Twenty Minutes with the President

Twenty Minutes with the President

Reported by Charlie Sheen

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with our 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama, while he was out promoting his health care reform initiative. I requested 30 minutes given the scope and detail of my inquiry; they said I couldhave 20. Twenty minutes, 1200 seconds, not a lot of time to question the President about one of the most important events in our nation’s history. The following is a transcript of our remarkable discussion.

Charlie Sheen - Good afternoon Mr. President, thank you so much for
taking time out of your demanding schedule.
President Barack Obama - My pleasure, the content of your request
seemed like something I should carve out a few minutes for.
CS - I should point out that I voted for you, as your promises of hope and
change, transparency and accountability, as well as putting
government back into the hands of the American people, struck an
emotional cord in me that I hadn’t felt in quite some time, perhaps
ever.
PBO - And I appreciate that, Charlie. Big fan of the show, by the way.
CS - Sir, I can’t imagine when you might find the time to actually watch
my show given the measure of what you inherited.
PBO - I have it Tivo’d on Air Force One. Nice break from the traveling
press corps. (He glances at his watch) Not to be abrupt or to rush
you, but you have 19 minutes left.
CS - I’ll take that as an invitation to cut to the chase.
PBO - I’m all ears. Or so I’ve been told.
CS - Sir, in the very near future we will be experiencing our first 9/11
anniversary with you as Commander in Chief.
PBO - Yes. A very solemn day for our nation. A day of reflection and yet
a day of historical consciousness as well.
CS - Very much so, sir, very much so indeed…. Now, in researching
your position regarding the events of 9/11 and the subsequent
investigation that followed, am I correct to understand that you
fully support and endorse the findings of the Commission Report
otherwise known as the ‘official story’?
PBO - Do I have any reason not to? Given that most of us are presumably
in touch with similar evidence.
CS - I really wish that were the case, sir. Are you aware, Mr. President,
of the recent stunning revelations that sixty percent of the 9/11
commissioners have publicly stated that the government agreed not
to tell the truth about 9/11 and that the Pentagon was engaged in
deliberate deception about their response to the attack?
PBO - I am aware of certain “in fighting” during the course of their very
thorough and tireless investigative process.
CS - Mr. President, it’s hard to label this type of friction as “in fighting”
or make the irresponsible leap to “thorough,” when the evidence I
insist you examine regarding 6 of the 10 members are statements
of fact.
(At this point one of Obama’s senior aides approaches the
President and whispers into his ear. Obama glances quickly at his
watch and nods as the aide resumes his post at the doorway,
directly behind me.)
PBO - No disrespect, Mr. Sheen, but I have to ask; what is it that you
seem to be implying with the initial direction of this discussion?
CS - I am not implying anything, Mr. President. I am here to present the
facts and see what you plan to do with them.
PBO - Let me guess: your ‘facts,’ allegedly supporting these claims, are
in the folders you brought with you?
CS - Good guess, Mr. President.
(I hand the first folder of documents to the President)
CS - Again sir, these are not my opinions or assumptions. This is all a
matter of public record, reported through mainstream media,
painstakingly fact checked and verified.
(The President glances into the folder I handed him)
CS - You’ll notice, sir, on page one of the dossier dated August of ‘06
from the Washington Post, the statements of John Farmer, Senior
Council to the 9/11 Commission, his quote stating “I was shocked
how different the truth was from the way it was described.”
PBO - (As he glances down at the report, almost inaudible) …. Um
hmm….
CS - He goes on to further state, “The [NORAD Air Defense] tapes told
a radically different story from what had been told to us and the
public for two years….”
(The President continues to view the documents)
CS - On pages two and three, sir, are the statements, as well, from
commission co-chairmen Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton,
commissioners Bob Kerrey, Timothy Roemer and John Lehman, as
well as the statements of commissioner Max Cleland, an ex-
Senator from Georgia , who resigned, stating:
“It is a national scandal. This investigation is now compromised. One of
these days we will have to get the full story because the 9/11 issue
is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it
up.“
He also described President Bush’s desire to delay the process as not to
damage the ‘04 re-election bid. They suspected deception to the
point where they considered referring the matter to the Justice
Department for criminal investigation. Mr. President, this
information alone is unequivocally grounds for a new
investigation!
