Acquiunk--
The inference that the pilots flew too slowly was one of the more ridiculous suspicions to me, as well. Many of the 'suspicions', such as that one can be dispatched with only slight reason.
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I do see maddening incompetance, and irritating examples of how a suspect's rights played a part in 911 (Moussaoui's property not being examined)--but I don't see how Bush or his administration can be justly accused of complicity.
Always open to any new evidence.
Any trust I had in any government ended the day I knew that at least the U.S. and German diplomatic services had been warned about the Lockerbie bombings. They knew the date, they knew the airline, they warned their staff not to travel that day, on that airline. They told them not to let family travel that day, on that airline.
I was visiting my parents 2 weeks prior to Lockerbie. A German consular official was visiting that evening. He and his wife were talking about re-booking a Christmas flight for their daughter, based on information given to the consul in Washington. They were upset as it would change the family Christmas plans - re-booking that close to Christmas was difficult. I honestly didn't believe him. I thought it was a diplomatic version of an urban legend. I don't think I can begin to explain how I felt when the news about Lockerbie came over the radio. I still don't know if I was more angry or sad. I know it changed me.
ehBeth--
Why has that not been publicised?
Sofia, it was, but not a great deal was made of it.
I have a friend who was coming back from Germany and missed his connection at Heathrow. He was offered two alternative, the Pan Am flight or a United flight that left 20 minuets later. He took the United flight and to this day cannot belive his luck.
Look at the Columbia disaster. It is becoming more obvious all of the time that NASA handled it spectacularly badly, from trying to fly that shuttle at all to ignoring the foam, with all sorts of bad decisions made along the way.
I sometimes think it's just luck that we have had so few disasters, of any kind that bureaucracy is supposed to prevent.
That is chilling, ehBeth. I can somewhat get my mind around that they thought it was a threat but didn't know anything for sure, and didn't want to take the $$ loss that would result from absolutely stopping operations that day based on a possibility.
It's still deeply disturbing.
I hadn't heard anything about prior knowledge of Lockerbie!
And, it is incomprehensible that no more was made of it. Everyone who knew should answer to it.
Thanks for mentioning it. I'm going to look into it.
I don't see how much more "founded" these theories need to be, not really. There's plenty of evidence that the administration was given a series of warnings, some quite specific (in spite of the intelligence bureascracy stalls and breakdowns). It seems to me that in those circumstances we would have had our border guard -- that is to say, our National Guard and/or USAF on pretty high alert, looking for trouble.
We not only didn't have that, we didn't have a real scramble when it was evident something had gone badly wrong. So there's a whole lot of explaining to be done -- the questions and the theorizing are not going to go away.
Just want to keep reminding everyone (old enough to remember!) how "conspiracy theories" about Watergate, Chile, Central America, Vietnam, Gulf War syndrome, etc. etc. were believed "only by irresponsible kooks" (count me in) who were later proven correct. So it's my contention that we have to pay close attention, be skeptical, ask questions, and not toss aside uncomfortable answers as they become apparent. The people we have doubts about are, after all, our paid representatives and agents: they are responsible to us, owe loyalty to us, and must earn -- not be freely given -- our loyalty and respect. If we're not demanding bosses, we're going to wind up with America we deserve.
Tartarin,
There is certainly plenty of evidence in hindsight that points to incompetence.
But I'm not talking about that. I am talking about the implication that this was complicity, not incompetence. It's a big difference (at least to me).
I think I see complicity, Craven. I also think it's likely, at rational level. But we'll find out eventually. It won't be dramatic complicity and it will be indirect, but it's gonna be there, I'm pretty dang sure. We were complicit quite directly in all of the stuff I alluded to above, including mass murders, all kinds of horrors people still turn their eyes away from.
Complicity is something I am very interested in. Could you expound on what kind of complicity you see and at what level?
I've been interested in the rumor about Jewish employees at the Twin Towers not showing up for work on 911.
Myth or substantiated?
Totally debunked, the story was an intentional propaganda piece originating from Pravda and Al-Manar Television. It has been so soundly debunked that it often won't even be dignified with teh effort to debunk it.
It's on the intellectual level of the claim that the Jews planned the Holocaust.
Just want to weigh in here and say that this is the kind of rigorous discussion I was looking for when I posited the questions, and what this forum (and its participants) do at its best moments.
