CHAMPIONSHIP: schrodingers dog vs souls - "September 11, 2001"

The topic for this debate is "The Amount of Circumstantial Evidence Proves That 9/11 was a False Flag Operation."

"schrodingers dog" will be arguing the "Pro" position and begin the debate.
"souls" will be arguing the "Con" position.

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[edit on 3-3-2010 by chissler]

As always, I would like to extend greetings and appreciation to chissler, our fellow readers, and judges who have chosen to join us in this debate final. If there were any marbles, this engagement would surely be for all of them. Also I would like to extend an earnest nod of respect to souls, for he is surely a formidable and worthy adversary.

The topic for this debate is "The Amount of Circumstantial Evidence Proves That 9/11 was a False Flag Operation." and I will be arguing the pro position.

Preface

Allow me to express a personal yet topically relevant foreword before I begin outlining my debate exposition.

The events of September 11th 2001 are ones that due to my own personal proximity/connection to that fateful day, have been ones that I have mostly avoided delving into for the last eight and a half years. A then West Village (NYC) resident, like many I lost many friends and neighbors that morning. The emotional and psychological consequences of the days, months, and years that followed made it difficult if not impossible to manage a sustained discussion of the topic from my end for a very long time. Without wishing to infuse personal emotion into the debate, for my personal experiences are surely outside the scope of such, I will link for the record the one thread I have done on the subject for the sake of personal disclosure.

I do so not to engage in any emotional pulling of strings, but to note the following … I come into this topic with a clean slate. That is to say that this debate is the first time time I have attempted to pursue my own curiosity as to the events of that day, those that preceded it, and those that were triggered as a result and in any detail. I am indeed a novice to a topic that a great deal of people and many ATS members have dedicated much of their time and energy to investigate.

The topic is vast. Too vast to include all its scope and related/relevant information into a mere seven debate posts. Too vast for me or anyone new to it to grasp within a few days of preparation for this debate. So I whilst I am secure in the fact and knowledge that once I have put before you the primary and overwhelming evidence to sustain and prevail in my debate position, I must also ask of those who have made it all but their life's work to pursue the truth as it relates to 9/11, that they forgive my academic ignorance on the matter and do not begrudge my apprentice like approach. Simply said, I am not an expert and will learn as I go.

I don't know what a 'truther' is exactly for the nomenclature seems to indicate that somehow the search for truth bears some insult within it. I have no emotional position as to which version of events would be more agreeable to me. Perhaps this lack of personal involvement into the 9/11 conversation to date will serve me well in this undertaking. It might not be the most comprehensive but I assure you it will be honest. For I would surely prefer to lose this debate that to be disingenuous to this topic of paramount importance.

With those personal notes in mind and behind us, let us begin in earnest.

Definitions

False Flag

False flag operations are covert operations which are designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is, flying the flag of a country other than one's own.

Circumstantial Evidence

Information and testimony presented by a party in a civil or criminal action that permit conclusions that indirectly establish the existence or nonexistence of a fact or event that the party seeks to prove.

In many cases, circumstantial evidence is the only evidence linking an accused to a crime; direct evidence may simply not exist. As a result, the jury may have only circumstantial evidence to consider in determining whether to convict or acquit a person charged with a crime. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court has stated that "circumstantial evidence is intrinsically no different from testimonial [direct] evidence"

Legal Burden of Proof

The burden of proof (Latin: onus probandi) is the obligation to shift the accepted conclusion away from an oppositional opinion to one's own position. The burden of proof may only be fulfilled by evidence.

Methodology

Most debates within this forum are undertaken under an adversarial premise. This premise usually dictates a point counterpoint structure to the debates. Whilst this element will not be absent from this debate, I am comfortable disclosing at the outset, that I will for the most part not engage in much of it.

My intention is the following … there is simply too much evidence to be presented, evaluated, for multiple locations, historical context, geo-political considerations, and all the elements that the topic commands to be addressed for my opponent and I to engage in semantic play, and argumentative distractions.

As such I shall present my work in the form of a theses. Each post shall be exclusively dedicated to either a location or aspect of my argument and once expressed I shall move on to the next one. It is my hope that by the end of the debate, the body of work presented before the judges will speak for itself. I see this process much like two lawyers arguing their position before a panel of appellant court judges, both sides have allotted time to make their case and the judges decide in one or the other's favor.

