Why They Didn't Use A 757 To Hit The Pentagon, Reasons and motives

The following text is an article by the blogger named Killtown where he argues that on September 11, 2001 the Pentagon was attacked by something other than a Boeing 757 jetliner originally flying as AA Flight 77. I have not studied and analyzed the events at the Pentagon sufficiently to have an opinion as to what happened there, though, as I said already, many things about the official version of the events at the Pentagon seems far fetched and makes little sense. It is for one difficult to see how an amatuer pilot such as Hani Hanjour could have pulled off the near-impossible manuever required to hit the Pentagon flying with his engines a mere two feet off the ground.

Even if Killtown is wrong and the official version - or some variation there of - is closer to the truth somebody still has lots of explaining to do on a number of issues, such as why Flight 77 was never intercepted, let alone shot down, or why not one of those officials whose job it was to protect the Pentagon has been relieved of their duties.

This article is presented for informational purposes only. At this point I neither endorse it, nor dispute it. I find it informationally valuable. I would also like to note that no matter what happened at the Pentagon the case can still be made that the official story of the 9/11 is little more than a coverup of the true story, thus making some elements of the US government complicit in at least the coverup of a large-scale crime. And that is, at a minimum, obstruction of justice.

The original text can be found here:
Why They Didn't Use A 757 To Hit The Pentagon, Reasons and motives
(Version 1.5 - 06/14/06)

For those who say:

"Why would the government hijack a 3rd plane, Flight 77, but not crash it into the Pentagon when they took the trouble to hijack two other planes and crash them into the WTC?"

and

"Why would they want to crash a plane into their own defense headquarters?"


Here is why they didn't want to use a Boeing 757 to crash into the Pentagon:


ACCURACY!!!


What do you think would be the easiest part of the Pentagon to hit, the huge rooftop that looks like a giant "bull’s-eye" from the sky, or the side of the Pentagon that is only about seven stories tall? I’d say the roof.



But what if you had to hit the side of the building that is not even 2x taller than a Boeing 757 and not only that, but a certain side, certain section, and certain floor of that side?

The government conspirators needed to hit the exact section of the Pentagon that was hit and they needed to hit it low to the ground. A Boeing 757, even flown via remote control or computer guidance, would have been too risky for them to use because it is too big and cumbersome to chance its accuracy, especially having to fly what they wanted to hit there super fast so most witnesses on the ground wouldn't be able to see what exactly it was, and a plane that size could cause more damage than they wanted too. They needed to use something very accurate to hit the ground floors of that small section of their building, like a missile or UAV, that also wouldn't cause too much damage to the Pentagon, or hit the ground.

Can you imaging them trusting an empty remote controlled 115 ton Boeing to perfectly hit that small section low to the ground without overshooting high and flying over the low sitting Pentagon, or without bouncing off the lawn and breaking apart to expose that no passengers where on board and sending large pieces of the plane in who knows which direction? They had to use something much smaller and accurate that would be able to hit low to the ground without hitting the ground. If they made it looked like it had dive-bombed into the roof, or flew straight into the uppers floors, they wouldn't have been able to have faked this plane crash because they wouldn't have been able to have easily manufactured a somewhat realistically sized and shaped hole in the roof, or upper floors to make most people think a 757 could have made as compared to floors near the ground and they needed to have the section they hit collapse so it would help cover up the oddly shaped hole they manufactured for the crash and to help cover up the fact that no 757 crashed there.





So that is why the crash happened directly into the first floor and why it didn’t hit the lawn, or destroy any of the cable spools out in front, why no mark was left on the 3rd story wall where a 757's tail should have hit, why there wasn't as much damage to the Pentagon as one would think a mostly fueled 757 would cause, why the oddly shaped hole looked like the plane had flown in level instead of it hitting with it's wings banking to the left as we were told, and why this aircraft made experienced air traffic controllers monitoring it think it was a "military plane" from it spiraling down and around the Pentagon dropping the last 7,000 feet in two-and-a-half minutes to specifically hit that side and 1st floor of that section instead of taking the more easier route of dive-boming it straight down into the roof after it flew over the White House area, and why the first reports of what crashed there was a helicopter.

