Attacks on the 9/11 conspiracy film Loose Change are nothing new. Anyone with half a brain can intelligently attack the mad theories underlying that film. And if you want not just intelligent opinion attacking the film, but actual scientific analysis, you can read the wonderful Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can’t Stand Up to the Facts
What is unusual, therefore, isn’t an attack on that movie, it’s an attack from the Left on that movie. And yet that is precisely what has happened, as Richard Baehr noticed:
The British paper, the Guardian, is the paper that the New York Times strives to emulate. Like the Times, it despises George Bush, America’s war in Iraq, Christian religious believers and Israel, and is captivated by the wonders of multiculturalism. But even the Guardian can smell an overcooked turkey, and it has found one in the moonbat offering in the 9/11 conspiracy annals, the film: Loose Change.
J.R. Dunn has dealt with a number of these conspiracy theories in the pages of American Thinker. But the Guardian taking a skeptical position is much bigger news. It is from their side of the political spectrum that these contentions issue.
Not only has the Guardian sought to distance itself from the film’s lunacy, it’s chosen a good writer to take on that task. From the first paragraph, Monbiot’s prose is accessible, lucid and, to help things along, amusing:
There is a virus sweeping the world. It infects opponents of the Bush government, sucks their brains out through their eyes and turns them into gibbering idiots. First cultivated in a laboratory in the US, the strain reached these shores a few months ago. In the past fortnight, it has become an epidemic. Scarcely a day now passes without someone possessed by this sickness, eyes rolling, lips flecked with foam, trying to infect me.
The disease is called Loose Change. It is a film made by three young men that airs most of the standard conspiracy theories about the attacks of September 11 2001. Unlike the other 9/11 conspiracy films, Loose Change is sharp and swift, with a thumping soundtrack, slick graphics and a calm and authoritative voiceover. Its makers claim that it has now been watched by 100 million people.
***
The next evident flaw is that the plot they propose must have involved tens of thousands of people. It could not have been executed without the help of demolition experts, the security firms guarding the World Trade Centre, Mayor Giuliani (who hastily disposed of the remains), much of the US air force, the Federal Aviation Administration and the North American Aerospace Defence Command, the relatives of the people “killed” in the plane crashes, the rest of the Pentagon’s staff, the Los Alamos laboratories, the FBI, the CIA, and the investigators who picked through the rubble.
If there is one universal American characteristic, it is a confessional culture that permits no one with a good story to keep his mouth shut. People appear on the Jerry Springer Show to admit to carnal relations with their tractors. Yet none of the participants in this monumental crime has sought to blow the whistle – before, during or after the attacks. No one has volunteered to tell the greatest story ever told.
Read all of Monbiot’s biting attack on Loose Change here.
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digg itFiled under: Bush Derangement Syndrome
9-11 and American Empire:Intellectuals Speak Out
David Ray Griffin and Peter Dale Scott
I’m not saying I believe it. I’m not going to waste my life trying to figure out what caused 9-11 other than pure evil. But it is a lot better than Loose Change in terms of the evidence it brings forth.
American Empire intellectuals? The only American Empire intellectual of real worth is probably David Weber. And that is about it, as far as I know. Short list.
Huh ,the Americans faked the moon landing. Koo koo ,somebody, I thought I saw a putty cat.
[...] [Read more and discuss over at the Bookworm Room…] [...]
Monbiot was a must read during the lead-up to war. Every time Mr Bush made a speech, I’d read George M to see what George B was lying about. Our media was always painfully mum, but the Guardian did its job.
Some of Monbiot’s golden oldies:
America’s Bioterror
“In September last year, the New York Times reported that “the Pentagon has built a germ factory that could make enough lethal microbes to wipe out entire cities.” . . . it was constructed without either Congressional oversight or a declaration to the Biological Weapons Convention, in direct contravention of international law. [The US] has been planning to test warheads containing live microbes in large aerosol chambers at the US Army’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center in Maryland. Experts in this field say that the scale of the experiments suggests that they are not defensive, but designed to help develop new biological weapons.” – Monbiot, , March, 2002
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2002/03/19/americas-bioterror/
“The United States is now our foremost enemy. We must begin to treat it as such.
