Are You SURE About 9-11?

How did a two-bit camel jockey, bin Laden, pull this off? He had done nothing of this magnitude before or since. The only evidence we have of his involvement is his own mouth taking credit for it. Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

Damn COG, stop with the racist stereotype - the man purportedly had a civil engineering degree.

Sadly, the truth is our military was also found with its pants down that day...and leadership level...I think it is extremely reasonable to believe what happen on 73...passengers actions resulted in crash. Originally Posted by vkmaster

How was it a military failure when domestic, commercial airplanes were used as missiles? It was an intelligence - CIA and FBI - failure. Military jets were scrambled, but the pilots were not apprised of the 'domestic' nature of the attack. So the pilots responded as trained and headed out over the Atlantic to intercept. Furthermore, because of slow and confused communication from FAA officials, NORAD had 9 minutes' notice that Flight 11 had been hijacked, and no notice about any of the other flights before they crashed. The presidential order directing military interdiction of 'civilian carriers' was given at 10:20 AM. The last plane to crash, U.A. Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, crashed at 10:03 AM - 17 minutes earlier. [wiki].

This one of those threads where you just cant get the coo coo back in the clock. Originally Posted by Grifter

if nothing else, its entertaining

Sorry I didn't answer your thread correctly COG I did go on a hypothetical tangent rather than answering the question

@ I B Hankering...yea you are right, in terms of not being a military failure.

I was referring to the lack of communication and leadership on the specific day of 9/11.

Which would be more directed towards the folks you mentioned...my bad!!!

There are experts in the fields of engineering and architecture that state that implosion like that is impossible if not planned. All three buildings free fell. I think that is bizarre.

I'm not saying it didn't happen that way, but to discount the questions asked by experts is not prudent. There must be a plausible explanation, but I haven't heard one.

Anyway, it's an interesting column.

I'm a Bush hater....but to think 9/11 story is his version, is giving him way to much credit. Did he use 9/11 to influence his own agenda, perhaps. But, come on. Why did th buildings implode...infra structure melt due as a result of the explosion and high heat content of burning fuel...and the thrust of the planes' impact did not impact solely one side. Terrorists flying a plane, and knowing which side of building Rummy was in....oh please, did any outsider have a clue which side Rummy's office was in???

Regarding building 7....I'll be the first to admit, not real familiar with the story behind it. When I went on a tour of ground zero, our tour guide showed us how small and tight the area was. Two huge buildings on fire, collasping...and with hot debris all over the place could be the answer...but I'll admit to just guessing on that one.

As someone who has friends living in Penn area where Flight 73 crashed, thus followed that story in detail...the plane crashed head down first, that combined with the cockpit tapes clearly show the plane was not shot down. Sadly, the truth is our military was also found with its pants down that day...and leadership level...I think it is extremely reasonable to believe what happen on 73...passengers actions resulted in crash.
Regarding the area of debris....take a plane going in excess of 400 to 500 miles per hour, of course it is going to leave a wide area of debris.

How did bin Laden pull it off....it really was not some sophisticated, high tech operation. They caught us with our pants down, that simple. (Not to say we are super prepared today...but we were defintely ripe on 9/11.) Estimated cost of that operation was what...half a million...chump chain.

Now, with all that said, I do believe that we, general public do not know all the details of that day. But the major ones, yes we do.

And then there is the old arguement, that the government is simply not efficient enough to "cover-up" something at this level. Especially when you combine the intense levels of investigations both within the gov't as well as public scrunity by outside independent organizations., Originally Posted by vkmaster

Without question, an interesting read. And hey, it is always good to listen and be open minded.

There are also many experts who explain that the events of that day were as most of us believe, the result of a horrible moment of those planes being used as explosive rockets.

Don't think that's anything close to blind belief, but a rational attempt to explain that terrible day.

The presidential order directing military interdiction of 'civilian carriers' was given at 10:20 AM. The last plane to crash, U.A. Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, crashed at 10:03 AM - 17 minutes earlier. [wiki].


nothing like Bush being right on top of the situation is there?

Yeah. Why did that take so long? So many unanswered questions.

Huh? ... the did WHAT?

THEY FLEW PLANES INTO THE WTC AND THE PENTAGON?

SHOOT THEM SUMBITCHES DOWN BEFORE CAN DO IT AGAIN ..

THE DECIDER.

The presidential order directing military interdiction of 'civilian carriers' was given at 10:20 AM. The last plane to crash, U.A. Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, crashed at 10:03 AM - 17 minutes earlier. [wiki].


nothing like Bush being right on top of the situation is there? Originally Posted by CJ7

Clinton is just as culpable considering the terrorists were granted visas to live and train for the despicable act while he was in office – yeah, the only thing Clinton was 'on top of' was Monica Lewinsky.

