posted 12-18-2003 09:39 AM            

Go to Original

9/11 Chair: Attack Was Preventable
CBS News

For the first time, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented, reports CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston.

"This is a very, very important part of history and we've got to tell it right," said Thomas Kean.

"As you read the report, you're going to have a pretty clear idea what wasn't done and what should have been done," he said. "This was not something that had to happen."

Appointed by the Bush administration, Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, is now pointing fingers inside the administration and laying blame.

"There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time because they failed. They simply failed," Kean said.

To find out who failed and why, the commission has navigated a political landmine, threatening a subpoena to gain access to the president's top-secret daily briefs. Those documents may shed light on one of the most controversial assertions of the Bush administration – that there was never any thought given to the idea that terrorists might fly an airplane into a building.

"I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile," said national security adviser Condoleeza Rice on May 16, 2002.

"How is it possible we have a national security advisor coming out and saying we had no idea they could use planes as weapons when we had FBI records from 1991 stating that this is a possibility," said Kristen Breitweiser, one of four New Jersey widows who lobbied Congress and the president to appoint the commission.

The widows want to know why various government agencies didn't connect the dots before Sept. 11, such as warnings from FBI offices in Minnesota and Arizona about suspicious student pilots.

"If you were to tell me that two years after the murder of my husband that we wouldn't have one question answered, I wouldn't believe it," Breitweiser said.

Kean admits the commission also has more questions than answers.

Asked whether we should at least know if people sitting in the decision-making spots on that critical day are still in those positions, Kean said, "Yes, the answer is yes. And we will.."

posted 12-18-2003 12:28 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Mech:
Today, Kean has fired an incredible broadside across the bow of the White House, stating bluntly that the attacks of September 11 could have and should have been stopped, and that blame for this failure rests squarely on the shoulders of the Bush administration. - wrp

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Nice spin. I read the article and see no reference to it being said that the "blame for this failure rests squarely on the shoulders of the Bush administration." Nice editorial spin, though.

posted 12-18-2003 12:36 PM            

He loves all the illegal Mexicans flooding into my country and wants to give them Social security.

FACT 1.
http://www.chemtrailcentral.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/001680.html

FACT 2.
http://www.chemtrailcentral.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/000928.html

posted 12-18-2003 01:11 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Mech:
Hey Lexta...Bush Loves you.

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I could care less if Bush loves me. But one does tend to make lots of friends when he or she speaks the truth, so it wouldn't be surprising.

quote:

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He loves all the illegal Mexicans flooding into my country and wants to give them Social security.

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Hmm, and I thought the Democrats accused the Republicans of being racist?

Seems to me that the problem of illegal Mexican immigration has nothing to do with all the 9/11 conspiracy theories, though, so nice attempt to turn it into a Bush debate rather than keep it on-topic.

quote:

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Bush is 100% GUILTY of treason...end of story.

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Your saying "End of story" doesn't make it so. Just because you are willing to accept conspiracy theory propaganda as fact doesn't mean the rest of us are so blind and willing to ignore reality in favor of said propaganda.

posted 12-18-2003 01:13 PM            

Nice try.

Bush is a perpetual LIAR.

BY THE WAY........Being concerned about ILLEGAL immigration does NOT make you a "Racist".

posted 12-18-2003 01:20 PM            

quote:

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FACTS....NOT "Conspiracy theory".

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No, every conspiracy website regarding 9/11 that I've seen was based on conjecture and theories, not facts. They have their theory and then go out to find facts that support it, but they ignore those facts that don't.

On balance, conspiracy websites are far less balanced than traditional sources of information. What's worse, the conspiracy websites suggest that any source of information that isn't a conspiracy website is "suspect" and probably part of the conspiracy, or favors Bush, etc. So, in other words, the conspiracy sites provide questionable propaganda and then there's no way to refute them since the only thing you can counter with is information those same conspiracists will simply say, "Oh, but that's what they WANT you to believe."

