Larry Bensky

Pacifica Radio

an update (2010): It is curious that Pacifica Radio has several stations that have promoted the most extreme 9/11 hoaxes (WPFW even put "Judy Wood" on the air in the all-important Washington, D.C. radio market - consider yourself fortunate if you have not come across her writings). Bensky was a national correspondent for Pacifica for many years, most notably anchoring their complete gavel-to-gavel coverage of the 1987 Iran-Contra hearings.

Pacifica has aired both the standard left-liberal "alternative" 9/11 perspective (the attacks happened because of "blowback" but there wasn't any official foreknowledge) and the ultra conspiracy claims that are a mix of true and fake facts. Pacifica has almost completely ignored the best evidence of the suppressed warnings and overlapping wargames, the standard operating procedure of the media regarding 9/11.

 

Lawrence Bensky, a senior Pacifica correspondent at KPFA in Berkeley, is a member of Berzelius, according to some the third in rank and power in Yale's seven senior secret societies. Bensky told me "it certainly wasn't Berzelius" that owned Hitler's silverware, "I would have noticed that. Berzelius was relatively benign. we didn't get into all that mumbo-jumbo like Skull & Bones or Scroll & Key." Mr. Bensky claims he was "felt out" by Skull & Bones and other societies but was turned down because he was Jewish. "I think Skull & BONES had one or two Jews in it, but I didn't feel comfortable even talking to people who are generally racially exclusive," Mr. Bensky said.
Toby Rogers, "Ambushed: Secrets of the Bush Family, the Stolen Presidency, 9-11 and 2004," p. 134


letters with Larry Bensky

Dear Larry Bensky:

Perhaps you might be onto something. It would be a public service if you share with the world (and your audience) what evidence there is for your point of view. Appeals to authority and political correctness do not constitute actual evidence, they are not admissible in court.
I've read virtually every article by your colleagues in the "alternative" media trashing 9/11 skeptics, and am unaware of any that actually deal with the mountain of evidence for Bush's complicity in the event. Some of this evidence is ambiguous or doubtful, but there's lots of evidence that is proven to standards usable in a court of law (at least an honest court if you can find one).
It's possible that the fear of contemplating the viciousness that would be required for official complicity in 9/11 has simultaneously occurred to you and your colleagues in the "left" media. It reminds me of stories from the Holocaust, where Jews in the ghettos largely did not want to hear about death camps and shooting pits. These stories are documented from numerous places, from communities that had virtually no communication with each other. Perhaps it is merely a key part of human psychology to block out unpleasant subjects, and that is the real reason why the liberal / left media has shunned any real examination of the events of 9/11. Foundation grants from the establishment help set the limits of debate, but that alone doesn't explain the hesitation.
I remember last October, when you emceed an event with Cynthia McKinney, how you publicly stated how it was unlikely that Thomas Kean (9/11 commission chair) would have had time to be involved in shady middle east business deals given his University responsibilities. I replied that even FORTUNE magazine reported how his board position at Amerada Hess tied him to the Saudi consortium planning the trans-Afghan pipeline, and that Khalid bin Mafouz was part of this (Osama's brother in law). You had no reply.
It is documented in the mass media that