PBO - Mistakes were clearly made but we as a people and as a country
need to move forward. It is obviously in our best interest as a
democratic society to focus our efforts and our resources on the
future of this great nation and our ability to protect the American
people and our allies from this type of terrorism in the coming
years.
CS - Sir, how can we focus on the future when THE COMMISSION
ITSELF is on record stating that they still do not know the truth??
PBO - Even if what you state might, in some capacity, begin to approach
an open discussion or balanced debate, I can’t speak for, or about,
the decisions certain commission members made during an
extremely difficult period. Perhaps you should be interviewing
them instead of me. Wait, don’t tell me; I was easier to track down
than they were?
CS - Not exactly, sir, but let’s be honest. You’re the President of the
United States, the leader of the free world, the buck stops with you.
9/11 has been the pretext for the systematic dismantling of our
Constitution and Bill of Rights. Your administration is reading
from the same playbook that the Bush administration foisted on
America through documented secrecy and deception.
PBO - Mr. Sheen, I’m having a difficult time sitting here and listening to
you draw distorted parallels between the Bush/Cheney regime and
mine.
CS - Mr. President, the parallels are not distorted just because you say
they are. Let’s stick to the facts. You promised to abolish the
Patriot Act and then voted to re-authorize it. You pledged to end
warrantless wiretapping against the American people and now
energetically defend it. You decried the practice of rendition and
now continue it. You promised over and over again on the
campaign trail that you would end the practice of indefinite
detention and instead, you have expanded it to permanent
detention of “detainees” without trial. This far exceeds the outrages
of the former administration. Call me crazy, Mr. President, but is
this not your record?
PBO - Mr. Sheen, my staff and I authorized this interview based on your
request to discuss 9/11 and deliver some additional information
you’re convinced I’d not previously reviewed. Call me crazy, but it
appears as though you’ve blindly wandered off topic.
CS - Sir, the examples I just illustrated are a direct result of 9/11.
PBO - And I’m telling you that we must move forward, we must endure
through these dangerous and politically challenging years ahead.
CS - Mr. President, we cannot move forward with a bottomless warren
of unanswered questions surrounding that day and it’s aftermath.
PBO - I read the official report. Every word, every page. Perhaps you
should do the same.
CS - I have, sir, and so have thousands of family members of the
victims, and guess what? They have the same questions I do and
probably a lot more. I didn’t lose a loved one on that horrific day,
Mr. President, and neither did you. But since then, I, along with
millions of other Americans, lost something we held true and dear
for most of our lives in this great country of ours-- we lost our
hope.
PBO - And I’d like to believe that I am here to restore that hope. To
restore confidence in your leaders, in the system that the voting
public chose through a peaceful transfer of power.
(An odd moment of silence between us. Precious time ticking
away.)
CS - Mr. President, are you aware of the number of days it took to begin
the investigation into JFK’s assassination?
PBO - If memory serves, I believe it was two weeks.
CS - Close. Seventeen days to be exact. Are you aware sir, how long it
took to begin the investigation into Pearl Harbor?
PBO - I would say again, about….two weeks.
CS - Close again, sir, eleven days to be exact. Are you aware, Mr.
President, how long it took to begin the investigation into 9/11?
PBO - I know it must have seemed like a very long time for all the
grieving families.
CS - It was a very long time, Mr. President – four hundred and forty days.
Roughly 14 months. Does it bother you, Mr. President, that it only
took FIVE HOURS after the initial attack for Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld to recommend and endorse a full scale offensive
against Iraq?
PBO - I am not aware of any such purported claim.
CS - I have the proof, Mr. President, along with scores of documents and
facts I’d like you to take a look at. Here.
(I hand him another file - much thicker than the first)
PBO - I see you came prepared, Charlie.
CS - No other way to show up, Mr. President. When in doubt, over
prepare I always say.
PBO - Now you sound like the First Lady.
CS - That’s quite a compliment, sir.
PBO - As you wish. Please continue.
CS - Sir, I’d like to direct your attention to the stack of documents in the
folder I just handed you. The first in from the top is entitled
“Operation Northwoods,” a declassified Pentagon plan to stage
terror attacks on U.S. soil, to be blamed on Cuba as a pretext for
war.
PBO - And I’d like to direct your attention to the fact that the principle
draftsman of this improbable blueprint was quickly denied a
second term as Joint Chiefs chairman and sent packing to a
European NATO garrison. Thank God his otherworldly ambitions
never saw the light of day.