In other words, there's no way to win a debate with a conspiracist because their questionable information is "law" and information 99% of the public would accept comes from "tainted or biased" sources. Nice how the conspiracists setup the game so they can't lose.

quote:

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Bush is a perpetual LIAR.

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He's a politician. Clinton was an even worse liar, but that doesn't mean he was in on some 9/11 conspiracy.

quote:

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BY THE WAY........Being concerned about ILLEGAL immigration does NOT make you a "Racist".

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posted 12-18-2003 01:25 PM            

YOUR OPINION. YOUR "CONJECTURE".

To me.. INFOWARS.com CERTAINLY posts FACTS.ESPECIALLY about 9-11.

I suppose YOU think FOX news/CNN/CBS/ABC base THEIR stories on "facts"

posted 12-18-2003 01:49 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Mech:
YOUR OPINION. YOUR "CONJECTURE".

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No, it's a fact that every 9/11 conspiracy site I have seen was based on conjecture and speculation. That's a fact. Now perhaps there are sites I haven't seen yet, but all those that I *have* seen were in fact based on speculation and conjecture and a wild imagination. Not to mention a complete lack of logic.

quote:

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To me.. INFOWARS.com CERTAINLY posts FACTS.ESPECIALLY about 9-11.

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I hadn't seen that site. I just visited it. It looks big and I didn't see their specific theories/evidence regarding 9/11. It looks like they are mostly focused on Iraq right now...?

It also looks like they quote a lot of stories from sources such as ABC which you suggest aren't based on fact, so it makes me wonder why infowars.com would use it? Or are facts from ABC only valid when they support your theory and invalid and censored propaganda when they don't?

This is EXACTLY the problem I have with conspiracy theorists--their selective use of facts. If you are going to quote ABC when it reports some facts critical of the administration then you damn well better be willing to quote ABC when it reports facts that DON'T support your case. Otherwise, the ones guilty of censorship are the conspiracy theorists, not the administration.

quote:

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I suppose YOU think FOX news/CNN/CBS/ABC base THEIR stories on "facts" If you believe that..I have some bridges to sell you.

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I tend to get my information from a selection of sources, including ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN, some newspapers in Mexico, and Al Jazeera when it's English version feels like working. So, no, my perspective isn't warped based on American news sources. American news sources are just a part of my daily news intake.

posted 12-18-2003 02:24 PM            

YOUR OPINION. YOUR "CONJECTURE".

posted 12-19-2003 12:34 AM            

9/11 CHAIRMAN NOT BLAMING ANYONE

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The chairman of a federal commission looking into the September 11 attacks said Thursday mistakes over many years left the United States vulnerable to such an attack, but he resisted pinning blame on the two most recent presidential teams.

"We have no evidence that anybody high in the Clinton administration or the Bush administration did anything wrong," chairman Thomas Kean said in an interview with ABC's "Nightline" taped for airing Thursday night.

Kean said the 10-member National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States has not decided whether to ask former President Clinton or President Bush to testify.

He also said that any conclusions about the performance of high-level officials "will be reached when we are finished with our job, not now."

Kean sought to clarify remarks attributed to him in a CBS News report that aired Wednesday.

In the CBS interview, Kean said the commission's report, due May 27, would detail "what wasn't done and what should have be done" to prevent the September 11, 2001, attacks.

He added, "There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time because they failed."

CBS reported that Kean's comments constituted "pointing fingers inside the [Bush] administration and laying blame."

On Thursday, Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark labeled Kean's statements "disturbing" and said they showed the Bush administration could have done more to protect America from a terrorist attack.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-New Jersey, said Kean's comments meant "that Bush administration officials had valuable information that could have prevented the terrorist attacks."

But Kean said in Thursday's interview that he did not mean to suggest that certain federal officials should have been fired after September 11.