Thanks, and continue, please.
Craven -- Do you mean a complete rehash of American foreign relations over the past fifty years? Or do you mean complicity in the 9/11 event?
Just 9/11. There has indeed been some pretty sad American complicity in some shameful events over the past 50 years. I don't dispute that.
The point is, we don't know yet. That's what we're exploring here: the indicators. Our search for information is based not on our UFO mentality but on past performance combined with the oddities and inconsistencies already apparent in the lead-up to 9/11 and in the responses to it. So there are no answers yet, but there is a good foundation for questions. Okay?
Another oddity from September '01 which needs re-examination is the apparently large sale of airlines futures just prior to the attack.
Craven -- "shameful" doesn't even begin to describe it. If ever there were a "beauty contest" in the competition of contemporary "empire of evil" we'd be duchesses at least.
I just picked a few things out of Sofia's link to ponder, with the questions and observations appearing in red:
Quote:(9:49 A.M.) Three F-16's scrambled from Langley at 9:30 reach the Pentagon. (PDiddie inserts: Flight 77 had crashed into the Pentagon at 9:41.)The planes, armed with heat-seeking, Sidewinder missiles, are authorized to knock down civilian aircraft. According to NORAD, they were flying at 650 mph. The official maximum speed for F-16's is 1500 mph. [9:49, CNN, 9/17/01, 9:49, NORAD, 9/18/01, 9:56: "15 minutes after Flight 77 hit the Pentagon", New York Times, 9/15/01, "just before 10:00," CBS, 9/14/01] Using the New York Times arrival time and given that Langley is 129 miles away, this means the fighters were flying at an average speed of about 300 mph! But using NORAD's official departure time of 9:30 and even the generous CNN arrival time, the journey takes 19 minutes, or a speed of about 410 mph!
and:
Quote:9:53 A.M. The NSA intercepts a phone call from one of bin Laden's operatives in Afghanistan to a phone number in the Republic of Georgia. The caller says he has "heard good news" and that another target is still to come (presumably, Flight 93). Tenet tells Rumsfeld about the intercept two hours later. [CBS, 9/4/02] How could someone in Afghanistan know so quickly that Flight 93 had been delayed 40 minutes of takeoff, was still in the air and was controlled by hijackers? Did the hijackers call from a plane?
(After 9:55 A.M.) After flying off in Air Force One, Bush talks to Cheney on the phone. Cheney recommends that Bush authorize the military to shoot down any plane under control of the hijackers. "I said, 'You bet,'" Bush later recalls. "We had a little discussion, but not much." ["after Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon", Newsday, 9/23/01, time unknown, USA Today, 9/16/01, "Once airborne, Bush spoke again to Cheney", Washington Post, 1/27/02, after Bush is airborne, CBS, 9/11/02] If this decision was so easy to make, why wasn't it given earlier? What has Bush been doing since giving a speech at 9:30? Why hasn't he okayed the shooting down of any aircraft during that time, when its been known there is a hijacked plane headed towards Washington since before he gave the speech?
and:
Quote:(9:55 A.M.) Inside his White House bunker, a military aide asks Cheney, "There is a plane 80 miles out. There is a fighter in the area. Should we engage?" Cheney immediately answers "Yes." As the fighter gets nearer to Flight 93, he is asked the same thing twice more, and responds yes both times. [Washington Post, 1/27/02] Maj. Gen. Paul Weaver, director of the Air National Guard, had previously claimed that no military planes were sent after Flight 93. [Seattle Times, 9/16/01] However, two of the three pilots flying over Washington specifically deny ever being ordered to shoot down a plane (the third hasn't spoken). They say that all of them didn't even learn about Flight 93 or any plane crashing in Pennsylvania until they returned to base in the afternoon. [The book Among the Heroes, 8/02, p. 222] There is a lot of evidence that fighters were sent after Flight 93, including the Vice President's claim. Is someone lying, or were the planes coming from somewhere else?
(Before 10:00 A.M.) Three F-16 fighter jets near Washington head in pursuit towards Flight 93. ["Sometime shortly before 10," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/28/01] Yet the pilots themselves deny this. They say they maintained a defensive position over Washington for four hours. [The book Among the Heroes, 8/02, p. 222] Who is correct? If it is true they went after Flight 93, it appears planes were scrambled 40 minutes or so after NORAD was told at 9:16 the plane was hijacked. What is the explanation for the delay?
