9/11 Fifth Anniversary: Discuss Our Leaders' Versions of What They Did That Morning
 

<b>The POTUS does not [sit] outside the classroom "waiting to go in..."</b>, he does not "wait" for anyone....they wait for him. An especially odd statement, considering that "this" president is always first through the door; there is a recent news photo of him jumping ahead of Vincente Fox, and he tried to muscle his way ahead of Clinton, throught the doorway at the Clinton Presidential library, on the day of it's dedication.

There was no "TV" that "was obviously on", in the "hallway" that Bush was not "waiting in", and there was no broadcast, at the time that he stated, that televised what he told the child at the December, 2001 town meeting, the he, Bush, could have watched to see the airliner crash into WTC1....

....and a month later, Bush repeated this impossible to believe (IMO) "story":
....and VP Dick Cheney's version of what he was doing, on the morning of 9/11, televised jusr 5 days after the 9/11 attacks:
Mr. Cheney's televised account of Sept. 16, 2001, disclosed that <b>"The Secret Service has an arrangement with the F.A.A. They had open lines after the World Trade Center was..."</b>....to me, this makes President Bush's account of what he was thinking and doing, in the 20 minutes between the time that he "watched" the plane hit the first tower "on TV", and when his COS, Andrew Card, whispered in his air "that America was under attack", even more incredible.

Another curiousity is that Norman Mineta, in sworn testimony, contradicted Cheney's account of when Cheney arrived at the PEOC, by at least 30 minutes:
<b>Norman Mineta's 9/11 Commission testimony was not included in the final report:</b>
David Bohrer, in the ABC quote attributed to him in the preceding Sept. 14, 2002 articles, as well as US Transportation Secretary, Norman Mineta, both place Cheney's evacuation from the White House to the PEOC, at least 30 minutes before the time that Cheney, and the 9/11 Commission report, say that it happened:
So....what "gives", here? The 9/11 Commission investigated the 9/11 attacks, and issued it's report. Why all the confusion, and statements from "the leaders" that contradict "reality" and other sworn testimony of government officials. Would it not be a priority of our "leadership" to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Why would they want to leave contradictions "on the table", that could predictably, add fuel to "conspiracy theories" .

Five years later, why doesn't the president and the vice-president do the brief, and probably nearly effortless....."work" of laying the ambiguities in their statements and actions on 9/11, to rest.....once and for all, by holding a joint news conference, with Mr. Runsfeld and Norman Mineta, to answer our questions, and clear our confusion....that they've caused....up...once and for all.....for the historical record, and to confirm that our trust, in them.... is warranted!

Hopefully no one who has even a passing interest in politics takes the 9/11 report seriously. Whether liberal or conservative, whether 9/11 conspiracy theorist or not, whether a Bush supporter or not, we can all see that the comission was a joke in the worst possible way. It was theatre put on for the shallow entertainment of the masses to satiate a well wetted apetite for justice; or more accurately vengence. That hunger for justice remains because their show was so poorly put together (perhaps they should have consulted with J.J. Abrahms before submitting the final script). The taste for vengence has been replaced by apathy due to ongoing war and fear. It really seemed on the surface to be a perfect plan, but the holes are so large and numerous that when reading through the damned report, I fear falling through it into nothingness.

Historical records have suffered. While a multitude of books seeking the truth have come out, I've read more than a few social studies text books lately that give horrible misinformation for our children to ignore in overcrowded classrooms. While a few of our children might hold tight to the little information that we have (maybe host should publish his memoirs sooner then later), the masses will dully think back to the day when Iraq blew up the twin towers and was the source of global terrorism, and how we lost tens of thousands of troops trying to win back our dignity. They will think back to when we destroyed Iran for developing nuclear weapons. When we stoped the drug regeims in Venesuela by burning the country to the ground. How we brought democracy to so many countries, only to have us take it away. Stories from uncles and fathers that serve in the Second Gulf War will be the foundation of everything from entertaining movies to alcoholism and PTSD.

This is our legacy.

Sorry Will, I didn't get the memo on that one. Why was the 9/11 commission a joke?

I like your avatar.