CS - I wouldn’t be so certain about that, Mr. President.
PBO - I could easily say the same to you, Charlie.
(The President checks his watch)
CS - The next document reads, “Declassified staged provocations.” Now
honestly Mr. President, I wish I was making this stuff up. I’m
certain you are familiar with the USS Maine incident, the sinking
of the Lusitania, which we all now know brought us into WWI,
and of course, the most famous, the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
PBO - Of course I am familiar with these historical events and I’m
aware that there’s a measure of controversy surrounding them. But
to be quite frank with you, this is all ancient history.
CS - Mr. President, it has often been said, “Those who do not know
history are doomed to repeat it.” And I concede to you, sir, these
events are the past.
PBO - A vastly different world, young man, shouldering a radically
disparate state of universal affairs.
CS - No argument, sir, I‘m merely inviting you to acknowledge some
credibility to the pattern or the theme. Case in point, the next
document in your folder. It was published by the think tank,
Project for a New American Century, and it’s entitled “Rebuilding
America’s Defenses,” and was written by Dick Cheney and Jeb
Bush. To quote from the document, sir -(The President interrupts)
PBO - “Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings
revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some
catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”
CS - Touché, sir. Your thoughts on this statement, Mr. President?
PBO - I would call this a blatant case of misjudgment fueled by an
unfortunate milieu of assumption. For some, the uninformed denial
of coincidence.
CS - Interesting angle, sir. Nevertheless, Vice President Cheney didn’t
stop there. In early 2008, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
Seymour Hersh and MSNBC both reported that Cheney had
proposed to the Pentagon an outrageous plan to have the U.S.
Navy create fake Iranian patrol boats, to be manned by Navy
SEALs, who would then stage an attack on U.S. destroyers in the
Strait of Hormuz. This event was to be blamed on Iran and used as
a pretext for war. Does any of this information worry you, Mr.
President? Should we just ignore it, until these realities can be
dismissed years from now by our children and ancient history as
well?
PBO - Of course this information worries me, yet it’s not nearly as
worrisome as you sitting here today suspiciously implying that
9/11 was somehow allowed to happen or even orchestrated from
the inside.
CS - Mr. President, I am not suspiciously implying anything. I am
merely exposing the documents and asking the questions that
nobody in power will even look at or acknowledge. And as I stated
earlier, I voted for you; I believed in your message of hope and
change. Mr. President, I have come to you specifically hoping for a
change. A change in the fact that our government has not yet made
itself open and accountable to the people. These are your words,
Mr. President, not mine. The lives of thousands who were brutally
cut short and those left behind to suffer in infinite pain are with me
today, Mr. President. They are with me in spirit and flesh, and the
message we carry will not be silenced anymore by media-fueled
mantras insisting how they are supposed to feel. Deciding for
them, for 8 long years, what can be thought, what can be said, what
can be asked.
PBO - And I appreciate your passion; I appreciate your conviction. In
spite of your concerns, in spite of what your data might or might
not reveal, what you and the families must understand and accept
is that we are doing everything we can to protect you.
CS - Mr. President, I realize we’re very short on time, so please allow
me to run down a list of bullet points that might illuminate some
reasons why we don’t embrace the warm hug of Federal
protection.
PBO - We’ve come this far. Fire away.
CS - Please keep in mind, Mr. President, everything I’m about to say is
documented as fact and part of the public record. The information
you are holding in your hands chronicles and verifies each and
every point.
PBO - You have five minutes left. The floor is yours. Brief me.
CS - Thank you, Mr. President. Okay, first: on the F.B.I.’s Most Wanted
list, Osama Bin Laden is not charged with the crimes of 9/11.
When I called the F.B.I. to ask them why this was the case, they
replied: “There’s not enough evidence to link Bin Laden to the
crime scene.” I later discovered he had never even been indicted by
the D.O.J.
CS - Number 2: F.B.I. translator Sibel Edmonds was dismissed and
gagged by the D.O.J. after she revealed that the government had
foreknowledge of plans to attack American cities using planes as
bombs as early as April 2001. In August of ‘09, Mrs. Edmonds
broke the federal gag order and testified under oath that Osama Bin
Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban were all working for and with the
C.I.A. up until the day of 9/11.
