And in addition to my questions on the previous page, baffledking, since you have, on more than one occasion, brought up the BBC’s mistakenly reporting that the already heavily-damaged WTC 7, that had been burning for 7 hours, had collapsed before it actually did, I would like to know what significance do you place on that report?  Do you think the clearly anti-Bush BBC was somehow in on it or new something in advance?  And forgetting the hectic day of the attacks when all incoming news was sketchy, incomplete and prone to human error, do you have any media reports stating the specific targets of 9/11 would be attacked before the actual day of attack?  And if so, would you feel that such a report would represent foreknowledge?  Thanks in advance for your answers.

Yes, BBC did report on WTC7’s collapse 20 minutes early and yes, there are absolutely elements of the BBC and all other mainstream news agencies (especially national agencies) that are “in on it” for lack of a better term.  Let’s get one thing straight:  I’m not claiming Bush masterminded this thing; yes, he was in on it, to be sure, but a conspiracy like this (yes that’s what it was) goes much higher and wider than the GOP.  But before we shoot off talking about “theories” why don’t we debate the facts.  And the facts include (but are not limited to): the melting point of steel, the maximum burning temperature of jet fuel, the law of the conservation of energy, the methods of controlled demolition, the laws of probability, the history of the CIA and al-Qaeda, the presence of thermite in the WTC metal remains, the laws of gravity, the operational procedures of NORAD, the impossibility of cell phone calls at 8000ft, the absence of in-flight phones on the 911 planes, the testimonies of FBI agents, the testimonies of foreign intelligence, the testimonies of hundreds of eye-witnesses, the testimonies of structural engineers, FAA, demolition experts, physicists, police, government aides…...I mean we have to understand that this is not a “fringe” phenomenon of tin-foil hat people, the 9/11 Truth Movement is gigantic, I’m talking about in the millions.  And the people who have done the studies and have come to the conclusion that the government’s story is false are experts in their respective fields…and are often renowned the world over for their research, as is the case for Stephen E. Jones, Jim Fetzer, Webster Tarpley, David R. Griffin and Torin Wolf.

There are hundreds more things that I could post here that prove the government’s story is false but it seems you aren’t really willing to connect the dots.  I am not going to begin speculating on who the true culprits may ultimately be before the fact that the government’s official story is false can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.  I’m trying to show you that that has been proved and that the evidence is there in elephantine proportions if you are willing to spend a couple hours doing your own research and reading.

Prove me wrong on the facts…that’s all I ask.

We have the plan for the war on terror in Afghanstan published and on Bush’s desk two days before 911!
We have spheres of iron and lead in the WTC dust (sign of explosives)
We have the hijackers found alive after the attacks!
We have no wreckage of Flight 77 at the Pentagon
We have no footage of Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon

I can keep going if you want me to…

baffledking - 29 July 2007 06:06 AM

We have the hijackers found alive after the attacks!

No we don’t.  They are dead.  You are just choosing to believe the most outlandish nonsense in order to hold together the most feeble conspiracy theory that collapses once the real facts are looked at, as opposed to the lies and misrepresentations made by the conspiracy sites.  It would be the simplest thing in the world for your mythical conspirators (who just murdered 3,000 human beings) to kill their hijacker patsies to make sure they never talked, but you overlook that simplest of facts and build layer upon layer of your impossible conspiracy. 

baffledking - 29 July 2007 06:06 AM

We have no wreckage of Flight 77 at the Pentagon.

Yes we do! Here is a picture of a portion of a Boenig 757 at the Pentagon after the attack:

baffledking - 29 July 2007 06:06 AM

We have no footage of Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon

There were no video cameras trained on the Pentagon 24/7.  There are plenty of witnesses who saw the plane crash into it.  I dare you to answer me this question:  WHAT HAPPENED TO FLIGHT 77 IF YOU CLAIM IT DIDN’T CRASH INTO THE PENTAGON?! 

Besides, if some tourist did happen to catch Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon, you would simply claim it was a faked video the way you asininely claim any Osama bin Laden video is fake if it destroys your conspiracy charge.  Any evidence that proves Bin Laden’s culpability or releases Bush from blame you twist into your conspiracy.

Whoops, double post.

Rocinante - 29 July 2007 09:23 AM

baffledking - 29 July 2007 06:06 AM

Yes, BBC did report on WTC7’s collapse 20 minutes early and yes, there are absolutely elements of the BBC and all other mainstream news agencies (especially national agencies) that are “in on it” for lack of a better term.

OK, fine.  Then you answer me these questions:

1.) Why did the Iraq state controlled newspaper Al-Nasiriya carry a column headlined “America, An Obsession Called Osama Bin Ladin.”?  In the piece, Ba’ath Party writer Naeem Abd Muhalhal stated that Osama bin Laden “…will try to bomb the Pentagon after he destroys the White House.”  (Many experts believe Flight 93’s target would have been the White House.)  The article went on to say bin Laden “…will strike America on the arm that is already hurting (remember the WTC was already “hurting” from the 1993 bombing!) and that the U.S. “will curse the memory of Frank Sinatra every time he hears his songs” – What is the penultimate Sinatra song? New York, New York!

Oh, by the way, THIS APPEARED 6 WEEKS BEFORE THE 9/11 ATTACKS!

Source: The Congressional Record entered by Senator Fritz Hollings (Democrat, South Carolina)

2.) Why did Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, put his entire military on high alert two weeks before the 9/11 attacks? 

Source: Daily Telegrapharticle by Con Coughlin

OK, you claim Bush was in on it.  Do you believe Saddam Hussein was in on it as well?  Because the above facts clearly point to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq having foreknowledge.

But before we shoot off talking about “theories” why don’t we debate the facts.  And the facts include (but are not limited to): the melting point of steel

The steel need only be weakened to instigate a collapse.

