9/11 Attacks

seannash

Happyman42 wrote: »

I believe that evidence of WMD's was manufactured to manipulate public opinion and parliment in Britian, can you see why I might think that elements in another country would do the same?
Either you can or you can't, give me your opinion not your evasive snide remarks and we'll move on.

not addressed at me but ill say im definitely unsure about the WMD thing.

part of me is thinking that they used the intelligence they had at the time and presumed that there was the possibility of WMD.another art of me is saying that it was a cover story.

i havent done enough research to formulate an educated decision but id sway more on the first one.


but seriously WMD's is derailing this alot

Happyman42

seannash wrote: »

could you please clarify what you believe was the cause.

Ok, I believe it is possible that 'prior knowledge' was suppressed in order that advantage could be taken of the situation.
I don't believe at this stage that the terrorists where anything other than that but I think they were allowed to carry out their act. I don't know who was involved in the suppression or how high it went or even if it was orchestrated from withn government.
The Commission Report failed to investigate that aspect of the events imo.

I said earlier in the whole debate that the controversy about what caused the collapse and WTC 7 was 'possibly' suiting those responsible as it has becone a massive smokescreen. It doesn't matter really at the end of the day (only to those who lost their lives of course) the extent of the damage, what matters is who was responsible and wether they will be brought to book for it.
I think it is 'possible' that the towers collapsing may have even been a suprise. As I say, it doesn't really matter in the bigger scheme of things.

joebucks

alastair wrote: »

1. Motive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll3uipTO-4A

seannash

Happyman42 wrote: »

Ok, I believe it is possible that 'prior knowledge' was suppressed in order that advantage could be taken of the situation.
I don't believe at this stage that the terrorists where anything other than that but I think they were allowed to carry out their act. I don't know who was involved in the suppression or how high it went or even if it was orchestrated from withn government.
The Commission Report failed to investigate that aspect of the events imo.

I said earlier in the whole debate that the controversy about what caused the collapse and WTC 7 was 'possibly' suiting those responsible as it has becone a massive smokescreen. It doesn't matter really at the end of the day (only to those who lost their lives of course) the extent of the damage, what matters is who was responsible and wether they will be brought to book for it.
I think it is 'possible' that the towers collapsing may have even been a suprise. As I say, it doesn't really matter in the bigger scheme of things.

cool thats a much more viable theory than most of the others out there.

can you provide a bit of evidence that it was supressed leading up to the attacks.

i know your not stating that your 100% certain(i believe its possible isnt a definite so im not trying to pin you down with that)but what led you to have this belief

alastair

Happyman42 wrote: »

Ok, I believe it is possible that 'prior knowledge' was suppressed in order that advantage could be taken of the situation.
I don't believe at this stage that the terrorists where anything other than that but I think they were allowed to carry out their act. I don't know who was involved in the suppression or how high it went or even if it was orchestrated from withn government.
The Commission Report failed to investigate that aspect of the events imo.

I said earlier in the whole debate that the controversy about what caused the collapse and WTC 7 was 'possibly' suiting those responsible as it has becone a massive smokescreen. It doesn't matter really at the end of the day (only to those who lost their lives of course) the extent of the damage, what matters is who was responsible and wether they will be brought to book for it.
I think it is 'possible' that the towers collapsing may have even been a suprise. As I say, it doesn't really matter in the bigger scheme of things.

The commission investigated the failure of intelligence prior to 9/11 and highlighted the deficiencies in how data was shared, passed on, and prioritised. They found no evidence of strategic suppression of information.

Happyman42

seannash wrote: »

can you provide a bit of evidence that it was supressed leading up to the attacks.

Read this in it's entirety and follow the sources in the notations.
Anybody who says the 9-11 Commission was exhaustive in it's pursuit of the truth is codding themselves.....imho of course.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Danger

Di0genes

Happyman42 wrote: »

Ok, I believe it is possible that 'prior knowledge' was suppressed in order that advantage could be taken of the situation.

So why were you going on about the passport surviving?

I don't believe at this stage that the terrorists where anything other than that but I think they were allowed to carry out their act. I don't know who was involved in the suppression or how high it went or even if it was orchestrated from withn government.
The Commission Report failed to investigate that aspect of the events imo.

Well thats nice n all but how exactly could you proof malicious intent was the reason behind the intelligence failures.

Alot is made of the briefing and intelligence that emerged after the attack. This is as the Americans say "Monday Morning Quarterbacking". It's all very well saying that they should have done X or Y, but you have the benefit of hindsight when you do so.

Remember the statement the IRA realised after the Brighton bombing. Today we were unlucky. But we only have to lucky once".

When faced by terrorists who are capable and willing to sacrifice their lives, you don't need someone on your own side to let them win.