He said he was commenting on obvious mistakes that were made, such as letting terrorists into the country and letting dangerous items onto planes.

"There are a number of steps along the way, that if they had occurred differently, this event wouldn't have occurred," he said.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said he reviewed the CBS report and did not believe Kean leveled accusations against the Bush administration.

"There is nothing that we have seen that leads us to believe that September 11 could have been prevented," McClellan said.

posted 12-19-2003 01:15 AM            

CBS refuses to apologize for telling the truth.

Kean's backside being freshly chewed by his party's high command,
attempts to weazle out.

But Kean's own words are clear:

>"There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time because they failed. They simply failed," Kean said.<

>they failed<
It was the Bush Administration in control of the government.

those who care about honest truth and actual facts will visit the link above,
click the link to watch the video of the interview and hear with your own ears.

Kean was not misquoted.
Those words came out of Kean's own mouth.

Conspiracy theorists:
Those who subscribe to the wierd notion that
people judged by their flight instructors as "barely able to fly a Cessna"
were able to do precision flying with jumbo jets.

posted 12-19-2003 01:22 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by letxa2000:

quote(Mech):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bush is a perpetual LIAR.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He's a politician. Clinton was an even worse liar, but that doesn't mean he was in on some 9/11 conspiracy.

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Reviewing my videotapes made on 9/11,
when Bush's appearance at a local school
was covered live on FOX-10.
http://www.geocities.com/cyber_explorer99/thurbersecretlife.html
>The Secret Life of Walter Mitty<
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/

The Secret Life of George Walter-Mitty Bush
http://www.the7thfire.com/Politics%20and%20History/Fairytale.html
>. At 9:05 am, without interrupting the lesson, Andrew Card, Bush's chief of staff, whispered comments about the tragedy into Bush's ear. Still the President remained to listen to the children read.<
9:30 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT:
>I have spoken to the Vice President, to the Governor of New York, to the Director of the FBI, <

In context:
All the networks had gone over to national news & I was taping two of them.
I did however keep one TV on local coverage of 'Bush at Booker',
on FAUX-10's 'live coverage.

From the time Card whispered in his ear until the kids finished reading.
He just sat there.
He spoke no words to anyone, Made no calls, unless there were imaginary calls in his own head.
He just sat there, on camera, visibly doing nothing.

No orders to Card.
No rush offstage to order an alert & protect the nation.
He just sat there!

what went on in his mind?
what did his daydreams or fantasies contain.
Only Bush himself could tells what went on in his head while he just sat there and waited for the kids to finish.

The kids did finish and bush was introduced.
He got up, went to the podium and gave a short speech.

WALA FOX 10 TV
Mobile, Pensacola, Ft. Walton, Biloxi. www.fox10tv.com/
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/
>September 10, 2001
President Visits Elementary School in Jacksonville - Urges Quick Passage of Education Plan<

>Remarks by the President After Two Planes Crash Into World Trade Center
Emma Booker Elementary School
Sarasota, Florida

9:30 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Ladies and gentlemen, this is a difficult moment for America. I, unfortunately, will be going back to Washington after my remarks. Secretary Rod Paige and the Lt. Governor will take the podium and discuss education. I do want to thank the folks here at Booker Elementary School for their hospitality.

Today we've had a national tragedy. Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country. I have spoken to the Vice President, to the Governor of New York, to the Director of the FBI, and have ordered that the full resources of the federal government go to help the victims and their families, and to conduct a full-scale investigation to hunt down and to find those folks who committed this act.

Terrorism against our nation will not stand.

And now if you would join me in a moment of silence. May God bless the victims, their families, and America. Thank you very much.

END 9:31 A.M. EDT
<

I repeat.
I was watching live.
He just sat there until the kids finished.
>I have spoken to the Vice President, to the Governor of New York, to the Director of the FBI,<
No hand to the ear and moving lips (like his SS bodyguards do)
as if he were using an earphone/mic.
No one approached between Card's whispers and the brief speech
quoted above.