, the maximum burning temperature of jet fuel

Jet fuel was not the only flammable substance in the skyscraper, and the beams weren’t completely melted anyway.

the law of the conservation of energy

Not relevant- a huge gas-filled plane flying at 500 mph crashes into a skyscraper, causes a massive explosion, the force and energy of which weakens the beams and forces the building to collapse.

, the methods of controlled demolition

Require explosives, which were not witnessed or discovered on the building.  You have no proof.

,

the laws of probability

Like the probablity that the US government would start a war by flying innocent passengers into buildings filled with innocent people (and their own employees), and then the probablity that they would frame an organization that already hates us and previously attacked us, and then the probablity that all this would be done without one shred of evidence?  I’d say the odds are not in your favor.

the history of the CIA and al-Qaeda

No proof of collaboration.  The only thing you can say is that CIA funded muhajadin fighters and Osama was one of those.

, the presence of thermite in the WTC metal remains,

No proof of this presence.  Only assumptions

the laws of gravity

OK

the operational procedures of NORAD,

Yes?

the impossibility of cell phone calls at 8000ft

Where are you getting this elevation?  The terrorists turned off the plane’s transponders.  Why would people fake their own phone calls?  Why would the CIA go to the trouble to do all this?  How would it be possible to fake this on such a scale that it wouldn’t leak?

, the absence of in-flight phones on the 911 planes

You have evidence of this?

, the testimonies of FBI agents

What testimonies?

, the testimonies of foreign intelligence,

What does that have to do with it?

the testimonies of hundreds of eye-witnesses,

None of whom claim that they saw a cruise missile, or fake planes, or detonators, or anything that would provide concrete evidence.

the testimonies of structural engineers,

Please provide

FAA,

Please provide

demolition experts,

Please provide

physicists,

Please provide

police,

Please provide

government aides

Who cares?

......I mean we have to understand that this is not a “fringe” phenomenon of tin-foil hat people, the 9/11 Truth Movement is gigantic, I’m talking about in the millions.  And the people who have done the studies and have come to the conclusion that the government’s story is false are experts in their respective fields…and are often renowned the world over for their research, as is the case for Stephen E. Jones, Jim Fetzer, Webster Tarpley, David R. Griffin and Torin Wolf.

Just because there are many people who believed Loose Change (should be called Loose Facts) does not mean that there is evidence to support a grand conspiracy.  Have these experts bothered to explain how this complicated conspiracy could be pulled off and what direct evidence there is to support it?  It is unlikely because there is no evidence.  Also, you will find many more experts that can easily explain the unique events of that day.  This was an unprecedented attack with many variables that can’t be replicated.  I doubt that the average “expert” would be able to explain what happened unless they were entirely familiar with all the variables of the situation.

It is entirely clear to me that baffledking has offered no proof that he does not work for he CIA because he is, in fact, working for the CIA.  Moreover, given how much he knows about this conspiracy, I suggest that he was in on it - how else can he have so much inside information?  Someone should inform the authorities, if they can find any authorities who weren’t in on it with him.

You keep going on about the implausibility of a conspiracy instead of examining the evidence I am putting forward.  Prove to me that thermite was absent from the collapse of the WTC.  Prove to me that the GOP had no foreknowledge.  Prove to me that Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.  Prove to me that fire can bring down a building into it’s footprint at freefall speed.  Prove to me that jet fuel fire can melt steel.  Prove to me that 1000lb pieces of metal can bounce 8 miles from a crash site.  Prove to me that cellphones worked at 8000ft in 2001.  Prove to me that cockpit recorders pick up conversations in the cabin.  Prove to me that NORAD followed standard procedures.  Prove to me there were no wargames going on during 911.  Prove to me that the US government never conspired to murder its own citizens and blame another party.

It would do you well to read J. Plummer’s 1 hour Guide to 9-11

Here’s the introduction:

If one group accuses another of being delusional, they ought to prepare convincing evidence.

For many years now, the mainstream media has played a key role in maintaining the government’s official account of 9/11. In all respects, it has done a brilliant job of filtering out everything that might undermine the government’s claims, while simultaneously demonizing anyone who dares to challenge those claims.

So let’s get right to it: Is it really baseless idiocy that drives people to question the official account of 9/11? Are the millions of Americans (including Senators, FBI agents, Doctors, Lawyers, Professors, Scientists, Engineers, etc.) all paranoid loons for suggesting we need a truly independent investigation of 9/11? The government and media would have you think so. They’d also (to help maintain that perception) need to keep you diverted from the information you’re about to read.

The truth is, for decades our government has been doing very nasty things that most Americans would never believe to be true. The truth is, the media has fed you a steady diet of meaningless news stories instead of sharing information that is vitally important to the future of this country. The truth is, if it wasn’t for the internet (which the media is now demonizing and the government is trying to get control of) most of us would have never known how badly our leaders have lied to us.

Let’s start with the main assertion:

“It is crazy to think corrupt elements within our government intentionally LET the attacks on 9/11 happen so they could be used as a pretext for war. Furthermore, it is even crazier to suggest corrupt elements might have actually facilitated the attacks.” 

Now to be fair, I will admit it is utterly insane to intentionally provoke and allow an attack against one’s own country. I agree it is even more insane (and criminal) to facilitate such an attack; sacrificing innocent human beings so the “outrage” could be used as a pretext for an already-established military agenda. ...Psychotic tyrants in other countries might resort to this type of “false flag” operation, but would our own government ever conspire to do the same? The answer might surprise you.