1) MASSIVE bias. Philip Zelikow was appointed by Bush, serving on his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, spent at least 3 years on King George I's National Security Council, and co-wrote a book with Condaleeeeeza (I can never spell her name right). Thomas Kean served on the the Board of Directors of the National Endowment for Democracy, a long-time conduit of CIA covert operations internationally. Kean has links to Saudi Arabian investors who supported George W. and Osama bin Laden (such as Khalid bin Mahfouz). Kean is or was on the boards of Pepsi Bottling, Amerada Hess, UnitedHealth Group, CIT Group and Aramark. Freddy Fielding worked for several Bush fund raisers, and is a lobiest for Spirit and United Airlines. Slade Gorton (arch enemy to the Teen Titans) has many close ties to Boeing - the producers of the planes supposedly used on 9/11 - and his legal firm represents several major airlines, such as Delta. James Thompson is the HEAD of a firm that now lobbies for American Airlines, and has represented United. Richard Ben-Veniste represents Boing and United Airlines. Maxy "Dollar Sign" Cleland, the former US Senator, has recieved over $300,000 from the airline industry - and he resigned from the commission. Lee Hamilton is on numerous advisory boards, such as CIA, the Bush Homeland Security Advisory Council, and the US Army. Tim Roemer represents Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Jamie Gorelick's firm HAS AGREED TO REPRESENT PRINCE MOHOMMED AL FAISAL IN THE SUIT BY THE 9/11 FAMILIES!!! Al Faisel is widely accepted as being connected to the financing for 9/11.

2) White House bullshit. Neither Bush nor Cheney had to take an oath before restifying, they JOINTLY testified, the testimony cannot be recorded or transcribed (and no one would be in the room while they gave testimony?). Afterwards, Cheney went on a duck hunting trip and accedentally shot the Constitution. He managed to hit several amendments, our nations dignity, and our international reputation.

3) Highly suspicous Pentagon info. For well voer 2 years following the attacks, officials from NORAD and the FAA provided inaccurate information about the response to the hijackings in testimony and media appearances. Authorities said that the US Air defences (if you can call them that) had reacted quickly! They were so fast that they flew right past the 747 that was about to hit the Pentagon. They even said that the jets had been scrambled in response to the hijackings and they were ready to shoot down flight 93 (the real Flight 93, not the one from the movie) if it threatened Washington D.C. Of course the commission found some tapes from NORAD and other evidence that the military never had any of the hijacked airliners in its sights and at one point chased a phantom aircraft -- American Airlines Flight 11 -- long after it had crashed into the World Trade Center. Yozwer!! Even though the commission really tried with the FAA and NORAD, basically all the information they got is suspect, and is generaly considered to be ridiculous and stupid (not just by me).

4) The budget of The Blair Witch Project. The Challenger disaster investigation got about $50,000,000. 7 people died. IT WAS REALLY SAD, of course, but 7 people died. The 9/11 Commission was promised $3,000,000 by King George the Dubbuyuh. The Commission had to ask for an additional $8,000,000.

I have more, but let me know if these work for you.

Okay....??? Why do you think that the 9/11 commission "left out" the tesitmony of a "key" official....Norman Mineta, in a report about a hijacking by terrorists of important transportation assets, that brought the air tranpsortation system to a complete halt, (except for the white house arranged flights of Saudi nationals), and accelerated the bankruptcies, that followed....in less than five years, of all of the largest US passenger airline companies....Mineta's sworn testimony to the committee was well publicized in the news, when he appeared before that commission and gave it.

Why did the commission accept the demands of the POTUS and the VP to limit it's questioning of both of them to a joint, private appearance, before only a select few members of the entire commission, that was not conducted while they were sworn to tell the truth.

Why did the commission not examine, in depth, and report on President Bush's two ridiculous statements about "watching the first plane, on TV", crashing into WTC1, <b>before</b> Bush went into an elementary school classroom, to sit for at least 22 minutes, including seven minutes <b>after</b> Andrew Card whispered to him. "on camera" that a second airliner had crashed into WTC2, at a bout 9:15 am. ? Both of Bush's statements about what he was doing and thinking, were lifted from and linked to whitehouse gov web pages.

Cheney's statement, to Tim Russert, on Sept. 16, 2001, that <b>"The Secret Service has an arrangement with the F.A.A. They had open lines after the World Trade Center was..."</b>, lifted and linked from the whitehouse gov site, as well, makes a convincing case that Bush knew before he left his motorcade, to go into the Sarasota elementary school, that a large plane had crashed into WTC1, since it happened at 8:48 am, and that there were FAA reports received from Boston TRACON, as early as 8:20 am, that a possible airliner hijacking was being investigated.

The 9/11 Commission left all of these contradictions, and a close examination of Bush and Cheney's behavior that morning, versus their public statements, and the contradictory statement of Mineta and the white house photographer, David Bohrer, and the testimony of Richard Clark as to the timeline of Cheney's arrival and actions in the PEOC, "open". Mineta's testimony was omitted from the final report, and Cheney's disclosure about what information chanel the secret service had access to...and when, contradicted what Bush did.....spend 20 plus minutes in a grade school classroom versus, what he said, and said that he thought and did.

