Wanting more than "war, war and more war"

I am often distressed at how our country and elected officials keep making war, war and more war. It is a failed and unproductive policy that will bankrupt us financially and spiritually, and has destroyed the lives of millions of innocent people. And there is no end in sight.

Remember "shock and awe"? That bombing campaign was supposed to get Saddam and his imaginary WMDs, but it only killed innocent people who lived in Iraq. That was well over six years ago, and today the Iraqi people are seeing extraordinary increases in birth defects and cancer rates. Millions of them fled the country of their birth and they are not going to return. It is a hideous, murderous crime we fostered on them.

And now it appears we will be doing the same thing to Afghanistan under a different president. Afghanistan currently has one of the most corrupt governments in the world. President Karzai was recently "elected" for the next five years in a fraud-filled election. We are fighting over there to preserve a very corrupt government that the native population does not support.

Mr. Obama somehow managed to get a "peace prize" while running two occupations and bombing a third country, Pakistan. Hundreds of civilians have been killed by drone bombings in Pakistan, and in just one year, the Obama administration has killed more civilians there than the Bush administration ever did. …

I really don't think the CIA knows what they are doing. They are sure killing people though, and those deaths are inspiring protests in Pakistan, just like the Afghan deaths are inspiring protests in Afghanistan. I would bet they are inspiring more than protests.

Just last month, I heard that the U.S. was behind some bombings in Yemen that killed almost two dozen children. If this turns out to be true, we will be occupying two countries and bombing two more. Who knows? Maybe there are even more countries we are bombing.

We are spending more on our military, wars, bombings and occupations of foreign countries than we are spending on infrastructure here at home. "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom." This is a quote from Martin Luther King Jr., and I agree with him.

— Susan Oehler
Asheville

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170 thoughts on “Wanting more than "war, war and more war"

  1. Piffy!

    [b]I really don’t think the CIA knows what they are doing.[/b]

    They know exactly what they are doing. They are continuing to perpetuate war, to keep the Military Industrial Complex going. It’s a profitable business when you are selling weapons to both sides.

  2. Piffy!

    [b]and in just one year, the Obama administration has killed more civilians there than the Bush administration ever did[/b]

    Actually, the source i’ve seen (Allan Nairn on Democracy Now) was comparing the two presidents first years. Killing more than we did under 8 years of Bush in one year would be quite an impressive fete.

  3. David Shepherd

    The freedoms Bush declared we were despised for by the “terrorists” was an illusion. I recall on 9.11.2001 Osama bin Laden being named the mastermind of the attacks well before noon. The whole event seemed surreal. Four airliners hijacked in one morning when there hadn’t been a hijacking in a dozen years. The Pentagon was attacked and there was no clear video of a plane nor were there any fighters that ever engaged whatever it was that plowed into the Pentagon. The plane that crashed in PA, like the one that supposedly crashed into the Pentagon, left minimal evidence that it was a commercial airliner. Of the 4 planes not a single black box voice recorder ever was found. This was the justification to invade Afghanistan and soon after Iraq? How did we become so trusting of our government that critical thinking was suspended and then later labeled traitorous or my personal favorite un-American? Building 7 of the World Trade Center complex came down at 5:20 on 9-11 even though it had never been hit by a plane and there were only small fires in the building. Stranger this building had been earlier reported as having collapsed by both the BBC and CNN before it had come down and the building can be seen on camera still standing behind the BBC and CNN reporters. If you’ll recall the 1st choice by the Bush administration to head the 9-11 Commission was Henry Kissinger. You’ll also recall that Bush would not testify to the 9-11 Commission except with Cheney at his side and then behind closed doors. This was many months after the greatest intelligence failure in U.S. history.

    Look at the nation we have devolved into in the eight and a half years since 9-11. Our nation’s soul has literally decayed to the point of becoming unrecognizable and worse yet we are becoming used to it as we wallow in moral malaise. Did you ever think you’d see our country absconding citizens of other nations and then torturing them? Did you ever think it would be hazardous to voice one’s dissent against our country’s waging illegal wars? Did you ever think that our government would listen to our conversations, read our emails, or enter into our homes without warrants? Did you ever think the anti-war movement would go mute? It has…….. we have……………we’re afraid of the fascists that rule over us that have made a mockery of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Our republic has been marginalized and the likes of the CIA and the other intelligence agencies have supplanted our representative form of government. It is sickening to watch the YouTube videos of this farce of a president declaring the 1st thing he would do as president is get our troops out of Iraq. Is there any credibility left in Washington? Not only has this pretender-in-chief not stopped the war in Iraq but he has cavalierly launched drones into Pakistan to attack al Qaeda. Al Quaeda was a creation of the CIA when we employed Osama bin Laden to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan and has been dubbed al CIAda for it. Our government has gone rogue and it’s citizens have no concern for that or the violence we spread around the world. I guess I am un-American and unpatriotic. I do not support these wars of aggression based on lies and my government frightens me.

  4. p kippy: I guess you are (sadly) correct on the first statement – that the CIA is doing it on purpose.

    And for the second one – Obama has killed more civilians in Pakistan in one year than Bush ever did (in Pakistan) in eight years. Obama is doing a lot of drone bombings in Pakistan, and those folks have lots of kids. The ratio of killed militants to non-combats is about 1 to 100.

    In Iraq and Afghanistan and Somalia, Bush is still ahead in the killing of civilians.

    But I believe Obama is ahead in Yemen.

    So sad that Howard Zinn is no longer with us. He was an activist until the very end.

  5. JWTJr

    David – Step away from the Coolaid.

    Any point you make after you claim that the Pentagon and PA planes were fakes/conspiracies is lost in the haze.

  6. David Shepherd

    Junior –

    I can see that you aren’t a deep thinker nor would you ever risk being labeled a conspiracy nut. You have the audacity to say that you believe it normal for no fighter jets to be scrambled in time to intercept on 9-11 or that the 10 or 12 seconds of very unclear footage it took months for the feds to give us proves the Pentagon was hit by one of the hijacked airliners? Experienced pilots say it was an extremely difficult maneuver and not one a rookie pilot with limited flying time could achieve. Your head appears to have been immersed in the Kool-Aid bowl and it gives you a shallow, hazy, fruity colored perspective; pull it out and clear YOUR head.

    It is no theory that the FBI confiscated ALL the videos from around the Pentagon on 9-11. It is no theory that there were no body parts to identify in Shanksville, PA. How is it that passengers were able to complete calls on their cell phones from umpteen thousand feet altitude? It is no theory that there was not a single voice recorder found from any of the 4 hijacked airliners which is statistically impossible and highly suspect.

    The proof, for you, is what they told you and you took the bait and therefore you have been lost in the haze for some time now. Go back and research rather than employing sarcasm to make a case you do not have. How did that commercial airliner make that small hole in the Pentagon? You have the answers, so you think, so explain away. I particularly urge you to look into building 7 of the WTC. Do you honestly believe we were told the whole truth that day? Are you aware we had CIA and military advisors in Afghanistan in the months prior to 9-11? Look at the relationship of the Bin Laden family and the Bushies and Osama’s CIA connections.

    It is a lot easier to just turn on the TV and passively believe what you were told to believe ………………. and they are counting on the laziness of the majority of the American public to do just that. You are a good compliant citizen who has been duped into multiple never-ending wars and must be unaware or are unconcerned of the rights that have been stripped from you in the name of security. I haven’t even mentioned the Anthrax attacks which hardly ever gets mention. Our own government said this weaponized version could only have been made in the USA. What’s up with that? The events of 9-11 were a coup d’etat orchestrated to ramp up our war machine for war, war, and more war. I urge everyone to re-look at 9-11 and ignore the nincompoops who are merely regurgitating what they were told through the main stream media by government officials who have made careers of lying and deception.

  7. Piffy!

    i think david makes some very worthy points.

    I too havent seen any tape of a plane hitting the Pentagon. Considering that area is literally surrounded by security cameras, that seems … odd.

    And where [i]was[/i] NORAD on that day?

  8. Piffy!

    daqncewater- i wasn’t trying to defend obama being president while we continue to allow our military to murder civilians.

    I did not read the sentence correctly, and did not realize she was referring to only Pakistan.

    Unless we all put an end to these ‘wars’ though, we will most certainly see a continued rise of civilian death from weapons we bought, paid for, and the vast majority of our representatives heartily approved of using in this exact matter.

  9. JWTJr

    “Just last month, I heard that the U.S. was behind some bombings in Yemen that killed almost two dozen children. If this turns out to be true ….. ”

    This scary low level of being informed and researching before writing a letter for all to see is a sad state of affairs.

    PKonspiracy – you really think that W or the CIA or the ‘Military Establishment’ did 9/11? And kept it secret all this time?

    I had given you more credit than that. Step away from the Coolaid.

  10. P+Kippy said: i think david makes some very worthy points.

    I too havent seen any tape of a plane hitting the Pentagon. Considering that area is literally surrounded by security cameras, that seems … odd.

    And where was NORAD on that day?

    “If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy…. The loss of Liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad.”
    -James Madison-

  11. JWTJr

    Davyne – Do you think that there were US ‘interests’ behind 9/11? That someone in the US Gov’t either planned or allowed it to happen?

  12. I have no idea….. I was just adding a quote from Madison, that it is probably important to remain skepticle, till all facts are in.

    Still, I watch as the Trade Tower buildings imploded onto themselves. And that seems odd to me.

  13. This place feeds on conspiracy theories.

    T: The idea that 19 kids from Saudi Arabia, being commanded by a wealthy Saudi “dissident” from the hills of Afghanistan, managed to hijack 4 airplanes with box cutters and guide three of them successfully to their respective targets, through the most densely guarded airspace in the world, is in itself, a very whacky unproven conspiracy theory.

  14. “Just last month, I heard that the U.S. was behind some bombings in Yemen that killed almost two dozen children. If this turns out to be true ….. “

    This scary low level of being informed and researching before writing a letter for all to see is a sad state of affairs.

    Above was from JWT Jr.

    I believe the comment was directed at me, and my claim that the US was behind bombings in Yemen (air bombings, just to be clear, although I don’t know of any car bombings going on in Yemen right now). I wrote this letter on 1-09-10. I don’t know why they waited so long to publish it.

    But just THIS WEEK the Washington Post published an article confirming that the US is involved with bombings in Yemen. Here is the link:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/26/AR2010012604239.html

    I, of course, got my information from other sources, but it is beyond any doubt that the Obama administration is behind some of the bombings in Yemen. It is also beyond any doubt that he is targeting at least one US citizen in these bombings. That means what you think it means: No charges, no arrest, no trial, no jury, no judge, no evidence – JUST EXECUTION of an American citizen on foreign soil for being a “terrorist”. How long do you think we will wait before they try this on US soil?

    So, JWT, Jr, I am sorry for your low level of information that you are functioning under. You can rest assured that THE REST OF THE WORLD IS NOT AS UNINFORMED AS YOU ARE. And it is a sad state of affairs that citizens of the most powerful country on the planet are so vastly uninformed or misinformed.

  15. As to 9/11 – I do not believe any conspiracty theories. I agree with Noam Chomsky on this – if there were a conspiracy, it would have to be vast and their is no way they could keep it quiet.

    But here is what I know about 9/11:

    THE MOST EXPENSIVE F’ING MILITARY ON THE PLANET COULD NOT STOP AN ATTACK ON THE F’ING PENTAGON.

    Now, that would be scary if there was actually some military out there that might attack the USA. But, all we got are ‘terrorists’ and my chances of being killed by being hit by lightning is much higher than being killed by a ‘terrorist’.

    And I put ‘terrorists’ in quotes because I think the world’s biggest ‘terrorists’ are in the USA.

    The 9/11 ‘terrorists’ were mainly from Saudi Arabia, and yet the USA has bombed and killed hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia in the years since 9/11. This may not be on your TV or US paper, but the rest of the world sees it and KNOWS WHAT IS GOING ON.

    So, you can expect that there will be more ‘terrorists’ showing up in our country over the next couple of decades.

    Our military actions are breeding ‘terrorists’ faster than they are killing them. But then, maybe that is the point….. or maybe they are just vastly incompetent, like they were on 9/11.

  16. JWTJr

    “Still, I watch as the Trade Tower buildings imploded onto themselves. And that seems odd to me.”

    We have us some ‘Truthers’! Everybody watch out!

    There have been countless documentaries on every aspect of that day. Are they all on the take? Are they all just too stupid or naive to see the Truth? Did you not watch any them? Strange for someone who works in the TV industry.

    Do you agree with Rosie? Fire cannot melt steel? Explosives were planted by W or the CIA? Was OBL on the take from the CIA or W or the Masons or the Dead Poets Society?

  17. “We have us some ‘Truthers’! Everybody watch out!

    There have been countless documentaries on every aspect of that day. Are they all on the take? Are they all just too stupid or naive to see the Truth? Did you not watch any them? Strange for someone who works in the TV industry.

    Do you agree with Rosie? Fire cannot melt steel? Explosives were planted by W or the CIA? Was OBL on the take from the CIA or W or the Masons or the Dead Poets Society?”

    None of the above JWT Jr. All I’m saying is, I only see buildings going down the way the Trade Towers did, when fitted out by highly professional people who know how to implode a building. Is it possible that explosives were planted well ahead of time??? I think so. That might be the key…I said MIGHT.

    Yes I do know steel will melt when it reaches a certain temperature. How the hell does Rosie think i-beams are formed? Or does she think nature just spits em out? But the temperature would not have reached that level in steel structure of the buildings all at once.

  18. JWTJr

    Dancewater … you danced around my comment. I was pointing out that she used ‘hearsay’ in a public letter indicating children were killed. Where is that documented? Not in the article you sighted.

  19. JWTJr

    DCJ is another ‘Truther’. Glad you came out of the closet with PConspiracy and Davyne.

    You vastly underestimate the radical Islamic jihad crowd. They have money, knowledge and resources.

  20. JWTJr

    “But here is what I know about 9/11:

    THE MOST EXPENSIVE F’ING MILITARY ON THE PLANET COULD NOT STOP AN ATTACK ON THE F’ING PENTAGON.”

    So you wish that the military had already had the capability to shoot down a commercial airliner at a moments notice? Strange for a guy who thinks that the terrorists are inside the US establishment to wish that they had had more power. It almost sounds like you want a Stinger on every rooftop.

  21. David Shepherd

    Be careful of the truthers….. it is so much simpler to believe the liars whom you should be afraid of. Our leaders would never lie or conspire against us? Google Operation Northwoods. Read the latest about the Gulf of Tonkin conflict which escalated the war in Vietnam. For that matter look at what is now being written about the “sneak” attack on Pearl Harbor which Roosevelt and his high command knew was coming. Then go chug some Kool-Aid Jr.

    Do you know how many positions were eliminated at the Department of War, now less accurately called the Defense Department, after WWII? Zero, and that tells a tale. We have a war industry wedded to intelligence agencies which manipulates the news and thus public opinion. Look at how we now have embedded reporters covering our exploits abroad. That means they write what they are told; no more, no less. The CIA and NSA are entrenched in the press. That is why the coverage of 9-11 was identical no matter which channel you tuned to. I watched for weeks for one of these bogus news outlets to come up with a scapegoat for the failure to intercept the ‘plane’ that hit the Pentagon. They never did and it was then that I stopped turning on the TV for my lies.

    WTC 1 & 2 came down in less than an hour and a little more than an hour. Steel melts at temperatures exceeding 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit over a sustained period. Temperatures only reached 2,500 degrees and for a short period of time. This could not melt steel. There has never been a steel skyscraper collapse caused by fire. Witnesses and reporters reported hearing explosions both before and after the planes hit the towers. There is footage of firemen yelling warnings to the folks around WTC 7 to get back that the building is coming down. This 47 story building which came down at 5:20 was not hit by planes and only had small fires from debris. It is the smoking gun which all doubters need to look at carefully. Building 7 also housed numerous government agencies as well as Giuliani’s command center for any crisis in NYC. There was molten steel in the basements of WTC 1 & 2 more than a month after 9-11. Traces of thermite, a plastic explosive, were found in the rubble of the twin towers. Why was all concrete pulverized into a fine dust? Fires do not turn concrete into dust. These buildings came down at free-fall speed meaning there was no resistance from the floors below to slow their collapse.

    Better to be a “truther” than duped or worse still to be a liar relishing war, war, and more war.

  22. JWTJr: the attack on the Pentagon happen well after the attacks on the WTC and well after the reports of hijacked planes. Clearly, the military is incompetent at protecting even themselves. And if a plane is headed directly towards the Pentagon, I have no problem with them shooting it down and stopping an act of aggression. Of course, they are so incompetent, they might shoot down a plane that is not headed towards the Pentagon. I wonder if something like that would wake up the American people?

    As to the children being killed – since half the population of Yemen is under age 18 (like in most third world countries), whenever a bomb is dropped, children are killed. I have seen the photos of a strike last December and the dozens of dead small bodies. They were in a Yemeni news source (and others), and I am not going to look it up for you. I wrote the letter, and it is not hearsay.

    It is a fact that children are being killed in our war zones and bombing drops every day. I read recently that it averaged out to three children per day in Afghanistan.