A hypothetical scenario:

Imagine if the President of the United States came on television and announced that Iraq had shot down a civilian airliner filled with American students on vacation. Imagine if there were no survivors, only grieving parents who had lost their children at the hands of a crazed and arrogant dictator. Imagine if all that remained of the plane and its crew was the frantic tape of its pilot’s final transmission: “Mayday, Mayday, we are being tailed by an Iraqi Fighter…we need help up here and fast…mayday, do you copy…” and then the sound of an explosion, screaming, then silence.

Now, imagine in the midst of the “outrage” and calls for Saddam’s head on a platter, some “idiot conspiracy theorist” stood up and said:

“It’s all a lie! Iraq is innocent of the charges against it!!! Our government was behind the whole thing! They loaded a civilian airliner with FAKE passengers, flew the plane to a secret location, unloaded the fake passengers and replaced the original plane with a remote-controlled drone that was painted up to look like the original. They then had a FAKE Iraqi Fighter Jet (it was really an American Fighter painted to LOOK LIKE an Iraqi Fighter) chase after the remote controlled drone. Then, they transmitted a FAKE “Mayday” signal from the drone just before blowing it up! It was all a set up so we could frame and attack Iraq!”

In the above hypothetical scenario, who would you be more likely to believe? The president (with the media backing him up) or the “crazy conspiracy theorist?” 

Well, substitute “Iraq and Saddam” for “Cuba and Castro” and you’ve got The Northwood’s Document. The Northwood’s Document is an official United States government plan to provoke and allow attacks to be used as a pretext for invading Cuba. The plan goes further to suggest, if provocation does not work, we could “attack ourselves” and blame Cuba. It even speaks of completely fabricating an attack to be used as a pretext. President Kennedy rejected the plan just prior to being assassinated. Had he not, this plan would have led to war and the death of many thousands based on total lies. Even worse, it might have led to a nuclear exchange with Russia: millions dead, based on lies. 

Here are some of the highlights from this now declassified document. I have “bolded” some words to add emphasis.

“Subject: Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba”

“As requested by Chief of Operations, Cuba Project, the Joint Chiefs of Staff are to indicate brief but precise description of pretexts which they consider would provide justification for US military intervention in Cuba.”

“It is recognized that any action which becomes pretext for US military intervention in Cuba will lead to a political decision which then would lead to military action.”

“It is possible to create an incident which will demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civil airliner enroute from the United States to Jamaica, Guatemala, Panama, or Venezuela. The destination would be chosen only to cause the flight plan route to cross Cuba. The passengers could be a group of college students off on a holiday or any grouping of persons with a common interest to support chartering a non-scheduled flight.

  a. An aircraft at Eglin Air Force Base would be painted and numbered as an exact duplicate for a civil registered aircraft belonging to a CIA proprietary organization in the Miami area. At a designated time, the duplicate would be substituted for the actual civil aircraft and would be loaded with selected passengers, all boarded under carefully prepared aliases. The actual registered aircraft would be converted to a drone.

  b. Take off times of the drone aircraft and the actual aircraft will be scheduled to allow a rendezvous south of Florida. From the rendezvous point the passenger-carrying aircraft will descend to minimum altitude and go directly into an auxiliary field at Eglin Air Force Base where arrangements will have been made to evacuate the passengers and return the aircraft to its original status. The drone aircraft meanwhile will continue to fly the filed flight plan. When over Cuba the drone will being transmitting on the international distress frequency a “May Day” message stating he is under attack by Cuban MIG aircraft. The transmission will be interrupted by destruction of the aircraft which will be triggered by radio signal. This will allow ICAO radio stations in the Western Hemisphere to tell the US what has happened to the aircraft instead of the US trying to “sell” the incident.” 

Other ideas suggested:

“We could blow up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba.”

“Casualty lists in US newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.”

“We could develop a Communist Cuban Terror Campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington. The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban Refugees seeking haven in the United States.”

“We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized. Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government.”
The Northwoods document (available at the National Security Archive) proves beyond any shadow of doubt that our government has openly conspired to completely MANUFACTURE a pretext for war. It also gives us an idea of how far the ruling elite are willing to go in order to deceive the American people—how far they are willing to go in order to get what they want.

Now, does this prove corrupt elements in our own government were in some way responsible for the attacks of 9/11? No, but it does irrefutably establish that it’s NOT crazy to suggest it’s possible. As a matter of fact, it proves a person must be ill-informed, delusional, or simply lying to suggest it isn’t possible.

See also An Introduction to False Flag Terror

P.S.  About the airfones:  this passage from Morgan and Henshall’s “9/11 Revealed”:

“American Airlines Boeing 757s were not equipped with in-flight satellite phones for passengers. A call by us to American Airlines’ London Office produced a definitive statement from Laeti Hyver that 757s do not have Airfones. This was confirmed by an email from AA in the US.”

Also, here’s the link to the Project for a New American Century’s (PNAC’s) Rebuilding America’s Defenses essay where, on page 63, the need for a “new Pearl Harbor” is mentioned.

baffledking,

Myself and others have went out of our way to answer many of your questions.  You simply refuse to believe the logical and rational explanations that do not fit with your a priori belief in Bush’s culpability for 9/11.  You go with the most complicated theories every time.  William of Ockham spins in his grave every time you make a post on this topic.  Your mind is made up and closed tight to every single answer to your questions. 

And since you have had so many of your questions answered, I simply request that you answer 2 of mine. Yet you apparently fear to answer them:

1.) Why did the Iraq state controlled newspaper Al-Nasiriya carry a column headlined <u>“America, An Obsession Called Osama Bin Ladin.”</u>?  In the piece, Ba’ath Party writer Naeem Abd Muhalhal stated that Osama bin Laden “…will try to bomb the Pentagon after he destroys the White House.” (Many experts believe Flight 93’s target would have been the White House.) The article went on to say bin Laden “…will strike America on the arm that is already hurting (remember the WTC was already “hurting” from the 1993 bombing!) and that the U.S. “will curse the memory of Frank Sinatra every time he hears his songs” – What is the penultimate Sinatra song? New York, New York!