Perhaps in his head, he was taking decisive action.
In the real world,
On screen the whole time.
He sat and did nothing!

More Information?
>8:43 A.M. NORAD is notified that Flight 175 has been hijacked. <8:43, NORAD, 9/18/01, 8:43, CNN, 9/17/01, 8:43, Washington Post, 9/12/01, 8:43, AP, 8/19/02, 8:43, Newsday, 9/10/02> Note that this means the controllers working Flights 77 and Flight 93 would have been aware of both Flight 175 and Flight 11's hijacking from this time.<
source 911 timeline
** This means that for that all important 45 minutes on 911,
The PResident failed to perform his duty as Commander-In-Chief!
***
That alone is proof of his incompetence and unfitness for office.

more information? http://www.the7thfire.com/Politics%20and%20History/Fairytale.html
>. At 9:05 am, without interrupting the lesson, Andrew Card, Bush's chief of staff, whispered comments about the tragedy into Bush's ear. Still the President remained to listen to the children read.
The second-graders read so well that Bush said, “Really good readers! Whoo! This must be sixth-graders.” Before Bush left the classroom, reporters asked him about the World Trade Center incident. "We'll talk about it later," he said. (Sarasota Herald-Tribune (FL), Bush hears of attack while visiting Booker, September 12, 2001 Page: A20)<
[/b]

posted 12-19-2003 01:37 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by shatoga:
CBS refuses to apologize for telling the truth.

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No, because the story you quoted was posted early Thursday morning (December 18, 2003 07:38:02). The new story where the chairman clarrifies his comments was posted on CNN at 9:53PM regarding comments on Nightline this evening. So it's not that CBS is refusing to apologize... it's that you are referring to an old story.

On Nightline this evening, Kean said: "We have no evidence that anybody high in the Clinton administration or high in the Bush administration did anything wrong." http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Nightline/kean_sept11_031218-1.html

It will be interesting to see if CBS carries the chairman's updated comments tomorrow, although they may be slow to do so since it essentially amounts to Kean being on ABC correcting CBS' misinterpretation of his comments.

quote:

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"There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time because they failed. They simply failed," Kean said.
It was the Bush Administration in control of the government.

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And if you will read Kean's own follow-up comments you will see what he meant by that. His comments explicitly refused to blame any high officials in either the Clinton or Bush administration at this time. That's about as clear as it gets.

Or am I to understand that Kean's comments quoted earlier today are acceptable because they promote your conspiracy theory but the same person, trying to make sure people don't misinterpret them later the same day, are not valid and an obvious result of pressure from the administration?

Please, this is what I'm talking about. Conspiracy theorists citing evidence that supports their belief system and ignoring that evidence which contradicts it. It's no wonder conspiracists believe what they do--they're only accepting one side of the evidence.

quote:

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Kean was not misquoted.
Those words came out of Kean's own mouth.

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Yes, but he never condemned the Bush administration. That *interpretation* was made by some in the media and is why Kean later clarified his comments on Nightline.

quote:

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Those who subscribe to the wierd notion that people judged by their flight instructors as "barely able to fly a Cessna"
were able to do precision flying with jumbo jets.

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I'm a pilot myself. And guess what? When you first go flying with an instructor--the VERY FIRST FLIGHT, with no prior flight instruction whatsoever--he lets you fly. Of course the instructor is right next to you but he tells you to grab the stick, tells you to fly, and he takes his hands off. And you're flying the plane.

Flying is NOT hard. LANDING is the only part of flying that is any challenge whatsoever. I can assure you that even if you can't land a Cessna (I've flown both Cessna 152's and 172's), you can easily fly a commercial airliner into a building. Believe me, it's NOT hard at all.

posted 12-19-2003 01:55 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by shatoga:
Reviewing my videotapes made on 9/11,
when Bush's appearance at a local school
was covered live on FOX-10. At 9:05 am, without interrupting the lesson, Andrew Card, Bush's chief of staff, whispered comments about the tragedy into Bush's ear. Still the President remained to listen to the children read.