I really doubt Hani Hanjour could fly a 115 ton Boeing 757 like an agile jetfighter when there is no evidence he ever flew a 757 before in real life or in simulation, when one of his flight instructors said he could not fly at all and that they questioned whether his pilot's license was genuine, and when his skills were so bad that he was refused to rent a Cessna the month before the attack.










The 'Lucky' Section

It should be self evident enough that the section of the Pentagon hit was hit on purpose. The section hit was the only section in the entire Pentagon that was being retrofitted and it was being retrofitted, of all things, to help bolster it against attack. What are the odds of that? And not only that, but it was hit almost in the middle of that renovated section in which they had just installed a new sprinkler system. Hitting this section lowered the number of potential victims because this section was not yet fully repopulated and a fire truck had just been pulled out from the firehouse that was coincidentally right next the section that was hit. Another coincidence is that side was the only lawn side that didn't have a parking lot or other things built next to it that would have made it much less accessible for the rescue crews to fight the fires and rescue the injured. Another factor that was in the Pentagon's favor was hitting their own building ensured the availability of military doctors, nurses, and first aid responders for all the injured.



So think about it, the "Arab terrorists" hit the worst section for them and the best section for the Pentagon.



Motive for Hitting the 'Lucky' Section

So what was so special for our military to take the added risk of hitting that specific section at their defense headquarters when hitting the WTC would surely be enough to cause a wave of world wide indignation for their master plan?

Check out what the head of the Pentagon announced less than 24hrs before his place of work got hit:

QUOTE

On Sept. 10, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared war. Not on foreign terrorists, "the adversary's closer to home. It's the Pentagon bureaucracy," he said. Rumsfeld promised change but the next day – Sept. 11-- the world changed and in the rush to fund the war on terrorism, the war on waste seems to have been forgotten. "According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted. $2.3 trillion — that's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America. (CBS)

Now I don’t know about you, but if I had to announce a bureaucratic nightmare that I wanted to be buried as quickly as possible from the minds of the American people, what better time to announce it than the day before every American’s mind will be distracted by a most horrible event?

So now we know why Rumsfeld announced this outrageous news the day before the attacks, but they needed to do a little more than to just bury the story, they needed to bury the evidence and what better way to bury the evidence than to blow up the section that housed the paper trail and people trail who might have been able to figure out where all or some of that missing $2.3 trillion went:

QUOTE

- The impact area included both the Navy operations center and the office complex of the National Guard and Army Reserve. It was also the end of the fiscal year and important budget information was in the damaged area. (Arlington County After-Action Report) - Most of those killed in the office, called Resource Services Washington, were civilian accountants, bookkeepers and budget analysts. They were at their desks when American Airlines Flight 77 struck. (South Coast Today)

Now think about it, less than 24hrs after Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld (who was on the safe side of the Pentagon when it was hit) announces his agency lost track of a mind-blowing $2.3 trillion dollars, the section that housed the people and paper trail that would know where all that money went was blown up in the most bizarre events in America's history.

Again, the Pentagon benefitted from this section being hit.

What also adds to the interest is the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) and Chief Financial Officer for the Department of Defense who is in charge of all the Pentagon's money was Dov S. Zakheim, who not only is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations as well as an ordained Orthodox Jewish rabbi and some say is a dual Israeli/American citizen, but who is also a member of the PNAC, along with Donald Rumsfeld, and was a contributing author of the PNAC's "Rebuilding America's Defenses" that essentially talked about needing a "new Pearl Harbor" to build up American's military might exactly one year before it happened.



Some of Zakheim's former jobs are interesting too. He was vice president of a defense contractor, System Planning Corp., which made remote control and flight termination products and was chief executive officer of SPC International Corp., a subsidiary specializing in political, military and economic consulting.


So that is why they hit that section of the Pentagon and why they didn't use a Boeing 757 to do it.


See also: Pentagon's Official Claim, Pentagon Crash Motives, Where The Pentagon Was Hit, and Rabbi Steals $2.3 Trillion!

Man charged after videotaping police

A city man is charged with violating state wiretap laws by recording a detective on his home security camera, while the detective was investigating the man’s sons.

Michael Gannon, 49, of 26 Morgan St., was arrested Tuesday night, after he brought a video to the police station to try to file a complaint against Detective Andrew Karlis, according to Gannon’s wife, Janet Gannon, and police reports filed in Nashua District Court.