Oh, by the way, THIS APPEARED 6 WEEKS BEFORE THE 9/11 ATTACKS!

Source: The Congressional Record entered by Senator Fritz Hollings (Democrat, South Carolina)

2.) Why did Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, put his entire military on high alert two weeks before the 9/11 attacks?

Source: Daily Telegraph article by Con Coughlin

Now to use your vernacular, prove to me that Saddam Hussein did not have foreknowledge of the events of 9/11.

In response to ticktock,

The steel need only be weakened to instigate a collapse.

Yes but steel must melt if it is to become molten steel.

Jet fuel was not the only flammable substance in the skyscraper, and the beams weren’t completely melted anyway.

NIST reported maximum upper layer air temperatures of about 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,800 degrees Fahrenheit) in the WTC towers. Steel melts at 1370 degrees C (2500°F).  So how do you explain the molten metal in all three buildings?

From StopTheLie.com ”...nothing short of controlled demolition has ever brought down a steel framed building in the manner we witnessed on 9/11. Never, not once, not even close. This of course includes fire, earthquakes, wind, poor construction, etc.” I would add to this that a collision with a plane has also never brought down a steel-framed building in pre-911 history.

a huge gas-filled plane flying at 500 mph crashes into a skyscraper, causes a massive explosion, the force and energy of which weakens the beams and forces the building to collapse.

The WTC was designed to sustain multiple impacts with fully-loaded 707s

[the methods of controlled demolition] Require explosives, which were not witnessed or discovered on the building.  You have no proof.

On the contrary: there is a plethora of evidence to support the controlled demolition theory.

From James Fetzer, Ph.D. (source)

(1) the impact of the planes cannot have caused enough damage to bring the
buildings down, since the buildings were designed to withstand them (as Frank
DeMartini, the project manager, has observed), the planes that hit were very
similar to those they were designed to withstand, they continued to stand after
the impact with negligible effects;

(2) the melting point of steel at 2,800*F is about 1,000*F higher than the
maximum burning temperature of jet-fuel-based fires, which do not exceed 1,800*F
under optimal conditions, so the fires cannot have caused the steel to melt,
which means that melting steel did not bring the buildings down;

(3) UL certified the steel in the buildings up to 2,000*F for at least six hours
before it would even significantly weaken, where these fires burned too low and
too briefly—about one hour in the South Tower and one and a half in the
North—to have even caused the steel to weaken, much less melt;

(4) if the steel had melted or weakened, the buildings would have displayed
completely different behavior, with some asymmetrical sagging and tilting, which
would have been gradual and slow, not the complete, abrupt, and total demolition
that was observed;

(5) there was not enough kinetic energy for the collapse of one floor to bring
about the collapse of the next lower floor, even if the impact of the planes and
the ensuing fires had been enough to cause the steel to weaken, which means
that, even if one floor had collapsed due to the impacts and the fires, that
could not have caused lower floors to fall;

(6) there was not enough kinetic energy for the collapse of one floor to bring
about the pulverization of the next floor, even if the impact of the planes and
the ensuing fires had been enough to cause the steel to weaken and one floor to
collapse upon another, which required a massive source of energy beyond any that
the government has considered;

(7) the destruction of the South Tower in 10 seconds and of the North in 11 is
even faster than free fall with only air resistance, which would have taken 12
seconds, which, as Judy Wood has emphaized, is an astounding result that would
have been impossible without extremely powerful explosives;

(8) the towers are exploding from the top, not collapsing to the ground, where
the floors do not move, a phenomenon that Judy Wood has likened to two gigantic
trees turning to sawdust from the top down, which, like the pulverization of the
concrete, the official account cannot possibly explain;

(9) pools of molten metal were found at the subbasement levels three, four, and
five weeks later, an effect that could not have been produced by the
plane-impact/jet-fuel-fire/pancake collapse scenario, which, of course, implies
that it was not produced by such a cause;

(10) WTC-7 came down in a classic controlled demolition at 5:20 PM/ET after
Larry Silverstein suggested the best thing to do might be to “pull it”,
displaying all the characteristics of classic controlled demolitions, including
a complete, abrupt, and total collapse into its own footprint, where the floors
are all falling at the same time, and so forth, an event so embarrassing to the
official account that it is not even mentioned in THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT;

Would you prefer visuals with that? You have an extra 10 minutes?  Watch this

Like the probablity that the US government would start a war by flying innocent passengers into buildings filled with innocent people (and their own employees), and then the probablity that they would frame an organization that already hates us and previously attacked us, and then the probablity that all this would be done without one shred of evidence?  I’d say the odds are not in your favor.

There was a time when I would have agreed with you.  But the readily available documented history of “false flag” operations has led me to believe otherwise.

Alex Jones goes through several examples of past false flag terror (US and other) in his ‘Terrorstorm’ documentary

On the other hand, the probabilty that three steel-framed buildings would undergo perfect collapse due to fires for the first time in history, that 1000lb plane parts would land 8 miles from the plane’s crash site, that a 757 would vaporise upon impact with the pentagon without leaving any distinguishable wreckage, that the alleged hijackers were living in the US with an FBI agent, that cell phone calls were made from 8000ft for the first time in history, that hijacked plane wargames were coincidentally being conducted by NORAD during the 9/11 attacks, that the 9/11 Commission thought WTC 7 was too insignificant to include in its report, that Cheney’s Afghan pipeline had nothing to do with the war, that BBC accidentally reported on WTC7’s collapse 20 minutes before it fell, that Bush accidentally recalled seeing the first plane hit the WTC, that molten metal inexplicably appeared at the bottom of all three WTC rubble piles….the probability that all these phenomena (and more) occured by random chance collectively has got to be close to 1 in a trillion.

