9/11: The September 11th Attacks

[ted_bloody_maul]

Atta may indeed have had some sympathy with Islamic radicalism. Being a Saudi he would have experienced the intolerant Wahabi strand of Islam which may have left him more sympathetic to al-Qaeda.

Sympathetic enough to travel to Afghanistan and attend a terrorist's camp lectures? I can't see why it's so difficult to accept that he had a background in Islamic militancy.

I live in a mainly muslim area and I'm used to the phenomenon of muslim men drinking, gambling, doing drugs and fornicating and then going to mosque on Fridays.It just seems an improbably long way to go from living like that to suicidal terrorism.

Depends whether or not you presuppose someone who is prepared to kill himself and thousands of others is likely to behave in a consistent and reasonable manner. I don't. Look at David Koresh, for example. Sincere? Probably. Behaviour consistent with professed beliefs? Probably not.

I suspect the hijackers didn't really know who they were working for. Their sponsor organization could have been indirectly cultivated by the CIA from the start.A introduces B to C, who like them reads blogs by shaikh/imam X, spiritual leader of movement Y.He knows of a madrasa in country Z. etc. etc.
Nobody in this disparate underworld really knows who everyone really is or where they came from, and infiltration, manipulation and orchestration would be so easy. The Pakistan ISI chief's donation of 100 00 dollars to someone using the name Mohammed Atta just days before 9/11 deepens the mystery still further, and who's to say he hadn't been misled too?
There are so many contradictions about the hijackers. Nutjobs, patsies, or players?

Perhaps. But then there's no evidence for any of this and to suspect as much is simply a leap of faith based on prejudice.

Why did Atta's luggage contain an airline uniform he would never have had the chance to put on, and his will- which would never have been read unless left at the airport?A recent exchange about the passenger list failed to elicit the actual list - I still maintain that Atta's name wasn't on it.

Where is the evidence that he had an airline uniform in his luggage? The basis of this appears to be misreporting. Even if there was a uniform what would this indicate? Any theory which could arise out of it would surely be vastly more implausible than the events as laid out in the official accounts.

 

[Timble2]

That's odd, either times going backwards or the threads unravelling. A bunch of posts seem to have gone AWOL.

 

[Bigfoot73]

Timble - glad it's not just me.Seems to be about the last 36 hours worth.Pity that YouTube vid of Cheney and Atta lunching in the Riyadh Hilton I just posted is now lost forever.Oh well, you'll just have to take my word for it.

 

[Bigfoot73]

Got something on that engine at last. I Googled "9/11 jet engine on pavement" and got all sorts of sources.Some of these soueces are festering pits of consiracist filth, but they have got the photos.
I had remembered it wrong - it was from a Boeing 737, which still isn't a 767 or 757.

 

[Analis]

Why did Atta's luggage contain an airline uniform he would never have had the chance to put on, and his will- which would never have been read unless left at the airport?

The answer is easy. He just hoped that his will would survive the crash, somehow passing through the inferno and landing on the street, where a passerby would find it. :lol:
As for why the names of the hijackers fluctuated on the following days, the reason is simple : everybody knows that FBI agents can't read a passenger's list. Every government agent is either illiterate, blind or mad. Everybody knows that, no ?

Surreal detour to Portland, bogus phone calls, strange content of a will that was where it shouldn't be, noisy terrorists, shifting lists... Why does all of this looks like planted evidence ? Simply because it was planted.

 

[Bigfoot73]

My original reply to Timble has still not reappeared and neither has T,'s original statement .This thread is losing the plot! Some response from the management please?

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

My original reply to Timble has still not reappeared and neither has T,'s original statement .This thread is losing the plot! Some response from the management please?

Quite simple. I pressed the wrong button and lost so much of one Forum, that the only cure was to reset everything to last night's back up

All Posts, on all Threads since last night, until they were reset, have been lost and will not be coming back.

Truly sorry.