At the least, why was there no commission examination of what the secret service knew, before and during the time Bush was in that classroom, and until he left Sarasota on AF1, when the SS knew it, what it told Bush about the attack on the WTC and the airline hijackings, and when it found out, and when and what it told Bush. Why was Bush kept for more than 30 minutes, after the first airliner crash, in a school, surrounded by young students and their teachers? The commission should have examined and reported on what else Bush was told between 8:20 am and 9:50 am on 9/11, who told him, when they told him, and who told them, and when....before the told Bush, or a member of his entourage.

Was there ever a time when you were curious about any of these things, these "gaps" in the commission's investigating, and in it's report, politicophile.....or are you incurious about Bush's peculiar statements, and his behavior at the school, during the attacks and shortly afterward?

I have always been told, that in any criminal investigation, you "follow the money". What then, can we make of this, from the 9/11 commission report?
******On edit, I have to add the documentation of these amazing contradictions as to what we have been told:*****************
Mueller seems to be contradicted in the next two news excerpts:
You asked a question, policticophile, that shows that you are not incurious,
so I'll ask you.....doesn't the last example, by itself, with icing on the cake of incredulity, provided by my other points and examples, defend the idea that some harbor, that the 9/11 commission's report was "a joke"? The terms that it granted in exchange for the right for some of it's members the privelege of a Q&A in a brief, joint appearance by Bush and Cheney, where no notes taken by the few commission members allowed to attend, could leave the room without white house approval, speaks in support of willravel's statement, as the "final report" itself, does, as well........

I imagine that they either correctly decided that the testimony by Mineta was not worth including in the report or they made an error and left out relevant information from the report. Hard to say, really. Do you have reason to believe that Minetas comments were important and should have been included?

An error on the commission's part, clearly. There is no good reason, from my perspective, why the President should have received this special treatment. I share your disapproval of this presidential exemption from any meaningful testimony, but remain unconvinced that it is a sign of a vast 9/11 conspiracy involving the President and members of the 9/11 commission, as you seem to be implying.

Another clear instance of the President failing to act as a responsible commander-in-chief. There is no justification for his slow reaction to the news. That said, what would have been the purpose of including this in the report? "This commission has decided that the President's reaction time was at least six minutes and thirty seconds slower than it should have been. Had he reacted faster, the terrorist attacks would not have been affected in any way. But damn, seven minutes is a long time." Sure, they could have noted the President's improper hesitation, but I fail to see how this is relevant to an investigation of the attacks themselves.

The President was informed that there had been a severe plane crash. His chosen response was to continue with his day as planned. What do you think would have been a more appropriate reaction? Should he have immediately dropped everything to hold a press conference about an isolated plane crash? My sources say no.

As I said above, there were mistakes made both by the commission and by the President himself. This is extremely evident to anyone who has studied the facts. What I do not see from this mistakes, however, is a pattern that leads me to believe there was a coverup undertaken that the commission was careful not to disturb.

I see errors, ommissions, and inappropriate conduct. I do not see conspiracy, Presidential criminality, or willful deception. How about you?

Errors don't really bring to mind conspiracies. Omissions and innapropriate conduct sure do. Omissions, specifically the ones from the FAA and NORAD, and also the editing out of the money trail....unacceptable.

Also, what about the President and Vice President not being sworn to tell the truth? Doesn't that suggest willful deception (and thus Presdential criminality, and thus some sort of conspiracy)?

i have not devoted particular attention to this set of problems...i dunno why...but anyway, i have thought that the entire organization that carried out the trade center attacks was on the planes. nothing requires any bigger group be involved, does it? but this is purely because it makes sense logically to me...if the organization came into being to do the attacks or something like it--was made up of people who maybe hadn't carried out an action, say---there'd be no hope of stopping them because (unless somebody really fucked up) there'd be nothing in particular to look for.
whence the idea that the u.s. has been in a war on ghosts for 5 years.

is this still a possibility, given what folk understand to have happened?

There are few phrases more dangerous than "as you seem to be implying." He said the 9/11 Commission was a joke. He didn't say anything about vast conspiracies.

Putting outrageous statements in others' mouths is an Ann Coulteresque strategy that is as ugly and thuggish as it is ineffective. I recommend you refrain.

You must have skipped over post #4. Also look at #7. Will said several things in #4 that implied he believed there was some sort of 9/11 conspiracy. I stated in no uncertain terms that I thought he was implying such a conspiracy and he responded with #7. Isn't the entire point of Host's thread to say that the numbers don't add up, that some pieces of the puzzle are being intentionally hidden, that there is a *gasp* conspiracy trying to prevent a comprehensive report of 9/11 from ever being created?

My Ann Coulter porn must be distracting me from the content of the thread, 'cause I thought I was squarely in the middle of "We-need-to-find-out-what Bush-actually-knew-on-9/11-and-when-he-knew-it" Land. Talk dirty to me, Ann!

