LOTS OF POST-9/11 ATTACKS ON AMERICAN SOIL

A poster at the Hattiesburg American forum asked this question today:

“How many attacks have been [on] American soil since 9-11?”

Well, let’s see...

There was the anthrax attack.
There have been multiple attacks on our civil liberties, including but not limited to:
the Patriot Act, the illegal detention of Jose Padilla, warrantless wiretapping, the Military Commissions Act, the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007, NSPD 51, the Tasering of Andrew Meyer, the extremely questionable detention of Yuri Wainwright, the arrest of William McLean, the normalization of torture as an interrogation tool, etc.

There have been many, many attacks. And frankly, if one wants to count embassy compounds as “American soil”–which the government does under the doctrine of extraterritoriality–then we have the following attacks:

March 2002-US embassy in Yemen attacked by a “sound grenade”
January 29, 2005–US Baghdad embassy compound hit with a rocket; 2 killed, 4 wounded–all Americans
September 12, 2006-US embassy in Damascus, Syria attacked
December 2, 2007-US embassy in Manila attacked
February 21, 2008-US embassy in Belgrade burned

And that doesn’t count all the attacks on the Green Zone, which while not technically “American soil,” is controlled by the U.S. and home to many U.S. citizens.

So to answer the question, there have been a lot of attacks on American soil since 9/11. George Bush hasn’t kept us “safe” in any sense of the word.

WHAT? I THOUGHT OSAMA DID IT!

Should've posted this last week...

"The Pentagon on Monday charged six Guantanamo Bay detainees with murder and war crimes for the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Officials sought the death penalty in the unprecedented military tribunal case that has been clouded by revelations the key suspect suffered interrogation tactics that critics call torture."

Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden runs free!

And were any of these six suspects citizens of Iraq or Afghanistan, the two countries we invaded because of 9/11?

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed-Kuwait
Mohammed al-Qahtani-Saudi Arabia
Ramzi bin al-Shibh-Yemen
Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali-Kuwait or Pakistan
Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi-Saudi Arabia
Walid bin Attash-Saudi Arabia or Yemen

Hmmm...so we are we at war with Iraq and Afghanistan again? WMD? Freedom? 9/11? Oil? Israel? Because it's certainly not because any citizens of Iraq or Afghanistan attacked the U.S on 9.11.

TORTURE WORKS? YEAH, RIGHT...

Here's an incredible story from ABC News:

A leader of the CIA team that captured the first major al Qaeda figure, Abu Zubaydah, says subjecting him to waterboarding was torture but necessary.

In the first public comment by any CIA officer involved in handling high-value al Qaeda targets, John Kiriakou, now retired, said the technique broke Zubaydah in less than 35 seconds.

"The next day, he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate," said Kiriakou in an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC News' "World News With Charles Gibson" and "Nightline."

"From that day on, he answered every question," Kiriakou said. "The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks."

That last sentence is the one the Bush administration wants us to focus on. Supposedly because Zubaydah "answered every question," terror attacks were averted. Predictably, Kiriakou does not offer even one specific instance of a terror attack being thwarted because Zubaydah was tortured.

If one reads the ABC transcript, one sees that Brian Ross tries to get Kiriakou to give specifics about what terror attacks may have been thwarted. For example:

BRIAN ROSS:
And in terms of the actual planned future attacks?
JOHN:
Yeah, we disrupted a lot of them.
BRIAN ROSS:
And he knew about them?
JOHN:
He knew about some. But like I say, it was time-sensitive information. So that-- that wound down over time.
BRIAN ROSS:
And the ones that he knew about, were they on US soil? Were they in Pakistan?
JOHN:
You know, I was out of it by then. I had moved onto a new job. And I-- I don't recall. To the best of my recollection, no, they weren't on US soil. They were overseas. (pp. 19-20)

So Kiriakou claims ignorance about specific terror attacks because by then he'd moved on to other missions. But, as far as he can recall, the attacks that were supposedly stopped by torturing Zubaydah weren't even on U.S. soil--they were overseas!. Isn't that interesting? So Kiriakou wants to assure us that torture works and that the United States is safer because we torture people who tell us about terror attacks...that aren't on U.S. soil!

Kiriakou then reveals that all the gradually intensifying torture techniques were specifically authorized by the higher-ups in the CIA; the interrogators sought and received approval from CIA headquarters to take it up a notch. Oh, but they weren't worried about killing Zubaydah because there was always a doctor in the room. And you know that doctors are taught to "first, do no harm..."