In fact, as the above outlined definitions of the terms of the debate title clearly dictate, this debate is precisely analogous to the court case metaphor and as such it is in my view the best method upon which to proceed.

Framework

At this juncture allow me to state my interpretation of what it is that I have to argue before this 'court' …

My debate position is that "The Amount of Circumstantial Evidence Proves That 9/11 was a False Flag Operation."

Please note that I am neither required to provide physical evidence, a "smoking gun," or to prove that 9/11 was an inside job. Though much of the evidence to be presented before you might lead one to the latter conclusion, namely that 9/11 was an inside job, such conclusion would be beyond my own evidentiary requirements. Indeed, all I have to argue to prevail in this debate is willful negligence. If it is evidenced by me that ANY deceit or obfuscation was involved in the events of 9/11, those preceding them and subsequent to them, from the US government and its agencies, the debate has to be awarded in my favor.

Let me be clear, I am not talking about incompetence. If all I can prove is that the US government was acting, or rather not acting out of plain incompetence, that would not constitute a 'false flag' operation on their part. But any action or inaction, from organizing the events of the day themselves, or simply allowing them to happen unimpeded to achieve an end, would constitute a clear 'false flag' operation.

Ultimately that is what this debate is all about. Was there willful intent from the 'powers that be' to either orchestrate, facilitate, or simply allow 9/11 to take place. Clear evidence as to ANY of the above permutations is a clear win for my side of the debate!

Context

What is a stake, what clear causal paths were set in motion on that day?

- Thousands of lives lost on September 11th 2001
- Tens of thousands of soldiers' lives lost in two wars
- Hundreds of thousands of civilian lives lost in two wars
- Trillions of tax payer dollars spent
- Trillions earned by multinational corporations and the military industrial complex profiting from the war
- Loss of personal freedoms from such vehicles as 'the patriot act' and fear based population manipulation through the contrived threat of 'terrorism'
- Elections won and lost, balances of power affected.
- Global financial markets altered
- Oil Oil Oil!
- Etc, etc, etc …

We were told that the world "changed" on 9/11 … what does that mean if not that a new old order is now before us. And all this we are to believe because twenty or so guys who could barely cope with flying classes managed to pull off the greatest attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. And these events that "changed our world" were investigated at a grand budget of fifteen million bucks!

None of the above is direct evidence of course, rest assured such will be provided in amplitude in subsequent posts. Context however is a fundamental aspect of circumstantial evidence and as such, must be considered.

In the end, when all has been presented before you, there will be no doubt that "The Amount of Circumstantial Evidence Proves That 9/11 was a False Flag Operation."


I thank my opponent, chiseler, the readers, and judges for their patience in commencing this debate and leave the floor to souls.

It has been more than 8 years since the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Because the majority of the people are not satisfied with the explanations given by the elected officials who are supposed to serve and protect its constituents, it is time to move on past the first stage of shock, and proceed with a clear mind into the facts of what happened on this day. I can agree that it may be emotionally overwhelming to some, but to others, the facts are now more important than ever to understand what may have actually occurred.

At this point in time, the only thing official about the 9/11 attacks is that there is no official stance as of yet as to who was responsible for the attacks on 9/11. The government of the United States has not conducted a proper investigation and therefore, any claims made up to this point are all just a conspiracy theory like any other. Their first theory was that Osama Bin Laden was behind the attacks on 9/11. Because the media ran with this conspiracy theory, the opportunists within the government may have used this for their political reasons, but it does not mean that they, or the media are responsible for orchestrating the attacks, just opportunists. Not once has Osama Bin Laden claimed responsibility for the attacks on 9/11, so it leads to ask who was primarily responsible for the attacks? Did Saudi Arabia fund the operation? Did Pakistan fund the operation? What about Israel? The United States of America?