The only thing you can say is that CIA funded muhajadin fighters and Osama was one of those.

No that is not the only thing you can say.  You can say much more about “al-CIAda:”

”Blowback”: The 1993 World Trade Center Bombing and After
At 18 minutes past noon on 26 February 1993, a huge truck bomb exploded in the underground parking garage beneath the twin towers of the New York World Trade Center. ... (9/11 Commission Report, chapter 3, p.71. [HTML version])...
The ensuing FBI investigation led to (amongst others) “terrorist mastermind” Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who was subsequently convicted on various terrorist charges, including a plot to bomb New York landmarks such as the UN building, the FBI headquarters and the Holland Tunnel.

Rahman’s record is revealing. Born in Egypt, he was “spiritual mentor” of several Islamist groups. These included Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which was later to “merge” with al-Qaeda, and more especially Jama’a Islamiya (the Islamic Group), which had formed from a split with Jihad (and was later to partially remerge with it). Rahman played a leading role in recruiting foreign Islamic fighters against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and also raised finance for the “holy war”. He was issued a US entry visa in 1987. In 1990, Rahman was interviewed in Khartoum, Sudan, by the CIA’s area station chief. He was subsequently issued with a multiple-entry visa by an undercover CIA operative who worked in the consular section of the US embassy there. This included the coveted green-card — permanent-resident — status. (Official statements later put down the visas to a series of computer errors; and the fact that the consular official was a CIA agent was dismissed as “sheer coincidence”.) On entering the US, Rahman went to the al-Khifah “refugee center” in Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue, New York, the front for raising anti-Soviet fighters ... He was also a “central figure” at the Farouq mosque next door, and also preached at a mosque in nearby Jersey City.
(Richard Labévière, Dollars For Terror, pp.221-4 [he refers to Newsweek as confirming the visa story, but fails to give a specific reference]; Peter L Bergen, Holy War, Inc: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden [Weidenfield & Nicholson, London, 2001], pp.72-3 [his reference is Marguerite Michaels, “Martyrs for the Sheik”, Time magazine, 19 July 1993]; 9/11 Commission Report, chapter 3, p.72 [HTML version])

Ramzi Youssef, the man who parked the truck bomb under the WTC, was himself an “Arab Afghan” who learned the arts of terrorism in Peshawar, Pakistan. And he had, according to a classified FBI file, been recruited by the local branch of the CIA. (His uncle, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [KSM], was to become the “mastermind” of 9/11.) (Labévière, Dollars For Terror, pp.220-1. 9/11 Commission Report, chapter 3, p.73. [HTML version]) ...

“A confidential CIA internal survey concluded that it was ‘partly culpable’ for the World Trade Center bomb, according to reports of the time. There had been blowback.” (Andrew Marshall, “Terror ‘blowback’ burns CIA”, Independent on Sunday [UK], 1 Nov. 1998) However, as Michel Chossudovsky comments, “The ‘blowback’ thesis is a fabrication. The evidence amply confirms that the CIA never severed its ties to the ‘Islamic Militant Network’. ...” (“Osamagate”, Center For Global Research, Oct. 2001)

Some of the future “9/11 hijackers” were discovered “by association with” the 1993 plotters in the “data-mining” operation Able Danger in 1999. (Mosque links between Mohammed Atta and Rahman are specifically mentioned. Jacob Goodwin, “Inside Able Danger ...”, Government Security News (23-24 Aug. 2005)) Fifteen of their number were also to obtain US visas with ease at the “CIA-dominated” US consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. (See “The Hijackers”.)

The FBI investigation into the later US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam in 1998 was said to have found that the traces from the explosions came from an American military explosive, of the type of which the CIA had apparently given to the “Arab Afghans” just three years before.

And on 9/11 itself we find John Fulton, the former director of the “National Security Space Master Plan for the U.S. Department of Defense and Intelligence Space Communities”, directing an airplane-into-building “exercise” at the National Reconnaissance Office.

Oh, and Rocinante, I don’t know why you are championing the fact the Saddam Hussein had foreknowledge as evidence that I am wrong when it is in fact evidence in favor of what I am saying.

The plan was in the works, many people knew about it (US and foreign), Saddam knew the consequences so he beefed up his defenses.  Iraq has been in bed with the CIA and MI6 for decades upon decades.  You know that.  Hussein learned the lesson the hard way that if you can’t beat ‘em and won’t join ‘em then you will be destroyed by them.

P.S. I really do appreciate your taking the time to read my questions and offer your opinions.  I apologise if my words implied otherwise.

Prove to you all those things?  Nice way to shift the burden of proof.  I don’t have to prove a thing because you are the one making the outrageous claims.  Many of which can be answered here…

http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm

You keep going on about the implausibility of a conspiracy instead of examining the evidence I am putting forward.  Prove to me that thermite was absent from the collapse of the WTC.

The following is from the people who studied the subject thoroughly (and didn’t do their research on conspiracy sites)

Furthermore, a very large quantity of thermite (a mixture of powdered or granular aluminum metal and powdered iron oxide that burns at extremely high temperatures when ignited) or another incendiary compound would have had to be placed on at least the number of columns damaged by the aircraft impact and weakened by the subsequent fires to bring down a tower. Thermite burns slowly relative to explosive materials and can require several minutes in contact with a massive steel section to heat it to a temperature that would result in substantial weakening. Separate from the WTC towers investigation, NIST researchers estimated that at least 0.13 pounds of thermite would be required to heat each pound of a steel section to approximately 700 degrees Celsius (the temperature at which steel weakens substantially). Therefore, while a thermite reaction can cut through large steel columns, many thousands of pounds of thermite would need to have been placed inconspicuously ahead of time, remotely ignited, and somehow held in direct contact with the surface of hundreds of massive structural components to weaken the building. This makes it an unlikely substance for achieving a controlled demolition.