Police instead arrested Gannon, charging him with two felony counts of violating state eavesdropping and wiretap law by using an electronic device to record Karlis without the detective’s consent.

The Gannons’ son, Shawn Gannon, 18, is charged with resisting detention and disorderly conduct, and his wife also was cited for disorderly conduct, she said.

Janet Gannon said the family plans to hire a lawyer, and expects to sue the police department.The couple’s 15-year-old son also was arrested, charged as a juvenile in an unrelated robbery case, according to police reports and Janet Gannon.

The Gannons installed a video and audio recording system at their home, a four-unit building at 22-28 Morgan St., to monitor the front door and parking areas, family members told police. They installed the cameras about two years ago, buying the system at Wal-Mart, Janet Gannon told the police, according to reports filed in court. The Gannons have owned the property, which is assessed at $382,700, for the past three years, city records show.

Janet Gannon spoke with The Telegraph by phone Wednesday afternoon, before going to bail out her husband. She said they installed the system in response to crime in the neighborhood, and at their house.

...

The Gannons felt police were harassing the family, Janet Gannon said.

“There were six cops in my yard,” the first time police came, she said. “My husband was very upset. How many cops does it take to talk to a 15-year-old.”

Karlis didn’t know about the security camera until his second visit, when Michael Gannon told him to “smile” for the camera, police reported.

Janet Gannon said her husband explicitly warned officers of the camera, later adding “smile,” as a joke.

“I heard him say it,” she said. “He said, ‘Gentlemen, there’s a camera right there.’”

According to police, however, Janet Gannon told officers she didn’t remember her husband warning police about the security camera.

Police reported that Gannon “has a history of being verbally abusive” toward police, and that after his arrest, he remarked that the officers “were a bunch of corrupt (expletives).”

Man charged after videotaping police
Andrew Wolfe, Nashua Telegraph, June 29, 2006

No more Rodney King videotapes, it seems.

Random vulnerabilities - or deliberate vote fraud?

Vote fraud is nothing new. More likely than not, as soon as there was the first show of hands, someone got an idea of fixing the results in the way that they saw advantageous.

Of course, all societies that run elections have some safeguards to prevent candidates from winning fraudulently. Like any other safeguards, they are not bullet-proof.

The following is an excerpt from a June 26 USA Today report on a recent analysis of the vote counting equipment in the US:

Most of the electronic voting machines widely adopted since the disputed 2000 presidential election "pose a real danger to the integrity of national, state and local elections," a report out Tuesday concludes.

There are more than 120 security threats to the three most commonly purchased electronic voting systems, the study by the Brennan Center for Justice says. For what it calls the most comprehensive review of its kind, the New York City-based non-partisan think tank convened a task force of election officials, computer scientists and security experts to study e-voting vulnerabilities.

The study, which took more than a year to complete, examined optical scanners and touch-screen machines with and without paper trails. Together, the three systems account for 80% of the voting machines that will be used in this November's election.

While there have been no documented cases of these voting machines being hacked, Lawrence Norden, who chaired the task force and heads the Brennan Center's voting-technology assessment project, says there have been similar software attacks on computerized gambling slot machines.

"It is unrealistic to think this isn't something to worry about" in terms of future elections, he says.

The report comes during primary season amid growing concerns about potential errors and tampering. Lawsuits have been filed in at least six states to block the purchase or use of computerized machines.

Election officials in California and Pennsylvania recently issued urgent warnings to local polling supervisors about potential software problems in touch-screen voting machines after a test in Utah uncovered vulnerabilities in machines made by Diebold Election Systems.

North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold did not return calls for comment. The company, a major manufacturer of e-voting machines, said earlier this month that security flaws cited in its machines were theoretical and would be addressed this year.

Analysis finds e-voting machines vulnerable
Andrea Stone, USA TODAY, June 26, 2006

There is one detail here that Diebold is understandably in no rush to discuss: the fact that a vulnerability has been exploited may be hard to detect, and in some cases unknowable. The same goes for the data set that could be illegally modified - thus, in this case, changing the tally of the votes cast on a particular machine or group of machines. The only way to guard against that - short of eradicating all chances that the data would be corrupted, whether intentionally or otherwise -is establishing a log, on paper, electronic or both that would keep track of what votes the voters have cast.