  23. also, I do not believe the “terrorists” behind 9/11 are inside the US establishment, although bin Laden was on the CIA payroll in the 1980’s and I am not sure when he came off.

    The Bush and Clinton administration gave money to the Taliban up until 9/11 itself. The Clinton administration made noises about the lack of human rights and woman’s rights in Afghanistan, Bush did not. I don’t believe they really cared at all about the conditions women were living under in Afghanistan, in spite of the posturing they did in early 2002.

  24. JWTjr:

    Any careful look at the original conspiracy theory that the Bush administration foisted on us via the MSM in the days after the events and then “officially” with the so-called “9/11 commission report” should inform any half-way intelligent person that something is rotting in the state of denmark.

    Anyone who values a reasoned approach to this debate can read David Ray Griffin vs. whiz kid journalist Matt Taibbi as they go head to head on this and watch Taibbi fail miserably on the Alternet website.

    http://www.alternet.org/story/100688/the_ultimate_9_11_'truth'_showdown:_david_ray_griffin_vs._matt_taibbi

    I believe the more solid “conspiracy theory” explaining what did and did not happen on 9/11 is offered by Griffin and company, not the BUSH appointed 9/11 Commission.

    As far as David ray Griffin’s books go, start with his first one, “The New Pearl Harbor.” It is an easy read, meticulously researched and very reasonable in each of its conclusions.

  25. Piffy!

    [b]PKonspiracy – you really think that W or the CIA or the ‘Military Establishment’ did 9/11? And kept it secret all this time? [/b]

    Where have I said anything even [i]close[/i] to that?

    I just asked where the video of the plane hitting the Pentagon is, and where the heck NORAD was on that day.

    But way to ridicule me for something i didnt say, whatsoever JW.

  26. Piffy!

    dancewater- If this is indeed your letter, i thank you for it. and I also thank you for your contribution to this thread. It’s nice to see some specific, accurate criticism of American foreign policy.

    Don’t mind JWTjr. He’s just scared of people discussing things his mind (and his possible handlers) cant accept. Note how he attacks the speaker and not the subject.

  27. DCJ is another ‘Truther’. Glad you came out of the closet with PConspiracy and Davyne.

    I was never in any closet on this matter. I just happen to agree with Davynne here. (Just because I don’t agree with her on SOME issues, doesn’t mean I will disagree with her on ALL issues.)

    All I’m saying is, I only see buildings going down the way the Trade Towers did, when fitted out by highly professional people who know how to implode a building. Is it possible that explosives were planted well ahead of time??? I think so. That might be the key …

    It seems like the far more logical explanation, especially when you consider WTC Building 7’s later collapse that day.

    Just because we cannot name who exactly committed a crime, doesn’t mean the crime did not happen in a certain way. Any number of people could have rigged those buildings for demolition.

  28. Beware of “truthers.”

    I don’t really understand that comment. That is like saying beware of people who believe that conspiracies really do occur. (You know, like covert operations, the murder of spouses, insider trading, fixed fights, surprise parties … strange unheard of stuff like that.)

    Plenty of very intelligent men and women have asserted belief in conspiracy theories throughout history. Plutarch asserts that there was a conspiracy among Roman Senators to assassinate Julius Caesar. Was Plutarch, the man who transmits a great deal of our knowledge about the ancient world, also a nut job? (“Et tu, Plutarch?”)

    The CIA is a hive of conspiracy by its very charter. Every covert operation is a conspiracy in the offing.

    CEOs in corporations engage in conspiracy all the time. Do you recall: Savings and Loan? Michael Milken? Ivan Boesky? Enron? MCI? How about the Ford Motor Company releasing the Pinto, discovering it would be exploding and killing X number of consumers, but deciding that the math favored settling those law suits over recalling all the cars?

    Two or more gather together to collude in defrauding the general public ALL THE TIME, regardless of life and limb. Sorry, but there it is. Just because a few CEOs and a few engineers know about a plan, doesn’t mean the whole company is in on it.

    For me the lynch pin of understanding that 9/11 was not the result of the very flimsy “Islamic Hijacker” conspiracy theory that the Bush team proclaimed was the mind boggling collapse of WTC Building 7 in NYC that day.

    Once you admit to yourself that that 47 story Building 7 could only have been brought down via explosives, you are stuck admitting that a very complicated clandestine operation took place in NYC in the building that housed NYC’s FEMA, CIA, and FBI headquarters and coincidentally all of the SEC documents pertaining to Enron and MCI/Worldcom scandals under investigation at the time. Why would somebody go to all that trouble to make sure building 7 collapsed that day, but not go ahead and rig the other 2 buildings? That would make no sense. They would have been banking that the first two towers would necessarily get hit by some suicidal hijacker kids, and then they would be banking that the direct hits would cause those first two collapses. If building 7 collapses like that and for some reason the other two towers, twice its height, are left standing, then you are in big trouble. That would be a ridiculous risk to take. (When you fix a fight, you fix it all the way, not half way.)

    The other idea that might solve this problem is that Al Qaeda infiltrated Building 7 and planted all the explosives. (That logic is pretty screwy, but you can roll with it if you like.)

    For more cursory info on Building 7 check this page:

    http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/cutter.html

    I think discovering who actually arranged to rig the buildings for the explosives on 9/11 – which surely can be the only reasonable explanation for the sudden 7 second collapse of building 7 – is an unlikely prospect at the moment, given the times. It is not nearly as important as debunking the 9/11 commission report. That is the starting point.

    Before you can begin to seek out the “who” you have to call for and achieve a real investigation about the “what” and the “how.” Such an investigation has not happened yet, and very likely won’t happen, not under Obama.

    A lot of people balk immediately in this discussion either because they find the idea too heinous, or because they see the govt as too incompetent to pull something like this off. (Chomsky alludes to this second idea.) I do not think “incompetent” government operatives did the dirty work here. I don’t think on the ground foot soldiers in the FBI or CIA rigged these buildings. When I say I believe it was an “inside” job, I am saying it was arranged and managed by interests that had key people in specific positions within the government via the Bush administration. Key people in the Pentagon and key people at WTC. Clearly whoever rigged those buildings to fall was pretty competent. (The only case for incompetence that day is why building 7 didn’t fall earlier … leaving a nasty elephant in the room.) Everybody on the Bush team certainly did not have to be “in the know” for this to work the way it did. Why not? Because people in government and in the military and in the FBI and in the CIA and privately contracted mercenaries are trained to follow orders. Most of those entities follow chains of command. Individuals are not responsible for their individual actions when they are simply following orders. When a lower echelon officer asks if the fighters should be scrambled and higher up says no, then you simply don’t scramble. You don’t ask why. That is not how it works.

    Any number of teams of demo experts from around the world could have rigged those buildings. The CIA has been training demo teams in USA, even in our own state of NC, for years. The NAVY SEALS all get trained in demo work. Demolition is a mainstay of covert action. But the team did not have to be one of our own. They could have been from out of country, say, from Kuwait. They could have been with Mossad. They could have been composed from select Blackwater operatives. There are plenty of feasible explanations that don’t require your acceptance of bumbling government employees getting it right and keeping their lips sealed.

    I think one name to look up would be Larry Silverstein. Surely he would have to be one player in the know about the WTC aspect of the greater 9/11 plan.

    When Larry Silverstien finally acquired the lease for the entire WTC complex in April of 2001 – which included all 7 buildings – he did 2 very important things that in retrospect cast major shadows on the official story about what happened in NYC on 9/11.

    The first thing he did was acquire a handsome insurance policy for the complex of buildings that in the event that they were completely destroyed BY TERRORIST ATTACKS, he would get reimbursed for the total value of the property. When the buildings fell, he actually tried to sue in court and prove that the two separate planes were two separate attacks and he should collect double indemnity.

    The second thing Larry did was to hire a Kuwaiti firm called Securacom – now Stratasec – to handle all security, which had on its board of directors little Marvin Bush.

    http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0204-06.htm

    There are many curious things about this particular security company. One is that it is owned by Kuwaiti business associates of the Bush family – indeed one of the Bush boys was on the board at the time of 9/11, and he was in fact supposed to be at a meeting in one of the WTC towers that very day. Another curious thing about this company is that it also held contracts for Dulles Intl Airport and United Airlines. Another curious thing is that this security company handled complete security for WTC, which is, I am lead to believe, an unusual thing for a foreign company doing such important security work in the USA. There was NO oversight from any other private American firm or any govt. entity. Securacom handled EVERY aspect of security up until 9/11. This would make it much more feasible for teams to get in and out of WTC complex without being reported. Let’s see, would Bush-Kuwaiti Oil interests have any motivation for helping pull 9/11? (BTW: Securacom is not mentioned anywhere in the 400 page 911 commission report. But that is no surprise, neither was building 7. If you are not looking at the collapse of building 7 then you don’t have to consider controlled demolition, you can defer to some fly-by-night NIST commissioned MIT report that suggests “jet fuel” could have caused those two 110 story buildings collapse perfectly in upon themselves that day.)

    Here is a fairly simple question to ask yourself:

    Who has more to gain by pulling 9/11, Bin Ladin & Al Qaeda, or the Bush team & the greater US/multinationals that they serve?

    Well, let’s look at what Al Qaeda gained from the attacks: An almost immediate invasion and 9 year occupation of Afghanistan and a much the greater US presence in the Middle East … 9 years and counting. Wow! Brilliant strategy on Al Qaeda’s part. Way to look out for your family and your peeps. What a bunch of slow pokes to not have seen that coming. (Must be all that old time religion.) Following some very bizarre line of reasoning, they actually thought these attacks would cause us to LEAVE the Middle East alone from here on out. Please. Those cats were intelligent and well connected enough to jump through all those security hoops, avoid detection, penetrate that airspace, hit those targets, but they could not figure out that doing so would have terribly dreadful consequences for Muslims all over the Middle East?

    Now, what did the Bush team, the Pentagon, the private Defense Contractors, the oil companies, and all the “nation re-building” corporations – like Bechtel and KBR – gain from 9/11?

    They gained the world …

    on a platter …

    (Full Spectrum Dominance. Look it up.)

  29. reasonable

    Here’s a link from MSNBC in 2006 that has some stills from the Pentagon video and some verbiage from the article:

    “…Traveling at an estimated 350 mph, the hijacked American Airlines plane plowed into the southwest side of the Pentagon at 9:38 a.m. EDT, shortly after two other hijacked airlines were flown into the twin towers at the World Trade Center in New York. The attack set off fires in a portion of the Pentagon and killed 125 people inside, in addition to the 59 passengers and crew and the five men who hijacked the plane at Dulles International Airport….”

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12818225

    Yes, an American Airlines plane plowed into the Pentagon at near ground level and real people died. Does anyone dispute that?

    Do any Truthers here believe that we did that, too? I would love to read your comments.

    As for NORAD, prior to 9/11 we had no domestic air defense zones established. That means that NORAD wasn’t looking for threats domestically–only for possible incoming threats from abroad (no particular broad, just abroad) and since we’d had zero domestic hijackings since 1979, the FAA and NORAD did not have routine chats nor did we have any automated system to do so.

    We do now, though.

  30. OK W.T.H. is a “truther????
    The way it’s being used here looks like some pigeon holing, easy way to dismiss an opposing thought.

  31. Piffy!

    yes, david, but using the term ‘truther’ is a great way to mock the person, while totally avoiding any valid points made. As you know, i’m sure.

    reasonable- sorry, i am not convinced by one blurry still from one video tape considering that area should have had every possible angle covered, twice. It’s the pentagon. There ae public and private cameras EVERHWERE in DC.

    Also, NORAD had more than ample time to intercept any plan hitting the pentagon. Are you really saying that our only air-defense system needs hours to respond to a possible threat on the PENTAGON??

    Then, damn, we’re screwed if any tries to attack us again if they cant even defend the pentagon with hours notice.

  32. Piffy!

    But back to the topicof the letter.

    When are americans going to wake up and demand our President bring our troops home from these idiotic conflicts in the middle east. We cant afford them, they are illegal, immoral, and actually serve to make us LESS safe in the long run.

    I dont really blame Obama. He’s doing exactly what he said he’d do. But i do blame middle class America for being lazy, ignorant, and complacent.

  33. reasonable

    p=kippy,
    What are you not convinced about concerning the hijacked AA plane that hit the Pentagon? I’m confused by your answer. Do you doubt that those passengers and the hijackers were actually on board? Those people are dead–gone–all their relatives know it. The aircraft is gone, destroyed, and the ubiquitous “black boxes” were recovered. What mystery concerning this event do you devote thought to?

    As to NORAD, my first response answered your question–prior to 9/11, NORAD did not monitor US airspace. It’s that simple. Their concern had been to monitor the airspace outside of the US to provide early warning of a pending attack from outside the US and not from within the US. They weren’t asleep at the wheel, busy texting their pals or any other non-mission essential activity. Here’s an informative description of pre-9/11 NORAD ops:

    http://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t-0148-911MFR-00764.pdf

  34. David Shepherd

    REASONABLE said:
    “Yes, an American Airlines plane plowed into the Pentagon at near ground level and real people died. Does anyone dispute that?
    Do any Truthers here believe that we did that, too? I would love to read your comments.”

    Ok we’ve all seen the incredible piece of footage of the plane(?) hitting the Pentagon that we were ‘allowed’ to see albeit months and months later. If you can say that makes you convinced that it was a jetliner then there is no point in trying to REASON with you. I can’t recall how many months we waited for that occluded blip but it sure wasn’t worth waiting for and for me personally it made me all the more suspicious.

    If you really believe that prior to 9-11 there was no air defense for such an attack what can I say? That is the most unreasonable statement I’ve ever heard. Tom Clancy had used the idea of an airliner as a weapon years ago. The spin-off from the X-Files, The Lone Gunmen, had as well even targeting the WTC. Two times small planes had tried to hit the White House during Clinton’s reign. If the idea was out there to that degree then there were contingency plans for it. In 1999 professional golfer Payne Stewart’s Lear jet was not responding to air traffic controllers and an F-16 was sent to check it out….. but we’d ignore 4 passenger jet liners? Dubious at best.

    Do 4 commercial aircraft simultaneously lose contact with air traffic control on a routine basis? On 9-11 drills were being conducted by NORAD and our esteemed VP, Cheney, was in charge of these drills that day. I didn’t come across that fact for years after 9-11 and I was looking very closely to see who’s head would be put on a platter for such a blunder. That should make most people with a pulse suspicious but I don’t know what they are putting in the Kool-Aid these days.

    A coup d’etat is not just a French thing. Prior to the week of 9-11 there had never been surface to air missiles in place domestically to protect the President outside of D.C. Where ‘W’ was staying in Sarasota, FL, the Colony Beach & Tennis Resort, there WERE surface to air missiles set up. It can be contended that a Global War on Terror was in the works for some time and necessarily many were aware of it. (Google PNAC, Project for a New American Century) To be sure there would be many in the Congress and the Pentagon who would revile these plans. The threat of eliminating Congress by using anthrax or whatever and to similarly threaten anyone at the Pentagon opposed to a war with some 80 nations on the terrorist list could have been part of the game plan.

    Ever since the JFK assassination the American public has been called daft for ever questioning the ‘official’ version of the government. I believe the whole Warren Commission report on that coup d’etat becomes available to us peon Americans in 2039. That is another factoid that rankles my suspicions of our government’s lack of honesty. Eisenhower warned us about the military-industrial complex but never in my wildest dreams could I have dreamt my country would engage in preemptive wars or torture and deny trials to those deemed to be terrorists. We deserve better as Americans and the world deserves to not have us terrorizing any nation that has resources we want or an ideology we disagree with.

    As our economy tanks we will wish we had not been so arrogant. It is inevitable that our hubris will come back to haunt us and maybe sooner than anyone thought possible. Every empire ends and every empire in its heyday could not conceive of the possibility of its demise. Can it be imagined that some day multitudes of drones will be sent here because some nation or alliance of nations considers us a threat? It only takes a very little bit of imagination to conceive of OUR resources being plundered and OUR way of life deemed terroristic. What goes around comes around so they say.

    As much as people think America is forever students of history realize there are no exceptions…… empires collapse. All our technology can’t save us if we can’t pay our bills or if greater technologies are used to oppose us. The God I imagine favors no nation and therefore patriotism and propaganda would be ineffectual and offensive. If ever a nation was in need and due for an attitude adjustment it’s the USA…. USA… USA… USA… USA…. USA… USA… USA… USA…. USA… USA… USA… USA…. USA… USA… USA… USA…. USA… USA… USA… USA… all together now for old times sake…. USA… USA… USA… USA ! Oh what I wouldn’t give to have an effective Constitutional democratic republic rather than a fascist military police state. One can dream.

  35. PK: Agreed. I know “truther” is meant to be derogatory, sort of like “conspiracy theorist,” which later morphed into “conspiricist.” It is a way to frame a person and misrepresent them before you even consider their points in the light of reason. The English Status Quo did the same thing to the Quakers in the 1650s. “Quaker” was a derogatory term aimed at trivializing a group of people genuinely concerned about the truth in certain religious and political situations in those troubled times. A “truther” is someone who is concerned about bringing the truth to light in these troubled times … not a bad epithet when you think about it. I can role with it.