Prove to me that the GOP had no foreknowledge

. 

They did have foreknowledge.  The memo titled “Bin Laden determined to Strike America”.  Prove to me that they knew the exact flights, the exact targets, or that they planned it- because foreknowledge and planning are two completely different things.

Prove to me that Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.

The proof:  There is a plane missing.  This plane was hijacked by terrorists in a day that was witnessed by several relevant people (such as people who saw a plane crash into the pentagon, etc…).  These terrorists crashed it into the pentagon (our defense headquarters).  There is a huge well-documented path of destruction (lightpoles that were bent beyond any other possible explanation), there is plane debris and a huge gaping hole in the side of the pentagon, and there is NO EVIDENCE that anything but a plane crashed into the facility.  Not to mention, there are several people who had to clean up the site, and some of these people would have had a moral conscience.

Prove to me that fire can bring down a building into it’s footprint at freefall speed.

NIST estimated the elapsed times for the first exterior panels to strike the ground after the collapse initiated in each of the towers to be approximately 11 seconds for WTC 1 and approximately 9 seconds for WTC 2. These elapsed times were based on: (1) precise timing of the initiation of collapse from video evidence, and (2) ground motion (seismic) signals recorded at Palisades, N.Y., that also were precisely time-calibrated for wave transmission times from lower Manhattan (see NCSTAR 1-5A). 

As documented in Section 6.14.4 of NIST NCSTAR 1, these collapse times show that:

“… the structure below the level of collapse initiation offered minimal resistance to the falling building mass at and above the impact zone. The potential energy released by the downward movement of the large building mass far exceeded the capacity of the intact structure below to absorb that energy through energy of deformation.

Since the stories below the level of collapse initiation provided little resistance to the tremendous energy released by the falling building mass, the building section above came down essentially in free fall, as seen in videos. As the stories below sequentially failed, the falling mass increased, further increasing the demand on the floors below, which were unable to arrest the moving mass.”

In other words, the momentum (which equals mass times velocity) of the 12 to 28 stories (WTC 1 and WTC 2, respectively) falling on the supporting structure below (which was designed to support only the static weight of the floors above and not any dynamic effects due to the downward momentum) so greatly exceeded the strength capacity of the structure below that it (the structure below) was unable to stop or even to slow the falling mass. The downward momentum felt by each successive lower floor was even larger due to the increasing mass.

From video evidence, significant portions of the cores of both buildings (roughly 60 stories of WTC 1 and 40 stories of WTC 2) are known to have stood 15 to 25 seconds after collapse initiation before they, too, began to collapse. Neither the duration of the seismic records nor video evidence (due to obstruction of view caused by debris clouds) are reliable indicators of the total time it took for each building to collapse completely.

Prove to me that jet fuel fire can melt steel.

Some people have made that statement, but not the official report.  The official report is that the steel was weakened, which I’ve already explained. 

Prove to me that 1000lb pieces of metal can bounce 8 miles from a crash site.

Huh?  Give some frame of reference for all your crap.  I can’t keep up.

Prove to me that cellphones worked at 8000ft in 2001.

 

Prove to me that these calls were made at 8000ft.  Prove to me that they can’t be made.  Prove to me a plausible explanation for why these people would make those calls.

Prove to me that cockpit recorders pick up conversations in the cabin.

 

What are you talking about?  Where is this coming from?  I can’t prove to you things that you can’t even cite a source for.  Find me a reliable non-conspiracy source for this claim.

Prove to me that NORAD followed standard procedures.

 

Prove to me that NORAD was in on a conspiracy.  It keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger.  Oh, and yeah, what the hell are you talking about?  Give me a source, so I can thoroughly debunk you.  I hate having to do all the work here.

Prove to me there were no wargames going on during 911

. 

There were wargames.  This is well-known.  So what?

Prove to me that the US government never conspired to murder its own citizens and blame another party.

That is something that you will have to prove to me.  You have yet to do that.  I noticed in the introduction you cited that he talked about North Woods, a proposed operation that NEVER HAPPENED.  Why?  Because it was immediately dismissed as a bad idea.  This proposal is not evidence of anything at all. 

When you say US government, who are you talking about?  You do realize that these are elected officials that represent the citizens you claim they murdered?  You do realize that such a conspiracy would have to be known by many people for all the various aspects to work, and that the wider the net you cast (BBC anybody?) the more improbable it is that this occured.

Again, you are the one with the burden, and you are the one who keeps coming back with weak evidence.

The end.

alleged hijackers were living in the US with an FBI agent, that cell phone calls were made from 8000ft for the first time in history, that hijacked plane wargames were coincidentally being conducted by NORAD during the 9/11 attacks,

These are all conspiracy propoganda films that prove nothing.  You are citing sources from people who are highly biased, and or are making assumptions to fit their wild theories.  I can tell that a video has bogus facts when I hear the narrator for Loose Change (the guy who thinks there were TOW missiles underneath fake planes), when I hear anxious-music, and when I see some dude being interviewed by an infomercial actor.

I completely understand why you are confused on this issue.  These videos are all propoganda for conspiracy.

the probability that all these phenomena (and more) occured by random chance collectively has got to be close to 1 in a trillion

You are assuming that these are are phenomena and are all veritable facts.  Each individual thing you’ve cited can be and has been debunked or is proof using backwards logic (Cheney had a pipeline, therefore Cheney must have conspired to kill his own citizens).  So, when you make a list of equivocations, assumptions, and circumstantial facts- what you’ve got is a red herring of improbability.  What you need is a list of concrete evidence of conspiracy multiplied by a rational explanation of who and how this conspiracy was perpetrated, and THEN you will have a case.  Right now, you aren’t convincing me.