I'm beginning to think we should stop using the word conspiracy, because it seems that some people equate the word conspiracy with the definition "untrue thing...". Conspiracies are real, and they happen every day. Every time you buy gas, every time you buy a Big Mac, you are supporting companies involved in conspiracies. They are commonplace, and have nothing to do with anal probing, mind reading aliens. If the president found out that a money trail from 9/11 lead right back to some of his buddies in Saudi Arabia, do you think he'd be shouting it from the rooftops?

Politicophile, I posted facts. Host posted facts. Do you have any disagreement over the facts? Do you think the 9/11 Commission investigation was a joke? Or do you take their corrupt, limited, and vague findings as being all that's necessary?

You know, if they're going to lie they should at least get there stories strait.
I'm inclined to agree with willravel politicophile. Host stated facts, as did willravel. Throwing around "gasps" and conspiracy the way you are seems to me like an attempt to avoid confronting the facts that have already been set before you. Definition of conspiracy: Conspiracy: A secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful. Just because the term may have gained a typical interpretation doesn't make it incredible. Its gained this negative connotation because it is normally placed in the light you currently see it in by those who attempt to refute the allogations. I'm not saying every conspiracy has been correct, mearly stating that you should not be so closed minded to its actual definition.

Seriously, cover ups don’t work, someone always talks, look at Watergate, there were very few people involved in that one, and you would need several hundred, if not thousands of people to orchestrate the 9/11 conspiracy, some one would have talked.

So your saying that because they haven't slipped up, which they have, that proves there is no cover up?

And if someone does speak out, unless they have actual proof (like video tape confessions), no one will listen to them and they will be thought to be just another conspiracy theorist.

I could be paid off for the right price. Make it look like I won the lottery for $10 million or so. And I would never talk about my involvement in that project again. But, they might have me located in WTC #7, and the dead don't talk.

Whoa, whoa, I was talking about the 9/11 Commission Report and the report alone. Everything I stated above is backable by evidence. I'm not talking about collapsing buildings in here. We can save that for the other thread.

And seriously, I can name in 5 seconds 5 conspiracies that you may not be aware of and I can prove they exist (later). Ready?

1) The assasination of Julius Caesar.
2) The Dreyfus Affair.
3) Panama.
4) The Suez Crisis.
5) Iran Contra.

You'll just have to trust that took 5 seconds, but those are REAL conspiracies, some of the remained covered up for generations.

While questionable scenarios happened before, the public’s acceptance or general complacent mindset on the Warren Commission's conclusion set the trend for things to come.

Yes, of course it is "still possible"....but it is ridiculously unfair to the American people, and especially to the victims of 9/11 and their survivors, that president Bush, VP Cheney, other federal government officials and military officers, and the members of the 9/11 Commission, could not have, at the very least, learned the lesson of history well enough, to avoid what we can observe after only five years....on....is the legacy of their speech, actions, decisions, and determinations, not so much during the historic, watershed event, but...alarmingly....afterwards. Attribute it to ego or pride, at the least, that none of them resigned, if they could not make the tough decision to be frank with us, or, in the case of the 9/11 Commission members, or say....in the circumstances of Norman Mineta....resign...rather than be part of another
"probe", like the one 40 years ago, that is "too full of holes. It's sad, frustrating, and completely avoidable, IMO, that this had to happen, this time, too...or it's a criminal cover up and a conspiracy, on some level.
Maybe it's just me.....I was a 10 year old, sixth grader, sitting in music class, when the school principal announced the news over the school intercom, that Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. That weekend, our b & w TV was not working, and I missed the live telecast of Jack Ruby shooting Lee Oswald.

This time.....on 9/11....I was just 80 blocks away, and the first airliner flew just a few blocks west of where I was standing, 18 floors up, on WEA, near the Hudson River.....probably less than a minute before it plowed into WTC1.

I sat and watched the TV coverage, over several days. I marveled at how contradictory and inaccurate the "live" and "near live", news reports of live victim recoveries, that I was watching on TV, turned out to be. I watched a telecast of a small group of injured firemen, being led into St. Vincent's hospital, after their reported "rescue" from a buried NYFD battalion commander's GMC suburban, where they were "discovered" and then dug out and rescued from the vehicle, buried under debris at ground zero....for two days. Hours later, the report was revised...the firemen in the video were rescuers who had fallen through a void in the ruins, and were pulled out to safety by fellow rescuers.

Here, in the home of all of the HQ's and broadcast centers of the major US news media, they had the most advanced equipment and communications, a vast pool of reporters and support staff, and they couldn't get a story taking place on their doorstep, right the first time....it made me wonder, since then, how accurate any initial reports are from foreign correspondents or in any "war time" news coverage.

