It appears to be a reoccurring theme in history that great tragedies lead to great struggles.

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. The Times suggests that the information might not have been passed to U.S. authorities (hard to believe), but it did report that Italian authorities would not comment on the report. The Times also noted that "Italian and U.S. anti-terrorism experts cooperate closely." [Source: The Los Angeles Times, May 29, 2002]

<snip>

Jan. 30, 2001 - Sept. 11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah was questioned in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). A number of UAE, Middle Eastern, European, and U.S. 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 "U.S. officials were satisfied," said the report. [Source: CNN, Aug. 1, 2002

May 2001 - Secretary of State Colin Powell gives $43 million in aid to the Taliban regime, purportedly to assist hungry farmers who are starving since the destruction of their opium crop in January on orders of the Taliban regime. [Source: Los Angeles Times, May 22, 2001]

<snip>

summer 2001 (est.) - Pakistani ISI Chief Gen. Ahmad orders an aide to wire transfer $100,000 to Mohammed Atta who was, according to the FBI, the lead terrorist in the suicide hijackings. Ahmad recently resigned after the transfer was disclosed in India and confirmed by the FBI. The individual who makes the wire transfer at Ahmad's direction is Ahmad Umar Sheik, the lead suspect in the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. [Source: The Times of India, Oct.11, 2001.]

<snip>

August 2001 - The FBI arrests an Islamic militant linked to bin Laden in Boston. French intelligence sources confirm that the man is a key member of bin Laden's network and the FBI learns that he has been taking flying lessons. At the time of his arrest the man is in possession of technical information on Boeing aircraft and flight manuals. [Source: Reuters, Sept. 13, 2001]

<snip>
Sept. 11, 2001 - For 50 minutes, from 8:15 AM until 9:05 AM, with it widely known within the FAA and the military that four planes have been simultaneously hijacked and taken off course, no one notifies the President of the United States. It is not until 9:30 that any Air Force planes are scrambled to intercept, but by then it is too late. This means that the National Command Authority waited for 75 minutes before scrambling aircraft, even though it was known that four simultaneous hijackings had occurred. [Source: CNN; ABC; MSNBC; Los Angeles Times; The New York Times;




This timeline put's Bush's reaction at the kindergarden into perspective, doesn't it?
And yes I am implying that the Bush administration knew about the attacks and decided not to do anything about them.

The questions for debate is, assuming they knew why didn't they stop it?
If they didn't know, heads should roll for grave incompetence. Right?

<Listening for the sound of approaching black helicopters>

Do I believe that high administration officials had advance knowledge that there was an extremely strong possibility of an enormous terrorist attack?

Well, in all seriousness I'd hate to be chosen to argue against this proposition. Of course, I would have Condoleezza (sp?) Rice to call as a witness that nobody ever thought that anything like this could ever possibly happen...

I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and say that she probably meant that nobody could get their heads around such a monstrous occurance, even though there was documented evidence that we weren't working in the total dark here.



Other priorities? Couldn't believe such a monstrous occurance could actually happen? Blind ignorance? Something worse? I don't know. I'll reserve my final judgement on this one for a while... I suspect more information will be forthcoming.



No, heads should roll within the ranks of Al Qaeda. All of them who knew, were involved, or had a hand in training, provisioning, or bankrolling. Those heads, literally, and no others.
<EDITED BY DF to remove off-topic information added in a momentary fit of self-righteousness.

In my opinion, though, jobs should roll, starting at the top (Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz/Feith) and working down (Bush). No matter whether they knew or not. America has an opportunity to hand them their collective pink slip in a little over two months. <More DF edits>

Do I want Kerry instead? Not on your life; in all honesty he and Bush are two sides of the same tarnished pot-metal coin. I don't think history will judge him any better or worse than Bush; indeed, except in the realm of "values" I don't see any functional difference between the two parties. But I'm willing to give Kerry the chance to rise to the position -- something I believe Bush failed to do.

<More DF edits>

Respectfully submitted,
Delta

The questions for debate is, assuming they knew why didn't they stop it?
If they didn't know, heads should roll for grave incompetence. Right?



Yet you fail to give a reason why Bush would "allow" the attacks to happen. If there was blatant evidence that Bush knew about the attacks and did nothing he would already have been impeached. Read the 9/11 Commission's Report, then come back.

This is a ridiculous question because it is easy in hindsight to say such a thing. This entire topic has been debated numerous times so i suggest that you use the handy "search" feature.

Playing the devils advocate here-lederuvdapac- though I am not a big follower of conspiracy theories or even believe most of them work- the motivation for the GW administration to allow an attack is quite clear- quite frankly, GW has been the only person, besides Haliburton , to benefit from the attack- he was clearly a joke president before the attacks, and saw his stature and his PNAC type ideals moved forward by this one incident.

Of course, he has managed, through is continued incompetance, to once again lose the momenetum that 9/11 gave him, indeed, the positive feelings much of the world had towards the US post 9/11 ( I still remember the crowds taking to the streets in france with placards saying "we are all Americans") - and thrown it away.

I don't know if they knew or not- I don't have any problem seeing the Rove's, Cheneys, Wolfowitzes, Rumsfelds, and GWs slaughtering a few thousand americans to further thier political agenda- the religious zealots of history have always been able to justify slaughter for thier morals- but I kind of doubt it- the kind of incompetence we have seen from this admin would probably be consistant and there would be some direct evidence slipped out.

to the second question- well, I am certainly hoping the whole administration gets sent packing over thier incompetence!

Somehow, I feel that this topic is somehow links a bit to one of my older posts in "what is the war about?"



Still....

When I read Michaels C. Ruperts timeline I came to the conclusion, that they must have known an attack was imminent, but yet they didn't warn the public, as a matter of fact they did nothing? Why?