There is something almost comical about the prospect of George Bush waging war on another nation because that nation has defied international law. Since Mr Bush came to office, the United States government has torn up more international treaties and disregarded more UN conventions than the rest of the world has done in twenty years.” – Monbiot – August, 2002
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2002/08/06/the-logic-of-empire/#more-807
“There is little that those of us who oppose the coming war with Iraq can now do to prevent it.. . . No task is more urgent than to expose the two astonishing lies contained in George Bush’s radio address on Saturday, namely that “the United States does not desire military conflict, because we know the awful nature of war” and “we hope that Iraq complies with the world’s demands.” Mr Bush appears to have done everything in his power to prevent Iraq from complying with the world’s demands, while ensuring that military conflict becomes inevitable.” – Oct. 2002
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2002/10/08/thwart-mode/
“Why do the supporters of this war find it so hard to see what is happening? Why do the conservatives who go beserk when the European Union tries to change the content of our chocolate bars look the other way when the US seeks to reduce us to a vassal state? Why do the liberal interventionists who fear that Saddam Hussein might one day deploy a weapon of mass destruction refuse to see that George Bush is threatening to do just this against an ever-growing number of states? Is it because they cannot face the scale of the threat, and the scale of the resistance necessary to confront it? Is it because these brave troopers cannot look the real terror in the eye?” — March 2003
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2003/03/11/a-wilful-blindness/
“Every likely outcome of this war is a disaster
So far, the liberators have succeeded only in freeing the souls of the Iraqis from their bodies. Saddam Hussein’s troops have proved less inclined to surrender than they had anticipated, and the civilians less prepared to revolt. But while no one can now ignore the immediate problems this illegal war has met, we are beginning too to understand what should have been obvious all along: that, however this conflict is resolved, the outcome will be a disaster.” – April, 2003 http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2003/04/01/no-way-out/
I don’t know why people keep reading the demoralization propaganda. Does it somehow make them feel better in the process?
I don’t know why people keep reading the demoralization propaganda. Does it somehow make them feel better in the process? – Ymar
One person’s “demoralization propaganda” is another person’s truth. What do you suppose God cares about? Truth is what ultimately matters, no?
I like Monboit because he told the truth.
War propagandists, on the other hand, do not.
One mans demoralization propaganda is another mans elixir drink of truth.It makes life stress free, once you taste it, and it can help you seperate truth from fiction.You can live to be a hundred years of age once you taste it.It would be nice to live to a hundred years of age,but I don’t know if I ever want to be a hundred.
At least have a cup of Yumsake.
“I like Monboit because he told the truth.” indeed.
What’s the world coming to?? I was laughing, too, TS.
Me too. Monboit is fair and balanced with no spin and he is right on ,er no ,make that just on !
Anyone who thinks it is true that “the United States is [Great Britain's] foremost enemy” is not to be taken seriously. Whenever there is a chance to talk about the real enemy (as in the “Borg” entry a few days ago) the T.S.’s and HelenL’s of the world are strangely silent. But when there is a chance to bash America, call us the enemy or talk about our parochialism they are right there with comments. Why is that?
It just goes to prove your point book, when the Left starts attacking their own moonbats with monbats…. something to be seen there.
Well Don, maybe they do feel good about believing in that stuff about America. It isn’t the truth and it doesn’t really do anything constructive, but it at least makes them feel good. Isn’t that enough? Let it all out?
I didn’t know that the borg was the real enemy, book. You hiding something from us, some secrets? It is a shoot up between who is the real enemy, the neo-con klingons that talk about “honor”. THe Leftist utopians that talk about the Prime Principle. Or the Romulans who are the feel good anti-war activists. THey talk about anti-war, and they practice killing cruelly.
There’s still a lot to choose from Book, as to who the real enemy is. Maybe Don knows who the real enemy is. Currently, I think the real enemy has like a 3 planed face.
Helen didn’t post here, Don, so why connect her to TS?
Well Don, maybe they do feel good about believing in that stuff about America. — Ymar
It’s not about feeling good. It’s about facing certain truths.
As Bookworm said. Monbiot is no moonbat.
Of course not, he is a monbat. Completely different species.
Hi Y,
Please reread my comment. I including Helen because of her comment in the thread about Harvard and American parochialism, in which Helen commented, “Not everyone wants to glorify the US. Not everyone even likes us. Why should they?” As I read her, she was supporting the Harvard contention that Americans are parochial. And she, like T.S., was silent on the subject of the radical Islam discussed in the Borg thread.
So you’re refering to that other thread, which I hadn’t read until now.
Rereading your comment just gives the same result, it is not apparent that you were refering to another thread, except the borg one.
A lot of people believe Americans are parochial, simply because in the words of TS, it has to do with facing Certain Truths. Of course they look more like axioms than truths found through battle.
And she, like T.S., was silent on the subject of the radical Islam discussed in the Borg thread.– Don Q.
The majority of posters here discuss the threat from radical Islam, so why do they need one more voice? I have nothing to add. However, they completely ignore or downplay the fact that much of the world sees the U.S. as a threat.
The fact is: Radical Islam is a threat, but our war of choice, the war in Iraq, has done much to make the world a more dangerous place.
You say that Monbiot should not be taken seriously for his pre-war predictions regarding America’s dangerous intentions and I say he was spot on.
Ditto for Simon Tisdall. (Which is why some of us stopped paying attention to the U.S media and relied on the foreign press before the war began. The foreign press told the truth. the U.S media recycled White House propaganda)
This is what Simon Tisdal said in Oct. 2002:
“In spelling out the dangers posed by terrorism, which may be defined as the use of fear and violence to attain political ends, Mr Bush used fear and the threat of violence to promote his policy.
Since when has it been the proper function of an American president to scare the children? But with his claim that Iraq might use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for biological and chemical weapons attacks “targeting the United States”, he strayed into the realms of horror-movie fantasy.
