Last night we watched a documentary on Sky AnytimeTV (on demand) entitled, 102 Minutes That Changed America, that was assembled from video footage from over 100 people who experienced the horrors of September 11, 2001, in New York City. Without any narration, the events unfolded from the perspective of the eyewitnesses who captured an amazing sense of the emotion and drama and disbelief. You can watch some of the footage on the History Channel’s website.

While doing a little more research on 9/11 this evening, I ran across the YouTube trailer (below) concerning an upcoming documentary on the serious health problems being experienced by thousands of ordinary people who voluntarily took time off to help in the search, rescue, and clean-up at Ground Zero. Quite a few of my co-workers (from the Florida Baptist Convention) drove to New York City as part of the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief effort. Their compassion for the victims translated into actions that may eventually threaten their own lives. The documentary, Three Weeks in September, will air sometime this Summer 2009. Here’s the video:

At the risk of being labeled a kook and a weirdo, I have watched a number of documentaries that question the official story behind the events of 9/11 and I think there are a lot of unanswered questions, perhaps of the same magnitude as those that should have been asked of the German government as it carried out the systematic slaughter of six million Jews. We often wonder, don’t we, why the good and honest people who lived under Hitler’s regime did not question their government’s actions? A growing number of Americans are joining The 9/11 Truth Movement, a grassroots collective that seeks to shed light on what really happened. Part of their stated mission is:

To expose the official lies and cover-up surrounding the events of September 11th, 2001 in a way that inspires the people to overcome denial and understand the truth; namely, that elements within the US government and covert policy apparatus must have orchestrated or participated in the execution of the attacks for these to have happened in the way that they did.

I have never believed that an airliner crashed into the Pentagon or into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Why? There’s no recognizable debris at either site that remotely resembles a large passenger plane: no landing gear, no engines, and no remnants of the fuselage or its contents, especially seats, bodies, and luggage. Look at the photographs and you will not find any evidence of a commercial airliner, just a large crater in a remote rural location and a relatively small hole in the side of the Pentagon. So we’re just supposed to believe the official story in spite of these glaring anomalies?

The separate incidents above cast suspicion on the World Trade Center (WTC) attacks as well, in my opinion. How did those towers simply collapse perfectly into their own foundations at near-freefall speeds that experts have declared to be virtually impossible without the aid of controlled demolition charges? And how else would the leaseholder, Larry Silverstein, of Building 7, also part of the WTC campus, know to have this third building rigged with explosives so he could give the “pull” order at 5:20 pm, seven hours after WTC 1 collapsed? I didn’t even know about the mysterious collapse of Building 7, but it would have taken a team of demolition experts several weeks to prepare a 47-story building for a precision “pull” (as Silverstein himself called it during a later PBS documentary).

As a nation, one day we may deeply regret our collective naiveté and trust of our elected leaders concerning this national tragedy. I’m not sure our generation can handle the truth of what really happened on September 11, 2001, as I think about the consequences it would bring. But I do believe that The 9/11 Truth Movement has the right idea when that time comes:

To seek justice and redress for those wronged on September 11th, or as a result of the events, beginning with complete disclosure of all records and evidence; reversal of all domestic and foreign policies following from the false premises of the official story; and full accountability for any and all individuals inside and outside the US government involved in the attacks who engaged in crimes of commission, facilitation, complicity, gross negligence, cover-up or obstruction of justice after the fact.