Well in all honesty I have a hard time believing that an American president would do something like this no matter how arrogant he is, but having come to the conclusion that they must have known, I forced myself do begin to wonder WHY? My theory is they needed this to justify going to war, war is good for business. War is a great way to distract people. They needed this to keep the American public on their toes looking over their shoulder, fear and hatred are used throughout history to manipulate the public.

Zbigniew Brzezinski predicts some of what's happening today in his book The Grand Chessboard written in 1998. It's basically a "How to keep America as the worlds only superpower for dummies". Is it crazy to assume that the government has come to the same conclusion Zbigniew has, and are acting it out. But to do it with public support we must have a reason, hence The War On Terror, or as Bush calls it now "We actually misnamed the war on terror, it ought to be the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world." -Chicago Report August 7th 2004.



Of course it's easy in hindsight. We didn't have the information, what's scary is that they did. They must have. But maybe they didn't come to the same conclusion I did. Then in my opinion it's a matter of grave incompetence. I looked through most of the topics before posting this and yes there were some similar topics, but I felt this could be an interesting debate.

This is not an attack on Bush, Kerry will keep on doing the same things Bush is doing. And Clinton isn't off the hook either.

ikeaboy69, i would watch myself if i were you because you are basically calling the President of the United States an accomplice in the murder of 4000 Americans. Again, READ THE 9/11 COMMISSION'S REPORT. If Bush did know that a threat was imminent and did nothing...he already would have been impeached...simple as that.



What are you talking about? Good for business? How can it be good for business or the economy when we now have to invest billions of dollars rebuilding NYC, Homeland Security and a War in Afghanistan? Then there is the immense job loss due to 9/11 (which Dems conveniently forget). The airplane industry was hit with a sledge hammer and that trickled down into A LOT of other industries. If anything...9/11 and the War in Afghanistan was terrible for business. Furthermore, i am not even going to respond to your conspiracy theories because they are baseless.



Now...why again must they have had the info? Look before 9/11, and before the Patriot Act, agencies had a pretty tough time sharing info with eachother and there was nobody able to connect the dots. You even acknowledge how easy it is in hindsight to criticize. You didnt come to that very conclusion before 9/11 but rather 3 years after the event. You had the luxury of compiling data after the fact and then say "hey, i see something."

Bottom Line: No one was preapred for 9/11. If if there was strong intelligence on the exact event (there wasnt)...it would have still been hard to sell to the American people.

The questions for debate is, assuming they knew why didn't they stop it? Why would I assume "they knew", and who are "they"? I am certianly not going to take the amount of time it would require to dissect and investigate that monstrous timeline, but it looks as though Mr Ruppert has really taken a license with hyperbole. I tried to look up some of the source articles, and could find none (it sort of reminded me of Iraqbodycount on that one). One reference which I do believe (though not with the phraseology in the timeline) is that we donated $43 million in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan in May of 2001. It is well known that Afghanistan is poor and we were its largest doners for humanitarian assistance before 9/11. So what? Does that indicate that we are conspiring for every poor country we send aid to attack us? Good Lord.

Here's a good one: Widely known within the FAA and military that all four planes had been simultaneously hijacked? Yes, indeed...it was so well-known within the FAA that they stopped takeoffs nationwide at 9:25. Maybe the FAA was in on it, too.

I realize I sound like a conspiracy nut, but there are simply to many unanswered questions in the report.

Here are some thought provoking questions the report doesn't answer.
Why was there no investigation into the 3 decade business relationship between the Bush and Bin Ladin families, a report of a visit made by a CIA field agent to Osama Bin Ladin in a Dubai hospital, and the evacuation of a 160 Saudis in the days after 9/11? Why was the 28 redacted pages from the Senate Joint Inquiry which Senator Richard Shelby stated contained information embarrassing to some allies not subpoenaed and revealed to the American public?

Why is there no disclosure of the events surrounding the attack at the Pentagon, such as the fact that despite anti-aircraft missiles and fighter jets at nearby Andrews Air Force Base poised to protect our center of military operations nothing happened to prevent the attack. There is also no mention of the difficult 270 degree turn made and low flight approach that finally struck the newly renovated wing

Why does "The 9/11 Commission Report" fail to pursue the well-known terror connections of the CIA's client agency, the Pakistani ISI? Why does it ignore reports that the alleged 9/11 plotters received funds from the ISI? Why does it claim that the financing of the 9/11 attacks is of "no practical significance"?

Why was The project For a New American Century think tank not called to testify about their white paper “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” which called for a “New Pearl Harbor” in order to mobilize public support for their agenda to launch wars for oil and the creation of “full spectrum dominance” which will last generations?

Source.

I realise it is tempting to write this off as conspiracy theories but people are asking these questions in America, as they should.

I have no problem believing GW WOULD do something like this, but if he COULD do something like this- GW has shown a very casual and disdainful disregard for those he sends to die- "all for the cause" and all that- very similar to any zealot- so to me, the argument lies not with "would he do this" but "could he get away with it"-

I don't think he could get away with it.

Once again, you are citing the regurgitation of a source from a conspiracy website. Would you please provide a link to THE ACTUAL ARTICLE, rather than the conspiratorial summary of the article? I couldn't find it.

I don't understand your point about Andrews AFB. It was not set up in any way (prior to 9/11) to "take out" passenger planes.

Next Topic: Is Bill Clinton a Serial Killer?

It never ceases to amaze me how partisans can twist facts to imply the other party's leader is a spawn of Satan.

In this case it is individuals, with perfect 20/20 hindsight, linking, and isolating, incidents that happened months, or years, apart to imply some sinister involvement by the Bush Administration.