    “Reasonable” writes: an American Airlines plane plowed into the Pentagon at near ground level and real people died. Does anyone dispute that?

    Do any Truthers here believe that we did that, too? I would love to read your comments.

    Dear “Reasonable”: Plenty of very reasonable people, myself included, do not believe that a hijacked commercial jet airliner hit the Pentagon. There is no physical or documentary evidence that supports this claim.

    As PK points out, the Pentagon is probably the most secure building on teh face of the earth. It is probably one of the most surveilled buildings on earth. Indeed, there were video cameras spaced out at regular intervals all along the edge of the roof of the 5 sided building at the time of the “attack.” Every parking lot and entranceway surrounding the complex has loads of cameras up and running 24-7. Of all these cameras, the Pentagon, many many months after the attack, only sees fit to release 6 frames of the explosion. Not one of those frames of video footage from that single camera, which is half blocked by check point guardhouse, contains a single discernable image of a massive twin engine commercial jet airplane. Now I can take any number of the videos from the WTC hits and pull six frames leading up to those impacts and I can see very clearly in each frame a massive jet airplane that is supposed to be the same size of the one that hit the Pentagon. Why is that?

    The trajectory of the “plane” that supposedly hit the Pentagon, as reported by military radar reports, is an incredible one, to say the least. This massive commercial airplane was supposed to make a U-turn and descend several thousand feet in less than a minute to swerve from the opposite side of the five-sided building and slam into the one side of the Pentagon that was largely still vacant due to months of renovation that had transpired just prior to 9/11. OK. Barring the odd coincidence that this amateur pilot, who had never actually flown a plane like this, chose to hit the one side of the Pentagon that was relatively empty of personel, consider the speed at which this plane would have to be traveling to complete this mid-air change of course. It would have to have been far slower than the speed of the planes rocketing in on an unswerving straight path to their respective targets in NYC. And yet, I can see, in great detail, these two very obvious jet planes in each single frame leading to their impacts with WTC 1 & 2. Why is that? A plane of equal size that had to have been going much slower in DC completely avoids video surveillance at arguably the most surveilled building on earth?

    There are plenty of other anomalies with Bush team’s conspiracy theory regarding the Pentagon strike. I am not a big fan of most of the 9/11 documentaries. They are all severely lacking in one area or another. However, the film “In Plane Sight” does a decent job of exploring this issue in documentary form.

    WARNING: there are plenty of very poorly rendered documentaries about 9/11 floating around out there. The best source for any comprehensive, no-nonsense understanding of the events of that day is the thoughtful written analysis of David Ray Griffin. Check out any one of his books and the picture of all these problems will crystalize right before your very eyes.

    Start with “The New Pearl Harbor.” If anyone here has read that analysis of the events of that day and can punch holes in it, I am all ears. Try as I might, I can’t find any real problems with his portrait. It is pretty on point. My feeling is that any independent investigation of merit will start with the questions that thin book cogently raises.

  36. travelah

    DCJ, what did they do with the airliner that disappeared, you know, American flight 77? Do you think all those families and friends that lost loved ones are in on your conspiracy theory too?

  37. Piffy!

    [b]DCJ, what did they do with the airliner that disappeared, you know, American flight 77? Do you think all those families and friends that lost loved ones are in on your conspiracy theory too? [/b]

    Yet another tactic to avoid simple questions about the lack of security footage, both from the pentagon itself as well as the numerous gas stations, etc, in the area. Not to mention a rather pristine looking lawn in front of an alleged airliner crash site.

    In addition, many of the families you claim to be representing with your crocodile tears have indeed asked similar questions. I suppose you would mock them as ‘truthers’ and ‘conspiracy theorists’, as well?

    Your tactics are disgusting.

  38. It was very obvious to me that the buildings were planted with explosive devices by demolition experts…there is no other common sense explanation as to how they went down. Steel i-beams would not have melted so evenly as to cause a total colapse. And concrete doesn’t pulverize from compression of the building falling in on itself.
    I have no conspiracy theories.

    I do believe the attack exposed a complacent and incompetent system of communication, on many levels. The incompetence of officials allowing the rescurers in the burning buildings & the rubble without proper respiratory masks is unforgivable.

  39. Now, now, PK, T raises a legitimate question:

    DCJ, what did they do with the airliner that disappeared, you know, American flight 77? Do you think all those families and friends that lost loved ones are in on your conspiracy theory too?

    T: I am glad you at least have it right when you say it “disappeared.” You at least admit that flight 77 did not crash into the Pentagon, nor was any plane shot down over PA country side.

    Once you admit that the three skyscrapers in NYC were rigged in advance for demolition on 9/11 … ie, why fix a fight halfway if your aim is to collect … the entire official conspiracy theory is shot down. That is a logical no brainer. Hoping that everything else in the plan would turn out the way it did would be taking tremendous chances.

    4 commercial airliners with some passengers disappeared on 9/11/01. I do believe that much. I think they are all at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean, way out in the middle somewhere. They will never be found. No commercial airliner hit the Pentagon. No commercial airliner went down in PA.

    In all the videos of the two planes that hit WTC twin towers, we have very little detail as to the markings on those planes indicating that they were said commercial airliners. Sure they all had two engines and similar wing spans. But, again, check out the film “In Plane Sight.” The narrator is very good on showing how those two planes could have been military planes of similar make. (The CIA has its own clandestine airlines. That is a documented fact.)

    So, T, no, I do not think those families and friends of lost loved ones were in on the conspiracy. Wondering about a few dubious phone calls to families an friends reported by MSM, calls purportedly made from cellphones on planes rocketing at 500 miles per hour by some freaked out passengers in mid-hijack is not nearly as important to me as wondering about WTC Building 7’s bizarre perfect 7 second collapse at 5pm in NYC that day, or wondering why the Pentagon, with all its surveillance cameras, will only release 6 frames from a single camera. To not wonder about these things seems like a massive gap in reason to me. But if you want to focus on a few phone calls over a blatant stonewalling by the Pentagon, or the collapse of 47 story skyscraper that was not hit by any plane, go ahead.

    Check it:

    http://guardian.150m.com/pentagon/flight77path.jpg

    This had to be a far slower approach than the two planes that hit Twin Towers straight on. Why was flight 77 not captured by a single Pentagon video camera?

  40. It was very obvious to me that the buildings were planted with explosive devices by demolition experts…there is no other common sense explanation as to how they went down. Steel i-beams would not have melted so evenly as to cause a total colapse. And concrete doesn’t pulverize from compression of the building falling in on itself.

    The uniformity of the twin tower collapses, the immediate and total pulverization of the building materials in mid air, these factors were key for me in concluding that all three buildings were taken down by controlled demolitions.

    I have no conspiracy theories.

    Davyne, not trying to be argumentative here, but when you say you believe these buildings were rigged in advance to be imploded, unless you think one person did it all, that implies that you believe some kind of conspiracy occurred.

    When two or more people collude to conduct a crime, that is the definition of a conspiracy.

    We know a conspiracy took place. What we don’t know is WHO rigged the buildings to fall like that. It could have been Al Qaeda, CIA, MOSSAD, Black Water, Haliburton, a Kuwaiti firm, some mercenary NAVY SEALS. All we do know is that some particular team of folks had to have done it.

    My theory is that certain folks in Bush administration had to be in the loop for this to work and then cover it up.

    Consider this little string of facts on presidential commissions:

    Number of days it took a sitting president to authorize an official investigation of a national tragedy:

    Sinking of the Titanic: 6 days
    Pearl Harbor Attack: 9 days
    JFK Assassination: 7 days
    The Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster: 7 days
    The 9/11 “Terrorist” Attacks: 441 days

    Hmmmmm …. simply the usual incompetence? What did Bush have to lose by authorizing an immediate full and rigorous investigation?

    (Me thinks they didst protest too much … 441 days too much.)

  41. Look at that flight trajectory I posted above again. If you were a nervous suicidal 19 year Muslim kid who had NEVER flown one of these big jet planes before, why on earth would you attempt that ridiculous 320 degree turn around at supposedly 340 miles per hour to coming screaming across the Pentagon lawn, with so much as scratching that lawn (as PK rightly points out), to hit the one empty side of a five sided building, when you could have just cut straight down and hit the closest side of the structure facing the Potomac, the side where Donald Rumsfeld had his office? Seems kind of like a ridiculous (impossible) feat to pull off in the last few seconds of your life.

    Scroll down this web site linked below and look for the former air force pilots that claim this would have been an impossible aerobatic move to pull off, even for the most expert fighter pilot, in a plane that size, at that speed, descending from that reported altitude. Definitely impossible for the alleged 19 year old inexperienced Hani Hanjour.

    http://patriotsquestion911.com/

  42. “I have no conspiracy theories.”
    Touche”….I wasn’t clear, what I should have said is; I have no conspiracy theories that our government did this
    That’s just too cold blooded & venal for me to comprehend.. I truly believe some group did plant explosives in the buildings. It was done by professional demolition experts. They got into the buildings undetected and did the dirty work…When the heat in the buildings reached a certain level it triggered the explosions that brought down building one and two. The satellite buildings could easily have been set to detonate with a remote charge. They were able to do so because people in the position of prevent this type of thing were asleep on the job. jmho

  43. I see that the image of the alleged Flight 77 flight trajectory has been removed from its original website and so no longer visible here in my post above.

    Here is a more direct link to some pilots who have gone on record questioning the “curly-cue” flight pattern that Hani Hanjour allegedly took just before slamming the plane into the Pentagon.

    http://patriotsquestion911.com/pilots.html

    Several of these apparently experienced pilots say that aerobatic move would have been extremely difficult to get right, and next to impossible for an inexperienced hijacker to pull off.

    Such a final maneuver makes no sense. It is crazy unecc. risk to take as you approach the supposedly most guarded military structure on earth.

  44. JWTJr

    This is incredible. Keep it coming so we all know the TRUTH.

    PK – You never commented how other nicknames mocked the person in order to avoid valid points before. Why the newly sprung sensitivity?

  45. JWTJr:

    I can keep it coming. But just remember, just because you are presented with some arrows pointing towards the ugly truth, doesn’t mean you will ever actually see that truth. The truth is very often right before us in plain sight, and yet many never see it.

    As I said before, the best way to gets started, if you really even care about the issue, is to pick up a simple book by David Ray Griffin called “The New Pearl Harbor” and give it a quick read. Therein you will find plenty of very solid reasons to doubt the official conspiracy theory in which you still put so much blind faith.

    Of course I cannot by myself, from my lil ole computer, using the internets, prove who actually masterminded and executed this conspiracy that gained us military dominance of the Middle East. The Bush team says, without ever proving anything in a court of law, or even with its commissioned “studies,” that 4 teams of poorly trained 19-20 year old “Al Qaeda” hijackers with box cutters were behind this conspiracy. But I look at all the things that we know that happened that day, and with a little common sense, I can see clearly that the government’s conspiracy theory is false.

    Then I am stuck asking why. Why would you take 441 days to begin to slowly piece together a very poor “official” conspiracy theory about the worst terror attacks on American soil?

  46. JWTJr

    So somebody – one of the few qualified pros – planted the explosives, then the other conspirators flew planes right into those spots? That is some flying.

    I guess all of the explosives experts and their superiors are keeping their mouths shut – or maybe they were killed right after to shut them up? No witnesses to any of that? Not even one?

    Many people – non gov’t types – have researched why the buildings fell the way they did. Are they in on it too?

  47. Besides, it is much easier to palate the idea that 19 brainwashed arab kids with nothing to live for did it all. We would all much rather project our notions of evil on to people that don’t look like us or speak the same language worship at the same altar.

    Many people – non gov’t types – have researched why the buildings fell the way they did.

    That is good to know, JWTjr. Show me the “non-government type” study that reasonably explains the collapse of the 47 story WTC Building 7, which was not hit by any airplane that day and stood across the street from the other 6 WTC buildings. I guess the theory is that some jet fuel, you know the same jet fuel that supposedly melted the girders in WTC 1 & 2, flew out the windows & across the street & into WTC 7 & began to go to work on that buildings infrastructure as well.

    Sacrificing some of your own people for an extreme dramatic effect to garner the will for war is nothing new. (USS Maine, Lusitania, Pearl Harbor…) Just like denial is nothing new.

    The problem here is that people think American leadership is moral or at least values human life (Americans) above generating wealth & power, or people think our leaders are too incompetent to pull it off/get away with it. I don’t believe either of those premises. They are not that moral and they are not that incompetent.

    Read the late great Howard Zinn’s book, “A People’s History of the United States.” It is a very colorful collection of illustrations about the history of American power, and what individuals in control of it have been willing to do to others in order to achieve their goals.

    Incidently, here is what Howard Zinn has to say about David Ray Griffin’s book, The New Pearl Harbor:

    “David Ray Griffin has done admirable and painstaking research in reviewing the mysteries surrounding the 9-11 attacks. It is the most persuasive argument I have seen for further investigation of the Bush administration’s relationship to that historic and troubling event.” (endorsement from the jacket)

    Nobody is saying that they know categorically who did it. (I have my theories, and so do may others.) What everybody is saying is that government’s line, that these 19 kids did it, does not bear any real scrutiny. If they did not do it, then who did?

    The crucial need for a real independent investigation remains unmet.

  48. Dionysis

    There are, at minimum, many unanswered questions about the whole tragedy. Whether it was an inside job or not, there clearly was a conspiracy. Whether the conspirators were Muslim terrorists or others within the U.S. isn’t really known. No one wants to believe that such a horrendous act could have been perpetrated from within, much less that Americans may have been involved. No one really knows. But the notion that such behavior is too “cold blooded and venal” can be put in context by considering documented examples of such behavior in the past. Look into ‘Operation Northwoods’ for but one example from our not-too-distant past.

    As for these unanswered questions, it is significant that many military, political, business and other leaders have been demanding a real inquiry and answers as well, including over 200 senior military, intelligence and law enforcement personnel, over 1,000 engineers and architects, hundreds of pilots and over 300 family members of survivors:

    http://patriotsquestion911.com

  49. @ Dionysis
    But the notion that such behavior is too “cold blooded and venal” can be put in context by considering documented examples of such behavior in the past.

    Let me re-phrase…I don’t want to believe that this could have been an inside job. I’d say this is more than a mere “notion”.
    However, I am well aware, it is a possibility that people could be so cold blooded and venal, as to do this. After all VietNam was a massive waste of lives and resources for purely political reasons.

  50. JWTJr

    Indulge in your paranoia all you want. For every 1 piece of evidence you claim exists, thousands exist that you ignore.

    Where are all the people from the planes that ‘disappeared’? Where is even one conspirator? Just one? Name one. No secret is that solid in the world we live in today.

    You dwell on bldg 7. The world shook when those buildings fell. Structural damage from that could easily be catastrophic. That is the most reasonable explanation. Not some kooky conspiracy theory with no evidence.

    The name ‘Truther’ is ironic in that there is ample truth that is ignored in order to satisfy some loathing of yourselves and society. Burn calories there if you want.

    I’ll be the first to tip my hat if there was any US involvement. Til then … you are Truthers.

  51. JTWjr:

    I am not paranoid. I do not loath myself or individual members of our society. I don’t know where you get these ideas about me. But based on the reasoning you are exhibiting here, these accusations don’t really surprise me.

    I also don’t know where you get the idea that for every 1 piece of evidence contradicting the official conspiracy theory about 19 kids from Middle East pulling this off, there are 1000s of pieces of evidence supporting the Bush team’s story.

    Building 7 is a rather large piece of contradicting evidence. I assume you have 1000 pieces of evidence that refute this contradiction. Do you offer any for the naive people gathered here on this blog? No. Instead you say “the world shook when those 2 buildings fell.” (I assume that by your use of the words “the world” you literally mean the bedrock of lower Manhattan.) You then suggest that the structural damage to surrounding buildings could have been catastrophic enough to cause another collapse. Well, that is an interesting theory. However it is not a theory that NIST or FEMA or the 9/11 commission supports or any other “non-govt study” supports. There were plenty of skyscrapers closer in physical proximity to the twin towers that suffered far more structural damage than building 7 suffered, and yet they did not collapse. If you even bother to look at any of the myriad video of building 7 falling in upon itself that day, non of them belie a structural collapse. Every video form every angle shows a uniform collapse. A structural collapse will not show up like a uniform total collapse. Any physicist/engineer can tell you that.

    Here is an excellent resource for anyone who wants to research what actual practicing physicists, engineers and architects think of those 3 (three) uniform collapses in NYC that day.

    http://www.ae911truth.org/

    The “truther” movement is growing rapidly now, not just in the USA, but around the world. It will continue not to get much MSM play here in USA, and that is understandable. The issues it points up pose some very embarrassing problems for the administration that had just come on duty when the deed was done, as well as some very embarassing problems for the main stream media that generally serves whoever happens to be in control of US govt. However, if you are going to dismiss the “truther” claims when they pop up for you like this on the internets, the very least you could do is familiarize yourself with some of the core questions/arguments and punch holes in them for all the naive sheeple in our society, which you claim not to loathe. I mean if you really care about the fabric of our society you would want to mend it, right?