More responses to ticktock,

No proof of this presence [of thermite].  Only assumptions

If the word “proof” is too strong for you then you must at least admit that the evidence of thermite is substantial enough to warrant a proper investigation of the three towers’ collapse.

To quote Stephen E. Jones Ph.D., (25 page treatise in above link)

Seventeen reasons for advancing the controlled-demolition hypothesis while challenging the “official” fire-caused collapse hypothesis are delineated here. (No rebuttal can be complete, of course, unless it addresses all of these points.)

1. Molten Metal, Flowing and in Pools
2. High Temperatures and Sulfidation in WTC 7 Steel
3. Near-Symmetrical Collapse of WTC 7
4. No Previous Steel-frame Skyscraper Collapses Due to Fires, None
5. Squib-timing During WTC 7 Collapse
6. Early Drop of North Tower Antenna
7. Eyewitness Accounts of Flashes and Loud Explosions
8. Ejection of Steel Members and Debris-plumes, Towers
9. “Burning Questions that Need Answers” [the official theory of jetfuel does not satisfy the science]
10. Controlled Demolition “Implosions” Require Skill [not randomness]
11. Faculty at WTC Review [and at universities all around the world] Support [further] Investigation
12. Comments on Paper by Bazant and Zhou [pointing out that WTC was designed to sustain plane impacts]
13. Final NIST Report on WTC Towers [leaves many unanswered questions, especially concerning WTC 7]
14. Support from New Civil Engineering Article [which is opposed to NIST report]
15. Analysis by Whistleblower Kevin Ryan [shows probability for official collapse theory to be less than 1 in a trillion]
16. Rapid Collapses and Conservation of Momentum [absent from NIST report]
17. Inconsistencies in “Official” Models [i.e. they can’t get their story straight]

NORAD, FAA, procedures not followed:

From [url=http://www.druckversion.studien-von-zeitfragen.net/Chapter V.htm]The War On Freedom: Chapter V.
The Collapse of Standard Operating Procedures on 9-11[/url]

[T]here was a huge gap between when fighter jets were scrambled and 8:20 a.m., when Flight 11’s hijacking was fully confirmed. Secondly, there was a long gap before the fighters from Otis obeyed their already long overdue scrambling orders. Two F-15 Eagles managed to take off from the Otis ANG Base at 8:52 a.m.—8 minutes after being ordered to do so, which is almost triple the normal time for such aircraft to go from “scramble order” to 29,000 feet. Almost 32 minutes thus passed between the confirmation of the hijackings of Flight 11 and 175 and the scrambling of the intercept fighters—an ominous anomaly that has yet to be investigated.[27]

At 9:03 a.m., eighteen minutes after Flight 11’s crash, Flight 175 smashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Centre, near the 90th floor. By this time, as noted by the New York Press: “When the second tower was hit the fighters were still 70 miles from Manhattan.”[28]

But this should not have been a problem. The U.S. had eighteen minutes after the first plane hit the WTC in which to intercept Flight 175. New York City, where the WTC is based, is only 71 miles from McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, a major and active facility. An F-15 strike eagle flies at 1850+ nmps, equivalent to Mach 2.5+. According to the U.S. Air Force’s own website, as a matter of routine the aircraft goes from “scramble order” to 29000 feet in only 2.5 minutes. At Mach 2, an F-15 could travel from the ground in New Jersey’s Air Force Base to New York in under 7 minutes, and thus could have easily intercepted Flight 175. Yet this never happened.

The New York Press has also addressed the anomalies in the new ‘official’ version of events in detail:

“Clearly another, more comforting, story was needed, and on the evening of Sept. 14 CBS launched it by revealing that the FAA had indeed alerted U.S. air defense units of a possible hijacking at 8:38 a.m. on Tuesday, that six minutes later two F-15s received a scramble order at Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod and that by 8:56 the F-15s were racing toward New York. Unfortunately, the fighters were still 70 miles away when the second jet hit the south tower. Meanwhile, at 9:30 a.m., three F-16s were launched from Langley Air Force base, 150 miles south of Washington. But just seven minutes later, at 9:37 a.m., Flight 77 smashed into the Pentagon. The F-16s arrived in Washington just before 10 a.m.

This story, which has now become the ‘official’ version, raises more questions than it answers. F-15s can travel at speeds of 1875 mph while F-16s can travel at 1500 mph. If it took the F-16s half an hour to cover 150 miles, they could not have been traveling at more than 300 mph—at 20 percent capability. Boeing 767s and 757s have cruising speeds of 530 mph. Talk about a lack of urgency! Assuming Otis Air National Guard Base is about 180 miles away from Manhattan it should have taken the F-15s less than six minutes to get here. Moreover, since Washington, DC, is little more than 200 miles from New York, the two F‑15 fighters would have had time to get to DC, intercept Flight 77 and grab breakfast on the way.

Ah, but of course the transponders were turned off. So no one could keep track of the planes. If it were true that the moment a transponder is turned off a plane becomes invisible there would be no defense against enemy aircraft. Normal radar echo return from the metal surface of an aircraft would still identify it on the radar scope.”[29]

Indeed, according to the Canadian Defense website, ‘Canada-United States Defense Regulations’:

“NORAD uses a network of ground-based radars, sensors and fighter jets to detect, intercept and, if necessary, engage any threats to the continent… Through outstanding cooperation and cohesiveness, NORAD has proven itself effective in its roles of watching, warning and responding.”[30] 

Even if we believe the later version of events espoused by the U.S. government, claiming that planes were scrambled prior to the Pentagon crash, a close analysis of this new official account only confirms the consistent failure to respond in accordance with Standard Operating Procedures.