"Al Qaeda is not like a World War Two German POW"

Kiriakou then tells Ross that he feels torture was necessary, and that he didn't have weeks or months to play chess with Zubaydah like captured Germans in WWII. He says that "al Qaeda is not like a World War Two German POW. It's a different world."

I would agree with that assessment. For example, Germany had actually invaded and conquered several countries. They methodically killed 6 million Jews with the assistance of IBM (the Nazis were also financed in part by several Americans, including George W. Bush's grandfather). Al Qaeda has done nothing of the sort. At their worst, al Qaeda killed a few thousand Americans on one day--if you believe the official story, which most Americans do not.

So yeah, I can see why we have to torture a much weaker enemy that has no army, hasn't conquered a single country, hasn't killed anywhere near 6 million Jews, etc.

Really an amazing interview...So much I don't have time or energy to go into it all, but Kiriakou goes on to say that once Zubaydah was broken, they'd go bounce info off of him for him to confirm or refute. And I'm sure Zubaydah always told them the truth and provided "actionable intelligence." That's how they found Osama bin Laden and captured...him...

Oh wait, Osama still hasn't been captured, has he...Ohhh riiiight...bin Laden hasn't been captured yet because torture is so necessary and so effective...Give me a break.

Ross opens part 2 of the transcript with a question about whether or not Zubaydah knew the whereabouts of bin Laden, and guess what, Zubaydah hadn't seen ol' Osama in months. How very convenient--he knew all about terror attacks on foreign soil but had no clue where to find or who to talk to about where to find Bush's favorite bogeyman.

Other random observations from the first part of the transcript

Tenet had a trauma surgeon sent to Pakistan specifically for the purpose of treating Zubaydah who had been shot three times during his capture. So basically we revived a guy (Kiriakou says in the ABC transcript that Zubaydah "almost died") so we could torture him to a point just before death. We almost killed him once when capturing him and then again after we used taxpayer money to make sure he didn't die from gunshot wounds.

In the ABC transcript, Kiriakou tells Brian Ross that when Zubaydah awoke from his coma (resulting from the first time we tried to kill him), Kiriakou said "We have plans for you." I wonder if what Kiriakou really said was "Ve haf vays to make you talk," but he didn't want to tell Ross or the American public that.

Kiriakou expresses surprise that Zubaydah is actually a very friendly person who spoke very good English and even wrote poetry and debated the merits of his religion. You know, a normal person.

Ross asks Kiriakou if Zubaydah talked about 9/11 and Kiriakou says he did. Interestingly, Kiriakou never indicates that Zubaydah took credit for 9/11. Apparently Zubaydah only said that 9/11 was "necessary," according to the ABC transcript.

A FRIEND'S RESPONSE TO MY NIST POST

My friend LarryG commented on my last post. I'll reproduce his comments in italics and respond:


1. Is there a copy of the letter of correction they are referring to available to read?

I don't know for sure, but I assume the letter to which NIST is responding is available online or publicly available somewhere. Okay, I think this is it. Here's a sample of what the Jones, et al. letter said that NIST's recent reply was addressing:

"Under the NIST IQS, no initial request for correction will be considered
concerning “disseminated information the correction of which would serve no useful
purpose.” (See NIST IQS, Part III(B)(3).) This exception clearly does not apply to this Request. The horrendous attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 were the worst attacks on American soil since Pearl Harbor, and perhaps the worst such attacks in the history of the United States. Approximately 3,000 people died on 9/11, and the vast majority of those died in the World Trade Center. In fact, family members of two of the Requesters herein died in the WTC Towers. Accurate, reliable information regarding the 9/11 attacks is imperative to the future of the United States because it is an essential part of any rational planning process and policy aimed at ensuring that such an attack never happens again.

NIST was statutorily tasked with telling the American people, the 9/11 victims’
family members, independent researchers, and the U.S. government how and why the WTC Towers collapsed, which would form the basis for future government policy. If NIST, through the WTC Report, has given inaccurate, unreliable information about the destruction of the WTC Towers, the implications would stretch across the entire architectural, political and social landscape.