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So what? What do you think he should have done? Do you think if he had gotten up and run scared to Air Force 1 that any lives would have been saved? Do you think the FAA and NORAD were waiting around thinking, "Man, we could do something if the president would just tell us to do it!"

Two planes had just struck the WTC. That was done. He had no information that more planes were hijacked, so what exactly would you want the president to do?

The president can't micromanage. There are thousands and thousands of people in the FAA and the military and their jobs are to deal with these things. And they did.

I just find it interesting when people think it strange that Bush didn't freak out or something. It seems he had a very composed reaction to terrible news. Daydreaming? He was probably going through scenarios in his head and wondering what, if anything, would be next and what how the U.S. was going to respond--but in full confidence that the right people were dealing with the situation.

quote:

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No rush offstage to order an alert & protect the nation. He just sat there!

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Alert and protect the nation? What did you want him to do, go to the Pentagon and hold his hand up like a traffic officer and wave the last plane away from the Pentagon??

quote:

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8:43 A.M. NORAD is notified that Flight 175 has been hijacked. Note that this means the controllers working Flights 77 and Flight 93 would have been aware of both Flight 175 and Flight 11's hijacking from this time.

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Do you know that to be true? Or do you just assume it? Do we know that the same Air Traffic Control Center was working all those planes? Do we know that there is necessarily efficient communication between ATC centers?

quote:

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This means that for that all important 45 minutes on 911, The PResident failed to perform his duty as Commander-In-Chief!

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What did you want him to do? Order a nuclear strike on Afghanistan? Get into a fighter plane himself and go hijacker hunting?

Or perhaps Card told Bush, "There's been a terrorist attack in NYC. The military's on it" and knew that that was all that could be done anyway.

You are speculating on that which you have insufficient information and that is leading you to conclusions that are not based on fact but on conjecture--as is often the case with the conspiracy theories.

quote:

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That alone is proof of his incompetence and unfitness for office.

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It proves nothing, especially without knowing what Card whispered to Bush.

posted 12-19-2003 02:34 AM            

NORAD is tasked to protect America,
(and expected to defend against Soviet missiles without any transponders on them)

and until 9/11 it was standard procedure to scramble fighters when a flight lost contact with the ATC.

As the Payne Stewart incident proves.

Five National Guard fighters scrambled or diverted to check out a pro golfer's jet in 1999, but not even one on 9/11 when four jumbo jets were "hijacked".

If Bush called the governor VP and military on 9/11 it had to be before he went on stage at Booker,
before any cameras were trained on the WTC.

He is either incompetent, delusional, or it was an inside job.

My advice to you Bushloving tinfoilhatters:
Open mouth remove foot.

Of course Kean will not accuse any high official.
He is not suicidal.
Notice how earnestly he is backpeddling from his own statements?

"no evidence" is not proof of competence.

The evidence is still being deliberately withheld from the 9/11 commission.
Withheld by the Bush White House.

posted 12-19-2003 03:09 AM            

Excerpts only:
>Western intelligence had been aware of plans for such terrorist attacks on U.S. soil as early as 1995. The plan was known as "Project Bojinka." It was known to both the CIA and FBI and was described in court documents in the trial in New York of Ramzi Yousef and Abdul Murad for their participation in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center (WTC).

Seven to eight weeks prior to September 11th, all internal U.S. security agencies were warned of the impending Al-Qaeda attacks. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was warned of the attack but did nothing to beef up security. At least two weeks prior to September 11th the FBI agents again confirmed that an attack on lower Manhattan was imminent. However, the FBI agents were commanded to cut short their investigations into the attacks and those involved. Agents were threatened with prosecution under the National Security Act if they publicized information pertaining to their investigations. Some field agents predicted, almost precisely, what happened on September 11th.