    These folks listed at the above linked http://patriotsquestion911.com site and linked here at http://www.ae911truth.org/ number in the 1000s. None of them seem to loathe our society at all. They are successful professionals that actually have a great stake in defending and caring for our society. But if you want to believe that they are all paranoid malcontents, go ahead. What is left of our constitution affords you that right.

  52. travelah

    DCJ, what did they do with the airliner that disappeared, you know, American flight 77? Do you think all those families and friends that lost loved ones are in on your conspiracy theory too?

    Yet another tactic to avoid simple questions about the lack of security footage, both from the pentagon itself as well as the numerous gas stations, etc, in the area. Not to mention a rather pristine looking lawn in front of an alleged airliner crash site.

    In addition, many of the families you claim to be representing with your crocodile tears have indeed asked similar questions. I suppose you would mock them as ‘truthers’ and ‘conspiracy theorists’, as well?

    Your tactics are disgusting.

    Ha! I never took you for a Beckoid style truffer pot. Wonders never cease in ‘tardville.

  53. JWTJr

    I bet I know what happened to the real conspirators. They were living large on a tropical paradise in the pacific til the Tsunami hit. Now they are all gone. That’s why there is not even one person who was in on the grand scheme who can talk about it.

    Or maybe it was like the TV show Lost with all the time shifting and strangeness. Maybe dinosaurs are chasing them all over.

  54. tatuaje

    JWTJr, I’ve been reading over this thread and although these crazy ‘truthers’ spout nothing but lunatic conspiracy theories, you haven’t used one fact to back up your view, or to prove them wrong.

    Sure you’ve asked your own fairly simplistic questions, questions which you already know to have no ready answers, but you haven’t supplied a single factual, researched, sourced rebuttal to anything that has been said here.

    All you have done is attack them and spout your own nonsense.

  55. JWTJr

    Here’s a fact. A cover up of this magnitude would take a giant number of participants. The US Gov’t, CIA, NSA, DoD,etc is just as partisan as the public at large.

    If even one conspirator existed … they would have been outed by now. They would have been outed a long time ago.

    Where are they?

  56. tatuaje

    Sorry to break it to you.

    That’s not a fact.

    That’s an opinion.

    Try harder.

  57. Trey

    All the conspirators have either been “neutralized”, or shipped off to “gitmo”.

    Oops… I’ve said too much already.

  58. Dionysis

    “Here’s a fact. A cover up of this magnitude would take a giant number of participants. The US Gov’t, CIA, NSA, DoD,etc is just as partisan as the public at large.

    If even one conspirator existed … they would have been outed by now. They would have been outed a long time ago.

    Where are they?”

    I’m not sure what actually happened. I’m not claiming this was perpetrated by Americans, only that there are many unanswered (or unsatisfactorily answered) questions that people have a right to ask and get answered.

    However, just to play devil’s advocate, it is not a given that such an event would necessitate “a giant number of participants.” It could be done with a relative few in very selective positions. The culture of ‘need to know’ and compartmentalization would facilitate this.

    There is no reason to think that if there were conspirators (even one), that they would necessarily be “outed.”

    During its peak, the Manhattan Project had 130,000 people working on it, and that was kept a tight secret. Even today, there are things still unknown about it. Don’t think there aren’t many other things that have been done that the public is clueless about.

    The fact that on September 11, 2001, a series of war games were in effect (i.e. ‘Vigilant Guardian’). The attacks were initially thought by some military participants as part of these war games. Just coincidence? Maybe.

    http://www.oilempire.us/wargames.html

    Someone knows the truth about this event, and it’s no one posting here. As tatuaje correctly notes, they’re opinions.

  59. JWTJr

    It was easy to contain the Manhattan Project. Everyone lived in NM and there were no cell phones or other technology to get info out. Security was much easier and tighter then.

    In addition, everyone knew that if they leaked project info, that either Germany, Russia or Japan would develop the weapon first and use it on us.

    Today is very different. Communication technology abounds, we are in a War that is not nearly as agreed upon as WW2 and greed and fame rule the day. There is much motivation to out somebody. It would be the juiciest scoop in all of US history. There are armies of bloggers and journalists that would sell their souls to be the one to break it.

  60. Dionysis

    “It was easy to contain the Manhattan Project. Everyone lived in NM and there were no cell phones or other technology to get info out. Security was much easier and tighter then.”

    You’d have a point if any of this were true.

    “Work on the project was conducted in thirty-seven installations spread over thirteen different states. Two new towns, Hanford, Washington; and Oak Ridge, Tennessee were created just to produce the material that would fuel the bomb.”

    http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=23294

  61. My opinion is that the 9/11 “conspiracy theory” as outlined by the Bush team in the 9/11 Commission Report is a very bad set of opinions. Apparently these are the opinions that JWTjr continues to believe.

    If you want to separate fact from opinion you can start here. The only real hard facts we seem to have are as follows:

    – On the morning of September 11, 2001, 4 commercial airliners went off their projected courses on transcontinental flights.

    – 2 airplanes the size of commercial boeing 737s hit the twin towers.

    – Both of the twin towers had completely and uniformly collapsed by 1pm that day.

    – Something apparently blew up the one side of the Pentagon that was most empty of personel due to recent renovation. (However, we have absolutely no documentary evidence that this was a commercial airliner.)

    – Some type of aircraft apparently crashed or was shot down down near Shanksville PA. (However, we have absolutely no documentary evidence that this was a commercial airliner.)

    – at around 5pm the 47 Story World Trade Center Building 7 collapsed in upon itself in 7 seconds.

    That is all we really got. Those are the basic facts. Everything else is speculation and allegation. Nothing Bush asserted was presented under oath in a court of law. No one was ever tried in connection to these events. The case was built for war by a trickle down effect of suggestions in the mainstream media. Where did these reports/ideas come from? Much of it came from the same place our info about Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction came from: the bullshit factories at CIA and DOD.

    Now if you want to roll with the speculation of Bush and 9/11 Commission Report that was only finally authorized 400 some odd days after the crime occurred, go ahead. I have a copy of it and have read it. It is a terribly incomplete summary and relies mostly upon speculation. It would not survive in a court of law with even a very moderate prosecutor examining it.

    The fact is, there has never been a real independent investigation of this event. There probably never will be. There is a reason for that. I am not paranoid. I am not really bent out of shape about it any more. “There is a sucker born every minute.” This is the way the ball has been bouncing for a while now.

    The only remote chance of getting anything done about this is if millions of citizens get wise and organize and pressure their congress people to do something about it. But even then, chances are good the investigation will be very selectively appointed and then very intentionally botched. The only way anything good will come of it is if the investigation is truly independent.

  62. Piffy!

    I like how travelah lashes out after someone points out that the survivor’s families he tries to invoke have actually asked the very same questions as many of these posters have. Telling.

    In fact, it would appear that is all JWT and travealh have as a rebuttal to fairly specific questions- to mock people and try and associate them wing fringe ‘conspiracy’ camp’. As tat points out, they have very few facts, or irrefutable evidence, so they mock and attempt to derail.

    I hardly subscribe to the ‘truther’ “party line” (as if there is one), but by all accounts the ‘official’ story of what happened on that day is seriously flawed. The fact that these two lackeys appear threatened by facts they can not account for only makes the case for more investigations seem that much more necessary.

    Why is there no good footage of the plane hitting the pentagon? Why do the existing images show a crash site not at all consistent with a major crash of that nature (pristine lawn?) Why did tower 7 fall? These should be simply, easily answered querstions. The fact that no one has been able to answer them is what creates the myriad “Conspiracy Theories” that end up circulating.

    Just calling me ‘Glenn Beck” for asking fairly reasonable questions only makes you look like a fool. And a fool with no good answers, at that.

    The REAL issue, though, is to look at what our government has done with the events of that day in terms of streamlining a foreign and domestic policy that continues to eat away at our Civil Rights, our national character, and is steadily sending us deeper into debt by the trillions (not to mention perpetuating the slaughter of possibly hundreds of thousands of innocent Afghani’s Iraqi’s and Pakistanis.

  63. Piffy!

    [B]Where are they tat? Even 1? Just name one.[/B]

    Why should tatuaje have to answer a question he never pretended to have an answer for?

    But here’s one you’ve been asked repeatedly but have yet to answer;

    Why is there not one good video of a commercial airliner hitting the pentagon when that entire area is covered by cameras from nearly every conceivable angle?

  64. So Travelah and JWT, are saying .. shut-up…just don’t ask…if you do you’re a part of the fringe conspiracy wingnuts.

    I emphatically disagree, here’s why:
    All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.’
    Thomas Jefferson

  65. The other final fact to add to my little list above is that the four allegedly hijacked planes that went off course that morning have never been officially accounted for.

    The legend is that two of them hit the WTC twin towers, one hit the Pentagon and one went down in PA countryside. However, there has not been any physical evidence to corroborate these speculations.

    The black box flight data recorders and their respective information was kept from public view until 2006. (Go figure.)

    *

    Here is an interesting read:

    Obama’s Harvard Law appointee heading up the White House’s OFFICE of INFORMATION & REGULATORY AFFAIRS, Cass Sunstein, has written a lengthy paper about how the U.S. Government should pay “experts” to “infiltrate and manage” conspiracy theorists discussing their ideas on line:

    Here is a link to the summary written up on Salon.com:

    http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/15/sunstein/index.html

    Here is a link To Cass’s Bio with the http://WWW.GOVMENT:

    http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg_administrator

    Here is a link to his actual study discussing what to do about these people:

    http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1084585

    If anybody wants to pull quotes from Cass’s lame paper and dispel the ideas with simple logic here in light of the Bush team’s conspiracy theory, I am totally game for that. We can start with this statement:

    “A distinctive feature of conspiracy theories is their self-sealing quality. Conspiracy theorists are not likely to be persuaded by an attempt to dispel their theories; they may even characterize that very attempt as further proof of the conspiracy. Because those who hold conspiracy theories typically suffer from a crippled epistemology, in accordance with which it is rational to hold such theories, the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups.”

    (So now anyone offering a conspiracy theory about what happened on 9/11, I assume including those who fashioned the Bush team’s conspiracy theory, is part of an “extremist group?” This is from the pen of a liberal Obama appointee?)

    well, let’s start by looking at how “self-sealing” the Bush Team’s 9/11 Commission report is asa conspiracy theory. Then let us look at the report’s “crippled epistemology.” We can start with this “cognitive blunder” – the omission of the collapse of WTC Building 7 and what that might imply.

  66. mtndow

    Any one have a chance to read “Voodoo Histories” by David Aaronovitch yet? I think it’s out but I don’t have the $ to order it right now.

  67. Piffy!

    [i]yeah but your still a Beckoid truffer pot … who da thunkit?[/i]

    Care to substantiate even ONE of the assertions you’ve made in this thread? Or just more name-calling as a desperately transparent attempt to distract from simple questions?

    [b]The REAL issue, though, is to look at what our government has done with the events of that day in terms of streamlining a foreign and domestic policy that continues to eat away at our Civil Rights, our national character, and is steadily sending us deeper into debt by the trillions (not to mention perpetuating the slaughter of possibly hundreds of thousands of innocent Afghani’s Iraqi’s and Pakistanis. [/b]

  68. I find it interesting that JWTjr has chosen to link us to an article by a “Truther” named Jim Hoffman, who believes that the US government is involved in the planning and perpetration of the events of 9/11, and that the so-called 9/11 Commission Report is a cover-up.

    However, this particular essay by Hoffman that JWT links us to was written out of his belief that some contingents of the 9/11 truth movement are shooting themselves in the foot by claiming that a 757 could not possibly have hit the Pentagon. Many people believe it was in fact a much smaller aircraft, if not some kind of military drone aircraft. This is one of the few points of the government endorsed conspiracy theory that Hoffman actually wants to continue to endorse. Not so much because he can prove the Govt’s point to be true, but because he thinks Truther’s can’t prove their counter argument and therefore such a diversion won’t help the greater press for truth about 9/11.

    So I re-read Hoffman on the Pentagon and at the end of the article, I still have the same problem I had at the beginning. Why no video stills of this massive aircraft plunging from the sky into the this most surveilled building on earth? Why is there no evidence of a massive aircraft in any of the six frames of video from the single camera angle the Pentagon has chosen to release.

    I must say, JWTjr, if you are gonna get us all to read Jim Hoffman, maybe you should read some more of him yourself:

    Why not start with his very simple analysis of Building 7’s collapse:

    http://911research.wtc7.net/talks/b7/index.html

    It reads like a children’s book. Click the above link and then hit the “next” link in the upper right hand corner of the web page to flip through the photos, videos and diagrams of building 7’s demise.

    He offers the same flip book analysis of Twin Tower collapses and concludes that they were controlled demolitions. Check it here:

    http://911research.wtc7.net/talks/wtc/index.html

    Again, I want to thank JWTjr for linking us to the work of “Truther” Jim Hoffman.

    Hoffman is good on exposing many of the problems with the Bush team’s overall “theories.” Indeed his website states it’s point of view right up front:

    “9-11 Research provides multiple lines of analysis that thoroughly undermine the official conspiracy theory that the attack was the work of cells of Islamic extremists. We show that only insiders in the U.S. government possessed the means and opportunity to execute the attack.”

    However, regarding JWTjr’s link above, in my opinion, Hoffman simply fails when it comes to analyzing the Pentagon strike.

  69. travelah

    You have already substantiated it for every sane person reading the thread. Only the loony tunes kookoo crackpot conspiracy set run around with this idiocy. Do you wear one of those big green plaid hats with the floppy ear coverings too?

  70. Aw, T, the light of reason fails you – say it isn’t so!

    2 Airplanes cause 3 skyscrapers to collapse = very fuzzy math.

    Any scientists in the house? Here’s one:

    Lynn Margulis revolutionized biology. She was mocked for what she theorized years before it became universal knowledge: the prediction of mitochondrial DNA; the theory of how complex cell structures arose through ingestion of other organisms leading to symbiosis; the theory of the biosphere as single system (”Gaia hypothesis”).

    Richard Dawkins has described her endosymbiosis theory as “one of the great achievements of twentieth-century evolutionary biology.”

    She is a distinguished university Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She received the 1999 National Medal of Science from Bill Clinton. She has been a national member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences since 1983 and of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences since 1997.

    Here is what Lynn has to say about WTC collapses:

    http://rockcreekfreepress.tumblr.com/post/353434420/two-hit-three-down-the-biggest-lie

    Not everyone who doubts the U.S. Government’s “KooKoo Crackpot” conspiracy theory is an idiot wearing a big plaid hat.

  71. JWTJr

    Everybody was all fired up about the pentagon plane. This was a very rational approach. If that guy thinks the Truthers are barking up the wrong tree, I had to agree. I thought his reasoning was valid.

    That’s one brick gone from the wall. How many til the Truther wall falls?

    The idea that a limited number of people could create a cover up of some kind is ridiculous. Too many people. Somebody would leak something.

  72. JWTjr:

    Something tells me it will be far easier to collapse the Bush team’s “wall” here. What’s that something? Reason.

    What is the reasoning behind the fact that we have not a single frame of video from the Pentagon showing us a Boeing 757, allegedly AA Flight 77, heading towards and or impacting that relatively empty side of the Pentagon? Why does Jim Hoffman not address that?

    The scrap of evidence that gets shown over and over linking AA Flight 77 to the Pentagon explosion is this same peculiar photograph:

    http://www.geoffmetcalf.com/pentagon/images/13.jpg

    What part of a Boeing 757 is this? How did it get over here? Where are the other large pieces of the airplane. Parts of the wings? Parts of the tail piece? What about the the two 9 ton jet engines that did not even dent the Pentagon at their respective locations along the wall. It is hard to believe this is the only piece of photographic evidence we have with AA colors on airplane metal from this particular crash site. How come this solitary “identifiable” part of that aircraft is so squeaky clean? Jim Hoffman never asks these obvious questions.

    Here is an interesting article about a group of pilots who have been analyzing the alleged Flight Data Recorder (FDR) information from AA 77 that supposedly hit the Pentagon. This information was released by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). These pilots have discovered that according to this particular FDR information the cockpit door of this particular plane did not open ONCE during its entire 90 minute flight. It is kind of difficult to hijack a plane and fly it into a building if the cockpit door never gets opened during the entire flight.

    http://rockcreekfreepress.tumblr.com/post/285492999/flt77fdr

    I do not believe a 757 hit the Pentagon. I certainly don’t believe that highjacked Flight 77 hit the Pentagon. The 19 year old kid that the US govt alleges to have done that flying, Hani Hanjour, by all reasonable accounts, could not have done that flying. The Pentagon strike remains problematic for me.

    However, the WTC collapses seem pretty obviously to have been done from the inside.

    JWTjr: If you can present some sound reasoning explaining the collapse of WTC 7 that precludes controlled demolition, I am all ears.

  73. JWTJr

    DCJ – we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

    I just can’t believe that for all the angst towards W, the Republicans and Washington DC in general, that there isn’t one single person who has stepped fwd and said that they were part of it or have knowledge of someone who was. Not one.

    Too many people would have been involved for it to stay such a miraculous secret for almost 10 years. Nothing stays a secret very long any more.

  74. I just can’t believe that for all the angst towards W, the Republicans and Washington DC in general, that there isn’t one single person who has stepped fwd and said that they were part of it or have knowledge of someone who was. Not one.