I defer to no one (with the possible exceptions of Wertz and Artemise who really don't dig Dubya) in my disdain for the Bush Administration. I think they have been a disaster to this nation in ways both seen and unseen.

But I cannot support the theory that George W. Bush with malice and forethought conspired to kill 3,000 American citizens.

I may have said this before, but the great thing about conspiracy theories is all that matters is if you believe it. Then it is true for you and it will be difficult to persuade you differently. No amount of facts or reasoning will shake that erroneous conviction.

I am confident that history will regard George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, as a mediocre-to-poor Chief Executive. I do not accept the supposition that he is one of the great mass-murderers of all time.

Even Michael Moore won't publicly say that.

I disagree. He'd be dead. The impeachment would have taken about 20 minutes, the trial for treason about 10, and the execution about 2. Assuming that the Secret Service didn't stand there whistling while a few NewYawkers "visited" with the President.

And if, by some miracle, he managed to escape, no country, and I do mean no country in the world would be willing to give him shelter. We would send the Marines into Moscow if it came to that, and everybody would know it.

Incidentally, Bush knows this as well, as does the NNC. (Nefarious Neo-Con Cosnspiracy). The conspiracy story is stupid, but hey, if it conforms to your twisted worldview, go for it.

(Conspiracy theories are for those who insist that the world is orderly, and that all loose ends are connected. Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of loose neural pathways are not connected.)

Why should he watch himself? Are the thought-police going to descend on him after they get an annonymous tip from somewhere in the outerlying NY boroughs? I find your argument more convincing if you, instead of telling us to READ the 9/11 report QUOTED something from it. You are offering no evidence to refute the claims.

NOW, that being said--as much as I don't like Bush--I still cannot somehow conjure up a feasible scenario in my head in which he would have "known". Do I think he focused intelligence on the wrong areas? Yes. Did he make some mistakes? Yes. Will history remember him as a good president? Nope.

I find a very interesting dilemma in threads such as these....if there really were such a conspiracy, and they really would conspire to commit such an atrocious act...then of course they wouldn't have even the slightest qualms about killing anyone who tried to 'out' them. So, either you don't believe in the conspiracy, or you have far more confidence in the anonymity the Internet provides than you should....I guess the proof is in the pudding...if you disappear mysteriously anytime soon, you will have proved your point

And on that thought, why is Michael Ruppert still alive? He should've died of "natural causes" long ago for continuing to bring all this information to light. Guess he's too clever to be caught by the government folks that planned and carried out 9/11.

Here's an interesting poll;

Half of New Yorkers Believe US Leaders “Consciously” Failed To Act On 9-11; 66% Call For New Probe of Unanswered Questions by Congress or New York’s Attorney General,
New Zogby International Poll Reveals

(Utica, NY) - On the eve of the Republican National Convention, half (50%) of New York City residents and two in four (41%) of New York citizens overall say that some US leaders "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act," according to the poll conducted by Zogby International. The poll of New York residents was conducted from Tuesday August 24 through Thursday August 26, 2004. Overall results have a margin of sampling error of +/-3.5... (more...)

The poll is the first of its kind conducted in America that surveys attitudes regarding US government complicity in the 9/11 tragedy. Despite the acute legal and political implications of this accusation, nearly 30% of registered Republicans and over 38% of those who described themselves as "very conservative" supported the claim.

The charge found particularly high support among adults under 30 (62.8%), African-Americans (62.5%), Hispanics (60.1%), Asians (59.4%), and "Born Again" Evangelical Christians (47.9%).

Less than two in four (36%) believe that the 9/11 Commission had "answered all the important questions about what actually happened on September 11th," and two in three (66%) New Yorkers (and 56.2% overall) called for another full investigation of the "still unanswered questions" by Congress or Elliot Spitzer, New York's Attorney General. Self-identified "very liberal" New Yorkers supported a new inquiry by a margin of three to one, but so did half (53%) of "very conservative" citizens across the state. The call for a deeper probe was especially strong from Hispanics (75.6%), African-Americans (75.3%) citizens with income from $15-25K (74.3%), women (62%) and Evangelicals (59.9%).

W. David Kubiak, executive director of 911truth.org, the group that commissioned the poll, expressed genuine surprise that New Yorkers' belief in the administration’s complicity is as high or higher than that seen in polls abroad. "We're familiar with extreme 9/11 skepticism in other nations where open media debate of US government complicity has been allowed. For example, on May 26th the Toronto Star reported a national poll showing that 63% of Canadians are also convinced US leaders had 'prior knowledge' of the attacks yet declined to act. Our mainstream news outlets never reported on this startling poll nor the mounting evidence that has led tens of millions of Canadians, Europeans, and now New Yorkers to think and feel this way. I think these numbers show that New Yorkers are fed up with the silence and are starting to study the facts on their own. This case is not closed and New York's questions are not going away." ...


Read full poll results here:
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20040830120349841

Original Press Release from Zogby
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=855

break down of results are here
http://www.911truth.org/dossier/zogby911.pdf



I'm sorry Mrs. Pigpen living where I live I am in no position to confirm these claims. But I know Michael offers 1000$ to anyone who can debunk any of his "facts".

Where is my tin foil hat when I need it?

This is silliness. Why would he want our economy put in huge turmoil, which would be hard to recover from?

About his 6-7 minutes with this kids. Big Deal. Kerry and his fellow Democrat Senators, "could not think" for 40 minutes at the same point in time. I do not fault Kerry for that. It is just a good illustration of the shock which was 9/11.

Hmm. As ever with conspiracy theories, I think Hanlon's Razor, as displayed in my signature, applies.