PDiddie -- Not knowing a damn thing about it and having no way of judging the claim one way or the other, I've been intrigued by the claim that the hole in the Pentagon could not have been produced by a plane that large.
Here's some more...can someone help me understand what was going on?
This stuff is extraordinarily complex and tedious, and I don't know what to make of it, either. The following is excerpted piecemeal from
this link.
Quote:January 1995 - Philippine police investigating a possible attack on the Pope uncover plans for Operation Bojinka, connected to World Trade Center (WTC) bomber Ramsi Youssef. Parts of the plan call for crashing hijacked airliners into civilian targets. Details of the plan are disclosed in Youssef's 1997 trial for the 1993 WTC bombing. [Source: Agence France-Presse, Dec. 7, 2001]
1998 - The CIA ignores warnings from Case Officer Robert Baer that Saudi Arabia was harboring an Al Qaeda cell led by two known terrorists. A more detailed list of known terrorists is offered to Saudi intelligence in August 2001 and refused. [Source: Financial Times Jan. 21, 2001; "See No Evil" by Robert Baer]
1998 and 2000 - Former President George H.W. Bush travels to Saudi Arabia on behalf of the privately owned Carlyle Group, the 11th largest defense contractor in the U.S. While there he meets privately with the Saudi royal family and the bin Laden family. [Source: Wall Street Journal, Sept. 27, 2001.]
August 2000 -- Suspected Al Qaeda operatives wiretapped by Italian police made apparent references to plans for major attacks involving airports, airplanes and the United States according to transcripts obtained by the Los Angeles Times. [Source: The Los Angeles Times, May 29, 2002]
Oct. 24-26, 2000 -- Pentagon officials carry out a "detailed" emergency drill based upon the crashing of a hijacked airliner into the Pentagon. [Source: The Mirror, May 24, 2002]
January 2001 -- The Bush Administration orders the FBI and intelligence agencies to "back off" investigations involving the bin Laden family, including two of Osama bin Laden's relatives (Abdullah and Omar) who were living in Falls Church, Va. -- right next to CIA headquarters. This followed previous orders dating back to 1996 that frustrated efforts to investigate the bin Laden family. [Source: BBC Newsnight, Greg Palast, Nov. 7, 2001]
Jan. 30, 2001 -- Sept. 11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah was questioned in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). A number of UAE, Middle Eastern, European, and US sources were cited in this CNN report, which said the CIA requested Jarrah be interrogated because he had been in Afghanistan and was suspected to have ties to terrorists. An unnamed CIA spokesman said the other sources' claims that the agency knew anything about Jarrah before Sept. 11 were "flatly untrue." Jarrah's Jan. 30 detainment at the airport in Dubai, UAE came six months after he took flying lessons in the U.S. Jarrah was released because "US officials were satisfied," said the report. Source: CNN, Aug. 1, 2002
CNN link here
summer 2001 -- Jordanian intelligence, the GID, makes a communications intercept deemed so important that King Abdullah's men relay it to Washington, probably through the CIA station in Amman. To make doubly sure the message got through it was passed through an Arab intermediary to a German intelligence agent. The message: A major attack was planned inside the US, and aircraft would be used. The code name of the operation was 'The Big Wedding.' "When it became clear that the information was embarrassing to Bush Administration officials and congressmen who at first denied that there had been any such warnings before Sept. 11, senior Jordanian officials backed away from their earlier confirmations." This case was authenticated by ABC reporter John K. Cooley. [Source: International Herald Tribune (IHT), May 21, 2002]
And of course everyone should remember Agent Colleen Rowley's report, quashed by her supervisors:
Quote:FBI agents in Arizona write a memorandum warning about suspicious activities involving a group of Middle Eastern men taking flight training lessons in Phoenix. The memorandum specifically mentions Osama bin Laden and warns of connections to terrorist activities. [Source: The New York Times, May 14, 2002]
Craven said:
Quote:When I had those thoughts they were from the realization of how much 9/11 helped Bush.
It made an unpopular president popular in a way that only that can do.
But even more compelling was the fact that it gave Bush a mandate to do things that he and his associates have long wanted to do and that they'd never have been able to pull off.
There seems to be a lot of ill-fated happenings that help Bush et al.