The only form of investigation supposedly made was in the form of “The 9/11 Commission Report” but today we have most of the members behind the 9/11 Commission stating that a real investigation was being impeded, and that all they were receiving was false reports and statements. This after concluding with no real evidence as to the entity primarily responsible. The only conclusion was, linking Osama Bin Laden to the supposed 19 hijackers through supposed association with Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The Taliban offered Osama Bin Laden in turn for hard evidence proving his culpability, but to this day, non has been produced. It can be said that these members were genuinely asking the hard questions and were “dis-informed”, or you can say that this is their way of saving face because they see the gravy boat sinking. Regardless, any theory behind who was responsible for the attacks on 9/11 is valid as long as the circumstances all match according to the facts and direct evidence presented.

The amount of circumstantial evidence does not prove that 9/11 was a false flag operation, because the public was not deceived. There is no doubt that 9/11 was a globalist agenda, and as my opponent will definitely prove, then it can be inferred that instead, this attack was just another attempt at deceiving the public of what happened. An attempt because the people have not been deceived like before. The propaganda machine on the United States front may have deceived for some time some of the people, but not everyone, and globally, most were not convinced since the outset of the attacks and reputable entities have stated this fact as well. Because of this the 9/11 attacks cannot be a false flag operation because the definition of it does not fit the facts.

Already my opponent has taken the liberty to provide us with some quick definitions as to what a false flag operation is and what circumstantial evidence means. In part I agree with the definitions provided but would like to express my interpretation of the definitions as to how they apply to this debate. To make the claim that the amount of circumstantial evidence proves that 9/11 was a false flag operation, one must infer several points:

The first point is that the whole public must be fooled for the onset of several years. If you take into account the instances of supposed false flag operations given as examples by the Wikipedia definition, the difference between all these is that with 9/11, within the first days, months, and years, something was wrong with how the events on that day as a whole occurred, and many knew this. The attack took place in the eyes of thousands, and this was a mistake because the double edged sword that is the internet to these global influences, has prevailed in the spread of intelligent discussion to bring out the inconsistencies of that day. They may in fact have underestimated the speed of their own creation. Now after 8 years, more than half of the people agree that something else happened, it is just hard to but the facts together.

Most people cared not who was responsible, most were worried for the victims. Because of the emotional turmoil within, some chose to shut out of the event completely, and not truly see what really is happening. How can this be a false flag operation to them, if they have never looked at the facts? After a quick analysis, even my opponent, whom for several years has chosen to do this which I describe, has come to the conclusion that at least, this event was aided in part by a handful of people within the United States government, a faction of traitors.

In order to satisfy that the attacks on 9/11 were a false flag operation my opponent must show that the majority of the people were deceived by this attack for several years and that the ones intended to be subverted are clearly identified, as well as those responsible. In other words, that the falsification of the flag was successful. This is the only way the circumstantial evidence can support the direct evidence available and in turn prove that 9/11 was a false flag operation. Which brings me to my second point.

I say my opponent must link, using circumstantial evidence as a support of the direct evidence, the party actually responsible for the attacks because to have knowledge, let alone proof of the attacks being a false flag operation, one must know who conducted the operation, who was to be deceived, and the reason for the operation. The attack took place in United States soil, so the investigation rests solely on the nation attacked.

The official stance of the government is that they do not know who really funded this attack. It is a conspiracy because some were conspiring within. We can accept now, that Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban were not the entities responsible for the attacks because there is no evidence to prove otherwise. From the beginning, the Taliban made the offer to turn over Osama Bin Laden if there was direct evidence of his aiding, funding, and execution of the attacks on September 11. Through Operation Bojinka, Khalid Sheike Mohammed may have planned the attacks, and maybe someone he knew was actually successful in actually accomplishing their intended mission. He is locked away somewhere in some crevice, so who knows. This still does not prove that he carried out the attacks. He confessed to “masterminding” the attacks, but he also confessed to “masterminding” several other attacks, this after a few months vacationing in Cuba. The amount of circumstantial evidence does not support a direct link to Osama Bin Laden actually being proactive in the the execution of this Bojinka project copy in the first place.

The legal burden of proof can only be fulfilled by evidence. Evidence can only be defined as that which directly or indirectly proves a fact. When it is indirect it is circumstantial, and the only manner in which circumstantial evidence can prove the fact is if the circumstances are so strong that the fact can be clearly deduced and points to one fact. Even with this point, only circumstantial evidence that is not so easily countered can proceed. This evidence must not have an equal or greater explanation. This is important for my opponent to successfully prove, using the amount of circumstantial evidence, that 9/11 was a false flag operation.