There is no need to imagine that the Bush administration "allowed" 9-11, let alone planned it, as part of some shadowy and corrupt masterplan.

The known facts are explained just as easily if we accept that successive administrations, and the security services, displayed the very natural human capacity for some or all of the following - clumsiness; stupidity; cowardice; wilful ignorance of anything that conflicts with current opinion; lack of imagination; behaving as if the status quo is unchangeable; standard issue denial, anger, sadness, guilt and revenge in response to tragedy; and so on. Allowing for human weakness also removes the need to invent additional unknown factors (a conspiracy) to explain known events when known factors can explain it, so it also satisfies Occam's Razor.

I doubt very much if anybody else would have handled 9-11 and it's aftermath very differently, indeed the little esteem I have for GWB rests on his taking time to respond rather than acting reflexively as I feared he would at the time.

Unlike 9-11, his handling of the Iraq War, left me feeling as though there was an unspoken agenda that has only become clearer withtime, and THIS is the area where he deserves electoral punishment. It seems, however, that the American public is in no mood for realism, so I fully (and resignedly) expect him to get another term come November unless something dramatic happens between now and then.

If you could just nail the underlying (and almost characteristically American) assumption that all things bad stem from government, and instead assess good things and bad things on their own merits case-by-case, you'd probably be better off as a nation. You'd certainly be less credulous of crackpot conspiracy tosh like this stuff.

Remember Authormusician’s thread on stupid journalist tricks. Any “factual story” can be changed completely (though still be technically true) if you eliminate important details, slant the language, piece entirely unrelated bits of information and use them together, or just take a small portion of a person’s quote…which is why I request the actual articles this information has been obtained from.

Even I, who has a deep distaste for this administration, and a deep distrust for our nation's leaders in general, often balk at saying out loud that they knew and let it happen. However, there is a past event that indicates some in power were willing to do things like this in order to get what they wanted.

From: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/



I think it's possible the attack was allowed to happen (was deliberately not thwarted) to give the administration a pretext for invading Afghanistan and Iraq. What else would have forced Russia to stand quietly by as we sent troops into a nation on its borders?

It is much more understandable when you read the actual question they were asked:



Basically, this boils down to 'do you think that anyone in government had any knowledge prior to 9-11 that they failed to act on?' It is quite understandable then that a large percentage of people would answer 'yes'.

Many of the other questions are similarly slanted:



Hmmm...bias your questions much?

Also note that the published results start with question 14...what about the others? Didn't get the results they wanted?

(What is that saying,' there a liars, damned liars, and statisticians'?)

No, it doesn't indicate that people in power were willing to do "things like this to get what they wanted". The events in question never transpired, and the entire set of "proposals" was designed to be hypothetical , as a “point of departure for the development of a plan, and not suitable for planning purposes" in and of itself. These preliminary and hypothetical suggestions were also created under conditions of urgent national emergency (1962 was the year of the Cuban missile crisis).

In fact, none of these scenarios suggests anything within one-one hundredth of the scale of 9/11. There is no mention of loss of US civilian life on that entire document. The passenger plane in question was an unmanned and unoccupied drone, and the hypothetical plan to “sink ships near harbor" also suggested to "conduct a funeral for mock victims”, “The US could follow-up with an air/sea rescue operation covered by US fighters to “evacuate” remaining members of the non-existent crew”. Ect.

So, yes, “operation Northwoods” was a corrupt plan (though the document itself indicates that it was not a plan, but a preliminary submission in response to a request), but even a corrupt hypothetical memorandom concocted under the most urgent conditions of national emergency this country had ever faced was not one percent as convoluted or devious as 9/11.

Ah, Ive wanted to start a thread like this for a long time, but cringed at the amount of research it would take to prove my point to people that I wasnt a conspiracy theorist. Alas....There are two excellent articles that Ive read by Russ Kick (he basically did all the research for me), one is included in Everything You Know Is Wrong and the other is in Abuse Your Illusions. The former has to deal with the administration claiming not to know about a possible threat, and the latter has to do with questions surrounding 9/11. Since I dont have Everything You Know Is Wrong sitting in front of me, Ill just refer to the (more interesting) article from Abuse Your Illusions. Also, Russ Kick only cites mainstream news sources in this article. Unfortunatley, there is not an online version for others to check out and read. And some of what Im going to cite may have not have a clear connection with the Bush Admin., but is still highly questionable. For me, if it had been a few of these things, then I would have just dismissed them but the whole combined points to something more sinister.

1)Several reporters claimed to have seen explosions coming from the South Tower, including: Jim Bussey, editor for the Wall Street Journal, Beth Fertig, a WYNC radio reporter and NPR contributor, Carol Marin, a contributing reporter to CBS News, Bolivar Arellena, a photojournalist for the NY Post. Also, a firefighter, Louie Cacchioli:


Carol Marin also talks about the first Tower coming down (which was witnessed by fewer people).


2)Explosion in Building 6
We're told that it 'collapsed under the weight of the debris', but if you look at pictures it clearly looks like it was blown up. (Ill try to see if I can find any, after I finish writing this). Additionally, this explosion was uncommented upon, but can be seen in CNN footage. A CNN archivist confirms it took place around 9:04 am.

3)Footage of the Pentagon Crash
Apparently there are three known videotapes of Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon, but only a few stills have been released ('leaked') and only one of them shows what could be a plane, the other stills show a fiery ball and smoke. The Pentagon has confiscated the video footage from a hotel and a gas station and claims that their own surveillance camera wasnt recording (although it was near an area that is normally under 24h surveillance). So where did the stills come from, and why arent the other videos released (like the ones from the WTC?)