It would be useful to know what plausible evidence the administration has for suggesting that “Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists … This could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving fingerprints”.
As a matter of fact, rather than propaganda, the administration has no such evidence, only suppositions – for although Saddam is bad, he is not mad.
It would be helpful to understand what purpose is served by over-stating Iraq’s missile capability, and postulating the theoretical possibility of Iraqi attacks on countries such as Turkey. Mr Bush’s advisers surely know that Iraq has no motive for such attacks, that its deputy prime minister was visiting Ankara only the other day, and that Israel’s chief of military intelligence, Major General Aharon Ze’evi, (who should know), says he doubts Iraq has the capability for such actions.
Even as he threatened to wage open-ended war, Mr Bush insisted that his administration’s purpose is “to secure the peace” – apparently oblivious to the intrinsic contradiction contained in the two statements.
He said the White House “did not ask for this present challenge”. But as all the world, and the American public, increasingly suspects, it is a challenge Mr Bush has deliberately chosen to dramatise and prioritise. That Saddam is a serious problem is hardly a new idea. That, suddenly, the US must without delay start a full-scale war in the Middle East to topple him most certainly is.
Mr Bush said that if Saddam did not comply with the almost impossible preconditions that the US is insisting upon in the UN security council, America would act “with allies at our side”. This is disingenuous, to say the very least. The US does not have the support of traditional allies in Europe or the former Gulf war allies in the Arab world for anything that smacks of precipitate or unilateral action, let alone “regime change”. Nor is it likely to obtain it.
Only Tony Blair’s British government is on board the Bush bandwagon – and even in Britain, polls show a majority of people are opposed to military action. Americans who worry that the US is going out on a limb in terms of democratic opinion, international law and practical military concerns are right to do so.
Mr Bush even went so far as to purloin the words of John F Kennedy and suggest that what the US is now facing is akin to the Cuban missile crisis. That is a gross exaggeration of the position. It is at odds with the known facts. As such, it is misleading and unnecessarily, irresponsibly alarming to the American people. This is not leadership in the Churchillian style that Mr Bush professes to admire. It is mere demagoguery.”
I’ll paint a broader picture of events, in a slightly different color tone than ts used.
There is no international sanction nor support for the United States because the world outside the United States is a hell pit, more or less. In their misery they do not seek salvation or reconstruction, and they do not particularly like anyone upsetting the status quo. But this status quo stasis only occurs because of American power.
Whatever shred of support for the US comes from people who wish to see something better than this fallen world of ours.
The “impossible” dictates given to Iraq from the US, are only an example of how this international claptrap is simply an illusion, an illusion of unity and support, an illusion of sanction and legitimacy.
More on this later, I gtg
“suggest that what the US is now facing is akin to the Cuban missile crisis. That is a gross exaggeration of the position” (TS quoting someone named Tisdal)
Indeed we are. And so is the rest of the world. Only the Bush doctrine has given us a temporary peace. YOu lie when you say it is more dangerous. The President has give you time to indulge in some of the insane fantasies you quote, TS.
America is a danger to those who seek to promote Islamic imperialism; to terrorists who seek to subvert lawful governments; to terrorists who threaten international peace; to sharks who hope to fish in troubled waters to advance their own perverted aims.
America does represent, not only International Law, but the good. She also represents international Responsibility for those who will not take any. I’m not thinking of the African Union; I could be. Nor the EU; I could be. Especially not the corrupt, political farce that is the UN. But I would be.
To suggest Mr. Bush uses fear tactics is simply false, TS. There is much to fear; any sane person knows it. He only tells you about it. And you cover it up with inanities. I would suspect you are a front for the Islamists. That’s the nature of your propaganda. So the blood flows in Iraq, the Middle East, Dafur, Somalia and you blame your own countrymen (if you are indeed posing as an American) who should rightly abandon you to your own twisted thinking.
You deserve the beheadings, the torture, the mass murder, the lust for killing of the Islamic fanatics, for such is the nature of what YOU worship.
Okay.
More on the point of pre oif. The expectation that Iraq follow international law has been hashed out. But TS gives the good point that you can’t expect Iraq to follow or comply with anything really. Why? Because it is too hard or perhaps “unrealistic” in a way. People don’t even believe that such unenforced laws need to be followed, let alone enforced. That is why the international claptrap is such an illusion, and why the only hope for stasis or even progress is due to AMerican action.
It is a gross misunderstanding of BUsh’s psychological and human profile to say that what he is doing is demagoguery. It is just off the charts.
When TS says Iraq’s motive, people have to understand that a person’s ability to judge human psychology and human behavior is based upon his prior accuracy in how his models describe the behavior of others. Which means that since TS is so wrong about Bush, how can he be so certain and correct about Iraq’s motivations? He cannot be, just by logic.
Monbiot is a fucking idiot. Today he admitted that he believes there was “criminal negligence” on 9/11. Instead of going after this criminal negligence (in his view), he continues to attack the truth seekers. The man has shit for brains.