Regardless of how this debate may proceed, my goal is to show that my opponent's stance of saying that the amount of circumstantial evidence proves 9/11 was false flag operation, in it of itself is false. Most, if not all examples claimed false flag operations have never been in the scale of the attacks on New York because no others had so many witnesses, and so much information available to scrutinize, at such speed, in order to expose the truth. If my opponent can show that there was one true entity responsible, that satisfies the amount of circumstantial evidence, than he may be successful. The attacks on 9/11 may seem like a false flag operation at first, but this is not fundamentally correct. This event was something else by definition and I will strive to use my opponent's evidence to show that rather this day is still not answered yet. There are many links to the story, and the amount of circumstantial evidence must support all of the direct evidence linking all those responsible. Willful negligence may only satisfy some of the amount of circumstantial evidence available.

24hr extension.

Rebuttal

As I mentioned in my opening post I will spend very little time engaging my opponent in adversarial rhetoric and semantic minutia, the subject is simply too vast and too important to throw away valuable character and source counts in such endeavors. However, I will briefly address some of the pertinent elements of his opening post …

It seems my opponent has decided to hang his debate chapeau on a strategy of narrowing the definition of "false flag" to its narrowest point, and to do so, has decided to concede a plethora of evidence pointing to 9/11 being a false flag event in the broader interpretation of the term. I trust our fellow readers and judges will see through and reject this rather transparent attempt to reduce the entire conversation to semantics for the sake of intellectual convenience. Furthermore, and this is the last time I will address this, my opponent's interpretation is simply incorrect.

ANY overt and willful action from a government or institution to deceive the public as to the origin, cause, responsible parties, potential remedies, of an aggression to a secret end is by definition a false flag operation. As I stated in my opening post, an overt and willful act would in the case of 9/11 include anything from the US government and its agencies orchestrating the events themselves, partly assisting in their development, or simply choosing to allow them to unfold unabated with prior knowledge. For any of these permutations affecting the "official story" would institute the deception of the public to a hidden end. Such is the definition of "false flag" and this is the premise under which I will proceed.

Outline

For the sake of clarity I think it necessary to provide a general outline at the outset the structure of my pending argument:

Opening post

1st Post: Pre 9/11 evidence and information - the seeding of a false flag operation
2nd Post: continuation of the 'seeding' evidence and 9/11 in NYC
3rd Post: 9/11 at the pentagon and Shanksville
4th Post: The 9/11 commission report and other investigations
5th Post: Post 9/11 evidence and information - the reaping - problem > reaction > solution

Closing post

For the record, this is a tentative outline which I wish to pursue for the sake of argumentative clarity and compartmentalization … obviously a debate is in many ways a living thing, as such, the above outline is inherently elastic in its ultimate application.

One last note before we begin in earnest … though there is a mountain of speculative evidence surrounding the events of 9/11, much of it bearing great validity and is explored daily on the pages of ATS, I will for the sake of transparency and intellectual honesty restrict to that evidence which is verifiable and on the public record. The reason for this is bifold; First if we were to include speculative evidence as it applies to this topic we would surely need a thousand posts each to envelop our positions, second, the substantiated circumstantial evidence pointing to 9/11 being a false flag operation is readily available through verifiable msm sources, which itself bears great weight to mine being the prevailing side of the argument. So no abstract speculation or tenuous causal links required, the evidence will be there for all to crosscheck and verify.

1st Post: Pre 9/11 evidence and information - the seeding of a false flag operation

Two of the main but not exclusive sources of information from which I will draw from for this debate is the following:

History Commons - Complete 9/11 Timeline

9/11 Research 60-Page Summary
Verifiable Research on 9/11

Although both source sites have built in bias into them, they provide clear and independently sourced evidence pertinent to the events preceding, concurrent, and following 9/11. I include them at this juncture for proper bibliographical attribution and to point our fellow readers to the complete volume of evidence surrounding the events of 9/11 which is simply impossible to include in its totality within the structural constraints of our debate. Since I can only include but the most weighted circumstantial evidence, I highly encourage anyone who may wish to investigate the matter for themselves to avail themselves of the remainder of the relevant information contained within the above sources.