    JWTjr, that is because 9/11 is not a partisan issue.

    Too many people would have been involved for it to stay such a miraculous secret for almost 10 years. Nothing stays a secret very long any more.

    It is not a miraculous secret. Plenty of folks in power know the score here, just like they all new the score on Iran-Contra and Savings and Loan and host of other conspiracies that were never fully prosecuted. No one in a real seat of power up there wants this issue prosecuted. Prosecuting this issue at this point from an office in Congress is a death knell for one’s career, if not one’s life. I mean you might get an envelope full anthrax if you so much as mention in the privacy of your bugged office that something about 9/11 seems suspect and maybe you should call a press conference. If you don’t think these people play harder than two-bit NYC gangsters, then I am afraid we will have to continue to agree to disagree on these and many other matters.

    Again, the key thing to remember is this is not a partisan issue. W is not going to be prosecuted for any illegal activities during his watch, including authorizing torture. Instead, he is going to be appointed by Obama to fly to Haiti with Clinton for US good guy photo ops.

    9/11 could not – would not – have been done if it only had Republican will behind it. Far more people are happy to keep their mouths shut. Why? Well the answer is simple, according to a well known poet from another Empire.

    “Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason.” – Ovid

    Do you really still believe our senate is divided along partisan lines on the issues that really matter, particularly regarding foreign policy? All they need is plausible deniability and they will do anything asked of them. This doesn’t at all mean that everybody on both sides of the aisle was in on planning the events of that day. Of course they weren’t. It simply means they are not look a gift horse in the mouth. (OK. Maybe Paul Wellstone might have looked it in the mouth …. had he lived.)

  75. “It is not a miraculous secret. Plenty of folks in power know the score here, just like they all new the score on Iran-Contra and Savings and Loan……………”

    Or the Gulf of Tonkien incident which was was trumped up, which Johnson used to greatly escalate VietNam.

    To Quote Robert McNamara in 1995 “We were wrong, terribly wrong. — Robert S. McNamara

    https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/96unclass/ford.htm

  76. JWTJjr: Your logic is way off here.

    You are saying that:

    Too many people would have been involved for it to stay such a miraculous secret for almost 10 years. Nothing stays a secret very long any more.

    That is not a good reason for supporting the government sponsored conspiracy theory that argues that two (2) airplanes caused three (3) massive skyscrapers to uniformly collapse in NYC on September 11, 2001.

    As far as adhering to any logical explanation goes, your position is dead in the water when you analyze Building 7’s collapse. Building 7 proves that the government is lying through it’s teeth. Of course that building’s collapse in and of itself does not prove that operatives within Bush administration did the deed. However, when you consider what entities that building housed, I certainly think it puts them in the running among a handful of prime suspects. (“Al Qaeda” is not one of them.)

    Just because you don’t think people can keep a secret doesn’t mean the government’s account should be believed, and yet you continue to believe it, even when it is plainly obvious that Building 7 was demolished in what from every angle appears to be a highly controlled fashion.

    Why is that, JWTjr?

    Why can’t you admit that WTC Building 7 screws the government’s conspiracy theory – the theory that got us into Afghanistan – right out the window?

    Why would they rig only one building to collapse that day, and leave everything else to chance? (That defies Murder, Inc’s playbook on how you fix a fight.)

  77. JWTJr

    How long did those issues stay secret? Not long.

    Both Tonkin and IC were gnats on a bugs butt compared to 9/11 and the participants that would have been involved in a cover up.

    How many people in the media would love to blow it open? All of em. Where is the scoop?

  78. Is WTC Building 7’s bizarre uniform collapse “a gnat on a bug’s abutt”, too, JWTjr?

    Until you can make that massive square peg fit into the itty,bitty round hole alloted to it in the Bush Team’s fantastical conspiracy theory, you are sort of standing there with your pants down around you ankles, logically speaking. (Enjoy the breeze.)

  79. Both Tonkin and IC were gnats on a bugs butt compared to 9/11 and the participants that would have been involved in a cover up.

    Over 50,000 killed, untold wounded and scarred for life…the upheaveal to all the extended families. A gnats bite????…that is unconscionable. J

  80. How many people in the media would love to blow it open? All of em. Where is the scoop?

    I guess you still don’t understand how the mainstream media works. There are plenty of very obvious problems with the Bush team’s 9/11 conspiracy theory that could easily be responsibly analyzed by the major media, like building 7’s bizarre collapse. So why did they not jump at the chance to examine that issue? I mean at least the NYT’s could have taken a crack at it. It happened right there up the street from them.

    The National Geographic Channel, which was bought out long ago and runs crap programming today about NYC gangsters and the U.S. led war on drugs, produced an entertaining documentary championing the Bush team’s conspiracy theory a few years back. They had all kinds of footage and explanations for WTC building’s 1 & 2 and their completely anomalous collapses that day. Yet, like the 9/11 commission report, they had nary a word about 47 story WTC 7. Why is that? Could it be that a producer determined that investigation was not important? Well, it certainly is not important of you are making your film to build a case for war in Afghanistan. But if your real purpose is to analyze the events and what they might imply, such an avenue of investigation is very important.

    But hey, I mean come on, they are Nat Geo, after all. They got that little yellow square there in the corner of their screen reminding you about how scientific and honest they are, right up there with CNN and MSNBC and FOX.

  81. JWTJr

    Davyne – I was talking about the indecent and the cover up, not the aftermath.

  82. David Shepherd

    I too read the link that JWTjr sent about the plane that hit the Pentagon. Hoffman says the reason there was no plane debris on the Pentagon lawn was because it had all entered into the Pentagon. Initially the hole left by the impact was 14-16 feet in diameter and the larger hole did not come open until somewhat later………. how did the Boeing 767 fit into that small hole? The wings and tail section, not to mention the engines, would have had to have been scattered about the lawn.

    Hoffman never addresses that there is no verifiable film of the plane hitting the Pentagon which is really the main point of contention. Watch “In Plane Sight” and you’ll see that there was no great fire like at the WTC so why do we never see bodies or luggage being pulled out? I am not buying that everything disintegrated. As far as agreeing to disagree that is a pathetic way out of an untenable argument. I won’t go into terms of derision as I find that to be infantile although it seems that the opposite of a truther is a BSer.

  83. JWTJr

    DCJ – When you say that the whole media wouldn’t like to bust a cover up like that open, you have drank the cool-aid.

  84. Like I said, you must not understand the how the mainstream media works.

    First of all, there is no such thing as the “whole media.” The media is a very divided entity, though it is much much less divided today than it was before. You have a few remaining independents, and then you have the dominant mainstream media (MSM). For the past 30 years according to the research of critics like Benjamin Badikian, former Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley, the mainstream media, what we call the corporate media, meaning media organizations whose first ostensible responsibility is to make a profit, this MSM has been consolidated under the aegis of fewer and fewer owning companies. It is estimated that most US MSM is now owned in one way or another by 5-6 major conglomerates. This is good news for corporate elites & bad news for you and me. It means a striking decrease in independence when it comes to healthy reporting on national and world events.

    If you are really interested in better understanding the media monopoly, I recommend this article:

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/smoke/interviews/bagdikian1.html

    Again, we can all watch WTC Building 7 collapse over and over and see that something is very wrong here when it comes to the basic math of the official conspiracy theory: 2 planes are alleged to have destroyed 3 buildings that day. To me that is front page headline news. And yet nary a word about it in the “whole media.”

    Why do you think that is JWTjr?

  85. JWTJr

    If there is no such thing as the ‘Whole Media’, then there are gutsy reporters out there that would love to break the story of the cover up. If there was one. All they’d need is one conspirator … who obviously hasn’t come forth yet.

    Where did flight 77 and all the people in it go?

    What about flight 93? Cover up there too? The phone calls made to the families while the hijacking was taking place were bogus? Where did that plane go? And all the people?

    Were all the FAA Flight controllers in on too? The Radar operators? Radio Operators?

    Just because DC is inept, doesn’t mean there was a cover up. You are giving them way more credit than they deserve. Are they knuckle heads up there or Super Genius Villains who pulled off the cover up of the century?

  86. If there is no such thing as the ‘Whole Media’, then there are gutsy reporters out there that would love to break the story of the cover up. If there was one. All they’d need is one conspirator … who obviously hasn’t come forth yet.

    You do not need a “conspirator” to come fwd in order to report to the American people that the WTC 7 uniformly collapsed all on its own that day in NYC at 5pm in seven split seconds.

    Where did flight 77 and all the people in it go?

    How should I know? There are plenty of very reasonable possible answers to that question.

    What about flight 93? Cover up there too? The phone calls made to the families while the hijacking was taking place were bogus?

    The FBI has conceded that these phone calls cannot be verified. In 2001 we did not have the technology for cellphones to lock on cell towers at the cruising speed and altitudes of these planes rocketing towards their destinations. So yes the FBI thinks the calls were bogus.

    Were all the FAA Flight controllers in on too? The Radar operators? Radio Operators?

    Why on earth would they need to be in on it? They all did their jobs that day.

    Just because DC is inept, doesn’t mean there was a cover up. You are giving them way more credit than they deserve. Are they knuckle heads up there or Super Genius Villains who pulled off the cover up of the century?

    When you say DC is “inept” do you mean the street lights and the buildings and all the asphalt along with all the people that work there? What do you mean when you say “DC is inept.” Do you really believe that the CIA and the FBI and FEMA and DoD are all organizations of inept bumbling idiots? Really? The richest most powerful technologically advanced nation on earth is inept? Or is that merely what the MSM and the clowns we call politicians want to make you think. These people all went to Harvard, Princeton and Yale back when it mattered, just like all the editors of NYT and Washington Post and the owners of the companies that own the MSM. They are not inept. Do you really think you are smarter than they are? Where on earth did you get that idea? (Oh, right, from the MSM.)

    You are getting played.

  87. JWTJr

    “Where did flight 77 and all the people in it go?

    How should I know? There are plenty of very reasonable possible answers to that question.”

    Give us some.

  88. Sure.

    But it occurs to me that I have explaining all kinds of holee in the official conspiracy theory and yet you won’t defend even one key point: WTC 7.

    So tell you what, after you give me your reasonable explanation for the collapse of WTC Building 7, and your reasonable explanation for why the Pentagon won’t release more than 6 stills of video, I will give you 1000 reasonable places where you might find the remains of Flight 77.

  89. Dionysis

    “Flight 77 was the only hijacked plane that could not be tracked by radar the whole way as it lost radar contact near the Ohio/Kentucky border. So by this fact, Flight 77 could have gone anywhere since it’s transponder was turned off and as some people claim only the military could track it and thereby staying perfectly hidden from all radar of the civil authorities…

    It’s been theorized that Flight 77 (along with some/all of the other hijacked planes on 9/11) was flown via remote control to it’s real destination. That is why some believe the Boeing 757’s and 767’s were used because they both have the same flight controls. Although, there were at least two passengers on Flight 77, retired Navy Admiral Wilson Flagg and retired Navy Capt. John Yamnicky, who had extensive flight experience to have possibly flown this plane and both of these individuals also had extensive military backgrounds in the navy no less. Also, remember that the Captain of Flight 77, Charles Burlingame, was a retired Navy fighter pilot and worked as a liaison in the Pentagon (on anti-terrorism strategies no less) for most of his 17 years as a Naval Reserve officer and who was quoted as being “unabashedly patriotic” and who “embraced military life even after he retired”. A prime suspect in a conspiracy such as this one.”

    http://www.thewebfairy.com/killtown/flight77/theories.html

    I recall vividly listening to various radio programs while watching television all day on Sept. 11. I recall two different people who were interviewed on radio saying (independently of one another) that they saw a “small fast plane” or, as one described it, looking “like a Lear Jet” hit the Pentagon.

    Let’s consider what Donald Rumsfeld said in an interview with Parade Magazine (yes, that mainstream newspaper insert):

    “Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was interviewed on 12 October 2001 by Lyric Wallwork Winik (yes, that’s her real name), a columnist for Parade, the magazine that comes in many Sunday newspapers across the US. Although Parade is one of the most mainstream magazines imaginable (think People meets the Saturday Evening Post), Winik blindsided Rumsfeld with a question that few reporters/interviewers have the guts to ask:

    “This is a question that’s been asked by many Americans, but especially by the widows of September 11th. How were we so asleep at the switch? How did a war targeting civilians arrive on our homeland with seemingly no warning?”

    Rumsfeld is apparently shaken by this young reporter’s forthrightness. First, he admits what few else dare:

    “There were lots of warnings.”

    “It is a truth that a terrorist can attack any time, any place, using any technique and it’s physically impossible to defend at every time and every place against every conceivable technique. Here we’re talking about plastic knives and using an American Airlines flight filled with our citizens, and the missile to damage this building and similar (inaudible) that damaged the World Trade Center.”

    http://www.the7thfire.com/Politics and History/Missile-Not-Flight-77.html

  90. JWTJr

    I gave you my thoughts on on the tower 7. The concussion from the fall of the other towers. As far as the pictures go … your man said it perfectly well. The Fed’s like to hold onto evidence.

    Now .. tell us where you think the planes and people are.

  91. JWTJr

    If a missile was used … then the planes went somewhere and that means the radar operators and the Air Traffic Controllers are in on it. From several airports.

    Also, somebody order the missile fired and somebody fired it. More conspirators. They are adding up big time.

  92. Dionysis

    Personally, I don’t know what, or even IF, anything happened to these passengers. However, for some time alternative ideas have been floating around, including variations of this:

    “If Flight 77 was crashed somewhere with all the passengers on board, then it’s obvious everyone perished in the crash along with the plane. If Flight 77 was flown to a secret location, then the innocent passengers or all of the passengers could have been murdered there. It’s also been theorized that the passengers could have been gassed while the plane was still in the air.

    Some theorize that Flight 77 was taken to a remote location where the conspirator passengers, if any, were taken off the plane and then Flight 77 with the innocent passengers was flown via remote control somewhere else and crashed or that the innocent passengers where boarded on another 9/11 hijacked plane who rendezvoused at the same point (such as Flight 93 which had 194 empty seats on it’s flight) and then was flown via remote control and crashed it somewhere else (such as the remote spot Flight 93 crashed).”

    http://www.thewebfairy.com/killtown/flight77/theories.html

    This may seem outlandish, but it’s not inconceivable.

    Of course, another notion that has gained credence over the years is that the event happened basically as described, but that it was ‘allowed to happen’ for political reasons. You know, as the neo cons publicly noted, we “need a new Pearl Harbor.”

  93. Dionysis

    “If a missile was used … then the planes went somewhere”

    True.

    “and that means the radar operators and the Air Traffic Controllers are in on it. From several airports”

    No it doesn’t, necessarily. You really should pay more attention to what David is bringing up. If you did, you would probably not ask the same rhetorical questions repeatedly. It doesn’t take an army of people to theoretically pull something like this off.

  94. I gave you my thoughts on on the tower 7. The concussion from the fall of the other towers.

    Yeah, but JTW, I asked for you to supply us with a REASONABLE explanation for WTC 7’s collapse. I will give you an equally reasonable location where you can find flight 77: The moon. It is about as likely that flight 77 landed on the moon and unloaded its passengers there as it is that the concussion of those two earlier collapases caused another free standing building to collapse independently 5 hours later. Even if your “concussion” hypothesis was reasonable, and it isn’t, why WTC 7 and not the closer buildings, like Deutchebank, which sustained far more collateral damage from the twin tower collapses. You are still not being reasonable in your analysis of Building 7.

    Now let’s look at your other reasonable idea:

    The Fed’s like to hold onto evidence.

    Well, first of all, that is not a reason. That is an attitude. That is like the child asking, “why do I have to study history?” And the parent saying, “because I said so.” That is a terrible “reason.”

    If a Boeing 757 had actually hit the Pentagon it would be recorded and the Pentagon would release it to shut up all these whacky conspiracy theorists. I suspect the reason they won’t release it is because it is going to contradict the official tall tale.

    The 4 planes that were allegedly hijacked that day had enough fuel on board to fly 3,000 miles. There are plenty of places they could have flown to and either landed or been crashed. They could be in the arctic ocean or the atlantic ocean or they could have landed at some Black Site/military base in another country. (What about Thule Airbase, atop Greenland?) On 9/11 guess what happened to every plane in the air that day? All the ones that were not hijacked had to make immediate landings all over the country. I would imagine for some the nearest base would have been military. It would interesting to see how many UA and AA planes landed at military bases that day. How would some grunt on the ground know what the flight numbers of these planes were? Would it have said 77 in big letters on the wing? No.

    But where flight 77 finally landed/crashed is not the really big question here.

    The really big questions have to do with what we do know, like WTC7 bizarre uniform collapse, and still no release of video footage from the Pentagon.

    Why do you think a missing 757 is more important to explain than WTC 7’s bizarre collapse?

  95. JWTJr

    “It doesn’t take an army of people to theoretically pull something like this off.”

    Wrong

  96. Dionysis

    ““It doesn’t take an army of people to theoretically pull something like this off.”

    Wrong

    Well, I guess all it takes is a simple denial, and that puts the matter to rest, huh? Nothing to see here, move along. Right.

  97. Dionysis

    “Dionysis – Yes in that we aren’t going to change each others positions.”

