Tag: 9/11

by Tom Engelhardt:

Let me put American life in the Age of Terror into some kind of context, and then tell me you’re not ready to get on the nearest plane heading anywhere, even toward Yemen.

In 2008, 14,180 Americans were murdered, according to the FBI.  In that year, there were 34,017 fatal vehicle crashes in the U.S. and, so the U.S. Fire Administration tells us, 3,320 deaths by fire.  More than 11,000 Americans died of the swine flu between April and mid-December 2009, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; on average, a staggering 443,600 Americans die yearly of illnesses related to tobacco use, reports the American Cancer Society; 5,000 Americans die annually from food-borne diseases; an estimated 1,760 children died from abuse or neglect in 2007; and the next year, 560 Americans died of weather-related conditions, according to the National Weather Service, including 126 from tornadoes, 67 from rip tides, 58 from flash floods, 27 from lightning, 27 from avalanches, and 1 from a dust devil.

As for airplane fatalities, no American died in a crash of a U.S. carrier in either 2007 or 2008, despite 1.5 billion passengers transported.  In 2009, planes certainly went down and people died.  In June, for instance, a French flight on its way from Rio de Janeiro to Paris disappeared in bad weather over the Atlantic, killing 226.  Continental Connection Flight 3407, a regional commuter flight, crashed into a house near Buffalo, New York, that February killing 50, the first fatal crash of a U.S. commercial flight since August 2006.  And in January 2009, US Airways Flight 1549, assaulted by a flock of birds, managed a brilliant landing in New York’s Hudson River when disaster might have ensued.  In none of these years did an airplane go down anywhere due to terrorism, though in 2007 two terrorists smashed a Jeep Cherokee loaded with propane tanks into the terminal of Glasgow International Airport.  (No one was killed.)    

The now-infamous Northwest Airlines Flight 253, carrying Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and his bomb-laden underwear toward Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, had 290 passengers and crew, all of whom survived.

Read all of it here… it’s worth it.

“It is nowhere written that the American empire goes on forever.”

–Eugene Jarecki

Is American foreign policy dominated by the idea of military supremacy? Has the military become too important in American life? Jarecki’s shrewd and intelligent polemic would seem to give an affirmative answer to each of these questions.

He may have been the ultimate icon of 1950s conformity and postwar complacency, but Dwight D. Eisenhower was an iconoclast, visionary, and the Cassandra of the New World Order. Upon departing his presidency, Eisenhower issued a stern, cogent warning about the burgeoning “military industrial complex,” foretelling with ominous clarity the state of the world in 2004 with its incestuous entanglement of political, corporate, and Defense Department interests.

“Why We Fight”

99 minutes

Broken into 6 parts:

http://eclipptv.com/viewVideo….

http://eclipptv.com/viewVideo….

http://eclipptv.com/viewVideo….

http://eclipptv.com/viewVideo….

http://eclipptv.com/viewVideo….

http://eclipptv.com/viewVideo….

I’ve always loved the little-known Maurice Hinchey, from New York State.

Back in 2005, I wrote about him in one of my very first Dailykos essays.     Here’s what he said then:

New York congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) delivered a fiery critique of the Bush Administration’s drive to war in Iraq, labeling the push part of a “conspiracy” to deceive Congress and occupy the country.

(snip)

Speaking of the four protesters who spilled their own blood at a military recruiting center, Hinchey said “what they were protesting was the conspiracy of the Administration of George W. Bush to bring about an attack and then an occupation of the country of Iraq, and as a result making the world a much more dangerous and difficult place than it was prior to those actions.”

“It is that conspiracy,” he added, “that conspiracy which has now been documented by among other things official British documents called the Downing Street Memo which are communications between the highest ranking officials of the British government – the head of the British Intelligence, the foreign officer, the prime minister himself.”

Hinchley’s remarks break ranks with most Democrats in Congress, who have been critical of the leadup and operations surrounding the Iraq war, but who have been loath to deliver stinging perorations. The New York Democrat said he saw the trial as somewhat Orwellian — a move towards curtailing speech.

“We do not want to see an end to this democratic republic,” Hinchey quipped. “We want it to be strengthened. We want it to go on forever. We don’t want it to be ended by people who are telling us, or who would like to tell us, what we can do and say and even think. But that’s what this Administration is engaged in.”

No wonder this guy doesn’t get any press.

But check out what he said today:

Rep. Hinchey: Bush ‘intentionally let Bin Laden get away’

Well this is rather interesting.   Hat-tip to Cryptogon.

From Pilots for 9/11 truth dot org:

9/11: PENTAGON AIRCRAFT HIJACK IMPOSSIBLE —

FLIGHT DECK DOOR CLOSED FOR ENTIRE FLIGHT]

(PilotsFor911Truth.org) – Newly decoded data provided by an independent researcher and computer programmer from Australia exposes alarming evidence that the reported hijacking aboard American Airlines Flight 77 was impossible to have existed. A data parameter labeled “FLT DECK DOOR”, cross checks with previously decoded data obtained by Pilots For 9/11 Truth from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) through the Freedom Of Information Act.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 77 departed Dulles International Airport bound for Los Angeles at 8:20 am Eastern Time. According to reports and data, a hijacking took place between 08:50:54 and 08:54:11[1] in which the hijackers allegedly crashed the aircraft into the Pentagon at 09:37:45. Reported by CNN, according to Ted Olson, wife Barbara Olson had called him from the reported flight stating, “…all passengers and flight personnel, including the pilots, were herded to the back of the plane by armed hijackers…”[2]. However, according to Flight Data provided by the NTSB, the Flight Deck Door was never opened in flight. How were the hijackers able to gain access to the cockpit, remove the pilots, and navigate the aircraft to the Pentagon if the Flight Deck Door remained closed?[3]

Founded in August 2006, Pilots For 9/11 Truth is a growing organization of aviation professionals from around the globe. The organization has analyzed Data provided by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) for the Pentagon Attack, the events in Shanksville, PA and the World Trade Center attack. The data does not support the government story. The NTSB/FBI refuse to comment. Pilots For 9/11 Truth do not offer theory or point blame at this point in time. However, there is a growing mountain of conflicting information and data in which government agencies and officials along with Mainstream Media refuse to acknowledge. Pilots For 9/11 Truth Core member list continues to grow.

http://pilotsfor911truth.org/c… for full member list.