Initially, inaccurate information and/or incorrect analysis by NIST would lead to
improper building codes, standards and practices. These improper building standards could, in turn, lead to needless deaths if such standards are too lenient, or unnecessary expenses if the standards are too strict.
In addition, there are immense political and social ramifications that stem from
NIST’s inaccurate information and analysis. For example, if the destruction of the WTC Towers was caused solely by the actions of foreign terrorists, but the quality of the data and information disseminated by NIST fails to meet the basic requirements of the DQA, then millions of Americans will needlessly doubt their government.

Consequently, Americans’ trust in their government will unnecessarily be undermined. On the other hand, if NIST is incorrect and airplane damage and resultant fire alone cannot explain the destruction of the WTC Towers, it would mean that the assumption that foreign terrorists alone carried out the destruction would become a matter of dispute. The importance of resolving this question is undeniable given that the destruction of the buildings, and the resulting deaths of almost 3,000 American citizens influenced, and continues to influence, national decisions of the gravest magnitude.

Thus, the importance and usefulness of having accurate, reliable, objective data
regarding the destruction of the WTC Towers cannot be overstated, and, in either case, an important and highly useful purpose will be served by NIST disseminating information that complies with applicable information quality standards. (pp. 3-4)"

2. The paragraph just before the one you cite states"In the case of the WTC Towers, NIST has established that the failures initiated in the floors affected by the aircraft impact damage and ensuing fires resulted in the collapses of the towers. This conclusion is supported by large body of visual evidence collected by NIST."

LarryG makes a good point here. NIST reasserts its conclusion that the airplane impact and the resultant fires brought down the twin towers. But then they go on to say in the next paragraph that they can't fully explain the collapses.

That might be a reference to the computer models mentioned in the paragraph that LarryG pointed out, which is also quite interesting. NIST notes that Jones, et al. criticized NIST for not using computer models to analyze the collapses. NIST says that they did in fact use computer models but that they only did so to "the point where the buildings reached global instability."

They then apparently abandoned the computer modeling at that point. That is to say, they did not allow the computer models to mimic the collapse. They only allowed the computer models to analyze conditions up to the point where collapse was more or less inevitable.

Now why would they do that? Perhaps it's because they did let the computer models analyze the collapse and the computers showed that a building cannot fall at virtual free fall speed following the path of most resistance, as they would have us believe. Seeing that the computer models invalidated the official story, perhaps they thought that the computers had been misprogrammed. Or perhaps they were ordered to cover up their findings. Who knows?

What we do know is that NIST defends their abandonment of computer modeling after a certain point with a very weak argument:

"At this point, because of the magnitude of the deflections and the number of failures occurring, the computer models are not able to converge on a solution."

Say what? They expect us to believe that these computers cannot explain a building collapse? So the government has computers which can analyze mounds of data, map the human genome, and do all kinds of wonderful and complex things but when it comes to analyzing the collapse of a structure built in the 70s, these computers are clueless?
Come on!

And not only would they have us believe these computers can't analyze a building collapse, they say it's because of all the complicating factors, i.e., the "deflections and the number of failures occurring." That's precisely why a computer is ideal to analyze such things--because there are so many factors to take into account.

And that's to say nothing of NIST's avoidance of the collapse of WTC 7, which was not hit by a plane at all.

3. Two paragraphs after the one you cite they talk about the theory of explosives. They basically cite that after all the interviews they could not find anything to suggest that there were explosives.

NIST dismisses the use of explosives based on their interviews and analysis. This is simply ludicrous. There is no shortage of eyewitnesses who say they heard or felt explosions in the twin towers. Even firefighters say they saw and heard explosions, which NIST acknowledges.

However, NIST does not offer any reason why they discount the possibility of the use of explosives. They simply say:

"Taken as a whole, the interviews did not support the contention that explosives played a role in the collapse of the WTC Towers."

There you go--cut and dried. NIST says the interviews don't lead one to the conclusion that explosives were used. I'd say the exact opposite is true, that taken as a whole, the interviews do support the contention that explosives played a role.

4. Even though they state that they cannot explain the total collapse in one paragraph, they state in the end that they are sticking to their original assertions. I think what they mean by "unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse" is that they could not satisfy the letter writers request for additional data and not that they did not have a valid explanation.

I guess. I think they would like us to believe they have a valid explanation.

5. This letter is hard to read (even for an engineer)and I find a few grammatical mistakes in it as well. Just makes me a little curious as to the authenticity of it. However I have no evidence to support that assertion. Just an observation on my part.