CS - Number 3: The following is a quote from Mayor Giuliani during an
interview on 9/11 with Peter Jennings for ABC News. “I went
down to the scene and we set up headquarters at 75 Barkley Street,
which was right there with the Police Commissioner, the Fire
Commissioner, the Head of Emergency Management, and we were
operating out of there when we were told that the World Trade
Center was going to collapse. And it did collapse before we could
actually get out of the building, so we were trapped in the building
for 10, 15 minutes, and finally found an exit and got out, walked
north, and took a lot of people with us.”
WHO TOLD HIM THIS??? To this day, this question remains
unanswered, completely ignored and emphatically DENIED by
Mayor Giuliani on several public occasions.
CS - Number 4: In April 2004, USA Today reported, "In the two years
before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace
Defense Command conducted exercises simulating what the White
House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used
as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties." One of
the targets was the World Trade Center.
CS - Number 5: On September 12, 2007, CNN's ‘Anderson Cooper 360’
reported that the mysterious "white plane," spotted and videotaped
by multiple media outlets, flying in restricted airspace over the
White House shortly before 10 a.m. on the morning of 9/11, was in
fact the Air Force's E-4B, a specially modified Boeing 747 with a
communications pod behind the cockpit-- otherwise known as
“The Doomsday Plane.”
Though fully aware of the event, the 9/11 Commission did not
deem the appearance of the military plane to be of any interest and
did not include it in the final 9/11 Commission report.
CS - Number 6: Three F-16s assigned to Andrews Air Force Base, ten
miles from Washington, DC, are conducting training exercises in
North Carolina 207 miles away as the first plane crashes into the
WTC. Even at significantly less than their top speed of 1500 mph,
they could still have defended the skies over Washington well
before 9 a.m., more than 37 minutes before Flight 77 crashes into
the Pentagon. However, they did not return until after 9:55 a.m.
Andrews AFB had no armed fighters on alert and ready to take off
on the morning of 9/11.
CS - Number 7: WTC Building 7. Watch the video of its collapse.
CS - Number 8: Flight 93 is the fourth plane to crash on 9/11 at 10:03
a.m. V.P. Cheney only gives shoot down orders at 10:10-10:20
a.m. and this is not communicated to NORAD until 28 minutes
after Flight 93 has crashed.
Fueling further suspicion on this front is the fact that three months
before the attacks of 9/11, Dick Cheney usurped control of
NORAD, and therefore he, and no one else on planet Earth, had
the power to call for military sorties on the hijacked airliners on
9/11. He did not exercise that power. Three months after 9/11, he
relinquished command of NORAD and returned it to military
operation.
CS - Number 9: Scores of mainstream news outlets reported that the
F.B.I. conducted an investigation of at least FIVE of the 9/11
hijackers being trained at U.S. military flight schools. Those
investigations are now sealed and need to be declassified.
CS - Number 10: In 2004, New York firefighters Mike Bellone and
Nicholas DeMasi went public to say they had found the black
boxes at the World Trade Center, but were told to keep their
mouths shut by F.B.I. agents. Nicholas DeMasi said that he
escorted federal agents on an all-terrain vehicle in October 2001
and helped them locate the devices, a story backed up by rescue
volunteer Mike Bellone.
As the Philadelphia Daily News reported at the time, “Their story
raises the question of whether there was a some type of cover-up at
Ground Zero.”
CS - Number 11: Hundreds of eyewitnesses including first responders,
fire captains, news reporters, and police all described multiple
explosions in both towers before and during the collapse.
CS - Number 12: An astounding video uncovered from the archives
shows BBC News correspondent Jane Standley reporting on the
collapse of WTC Building 7 over twenty minutes before it fell at
5:20 p.m. on the afternoon of 9/11. Tapes from earlier BBC
broadcasts show news anchors discussing the collapse of WTC 7 a
full 26 minutes in advance. The BBC at first claimed that their
tapes from 9/11 had been "lost" before admitting that they made
the "error" of reporting the collapse of WTC 7 before it happened
without adequately explaining how they could have obtained
advance knowledge of the event.
In addition, over an hour before the collapse of WTC 7, at 4:10pm,
CNN's Aaron Brown reported that the building "has either
collapsed, or is collapsing."
CS - Number 13: Solicitor General Ted Olson's claim that his wife,
Barbara Olson, called him twice from Flight 77, describing
hijackers with box cutters, was a central plank of the official 9/11
story.