As early as 1997, Russia, France, Israel, the Philippines and Egypt all warned the U.S. of the possibility of the attack. Warning also came from came from several others sources as well. Recently (May 25, 2002), CBS revealed that President Bush had been warned in an intelligence briefing on August 6, 2001 that bin Laden might be planning to hijack commercial planes for a domestic attack in the U.S.
<

>At a time when the U.S. intelligence community was on alert for an imminent Al-Qaeda attack, the Bush Administration made it easier for Saudi visitors to come to the U.S. under a program called U.S. Visa Express, introduced four months before September 11th. Michael Springmann, former head of the Visa Bureau at the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia said that he was repeatedly ordered by high-level State Departtment officials to issue visas to unqualified applicants. His complaints to higher authorities at several agencies went unanswered. In a CBC interview, he indicated that the CIA was indeed complicit in the attacks.<

>Newsweek reported that on September 10th, "a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns."<

posted 12-19-2003 10:20 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by shatoga:
The military was not "on it" as the lack of any fighters until after the crashes proves.

---

In this particular case (deciding if Bush's reaction was appropriate) it does not matter whether or not the military was "on it." What matters is what he was told. If he was told that there had been a terrorist attack and the appropriate government agencies were responding then his reaction was completely reasonable. What we're discussing here is Bush's reaction to the news, not how efficient the FAA or NORAD were at responding.

quote:

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NORAD is tasked to protect America,
(and expected to defend against Soviet missiles without any transponders on them)

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Yes, and that was much of the problem. NORAD basically was looking OUTWARD, including the ADIZ (Air Defense Zone that circles our borders). They weren't focused on internal threats.

The FAA is the government agency responsible for domestic flights. NORAD doesn't know where each and every blip on radar within our country is going, where it's flight plan takes it, etc. I'm a private pilot--I can get up in the sky and fly without a flight plan and run no risk of getting shot down by NORAD. Only if the FAA determines that there is a problem will they contact NORAD, and so far as I have seen the scrambling of fighters in the case of an emergecny or even a hijacking is optional, NOT required.

I have seen no failure on the part of NORAD. At worst, it seems the FAA may have been slow to notify NORAD--but even that's debateable given the fact that scrambling interceptors is not required by FAA regulation.

quote:

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and until 9/11 it was standard procedure to scramble fighters when a flight lost contact with the ATC.

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Can you cite FAA regulations that support that? I've looked all through FAA regulations and the closest I've found is that ATC *may* solicit the help of the military if it deems it necessary, but at no point have I found FAA regulations that require it. If you could provide me with the regulations that support what you're saying I'd appreciate it.

quote:

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As the Payne Stewart incident proves.

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The Payne Stewart event was different. It was like a ghost plane. The plane was going in a straight line instead of turning and was not responding to radio calls. There was no evidence anyone was in control whatsoever. On 9/11, it was clear the planes were not ghost planes--they were turned so someone was out there. It could have been a pilot that was having electrical problems and was turning towards the nearest airport they knew of--which would explain why the transponders were off and there was no radio communication.

Although it is hard for non-avition folks to understand, the Payne Stewart incident was actually more suspicious than the 9/11 incidents initially were. It is VERY strange to have a plane flying with no-one apparently in control. Electronic or communications failures are far more common and is probably what was initially thought to be happening on 9/11.

quote:

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If Bush called the governor VP and military on 9/11 it had to be before he went on stage at Booker, before any cameras were trained on the WTC.

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Or, perhaps, he just said that and really meant to say that his staff had been in contact with those people. Doesn't help your conspiracy theory, but it does make sense.

quote:

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He is either incompetent, delusional, or it was an inside job.