Let us begin ...

We were so surprised!

The official story starts with something like this: "the surprise terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001…"

Yet soon after the fact, a plethora of clear evidence started surfacing that that in fact was a lie, the first of many to come. The standard answer from government officials since this incontrovertible evidence started becoming public has been a dismissive "hindsight is 20/20" and that despite the volume of clear cut and pointedly specific warning signs as to the events that were to unfold, it was all due to a sequence of tragic errors and regrettable omissions. Cue "Patriot Act" and a slew of draconian social measures instigated to remedy future such "tragic comedy of errors" at the expense of the public's civil liberties. More on the "solution" aspect of the argument later, I point this out now for it is important to recognize at the outset what metaphorical weed it is that we are seeding to cultivate.

Whilst true, that for lack of a better expression, "Monday morning quarterbacking" is often a convenient and even often a fallacious approach to deconstruction, it is only so if it seeks to imply tenuous causality where none exists. But the football metaphor is apt … one can look back at the previous day's game and see all the mistakes that were made in earnest. But one, when the evidence is overwhelming to that effect, can also use the process with validity to recognize that the game was in fact thrown!

Thus in the context of the events preceding 9/11, a few scattered clues of what was about to happen would indeed point to an understandable predictive unavoidability. That is to say that should the circumstantial evidence be slight, the argument can be made that in hindsight, there should be no reasonable expectation from the public's end to have expected a pre-event recognition and ensuing potential preventive acts by the government and its agencies.

However, as it is about to become crystal clear through evidentiary provision, the exact opposite is in fact true. The evidence preceding and pointing to the events of 9/11 was not only overwhelming, but was also incredibly precise, had been building for years preceding the actual events, and was in possession and full knowledge in the hands of the highest American government officials, the CIA, the FBI, and other agencies. As we shall clearly see, even if one were to concede (which I am not) that the events were orchestrated as per the official story by a few Al Qaeda "terrorists," the notion that the attacks on September 11th 2001 were a surprise to the US government bears earnest ridicule.

They in fact were everything but a surprise!

Let us for the time being give the benefit of the doubt to the powers that be and pretend that the mostly failed 1993 attack on the World Trade Center by Al Qaeda operatives no less, intended to bring the towers down was in no way a foreseeable foreshadowing of things to come. And let us also for now completely forget that a similar operation codenamed Northwoods, which included false flag highjacking of US planes to instigate conflict and provoke war with Cuba is also a coinkidinkie. Hey, it's not that the combination of those two well documented operations is a perfect blueprint for the events of 9/11.

Let's instead focus on what actually transpired in the years, months, and days preceding 9/11 ...

As to the contention that the idea that hijacked civilian planes as an attack weapon were unfathomable:

In 1994, two jetliners were hijacked by people who wanted to crash them into buildings, one of them by an Islamic militant group. And the 2000 edition of the F.A.A.'s annual report on Criminal Acts Against Aviation, published this year, said that although Osama bin Laden ''is not known to have attacked civil aviation, he has both the motivation and the wherewithal to do so,'' adding, ''Bin Laden's anti-Western and anti-American attitudes make him and his followers a significant threat to civil aviation, particularly to U.S. civil aviation.''

From: A NATION CHALLENGED: WARNINGS; Earlier Hijackings Offered Signals That Were Missed

In fact there were a plethora of clues as to what was about to unfold:

Clues Alerted White House to Potential Attacks

In addition to the above we have the events surrounding Kenneth Williams and the Phoenix FBI memo which warned of Al Qaeda operatives training in American flight schools and a mountain of accurate evidence regarding the forthcoming events. A memo that although incredibly accurate, was explained away as somehow being conveniently lost in bureaucratic ether land.

Then there was the now infamous memo delivered to the president himself nearly a month before the attacks warning amongst other things that Bin Laden operatives were to hijack US planes!

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/c771ae2693b6.jpg[/atsimg]


At this juncture, I will pause the evidentiary flow, as I am running out of allotted character and citation space for this post. Rest assured that we are only but beginning to scratch the surface ... I urge you to read all linked sources.

tbc ...