I agree that the letter was kind of dense and obtusely worded in a lot of places. I don't doubt its provenance, but then again, who the hell knows?

6. With regard to the cell phones: Although I use cell modems in my electrical designs, I don't know about their ability then or now to perform at high altitude. Has this been tested in real life?

According to David Ray Griffin, here's the deal with the cell phone calls:

"However, as I reported in the Revised and Updated Edition of my book, the FBI had in 2006 presented, as evidence in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui (sometimes called “the 20th hijacker”), a report on phone calls from the four airliners. According to this report, there were only two cell phone calls from United 93, and they were made at 9:58, shortly before the plane crashed, when it was down to 5,000 feet. When the FBI had to present evidence in a court of law, therefore, it would not claim that any high-altitude cell phone calls had occurred. (These two low-altitude calls from Flight 93 were, according to the FBI report, the only two cell phone calls made from all four flights)."

Griffin also points out that in 2006, American Airlines (the airline on which Barbara Olson was flying) stated that their 757s did not have seat-back phones in 2001. Therefore, Olson could not have used one to call her husband. And again, the FBI's evidence in the Moussaoui trial showed that although Olson did attempt a cell phone call, it did not go through.

In Ted Olson's telling of the phone calls, he apparently went back and forth on what type of phone Barbara used to call him. He finally settled on onboard, seat-back phones which we now know, by the airline's own admission, were not available on the plane Barbara was in.

NIST SAYS THEY CAN'T EXPLAIN WTC COLLAPSES

In the first paragraph on p. 4 of a letter from NIST to Steven Jones, Kevin Ryan, and some 9/11 family members, NIST says the following:

"Your letter contends that NIST's report violates the Information Quality Standard of 'utility.' NIST believes that the report has utility. In fact, the codes and standards bodies are already taking actions to improve building and fire codes and standards based on the findings of the WTC Investigation. As we mentioned previously, we are unable to provide an explanation-of the total collapse."

So the 9/11 conventional wisdom, the "man on the street" would tell you that the twin towers fell because of fire caused by being hit by planes full of jet fuel. However, NIST--the National Institute of Standards and Technology, part of the Department of Commerce--will not say that. NIST says they don't know why the builidings collapsed.

9/11: What we thought we "knew"

So another federal agency screws up the official 9/11 myth. Let's see where that leaves us:

1. Fire and jet crashes did not cause fall of Twin Towers (NIST)
2. Osama bin Laden did not "commit" 9/11 (FBI)
3. All high-altitude cell-phone calls on 9/11 were impossible (FBI)
4. Barbara Olson never reached Ted Olson on the phone (FBI)

Very interesting, yes?

9/11: THE FBI FUCKS UP THE OFFICIAL CONSPIRACY THEORY

First off, the FBI wanted poster for Osama bin Laden doesn't mention 9/11. By now, the organization has had over 6 years to modify this poster or correct their "error." But...they haven't. According to the website, the poster was last revised in November 2001.

Just read an article today by David Ray Griffin in which he points out how the FBI has further fucked up the official conspiracy myth, by admitting that all the high-altitude cell phone calls were fake.

"Loose Change" makes this same point, but the FBI lends the ultimate credibility to the claim. Griffin explains it thusly:

"However, as I reported in the Revised and Updated Edition of my book, the FBI had in 2006 presented, as evidence in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui (sometimes called “the 20th hijacker”), a report on phone calls from the four airliners. According to this report, there were only two cell phone calls from United 93, and they were made at 9:58, shortly before the plane crashed, when it was down to 5,000 feet. When the FBI had to present evidence in a court of law, therefore, it would not claim that any high-altitude cell phone calls had occurred. (These two low-altitude calls from Flight 93 were, according to the FBI report, the only two cell phone calls made from all four flights)."

The FBI's evidence also proves that Barbara Olson never completed a call to her husband Ted, the solicitor general.

Griffin explains again:

"Olson reported that his wife had called him twice from American Airlines Flight 77, stating that hijackers with knives and boxcutters had taken over the plane. Besides providing evidence of hijackers, this call also provided the only evidence that Flight 77 was still aloft (it had disappeared from radar and there had been reports of an airliner crash nearby). Although Olson went back and forth on the question of whether his wife had used a cell phone or an onboard phone, he finally settled on the latter...