---

Or, again, maybe just speaking on behalf of his staff. Perhaps he personally didn't talk to anyone--that doesn't mean his staff didn't. Perhaps that's part of what Card whispered to him. We just don't know so, again, you are jumping to conclusions based on conjecture.

quote:

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Of course Kean will not accuse any high official. He is not suicidal.
Notice how earnestly he is backpeddling from his own statements?

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Did you see Nightline last night? I'm not talking about excerpts or the transcript, did you watch the 30-minute Nightline program last night? Kean seemed to be a very responsible and forthcoming person within the limitations of his position and the constraints that some of the material he is reviewing is secret and that his report isn't due out until May, and despite the interviewer trying to coax him to say something earthshattering. He didn't.

quote:

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"no evidence" is not proof of competence.

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Heheheh, no, but your "evidence" isn't proof of incompetence. And if you want to remove a sitting president you have to prove incompetence. The burden is to proof incompetence, not to prove competence.

Heck, I have no evidence that YOU are competent. Does that mean you are incompetent?

quote:

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The evidence is still being deliberately withheld from the 9/11 commission. Withheld by the Bush White House.

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It seems that Kean is generally happy with the information his commission has received, including from the White House. Of course, I'm only basing that on what he said, not on what you said he said.

posted 12-21-2003 12:46 AM            

quote:

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Government's 911 Coverup Falling Apart
By John Kaminski
skylax@comcast.net
12-20-3

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This document is so riddled with mischaracterizations and misstatements as to be humerous.

quote:

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To most Americans, the first inkling that something was wrong with the official story of the 9/11 catastrophe occurred about a year after the event, when President Bush resisted setting up a panel to investigate the events of that dark day.

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To most Americans, the official story of 9/11 is perfectly acecpted.

quote:

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To date, there has never been anything revealed to the public about how the U.S. government KNOWS that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were the actual perpetrators of 9/11.

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The hijackers were on the planes. Their identities were checked and their relations and affiliations discovered, including links to Al Qaeda cells in Germany. Osama Bin Laden is the header of Al Qaeda. There's the link.

quote:

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Today, millions of Americans realize - simply from watching thousands of cop shows on TV - that the one most interested in covering up a crime is the one most likely to have committed it.

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So now conspiracy logic draws on television fiction? How appropriate. Of course, if we're going to draw on TV fiction we might as well draw on those episodes of Law & Order where someone with something to gain is incorrectly accused of the crime just because they have something to gain but it ends up being some crime of passion.

quote:

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Many more millions also realize that the foremost beneficiaries of the attacks and mass killings of 9/11 are the same people who are now waging wars that are based on some very suspicious rationalizations, most of which since have been exposed as outright lies.

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And millions more are realizing that there is very little to gain in Iraq and Afghanistan since terrorists are continually blowing up infrastructure that would be the only way for these "beneficiaries" to make money, and the total amount invested in the war and reconstruction will far outpace any "payback" in the near future.

quote:

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Whether this will develop into a real investigation, or whether Kean's remarks were nothing more than what is called "a limited hangout," remains to be seen.

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In other words, if Keil sticks it to the Bush administration the conspiracists will be happy and accept the report as authoritive. If the report concludes that the Bush administration didn't do anything specifically wrong then Kean will be accused of caving and covering up the conspiracy. Conveniently, the conspiracists can't lose.

[quoite]To a far smaller number of Americans, the official 9/11 story began to smell much earlier than when Bush tried to stall the official investigation.[/quote]

As if it were the first administration to not be thrilled with an investigation getting in the way of their daily work.

quote:

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When top Bush administration officials immediately and in unison denied knowing that jetliners could be used to attack American landmarks right after 9/11, a number of alert reporters immediately pointed out that this very subject had been under government study for almost a decade.

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Of course ignoring the fact that the military has people constantly playing "war games" to come up with lots of potential scenarios, but that doesn't mean that any one of them won't come as a surprise if/when it actually happens.