No George Monbiot, These Are The Facts of September 11th 2001
Crimes of the State
Mr. Monbiot has taken the standard media attack approach: conflate the internet film “Loose Change” with the subject of September 11th US government complicity. How brave to redo the same smear that has gone around for several years now focusing on the easily challenged claims, and ignoring the full breadth (and breathtaking amount) of evidence.
DISTURBING FACTS ABOUT THE 9/11 ATTACKS
1. The president of the United States, when informed that a second plane had struck the World Trade Center, continued to read about a pet goat.
2. This same president was moved from his high rise hotel in Genoa Italy two months previously for security reasons, because of a known al Qaeda plot for hijacking and “crashing an airliner into the Genoa summit of industrialized nations.” The assumption in July 2001 was that there existed a plot that “terrorists would try to crash a plane to kill Bush and other leaders” (LA Times, 9-27-01).
3. The Secret Service did not secure the president, even though his location was publicly disclosed in the press for days before the school photo op on 9/11. This was a break in standard operating procedures that left the president vulnerable in the middle of a purported “attack” on America.
4. NORAD has told three different and conflicting stories explaining why no jet fighters intercepted any of the four hijacked airliners.
5. Vice President Richard Cheney was placed in charge of anti-terrorism training and military preparedness exercises by Bush on May 8, 2001. This gave him command authority during the 9/11 attacks because as many as nine war game exercises involving military and intelligence agencies were occurring simultaneously.
6. The military’s “Air Piracy” regulations were rewritten on June 1st 2001 to require the “Secretary of Defense” to give “approval” for military escort aircraft in the event of a hijacking. Donald Rumsfeld gave no “approval” that day.
7. More than an hour and fifteen minutes after the first hijacking was reported by FAA, the US military headquarters at the Pentagon was struck without any defensive action taken to stop the attack. The impact was on the west side, for some reason the only side that had been “hardened” with blast-proof windows and specially reinforced walls. None of the highest ranking military leadership were located on that side.
8. (TRANSCRIPT) Air Force General Richard Myers: “When it became clear what the threat was, we did scramble fighter aircraft, AWACS, radar aircraft and tanker aircraft to begin to establish orbits in case other aircraft showed up in the FAA system that were hijacked…”
Senator Carl Levin: “Was that order that you just described given before or after the Pentagon was struck? Do you know?”
Air Force General Richard Myers: “That order, to the best of my knowledge, was after the Pentagon was struck.”
Reality intrudes. It became “clear what the threat was,” the moment the first hijacked airliner struck the North Tower at 8:45am. This congressional testimony is inexcusable and grounds for investigation into criminal negligence, dereliction of duty, and treason.
9. “President Bush personally asked Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle Tuesday to limit the congressional investigation into the events of September 11…” …”Tuesday’s discussion followed a rare call to Daschle from Vice President Dick Cheney last Friday to make the same request.”
10. The Project For a New American Century, which wrote of the need for a “catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor,” had members throughout the top of the government on 9/11 including Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, Bolton, Armitage, Abrams, Wurmser, as well as Bush’s brother, the governor of Florida, Jeb.
11. Four days before 9/11, Jeb Bush activated the Florida National Guard, “Based on the potential massive damage to life and property that may result from an act of terrorism at a Florida port.” (Executive Order 01-261).
12. On 9/11 Jeb Bush declared a “State of Emergency” in Florida (E.O. 01-262). “I hereby delegate to the Department of Law Enforcement the operational authority to coordinate and direct the law enforcement resources and other resources of any and all state, regional and local governmental agencies…” And by 2am on 9/12/01, Jeb Bush was reported to have confiscated the police records in Venice, FL related to the Huffman Aviation flight school. Two rental trucks full of these records drove onto a C-130 military aircraft at Sarasota Airport and flew out with Jeb Bush aboard.
13. Huffman Aviation flight school, where Mohamed Atta and other alleged hijackers trained, had a Lear jet seized by the DEA with “43 pounds of heroin” onboard. No one was ever prosecuted in connection with the “biggest drug seizure in central Florida history.”
14. The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States (”9/11 Commission”) was a blatant and obvious cover-up under the control of Bush administration member and “Executive Director” Phillip Zelikow. This cover-up can be proven easily with one example: the time of Dick Cheney’s arrival at the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (”PEOC bunker”). Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta testified under oath that Cheney was present at 9:20am and issuing “orders” related to the plane that struck the Pentagon. Mineta’s testimony was completely omitted from their final report, and a fraudulent time of 9:58am for Cheney’s arrival was given instead (book pg 40 / .pdf file pg 57).
15. The 9/11 Commission was originally only given $3 million to investigate the greatest terrorist attacks on US soil in our history. The Bush administration then witheld requested documents forcing the Commissioners to issue subpoenas to FAA and the Department of Defense.
16. So many lies were told by Bush administration officials regarding warnings before the attacks, that it is difficult to count them. Ari Fleischer’s two word response, “No warnings,” aboard Air Force One on 9/11, sums up the administration’s claim.