 

[Bigfoot73]

Seeing as it's me that the last visible comment was addressed to so I shall reiterate.
Yes, Atta appears to have had a militant background. People's behaviour does not always match their professed beliefs.I still think he wasn't a suicide bomber.
Yes, my theory is entirely speculative. I don't see anything prejudiced about it though.
Yes I concede I was wrong about the uniform.
And yes of course anything other than the official version would be utterly absurd!! Truther suggestions are just barmy aren't they? Well I'm used to averting my gaze from the blinding light of that Shining Beacon of Truth that is the 9/11 Commission Final Report, so here I go again:-
Atta's luggage contained a letter detailing what he wanted done with his body(when he was about to cremate it himself).
An "electronic flight computer"(GameBoy with Microsoft Flight Simulator on it maybe?).
Videos of how to fly a 757 and a 747 (what was he going to watch them on?)
A slide rule (?????)
A large folding knife and a pepper spray (not much use down in the luggage hold)
To be even sillier there's his accomplice al-Omari's luggage: aftershave, hair gel, perfume, passport, cheque book and 20 dollar bill.
Was Atta going to hijack the in-flight movie player while Omari stormed the bathroom?

 

[ted_bloody_maul]

Seeing as it's me that the last visible comment was addressed to so I shall reiterate.
Yes, Atta appears to have had a militant background. People's behaviour does not always match their professed beliefs.I still think he wasn't a suicide bomber.
Yes, my theory is entirely speculative. I don't see anything prejudiced about it though.
Yes I concede I was wrong about the uniform.
And yes of course anything other than the official version would be utterly absurd!!

Maybe - but that wasn't the point being made. The point was that the alleged inconsistencies in the stories of Atta which have been referred to (and it's worth pointing out that you've already conceded a number of them have no substance) amount to nothing indicative of any coherent account contrary to the official one. If the details are incorrect and therefore invented to what end would it be worth inventing them?

For example, why would they say that the luggage he tried to take on the plane had incriminating evidence in it when they could just as easily have said that the evidence was found in his most recent dwelling, for example? It would appear that in the eyes of the truthers erratic behaviour is simply not possible on the part of the accused attackers and yet seems to be systemic in the plans of the 'real' conspirators.

 

[Bigfoot73]

It's been so long since I checked out the details of Atta's luggage that my memory let me down on the uniform, I think that's the only erroneous claim I made.
I think it could safely be said that my critique of the luggage contents amounts to an account contrary to the official one.The evidence was planted and however many times Atta was so fortuitously filmed watching Osama speak his name wasn't on the original passenger list ( just as all the hijackers names are abent from all four passenger lists), he's not on the autopsy report and he didn't get on the plane.

 

[ted_bloody_maul]

It's been so long since I checked out the details of Atta's luggage that my memory let me down on the uniform, I think that's the only erroneous claim I made.

Well there was the matter of the ficticious girlfriend and the claim that he had no background in Islamic militancy...

I think it could safely be said that my critique of the luggage contents amounts to an account contrary to the official one.The evidence was planted and however many times Atta was so fortuitously filmed watching Osama speak his name wasn't on the original passenger list ( just as all the hijackers names are abent from all four passenger lists), he's not on the autopsy report and he didn't get on the plane.

I'm confused as to how it's fortuitous that Atta should have been filmed watching Bin Laden. It happened - unless you're suggesting that it didn't in which case you'd have to prove that it wasn't him (or that Atta is a double agent who the US conspirators had to ham-fistedly fit up after their operation went off according to plan and...well, you can see why the alternatives to the official account are more confused and inconsistent).

Re the autopsy report - is there any evidence for this? And if the claim is true could it be because they haven't recovered a body?

 

[Analogue Boy]

So this capacity, this Operation Noble Eagle, which gives the military far more responsibility and latitude to do this mission now, has allowed us to be far more capable. And we have been involved in every airline incident that we have been asked to perform with, with the Federal Aviation Administration subsequent to 9/11, whether there be a disturbance onboard, whether it be an aircraft emergency, whether it be to protect critical infrastructure, our major population centers. We are there.

MR. LEHMAN: To follow up on that, General Arnold, did you have authority to shoot down 93 when it was heading towards Washington? And where did you get it?