In early november, 2001, I had an opportunity to move to an apartment located just 3 blocks from ground zero, with a close view of the site from the roof of the apartment building. I lived there for three months, and I wondered, on Christmas day, 2001, as I walked past the site, why they were still working 24 hours per day...even on Christmas, to remove the debris and recover the human remains at the site....the huge Weeks Marine crane dumping debris into the barges at the pier on the left side of this May, 2001
photo. WTC1 is in this photo, 3 blocks to the soutwest.
Pier 25 is below the yellow brick building (Stuyvesant High School).

I lived in the dark building, in the middle right of the photo, at the stern of the boat. From my living room window, I watched the WTC debris filled barges "tugged" away to Fresh Kills, Staten Island:
<img src="http://www.wirednewyork.com/parks/battery_park/images/battery_park_woolworth_20may.jpg">
In OCt., 2001, before I moved there, I heard an account of 9/11 morning at Stuyvesant High, from the father of a student. The father was the brother of my firend, who alerted me to the opportunity to sublet that apartment.
I think that all of us, especially the students at Stuyvesant High who watched bodies falling from the towers, and then ran for their own lives, out of their school and through the debris clouds of the collapsing towers are owed an honest explanation. The evidence indicates strongly, that we haven't gotten one.
I see at the least, willful deception.....why did the president go into the elemenrary school....?
politicophile, I am vunerable to the criticism that I "have too much invested in this, to be objective"....whatever that means in this "study" of what went down, vs. what they've told us.

The timeline, above, combined with this.....which indicates that the secret service knew everything that FAA knew, shortly after the 8:47 am impact on WTC1,
.....and certainly....by the time Andrew Card whispered in Bush's ear at 9:05 in the classroom.....and the knowledge that Bush was the sole authority on whether to issue a "shoot down" order to interceptor fighter pilots of other flights that FAA couldn't account for....at 9:05....after news of 2 airliner strikes on the WTC.....Bush's still "unclarified" explanation....twice repeated and still displayed on the White House website.....persuades me that your assessment, is not arrived at after a full accounting, and weighing, of the record of that morning....coupled with Bush's later....odd comments about watching it at the school, on TV.....<b>before....</b> he went into the classroom.

Host: I just want to point out that the last few pieces of information (concerning technology) aren't necessarily contradictory. A few reports say that al-Qaeda is using advanced technology (a fact so banal that I'd be surprised if it weren't true). Another specifically mentions emails and encryption. Then another says that they left no paper trail, and didn't own laptops. This jives with another report you quote which says that they used public computers to communicate.

Where's the contradiction?

But will does think its a vast conspiracy so I dont' know why you issue a pointless harsh warning when it is indeed true.

In other words why get on the guys case when a vast conspiracy is EXACTLY what will thinks 9/11 was?

He should refain from observing the obvious?

Nice tie in will Ann Coulter though, that was very nicely done if a bit cliche as of late.

Who cares, he's not bringing it up in this thread. Seems like a rather weak attempt at your usual antagonistic standing.
I'm also glad you helped reinforce my point on how "conspiracy" is usually used now. If you replaced "conspiracy" every time its been used in this thread with "a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful" you're argument would mean something much different. Which is funny because that's what conspiracy means. Drop the conotation.

UsTwo, I dare you to point out any "conspiracy" (the way you mean it) in this thread.

Mueller repeated his April, 2002 coimments, a month later. in a senate hearing:
Mueller made two presentations, in April and May, 2002, where it seems fair to me....to point out that he deliberately misled his audeince that no trace of communications of the 9/11 hijackers were found. He gave the impression that he had no confirmation that the hijackers used somputers or the internet to communicate with each other, or with their overseers, if they indeed, had any......since the 9/11 Commission reported that it could not find out who financed their "terrorist" operation.

Mueller could have said that the hijackers were known to use computers....but not their own....to access the internet and use email....but he didn't either time he made essentially the same statement, I'm pointing out curious contradictory statements by officials that cloud determinations, instead of clarifying them. I see Mueller's statements as an example. It is not as strong as the Bush, Cheney, and the Mineta testimony conflict and omission from the 9/11 Commission report....but it does confuse, and he communicated it twice.....as Bush did with his "waiting to go into the classroom....watching the first plane on TV...."schtick"....wierd.
In post #6, politicophile makes his "implying" statement, <b>under a second quote box that contain comments attributed to me, not to willravel.</b> It is clear that ratbastid was addressing that comment of politicophile's. Since that seems to be the case, and ratbastid has not posted a follow up, I thought it might be helpful to point out that ratbastid did not post about a comment that politicophile posted in reaction to anything that willravel had posted.

Former CIA agents, former Bush I, II, and Reagon administration officials have stated 9/11 looks like an inside job, but don't let that get in the way of believing it could never happen.