Happyman42

alastair wrote: »

The commission investigated the failure of intelligence prior to 9/11 and highlighted the deficiencies in how data was shared, passed on, and prioritised. They found no evidence of strategic suppression of information.

Yes, you have already said that they ignored 'distractions'.

alastair

Happyman42 wrote: »

Read this in it's entirety and follow the sources in the notations.
Anybody who says the 9-11 Commission was exhaustive in it's pursuit of the truth is codding themselves.....imho of course.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Danger

The Department of Defense investigation concluded:

The anti-terrorist program, Able Danger, did not identify Mohamed Atta or any other 9/11 terrorists before the 9/11 attack.
Able Danger members were not prohibited from sharing intelligence information with law enforcement authorities or other agencies that could have acted on that information. In fact, Able Danger produced no actionable intelligence information.
The destruction of Able Danger documentation at LIWA and Garland was appropriate and complied with applicable DoD regulations.
The Able Danger program was not terminated prematurely. It concluded after it had achieved its objective and its work products were used in follow-on intelligence gathering efforts at USSOCOM."

You wanted them to waste their time with this?

seannash

Happyman42 wrote: »

Read this in it's entirety and follow the sources in the notations.
Anybody who says the 9-11 Commission was exhaustive in it's pursuit of the truth is codding themselves.....imho of course.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Danger

ill give it a read later,running around at the moment so dont have time to sit down and digest it.

ill get back to you on it

Happyman42

Di0genes wrote: »

So why were you going on about the passport surviving?

To my mind there are so many anomalies about that passport that it warranted extreme investigation, but of course that wasn't done either.

Did the Commission investigate wheter he had American ID? No
If he had ID your next question is, why did he nt use it?
It goes on and on.
My questions are all there earlier in the thread. No satisfactory answers from either the Commission or here.

Happyman42

alastair wrote: »

You wanted them to waste their time with this?

Nice bit of cherrypicking there Alastair.

So the 'independent' Commission allowed the DoD to influence it? Are you really saying that? That was handy

Di0genes

Able Danger - Muddying The Waters

In an earlier post I wondered if Mohamed Atta was showing up in public databases or in news reports prior to 9/11. It turns out he was - sort of. There was a Mahmoud Atta who attacked a bus in the West Bank in 1986, was arrested in Venezuela, and was eventually deported from the US to Israel in 1990.
So what? Well, per Snopes, in the aftermath of 9/11 news services confused the two and wondered which bright lights in the INS allowed a known terrorist into the country. (Jeralynn Merritt debunked this back in the day).
So, as part of our ongoing attempt to square the circle and resolve the conflicting stories about Able Danger, we are tossing out this notion - might Lt. Col. Shaffer or someone else have confused the two Attas in their analysis?
OK, that seems like an incredibly dumb idea, until you think about it (it then rises to "Not hopelessly farfetched") - the first Atta (Mahmoud) was a naturalized US citizen and a known terrorist. If you were data mining for new terrorists, mightn't you start with him and see who his friends and connections were? As Shaffer explained in an interview with Michael Savage, its all about linkages.
And having captured the linkages, mightn't Atta's name appear on some chart or file as a focal point for "Persons of Interest with Links to Atta"?
Finally, post 9/11, confusion sets in. In his latest interview in the NY Post, Lt. Col. Shaffer tells us that, like Rep. Curt Weldon, he didn't know that Able Danger had identified Atta until after 9/11:

Shaffer said Atta's name didn't ring a bell when he learned the hijackers' names after 9/11. But he got "a sinking feeling in my stomach" when the woman Ph.D. in charge of Able Danger's data analysis told him Atta was one of those who had been identified as a likely al Qaeda terrorist by Able Danger.

"My friend the doctor [Ph.D.] who did all the charts and ran the technology showed me the chart and said, 'Look, we had this, we knew them, we knew this.' And it was a sinking feeling, it was like, 'Oh my God, you know. We could have done something.' "

OK, the idea that we have two Attas is a longshot, and a lot of the story we are getting does not support it. On the other hand, a lot of the story we are getting is second hand - we have *still* not heard directly from someone who can say that they had identified Atta as a terrorist before 9/11. Both Weldon and Shaffer only learned about the Atta ID afterwards (in Weldon's case, roughly June of 2005).

http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2005/08/able_danger_mud.html

Di0genes

Happyman42 wrote: »

To my mind there are so many anomalies about that passport that it warranted extreme investigation, but of course that wasn't done either.

No there aren't. Did he use the passport as ID when boarding the plane? Yes. Thus explaining how his passport arrived in New York.

Do you have any theories as to how it could have turned up in New York.