Im sure Clinton personally signed and approved ALL visa requests while he was in office

durrrrrr

Im sure Clinton personally signed and approved ALL visa requests while he was in office

durrrrrr Originally Posted by CJ7

Truman's quote was: "The buck stops here." Clinton was responsible for everything that happened on his watch - especially the failure to gather and interpret necessary intelligence about al Qaeda operatives living and training in this country. And the Lewinsky Affair did have a negative impact on subsequent policy matters.

especially the failure to gather and interpret necessary intelligence about al Qaeda operatives living and training in this country.

care to remind everyone how the republican congress did everything in their power to stop clinton at every Al Qaeda turn during his term?

ALL of the terrorists visas expired 4 months before 911 ... where was Bush? clearing brush in crawford


tisk tisk

When Clinton tried to get anti-terrorism legislation passed in 1996, Republicans fought it tooth and nail. Senator Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, went so far as to call certain provisions in the bill "controversial" and "phony" (1) - all of which have since been passed in the wake of 9/11.

To this day there is a popular email floating around that claims that Clinton was offered Osama bin Laden and he refused him. The truth is that the Sudan offered to arrest bin Laden and turn him over to Saudi Arabia. For ten weeks Clinton tried to persuade the Saudis to take bin Laden. They refused to do so for fear of fundamentalist backlash, and the FBI & Justice Department determined there was not sufficient evidence at that time to indict him in U.S. courts. (2)

In 1998, after the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, Clinton bent a President Ford-era ban on assassinations, authorizing the CIA to use deadly force against bin Laden (An attempt was made when operatives fired an RPG at bin Laden's motorcade, unfortunately hitting the wrong vehicle in the convoy). (3)

Clinton also ordered cruise missile strikes on bin Laden's camp in Afghanistan and at a pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan suspected of manufacturing VX nerve gas. This action was met with staunch resistence from Republicans and immediately cries of 'Wag the Dog' dominated the discourse. Further action would have resulted in further attacks from the GOP. He also sponsored legislation that would have frozen the assets of any organizations believed to be funneling money to al Qaeda. It was killed by Republican Senator Phil Gramm of Texas. - The same legislation passed immediately following 9/11. (4)

A number of al Qaeda attacks were prevented under the Clinton administration, including plots to bomb Los Angeles Airport, the UN building, and New York City tunnels. Dozens of international terrorist cells were also neutralized. These successes were praised by a number of counter-terrorism experts, including Robert Oakley, from Reagan's State Department, who gave Clinton high marks but criticized his obsession with bin Laden. (5)
During the transition period in 2001, Clinton's National Security advisor, Sandy Berger met with Condoleeza Rice telling her she would "spend more time on terrorism generally, and on al Qaeda specifically, than any other subject." (6)

Near the end of the Clinton administration, unarmed Predator drones spotted bin Laden in Afghanistan at least three times. Clinton proposed arming the drones with Hellfire missiles to kill him. Bad weather and retrofitting required the drones to be taken offline until March 2001. They remained offline throughout that summer. One week before 9/11, the Bush administration rejected using the drones to attack al Qaeda. Days after 9/11, armed Predator drones were put in the skies over Afghanistan. (7)

Army Lt. Gen. Donald Kerrick stated that Clinton Cabinet advisors had anti-terrorism meetings "nearly weekly," and that he "didn't detect" that kind of focus in the Bush administration. (8)

On February 26th, 2001, Paul Bremer (Co-chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism, Head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq) while speaking at the McCormick Tribune Foundation Conference on Terrorism stated: "The new administration seems to be paying no attention to the problem of terrorism. What they will do is stagger along until there's a major incident and then suddenly say, 'Oh, my God, shouldn't we be organized to deal with this?'(9)

On May 5th, 2001, Bush rejected the Hart-Rudman report, a two and a half year study on the threat of terrorism, considered to be the most in-depth security analysis since the National Security Act of 1947, which created the National Security Council and the CIA. The fourteen member panel of intelligence and military experts, coming to the conclusion that "Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers," recommended many improvements in our defenses (enacted since 9/11), including the creation of a National Homeland Security Agency. (10)
In the Summer of 2001, warnings of an al Qaeda attack in the United States using multiple aircraft as weapons began pouring in from international intelligence agencies all over the world, including: Germany, Russia (11) Jordan, Morocco (12) Israel (13) and Britain. (14) Additionally, Egyptian President Mubarak warned the U.S. that al Qaeda threatened to kill Bush at the July G8 summit in Italy using a plane stuffed with explosives. (15) From 1994 through 2001 U.S. intelligence agencies were aware of numerous threats that al Qaeda could use airplanes as weapons against the United States. (16)
Four months before the 9/11 attacks, a new 'Visa Express' program is started which is designed to help applicants obtain U.S. visas quickly and easily. In June and July of 2001, three of the 9/11 hijackers use Visa Express to enter the United States. (17) (Five according to the U.S. Senate Committee on Intelligence)