I agree that many questions remain and there are gaping holes, but much was brought to light in the 9/11 Commission report that should provide lessons for the future.

Much more could probably have been learned if not for the limited "unsworn" testimony of Bush/Chaney, the unwillingness to pursue contradictions in testimony between Condi Rice and others in the WH national security/counter terrorism office, and the Commission's limited subpoena power (a majority of members was required to issue a subpoena; several were blocked by Repub appointed members) .

On the plus side, the Commission did make a series of strong and detailed recommendations for corrective action to prevent (or minimize the possiblity) of future attacks as well as actions needed for a more effective emergency response, which is were our attention should be focused.

Unfortunately, the 9/11 Public Discourse Project (the successor to the 9/11 Commission) provided a report card in Dec. 2005 on how well the recommendations were being implemented by the White House and Congress:

http://www.9-11pdp.org/press/2005-12-05_summary.pdf

It is not a very impressive record, but then again, their attention and money has been diverted to Iraq

Oh nozes, will you double dog dare me too! :lol:

Sounds like it was false and done so on purpose, sounds like despite will talking about not being a "conspiracy theorist' it reeks of conspiracy theory. Any thinking person reading that is going to know wills bias and intent.

joke in the worst possible way

So ch'i my boy, what does that mean to you?

Edit:typed in 1 minute before leaving for work, it seems to imply that will is not a conspiracy theorist, which is of course false, he is. What intended was his idea that even if you are not a conspiracy theorist you should call the 9/11 commision report a joke.

*Yawn* I'm still waiting for a response to the facts. I know I won't get one from you, so I'm not holding my breath. As I've said before, I'm not talking about falling buildings in here. I reserve that for the appropriate threads. I was asked a question, by Politicophile, about why I thought the 9/11 Commission was a joke. I posted facts backing up that ascertion. Those facts were never questioned. I can only assume that you've read post #4 and agree with all those points, and thus agree that the 9/11 Commission investigation and report are jokes.

i want to explain my suspicion about this direction of thinking concerning the wtc attacks.
(suspicion in the sense of distance from...)

personal aside:
in the period immediately after 9/11/2001 i was focussed mostly on video loops and their role in structuring television coverage on the one hand and the emerging (simple-minded) narrative of cause/explanation on the other.

i remember very clearly walking through the student union at penn that afternoon and watching students gathered around huge television screens watching the loop over and over, saucer eyed as the university's therapy teams wandered about like some bizarre psychological swat operation.

it was surreal.

since then, i have been primarily interested in the narrative constructed to provide some sense of closure---and the function of repetition (of the loops within the loops, if you like) within that--in other words, the ideological fallout of the trade center in particular.

back to the matter at hand:
i have not kept particular track of problems concerning the actions of the political class as human beings on 9/11/2001 itself. maybe because i did not follow the same logic as other folks: i do not expect the state to protect me and so did not make any particular linkage between 9/11/2001 and the actions of politicians--or to their ex post facto statements about their actions. it did not seem terribly germaine.

the other reason is that i have assumed the scenario i asked about above--that the entire organization that planned the attacks was on the planes.

if that is true, then it follows that there really is nothing that could have been done to stop any of it.

further, if anything like that scenario was in fact the case, all of the subsequent "security" hysteria has been worthless in that no amount of it would enable the prevention of an attack--if that attack was mounted by a new group--or one constituted for a particular action. linking 9/11/2001 to already-extant groups seemed to me little more than a therapeutic exercise. whence the inane focus on bin laden.

given my assumption about the attack (which was easy enough to generate--if you were going to undertake such an action, how would you do it? it's a pretty straightforward question, really---thinking about it is instructive...) much of the thinking i see other folk pursuing seems to me built around a teleological fallacy--one which is central to the dominant narrative--a fallacy that refigures the past in the image of the present (in this case an event) and attributes false significance to that past.

this is why i haven't paid particular attention to the questions raised by the 9/11/2001 investigations: i cannot tell, and would not be able to tell, if by looking into this area i would find myself running in logical loops created by the teleological fallacy. i cannot--and would not--be able to tell whether my interpretation of particular actions or statements about action were being shaped by a prior assumption that these much be meaningful that has more to do with the logic i would import into the situation than with the situation.
in a similar way, as one viewing the videoloops and interacting with students who lost friends and relatives at the wtc in the days that followed 9/11/2001, i do not understand myself as being wholly outside the effects of something on the order of a collective trauma.

so i would also be unable to sort out my personal psychological investments that were being shaped by a teleological fallacy.

in a similar way, i cannot work out in many of the posts above what is going on at this level.