Immediately after the election of 2004 I had a feeling it may have been fraudulent, even so much so as to give the man who lost it another four years in the White House. A much more indepth article by Robert F. Kennedy (Was the 2004 Election Stolen?, Rollingstone.com, June 1, 2006) suggests as much providing a multitude of data to support that conclusion.

It is certainly true that any individual aspect of how the election is setup - administratively, technically, legally - can be explained away as some sort of inaptitude or inefficiency. However, to my taste there is a method to this madness and there is a pattern to this incompetence. These failures are too systematic to my taste, and too well tuned to achieving predetermined results regardless of how the populace chooses to vote.

Seven Dipshits In A Warehouse

Just when you thought the predictability of the latest triumph in the war on terror couldn't get any more ludicrous - you're reminded that the Neo-Cons like to keep the propaganda simple and straightforward, never deviating from well-honed tactics.

In Friday's article on the Sears Tower arrests I predicted that, "One of the repeating elements to emerge from every major terror sting or forged terror alert is the use of retarded individuals as patsies, informants and go-betweens."

"Don't be surprised to learn of a connection to a retarded individual over the next few days."

So it follows that yesterday it emerged from a New York Daily News report that the alleged ringleader of the plot Batiste "needs psychiatric help," according to his own mother.

The Daily Show's John Stewart classified the Miami terror cell that were about to "wage a ground war against America," according to Gonzales as "seven dipshits in a warehouse," following a farcical press conference in which Gonzales was cornered into admitting that they had no links to any Al-Qaeda members and had no weapons or explosives to carry out any acts of terrorism.

Today, lawyers for the defendants outlined an argument that the government had used entrapment to essentially imagine into existence a deadly Al-Qaeda terror cell that had never existed in the first place.

Seven Dipshits In A Warehouse
Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet.com, June 27 2006

While, as I said earlier, it is wrong to assume the "Miami seven" are entirely harmless it seems equally wrong to view them as an organization capable of any serious action. And the question remains, of course, as to to what degree they were even organized and brought into being by the same government informant who eventually led to their arrest.

Blink 182 Star Latest Celebrity To Question 9/11

Blink 182 star Tom DeLonge has followed in the footsteps of Charlie Sheen by becoming the latest celebrity to publicly doubt the official version of events behind 9/11 and voice his belief that the attacks were an inside job.

DeLonge is the lead singer in Blink 182, a southern Californian punk/pop quartet that has had two US Billboard number one selling albums and whose 1999 album Enema of the State went platinum five times over.

During a hosting spot on a San Diego’s KAVA-FM radio station, DeLonge talked with Professor James Fetzer about evidence of 9/11 inside involvement.

"We do know that the buildings came down in a fashion extremely similar to a controlled demolition of a building - we do know that expertise that is needed to fly those gigantic planes into that exact location could never have been achieved by someone that just learned how to fly a small plane, said DeLonge."

Discussing the failure of NORAD to enact standard operating procedure and intercept the planes and Norman Mineta's testimony about Cheney's orders 'still standing' - DeLonge stated, "Cheney knew that the planes are coming in and he capped the order to leave it alone so it could hit."

"It's so weird how our own government did it to us, 9/11 was not perpetrated by a bunch of people that just learned how to fly planes," said DeLonge.

...

While clearly not in the same league as Charlie Sheen's courageous high-profile public stance, DeLonge should be commended for using his notoriety as a platform for exploring the truth.

Celebrities questioning 9/11 do not give the truth movement credibility, that has already been obtained through the research of people such as Professor Jones, Morgan Reynolds and Andreas von Bülow. Celebrities give the truth movement a more vocal platform and a means of reaching a sector of society that might usually be off-limits via the normal reaches of the alternative truth community.

Blink 182 Star Latest Celebrity To Question 9/11
Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet.com, June 28 2006

Senator considers suit over Bush law challenge

The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Arlen Specter, said yesterday that he is "seriously considering" filing legislation to give Congress legal standing to sue President Bush over his use of signing statements to reserve the right to bypass laws.

Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, made his comments after a Judiciary Committee hearing on signing statements, which are official documents that Bush has used to challenge the constitutionality of more than 750 laws when signing legislation .