American Airlines in 2006 [said] that their 757s in 2001 had had no onboard phones, so that anyone calling out from Flight 77 had needed to use a cell phone. Barbara Olson, therefore, could not have used a passenger-seat phone. That left open, of course, the possibility that Ted Olson was correct when he said that his wife had used her cell phone.

However, the evidence from the Moussaoui trial ruled out this possibility. In its report on AA 77, it listed one attempted call from Barbara Olson, which was “unconnected” and hence lasted “0 seconds.”

This was an astounding discovery. The FBI is part of the Department of Justice. And yet it had undercut the testimony of the DOJ’s former solicitor general, saying in effect that the two calls that he reported had never happened."

Still think that 9/11 was pulled off by 19 guys with boxcutters and poor piloting skills? The FBI itself casts doubt upon that story--maybe we all should take a cue from them.

9/11 LIES VS. 9/11 TRUTH

Hmmm. 6 years since 9/11. I have to admit that even I went jingo there for a while. I bought into the lie. But I remember why I did--I didn't pay enough attention. I let myself be manipulated by the official story.

And it's hard not to be manipulated if you don't have your bullshit detector set on maximum sensitivity at all times. That's why the official line is that "conspiracy theories" are crazy. Bush himself said we shouldn't "tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th; malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists, themselves, away from the guilty," blah blah blah.

The term "conspiracy theorist" is usually meant in a pejorative sense, but why? Why, when there are in fact many conspiracies that are confirmed daily? It's because they want to manipulate you the way I was manipulated. I shouldn't have been so easily manipulated about 9/11. I should have looked for the real story from the very beginning.

But my good friend Joe Given of Techno Slavery woke me up. He gave me a copy of "Loose Change." If you haven't seen it, watch it. Of course, by then my jingoism had abated and I could think clearly again.

I opposed the Iraq war from the minute I heard about it. My wife and I put a makeshift sign in our yard--it was made from an old door and spray-painted "No War In Iraq" on it and put it out front. I don't know why we never took a picture of it. We used the door so that no one could or would just drive by the house and quickly snatch it out of our yard.

Bullshit Detectors--On!
Anyway, whatever. As you can probably tell, I don't have a whole lot to say about this except that your bullshit detector must alway be on. Like when it comes to talk about going to war with Iran because they somehow threaten us. Or when Bush says he'll bring home 30K troops by next summer (if the progress he wants has been made). Both of those are complete and utter bullshit.

In that Bush story, notice some other bullshit. At the very bottom of the story, there is this statement about the Petraeus hearings (more heaps of steaming bullshit):

The hearing fell on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Does the AP really believe or really expect us to believe that the Petraeus hearings "fell on the anniversary" of 9/11 just by chance? That sir, is utter bullshit. Just like it's utter bullshit that the new "bin Laden" video or Bush's announcement of a possible troop withdrawal all just happened you know, by chance, to fall on or very near the sixth anniversary of 9/11. It's complete bullshit.

9/11: FIRES AND COVER-UPS

Commenter LarryG comments on my comments about his comment...

Larry takes exception to the idea that fire was not the cause of the WTC collapses. He points out that "full tanks of jet fuel were burning inside these buildings at temperatures higher than normal building fires." To that I say: 1) bollocks and 2) there were no full tanks of jet fuel burning inside WTC 7. Because no plane hit WTC 7.

The WTC tower fires didn't burn anywhere near as long as the Windsor Tower in Madrid did in 2005. The Windsor Tower burned for 24 hours and even though some floors collapsed, a crane remained on the roof of the building. In contrast, the South Tower was hit at 9:03 and collapsed less than an hour later at 9:59--and it fell in less than 30 seconds.

Not only that, but there had been a fire in the North Tower in 1975 that burned for 3 hours (three times as long as the South Tower on 9/11!) and spread over the majority of the 11th floor and into the core but no serious structural damage was done. This fire burned in excess of 700 degrees C.

The twin towers did not collapse due to fire--it was a controlled demolition.

LarryG argues that setting up a controlled demolition in the WTC buildings would require the permission and foreknowledge of "the ENTIRE government." He also feels that the cover-up of the crime would require the cooperation of a "massive" amount of people. To which I say, maybe--or maybe not.

As an example of how sneaky our government can be, we heard Valerie Plame testify today about the lengths to which the CIA would go to make her appear to do something other than what she did:

"The CIA goes to great lengths to protect all of its employees, providing at significant taxpayers' expense, painstakingly devised and creative covers for its most sensitive staffers."