this is the tip of the iceberg

Have any of your colleagues in the liberal left media bothered to mention the Center for Cooperative Research (cooperativeresearch.org), whose "Complete 9/11 Timeline" is entirely sourced from the corporate media? Why do your liberal left colleagues totally ignore the topic of Peak Oil? Why is it easier to read about peak oil in the New York Times and National Geographic than in The Nation and Mother Jones?
not all claims for 9/11 conspiracy are true - there is some misinformation floating out there, and some active cointelpro-style disinformation as well (see http://www.oilempire.us/bogus.html for an example of this)
but the biggest conspiracy theory is that 19 guys managed to outwit the entire US military industrial intelligence complex - there's no evidence for that, and lots of evidence that refutes this
David Corn also attacked Gary Webb for saying the CIA was complicit in drugs, wrote a biography of one of the worst CIA leaders that ignored the charges about drugs, attacked the film JFK and attacked the peace rallies before the iraq invasion for having the wrong politics. The Colin Powell / Richard Armitage State Department gave him a free trip to Trinidad (an oil exporting English speaking country) to influence their media - a few months after trashing Mike Ruppert. That is a curious treatment for a "dissident" journalist.
FAIR, Solomon, and Berlet have a mantra that Ruppert peddles unsubstantiated theories, but when you show them evidence and ask them to deal honestly with even the most basic material they focus on tertiary issues, ideological objections and do not address the issues of proven foreknowledge.
Based on his recent speech at the International Citizens Inquiry into 9/11 (5/30/2004, Toronto), Mike's upcoming book "Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil"will make this "mantra" look very silly.
The treatment that you, Solomon, Berlet and Corn have given to 9/11 skeptics reminds me of how the "old left" became irrelevant in the 1960s as the protests over the Vietnam war heated up. These "old left" marxist groups were of course against the war, but their excessive focus on obscure ideology was not of much interest to most peace activists, and their involvement faded. Similarly, The Nation, Z, FAIR, and similiar folks have clearly indicated their limits of dissent and investigation, and those who want to understand the modus operandi of the empire need to look beyond your limited analysis.
Amy Goodman does great work on many issues, but she will NOT talk about 9/11. Could it be the $75,000 that the Ford Foundation gave her in 2002 to cover the aftermath of 9/11, or the $150,000 she got from them in 2004 (for doing such as great job steering clear of this material)? Almost two years ago, I asked her after one of her speeches if she would help us investigate the military/intel "war games" on 9/11 that paralyzed the Air Force defense of New York and Washington - she refused to reply to my question (which was offered politely). Shame. See http://www.oilempire.us/wargames.html for details about these wargames on 9/11. No discussion of 9/11 is complete -- or intellectually honest -- without discussion of how these wargames were scheduled that day. Who has the power to schedule simultaneous military and intelligence agency wargames, to send fighter planes to northern Canada (far away from NYC), to put "injects" of fake radar blips into NORAD air defense screens? Osama? Crown Prince Abdullah? Dick Cheney, Richard Myers and Donald Rumsfeld?
Chomsky still defends the Warren Commission report. Perhaps he could go across the MIT campus to their physics department to learn why the "single bullet theory" is not possibly true.
The publisher of Mother Jones was at Bioneers last year - and he claimed, in response to a question, that there was no evidence behind any complicity of Bush in 9/11 (although the MoJo staffers at their booth had a different opinion). When he was asked about some of the most basic info about foreknowledge and the Air Force failure to follow standard operating procedure, he clammed up and wouldn't say anything more.
It is sad that when the bulk of the information about Bush regime foreknowledge was documented in late 2001 and early 2002 that the liberal / left / progressive elite publications did not have a meeting to set up a roundtable group to sift through the evidence to help the grassroots researchers figure out which material was the best documented and which was false. Instead, you, Corn, Solomon, Berlet and a few others have been claiming (by default) that Bush is innocent and do not dare given any serious coverage to even the most sober analysts who have dared to look at the details.
In May, I saw Amy Goodman give her speech again. Afterwards, I asked her why there is this censorship on the "left." She said she had no opinion and asked me for my opinion. I replied I think it is a mixture of fear and foundation funding calling the shots. She had no answer to that, which I took as confirmation.
It is especially sad that the liberal left alternative media choose to "stand down" on this issue, since talking about Bush regime foreknowledge could have helped create sufficient political pressure to prevent the invasion of Iraq. Why do so many liberal establishment figures defend Bush on this key point? Fortunately, the consciousness shift from thinking that 9/11 was a surprise attack to realizing it was deeper than this is a one-way mind shift, There are even famous liberals and leftists publicly speaking out about this now, so your defense of the official story is needed more than ever if you really want to keep your audience from understanding these topics. Since the left is horribly co-dependent for their points of view (waiting to see what famous people think before forming an opinion), it is helpful that more famous leftists are now publicly stating "Bush Knew."
It's even more tragic for you, since your coverage of the Iran-contra hearings in 1987 was very well done, and you even dared to mention the martial law plans that were (very) briefly discussed by Rep. Jack Brooks. I have the transcript archived at http://www.oilempire.us/redalert.html I think you even mentioned the cocaine allegations (which The Nation magazine has refused to touch), but my recollection may be wrong on this. But the mass media (and John Kerry's subcommittee) let the perpetrators get away with it, which merely emboldened them to bigger crimes.