Flight 77 had first deviated from its flight plan at about 8:46 a.m.. The New York Times noted that: “within a few minutes more… [i.e. 8:50] controllers would have known that… Flight 77 had probably been hijacked.”[32] This was probably because “controllers at Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center—who handled American Airlines Flight 77, which hit the Pentagon—knew about the hijacking of American Flight 11 even before it crashed.”[33] Indeed, at 9:00 a.m., Flight 77’s transponder signal ceased, as the plane flew back straight towards Washington DC. All this would normally have sufficed to compel the FAA to notify the military to scramble fighter craft, and in the extraordinary circumstances which had occurred with the hijacking of Flights 11 and 175 already confirmed, this would have been doubly necessary.

And again, when the first hijacked plane crashed into the World Trade Center, the emergency responses of U.S. air safety and defense systems should have been intensified. Apart from the fact that the Pentagon should already have been monitoring events, the country’s emergency services were externally notified almost immediately. According to Newsday, at “9:06, Washington notifies all air traffic facilities nationwide of the suspected hijacking of Flight 11.”[34] The Pentagon was notified of the emergency simultaneously. New York Police broadcast at 9:06 a.m. that: “This was a terrorist attack. Notify the Pentagon.”[35] Flight 77 hit the Pentagon at around 9:40a.m..

NORAD Commander Gen. Eberhart claimed in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the FAA had failed to notify NORAD and the Department of Defense that the flight was heading toward Washington DC and had probably been hijacked, until 9:24 a.m.[36] This implies that there was an inexplicable gap of almost 45 minutes between the time the FAA had lost contact with Flight 77, which was heading directly toward Washinton DC, and the time the FAA notified NORAD. This is despite the fact that it was clear at 9:06 a.m. that what was occurring constituted a terrorist attack.

But anyhow, NORAD would have been monitoring the progress of these flights, including Flight 77, independently, and the Pentagon had already been notified. Indeed, according to the New York Times, “military officials in a command center on the east side of the [Pentagon] were urgently talking to law enforcement officials about what to do.”[37] Taken into context with the fact that the Pentagon had been externally notified to the national emergency as early as 9:06, this means that military officials refused to scramble fighters for at least 20 minutes. The implications of this gap are even more ominous given that NORAD apparently chose not to scramble fighter craft that were much closer to Washington DC. Instead, they chose to scramble interceptors from Langley Air Force Base, which is 130 miles from Washington—rather than Andrews Air Force Base, which is 10 miles away. The result was that “the fighter planes that scrambled into protective orbits around Washington did not arrive until 15 minutes after Flight 77 hit the Pentagon.”

Why would people fake their own phone calls?  Why would the CIA go to the trouble to do all this?  How would it be possible to fake this on such a scale that it wouldn’t leak?

From Physics911.com,

By A.K. Dewdney,

[C]ellphone calls from commercial aircraft much over 8000 feet are essentially impossible, while those below 8000 feet are highly unlikely down to about 2000, where they become merely unlikely. (Dewdney 2003) Moreover, even at the latter altitude (and below), the handoff problem appears. Any airliner at or below this altitude, flying at the normal speed of approximately 500 mph, would encounter the handoff problem (Dewdney 2003). An aircraft traveling at this speed would not be over the cellsite long enough to complete the electronic “handshake” (which takes several seconds to complete) before arriving over the next cellsite, when the call has to be handed off from the first cellsite to the next one. This also takes a few seconds, the result being, in the optimal case, a series of broken transmissions that must end, sooner or later, in failure.

It must also be remarked that the alleged hijackers of the Cellphone Flight were remarkably lenient with their passengers, allowing some 13 calls. However, it would seem highly unlikely that hijackers would allow any phone calls for the simple reason that passengers could relay valuable positional and other information useful to authorities on the ground, thus putting the whole mission in jeopardy.

(entire research paper here)

the absence of in-flight phones on the 911 planes

You have evidence of this?

from Morgan and Henshall’s 9/11 Revealed:

“American Airlines Boeing 757s were not equipped with in-flight satellite phones for passengers. A call by us to American Airlines’ London Office produced a definitive statement from Laeti Hyver that 757s do not have Airfones. This was confirmed by an email from AA in the US.”

American Airlines Boeing 757s were not equipped with in-flight satellite phones for passengers. A call by us to American Airlines’ London Office produced a definitive statement from Laeti Hyver that 757s do not have Airfones. This was confirmed by an email from AA in the US

I see that you wrote this in the present tense.

Ah, but of course the transponders were turned off. So no one could keep track of the planes. If it were true that the moment a transponder is turned off a plane becomes invisible there would be no defense against enemy aircraft. Normal radar echo return from the metal surface of an aircraft would still identify it on the radar scope.”[29]

This was a very confusing day with many airplanes in the air being grounded.  NORAD finding a random plane that has it’s transponder turned off would be like finding a specific mosquito in a bayou.  They were spending all their time trying to catch up with the rest of the drama- two planes hitting targets in NYC.  They made mistakes in all the chaos, but that is not proof that they were part of this ever-expanding conspiracy.

The official word is that the order was given to shoot down the planes, but that the messenger never passed it on because he was worried that the wrong plane would be fired upon.

If the word “proof” is too strong for you then you must at least admit that the evidence of thermite is substantial enough to warrant a proper investigation of the three towers’ collapse.

You’ll have to do better than to link me to somebody’s school paper.  My links that debunk thermite are from NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, who had access to all the evidence and employed various experts to investigate the WTC collapses.  There is no evidence of thermite.