Is it not conceivable that the same "great lengths" could have been gone to in order to keep everyone involved in the 9/11 plot from knowing exactly what they were doing or knowing exactly what the final results of their actions would be and so forth?

Also, consider the Manhattan Project--it was worked on by thousands of scientists in many sites across the country, but even then vice-president Truman didn't know about it until he became President. Information can be compartmentalized and provided only on a need-to-know basis, and people that helped 9/11 along may not even be aware that they were involved. They were just doing their jobs.

9/11 IN CONTEXT

There was a comment--the only one, I might add--on my last post that I wanted to address. Just so you don't have to click away from here, here's the comment:

So, I guess that means the moon landings in '69 were fake as well...?

Are you suggesting that the Bush administration orchestrated the entire 9/11 disaster or that they were complicit in helping Al-Qaeda kill thousands of Americans?

What would be the benefit for Bush to do that? Surely the repercussions of being caught far outweigh the benefits of pulling off something like that...

I just don't get it...

I have never said that the Bush administration orchestrated the entire 9/11 disaster. I would not put it past the Bushies, but the only people who know who is responsible for 9/11 are the people who did it, and I am not one of them.

However, I think the argument the commenter makes about the cost-benefit analysis is not that strong. People are always doing things they'll suffer for if caught--that fact is almost what makes the deed even more delicious.

The Context Part

But anyway, here's why I have no problem believing that 9/11 was an inside job and why you shouldn't have a problem with it, either--governments always have and always will lie to get what they want, even if they kill their fellow citizens to get it. The United States government is no different.

Just because our grade school history books fail to mention things like the Top 10 False Flags That Changed The World doesn't mean those 10 things and many more like them never happened:

10. Nero, Christians, and the Great Fire of Rome
9. Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain
8. The Manchurian Incident
7. Secrets of the Reichstag Fire
6. Fake Invasion at Gleiwitz
5. The Myth of Pearl Harbor
4. Israeli Terrorist Cell Uncovered in Egypt
3. U.S.-Sponsored Terrorism: Operation Northwoods
2. Phantoms in the Gulf of Tonkin
1. The September 11, 2001 Attacks

Remember how they started a war almost exactly 4 years ago because they said there were WMD in Iraq? And remember how we knew before the war that wasn't true because UN inspectors went to every site the U.S. told them to go to and found nothing? And then remember how we went to war with Iraq anyway because somehow not finding WMD proved their existence? And remember how we're still there, wasting lives and money?

Most people who buy the official 9/11 story are probably skeptical about a lot of other things. There are a lot of liberals who cling to the official story but despise Bush and his war and his policies in general. And that's what I don't get--why question everything except 9/11?

Forget about the question of whether Bush did it--we can't answer that because we don't have enough information. But we do have some very simple, Occam's Razor-type facts in play concerning 9/11:

1. The WTC collapses all looked exactly like controlled demolitions
2. The second tower hit was the first to fall--i.e., it burned for a shorter period of time yet fell more quickly
3. No modern, steel-reinforced building before or since 9/11 has ever collapsed due to fire
4. Reporters were given foreknowledge of the collapse of at least WTC 7
5. Larry Silverstein admitted that he had WTC 7 demolished or "pulled"

And on and on. Put two and two together--just getting the facts doesn't mean that you hate Bush or hate America. It doesn't necessarily mean that George Bush pressed the buttons that pulled the buildings down. The facts mentioned above don't prove that the Bush administration had anything to do with it--they just prove that all the destruction was not caused by the planes that hit the buildings. Don't forget that WTC 7 wasn't even hit by a plane!

9/11 OFFICIAL CONSPIRACY THEORY: THE "CONFESSION" OF KSM

The headline of this Yahoo story says it all: "9/11 mastermind confesses in Guantanamo." Sean Hannity would confess to being gay if, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he'd been tortured in secret CIA prisons and "Gitmo" for the last 4 years.

I don't know why the Feds are even worried about trying to convince the public that 9/11 wasn't an inside job of some sort. Everyone knows we tortured a "confession" out of KSM--it doesn't prove anything. The World Trade Center buildings were brought down by controlled demolition--that much is clear, and I kinda doubt KSM had anything to do with that.