GEN. ARNOLD: A lot of discussion on that. Our intent on United 93 -- the simple answer is, to my knowledge, I did not have authority to shoot that aircraft down. We were informed after the airplane had already hit the ground. That's the simple answer.

MS. GORELICK: I'm sorry, could you say that again? You were informed of what after it hit the ground?

GEN. ARNOLD: We were informed of presidential authority some five minutes after that aircraft had hit the ground, according to our records.

MR. LEHMAN: So you were given it after the fact, presidential authority to shoot it down?

GEN. ARNOLD: To my knowledge. Now, I can tell you that in our discussion with the NORAD staff at that particular time that we -- you know, we intended to intercept that aircraft at some point in time, attempted to deviate that aircraft away from the Washington, D.C. area. There was discussion at that particular time whether or not that aircraft would be shot down. But we, I did not know of presidential shoot down authority until after that aircraft had crashed.

http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/h ... -05-23.htm

 

[Bigfoot73]

Not sure exactly what is so fictitious about his girlfriend.
All my claims about Atta's militant background have been based on my opinion that his background in militancy was manufactured.
All the other pasengers are listed in the autopsy report.Sources to follow.

 

[Bigfoot73]

I've only got as far as the Flight 11 pasenger list,of which there is no definitive version. The number of passengers varies from one version to the next,from 75 to 81 to 92 and that's not including the crew.Terrorists names are conspicuous by their absence from any of them. The names of passengers change from one list to the next.
The autopsy details won't make comforting reading for sceptics either.

 

[Bigfoot73]

Meanwhile how about the Flight 77 autopsy report and it's complete lack of hijackers' names, or the Guardian of 21 Sept. 2001 which had just heard from Atta's father , who said his son had phoned him the day before.

 

[Bigfoot73]

Finding the original documents for this has proved mysteriously difficult .All lniks to them from most sources return 'page not found' or 'page withdrawn' notices.Might sound paranoid, but this is the first time I've come across suspiciously widespread removal of pages concerning a sensitive topic.

However FBI Director Robert Mueller admitted on 30.04.02 that there was absolutely no paper trail whatsoever relating to the hijackers, not even entries on passenger lists or autopsies.He said as much on CNN twice in September that year, but they've taken the pages down.

 

[hokum6]

He's still not providing sources for all of this. Just because you say something doesn't make it true.

The passenger manifest fallacy seems to stem largely from a news report which listed victims of 9/11. Victims, mind, so it didn't include the hijackers. And the names were only included with the permission of families, so some of the people who died weren't mentioned at the request of their family. That would explain why there are differing numbers of passengers. There are also autopsy reports which mention what remains were found, but not every body could be identified and conspiracy theorists handily ignore the absence of some of the other passengers from those.

If they were attempting to hide the passenger list they didn't do a very good job. Here is a news report saying that they had access to the list, and here is a (large) file showing the use of the passenger manifest as evidence in a trial.

 

[rynner2]

Charlie Sheen claims US government was behind 9/11
Charlie Sheen has prompted outrage in America by claiming that the government was behind the September 11 terror attacks.
Published: 7:00AM BST 11 Sep 2009

In the lead up to today's eighth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which killed more than 3,000 people, the actor has insisted there was a cover-up by the Bush administration.

He appealed to President Barack Obama to reopen an investigation into the attacks, the Daily Mail reports.

Sheen, who is the highest-paid actor on American televison, claimed that "the official 9/11 story is a fraud" and said the commission set up to investigate the attacks was a whitewash.

He said the attacks served "as the pretext for the systematic dismantling of our Constitution and Bill of Rights" and claimed the administration of former president George Bush was behind them.

He even hinted that Osama Bin Laden was working with the CIA up until 9/11.

Sheen, who appears in the hit comedy series Two And A Half Men, made his claims in the transcript of a fictional encounter with Mr Obama, called Twenty Minutes With The President.

It was published on the website of radio show host Alex Jones, PrisonPlanet.com, two days ahead of Sheen's appearance on Jones's show today.