Did the Commission investigate wheter he had American ID? No
If he had ID your next question is, why did he nt use it?
It goes on and on.
My questions are all there earlier in the thread. No satisfactory answers from either the Commission or here.

Unless you can explain why additional addition should be given to the passport. No there's nothing further to discuss. I'm satisfied with the answer. You have explained your dissatisfaction at all.

seannash

Happyman42 wrote: »

Did the Commission investigate wheter he had American ID? No

just to add something to this.i spent years in america illegally.
i managed to obtain american id's(driving licence)as did alot of my friends.

you really wouldnt believe how easy it was to do things over there prior to 9/11.

i had bank accounts,was part of a union and was paying tax,all the while being illegal.
the immigration security was an absolute joke prior to 9/11

people could come and go as they please

Di0genes

seannash wrote: »

just to add something to this.i spent years in america illegally.
i managed to obtain american id's(driving licence)as did alot of my friends.

you really wouldnt believe how easy it was to do things over there prior to 9/11.

i had bank accounts,was part of a union and was paying tax,all the while being illegal.
the immigration security was an absolute joke prior to 9/11

people could come and go as they please

I was supposed to do a 3 month internship in LA a few years after 9/11. However the visa my internship was covered by was the same as the ones several hijackers used. It was now subject to a Homelands Security check. FAS meets Homeland Security? They never managed to sort it out.

Happyman42

Jeez lads give me a break, I can't pronounce on whether or not Shaffer and his 4 colleagues where telling the truth or not but I can say that a Commission tasked with finding the truth didn't either because they didn't cross examine him, they, as Alastair says took the word of the DoD. At least two of the commission claimed not to have been presented with facts about Able Danger, this and other stuff already mentioned rings alarm bells for me and others.

That the whole report is inadequate, is my point, almost 3000 people died and thousands more as a result. Unlike Alastair you can't cherrypick what you want to review or rule something out just because you believe it is too fantastical to consider. Everything must be exhaustively examined. It wasn't.

Di0genes

Happyman42 wrote: »

Jeez lads give me a break, I can't pronounce on whether or not Shaffer and his 4 colleagues where telling the truth or not but I can say that a Commission tasked with finding the truth didn't either because they didn't cross examine him, they, as Alastair says took the word of the DoD. At least two of the commission claimed not to have been presented with facts about Able Danger, this and other stuff already mentioned rings alarm bells for me and others.

That the whole report is inadequate, is my point, almost 3000 people died and thousands more as a result. Unlike Alastair you can't cherrypick what you want to review or rule something out just because you believe it is too fantastical to consider. Everything must be exhaustively examined. It wasn't.

Theres exhaustive and then there's exhaustive. If the Comission had gone into the detail you demand they did they'll still be in session, and conspiracy theorists would claim that they're dragging their heels about the truth.

This is having your cake and eating it territory.

Happyman42

seannash wrote: »

just to add something to this.i spent years in america illegally.
i managed to obtain american id's(driving licence)as did alot of my friends.

Agreed, and a credible newspaper (with sources) 3 days after 9-11 claimed that the holder of a 'doctored' (therefore dodgy passport, because the FBI claimed that that was a 'threat indicator') passport got ID.
Now, all the other hijackers on that flight used their American IDs but this guy. That for me raises the question, why would he do that? why would he risk the operation getting stopped? (he was identified as the leader of that planes cell btw so fairly critical to the sucess of the mission)
He was hardly planning to use it after the operation, was he?
It brings into question the testimony (to the FBI) of the Ticket Agent who says he used his passport. But we don't know how rigourously this carried out. And the Commission suprise suprise ignored the Newspapers revelations.
More unanswered questions imho.
The reason I was asking these questions earlier was to try establish a theory that passports (luggage containing the passports of another hijacker didn't make it onto the flight) were planted to ensure that the blame could be controlled. 'They' could not be sure that phonecalls would be made by flight attendants after all, so evidence had to appear and appear quickly.
Crazy maybe, but I think it warranted a fuller investigation as do others.

Happyman42

Di0genes wrote: »

Theres exhaustive and then there's exhaustive. If the Comission had gone into the detail you demand they did they'll still be in session, and conspiracy theorists would claim that they're dragging their heels about the truth.

This is having your cake and eating it territory.

oh come on....how much longer would it have taken, you are exaggerating

Di0genes

Happyman42 wrote: »

oh come on....how much longer would it have taken, you are exaggerating

So far you've insisted they investigate alternative reasons as to how the passport arrived in New York. If they approached every minor piece of evidence, and tried to consider every conceivable hypothesis they'd be going for years.

The Saville Inquiry took 12 years to investigate 26 deaths. How much longer would the investigation of 3,000 deaths.