Enjoy.  Please pass along to others.   If you doubt the credibility of this site, please check out that bottom link for the member list.  It’s pretty impressive.

Pilots know the “official story” of 9/11 is a lie.  

There’s a great blog out there which is starting to get picked up in what you might call the “mainstream blogosphere” quite a bit.   Mainly in regards to its blogging about Wall Street.   In fact, if you just scroll down the front page right now, you’ll find a great many stories on Wall Street and the economy, and you’ll realize it’s really a fantastic compendium of information.

But what you also might not realize is that this very same blog is a great resource for information on the truth about 9/11.  

I did a quick search on the site and here’s a treasure trove of entries.

Let’s pick one, shall we?

How interesting, and how timely!   Here’s the headline:   Self-Confessed 9/11 “Mastermind” Also Falsely Confessed to Crimes He Didn’t Commit

But wait a minute, the Obama administration is telling me this guy is guilty as sin, no question!   The mainstream bullshit media is also telling me the same thing!   How can there be such a disconnect!?

The thing the Bullshit Media (BM) is not telling us about KSM is that he was waterboarded 183 times in ONE MONTH.

As the Washington Post writes of Guantanamo Bay detainee Abu Zubaida:

President George W. Bush had publicly described him as “al-Qaeda’s chief of operations,” and other top officials called him a “trusted associate” of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and a major figure in the planning of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. None of that was accurate, the new evidence showed.

Okay, maybe they got that one wrong.

But certainly Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s confession that he was the mastermind of 9/11 proves his guilt, right?

Well, as the Telegraph notes today:

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-confessed mastermind of 9/11, was waterboarded 183 times in one month, and “confessed” to murdering the journalist Daniel Pearl, which he did not. There could hardly be more compelling evidence that such techniques are neither swift, nor efficient, nor reliable

If one of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s major confessions (Pearl murder) was false, why should we believe his confession about 9/11?

After all, tough-as-nails Navy Seals usually become hysterical when waterboarded once in training sessions. After 183 waterboarding sessions in a month, I wouldn’t be surprised if KSM also confessed to murdering Lincoln and Kennedy.

The above says it All, whether policy of orders given to invade and occupy others are wrong or right, service in our Military means just what is said by those taking the oath of Military Service to Support and Defend the Constitution of the United States!

9/11 suspects to be tried in N.Y. civilian court

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 4 other detainees will trade Gitmo for U.S. soil

updated 6:51 a.m. ET Nov. 13, 2009

WASHINGTON – Self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be sent to New York to face trial in a civilian federal court, officials said Friday.

NBC News confirmed that Attorney General Eric Holder plans to announce the decision later in the morning.

The Associated Press quoted an Obama administration official who was not authorized to discuss the decision before the announcement, and therefore spoke on condition of anonymity.

by Greg Palast

On September 11, 2001, my office building, the World Trade Center, was attacked by al Qaeda, a murder cult of Saudi Arabians, funded by Saudi Arabians. And so, in response to the Saudis’ attack, America invaded … Afghanistan.

And here we go again. The New York Times (print edition) headline last Friday was: “Pakistani Army, In Its Campaign In Taliban Stronghold, Finds A Hint Of 9/11.”

Google it and you’ll find the Times report repeated and amplified 5,785 times more.

Taliban = 9/11. Taliban = 9/11. Taliban = 9/11.

Your eyelids are getting heavy. Taliban = 9/11. Taliban = 9/11.

It’s the latest hit from the same crew that brought you Saddam = 9/11 and its twin chant, Saddam = WMD, Dick Cheney’s chimerical tropes which the New York Times’ Judith Miller happily channeled to the paper’s front page.

And they’re at it again.

Every war begins with a lie.

Every war begins with a lie. In addition to Saddam = WMD, I’m old enough to remember the Gulf of Tonkin resolution authorizing the war in Vietnam, based on a fictional Vietnamese gunboat attack on our Navy. (White House recordings have Lyndon Johnson gloating privately, “Hell, those damn stupid [US] sailors were just shooting at flying fish.”)

In the Glorious War against the Taliban in Afghanistan, the lie is thus: al Qaeda is “based” in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. If we don’t fight the wily Taliban, as the British once fought the wily Pathan, al Qaeda will attack America again from Talibanistan.

The latest Taliban=9/11 fantasy is a yarn spun wildly outward from the finding of a passport of an al Qaeda flunky who worked with suicide pilot Mohammed Atta in the same mountain area where, years later, a Taliban group operated. It’s a stretch, but when you want to sell a war, it will do.

Read the whole thing…

I posted a diary at Daily Kos earlier today in response to Jerome a Paris’s diary in which he purported to debunk any claim that the invasion of Afghanistan for a pipeline was all conspiracy theory.

There is a teaching moment here; no matter how much you’ve previously researched, there is always more information out there you missed.

I know this, because I missed something very important…