Most of his observations make up the basis of all the conspiracy theories surrounding the terror attack.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... d-911.html

 

[GNC]

I think Charlie Sheen believes virtually everything he reads. Ask him about that snuff movie he saw sometime.

 

[tastyintestines]

I know Alex Jones does not have any journalistic merit but, making a fake interview is a big no no. Sure as shit a lot of people believe it was real.

 

[Bigfoot73]

He should have followed the tradition of an open letter, published in the newspapers. This theatrical affectation only serves to obscure the points he was making.
Added to which Alex Jones got half way through the show before he made it clear it that it was only a hypothetical conversation, up till then we were led to believe it was real!
Fox News covered it, one or two big papers made short comments, but it's turning out to be a damp squib.Something like this would have more impact coming from a relative of a 9/11 victim rather than a self-regarding Hollywood star.

 

[rynner2]

Has Osama Bin Laden been dead for seven years - and are the U.S. and Britain covering it up to continue war on terror?
By Sue Reid
Last updated at 10:59 PM on 11th September 2009

The last time we heard a squeak from him was on June 3 this year.
The world's most notorious terrorist outsmarted America by releasing a menacing message as Air Force One touched down on Saudi Arabian soil at the start of Barack Obama's first and much vaunted Middle East tour.
Even before the new President alighted at Riyadh airport to shake hands with Prince Abdullah, Bin Laden's words were being aired on TV, radio and the internet across every continent.

It was yet another propaganda coup for the 52-year-old Al Qaeda leader. In the audiotape delivered to the Arab news network Al Jazeera, Bin Laden said that America and her Western allies were sowing seeds of hatred in the Muslim world and deserved dire consequences.
It was the kind of rant we have heard from him before, and the response from British and U.S. intelligence services was equally predictable.
They insisted that the details on the tape, of the President's visit and other contemporary events, proved that the mastermind of 9/11, America's worst ever terrorist atrocity, was still alive - and that the hunt for him must go on.

Bin Laden has always been blamed for orchestrating the horrific attack - in which nearly 3,000 people perished - eight years ago this week. President George W. Bush made his capture a national priority, infamously promising with a Wild West flourish to take him 'dead or alive'.
The U.S. State Department offered a reward of $50million for his whereabouts. The FBI named him one of their ten 'most wanted' fugitives, telling the public to watch out for a left-handed, grey-bearded gentleman who walks with a stick.

Yet this master terrorist remains elusive. He has escaped the most extensive and expensive man-hunt in history, stretching across Waziristan, the 1,500 miles of mountainous badlands on the borders of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Undeterred, Barack Obama has launched a fresh operation to find him. Working with the Pakistani Army, elite squads of U.S. and British special forces were sent into Waziristan this summer to 'hunt and kill' the shadowy figure intelligence officers still call 'the principal target' of the war on terror.
This new offensive is, of course, based on the premise that the 9/11 terrorist is alive. After all, there are the plethora of 'Bin Laden tapes' to prove it.

Yet what if he isn't? What if he has been dead for years, and the British and U.S. intelligence services are actually playing a game of double bluff?
What if everything we have seen or heard of him on video and audio tapes since the early days after 9/11 is a fake - and that he is being kept 'alive' by the Western allies to stir up support for the war on terror?
Incredibly, this is the breathtaking theory that is gaining credence among political commentators, respected academics and even terror experts.

Of course, there have been any number of conspiracy theories concerning 9/11, and it could be this is just another one.
But the weight of opinion now swinging behind the possibility that Bin Laden is dead - and the accumulating evidence that supports it - makes the notion, at the very least, worthy of examination.
The theory first received an airing in the American Spectator magazine earlier this year when former U.S. foreign intelligence officer and senior editor Angelo M. Codevilla, a professor of international relations at Boston University, stated bluntly: 'All the evidence suggests Elvis Presley is more alive today than Osama Bin Laden.'

Prof Codevilla pointed to inconsistencies in the videos and claimed there have been no reputable sightings of Bin Laden for years (for instance, all interceptions by the West of communications made by the Al Qaeda leader suddenly ceased in late 2001).