4)Final 911 Call from Flight 93
Edward Felt told 911 dispatchers that the plane was


5)Was Flight 93 shot down?
One woman, Susan Mcelwain (51), who lived in the area saw a white military style jet speed through the valley around the area Flight 93 had crashed. She can describe the plane in detail, and says she clearly remembers it as it passed directly over her. (from the Daily Mirror of London)
The mayor of Shanksville, Ernie Stuhl is quoted by the Philadelphia Daily News about knowing people who have heard a missle, who live very close to the crash site.
Jon Meyer, a reporter for WJAC-TV, was one of the journalists who were at site before it was closed off by the authorities. He says there was a big hole in the ground filled with small plane parts, but that it was difficult to discern if it was a plane crash. The Washington Post reported that debris from the wreckage was found as far as eight miles away from the site, and that FBI Special Agent Bill Crowley had not ruled out an explosion.
The Pittsburgh Gazette also says that debris, including human remains, was found miles from the crash site. A thousand pound piece of the plane's engine was found one mile away from the site.

6)The Incredibly Slow Military Response


Why didnt any military get sent in to do ANYTHING about any of the other planes? (Unless of course, the above is true, then Flight 93 was shot down...?) The information from this part of the article is from Paul Thompson's timeline, which can be found at various internet sites (http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/project.jsp?project=911_project) and is going to be in book format. This part of the article details the calls to NORAD, who say they can have a fighter plane out in 30 min (after seeing the second WTC crash) but for some reason the first fighters dont take off until an hour and a half later.

8) Bush says he saw the first crash live on TV, which is impossible because the first crash was not televised, and only one known video of it exists.

OK, I have to go now, but there is SO MUCH more that I have to add. Ive only gone through the beginning of article, theres another 15 pages more for me to summarize. So hopefully, Ill be able to get back to this later.

Conspiracy theories arise as a way of trying to reduce the 'randomness' of life.

9/11 was a collection of terrorists, with an insane agenda, looking to commit murder on a large scale. The reason people come up with conspiracy theories is to make the world seem like a safer place..rather than accept that a small number of terrorists could create such havoc, it is easier to believe that 9/11 was a specific plot on the part of a powerful, well organised organisation (i.e the US govt).

Just as people prefer to think that JFK was assasinated by the CIA (or whoever) - because it is easier to think that a large powerful organisation killed someone, rather than one lunatic.

Because knowing that a small group of individuals can cause such chaos is hard to accept. Knowing that a large and powerful organisation can do it is easy.

The events were submitted by the Joint Chiefs for consideration. I think this implies that, had the person considering this (the President, perhaps?) decided to go through with it, the plan would have been backed by its proposers, else why submit it for consideration in the first place.

As for it being a time of crisis, how do we know that, prior to the September 11 attacks, those at the top didn't consider 2001 as a time of crisis for reasons the general public has no access to? And times of crisis do not justify this sort of deception, in my opinion.




Plans include blowing up ammunition inside the Guantanamo base (either lives would have been lost or at risk in such a plan)

Lob mortar shells from outside of base into base (again, a risk of lives lost inside the base)

One listed option was to blow up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay (a drone ship was mentioned separately, so it was an either or option and definately could have cost Americans their lives)

We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute to Florida (REAL or simulated)

...We could foster attempts on Cuban lives even to the extent of wounding.





At very least ,this indicates that those at the top will lie about pretexts for war, and I don't think it stops there. Had Cuba been planning an attack, I don't see allowing such an attack to go forward as inconsistant with the Joint Chief's search for pretexts to attack Cuba. Nor do I see allowing September 11 to happen as inconsistant with this kind of behavior (there is no reason to think the people at the top now are any less devious than the ones in power before).

This is the first I've heard of this. If this is indeed true, I cannot imagine in other reasonable explanation for the large debris field other than a missile or perhaps a bomb on the aircraft. Crashing the aircraft into the ground simply doesn't leave aircraft bits miles apart. However, as far as conspiracies are concerned, in this case if it were a missile, I believe in a more "benevolent" explanation. Specifically, if it were widely known that the US military destroyed a US passenger aircraft even for good reasons, you can bet that the US passenger air transportation industry would have gone bankrupt rather shortly: no one would have flown. Not sure about now 3 years after the fact.

As for your other points, I'll have to research them more on my own but they don't seem particularly damning to me.

The 911 report covered this in their investigation. The report includes a transcript of conversation captured by the cockpit voice recorder.

Regarding the supposedly "slow military response". I disagree. Exactly how long SHOULD it have taken, prior to 911, to load missiles onto an F16 with the intent to shoot down a plane full of passengers?

To cite a direct example of how unusual this response was, consider another time (prior to 911) that a fighter entered the same airspace as a passenger plane. It was an incident in the early 90s. I don't have a link, as this is all recollection. An F16 came close enough to the plane to set off its TCAS. I'm not sure of the exact settings for TCAS, but it's a LONG way away. The F16 was truly not what most people would consider "close" to the passenger jet. The passengers never saw it, and were in no peril whatsoever. This "air incident" caused such an uproar it was on 60 minutes. There was absolutely no established procedure for fighter interception of passenger planes. It was unprecedented and unthinkable until 911.

Edited to add: Here was another so-called "near miss". 500 feet vertically and six-tenths of a mile horizontally.

Logophage, not all the things I am writing about will be damning to the Bush admin, some of it is just highly suspect. And, for me, strengthens to my own personal beliefs about what happened on 9/11.



This is probably the biggest load of crap Ive ever heard. Conspiracy theories are invented to make the world "seem safer"?! Exactly what theories have you ever heard that made the world seem safer? If theres any truth to certain theories, it would seem to me that it makes the world a whole lot more chaotic. And my own belief does not say that the US Government plotted and carried out 9/11, but that it KNEW about the terrorist attacks and ALLOWED them to happen.