 

HI,

I wonder if it has ever occured to you, and others who yammer on endlessly about unproven and unproveable conspiracies behind everything that " Larry Bensky, Norman Solomon, David Corn, Amy Goodman, FAIR, The Nation, Mother Jones, Chip Berlet, Z Magazine, Noam Chomsky and the rest of the liberal / left elite" have little if any relationship with each other, rarely talk/meet, indeed don't even know each other in some cases...but have all come to the conclusion that the crap being peddled to "explain" what's gone on by "researchers" is nonsense...that we have all concluded this (if indeed we have...) means that through our extensive collective experience....WE MAY BE ONTO SOMETHING????.
Has that ever occured to you?
Best,
LB

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Robinowitz"
To: <sundaysalon@kpfa.org>
Cc: <info@kpfa.org>
Sent: Monday, June 28, 2004 2:15 AM
Subject: why is Larry Bensky defending the Bush administration's false claim that 9/11 was a surprise attack?
> I heard Larry Bensky speak last fall with Cynthia McKinney in San
> Rafael. Bensky put his foot in his mouth by defending the official
> 9/11 cover-up commission, and expressed doubt that there were covert
> business ties between the Commission Chair and Saudi oil investors,
> even though those ties were discussed in Fortune magazine (see
> http://www.oilempire.us/investigation.html for details)
>
> I recently read the transcript of Bensky's amazing dismissals of
> callers who dared to suggest that 9/11 may have been an updated
> version of the proposed Operation Northwoods (a 1962 Pentagon
> proposal to stage phony terror attacks to blame on Cuba in order to
> create a pretext for an invasion). His guest snidely stated that
> this was merely "grassy knoll" thinking, which is an official
> paradigm for ignoring any evidence that doesn't conform to the
> official story. (The Zapruder film of the JFK assassination shows
> beyond any doubt that Kennedy was in fact shot from someone standing
> on the famous grassy knoll -- but the real issue is WHY there was a
> coup against President Kennedy, not how it was accomplished. This is
> a question the corporate media and most of the foundation funded
> liberal "alternative" media will not touch.)
>
> I would expect similar nonsense from Fox News, NPR and similar organs
> of State propaganda. But for it to come from KPFA and Larry Bensky,
> who I was first introduced to during the Iran-contra hearings
> (including the discussions that Oliver North and FEMA, now "Homeland
> Security," had planned martial law), is a new low for journalism.

I look forward to seeing the left / liberal / progressive so-called
> alternative media address the issue of the five (or more?) war games
> conducted by the military and intelligence agencies on 9/11 that
> paralyzed the air force defense of New York and Washington. So far,
> several leading lights on the liberal left have chosen to totally
> ignore this core fact when pressed at public events. Most of this
> information is from such radical, conspiracy publications as
> Associated Press, Toronto Star, CNN, USA Today, and Aviation Week.
>
> It is fascinating that it is easier to get information about Peak Oil
> from the New York Times and even the front cover of National
> Geographic than to get it from Larry Bensky, Norman Solomon, David
> Corn, Amy Goodman, FAIR, The Nation, Mother Jones, Chip Berlet, Z
> Magazine, Noam Chomsky and the rest of the liberal / left elite.