Happyman42

Di0genes wrote: »

So far you've insisted they investigate alternative reasons as to how the passport arrived in New York. If they approached every minor piece of evidence, and tried to consider every conceivable hypothesis they'd be going for years.

The Saville Inquiry took 12 years to investigate 26 deaths. How much longer would the investigation of 3,000 deaths.

Not many CTers talking about Saville is there?

alastair

Happyman42 wrote: »

as Alastair says took the word of the DoD. .

I never said that - you did. I said it was a distraction - as much a distraction as the decision of Suqami to use his passport and not a different form of ID. It's not argued that potentially useful intelligence was mixed in with a pile of junk reports prior to 9/11 - the commission have spoken clearly on that - and the claims of Shaffer have subsequently been investigated and proven to be unwarranted. Even if they had been proven (which they weren't) - it'd just another instance of an intelligence operation/community that have shown a consistent inability to get it right all of the time - or anywhere near.

alastair

Happyman42 wrote: »

Agreed, and a credible newspaper (with sources) 3 days after 9-11 claimed that the holder of a 'doctored' (therefore dodgy passport, because the FBI claimed that that was a 'threat indicator') passport got ID.
Now, all the other hijackers on that flight used their American IDs but this guy.

Some hijackers used passports, some didn't - proves...?
Suqami was happy enough to use his passport for the only journeys that might have exposed his doctered Afghan stamp - so why would he be concerned with internal flights where they're not going to look at anything except his photo?
There's nothing to get excited about - nothing.

Di0genes

Happyman42 wrote: »

Agreed, and a credible newspaper (with sources) 3 days after 9-11 claimed that the holder of a 'doctored' (therefore dodgy passport, because the FBI claimed that that was a 'threat indicator') passport got ID.
Now, all the other hijackers on that flight used their American IDs but this guy. That for me raises the question, why would he do that? why would he risk the operation getting stopped? (he was identified as the leader of that planes cell btw so fairly critical to the sucess of the mission)
He was hardly planning to use it after the operation, was he?
It brings into question the testimony (to the FBI) of the Ticket Agent who says he used his passport. But we don't know how rigourously this carried out. And the Commission suprise suprise ignored the Newspapers revelations.

Because in the days after the 9/11 attacks numerous stories about the hijackers materialised in the press and were found out to be erroneous.

More unanswered questions imho.
The reason I was asking these questions earlier was to try establish a theory that passports (luggage containing the passports of another hijacker didn't make it onto the flight) were planted to ensure that the blame could be controlled.

No you're going from security services allowed it happen, to security services actually facilitated the attacks.

'They' could not be sure that phonecalls would be made by flight attendants after all, so evidence had to appear and appear quickly.
Crazy maybe, but I think it warranted a fuller investigation as do others.

But thats your personal bug bear and problem. Other people would obsesses about the supposed wire transfer to Atta. Or the strip clubs they allegedly went to. If the commission investigated all these minor things they'd still be in session.

Di0genes

Happyman42 wrote: »

Not many CTers talking about Saville is there?

Why in the world would the Commission care about CTers in general? Theres a core element who are never going to happy with the official story.

Al Qaeda could mount a lavish Broadway musical explaining how they carried out the attacks in song. With Osama Bin Laden taking centre stage for the finale and somepeople would still blame the US.

Happyman42

I am not really that bothered rehashing the passport as it was disscussed earlier in the thread.

But Diogenes raises an interesting parrellel. The Widgery Report alongside The Saville Report.
One inadequate, biased and a cover-up and the other exhaustive, honest and accepted. Is the 9-11 report accepted in the same way....no....why? I think you know but aren't brave enough to say because that would undermine your whole position. That isn't neccesarily going to happen. But I prefer the truth, no matter how long or how hard it is to arrive at it.
Questions about the findings of the 9-11 Commission don't just come from a hard core of CTers, its ridiculous to suggest that.

alastair

Happyman42 wrote: »

I am not really that bothered rehashing the passport as it was disscussed earlier in the thread.

But Diogenes raises and interesting parrellel. The Widgery Report alongside The Saville Report.
One inadequate, biased and a cover-up and the other exhaustive, honest and accepted. Is the 9-11 report accepted in the same way....no....why?

Because there wasn't a cover-up?

The military lied to the Widgery inquiry and got away with it.
The military tried to give the 9/11 commission the runaround and got exposed and criticised for it.

Happyman42

That Widgery was appointed in the first place might have been the problem....no? He facilitated the lies. Remind you of anything?

Di0genes

Happyman42 wrote: »

That Widgery was appointed in the first place might have been the problem....no? He facilitated the lies. Remind you of anything?

And people were unhappy with the first people appointed to the 911 commission and it's membership was altered.