's gallery of fringe-dwellers. There's Randy Glass (who appeared on Dateline)--a con man turned FBI/ATF informant. Glass claims that while working undercover on "Operation Diamondback" Pakistani arms dealer Rajaa Gulum Abbas bragged that the World Trade Center towers "are coming down." Glass forwarded warnings about the 9/11 attack to Senator Bob Graham, Head of Senate Foreign Intelligence. In an interview with Kathleen Walters from WPTV/NBC Graham admitted receiving information in July 01 about an attack on the World Trade Center from Glass. Then there's Pakistani General Mahmood Ahmad who wired $100,000 to Mohamed Atta on September 10, 2001. Here's a juicy coincidence ... on September 11, Senator Graham and General Ahmad were in a joint meeting in New York as the Towers fell. And here's another coincidence pointed out by Hicks: "over 100 Mossad agents" were following Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi around the world until ... August 2001 when they were "quietly ejected from the country." What a coincidence and how very convenient. Hicks convincingly continues to explore the "strange anomalies that surround 9/11" and reveals a constellation of warnings--including the names of FBI agents who "warned the White House that a specific attack was imminent." Hicks addresses the U.S military training of several of the hijackers, and the shady flight training company where the hijackers received their lessons. Hicks also interviews Delmart Vreeland--a pedophile/con man who achieved meteorite progress in the Navy and then disappeared off the radar. Vreeland claims he was an assassin, and his background certainly merits interest. Dismissed as a nutter, Vreeland penned a cryptic note about the 9/11 attack before it happened. Hicks includes nice, tidy background info on the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and The Muslim Brotherhood. In addition there are references to several nasty bits of dirt--including The Monarch Programme and the BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International). There's also a thorough index, and scrupulous footnotes (always appreciated by this reader). In "The Big Wedding: 9/11, The Whistleblowers, & The Cover-Up", Hicks shows that he's done his homework, and to say his evidence is disturbing is an understatement. Is there such a thing as coincidence, or is coincidence a series of events linked by unrevealed connections? Perhaps some of the evidence here can be reasoned and argued away, but can it all be dismissed? Read the book and decide for yourself--displacedhuman