17. Contrary to the Bush administration’s claim: “Newspapers in Germany, France, Russia and London reported in the months before September 11th of a blizzard of warnings delivered to the Bush administration from all points on the compass. The German intelligence service BND warned American and Israeli agencies that terrorists were planning to hijack commercial aircraft and use them as weapons to attack important American targets. Egypt warned of a similar plane-based plot against Bush during the G-8 summit in Genoa last June [2001], a warning taken so seriously that anti-aircraft batteries were placed around Columbus Airport in Italy. Last August [2001], Russian intelligence services notified the CIA that 25 terrorist pilots had been trained for suicide missions, and Putin himself confirmed that this warning was delivered ‘in the strongest possible terms’ specifically regarding threats to airports and government buildings.” -Newsweek, May 20, 2002
18. In July of 2001, CIA Director George Tenet and CIA counterterrorism chief J. Cofer Black claim to have made a detailed presentation and warned National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft of imminent attacks on US soil by Al Qaeda operatives. This was also omitted from the 9/11 Commission Report.
19. Many more warnings stretching back to the early 1990s were known to intelligence agencies and to FBI. These warnings expose as a lie National Security Advisor Rice’s response: “I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile.”
20. March 7, 2001: “The Russian Permanent Mission at the United Nations secretly submits “an unprecedentedly detailed report” to the UN Security Council about bin Laden, his whereabouts, details of his al-Qaeda network, Afghan drug running, and Taliban connections to Pakistan and the ISI. The report provides “a listing of all bin Laden’s bases, his government contacts and foreign advisers,” and enough information to potentially locate and kill him. It is said to contain an “astonishing degree of information.” The US fails to use the information in any noticable manner. Alex Standish, the editor of the highly respected Jane’s Intelligence Review, concludes that the attacks of 9/11 were less of an American intelligence failure than the result of “a political decision not to act against bin Laden.” [Jane's Intelligence Review, 10/5/2001; Times of India, 10/8/2001]
21. On August 6, 2001 a CIA briefer went to Bush’s Crawford ranch to read the president a briefing called, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US” (2 redacted pages out of 11 reported). After the briefing, Bush told the CIA man, “All right. You’ve covered your ass, now.” Bush then went fishing.
22. Minneapolis FBI Agent and Legal Advisor Colleen Rowley (21 year veteran) said that the FBI Headquarters Special Supervisory Agent, “seemed to have been consistently, almost deliberately thwarting the Minneapolis FBI agents’ efforts …continued to, almost inexplicably, throw up roadblocks and undermine Minneapolis’ by-now desperate efforts to obtain a FISA search warrant, long after the French intelligence service provided its information and probable cause became clear. …Even after the attacks had begun, the SSA in question was still attempting to block the search of Moussaoui’s computer, characterizing the World Trade Center attacks as a mere coincidence. …HQ personnel never disclosed to the Minneapolis agents that the Phoenix Division had, only approximately three weeks earlier, warned of Al Qaeda operatives in flight schools seeking flight training for terrorist purposes!”
23. FBI Special Agent Robert Wright (12 year veteran) said: “”[T]here existed a concerted effort on the part of agents conducting counterterrorism intelligence investigations to insulate the subjects of their investigations from criminal investigation and prosecution.” …”The supervisor …started yelling at me: ‘You will not open criminal investigations. I forbid any of you. You will not open criminal investigations against any of these intelligence subjects.’” …”(T)here is virtually no effort on the part of the FBI’s International Terrorism Unit to neutralize known and suspected terrorists residing within the United States.”
“A lawyer speaking for (FBI Special Agent) Wright after 9/11 will blame Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Michael Chertoff for refusing to take Wright’s concerns seriously before 9/11.” Chertoff will later be appointed to become head of the Orwellian-named Department of Homeland Security.
“Larry Klayman, one of two lawyers now representing [FBI Agent] Wright, later says he calls the Justice Department a few days after 9/11 and asks that Wright be allowed to present his issues to Attorney General John Ashcroft. Klayman claims he receives a reply from Michael Chertoff, then head of the Criminal division, who refuses to meet with Wright and says, “We are tired of conspiracy theories.”
FBI Agent Wright says at his press conference: “Corruption is knowing when something is not being done, knowing when the American people are being left unprotected and when you make a decision not to do something to protect the American people… And you effectively allow 9/11 to occur. That is the ultimate form of government corruption-dereliction of duty. That’s subject in the military to prosecution, to court martial…. Frankly, if not treason.”
24. FBI Agent Harry Samit, who before 9/11 sent 70 communications to supervisors warning them of Moussauoi’s plan to hijack a commercial jet and crash it — to no avail — has said, “…(I)f you’re not going to advance this the FISA route, or if you don’t believe we have enough for a FISA, I shudder to think-and that’s all I got out. And [Supervisory Special Agent Mike Maltbie] cut me off and said, ‘You will not question the unit chief [David Frasca] and you will not question me. We’ve been through a lot. We know what’s going on. You will not question us.’”
25. On July 10, 2001 FBI Agents in Phoenix AZ issued a memo to FBIHQ requesting that headquarters investigate flight schools across the U.S. to look for middle eastern filight students connected to international terrorist organizations. Nothing was done, and the information was not shared.
26. “The [FBI Inspector General] report attributes the inaction and inattention to the lack of resources committed to anti-terrorist activities in the summer of 2001. For instance, there was only a single research analyst assigned to the FBI’s Bin Laden Unit in 2001, and she was transferred to another unit in July 2001.”
27. “Although the FBI’s counterterrorism budget tripled during the mid-1990s, its counterterrorism spending stayed fairly constant between fiscal years 1998 and 2001″ …”Then-acting FBI Director Thomas Pickard said he appealed to Ashcroft for more money for counterterrorism but on Sept 10, 2001, one day before the attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people, Ashcroft rejected the appeal.”
28. “At issue is a July 5, 2001, meeting between Ashcroft and acting FBI Director Tom Pickard.”
“‘Mr. Ashcroft told you that he did not want to hear about this anymore,’ Democratic commission member Richard Ben-Veniste asked on April 13. ‘Is that correct?’”
“‘That is correct,’ Pickard replied.”
…”(A)nother senior FBI official tells NBC News he vividly recalls Pickard returning from the meeting that day furious that Ashcroft had cut short the terrorism briefing. Several sources familiar with the investigation say Garcia confirmed to the commission that Ashcroft did indeed dismiss Pickard’s warnings about al-Qaida.”
29. FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds has become the most gagged whistleblower in the country’s history. In a letter to 9/11 Commissioner Thomas Kean, she said, “”If Counterintelligence receives information that contains money laundering, illegal arms sale, and illegal drug activities, directly linked to terrorist activities; and if that information involves certain nations, certain semi-legit organizations, and ties to certain lucrative or political relations in this country, then, that information is not shared with Counterterrorism, regardless of the possible severe consequences. In certain cases, frustrated FBI agents cited ‘direct pressure by the State Department,’ and in other cases ’sensitive diplomatic relations’ is cited. …Your hearings did not include questions regarding these unspoken and unwritten policies and practices. Despite your full awareness and understanding of certain criminal conduct that connects to certain terrorist related activities, committed by certain US officials and high-level government employees, you have not proposed criminal investigations into this conduct, although under the laws of this country you are required to do so.”
Another FBI translator, who had been “shielding” the targets of FBI investigations, told Sibel Edmonds: “”Why are you doing this, Sibel? Why don’t you just drop it? You know there could be serious consequences. Why put your family in Turkey in danger over this?” Sibel Edmonds’ sister was reportedly sought by Turkish police shortly after this incident.
30. The FBI’s top Al Qaeda investigator, John O’Neill, “resigned in July of 2001 in protest over the obstruction of terrorist investigations.”
31. Two of the alleged hijackers lived openly in San Diego with an FBI informant for over a year: “The FBI inspector general’s report reveals for the first time that the CIA not only failed to inform the FBI about [Al] Mihdhar, but that CIA officials intervened to suppress a memorandum drafted by an FBI agent detailed to the CIA-run Counter-Terrorism Center (CTC), who wanted to notify the FBI about the suspected terrorist with a US visa.”
“One FBI official familiar with the case will later complain, “[The CIA] purposely hid [Almihdhar] from the FBI, purposely refused to tell the bureau. …And that’s why September 11 happened. …They have blood on their hands.” [Bamford, 2004, pp. 224, A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies]
32. The 9/11 Commission, at the orchestration of Bush administration member and “Executive Director” Phillip Zelikow, wrote: “To date, the US government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks. …Ultimately the question of the origin of the funds is of little practical significance.”
33. The Times of India reported that Indian Intelligence had traced the wire transfers of over $100,000 from British born terrorist and reported MI6 and ISI asset Omar Saeed Sheikh in the UAE to Mohamed Atta in Florida, on the orders of the head of Pakistani intelligence Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad. This was reportedly confirmed by the FBI. The Pakistani ISI chief Ahmad resigned immediately, but he has never been sought by US authorities for funding and participating in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
34. ISI chief Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad was in Washington DC the week prior to 9/11, meeting with CIA Director George Tenet and other high ranking US officials including Tenet’s replacement at CIA Porter Goss.
35. During the ISI chief’s stay in Washington, Osama bin Laden was reportedly admitted to the Pakistani military hospital in Rawalpindi on September 10, 2001 by CBS News.
36. Osama bin Laden was also reportedly admitted to a US MILITARY HOSPITAL in Dubai, UAE, in July of 2001 for kidney dialysis treatment. There bin Laden is said to have met with the CIA station chief, Larry Mitchell.
37. Senator Bob Graham, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said: “I was surprised at the evidence that there were foreign governments [Plural!] involved in facilitating the activities of at least some of the terrorists in the United States.” …”I think there is very compelling evidence that at least some of the terrorists were assisted not just in financing — although that was part of it — by a sovereign foreign government and that we have been derelict in our duty to track that down, make the further case, or find the evidence that would indicate that that is not true.”