    I understand. My only position is that there are many unanswered questions and other questions that have been unsatisfactorily answered. Regardless of what actually happened, as tax-paying citizens, we deserve to know regardless. I guess some of us aren’t willing to simply shrug the inconsistencies off and blithely accept the ‘official version’. That includes me. The quesioning won’t end here, you can be sure.

  98. Strange / but maybe not so…how so many people attempt to shush up the questioners. What is wrong with simply asking for further information, explanations, evidence, facts? What is wrong with being sceptical? Isn’t it a citizen’s responsibility to ask till every last doubt is removed?

    I can say this for sure, in my own experience, the people who attempt to shush me, when I scratch the surface of their lives…they are bat. s##t. crazy.

  99. Dionysis

    “Isn’t it a citizen’s responsibility to ask till every last doubt is removed?”

    Yes, it absolutely is. Failure to do so is, IMO, an abrogation of that responsibility.

  100. Dionysis

    “Crazy is a matter of perspective.”

    Of course; those who are crazy don’t have a clue that they are. So from their perspective, they don’t see it.

  101. “Crazy is a matter of perspective.” JWT.Jr

    Everyone & I mean EVERYONE, knows these types of people….they just don’t often see this reality in themselves or others.

    Anyone who tries to shush someone, when they ask a legitimate question has to stand the test of scrutiny as to why they’re trying to shut someone up. Because the very first follow up question is; what is this person trying to hide?

    Coming back with the heavy-handed answer of the “trust me, gub-mit says it’s so”, is immediately suspect. Government is in the business of maintaining the status quo…and will do/say anything to maintain that status quo.

  102. Dionysis

    “…the very first follow up question is; what is this person trying to hide?”

    Or at a minimum, ‘what is it they don’t want to know and why’?

  103. Piffy!

    It’s interesting how this turned from an analysis of what our CURRENT president is continuing to do in regard to foreign policy, into a back-and-forth on the merits of various version of the events of 9-11-01.

    Yes, they are connected. But one aspect of the issue is 8 years ago, and one is occurring right now.

    i would like to hear more from the original letter writer.

  104. David Shepherd

    JWTjr keeps pressing about how a major conspiracy such as this could not possibly be kept secret, he implies that G.W. Bush and “Dick” Cheney were victimized, and he asks what was done to the passengers of the flights that hit the Pentagon and Shanksville, PA if indeed they were not commercial aircraft. In the case of the Shanksville, PA plane it is possible that it was intercepted and blown out of the sky as parts of the plane were miles away from the impact zone. In your contempt of the ‘truthers” you should remember the Jersey Girls who were some of the early truthers. These wives and mothers lost husbands and children on 9-11 and were following the investigation closely and were not impressed with how the investigation was being handled. They spoke out after the 9-11 Commission published their porous report outraged that there were so many omissions of their questions.

    It disturbs me when someone will hang onto their beliefs no matter how many cogent arguments and proofs contrary to what they believe are presented but I’ll give Jr. some more to think about. His responses seem to show his belief that his logic is impenetrable as he has a fortified wall against any possibility that the “Truthers” may be more correct than he could ever imagine. Why so many follow exactly his line of reasoning that the facts are all in and are incontrovertible is disturbing in light of the magnitude of the crime and where it has directed our military as well as the attack on our rights.

    Here are some random facts that show that this conspiracy while very well compartmentalized did have leaks, that Bush, and particularly Cheney, have questions that should be answered not behind closed doors, not without any documentation, and not with Cheney holding Bush’s hand as was done with the 9-11 Commission:

    * Do you know that both the Prez and the “Vice”-Prez were taking Cipro, an antidote for anthrax, six weeks prior to the anthrax attacks? Why would they be doing that? The anthrax attacks occurred one week after 9-11 and could very well have been intended to coerce Congress into passing the unconstitutional Patriot Act and Homeland Security Bill.

    * BOTH the Patriot Act and Homeland Security Bill were already written prior to 9-11 and only needed “a new Pearl Harbor event” to make them law. This is very similar to the suspicious nature of us having military advisors prior to 9-11 in Afghanistan.

    * Multiple allied foreign agencies informed the US government of a coming attack in detail

    * Repeated warnings from members of the FBI and Army Intelligence team ‘Able Danger’ about the 19 hijackers were systematically ignored.

    * Certain prominent persons in government and business received warnings not to fly on the week or on the day of September 11th

    * Numerous “put options” were placed to short-sell the two airlines, WTC tenants, and WTC re-insurance companies in Chicago and London. This would be termed insider trading as one would have to have prior knowledge only available to an insider to profit on these sales.

    * Bush, the senior, was at a meeting with members of the Bin Laden family on the day of 9-11 and had slept in the White House the preceding evening. GHW Bush, former head of the CIA, was a personal friend of the Bin Laden family and had even stayed at their homes when visiting Saudi Arabia. The meeting they mutually attended was the annual meeting of the Carlyle Group which is an investment group heavily invested in a variety of defense contractors.

    * In the days after 9-11 when air traffic was grounded the Bin Laden family was allowed to jet back to their palaces in Saudi Arabia. Curious isn’t it that most of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia but we attack Afghanistan based on improbable ‘intelligence’ that says Osama bin Laden orchestrated the attacks from a cave in the mountains of Afghanistan. Afghanistan is strategic both for oil pipelines and being the nexus of the world’s heroin supply. We fought a war using al Qaeda, also known as al CIA-da, employing Osama to fight the then Soviet Union. I have met a Russian who told me that prior to their involvement in Afghanistan Russia had practically no drug problem. That changed radically after their troops sampled the fruits of the poppy plant after their deployment in Afghanistan.

    * Go to the FBI web site and you’ll see Osama bin Laden has a wanted poster. Read it and you’ll see he is NOT wanted for the attacks on 9-11. FBI officers when asked have stated there is no evidence to show he was complicit in these attacks. George, the junior, is quoted as saying a few years after 9-11 that they had no interest in Osama and he was of no concern.

    * There were multiple military war games planned long in advance and held on the morning of September 11th which included scenarios of a domestic air crisis, a plane crashing into a government building, and a large-scale emergency in New York. Both the documentaries “Loose Change” and “The Elephant in the Room” show former Georgia Congresswoman, and true patriot, Cynthia McKinney, asking General Myers some tough questions about these ‘games’. Myers would normally be the one in charge of NORAD but he deferred to Dick Cheney for the duration of these games. She asked the General if these war games impeded our ability to respond to the attacks of 9-11. Keep in mind not a single fighter was able to engage the hijacked aircraft. In particular the non-interception of the alleged plane that hit the Pentagon is inexcusable as the 2 towers had already been hit and it was a full hour and twenty minutes since the hijackings had been reported. He said these games ENHANCED our ability to respond. If that’s the case what would be a good response time? The next day? The day after that? General Myers is seated with slippery defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld when being questioned and it is a ‘must see’ to see these two B.S. to cover their derrieres. On Sept 10, 2001 Rumsfeld admitted to there being 2.3 trillion dollars unaccounted for (stolen?) in the defense budget. Where the Pentagon was hit held the records needed to investigate the missing 2.3 trillion. General Myers was promoted to the Joint Chiefs of Staff sometime after 9-11.

    * NUMEROUS witnesses including firefighters, police, and reporters reported hearing explosions on the bottom floors or basements of WTC 1, 2, and 7. They also report, and there is film and footage, that the lobbies of these buildings looking like they had been bombed prior to their collapse. In a controlled demolition it is necessary to take out the bottom of the building. William Rodriguez, an eloquent custodian of the Twin Towers and regaled as a hero for rescuing numerous people on the day of 9-11 is on camera many, many times saying there were explosions coming from the basement of the Towers both shortly before and after the planes hit. Barry Jennings, a manager of the NYC housing authority who worked in building 7, in the mayor’s Office of Emergency Management reports explosions from below. When he went to work that morning of 9-11 he entered an intact lobby and took an elevator up to the 23rd floor to the Office of Emergency Management which is the command center of coordination for handling any crisis that might occur in NYC. When he arrived the office was deserted but there were cups of coffee with steam still rising lying about. Another employee told Jennings that the command center had been moved and they needed to get out of the building. In that time power had been cut to WTC 7, also called the Solomon Brothers building, and they had to use the stairwells in lieu of the elevators. When they got down to the lower floors they both reported an explosion that came from beneath them lifting them off their feet and stranding them on the staircase. After some time they were rescued by firemen. He reports being shocked to see the lobby in the building looking as though it were part of a war zone as the fireman got them out of the doomed building. Their testimony was not included in the bogus 9-11 Commission Report. Rodriguez is still alive. Jennings died of undisclosed causes in 2008.

    * Why did the second building to be hit, which also had most of the jet fuel burn up in a fireball outside the building, go down first? Logic would say that with less fuel to burn and less time since it was hit, that it should fall second, not first.

    * Why if this is the first time steel framed buildings had ever fallen freefall into their footprints from fires did this happen three times in one day? Isn’t this stretching the odds of probability just a wee bit?

    * There was molten steel, plainly visible in the videos of the falling buildings, white hot molten steel, running down the sides of the building. Witnesses reported seeing the molten steel in the basement all the way up to the first week in December.

    * There were traces of thermite, a plastic explosive, found in samples, taken from ground zero. Temperatures of only 1500 to 2500 degrees were all that was obtainable by kerosene jet fuel burning. Thermite on the other hand burns much hotter and is designed to make steel melt.

    * On 9-11 several vans were stopped that morning with Israeli citizens, who either seemed to have prior knowledge of the attacks, or had explosives in their vehicle. Many will recall the young Israelis who were photographed hollering and dancing for joy as they watched from the top of a building across a river from the WTC. When investigators started looking into this network it was revealed they did indeed have a classified role in 9/11, and that two companies within the United States may have been helping them gain their intel. They were questioned and released by the FBI. When they were able to return to Israel they admitted on an Israeli talk show that they were there to film the destruction of the Towers. This network’s existence is then confirmed by whistle blower Sybyl Edmonds, who came across an international spy ring containing Turks, Israelis, and members of Pakistani Intelligence. She too was ignored. The Pakistani operation was headed by General Mahmoud Ahmed, who had financial ties to the hijackers, and diplomatic ties to the upper echelons of Washington. On the morning of 9-11 FL senator Bob Graham and FL congressman Porter Goss, members of the intelligence committee, were meeting with General Mahmoud Ahmed who heads the Pakistani equivalent of the CIA and was shown to have wired $100,000 to the terrorists on 9-10-01. Porter Goss was a major designer of the patriot Act and went on to become head of the CIA albeit briefly as he resigned for undisclosed reasons.

    Perhaps the proof in the pudding of how little some of the elite who have the reigns of power think of human life can best be exampled by two outrageous acts of murder against those who they outwardly say they admire and whom the country owes a debt of gratitude. These two groups would be the first responders and our troops in the Gulf War of the father, GHWB, and the Gulf War of the son, GWB. The Bushies got us in Iraq twice to oust a dictator, Saddam Hussein, a country once funded and supported by our government. The first responders were intentionally poisoned after being lied to concerning the safety of the air at ground zero. Our troops have not been informed about the dangers of using depleted uranium (DU) in munitions which is killing them as well as Iraqis.

    After the trade centers came down Christine Todd Whitman, head of the EPA, said it was safe for the first responders to begin the search for bodies and the clean-up from the destruction of the T H R E E buildings demolished at the WTC complex. I felt similar to when I watched the three buildings come down in a puff of smoke at remarkable speed when I heard Whitman’s statement in 2001. The fix was in; we were being lied to. I have worked in construction and respirators are urged for any work around dust. In addition to concrete dust these buildings were laden with a known carcinogen, asbestos, as well as a myriad of other toxic materials such as mercury, lead, etc. Post 9-11 it was discovered that the EPA tested the air the evening of 9-11 and found it WAS NOT SAFE. Bush/Cheney had decided that clean-up needed to commence ASAP for reasons of economics. Remember that Wall Street is in the neighborhood of the WTC. If you’ll recall all the steel was hauled offshore thereby destroying evidence. It could be seen that they wanted to eliminate the crime scene pronto. Many good souls who were devoting their time were unaware of the dangers and were working without respirators. Those who thought that paper filters were going to protect them were misinformed. It is of note that higher ups in the government at ground zero had respirators. It is projected that in the next few years the number of deaths caused from exposure to the toxic air of the WTC will exceed the nearly 3,000 who died on 9-11.

    Susan Oehler who wrote this letter about war, war, and more war said “today the Iraqi people are seeing extraordinary increases in birth defects and cancer rates”. This is directly attributable to their exposure to depleted uranium. Depleted uranium, or DU, is harder than steel and therefore is used in armor piercing munitions. It will slice through armor on tanks or any structure fortified with steel. This depleted uranium is obtained from spent fuel rods from nuclear reactors. When it hits its target it fragments into a fine powder that is dispersed into the air, water, and soil of it where it hits. The thing about this is it is non-discriminatory; it is killing our soldiers as well as innocent Iraqi citizens. Depleted uranium was thought up in the late 1940’s but was never used until the first Gulf War the reason being the toxic effects of radiation that would linger for eons. In the first Gulf War soldiers were returning with a condition called Gulf War Syndrome. There were many symptoms but the primary and first noticed was great lethargy. The media did not make much of an issue of our use of depleted uranium or the fact that we blasted Iraqi stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons to smithereens thereby exposing our soldiers to the toxins. The military still claims to not know what caused the Gulf War Syndrome jut as they claimed to not know the effects of Agent Orange after the Vietnam War. Just this week the Iraqis have proceeded with legal actions against the U.S. for the use of depleted uranium and our knowledge that we are killing innocent men women and children with its use. Tanks have been long out of the question for the Iraqis as they have all been destroyed but we continue to use depleted uranium hardened munitions for two reasons; they will penetrate through many layers of anything unlike regular missiles or munitions and spreading it throughout Iraq is a way to dispose of our toxic radioactive trash.

    As far as the question you have repeatedly posed about where the passengers of these airliners might be if indeed they were not the planes we saw hitting the Towers or the ones we didn’t see crashing in PA and impacting the Pentagon and coming out the other side DCJ has stated a couple of times maybe they are in the Atlantic which is as good of a guess as any. The bottom line as witnessed by the dying first responders and our men and women in the military is that the term cannon fodder, soldiers regarded merely as material to be expended in war, still applies. These people would be as dispensable as were the occupants of the Pentagon and WTC in order to get the Global War on Terror rolling and to enslave Americans by passing the unconstitutional Patriot Act and Homeland Security Bill. Wake up, smell the coffee and, stop drooling Kool-aid all over yourself. There are way too many inconsistencies to just sit back and wave the flag and continue to live in the delusion that we are the greatest country in the world. As Nazi Germany did we are trying to conquer a region and use the hate of an ethnic group deemed inferior and evil to obtain our objectives. I believe Iran will be the tipping point where China, Russia, and other nations decide it is time to get us out of their countries and region. These lunatics who have us in Iraq, Afghanistan, and potentially Pakistan and Yemen have not eliminated Iran from their list of nations they want to occupy. I am sick of war. I am sick of war without end. We need regime change at home not abroad. We don’t have the expertise to run our own country let alone the rest of the nations of the world. I actually thought that 9-11 was going to open up a dialogue about our intrusion into so many countries worldwide when it occurred. Our country is in the advanced stages of military madness. We really believe we can sustain bases all around the world along with several wars with an economy that has already been globalized and cannibalized to the point where we face a potential Greater Depression than 1929? Madness.

  105. David Shepherd

    ?piffy¤?? ( aka nash equilibrium ) wrote –
    It’s interesting how this turned from an analysis of what our CURRENT president is continuing to do in regard to foreign policy, into a back-and-forth on the merits of various version of the events of 9-11-01.

    That is the way lots of any of these posts go. I am the one that took us down the 911 rabbit hole on this post. Without 9-11 this madness abroad could never have been launched and sustained. Until a true investigation that needs to be independent of government yet with the subpoena power of the government can be conducted too many are going to believe the “official” version of how 19 young Saudi Arabians with box cutters directed by Osama bin Laden from a cave in Afghanistan were able to thwart our military and intelligence agencies. It is so important that we realize the magnitude of lies that got us into these wars and it was NOT just Bush or Cheney doing the lies; it was systemic. The FBI lied, The CIA lied. CNN and the BBC lied. Guiliani lied. General Myers, who was in charge of NORAD, lied. Rumsfeld lied. Condoleza Rice lied. Tony Blair lied. And on and on.

    Last night I wrote a post that addresses the original letter in regards to the rise of birth defects and cancer rates and also reflected my view that too many of those that would lie on a scale as we are talking about on 9-11 have no respect for human life. The post I sent last night around 10 has not posted yet. It is long and maybe that is why it hasn’t posted yet since I sent it before your post of 11:47. It is no coincidence that war marches on under Barack Hussein Obama. He is a liar too and his feet should be held to the fire. In his campaign he was honest that his administration would focus more on Afghanistan. I knew that would mean more death there for us and Afghanis to search for the Taliban and al CIA-da. Osama bin Laden is either dead or has had facial reconstructive surgery and a new identity and is living God knows where. I have stated in previous posts on this thread that the FBI does not list him as a suspect in the crimes of 9-11. Bush II even said he is of no longer of any interest to him. Yet we are going into Afghanistan with renewed vigor and greater deaths to Afghanis and our troops.

    Where Barack Hussein Obama lied, and lied big, is when he said the first thing he’d do if elected is end the Iraq war. HE LIED. We did not learn from 9-11 and until we do we will continue to elect liars. On the surface Barack Hussein Obama appeared better than McCain because McCain was saying he would follow the Bush doctrine. I was not sold on him because he never came out and said he would abolish the Patriot Act nor did he say he would re-open the 9-11 investigation. We have to realize our system is totally corrupt and beholden to the military-industrial complex and New World Order crowd and the power they wield by controlling the banks. It is necessary to become pro-active in order to try and save our republic and cease our intrusion into so many countries. I have voted in every presidential election since Jimmy Carter. If there was a 3rd party candidate available that is who I would vote for. I did not vote in this election because I have become older, wiser, and more embittered. The treatment of Ron Paul by the press and especially in the debates was reprehensible. He advocated bringing all our troops home which made him as popular as Dennis Kucinich who tried to impeach Bush but the traders in Congress were chicken. I do mean chicken because it is at risk to life and limb to do so. I am hoping in my lifetime there arises a new political party that is anti-war and anti-New World Order. I, we, should be so lucky. When I read that Barack Hussein Obama (Obama has told the press not to use his middle name so I choose to) had as his mentor Zbigniew Brzezinski I knew we had ourselves another war-monger globalist in sheep’s clothing. Barack Hussein Obama also worked for Henry Kissinger, a known war criminal and Globalist, and that pretty much told me the tale. There would be no CHANGE.

    It is ironically symbolic to me that the flaming World Trade Center’s Twin Towers are the symbol to too many Americans of our righteousness in leading a Global War on Terror. Our country’s economic downfall can directly be linked to New World Order Globalists, those whose mantra is world trade, who hoodwinked us through a compliant main stream media into believing that dropping our trade barriers through agreements like NAFTA would increase trade and improve the lives of ordinary Americans. It did increase trade alright; imports, cheap imports primarily from China, flooded into the U.S. It was not long ago that NC was known as the hub of the textile industry. That is now history and now people would love to have those jobs that when they existed were perceived as low paying. The automobile industry is headed the same way and in our lifetimes there still might be a GM or Ford but they won’t make cars in Detroit or anywhere in the U.S. These trade agreements made the rich richer so they are oblivious to how harmful they are to the masses.

    Zbigniew Brzezinski was one of the founding members of the Trilateral Commission. He is best known for being Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor. He orchestrated the mess that happened to our hostages in Iran. More importantly he figured out how to bog the Soviets down in Afghanistan by having us supply arms and pump up Osama and al CIA-da. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Bilderberg Group. These 3 groups are tied together. Their objectives are the same. We can pretty much all agree that money is unfortunately the prime motivator for most people. For these groups it is more than just money. They’re interested in excessive, unconceivable amounts of money and the power it gives them. With this kind of money they wield power the likes of which no government has. They have the power to start wars and they have the power to end wars. How do they come about having so much money? They are the main proponents of knocking down trade agreements and are entrenched in and funded by the multinational corporations whom they help enrich. Their members are in academia, government, business, and of course the media. Until we get real smart about the shenanigans they perpetrate on our country and each of us personally with our declining standard of living.

    As I write this I see that JWTjr’s post of 14 hours later than the post I had posted last night has shown up. Yes, jr. I started it. I know you believe everything was all settled in the immediate aftermath of 9-11. There has been a lot of info put forth and I challenge you to open your mind and look into a little learning. It looks like I will need to re-post what I wrote last night because it is not turning up. This has happened before and then it looks stupid when the post appears twice. I understand the need for a moderator but something is wrong here and there can be no continuity between the posts when it can take longer than a half a day for one’s post to turn up.

  106. JWTJr

    “I think Dick Cheney started it.”

    That is partisan bunk.

    Let’s see … there were big wars going on somewhere that we were involved in during … W, Clinton, HW, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, LBJ, JFK … practically every president.

    Even more significant, every industrialized country has the same problem. We didn’t invent anything that hadn’t been happening since civilization began.

  107. You can add Judith Miller & the NYT to that list of liars. Achmed Chalabi, and Tom Friedman too….and ANYBODY in bed with the Saudi’s.

  108. “I think Dick Cheney started it.”

    That is partisan bunk.

    I concede your point. My point was simply that Cheney’s administration initiated the 21st century “9/11 phase” of empire building. But you are correct. It is not a partisan issue. I think Obama is carrying that torch very well in afghanistan and pakistan and soon Yemen and Iran today.

    (The idea of partisanship is bunk.)

  109. Piffy!

    [b]Where Barack Hussein Obama lied, and lied big, is when he said the first thing he’d do if elected is end the Iraq war. HE LIED. [/b]

    You sure? I recall him speaking of a timetable for pullout (16 months, i think, which hasnt passed yet), and also recall him acknowledging that any ‘timetable’ would obviously be subject to all kinds of changes based on the commanders in the field, previous agreements between Bush and the Iraqi ‘President’, etc.

    In addition, i think his most recent statement in regards to troop pullouts in Iraq was to begin pulling troops out by august of this year and to have all ‘combat’ troops out by 2011. again, though, he still acknowledges that these are timetables not set in stone.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/washington/28troops.html

    So what did he “Lie” about, joe wilson, er DCJ? Is your memory REALLY that selective? Did you REALLY vote for him expecting radical change, despite basically everything he actually said and campaigned on?

    If so, you got duped not by Obama, but by your own naivete. Don’t blame Obama for how the media dumbed down his message. The info was out there for anyone willing to see it. Anyone who took even a few moments to research the specifics of his platform during the election would have been well-ware of these things. You just sound like a child throwing a tantrum. He’s President of a massive, moving nation of 300 million people with ties to global empire that can in no way be dismantled over night. And i’m not ‘defending’ him (didnt vote for him-wasn’t a big fan of continuing the war), but merely pointing out to you how un-realistic your expectations appear to be for someone who claims (and appears) to be politically savvy.

    Are you just one of those who super-imposed their own ideals onto the term “Change” without actually researching the specifics? Thats your fault.

  110. “I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank.” ~ Candidate Barack Obama, October 27, 2007.

    In my eyes, if you say you are going to do something, and then decide NOT to do it for no good reason, that is LYING. So far, one year after he got into office, he has removed about 10% of the troops there and increased the number of contractors.

    I didn’t vote for him. I am not naive.

    I am sure you know what they say about people who ASS-ume things about other people.

  111. Piffy!

    my bad. That last post of mine was addressed to David Sheppard and not David Conner Jones. Wrong dave. Funny, since my name is dave, as well. Sorry david.

  112. Piffy!

    with that said, before david sheppard jumps on me for claiming he voted for obama, i thought i was responding to a quote from DCJ, who has said he voted for him.

    My point stands though that Obama did not lie about Iraq. All the facts are and were there for anyone willing to notice.

  113. David Shepherd

    pff ?? wrote –
    You sure? I recall him speaking of a timetable for pullout (16 months, i think, which hasnt passed yet), and also recall him acknowledging that any ‘timetable’ would obviously be subject to all kinds of changes based on the commanders in the field, previous agreements between Bush and the Iraqi ‘President’, etc.

    Dave’s not here man. (J O K E)

    It is so easy to be misconstrued. I said I DID NOT vote for Barrack Hussein Obama because he is linked to Zbigniew Brzezinski and he never said he’d rescind the unconstitutional Patriot Act. I have seen videos of him on You-Tube saying that is the first thing he would do is remove our troops from Iraq. These could have been taken out of context. I also seem to recall his “timetable” rhetoric so I think you have a point. How refreshing to not have someone resort to name calling. I have seen a couple small errors in my posts as I re-read about the horrific events of 9-11. I too wished I did not believe my gov’t capable of mass murder. I know they are. To use the correct term they are capable of GENOCIDE as witnessed by their use of depleted uranium and plans to use tactical nuclear weapons against Iran.

    I’d also like to thank DCJ for the compliment. Your knowledge is encyclopedic and better written than most of the stuff I have read on the “internets”. I am sure you are one of the few who is aware that the cabal of Barrack Hussein Obama’s is readying Internet II to foist on us to stop research and dialogue on anything they deem threatening to the state. If don’t know what Internet II is Google it. JWTjr don’t bother: it won’t interest you because if you don’t know it then it can’t be true.

    I am almost old enough to have had the military pay for my tour of Southeast Asia in order to kill gooks (not a term I like but one I remember from my brother’s Marine Leatherneck magazines). My brother got the tour and is dead from pancreatic cancer which is one of the many diseases Monsanto’s creation the defoliant “Agent Orange” caused. I had a good friend who was one pissed-off former VietNam vet and years ago he had told me he was doused by Agent Orange often. He had two children born with organs outside of their bodies. He showed me pictures and I have never gotten over them.

    Because I was sweating whether I’d need to really use the French I was studying by going to Canada rather than be a hired gun I remember all to well the ‘timetable’ b.s. of Nixon. I also watched on live TV when we finally did leave Nam in 1974 like thieves in the night flying off rooftops and leaving many, many S. Vietnamese allies to die. There is no graceful way to end a war. It will make no difference how we leave; we just need to leave.

    As far as Barrack Hussein Obama’s lies and obfuscations remember that he said he would close Guantanamo Bay prison as soon as possible? He hasn’t yet and it appears that when they do close it they’ll merely shuffle the prisoners and disappear them into numerous clandestine prisons here and abroad.

    Something struck me as funny when I commented that henceforth I would refer to Barrack Hussein Obama using his middle name because after he was elected this new fascist requested to the press that they stop using his middle name. The new boss is the same as the old boss except he speaks in complete sentences and stutters somewhat less …….still needs that teleprompter though. Barrack Hussein Obama has no trouble with the Patriot Act or Homeland Security or the TSA. Can you imagine the hassles he’d constantly have if he were not part of the elite? He would have to go by the name he used as a schoolboy in Indonesia – “Barry Soweto”.

  114. Piffy!

    No, just my david’s.

    do you disagree with my basic assertion that Obama did not lie about Iraq?

  115. Obama did lie about Iraq. He said this in October 2007:

    “I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank.” ~ Candidate Barack Obama, October 27, 2007.

    Right now, we have 120,000 troops in Iraq and over 100,000 contractors there. He is withdrawing some troops and sending some more (local group is going soon).

    So, a year after Obama took office we have promises that he will withdraw troops and no serious effort to actually do so. In my eyes, if someone says they will do something and then fails to do it for no good reason, they were lying.

  116. David Shephard: Our president’s last name at his grammar school in Indonesia was his Indonesian stepfather’s last name, Soetoro. (Not to be confused with Soweto, a township in South Africa.)

    Sorry to hear all that about your brother and Agent Orange. That is terrible.

    The best liar you can buy for office is a liar who appears to be honest. They bought themselves a real good one this time around.

    How do you know when Obama is lying?
    He’s on TV.

    ‘Anti-American’ is what governments and their vested interested call those who honour America by objecting to war and the theft of resources and believing in all of humanity. There are millions of these anti-Americans in the United States. They are ordinary people who belong to no elite and who judge their government in moral terms, though they would call it common decency. They are not vain. They are the people with a wakeful conscience, the best of America’s citizens. They can be counted on. They were in the south with the Civil Rights movement, ending slavery. They were in the streets, demanding an end to the wars in Asia. Sure, they disappear from view now and then, but they are like seeds beneath the snow. I would say they are truly exceptional.

    – Martha Gelhorn

  117. JWTJr

    I’m torn between Obama being either so naive he actually thought he could pull off some of these big things or was he just spouting empty campaign promises he knew in advance would never happen.

  118. The skeptic in me really does want to lock in on the idea that it was all empty campaign rhetoric.

    He said during his campaign that he believed health care was universal right. Well when you have to pay for it out of pocket and if you can’t afford it any more, then clearly it is not a right, but a privledge to be bought by those with money. If he really believed that it was universal right, he could have required that anything congress brings him has to include the public option to keep big insurance honest in it effort to control premium costs for the lower wage workers of our society. THat way your “universal right” to healthcare is protected. He did nothing of the kind. In fact, according to Kucinich, the white house insisted that any robust public option in the house bill must be excluded from final wording.

    Leaving Iraq in 11 months was his campaign promise. When he got into office it became 22 months. He said at his State of the Union address we will have all military personel out by august, or october? I would not hold your breath. The only way I see that happening is if he needs to move them to Yemen or Pakistan or Iraq.

    I just don’t think he is genuine about anything he says. I think he is just real slick.

  119. JWTJr

    Also, early on he was a proponent of a single payor health care system. Now he’s all about competition being essential for lower costs. Which is it?

  120. Piffy!

    [b]Obama did lie about Iraq. He said this in October 2007:

    “I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank.” ~ Candidate Barack Obama, October 27, 2007.[/b]

    And he made [b]multiple[/b] addendums to that statement in the [b]2 years[/b] between that day and his election, dancewater. Are you really saying that you don’t recall him saying, repeatedly, that troops would stay there well into his presidency?

    I’m not defending his positions, or saying i support the war effort. i’m just saying that’s a pretty selective memory you are displaying there.

    There are certainly lots of things obama promised that he has indeed failed to act upon, and there is little doubt in my mind that the number of these broken promises will continue to climb, but to find one quote from 2007, that was amended multiple times in the course of the longest, most extensively covered election in history seems either incredibly manipulative, or just fundamentally uninformed.

    I recall, on many occasions prior to his election, on national television, as well as his website, him discussing very specifically how we would maintain a troop presence in Iraq well into 2010, with many, many caveats about “depending on Generals, previous agreements with Iraqi government”, etc. Are you really playing at naivete?

    Instead of playing semantics, why not just demand he remove troops from Iraq, regardless of empty campaign promises?

  121. I have been protesting since 2001. I am headed to DC AGAIN next month to protest. It is expensive and tiring….. and useless, as far as getting our politicians to stop lying and stop warmongering.

    He lied about Iraq. He lied about Afghanistan too – Obama said he was going to increase troops there, he never said he was going to triple the number.

    He is an evil man in my eyes.

  122. Piffy!

    It’s funny to watch the co-mingling of the Alex Jones fringe and the RightWingNoiseMAchine as they seek to dumb down political debate with sweeping generalizations, as if Americans have any choice between the lesser of two evils at any point in the forseeable future. I wonder, when the pendulum swings back to the even-further-to-the-right neocons in the next few years, will those who self-identify with a more radical ‘leftism’ realize they missed an opportunity to push the envelope with an actual moderate in office? Or do you think President Romney will be more receptive to your pleas?

    Is Obama continuing the policies of empire? Of course. Is this what the majority of Americans actively or passively want? I strongly suspect so, based on the middle-class’ collective acquiescence during the Bush and Clinton years. Will we ever change the course of hundreds of years of empire? Not until we get out and have reasoned, educated debate with our friends, families, and neighbors, and try to reach an actual consensus so that our votes can actually be more than between two sides of the same coin.

    I suspect that too many on the left fall into the trap of the disinformation machine of the right and will find a rude awakening when they realize the missed their last opportunity for anything resembling reasoned, moderate change within the system before we make our last, final descent into a total Dictatorship based on Corporate Control and Fear.

  123. … before we make our last, final descent into a total Dictatorship based on Corporate Control and Fear.

    Well, if you are gonna bust out that sweeping generalization at the end of your spiel, let me suggest to you that we are already there. The “pendulum swing” you refer to is not real. The Dems and the Republicans all more or less work together now. That pendulum was designed for you to believe in and think that your vote for a Dem at the national presidential level actually matters. It keeps you invested in the system as it stands and and discourages people from thinking/organizing outside of the two party electorate. They don’t really believe in the pendulum. I really don’t see how you can honestly think Obama is in actuality some kind of moderate. (I don’t think any of them are receptive to anybody’s pleas once they get into office.)

  124. pffff

    [b]Also, early on he was a proponent of a single payor health care system. Now he’s all about competition being essential for lower costs. Which is it?[/b]

    That’s hardly a “lie”, by any rational standard. He has always said he would like to have input from both ‘sides’ of the isle, and his willingness to try and get the majority of our elected officials on board with the idea should hardly be seen as misleading in any way. Did he ever say he would force single payer thorugh congress? No. Considering the GOP refuses to accept a possibility they demanded speaks volumes about their real intentions.

    While I’m sure he is still a proponent of single payer, he can not be expected to control congress with Dictatorial powers.

    As someone who would welcome Single Payer, I also recognize that the real stumbling block to that goal is Congress, on both sides of the isle. If Obama pushes to hard for his way, the Republicans get to claim he is ‘shoving it down our throats’. With this current approach, he gets to take the moderate path and require all of our elected officials to show their hand (or, more accurately, who’s pockets those hands are in).

    Do i wish we had single payer tomorrow? Yes. Do i want Obama to be “liberal Bush” by employing fear and manipulation, laying further precedent to establish a future dictatorship, to get it? No.

  125. JWTJr

    pffff – are you saying that the Republicans changed Obama’s mind or that he is just caving?