OK, a continuation from last night:
8) Bush says that he saw the first plane crash in the WTC. Well, this is an outright lie, as NO ONE saw the first plane hitting the WTC. Its the footage of the second tower that was shown live. Footage of the first video was filmed by Gamma Press, which was working on a documentary of the NYFD, and the camera operator panned up and caught Flight 11 hitting the North Tower.

President Bush was in Orlando, FL on Dec. 4 2001, and a third-grader asked him how he felt when he had heard about the terrorist attacks. Bush's response:


And again on Jan. 5 2002 in Ontario, CA.


9)When did Bush know about the attacks, and what did he do?
An ABC journalist, John Cochran, was with Bush and he reported Tues. morning:

So apparently, Bush knew about the attacks before leaving his hotel, before reaching the school. Except that he saw them on TV?
After Card told Bush about the attack, we all know what happened. There is a gap of anywhere between two to twenty minutes of Bush hanging out in the school. Im not going to bother speculating on that stuff, as theres already another debate about whether the president's inaction matters. Whats interesting, to me, is that Card tells Bush about the second plane, and then leaves the room. He doesnt wait for any sign from the president about what to do, doesnt wait for Bush's response, he just walks away. Also, the Secret Service doesnt act immediatley either, which is odd, when there are still two other hijacked planes and Bush is making a public appearance...Theoretically, he's in harms way. Yet, the SS dont really care.

10)Who were the hijackers?
Well, we all know the list of 19 hijackers that was published after 9/11. The press in London widely reported that many of the alleged hijackers were still alive. Waleed Al Sherhri, allegedly on Flight 11, is a pilot for Saudi Arabian Airlines. Also from Flight 11, Abdulaziz al Omari is an engineer at Saudi Telecoms. He lost his passport in 1995 (in Denver) and has been living permenantly in Riyadh, since 2000. Saeed Alghamdi, supposedly on Flight 93, was interviewed by Asharq Al Awsat, and Arabic language newspaper based in London. From Flight 93, Ahmed Al-Nami is a supervisor for Saudi Arabian Airlines, and alive. From Flight 77, Salem Al-Hamzi is a worker in a Saudi Arabian chemical plan, and has never been to the US. The Daily Telegraph interviewed these men, who were understandably angry at the misrepresentation.

FBI Director, Robert Mueller was certain at first that the identities were genuine, but has since made the statement that its "possible' that the hijackers used false identities. But the FBI hasnt changed the data from its website.

Flight Attendant, Madeline Amy Sweeney (flight 11) called American Airlines during the hijacking and reportedly gave the seat numbers of the hijackers, including that of Mohammed Atta. The Associated Press confirms this. But a report from the BBC says otherwise, along with the LA Times.


And the passenger lists! The names of the hijackers, their aliases, are not on them. Strange, isnt it? Since we're told that the hijackers were ticket carrying passengers who were able to foil security, wouldnt they have had to produce IDs to board the flights? There are no Arabic names that show up on the passenger lists provided by CNN, AP of the Boston Globe. Additionally, the number of people on the plane (as reported by the media) is slightly more than the number of people on the lists (including the crew). Example, we're told that Flight 11 had 92 people on board, but the passenger list says there's 90, and none of them have an Arabic sounding name. Why would those names be kept off the lists?

11)Eleanor Hill's statement to the Joint Panel
The Intelligence Commitees of the House and Senate joined forces (obviously this was during the time that the Bush Admin. didnt want any investigation about 9/11). Eleanor Hill was the head of the Joint Inquiry Staff. At the time, the governement was denying any prior knowledge to the attacks. I am not going to include all the warnings that are listed in the article, but heres a few, and keep in mind that theres more where that came from...


Hill also mentions the 1995 National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism which mentions Project Bojinka, a plot by muslim radicals to blow up 12 US airliners in mid flight and use hijacked passenger planes to ram targets such as CIA HQ, the White House, the Pentagon and the WTC. Phillipine authorities discovered the plot in 95 and warned the US.

12)Joint Inquiry's final report
Most the final report in classified, but what is released includes:


13)The Rowley Memo
This was published in full by Time. Coleen Rowley was blocked numerous times from investigating Moussaui. She says that even after the attacks had begun she was still blocked. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,...,249997,00.html Im getting lazy in my typing now, and suggest that the memo be read.

OK, more later. I need to start my day now.

It's a matter of responsibility. Whether they knew or not, it is the administration has to take responsibility for everything that happens under this big circus tent we call the USA. I cant stress this enough! The State's primary concern is safety. Safety from inside and outside enemies. The government is supposed to do everything in it's power to protect the lives of it's citizens, and for that, we let our guard down, we slave away in office buildings, give taxes, and subject ourselves to the media. We forget our old tribal tendencies and accept that we no longer need to protect ourselves, we have big brother to do it for us. Im not saying this is good or bad, it just is. Big Brother however, dropped the ball, and instead of taking responsibility and trying to correct his mistake he just cried "Foul!"

9/11 happened because of the US (and other western countries) policies affecting the middle east, like our stance on Israel. That is a given. Also, the BAdministration had evidence of the attack before it happened. Also a given. So how can we accept the that the Bush administration has been victimized? Suddenly, because 9/11 sucked for them too they don't have to take responsibility for the fact it was exactly their job to prevent such a catastrophe?

As Julian said it is all human weakness, fear and cowardice. This administration knew that it could not handle the political repercussions of changing middle east policy, or admitting a fault in their treatment of terrorism pre-9/11 so instead of doing either of these things that WOULD help the situation, they just cried havoc and let slip the dogs of war, meanwhile reminding us everyday that 9/11 was horrible, and that the terrorists are SO evil, and that the US is so good, and we should all forget about the world before 9/11 because now "...The world has changed..." and the Bush Administratin cannot be held accountable.