Prof Codevilla asserted: 'The video and audio tapes alleged to be Osama's never convince the impartial observer,' he asserted. 'The guy just does not look like Osama. Some videos show him with a Semitic, aquiline nose, while others show him with a shorter, broader one. Next to that, differences between the colours and styles of his beard are small stuff.'

etc...

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z0Qt0zbGJG

 

[rynner2]

'Bin Laden' tape harangues Obama

An audio message purportedly by al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has been released on an Islamist website.

The message, entitled "a statement to the American people", was about 10 minutes long and was accompanied by a still image of Bin Laden but no video.

In the message, a voice tells the US president that he is "powerless" to stop the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The message comes just two days after the US marked the eighth anniversary of the 11 September attacks on America.

In the recording, the voice discusses what motivated the al-Qaeda network to launch the 11 September attacks. He explaining that they were, in part, fuelled by US support for Israel.

"The time has come for you to liberate yourselves from fear and the ideological terrorism of neo-conservatives and the Israeli lobby," the voice in the tape says.

"The reason for our dispute with you is your support for your ally Israel, occupying our land in Palestine."

etc...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8253827.stm

 

[Bigfoot73]

Another tape of some guy's voice with photo of bin Laden. What's the first thing any self-respecting terrorist mastermind would do if confronted by widespread belief in his demise? Make a video proving himself to be alive, well and loving it . Follow it up with even more taunts at the Americans for not having found him. Maybe claim responsibility for the Madrid and London bombings. Maybe even propose terms for direct negotiation with the US as to what al-Qaeda's price for a ceasefire would be.
But no, nothing of the sort. Just tapes and photos.
How long can this go on? Will we still be seeing the same pic in ten or twenty years' time?

 

[rynner2]

How long can this go on? Will we still be seeing the same pic in ten or twenty years' time?

Probably!

 

[Bigfoot73]

Too right!

 

[rynner2]

Simulation shows why World Trade Center towers fell: it's the heat

National Geographic has a fascinating simulation of why the US World Trade Center towers collapsed after the planes hit them on September 11 2001.

It's part of a program investigating "science and conspiracy".

Basically, it's because the fuel in the (nearly-full) tanks caught fire, which weakened the columns, which bent slightly, which meant that the roof - and other floors- fell in.

We know that from the real-life example, of course. But it's interesting to see it demonstrated here. Not, of course, that this will satisfy the wingnuts who think it was a conspiracy. Their loss.

But sometimes this is what engineering is about: figuring out why things happen after the event. (Other videos on the National Geographic site ask whether controlled demolition could have done the same job, and whether the hijacked planes were replaced by planes carrying explosives. Enjoy.)

[video clip]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/bl ... ngineering

'Ere, oo you calling a wingnut?

 

[Bigfoot73]

I watched the video, and am left wondering why they bothered.It's all been said before right from the start, and it's very vague. It doesn't explain how the solid steel cores of the towers collapsed when as vertical structures they were not subject to any great load-bearing or heat from the fires. In fact there's nothing to say the fires even reached them. Nothing to explain why they collapsed all the way down to ground level at the same speed as the rest of the towers, at the same time.
Is this really what engineering is about, lightweight reiteration of an 8 -year old theory? It only, vaguely explains how some, not all, beams on a few floors softened, and omits everything else about the collapse. And of course it doesn't even begin to apply to WTC7.
Then there's the issue of the 737 engine stood on the pavement 3 blocks away, the Flight 77 black box recordings which show that it was too high up 2 seconds' flying time away to get down low enough to knock the tops off the lamposts then hit the ground floor.
But that's just me being a wingnut I guess.

 

[Dr_Baltar]

But that's just me being a wingnut I guess.

At least you admit it.

 

[Bigfoot73]

Well, Dr B, perhaps you'd like to enlighten, edify and entertain us with your explanation for what the 737 engine was doing on that pavement, or the Flight 77 black box anomalies - and let's not forget the two films showing a small white object bearing no resemblance whatsoever to an airliner flying into the Pentagon? :?: