The state of 9/11 Truth: not pretty

Originally posted by coughymachine

Originally posted by jthomas
You forgot one key point. We are talking about the definition of "story" the way 9/11 Truthers use it.

This is so lame, it's worth responding simply to point out how lame it is.

That says you can't refute me.

What else is new?

Originally posted by talisman

Originally posted by jthomas

Originally posted by talisman
jthomas


The CIA is a murderous organization that has overthrown democratically elected gov's and killed many, the Joint Chiefs in the past plotted to commit crimes against innocent Cubans and Americans and US military.

They automatically becomes suspect, as any murderer would in a crime that he is near to.

Good luck "selling" that reasoning.

So if a murderer is present during a crime I guess you wouldn't suspect them.

Your reasoning is that the CIA is "automatically" a suspect because you claim the CIA is a "murderer".

Too bad you're having such a hard time demonstrating it.

Originally posted by coughymachine
reply to post by jthomas

 

You just carry on stumbling blindly about, don't you?

I have no problem backing up what I write, to wit:

"The conclusions of the 9/11 Commission that 19 Arab hijackers under the direction of Osama bin Laden hijacked 4 different airliners and crashed them into WTC 1, 2 and The Pentagon, with the fourth failing to reach a target are not in dispute by Commission members.

Read these two extracts from an interview with Lee Hamilton.

Solomon: In retrospect, one of the criticisms that you level in this book "Without Precedent" is aimed at both the FAA and NORAD, both of whom representatives testified before the Commission, and both of whom gave what to me - and I'm allowed to be much more impolite than you - sounded to me like lies. They told you testimony that simply... the tapes that were subsequently.. that have subsequently been revealed, were simply not true.

Hamilton: That's correct.

Solomon: And it wasn't just lies by ommission, in some senses lies of commission, they told you things that basically didn’t happen. What do you make of that?

Hamilton: Well, I think you’re right. They gave us inaccurate information. We asked for a lot of material and a lot of documentation. They did not supply it all. They gave us a few things. We sent some staff into their headquarters. We identified a lot more documents and tapes, they eventually gave them to us, we had to issue a subpoena to get them.

Eventually they told us we had the story right, they had it wrong, it took a while to get to that point, but we eventually got here.

Solomon: Now what happens when you get on to these [talk radio] shows, and you talk about that, and you get every - because you understand that the landscape is now littered with that stuff. What do you say to all these reports that are coming in - constantly?

Hamilton: I think people do not sufficiently understand how complicated conducting a major investigation is, and how difficult it is, in an event of this kind, to chase down every answer to every question, and... Look, I can go before any audience in America today and I can raise so many questions about 9/11 - raise questions, not answer questions, raise questions - about the investigation. And everbody in the audience will walk out saying 'the government misled us or lied to us.' It’s a very easy thing to do! I can raise questions about our own report!

Solomon: Like what? What would you raise?

Hamilton: Well, like I just said, about the 19 hijackers, we didn’t answer that question.

We had to tell that story as best we could, and we did, and we made a lot of judgments about the credibility of evidence. Were we right in every case? I suspect not. Were we right in most cases? I think so.

I do not know at this point of any factual error in our report, that I would absolutely say 'we just plain missed it.' Now, maybe I need to review it more carefully, but I cannot recall right now at this instance any fact that we just plain missed.

Solomon: Not that you got wrong, but the fact that was omitted?

Hamilton: Well, I know there were a lot of questions that we could not answer, with regard to FAA and NORAD and White House activity, and a lot of other things, we just can’t answer 'em.

Solomon: Is there anything in retrospect.. I mean, your deadline was so tight, and you say that forced you to make some very tough decisions as to how far ranging the investigation could be. In retrospect, if you'd had more time, what would you have investigated more thoroughly?

Hamilton: I would have, I think we spent - if I were critiquing the work of the Commission - I think we spent too much time on the question of access. And I would have liked to have gotten that over with, say, in the first half of the Commission's work, so that we could have spent more time in putting the story together, maybe trying to answer some of the questions you raise that I can’t answer - and polishing the recommendations.

But you don’t... everything doesn’t go like you want it to go, and we were fighting the question of access right up to the end of the Commission's work.

At the risk of appearing unoriginal, you might want to ask yourself the implications of that.

You might want to describe how it contradicts my statement above. A good place to start is the Executive Summary which, it seems, you haven't read:

This immeasurable pain was inflicted by 19 young Arabs acting at the behest of Islamist extremists headquartered in distant Afghanistan. Some had been in the United States for more than a year, mixing with the rest of the population. Though four had training as pilots, most were not well-educated. Most spoke English poorly, some hardly at all. In groups of four or five, carrying with them only small knives, box cutters, and cans of Mace or pepper spray, they had hijacked the four planes and turned them into deadly guided missiles.

Why did they do this? How was the attack planned and conceived? How did the U.S. government fail to anticipate and prevent it? What can we do in the future to prevent similar acts of terrorism?

govinfo.library.unt.edu...

Words have meaning.

Originally posted by jthomas
That says you can't refute me.

Where refutation was required, you've been well and truly refuted.

You lied about what I had said. I put you right.

You tried to argue there was no 'official' version. I put you right.

You accuse some people of using the term 'story'. So does Lee Hamilton, so what's your point? And, perhaps more importantly, what does the use of the term 'story' have to do with our exchange?

Originally posted by jthomas
I have no problem backing up what I write, to wit:

This is plain wrong.

You very rarely back up what you write. You failed to do so in this thread and I'm watching with amusement as you flounder in others too.

Originally posted by jthomas
Words have meaning.

You don't believe this, otherwise you wouldn't have lied about what I'd said earlier.

Now, as for the report.

Lee Hamilton's interview shows he believes the Commission was set up to fail; that right up to the end, he had trouble with access; and that the FAA, NORAD and the White House lied or misled them.

Now, how can any report based upon such a unstable foundation be considered reliable? That's a rhetorical question. The answer is obvious.

It can't.

Originally posted by FewWorldOrder

Blueraja, has it come to the point where wanting to know the Real Truth is un-American?
Just the fact that being a "Truther" is now tantamount (throughout the Establishment) to being a "Terrorist" shows that seeking and speaking the Truth in the good ol' USA will be subject to ridicule, and eventually a reason for imprisonment.
Throw that theory you have out here and let's take a gander, or are you worried about ridicule?

I have never said that being skeptical of what occurred on 9/11 was tantamount to being a terrorist. If one advocates violence because they're certain that they are right, this would be something that I'm strongly opposed to, and would be something deserving of imprisonment.
Thusfar the Truth movement hasn't provided any evidence of guilt- they've only pointed out areas in the "official story" they take exception to. Till they(you) provide some hard facts, I will reserve my right to ridicule, just as you have your right to believe what you want. Freedom is great huh?

Originally posted by talisman
jthomas


The CIA is a murderous organization that has overthrown democratically elected gov's and killed many, the Joint Chiefs in the past plotted to commit crimes against innocent Cubans and Americans and US military.

They automatically becomes suspect, as any murderer would in a crime that he is near to.

Could you show some examples where the CIA has worked against the interests of the USA? You make assertions about it being a murderous organization(and I'd argue the use of that term), but in the scenarios you most likely are referring to, it has always worked in the interests of the USA(i.e. supporting governments that weren't blatantly anti-American or were anti-Communist/Soviet, anti-extremist Muslim). To say that because they did such things that they're automatically suspect in one of the most horrific acts ever perpetrated against the USA, is to me ludicrous. As for the plan you're referring to with regards to Cuba, you do realize that all sorts of plans might be drawn up, some of which are approved, some of which are dismissed as being ridiculous. You need to look at not only the context, but just how seriously something was taken into consideration(or how likely it was to be executed). Part of that context might just be that during the Cold War where the Soviets were trying to base nukes 90 miles off our coast, and the threat of millions of casualties were of concern, some outlandish ideas might have been thrown around. We obviously chose not to persue that plan, and that plan didn't include wholesale murder of US citizens.

reply to post by jthomas


I don't know what comprehensive investigations you're referring to. Mayor Guliani gave orders that NO ONE, not even NTSB investigators or the FBI, were to be allowed access to WTC ground zero even though it was clearly a crime scene and to add insult to injury, he ordered all of the steel beams to be collected and shipped off to a foreign country to be melted down before anyone had a chance to examine them. The trucks carrying the steel beams were equiped with GPS locators to make sure they didn't detour on their way to the ships and one drive was fired when he DARED to stop for coffee. Debris was scooped up by construction equipement even though everyone knew that there were still bodies of firefighters and civilian occupants in the wreckage. Those bodies were dumped along with the rest of the debris. WHAT WAS THE BIG RUSH?? WHAT SECRET HAD TO BE PROTECTED THAT REQUIRED THE EVIDENCE TO BE DISPOSED OF? And while we're at it, I'd like to hear your explanation of why there were pools of molten steel at the bottoms of not only the two towers BUT ALSO WTC 7, weeks after the event when it's obvious that jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel.

You claim to know the answers that 911 Truthers want, so here's your chance. Explain that if you can. If you can't then at least have the guts to admit it.

reply to post by jthomas


You say you believe experts who support their case with evidence. Apparently experts who 'debunk' 911 Truth are believable but experts who support it are not. You're hypocracy is stunning! Do you understand basic physics? Do you understand how absurd it is to contend that a building containing thousands of tons of structural steel can collapse just as fast as a billiard ball dropped off the roof falling thru thin air? I haven't found ANY expert, who can give me a reasonable explanation of how EVERYTHING in those buildings was pulverized into dust including furniture, computers, and things made of metal (we know that due to chemical analysis of the white dust). HOW GULLIBLE CAN YOU BE?

Originally posted by Studenofhistory
Apparently experts who 'debunk' 911 Truth are believable but experts who support it are not.

Exactly. How are they just dismissed out-of-hand like that? Since JThomas thinks we're all nuts already, I guess he must think any scientists or engineers who think the same thing just must be nutty, too, and not put a single further thought behind it.

It used to be, "Where are all the experts who support you?"

Now the feeling seems like, "Who gives a damn?"

Originally posted by BlueRaja


Could you show some examples where the CIA has worked against the interests of the USA? You make assertions about it being a murderous organization(and I'd argue the use of that term), but in the scenarios you most likely are referring to, it has always worked in the interests of the USA(i.e. supporting governments that weren't blatantly anti-American or were anti-Communist/Soviet, anti-extremist Muslim). To say that because they did such things that they're automatically suspect in one of the most horrific acts ever perpetrated against the USA, is to me ludicrous.

Here's a few books you might want to read, as you sound rather ill-informed about CIA covert ops:

Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire and The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy and the End of the Republic by Chalmers Johnson

The Central Intelligence Agency has an almost unblemished record of screwing up every "secret" armed intervention it ever undertook. From the overthrow of the Iranian government in 1953 through the Bay of Pigs, the failed attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro of Cuba and Patrice Lumumba of the Republic of Congo, the Phoenix Program in Vietnam, the "secret war" in Laos, aid to the Greek colonels who seized power in 1967, the 1973 killing of Salvador Allende in Chile and Ronald Reagan's Iran-contra war against Nicaragua, there is not a single instance in which the agency's activities did not prove acutely embarrassing to the United States. The CIA continues to get away with this primarily because its budget and operations have always been secret and Congress is normally too indifferent to its constitutional functions to rein in a rogue bureaucracy.

Before slamming the author, here's his Wiki bio, which doesn't mention he also knows whereof he speaks, as he was also working for the CIA's Office of National Estimates from 1967 to 1972.

[typos]

[edit on 17-3-2008 by gottago]

A moment of '911 truth'

Actually, the argument about the sad state of the 'movement' is valid, wherein no investigation has occurred within official government sponsored channels to validate or invalidate anything stated by the commission or the NIST.
This of course invalidates nothing in the way of the objections of us kooks.

The strength in JT and Blue Raja's arguments boil down to - You haven't presented any new evidence nor invalidated that which has been proffered.

The flaw is that most want to challenge the intransigent nature of the claim, couched in tags like illogical, and you have to do something, and the burden of proof is on You (meaning the dissenters).

You cannot convince them, they will not accept any data that was not squeezed out of the orifices of the government itself - so - by that token - you can't gain ground in determining what would be 'acceptable.' These are the kind of approaches that lead to accept the things unless you can do something to change them. Which would be what? When the strong point is that the 911 commission and the NIST stated this and that, it's like asking the administration to pick someone to tell the story for them (which they did) and then saying that they said they told the truth so it must be true. After all wouldn't CNN, NBC, ABC, FOX, and all the rest not have asked the tough questions? Sure they would have, they always do right?

I love the interview pieces especially where you ask someone 'you didn't lie did you?' and they say 'of course not' and there you have it - independent verification that they are telling the truth.

Never mind science, conflicting testimony, contradictory documentation, overridden protocols, and the like - they have no weight - because it wasn't 'main streamed' into their psyche.

Time will tell - like it always does - remember the day that lives in infamy - Pear Harbor, we knew? Remember the Gulf of Tonkin incident, we orchestrated it? Should I continue? Remember how the press was all over that - no? Go figure. So far, you could say the only time the US citizenry has been pro-war was when they were lied to. And here are again - at war. Hmm, box-cutters and airplanes, the most well defended military structure of the planet, hmmm, no jets to scramble, yeah, thermate; right.

Shall we continue to think that if YOUR sense of 'proper' methodology is THE rule to be obeyed? That the government has NO obligation to the people (good one) they are not compelled to respond (another good one)?

The very fact that the one institution that should be focusing on this (the press) has been bought (with FCC blessing we might add) by the same interests who circumstance. opportunity, and motive for malfeasance; raises flags in anyone who believes that their government is supposed to be their ally, and not solely a representative of corporate interests - who seemed to have benefited from this episode from start to end.

But all this is pointless, there is no mechanism for balancing the debate because the objective is nonexistent. Whenever you get close they fall back to the same non argument - loony - illogical - who says - where's the proof? interesting, your point is becoming clearer. no point.

Originally posted by coughymachine

Lee Hamilton's interview shows he believes the Commission was set up to fail; that right up to the end, he had trouble with access; and that the FAA, NORAD and the White House lied or misled them.

Now, how can any report based upon such a unstable foundation be considered reliable? That's a rhetorical question. The answer is obvious.

It can't.

You are free to demonstrate that the 9/11 Commission did not come to the conclusions that I said it did, but you haven't.

Let me repeat:

What I wrote:

"The conclusions of the 9/11 Commission that 19 Arab hijackers under the direction of Osama bin Laden hijacked 4 different airliners and crashed them into WTC 1, 2 and The Pentagon, with the fourth failing to reach a target are not in dispute by Commission members."

Supporting my statement is the actual conclusion of the 9/11 Commission:

This immeasurable pain was inflicted by 19 young Arabs acting at the behest of Islamist extremists headquartered in distant Afghanistan. Some had been in the United States for more than a year, mixing with the rest of the population. Though four had training as pilots, most were not well-educated. Most spoke English poorly, some hardly at all. In groups of four or five, carrying with them only small knives, box cutters, and cans of Mace or pepper spray, they had hijacked the four planes and turned them into deadly guided missiles.

Why did they do this? How was the attack planned and conceived? How did the U.S. government fail to anticipate and prevent it? What can we do in the future to prevent similar acts of terrorism?

govinfo.library.unt.edu...

Words do indeed have meaning.

reply to post by gottago


The more accurate depiction would be in every instance that became public knowledge, there was embarassment. With regards to covert ops be they intel or SOF, it's the failures that you hear about, while the successes go unsung. Your response didn't show the CIA to be working counter to US interests though, or likely to be involved in the mass murder of US citizens.

reply to post by Maxmars


Let's say that hypothetically speaking a Truther manages to debunk every single "official story" claim. They still need evidence if they're gonna try to show what "did" happen, if they're gonna try to assign guilt, whether it be foreign or domestic. JT and myself simply have not seen this evidence to suggest that we should believe the current administration is guilty.

reply to post by jthomas

First, I place no value whatsoever on anything you say once, let alone anything you might chose to repeat.

Second, as I have shown here and countless others have shown elsewhere, the 9/11 Commission Report is flawed in a great many ways, as confirmed by the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Commission.

So any repetition of your baseless assertion that its conclusions are reliable is, I'm afraid, laughable.

Originally posted by BlueRaja
reply to post by gottago

 

The more accurate depiction would be in every instance that became public knowledge, there was embarassment. With regards to covert ops be they intel or SOF, it's the failures that you hear about, while the successes go unsung. Your response didn't show the CIA to be working counter to US interests though, or likely to be involved in the mass murder of US citizens.

Was the overthrow in Iran led by FDR's son in the early 50s a success? Installing the Shah led to the clerics taking over and Iran-Contra and the treason of Reagan and Bush 1 secretly peddling our enemy arms to fund the secret CIA wars in Latin America. And finally to the Iran hysteria you have today.

Well if that "success" isn't working counter to US interests, what is?

Of course you can also find numerous examples of govt's conscious disregard for human life in the use of troops being exposed to atomic blasts and fallout, unsuspecting populations being exposed to biological agents, '___' experiments, MKUltra, etc.

reply to post by gottago


I'd say winning the Cold War, and stopping the spread of Communism/Anti American regimes, was in the USA's interests. If we can't agree on this, then I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

Originally posted by BlueRaja
reply to post by Maxmars

 

Let's say that hypothetically speaking a Truther manages to debunk every single "official story" claim. They still need evidence if they're gonna try to show what "did" happen, if they're gonna try to assign guilt, whether it be foreign or domestic. JT and myself simply have not seen this evidence to suggest that we should believe the current administration is guilty.

You're definitely right on that. But instead of trying to assign blame (which seems to get everyone's hackles up) how about just trying to find out what DID happen. I mean, metallurgical analysis indicates that it WASN'T the jet impact or fuel that "CAUSED" the structural free-fall collapse. Engineering 'root cause' analysis shows the pancake theory to be an inappropriate So what did cause it? You mean I can't ask unless I know the answer?

I know there have been witnesses who heard rapid fire explosions all over the building. I know that no one can 'officially' explain the molten metal smoldering for days on end. I know that the 'angle cut' steel can be seen in the documentation of the wreckage. But you don't hear that; or you dismiss it off hand as illogical (based on what logic you have never revealed).

I'm not trying to start an insurrection here, I'm only saying there seems to be an unreasonable amount of inertia to overcome just to get a few obvious nonsensical claims made in the reports and official 'comments' explained, or corrected.

Dude, I know this is a gratuitous statement to make but I was in the real life intelligence community for many years, I know about certain processes and protocols that HAD to have been deliberately short-circuited to have allowed such a catastrophic failure to occur. No one will explore them because of 'national security' which could be said to be the administrations religion at this point.

While I appreciate a good debate as much as the next person, your counter arguments have been somewhat less than constructive.

[edit on 17-3-2008 by Maxmars]

reply to post by jthomas


You are honestly going to say that the CIA had NO MURDEROUS HAND in all the deaths of innocents in IRAQ? Which include Children and Women???

Also, if this isn't proof of something, it surely shows that the powers that be couldn't give dime about 9/11.

All they wanted was IRAQ, even after 9/11 and even on the day, there has been numerous reports of Rumsfeld and others talking about IRAQ at that time!

Yes, the CIA is a murderous organization that has engaged in overthrowing gov's in one military coup after another and setting up regimes that have incredible blood on their hands. Guatemala is just one example.

Furthermore, in the past the U.S JOINT CHIEFS PLANNED fake terrorism all for a WAR!

Maybe its time that the Gov become transparent and stop hiding behind "IN THE INTEREST OF NATIONAL SECURITY".

Because in our day and age, everyone knows what everyone else has anyway.



[edit on 17-3-2008 by talisman]