I don't see the acknowledgement or refutation of a missile and/or bomb blowing up the aircraft in the link you sent, Mrs. P. The hijackers certainly threaten a bomb but as I recall there didn't seem to be evidence of that. Of course, the only evidence we do seem to have is that aircraft parts and human remains were spread across miles of Pennsylvania. This circumstantially rules out the crash-only scenario with the bomb or missile scenarios remaining.

This may not be a refutiation exactly, but it would be a fantastic, unbelieveable coincidence that a missile would hit the moment directly after the hijackers stated, "Allah is the greatest! Allah is the greatest!", and then "Should I put it down?" followed by "Yes, put it down".

Eh? This doesn't follow at all. Just because someone said something into the microphone before destruction doesn't indicate anything about external events. Your reasoning is extremely circumstantial. It can be determined empirically as well as abductively how far debris can spread in a crash-into-the-ground scenario. I would be very surprised if engine parts can spread for miles, but I will investigate this further. Extended debris fields lend credence to the missile and/or bomb hypotheses. Unless this issue is refuted, I view the crash scenario as less than likely.

I, obviously have no idea how long it "should" take, but it seems strange to me that it took an hour and half for any sort of military reaction to occur, when we knew TWO of the four hijacked planes were still flying. It would leave little question what the purpose of the other two planes were, we knew they were hijacked, we already witnessed two other hijacked planes crash into the WTC, who knows where these other two were going....? From Thompson's timeline:

It's not a given, it's your opinion thanks. This is the single biggest fallacy in the anti-War on Terror rhetoric. Islamic terrorists are not killing Americans because of our Mid-East policies. They are killing us because of who we are. They hate and want to kill infidel non-believers. They have been killing us for 20+ years and just are getting better at it with 9/11.

Similarly, they are not killing Israelis to move the border back 400 feet or protest their lack of 'refugees' to return. They are killing Israelis because they hate Jews. They don't want Israel to exist. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PLO, whomever.

Kofi Annan 'condemning' these acts (belatedly) is not going to make them stop. Killing terrorists is. "Understanding the root causes" is not going to make them stop. Only killing them, or creating democracies so their fellow citizens can stop them is.

And the sheer paranoia of both the New Yorkers who answered this survey and those here who believe it is a little scary for me. Bush knew. Right.

Carlitoswhey, what you just posted is as much your opinion as it was Hero's opinion that terrorists are attacking us because of our policies....Except that what he says makes sense, and you dont. WHY do Muslims hate us? Is it really because we're 'infidels' and 'hate Jews'? Even Osama Bin Laden gives us concrete reasons for why he is attacking the western world...And guess what those reasons are? Oh right, our policies in the Middle East.

And I cant believe you think that not understanding root causes will help us fight terrorism. Whats the point of trying to understand WHY people do things? Thats never really helped anyone, ever...

And why not try posting some info refuting the information that's been posted, instead of just blowing it all off. Isnt that what debating is all about?

The hijackers say they are going to take the plane down, directly prior to the moment the plane went down, and this indicates nothing? You don't think that is at all coincidental? Obviously, I don't know for certain, but it passes the reasonability test that they crashed it when they said they would.

Kimpossible, here is a good rundown of events during that timeframe. Aquilla posted it a while ago on another thread.

Edited to add from the timeline: This, I'll tell you frankly, is an absolute joke. There was no procedure to intercept passenger planes and shoot at them (or "fire warning shots" at them) before 9/11. Pilots of passenger planes hyperventilated if a fighter would get within 1/8 of a mile from them (even on an FAA pre-approved flight plan). This would make international headlines as a "nearly missed collision".

I really don't see anything here that really indicates that they must have known. Al-Qaida spend years and years planning attacks in meticulous detail. They are also extremely hard to infiltrate - all the stuff I've read so far in this post is either speculation or taking things out of context.

With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to say that something is obvious.

In the absence of an 8 mile debris field, I would agree with you, Mrs. P. However, given that there is other contravening evidence (assuming that it is in fact true), I hold the recordings to be much less persuasive than the debris field. This is all that I am arguing.

Edited to add: Here's a couple of links I found: first, an expert of the forensics of aircraft crashes interviewed on Nova; second, a list of eyewitness accounts of flight 93. The more I read about this the more it seems like the missile theory has "legs".

MrsP, I beg to differ. Here a USA Today article: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/20...-18-norad_x.htm
That says planes had drills in case a hijacking did occur.



So there was some protocol to hijackings that include a military response.

Fair point on lack of sources kimpossible, but honestly I was at work and didn't have time to source. The terrorists' reasons for killing Christians and Jews in their own words are below. I guess it's fair to say that I've done enough understanding (try reading Dore Gold "Hatred's Kingdom, for instance) of the 'root causes' on my own, and won't be doing any more. They are laughing at us for not understanding that it's a holy war.

The Qur'an "Slay the idolaters wherever ye find them . . . " (Sura 9:5). (Wahabbiism teaches that all non-Wahabbis are 'idolators' so that would include us.)

Hamas on Israel from their charter. Goal - eliminate Israel.


Other terrorists on world domination...the more things change...all quotes from "jihad watch."
1934 Al-Banna wrote in 1934 that “it is a duty incumbent on every Muslim to struggle towards the aim of making every people Muslim and the whole world Islamic, so that the banner of Islam can flutter over the earth and the call of the Muezzin can resound in all the corners of the world: God is greatest [Allahu akbar]!

Ayatollah Khomeni - “Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males . . . to prepare themselves for the conquest of [other] countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world. . . .

Palestinian Sheikh Ibrahim Madhi’s 2002 call to believers: “Oh beloved, look to the East of the earth, find Japan and the ocean; look to the West of the earth, find [some] country and the ocean. Be assured that these will be owned by the Muslim nation, as the Hadith says . . . ‘from the ocean to the ocean.’”

Celebrating Sept. 11:


Just for completeness, today's Russian situation:CBS

Here is a complete rundown of the 9/11 report. I found no mention of exercises involving using passenger planes as weapons, and the commmission asked some very pointed and specific questions in that regard. To review, Ruppert said: “ since any fighter would presumably follow procedure and intercept visually first, tip their wing from a very short distance away, fire a warning shot, and so on, before firing on the plane”. Again, this is a joke. I don’t know where he is getting any of this. “Tipping wings” or “firing warning shots” at passenger planes was unheard of as far as I know, and the 9/11 report itself indicates this.



I think it’s important now to place some context on the purpose of NORAD, and its capabilities right before 9/11. Its mission involved tracking and monitoring enemy aircraft entering the borders of the United States and Canada. There was much debate during the cutbacks of the ‘90s to even eliminate it entirely. The day of 9/11 there were a total of only 14 aircraft on alert throughout the entire continental United States (spread out through 7 different locations). It was basically considered a cold-war relic, cut back to 7 alert bases (down from the original 26).

Regarding logophage's links about the debris fields, I honestly don't know. The article mentioned that an explosion might send debris over an area of several hundred miles, so compared to that 8 miles is rather compact. One thing I DO know, for certain....every fighter jet runs a video tape of its missions, and I'd imagine those tapes must have been sequestered, though the information is probably classified. I don't see that something of that magnitude could be hidden, and the president had already given the okay to shoot, so there isn't much reason to deny it, especially when they are very forethcoming about the fact that precautions have changed, and today they would likely shoot it down.

I think the 100 miles debris field is in reference to the recent space shuttle disaster and not a more "conventional" airplane bombing. While the okay may have been given to shoot down aircraft, I believe that it is in the best interest of the government/military to not release this information. Why? Because the passenger aircraft industry would have effectively been finished. Several airlines went into bankruptcy (perhaps earlier than they would have otherwise ) because of 9/11. I'm not sure that passenger flights have reached their pre-9/11 level even now. You can be absolutely certain though that had the government announced that flight 93 was missiled that a whole industry would be in jeopardy. Remember the "America's open for business" business?

Edited to add: BTW, I've been working through some back of the envelope calculations for debris spreading. It's a bit hairy and involves quite a bit of calculus so it'll be a few days. So far though, my guestimates are the missile theory holds water and that there's really no way a crash-only could bounce debris 8 miles (even assuming that the material is perfectly strong and doesn't break apart as it bounces).

MrsP, the timeline Im referencing is NOT Rupperts timeline, but Paul Thompsons (as Ive stated at least two times). Thompsons timeline has sources from mainstream media. Ive found information about the FAA's procedures on hijacking(http://www.standdown.net/FAAstandardinterceptprocedures.htm) which has links to the actual FAA website. But for some reason the FAA's site is not responding for me. So Ill have to try again later.

Kimpossible, did you see the quote I posted from USAF General Myers at the 911 Hearings? The communications between the FAA and NORAD were designed for a hijacking scenario in which NORAD's role was to help the FAA track the aircraft, and report if it crashed...not shoot it down.

Here is a quote from the commander of the Continental United States NORAD, Maj. Gen. Larry Arnold, "You might ask why the aircraft weren’t scrambled immediately. The procedure is that the FAA contacts the national military command center whenever there is a problem. They, in turn, go to NORAD to see if assets are available. Then the Secretary of Defense grants approval to intercept a hijacked airplane, which has heretofore been classified as a law enforcement issue." Law enforcement issues are not usually the jurisdiction of the military (posse comitatus and all that).

I really don't have much else to say on this. For some reason, this particular issue ("why didn't the pilots respond faster? They are trained to shoot down these planes!") bothers me. I guess it's simply because I know it isn't true, but it's intensively difficult to prove that non-existence.

I live with a person who does this for a living. He has planned over two thousand missions, some of which incorporated hundreds of planes for those exercises, and been a flight lead and instructor in the past four consecutive operational assignments. He says there was no previous protocol to shoot down airliners full of passengers. If you can find an obscure piece of information on some conspiracy site that states otherwise, know that the pilots themselves and (apparently, from the quotes I've cited) their commanders were unaware of it.

MrsP, I actually read the full link you posted. It would be nice if you bothered to read the ones I provided than to simply dismiss them. I ve read the FAA site regarding hijacked planes (with procedures dating before 9/11) and I will concede that shooting down planes is not protocol. So I was wrong on that account. BUT a military escort is regular protocol, and not one plane got an escort. http://faa.gov/ATpubs/MIL/Ch7/mil0701.html#7-1-2



And in accordance with what Thompson stated (and in case anyone is interested, his timeline is constantly updated, and he he no longer mentions the part I quoted from earlier about tipping wings et al) there were several planes ready to do something during 9/11, but didnt take off. http://billstclair.com:8080/911timeline/ma...airdefense.html I would suggest that people actually READ the timeline as its extensive and includes resources for his claims. I am linking only to a specific part of it, which is entitled "Failure to Defend the Skies". Ill state for the millionth time, that all his sources are from mainstream media, not some fringe website.

Military escorts are "regular protocol" after the hijack has been definitively established as a hijack by the FAA, the national military command center is contacted, and then the Secretary of Defense grants approval. Did these planes just sit with their engines running, not responding to the emergency, after approval was granted? That would be the real question, and I couldn't find it on the timeline.