  126. JWTJr

    When someone says that they are for a single payor system and then later says that competition is necessary for a proper system, either they were lying or they changed their minds.

    He didn’t say that he was including competition to made the Right happy, he said that the health system works best with competition.

  127. Piffy!

    [b]pffff – are you saying that the Republicans changed Obama’s mind or that he is just caving? [/b]

    Neither. He has vocally sought bi-partisan support for the HC bill from the very beginning, despite your attempts to recreate reality. I’ll give you time to look up the phrase b-partisan, as well as reality.

    He is continuing to prove that the Republicans are only bluffing when they claim they would support a bill “if”, and then balk when given the ‘if’.

  128. Piffy!

    [b]Well, if you are gonna bust out that sweeping generalization at the end of your spiel, let me suggest to you that we are already there. The “pendulum swing” you refer to is not real. The Dems and the Republicans all more or less work together now. That pendulum was designed for you to believe in and think that your vote for a Dem at the national presidential level actually matters. It keeps you invested in the system as it stands and and discourages people from thinking/organizing outside of the two party electorate. They don’t really believe in the pendulum. I really don’t see how you can honestly think Obama is in actuality some kind of moderate. (I don’t think any of them are receptive to anybody’s pleas once they get into office.) [/b]

    That’s rich, yoou calling my post a tireade. Do you read the stuff you write?

    Well first off, you avoided the point I made about your inaccurate statement about Obama’s commitments in Iraq. But i’m not surprised.

    If we indeed were in the fascist dictatorship you fantasize about, we wouldnt even be having this discussion. People like you seem to desperately want to live in a fascist regime just so you can fulfill your red dawn dreams. The rest of us work towards actually, tangible change here in the real world. So save me the alex jones spiel. i outgrew that by the time i passed my teen years.

    I completely agree that the ‘left/right dichotomy is a false one that prevents us from effecting any substantive ‘change’ on a national level. But, unless you have a better, realistic, enact-able solution, on the National level, I’m going to continue to work with the cards we’ve been dealt. You can feel free to write screeds on the internet about how oppressed you are. I’m sure the irony will escape you.

    And if you don’t think Obama is a ‘moderate”, i think you completely misunderstand the general will of this passive, docile middle-class nation. Y/our little pocket of anti-war activists are a minority (myslef included), just like the Tea Baggers. Liberals love to moan and whine about “War” and whatnot, but the fact is, very few lift a finger to stop it. That is the moderate thought of our nation, no matter how radical, anti-whatever you and your buddies may be. A march on Washington of 1,000,000 people is still only a small fraction of the population.

    Instead of expecting the government to bend to y/our minority will, we have to make fundamental changes, from the bottom up, to our entire society. Bashing Obama for being exactly what he promised is ignorant, foolish, and short-sighted, to say the least. When Heir Romney comes to your home to require you take and oath to Jesus, you will long for the days of Obama, when you had the freedom to endulge in such fantasies.

  129. PK: Do you have a dictionary? A thesaurus, perhaps? There aren’t any words in my recent post that suggest you have written any “tirade.” (A “spiel” is not a “tirade.”) I pointed out a “sweeping generalization” that you made at the end of your comment about “dumbing down” political debate with “sweeping generalizations.” (Your phrases, not mine.)

    First of all, I do not fantasize about being in “fascist dictatorship.” I never suggested we exist in one. I don’t really know where you are getting your ideas from, but you might want to check your sources. (Stop watching Alex Jones.)

    I agree with Noam Chomsky that corporatism is a type of fascism, one in which we are increasingly entrenched, but it is hardly a dictatorship. But since you are having trouble differentiating a “spiel” from “tirade” and can’t tell racism from literary allusion (on another PK-DCJ thread, folks), I can see how you might confuse the idea of corporatism and a fascist dictatorship. (Fuzzy English abounds here.)

    This communication breakdown is probably part & parcel of the same mentality that allows you to see Obama as a “moderate.” (Obama is a corporatist civil servant like Bush, Clinton and Reagan before him. Policy wise, they are all more similar than they are different.)

    When Heir Romney comes to your home to require you take and oath to Jesus, you will long for the days of Obama, when you had the freedom to endulge in such fantasies.

    I mean, I can’t even believe I am engaged in a conversation with someone who would posit the above Mitt Romney scenario as a potential future American reality. Sounds like some trite Olberman/Maddow comment on MSNBC. (More phony seeds of “thought.”) You seem all gummed up in the MSM pundit-foisted ideas. “Teabaggers” are phony, just like Obama is phony, just like Rachel Maddow is phony and just like Olberman is phony. That whole “reality” that we call the talk-radio cable news channel circuit is a phony mind control loop. It is a venus flytrap for dipshits to get you to have certain meaningless conversations about the supposed merits of Barack Obama and all his actions and inactions while he holds down the fort for the real brokers. The absurd oath idea above that you cite as some kind of possible future civic threat is simply ludicrous. That is an idea being circulated by hacks on TV and radio to mange your thinking. And it has worked: you are trying to pass off Obama as some kind of pliant moderate in response to the absurdity.

    I don’t moan about the war because I am a “liberal.” I do not really identify as a “liberal.” Where you got that idea is beyond me. But this again is no real surprise, because it is the same kind of superficial delineation of debate that talk radio and cable TV punditry seek to engender now days. There are plenty of “conservatives” and people of other so-called political persuasions that find these wars abhorrent.

    I think a big part of the problem is the hackneyed terms everybody engages on cue from their TVs, radios and the blogosphere. It’s all dead.

    Instead of expecting the government to bend to y/our minority will…

    Hello? The MAJORITY of Americans, and the people of the world, find these wars immoral and illegal and counter-productive for humanity and have since before they were even inaugurated. Those authorizing and furthering these war efforts, however, feel that they are in the best interests of a few, and therefore, ultimately the whole, “trickle-down” just war theory. These proponents are the minority, albeit a very powerful one. Part of how they maintain their power is through co-opting citizens to choose preferable points of view in a phony “left/right” dialogue set up by highly paid loud mouths on talk-radio and cable TV. Part of why people will accept the continued and future wars America is going to be engaging in is because they have been effectively conditioned to accept Obama as a well-meaning, pseudo-eloquent, somehow-hamstrung-with-a-democratic-majority-in-congress “moderate.” (“Let’s all just give the ‘moderate’ time to work it out.”)

    I find your points here, like your grasp of the English language, increasingly inept, PK. The problems are not unrelated. If MSNBC is your dictionary, then you are bound to remain inarticulate. Try dumping the talk radio MSNBC jingo-lingo, and working with some real ideas here.

  130. David Shepherd

    Do you think there’d be enough money on the table for healthcare if we weren’t being bogged down in the mideast and having spent 28 trillion to bail out the banks? I am not so sure national healthcare would be a good idea because it might be mandated that you take certain prescriptions or outlaw non-allopathic remedies such as chiropractic.

    As far as the slamming of Alex Jones goes I for one cannot agree. He has a little too much emotion for some but he is a terrific researcher and is anti-war as any activist I have met. For some it is hard to swallow the complexity of the New World Order but it must be understood to make sense of why we never, ever get any change. He is very knowledgeable on the NWO and has some incredible expert guests who don’t find him fringe. Look see for yourself: infowars.com & prisonplanet.com He talks about things way before other sources in the media because his work is his passion.

  131. @David Shepherd – in Canada, having a single payer system for health care did not mean other non-traditional remedies were outlawed and there was no limits on prescriptions.

    As to the question – can we afford it? Having a single payer system would provide about $100 billion in savings in the next ten years over what we have now, so yes, we can afford it. It would save us money.

  132. Piffy!

    dcj-you’ve put your foot in your mouth enough in this thread to really make any attempt at a point kinda silly. just go home and regroup until you can get your story and your carefully cherry picked facts straight.

  133. Piffy!

    I adore, though, how people like DCJ think they have all the facts, and anyone elses perspective, no matter how footnoted or accurate, is just paranoid fantasy.

    Please, move to uganda so you can be as oppressed as you appear to wish you were.

  134. I adore, though, how people like DCJ think they have all the facts, and anyone elses perspective, no matter how footnoted or accurate, is just paranoid fantasy.

    We call this “the pot calling the kettle black.”

    When Heir Romney comes to your home to require you take and oath to Jesus, you will long for the days of Obama, when you had the freedom to endulge in such fantasies.

    We call this “a paranoid fantasy.”

  135. JWTJr

    Tell me one time when the Gov’t’s prediction on the cost of just about anything turned out to be accurate after a few years. The predictions for Medicare just keep getting worse and worse. Disaster sooner and sooner. Thinking that the 100 billion dollar savings projection has any chance at all is completely blind to history.

  136. Ashevegasjoe

    ignoring the cost of the uninsured and the rising cost of health care is blind to recent history

  137. JWTJr

    AVJ – I don’t think anyone is arguing that.

    I was talking about those that believe that covering 45 million people who are currently uncovered with save us money.

    My point is that the projection of those costs has to be taken with the grain of salt that comes with most all Gov’t projections … that they normally grossly underestimate future costs.

    Their ability to project the costs of Medicare and Medicaid so far have been offp and alwasy are. They make projections and then years later, they find out they were wrong. Way wrong.

    We can decide if we should insure everyone .. that is a discussion worth having. Thinking that the same Gov’t that has manages Medicare and Medicaid will pull off insuring 45 million more people in some new miraculous way is folly. The bill contains no cost cutting measures. Its all about covering more people. Without cost cutting measures … serious ones … expenses will go up and the cost of covering the health care of those 45 million will be high. Just like the cost associated with covering Medicare and Medicaid recipients.

  138. Ashevegasjoe

    I’m not arguing that their projection will be wrong. What I’m saying is that we are all paying for the uninsured anyways, why don’t we do it efficiently. There will be a saving in the reduction, if not the capping, of health care costs. Uninsured people don’t get regular health care, they wait until their condition is more serious, then go to the E.R., where the care is more expensive, and some times too late. Private insurers have dropped the ball on coverage and rates. The only solution is a regulatory board, and since I can vote a politician out, I prefer him to a C.E.O. who can drop me for some arbitrary pre-existing condition. Ask someone who is going through chemotherapy if they are concerned about the national debt. We can provide more economic health care for everyone for less than we pay now. And, please don’t bring up death panels, Canadians do in fact, live past the age of seventy.
    Also, are you proposing we do away with Medicare and Medicaid? Not only wildly unpopular, but it would drive the cost of healthcare even higher– as stated above.

  139. JWTJr

    We aren’t paying for everyone now. Lots don’t go to the doctor. They will avalanche onto the system when they get the green light.

    You don’t like the private insurers, but how do you reconcile that with the fact that Medicare and Medicaid deny more claims and operate on the neanderthal fee for service reimbursement that is ripe for fraud and abuse?

  140. JWTJr

    “We can provide more economic health care for everyone for less than we pay now.”

    This is an incorrect assumption if you think this health care bill will do that. There are no system wide cost containment measures in the bill and never was.

    “Also, are you proposing we do away with Medicare and Medicaid? Not only wildly unpopular, but it would drive the cost of healthcare even higher—as stated above.”

    I am not. I’m saying that Medicare and Medicaid are/have been the gov’t solutions to the problem. Their internal operations are a mess, they deny more claims than insurance companies do and the fee for service model they use for reimbursement needs scrapping. They have made no indications that they intend to change any of this. Not in the current health care bill anyhow.

    What you want in regards to cost savings is not in the bill and never was. This bill only deals with insuring some currently uncovered people. That will cost more … there is no way around that. The CBO estimate that kicked out the 100 Billion dollar savings figure used 6 years of expenses and 10 years of tax revenue. That alone shows that it is headed into the red.

    Also your assumption that all uncovered people wait to go to the doctor til they have to go to the ER only applies to a portion of that population. Many just lump it and don’t go. Many things don’t escalate to that point, but would have cost big money to treat if they could have afforded it. A patient can get over many ailments if you just wait long enough. It sucks, but it can be done.

    Covering more people must include system wide cost containment measures in order to save money. The current health care bill does not address both issues.

  141. Ashevegasjoe

    When your refer to the “current healthcare bill” what do you mean– the house version, the senate, or Obama’s. What I’m saying is there is no specific bill, and after reconcilliation (which I think is eminent) it could look entirely different. The final bill could contain the public option, cost containment measures, who knows? There isn’t a single bill, so to say it doesn’t provide something is misleading. Maybe the Republicans will engage in this process during the summit this week, there are too many unknowns to assume that the bill is unnacceptable.
    What the bills do all call for is an overhaul of the Medicare and Medicaid systems to look for waste, which you seem in favor of.
    As far as “lots” not going to the doctor, I encourage you to go to the E.R. at Mission and see how many do. And, the skyrocketing cost of medical care and insurance, is a direct result of that. And, please don’t mention “frivolous” lawsuits– if you had a doctor screw up a procedure that required more medical attention, if not life-long medications, you want someone to pay for it.
    The fact of the matter is that insurance companies are out of control, they deny people care when they need it. All of the claims that the government will decide what treatment you get, are going on right now, but it’s not the government, it’s a company that you have no control over. Look at real life examples of countries that have tried this system, hell look at Hawaii (where they have insured everyone for forty years). And, ask yourself why they pay less, live longer, and aren’t debating a switch to our system??? Please don’t argue that we don’t live long because of lifestyle either, as people in Europe and Canada eat crappy food, and drink and smoke all day too. Why do you want to pay more for less?

  142. Ashevegasjoe

    Also, my assumption was not that “all” uninsured go to the E.R., it is a fact that many do. Your response seems to be that they should just tough it out or die– very humanitarian, but if a lot of people just died I guess the system wouldn’t be overloaded. Preventative care costs less, and has a much higher success rate.

  143. JWTJr

    AVJ – None of the bills have system wide cost containment measures … and none will. None of our cowardice legislators will take that on. Appointees will handle that hot potato. Just like they have in the past.

    Just because the bill calls for an overhaul of Medicare and Medicaid doesn’t mean they can pull off a successful attempt at it. Its hot air. What are their ideas?

    You are incorrect that all insurance companies make the call on treatment decisions on their own. The vast majority use Medicare guidelines. Medicare Advantage Plans have to provide what medicare does or more. Most provide more.

    I don’t want to pay more for less. That’s what you usually get when the Gov’t rides in to the rescue and tries to micro manage something.

    I’m for insuring everyone that can’t afford it, letting insurance companies sell across state lines and getting rid of the pre-existing conditions clause. I’m extremely skeptical of their ability to all the sudden ‘fix’ the cost issue. Their attempts at it with Medicare and Medicaid haven’t worked so far. Costs keep going up. What’s so different now?

  144. JWTJr

    Hawaii is more of a micro economy than just another US state. Also, their economy is propped up with massive tourism dollars which are taxed heavily. You can’t compare them to the lower 48. Having bordering states complicates coverage issues as state’s rights become a bigger issue.

  145. JWTJr

    My point about the ER and the uncovered is that many do not go there. Or go at all. I’m not saying its good or bad. I’m saying that they will start going and that will cost money. Lots of money. Even though I agree they need to be covered, it do not agree it will save us money covering them.

  146. Ashevegasjoe

    So your argument is that government is incapable of doing anything, and we should go with the Republican plan that will insure 3 million people, while leaving 34 million still uninsured? Talk about doing noting.

    I don’t buy your argument about Hawaii either, but it totally dodges the point of universal health working in Canada and France– are they microeconomies??

    And the people going to the ER account for 15% of the current cost of insurance premiums, so that is a lot of money already being spent. We spend more per person in this country for health insurance, and we don’t have access to the best health care system in the world. I don”t know why you’re so much more comfortable with a corporation making money off of denying you coverage, as opposed to democratically elected officials.

    And the bills won’t add to the deficit as the house bill proposes to pay for itself by repealing the tax cuts given to the rich by Bush, and the senate bill calls for the excise tax. I believe government is elected to do something, not nothing, and providing health care goes to the core of protecting its citizens. Don’t lump medicare and medicaid into this debate, I agree they need to be audited. But, the bills in front of congress all call for private insurers to provide health care– not the government. The government would regulate like they do the air, the streets, and your food. It is the fault of greedy insurance companies that they need to be regulated– just like wall street. If you have a totally “free-market” the people at the top will manipulate it to their advantage, just like would occur in a totally communist system.

    Also, the meeting yesterday has proven the Republicans are just wanting to obstruct rather than cooperate.

  147. JWTJr

    You have too much faith in the gov’t. Explain why Medicare and Medicaid are financially incapable of meeting their budgets? What successful cost containment measures are they using?

    Also, why did the Prime Minister of Canada just get his cancer treatments here in the US? The answer is easy. Our care is better.

    Saying France and Canada are successful is a matter of much debate, not fact.

  148. JWTJr

    75% of the US says that this bill stinks and we need a start over. Pieces of the bill are good. Its festered too long as is.

    I’ve not said I’m for nothing. I clearly stated what I was for. I’ve enough experience with Gov’t health care to know that their solutions will cost money and not save it. Its a price I guess I’m willing to pay.

    Just like any group health pool, the young and healthly will pay for us old and sick. Time for me to get some.

    Any budget prediction out now has a massive error built in it. When have their predictions turned out to be low? Almost never. Why do you believe them now when they’ve never been right in the past?

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