38. Senator Bob Graham also said: “High officials in [the Saudi Arabian] government, who I assume were not just rogue officials acting on their own, made substantial contributions to the support and wellbeing of two of these terrorists and facilitated their ability to plan, practise and then execute the tragedy of September 11.” These investigations remain blocked, classified, covered-up and unresolved to this day by the Bush administration’s clear Obstruction of Justice.
39. Senator and 9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland resigned, saying: “This is the most serious independent investigation since the Warren Commission. And after watching History Channel shows on the Warren Commission last night, the Warren Commission blew it. I’m not going to be part of that. I’m not going to be part of looking at information only partially. I’m not going to be part of just coming to quick conclusions. I’m not going to be part of political pressure to do this or not do that. I’m not going to be part of that. This is serious.”
40. At least 7 of the alleged “hijackers” were reported to be still alive. Neither the FBI nor the 9/11 Commission corrected the identities, and the government has treated the issue of who exactly attacked America on September 11th as relatively unimportant. The flight manifests released by the airlines did not contain any of the names of the hijackers (who supposedly bought tickets just like everybody else), and there are discrepancies in the number of persons reported to be onboard the airliners. This also has not been explained by officials, at all.
41. The Dulles Airport security camera video released as evidence of hijackers has no time or date stamp, nor any other coded information, which suggests that it may not be authentic.
42. The aircraft “black boxes” from the World Trade Center site were admittedly recovered by NYC Fireman Nicholas DeMassi. The FBI, NTSB and the 9/11 Commission all deny they were ever recovered at all.
43. Congress shoveled $15 Billion of taxpayer money to the airlines immediately after 9/11 as one of the first responses to the attacks.
44. The autopsy report from the Pentagon crash site contains no mention of any of the hijackers.
45. Up to 200 Israeli agents were arrested and detained in relation to September 11th. This includes five Mossad agents who were celebrating the World Trade Center job with “cries of joy and mockery.” The Justice Department (sic) released all of the Israelis, and the entire matter was made “classified.”
46. “According to several Weehawken neighbors of the [Israeli MOSSAD front operation] Urban Moving Systems warehouse, the FBI, upon searching the warehouse, discovered fertilizer, other chemicals for making explosives, pipes, caps, and traces of anthrax. After anthrax was discovered, investigators wearing hazardous material suits went through the warehouse.”
47. “On the night of the Sept. 11 attacks, the White House Medical Office dispensed [the anthrax drug] Cipro to staff accompanying Vice President Dick Cheney as he was secreted off to the safety of Camp David…” The public was not warned about anthrax or alerted about Cipro for another six weeks, when anthrax-laden letters were sent through the mail to top Democratic congressmen and to others.
48. “Palestinians” were accused of committing the 9/11 attacks by Israeli MOSSAD operatives. One of the arrested MOSSAD agents told the police, “We are Israelis, we are not your problem. Your problems are our problem. Palestinians are the problem.” A phone call to the “Jersey City Police Department …claimed ‘Palestinians’ in Arab clothes were seen celebrating the attacks.” Was this MOSSAD referring to their own covert agents? At 9:43am on 9/11, “Abu Dhabi television reports it received a call from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, claiming responsibility for crashing two planes into the WTC. However leading officials later deny the claim.”
49. Israeli instant messaging firm Odigo received warnings of the World Trade Center attacks 2 hours before they occurred.
50. Zim American / Israeli Shipping broke its lease in the World Trade Center and evacuated one week before the attacks. The company is 49% owned by the Israeli government.
51. Although the Israeli government sent MOSSAD officers to “warn” the U.S. about imminent terror attacks in August 2001: “‘They had no specific information about what was being planned but linked the plot to Osama bin Laden and told the Americans that there were strong grounds for suspecting Iraqi involvement,’ said a senior Israeli security official.” Mixing Osama bin Laden together with his enemy Saddam Hussein has been a ridiculous propaganda exercise, and exposed as such.
52. Fire has never, before or after 9/11, caused a steel-framed building to completely collapse. Three gigantic steel-framed skyscrapers were alleged to have collapsed from the effects of fire, including the 47 story building 7 which was not hit by a plane. The Twin Towers and building 7 displayed numerous characteristics of controlled demolition including free fall speed, collapsing into footprints, pulverization of all the concrete, and the sounds and appearances of explosive charges, as reported by many eyewitnesses. Needless to say, this has not been investigated officially, because officials refuse to admit the possibility existed at all.
53. “Fire Engineering [Magazine] has good reason to believe that the “official investigation” blessed by FEMA and run by the American Society of Civil Engineers is a half-baked farce that may already have been commandeered by political forces whose primary interests, to put it mildly, lie far afield of full disclosure. Except for the marginal benefit obtained from a three-day, visual walk-through of evidence sites conducted by ASCE investigation committee members- described by one close source as a “tourist trip”-no one’s checking the evidence for anything.”