i do not doubt that others have asked questions on this order to themselves (maybe clearer versions of them, who knows)--so i wonder how they navigated them and what relation they see obtaining between these circuits of investment and what they find and why they find it in the actions of the bush people and subesequent statements about those actions.

i am curious about how folk have managed this problem

Why do you assume things to be this way? What makes you believe there was no al-qaeda plot? Why do you think the only people involved in this attack were the 19 on the planes? What about the al-qaeda videos? What about bin laden's statements? Were the 19 terrorists on 9/11 related at all to the people who attempeted to bring down the towers 8 years prior?

bin laden et al are unnecessary logically to explain the attacks.
they could VERY easily have been organized by a small group no-one was looking for.
and such an organization makes more sense.

again, think about it: if you were going to organize an action on that scale, how would you do it?

that bin laden et al would use the events to further their own political position is not a surprise. i see that as an attempt by al qeada to further its own political objectives.

the problem this scenario raises really is that there was no way to prevent the 9/11/2001 attacks and there is no way to prevent another one. a state can only prevent actions from groups it is looking for. it cannot prevent anything undertaken by groups that it is not looking for.

Hadn't considered that roachboy, thanks.

So Kalid Sheik Muhammed, captured in pakistan shortly after the 9/11 whose just been transfered to gitmo is a patsy? a stooge? I understand that it could have been undertaken by no one other than the 19 hijackers, but just because it could have happened that way doesn't mean it did. For the 19 hijackers to have been the be-all and end-all in the attacks on 9/11 they would have had to have left there message somewhere? No? I would imagine there would be some evidence that points to them being independent of any other group. Instead they left it up to the survivors to tell the world why. It doesn't seem logical to me that 19 people would commit a terrorist act, kill themselves along with thousands others and not leave behind a message, but rely on an unrelated terrorist group - al qaeda to give explination and advance their own agenda.

the message was the attack itself.
why do you think the wtc and pentagon were targets stevo?
what possible meaning would there be?

i dunno--seems pretty obvious to me.

I think Bin Laden et al were involved in the attacks roachboy. There is actually video of the hijackers meeting with Bin Laden.

Stevo you're talking about the same intelligence community that suggested WMDs and Iraq-al Qaeda links. Isn't it possible they have Sheik Muhammed by mistake? I mean he has committed other terrorist attacks, and intel coming from the terrorist networks has always been unreliable.

Also, we still don't have the confirmed identities of the hijackers. Osama might have been meeting with the suspected hijackers, but we don't know for sure. Many of the men the CIA accouse of being the 9/11 hijackers are still alive. To me that makes the whole list quite suspect.

i am simply suspicious about the links between the attackers and al qeada.
it is not that i exclude the possibility--i just view claims about the link with a bit of suspicion.
it seems to me that the attacks were a self-evidently symbolic act that required no further elaboration--the symbols of american economic and military hegemoy (plus a field in pennsylvania).
it seems that bin laden et al moved symmetrically with the bush administration into the frame set by the narrative and that both have marketed the hell out of that.

the curious thing is that none of the narrative has to be true for the narrative to operate effectively. it seems to me that the story floated to "explain" the attacks were almost entirely about enabling a response of some kind, no matter how incoherent, first and then became a device to advance the administration's policies and the administration itself.

in the play "the man in the glass booth" the main character is a jewish guy who pretends to be eichmann and who is arrested as eichman and put on trial as eichman. in the context of his tesitmony, a question is asked concerning the appeal of fascism for "eichman" the response is: "he told us what it was that we were afraid of"

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...48835726&hl=en

this answered it all for me!

great. glad to know we've got another "critical thinker"

Jesus H. Christ:

A whimsical rebuttal

NIST's response

Popular Mechanics had this to say

Point by point rebuttal of "Loose Change"

I never imagined I would use as non-academic a source as Maddox in tilted politics, but sometimes you have no choice but to fight fire with fire. The entire 9/11 conspiracy movement is a case of people believing something is true because they desperately want it to be. Alas, George Bush, the simpleminded nationalistic cowboy (according to our friends on the left), would never conspire to kill 3,000 innocent Americans. Seriously, step back for a moment and think about the kind of people who work in the Bush administration. Do you SERIOUSLY think a bunch of good ol' boys from Texas would murder thousands of Americans? What kind of outlandish straw man are you substituting for our President? There comes a time when we must all wake up and smell the coffee. There is no 9/11 conspiracy. Period.

Like believing links exist between Iraq and the al Qaeda?

Pot, kettle, black.

Yes! That is an excellent comparison. You and I agree that there was no connection between Iraq and al Qaeda. Why do we not agree about the lack of a connection between the Bush administration and the 9/11 hijackers?

I only go to church when polite society requires it. That would be weddings, funerals and baptisms.

I've been an atheist since I was 8.