OFFICIAL 9/11 STORY IMPLODING LIKE WTC 7

I can't say this better than the guys at Prison Planet, who have done great job of investigating 9/11 in general and the "clairvoyance" of the BBC and CNN concerning their early announcement that WTC 7 would collapse or had collapsed.





Here's a quick rundown:

Someone found footage of a BBC World News reporter reporting live from New York on 9/11. As she is reporting that WTC 7 has already collapsed, the building is in fact still visible over her left shoulder. WTC 7 did not actually fall until between 20 and 30 minutes later.

CNN's Aaron Brown also announced that WTC 7 "has collapsed or is collapsing" a full hour before it actually happened. And WTC 7 was clearly visible behind him as well.

Loose Change

WTC 7 was the main thing that convinced me that 9/11 was inside job after I watched "Loose Change." I didn't really know much about its collapse before watching the documentary, but it's clear the official story about 9/11 or WTC 7 is true when you extrapolate from the uniform collapse of WTC 7 neatly into its own footprint and from Silverstein's comments that he had it "pulled." After all, there is no way to set up a controlled demolition the same day one decides to bring a building down, so if Silverstein had the building "pulled" on 9/11, that necessarily means the building had been set with explosives prior to 9/11.

And now that it has come out that both CNN and the BBC reported WTC 7's collapse 20 minutes to an hour in advance of the building actually coming down, it's perfectly clear that the building did not collapse unexpectedly, to say the least.

How could anyone alert news outlets that a building was going to collapse at least 30 minutes in advance of its collapse unless that event was already planned?

THESE GUYS ARE PLAYING IT RIGHT




They know the cops have nothing on them. If anything, they've got a great case against the city for arresting them. I still haven't heard exactly what laws they've broken. They rightfully made a mockery of this whole thing.

Boston police commissioner Davis had this to say:

"“People can be smug and say all you have to do is look at this and know this is not an explosive device, but the truth of the matter is that you can’t tell what it is until it’s disrupted,” Davis said."

Are we to believe that some kind of post-modern terrorists with a sense of humor are going to encase their bombs in some sort of blinking Lite-Brite tribute? And put them all over the city in some haphazard fashion? I thought terrorist attacks had to be clandestine so no one ever knows what's happening until it's too late--you don't want to draw people's attention to blinking lights that might say "Hey, look over here! Check me out to see if I'm a bomb!"

A post-Gulf-of-Tonkin-incident world. And a post-Operation-Ajax world and a post-Operation-Northwoods world. It's a post-"Iraq has WMD"-world

This whole "post-9/11 world" meme drives me up a wall. It's used to condemn everything after the fact--i.e., "you can't be allowed to do x, y, or z--after all, this is a 'post-9/11 world.'"

It's just like the "we're at war" excuse the neocons like to drag out--"you can't criticize/protest/have freedom because we're at war and we can't allow anyone to 'embolden the enemy.'"

It's all very convenient for the authorities, isn't it? And yet people go right along with it. In a post-9/11 world, apparently, any act someone in power doesn't approve of (whether it's legal or not) can be condemned just because it's being done after a particular date on a calendar.

Well, you know what? It's also a post-Gulf-of-Tonkin-incident world. And a post-Operation-Ajax world and a post-Operation-Northwoods world. It's a post-"Iraq has WMD"-world.

In other words, we know that our government has, does, and will try to pull the wool over our eyes and fool us and abuse our trust, and not for our own good. In fact, it's pretty much always to our detriment. Why would we then enable the taking of our freedom to, I don't know, put up promotions for the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie, just because we've been told that over and over again that Osama bin Laden got the better of us? The FBI doesn't seem to think so.

I DEBUNK RIGHT WING BS

Here are excerpts from two different posts at the forum of my local paper (my response follows the right-wing posts):

Post 1:

"The irrefutable fact remains: If Clinton takes OBL when he had the chance, then 9-11 doesn't happen. Then we don't go to Iraq."

Post 2:

".........and I do know this: without regard to a donkey or an elephant ---- radical Muslim extremists wish to kill us. They wish to kill us without regard to who gets mail at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They wish us obliterated from this universe. Anybody remember 9-11? I do. If they could do it again today and the next day and the next day and the next day, they would. I know we've not had another attack since then and we must take the fight to them, or they'll bring it over here."

My response

I posted the following at the forum:

They want to kill us for two reasons:

1) we kill them
2) we exploit them

If we stopped doing those things, voila, no terrorism.