However, the credibility of the story was completely undermined
after Olson kept changing his story about whether his wife used
her cell phone or the airplane phone. American Airlines confirmed
that Flight 77 was a Boeing 757 and that this plane did not have
airplane phones on board.
According to the F.B.I., Barbara Olson attempted to call her
husband only once and the call failed to connect, therefore, Olson
must have been lying when he claimed he had spoken to his wife
from Flight 77.
CS - Number 14: The size of a Boeing 757 is approximately 125 ft.
in width and yet images of the impact zone at the Pentagon
supposedly caused by the crash merely show a hole no
more than 16 ft. in diameter. The engines of the 757 would
have punctured a hole bigger than this, never mind the
whole plane. Images before the partial collapse of the impact
zone show little real impact damage and a sparse debris
field completely inconsistent with the crash of a large jetliner,
especially when contrasted with other images showing
airplane crashes into buildings.
CS - Number 15: What is the meaning behind the following quote
attributed to Dick Cheney which came to light during the 9/11
Commission hearings? The passage is taken from testimony given
by then Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta.
During the time that the airplane was coming in to the Pentagon,
there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice
President, "The plane is 50 miles out." "The plane is 30 miles out."
And when it got down to "the plane is 10 miles out," the young man
also said to the Vice President, "Do the orders still stand?" And
the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said,
"Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the
contrary?"
As the plane was not shot down, in addition to the fact that armed
fighter jets were nowhere near the plane and the Pentagon
defensive system was not activated, are we to take it that the orders
were to let the plane find its target?
CS - Number 16: In May 2003, the Miami Herald reported how the Bush
administration was refusing to release a 900-page Congressional
report on 9/11 because it wanted to "avoid enshrining embarrassing
details in the report," particularly regarding pre-9/11 warnings, as
well as the fact that the hijackers were trained at U.S. flight
schools.
CS - Number 17: Top Pentagon officials canceled their scheduled flights
for September 11th on September 10th. San Francisco Mayor Willie
Brown, following a security warning from the White House,
canceled a flight into New York that was scheduled for the
morning of 9/11.
CS - Number 18: The technology to enable cell phone calls from highaltitude
airline flights was not created until 2004, and even by that
point, it was only in the trial phase. Calls from cell phones, which
formed an integral part of the official government version of
events, were technologically impossible at the time.
CS - Number 19: On April 29, 2004, President Bush and V.P. Cheney
would only meet with the commission under specific clandestine
conditions. They insisted on testifying together and not under oath.
They also demanded that their testimony be treated as a matter of
“state secret.” To date, nothing they spoke of that day exists in the
public domain.
CS - And finally, Mr. President - Number 20: A few days after the
attack, several newspapers, as well as the F.B.I., reported that a
paper passport had been found in the ruins of the WTC. In August
2004, CNN reported that 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah's visa was
found in the remains of Flight 93, which went down in
Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
At least a third of the WTC victims’ bodies were vaporized and
many of the victims of the Pentagon incident were burned beyond
recognition. And yet, visas and paper passports, which identify the
perpetrators and back up the official version of events,
miraculously survive explosions and fires that we are told melted
steel buildings.
(The senior aide appears again beside the President whispering in his
ear. He then quickly moves off.)
PBO - Well Charlie, I can’t say this hasn’t been interesting. As I said
earlier, you’ve showed up today focused and organized.
Regardless of how I feel about the material you’ve presented, I
must commend your dedication and zeal. However, our time here
is up.
(The President rises from his chair; I do the same.)
CS - Mr. President! One more second!
(The President starts towards the door; I follow him quickly, step for
step)
CS - Mr. President, I implore you, based on the evidence you now
possess, to use your Executive Power. Prove to us all, sir, that you
do, in fact, care. Create a truly comprehensive and open
Congressional investigation into 9/11 and its aftermath. The
families deserve the truth; the American people and the rest of the
free world deserve the truth. Mr. President -
(He pauses. We shake hands.)
CS - Make sure you’re on the right side of history.
(The President breaks the handshake.)
PBO - I am on the right side of history. Thank you Charlie, my staff and
I will be in touch.
(I watch as he strides gracefully out of the room; the truth I provided
him held firmly by his side, in the hand of providence.)

End.

Author’s Note: What you have just read didn’t actually happen… yet. This is an open letter to the President requesting a newinvestigation.