54. “‘The decision to rapidly recycle the steel columns, beams and trusses from the WTC in the days immediately after 9/11 means definitive answers may never be known.’[NY Times] The next week, Fire Engineering magazine said: ‘We are literally treating the steel removed from the site like garbage, not like crucial fire scene evidence …The destruction and removal of evidence must stop immediately.’” (Griffin)
55. Ben Fountain, who worked in the South Tower, told People Magazine, “Over the past few weeks we’d been evacuated a number of times, which is unusual. I think they had an inkling something was going on.”
56. On Thursday, September 6, 2001 bomb-sniffing dogs were removed and the security threat level at the World Trade Center was downgraded.
57. Scott Forbes who worked in the South Tower described a “power down” on the weekend before 9/11, which was corroborated by WTC janitor William Rodriquez in his RICO lawsuit. The power down knocked out communications, computer systems, and security cameras. Numerous workmen were reported, and the sounds of heavy construction, and a pervasive grey dust was found on the 97th floor by Forbes.
58. William Rodriguez also reported bombs in the basement levels and on various floors. After describing a series of explosions, Rodriguez heard that floor 65 had completely collapsed (nowhere near the plane impact zone). Rodriguez also claims to have heard construction on floor 34 affter the plane impacts, a floor that wasn’t in use.
59. President Bush’s brother Marvin Bush had been a director for Securacom (now Stratasec) that was in charge of security for the WTC, United Airlines and Dulles Airport (where Flight 77 originated). An Israeli security firm, ICTS International had security responsibilities at Boston Logan airport and other airports involved in the September 11th attacks.
60. On September 10, 2001 Willie Brown, the mayor of San Francisco, received a warning not to fly. He credited who he called “my security people at the airport.” No FAA warnings had been issued however “in recent days.”
61. “On Sept. 10, NEWSWEEK has learned, a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns.”
62. “The author Salman Rushdie believes that US authorities knew of an imminent terrorist strike when they banned him from taking internal flights in Canada and the US only a week before the attacks. On September 3 the Federal Aviation Authority made an emergency ruling to prevent Mr Rushdie from flying unless airlines complied with strict and costly security measures.”
63. “The Federal Aviation Administration said Friday it provided 15 warnings to airlines regarding possible terrorist attacks — including al Qaeda hijackings — in the months leading up to September 11. …The FAA mentioned Osama bin Laden or al Qaeda in alerts the agency sent to domestic airlines.” At this same time, July 2001, the FAA inexplicably terminated a firearms certification program for commercial airline pilots, which had made it legal for pilots to be armed since 1961.
64. A military data mining operation called Able Danger created a presentation chart in 2000 that allegedly included four future 9/11 hijackers. Their recommendation to send the data to the FBI was thwarted by military lawyers and by higher ranking officers. Yellow stickers were placed over the photographs of Mohamed Atta and the others. Although this information was brought directly to several of the 9-11 Commissioners, including Phillip Zelikow, it was never mentioned in their final report.
65. Purported “lead hijacker” Mohamed Atta was already known to US intelligence when he was living in Germany. “He is ‘reportedly observed buying large quantities of chemicals in Frankfurt, apparently for the production of explosives [and/or] for biological warfare.’ …’The US agents reported to have trailed Atta are said to have failed to inform the German authorities about their investigation,’ even as the Germans are investigating many of his associates.”
66. “Military records show that hijackers Saeed and Ahmed Alghamdi listed their address on driver licenses and car registrations as 10 Radford Blvd., a base roadway where residences for foreign-military flight trainees are located, according to Newsweek (9-15-2001) …(A) now-mysteriously deceased, Pensacola naval flight instructor from the Royal Saudi Air Force had the same name [Alghamdi] and also lived and worked at the U.S. naval air base.”
67. “U.S. military sources have given the FBI information that suggests five of the alleged hijackers of the planes that were used in [the 9/11] terror attacks received training at secure U.S. military installations in the 1990s.”
68. “Ali Mohamed was involved with most of the major al Qaeda attacks against U.S. interests: …the 1993 WTC bombing, the African Embassy bombings in 1998 and, even though he was arrested in late 1998, [Peter] Lance proposes that he also helped train some of the 9/11 hijackers in hijacking techniques. Astoundingly, Mohamed participated in these operations while also being a U.S. citizen, being enlisted in the U.S. military, …and being an FBI informant in California. Importantly, …he also had ties to the CIA.”
69. While “Loose Change” is attacked for getting some things incorrect, the film does correctly describe Operation Northwoods, which was approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962. The military planners expressly said: “We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington [DC]. …Harassment of civil air, attacks on surface shipping, and destruction of US military drone aircraft by MIG type planes would be useful as complementary actions. …We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute to Florida (real or simulated). …At a designated time the duplicate would be substituted for the actual civil aircraft and would be loaded with the selected passengers, all boarded under carefully prepared aliases.”
70. And, while Operation Northwoods was not implemented, another U.S. state-sponsored terror campaign called Operation Gladio did murder innocent civilians across Europe at the orchestration of the CIA (BBC Documentary on Operation Gladio).
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