This year’s Left Forum event was held at John Jay College of Criminal Justice for the second year in a row (previous years it was held at PACE). It was brimming with attendees bustling about to find what room their panel was in. Panels include such topics as: “Building a Black Lives Matter Movement”, an evening plenary of Friday evening entitled, “Syriza, PODEMOS, Left Bloc and the Left: A European Revolutionary Politics?”, “Deep into Drones, Drone Wars & Secret Ops: What’s the War on Terror coming to?” There were also two panels on 911 Truth including “Evaluating the Consequences of the Post 911 Era” and “Redirecting our Future and Marxism”.

This year’s theme was “No Justice No Peace; Confronting the crisis of Capitalism and Democracy”.

Panels from 911 truth were able to get four panels this year where, in previous years, they had none, showing an expansion of topics being discussed. Panels from 911 Truth movement also included the “Dangerous Scapegoating of Islam: Exacerbated by the Left’s Silence about Controlled Demolition on 911” and the “2001 Anthrax Attacks and the Challenge to the Left”.

Here is part of the discussion from “Dangerous Scapegoating of Islam” with David Slesinger and Wayne Coste from 911 Truth Outreach Inc., a non-profit corporation.

We are interested citizens dedicated to exposing the falsehoods and to revealing truths about the “collapses” of the 3 World Trade Center high-rises and the damage at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

Our mission is to communicate scientific and forensic evidence relative to the destruction of the three World Trade Center skyscrapers and the Pentagon, calling for a truly open and independent investigation. This is a necessary step in the pursuit of justice and, more importantly, demonstrating the need to reinstitute a viable independent media.

Mauri Salaakhan from The Peace Thru Justice Foundation, who was also recently on Awake Radio, spoke again about Dr. Affia Siddiqui, still locked away being tortured since 2003:

According to Aafia’s mother, Aafia left their home in Gulshan-e-Iqbal in a Metro-cab on 28 March, 2003 to catch a flight to Rawalpindi, but never reached the airport. In February 2010 Aafia’s eldest son returned to the scene and described how, when he, his mother and siblings came out of their home, fifteen to twenty people, including a ‘white lady’ and members of the ISI, were waiting in three to four vehicles on the next street and subsequently kidnapped them. Aafia was placed into one black car and the crying children into another. She described to her lawyer that she was immediately hooded and drugged.

Another panel I filmed in which former talk show host Phil Donahue moderated, “Betrayed by our Government” This was a Donahue discussion with Matthew Hoh, Ray McGovern, Kevin Lucy and Cathy Smith. The panel addressed the un-glamorized war that is not shown. Phil Donahue, along with Cathy Smith, the mother of Sean Young, who was paralyzed after being in Iraq and died 10 years later from his injuries and made a documentary film about Tomas Young’s life entitled Body of War. From Body of War website:

Body of War is Tomas’ coming home story as he evolves into a new person, coming to terms with his disability and finding his own unique and passionate voice against the war. The film is produced and directed by Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro, and features two original songs by Eddie Vedder. Body of War is a naked and honest portrayal of what it’s like inside the body, heart and soul of this extraordinary and heroic young man.

Body of War unfolds on two parallel tracks. On the one hand, we see Tomas evolving into a powerful voice against the war as he struggles to deal with the complexities of a paralyzed body. And on the other, we see the historic debate unfolding in the Congress about going to war in Iraq.

On a parallel track, Body of War follows the historic deliberations in Congress to grant President Bush authority to invade Iraq. During the fall of 2002, both Houses debated the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Forces against Iraq (H. J. Res 114). The House of Representatives adopted the resolution on October 10, by a vote of 296-133. The next day, the Senate passed it by a vote of 77-23.

The foremost voice of restraint in Congress was Senator Robert Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, the longest serving senator in U. S. history, first elected in 1958. His eloquent opposition to this momentous resolution is vividly captured in Body of War.

Also on the panel was Matthew Hoh, who I’ve had on my show on Awake Radio a few times. Matthew Hoh is a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy and is the former Director of the Afghanistan Study Group, a network of foreign and public policy experts and professionals advocating for a change in US strategy in Afghanistan. A former State Department official, Matthew resigned in protest from his post in Afghanistan over US strategic policy and goals in Afghanistan in September 2009. Prior to his assignment in Afghanistan, Matthew served in Iraq; first in 2004-5 in Salah ad Din Province with a State Department reconstruction and governance team and then in 2006-7 in Anbar Province as a Marine Corps company commander. When not deployed, Matthew worked on Afghanistan and Iraq policy and operations issues at the Pentagon and State Department from 2002-8.

Matthew spoke about dealing with PTS,, Post Traumatic Stress, and what is called Moral Injury. Matt points out that when we’re forced to what we know in our gut is wrong and feel threatened into doing it by “superior” officers and soldiers in your team, like killing or harming innocent people, it leaves Moral Injury.

Lastly, a huge commotion was taking place outside the panel called “ISIS Made in the U.S.A.: Is the rise of radical islam a “failure” of US policy or precisely what the hidden hand of US Policy wants?” It was standing room only and apparently, the organizer of the event, Vox News, was taking longer than his allotted time and the audience began to speak out only be told to “Get out” by Vox.

The room had to be over 80 degrees in more ways than one. Speakers in this panel were Wayne Madsen of WayneMadsenReport.com, Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst and Webster Griffin Tarpley. Tarpley, from Pittsfield, Massachusetts, is a philosopher of history who seeks to provide the programs and strategies needed to overcome the current world crisis. As an activist historian he first became widely known for his book, “George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography (1992)“, a masterpiece of research which is still a must read from the writer with a AB Princeton 1966, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa; Fulbright Scholar at University of Turin, Italy; MA in humanities from Skidmore College; and Ph.D. in early modern history from the Catholic University of America with emphasis on the role of Venice in the origins of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648).

Tarpley has addressed audiences in Italian, German, and French. A decades-long expert on international terrorism, his 1978 study commissioned by an Italian government minister and entitled “Chi ha ucciso Aldo Moro?” (Who Killed Aldo Moro?) broke open the ownership of the Red Brigades by NATO’s clandestine networks. All videos to the panels can be seen at the Left Forum site and the 911 panels can bee seen at 9/11 Truth Outreach.