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And when U.S. officials immediately released a list of the alleged hijackers, the lie was immediately visible to those with eyes to see: how could they deny knowing this possibility of a massive jetliner attack existed, yet be able to name the alleged hijackers almost instantly because these individuals had been under surveillance for months?

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The hijackers weren't identified until well into the afternoon. I remember waiting around watching the TV waiting for that information. The details of their affiliations came out over the following weeks, it wasn't immediately known.

Putting together the list of alleged hijackers was pretty easy given the passenger manifests and, in some cases, information relayed by stewardesses on the planes and it's not surprising they had a list of names the same day. I would have been surprised had they NOT had a list of names the same day.

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If they could name the alleged hijackers, then they couldn't deny knowing the possibility of using planes as weapons existed, could they?

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Of course. One thing is looking at passenger manifests and knowing that some of them were hijackers, another is to be actively anticipating the attack beforehand.

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In the mind of these many more millions of Americans, a new syllogism began to take shape: if they lied about why they went to war in Afghanistan and they lied about why they went to war in Iraq, how stupid would Americans have to be to believe what they said about 9/11?

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Despite the fact that very few people believe anyone lied about our reasons for entering Afghanistan. While many people disagreed about going into Iraq, most blame it on bad intelligence or perhaps getting rid of a potential future threat.

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And yet, through two years of intense flag waving, during which most Americans were too terrified to say anything critical of those who were ostensibly protecting us from this new wave of worldwide terror, the lies became cast in stone.

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Who was afraid to say anything critical? I've never heard of anyone that said "Man, I have something to say but I better not say it." As many of the conspiracy websites make clear people are still very capable of criticizing the administration.

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Worse, what passed for the political opposition was afraid to even whisper what was becoming obvious in the minds of so many Americans with functioning brains " that... 9/11 bore a multitude of evidential suggestions that it was an inside job, executed to give right-wing crazies a better shot at looting the treasury of their own country in a variety of ways.

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Right. Luckily, now we're just talking about conspiracy theorists which does not make up any significant portion of the population.

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And in the so-called American free press, our prostituted media continue a total blackout on the subject, as evidenced by the total silence that accompanied the recent filing of a lawsuit by 9/11 widow Ellen Mariani again President Bush for obstruction of justice and treason.

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Frivolous lawsuits are often not reported by the press, and sitting presidents are constantly named in lawsuits. This isn't news.

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Why else would WTC7 have fallen in the same manner of the others when it was not hit by a plane?

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Because neither WTC7 nor the Twin Towers were destroyed by plane impacts, but by being exposed to prolonged fire. More suspicious would be if they appeared to fall in particularly distinct ways.

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They have talked the Pentagon scenario to death and concluded there was no legitimate trace of jetliner rubble to be found, written that a hole of that small type was most likely made by a missile,

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Despite literrally dozens of witnesses that saw the plane crash into the Pentagon from their offices or from passing cars. Somehow these witnesses are less credible than witnesses at WTC that supposedly heard explosions.

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They have concluded beyond doubt that the alleged maneuvers of the Pentagon jet could never have been accomplished by someone who did not do well in a small plane at a jerkwater flight school.

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Very professionally stated. And I wonder if the author has ever flown a plane? It's not hard at all.

... Anyway, I have a life and my wife is calling. But this document that was linked to is just bogus and funny in so many ways I had to quickly respond before signing off for the night.

Later.

posted 12-21-2003 07:26 PM            

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Originally posted by shatoga:
CBS refuses to apologize for telling the truth.

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Interestingly, it appears that it's not CBS News that refused to apologize. It was Kean.

The article reads, in part:

"In a wide-ranging interview with CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston on the commission's work, Kean made no apologies for using the threat of subpoenas to force government agencies, including the White House, to produce sensitive documents."

This was not CBS refusing to apologize after Kean's initial remarks. This is not Kean backtracking. This article refers to Kean's original remarks and he simply said that he made no apologies about mentioning the threat of subpoenas.