Yet its amazing how many times I've wanted to reply exactly the same way to this nonsense. I even may have.

Speaking only for myself, I still have a few unanswered questions about what happened on 9/11. When I talk about Bush however I'm trying and stick to stuff we can agree on. Inability to speak or veto, wire taps, war in Iraq, etc. It benifits the conversation if we can avoid the 9/11 conspiracy theories and stick with the subject at hand. This thread, for example, wouldnot benifit from a discussion about conspiracy theories because it would distract from the stuff we might be able to agree on.

The reports are that Khalid was not captured until March, 2003. Please consider that you do not know what you think that you know, and that your government feeds the press bullshit, and that Mr. Cheney appears to have told "untruths" about the "camp" at "Kermal", to justify the invasion of Iraq, even though it was the US that was well documented to have take a "hands off" approach to the camp. The camp is established to have been in a Kurdish controlled area that the US had access to, not Saddam and his government.

If Cheney is still misleading us about the Saddam al-Qaeda "connection", and
Bush misled us, last week about the "value" of Zubadayah, consider that I know less than you do, about Khalid, and I think I've looked into reports about him, more vigorously than you probably have:

Host, so what if they didn't let us know KSM was captured until 3/1/03. Do I expect the government to keep me up to date with their every move and let me know the minute they arrest someone? I certainly do not. I would hope that the arrest of any terrorism suspect is not released to the press until we are certain by releasing the news to the press no other counter-terrorism operation or information is comprimised.

I don't understand the meaning of your post. I said he was captured shortly after 9/11. You posted a report saying there are doubts he was captured on 3/1/03, less than 18 months after 9/11. We all know he was captured. So he was either captured about 18 months after the attack or even sooner. So what's your point?

Stevo the problem is if they decided to not release the news of the capture because they wanted to delay it until a more opportune time politically. For instance say Bin Laden was captured 9 months ago and then in mid october right before the elections it is announced that he as been caught. That is wrong in my opinion.

Hey thanks for the links. me never getting into this and not ever thinking about this, I came across this and was shocked, but then i read these links, and came to find out that i just totally believed the video, and didnt even think for myself. woops. trust me i am not usually that stupid haha.
but thanks again for pointing me in the right direction. ill read on from there

Nice "wording", politicphile. You posted that comment, and I know that you know that the controversy and suspicion is not about ["the Bush administration and the 9/11 hijackers?"]....it's about whether the Bush administration has disclosed or hidden, what it knew about the details of the 9/11 attack, before it happened, how it handled air defense that day, how it reacted and managed the entire government response to the attacks, vs. it's public statements, and how sincere it was (and is...) about doing what is neccessary to find out what went wrong with the governments handling or pre-attack intelligence, and the response that day, and what improvements to make to lessen the government failures that happened before, during, and after the attack, related to the attack. A first, good faith, test for the Bush administration, in the aftermath of the attacks, would have been to support a full, independent investigation into what happened.

Instead, we got threats and stonewalling, and resistance to co-operation from them, and then....to justify an invasion of Iraq, we got outright lies, from them, all the way up to Cheney's lies, just this past sunday.

It might be because the same administration that tried to prevent an official, independent investigation of the 9/11 attacks, refused to testify publicly, under oath, before the commission, refused to co-operate with the investigation of the 9/11 commission, that was convened, over the administration's objections, and refused to accept key findings of the 9/11 Commission....(example: That there was no connection the resulted in co-operation....between Saddam's Iraqi government, an al-Qaeda.)
<b>Rice refuses to testify under oath, before the 9/11 commission:</b>
NIST has not yet determined why WTC7, the only tall, steel framed structure ever to collapse as a result of fire damage, did fall....less than 8 hours after fire broke out in the building. It's been five years since that building collapsed, and the NIST "finidings" are at least a year behind schedule. Even though architects and fire code planners throughout the world, have a compelling "need" to find out why WTC7 collapsed, NIST decided not to increase it's staff when it was tasked by the US government, to determine why WTC towers 1, 2, and 7 collpased, almost at a free fall speed, on 9/11 2001.

Other indications that there are "too many holes", in the administration's version of what happened on 9/11, can be found in this thread's OP, and in my other posts on this thread. The most compelling argument, is...that when it comes to "live or death" matters, the official statements of the Bush administration have been disproved too many times, as outright lies, or deliberately misleading propaganda:
<b>Please read the last paragraph in the preceding quote box, before continuing:</b>

In a post earlier this week, here:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...24&postcount=3
I offered at least 16 news reports, many with links, that contradicted VP Cheney's comments, last sunday, to Tim Russert, on national TV, with regard to Cheney's "answer", that invasion of Iraq was justified, because
<b>Do you trust what the Bush administration tells you, politicophile, and why would you?</b>