Also, Manny had this to say: "The irrefutable fact remains: If Clinton takes OBL when he had the chance, then 9-11 doesn't happen. Then we don't go to Iraq."

This piece of fiction is easily refutable. Here's how:

1) Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, not Osama bin Laden, is considered the "mastermind of 9/11." If KSM hadn't had OBL, he could've worked with some other rich fundamentalist. 9/11 was KSM's idea.

2) Even the FBI doesn't think they have enough evidence to charge bin Laden with 9/11. Check out his wanted poster at the FBI's website.

3) Osama bin Laden was involved in the planning and financing of 9/11, but he didn't actually carry out the mission.

Therefore, we see that 9/11 was possible independent of bin Laden. Clinton could have personally beheaded bin Laden and 9/11 could have still happened.


The other part of Manny's assertion is more troublesome in that it assumes that because 9/11 happened, we had to invade Iraq. In fact, George W. Bush and the people he chose to serve in his administration wanted to topple Saddam Hussein long before 9/11.

-Rumsfeld was told by Richard Clarke that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, even though Rumsfeld made it clear that he wanted Clarke to tell him otherwise.

-We know from the Downing Street memos that "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. "

-However, Bush was saying publicly at the time that war was not inevitable and the inspectors would do their work and we'd work with the U.N. and so forth. And by this time, Bush had already been repeatedly told that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11.

-A new article in Playboy about Lockheed quotes then-deputy (and now current) national security advisor Stephen Hadley telling a Lockheed official in November 2002 that we were going to go to war but “they were going to war and were struggling with a rationale” and “still working out” a cause. If the Iraq war were really a necessity because of 9/11 in the minds of Bush and his national security people, they wouldn't have had to "work out a cause" or "struggle" with a rationale.

-Bush himself said in 2004 as all this was coming to light that "This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al Qaeda."

So in no way, even by Bush's own admission, does 9/11 necessitate an attack on Iraq. In fact, Iraq was a distraction of resources from the hunt for bin Laden, who is now alive and well in Pakistan, and supposedly free as long as he is a "peaceful citizen." Because Bush didn't get bin Laden when he had the chance.

ARE WE EVEN YET?

The death toll of American soldiers in Iraq just surpassed the death toll of American civilians on 9/11 and to hear the right-wingers in these parts tell it, we're ruining Iraq to avenge 9/11.

Some vengeance--we've now lost more Americans in Iraq than we did on 9/11 and we've been waging what Bush called the "battle of Iraq" for longer than we were involved in WWII.

We're wasting both money and lives. And some Democrats are saying that they could be persuaded to go along with the proposed troop surge? How in God's name are we going to bring this ever-worsening nightmare to an end?

YES, CENK--THERE IS A CONSPIRACY

Listening to the Young Turks this morning and they had a guest from the Nation who had just written an article for the magazine supposedly debunking the 9/11 truth movement.

However, as the conversation went on, Cenk Uygur said their talk was making him more convinced of 9/11 truth rather than less convinced. They were talking about "how could our government be so evil" and so forth and then the guy from the Nation said something rather ludicrous.

He said that scientists still have yet to figure out why WTC 7 collapsed in on itself. Oh, they know exactly why WTC 1 and 2 fell in 10 seconds each. But this Nation writer expects us to buy that the jury is still out on WTC 7? So-called scientists and 9/11 truth debunkers have every aspect of 9/11 down to a "T" but they just can't quite figure out why a building that wasn't hit by a plane collapsed neatly into itself even though Larry Silverstein is on videotape saying he gave orders to bring it down (though not in so many words).

The writer from the Nation compared the jury being out to the fact that no one figured out why the Challenger blew up in 1986 until a year or two later. Well, it's more than a couple of years after 9/11, we've had an official investigative commission, and they still don't know why WTC 7 fell? That's unacceptable. They don't want to admit why it fell, so that's why they're so loathe to even talk about it.

Cenk said that when you put everything together--the Iraq war, the pipelines, petrodollar warfare, no clear video of a plane hitting the Pentagon, etc.--you can almost come to no other conclusion but that someone's not telling the truth. And I hope he lets himself go more toward that conclusion and realizes that we don't have to be able to explain every inconsistency--like we don't have to explain what happened to the people in the plane that didn't hit the Pentagon. We just don't know what happened to them.

But we know the official story is not what actually happened.