Bush has issued more signing statements than all previous presidents combined. But he has never vetoed a bill, depriving Congress of any chance to override his judgment. If Congress had the power to sue Bush, Specter said, the Supreme Court could determine whether the president's objections are valid under the Constitution.

"There is a sense that the president has taken the signing statements far beyond the customary purviews," Specter said at the hearing. He added that "there's a real issue here as to whether the president may, in effect, cherry-pick the provisions he likes, excluding the provisions he doesn't like. . . . The president has the option under the Constitution to veto or not."

But a lawyer for the administration, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Michelle Boardman, testified that Bush has shown Congress respect by using signing statements instead of vetoes when he has concerns about parts of bills.

"Respect for the legislative branch is not shown through [making a] veto," Boardman argued. "Respect for the legislative branch, when we have a well-crafted bill, the majority of which is constitutional, is shown when the president chooses to construe a particular statement in keeping with the Constitution, as opposed to defeating an entire bill that would serve the nation."

Senator considers suit over Bush law challenge
Charlie Savage, The Boston Globe, June 28, 2006

Ms Boardman's novel assessment of what constitutes respect notwithstanding, I think Senator Specter would be well advised to introduce a bill outlawing signing statements altogether instead of considering whether or not to try and sue the President over this or that signing statement. The President has a choice as to whether to accept a bill as law of the land or reject it using his veto power. If the veto is overridden by the Congress the bill still becomes law. End of story.

9/11: the impossible, the improbable, the implausible

22 May 2006

September 11, 2001. The day the world changed. Or so we are told.

We are also told the events of that day had been subject of several extensive official investigations. There are documents that have been produced as the result of those investigations - namely, the 9/11 Commission Report and an assorted collection of government-commissioned studies. We will refer to the version of events parlayed in the Report as the official version. The following is a partial list of problems found in, and anomalies associates with, that version of the events of 9/11.

The items on this list labeled "impossible" are claims laid in the official theory that can not be reconciled with general scientific knowledge. It must be noted that the laws of nature are not absolute and there is some theoretical probability of absolutely any event occurring. Yet some events, such as a boulder leaving the ground and floating through the air on its own, are so unlikely as to be considered impossible. The reason we say they are impossible is that they violate what has come to be known as basic laws of science. In this discussion that determines what we shall refer to as "impossible".

The term "improbable" shall refer to what is theoretically possible but unlikely to occur. Some may say unlikely enough not to be considered a realistic scenario.

The term "implausible" shall refer to what is also theoretically possible but does not conform to expected patterns of human behaviour.

Filed under "Impossible"

• Near free-fall speed collapse of WTC1 (10 seconds), WTC2 (10 - 14 seconds) and WTC7 (6.5 seconds). The collapse of the latter one is most mysterious as that building was not struck by an airliner and only suffered direct strike damage that was largely superficial relative to the scale of the building. Regardless of how the collapse of those three buildings was initiated it is alleged to have been a progressive failure. That is an impossibility as it contradicts basic laws of physics including the Law of conservation of momentum. As calculated by Jim Hoffman it would take a building such as either one of the Twin Towers at least 15.5 seconds to fall as a result of "pancaking" even assuming each subsequent floor being hit by the floors above gave way with no resistance and merely were at a standstill prior to being hit. That model excludes such factors as resistance each floor should be expected to provide, the air resistance or considerations of energy needed to pulverize the contents of the buildings reported to have been turned into fine dust.
  


• The pools of molten steel found in the ruins of the three skyscrapers that collapsed on 9/11. According to the official version of the 9/11 the fires in the towers were not hot enough to melt the steel, merely sufficiently hot to weaken it. That latter point is suspect too but it is pretty much a given that at no point were the fires caused by the aircraft impact hot enough to melt any steel.

Filed under "Improbable"

• Four airliners successfully hijacked and subject to intercept procedures are not intercepted, even though one of them, American Airlines Flight 77, flies after being hijacked for over 40 minutes. All four hijackings are facilitated in a highly unusual manner - the pilots are removed from the controls, sometimes murdered, with hijackers taking over the cockpit. All four hijackings occur in what is probably the world's most heavily defended airspace - the US Northeast. The failure to intercept occurs in direct violation of the procedures and guidelines in place.
  


• The individuals alleged to have taken over the job of piloting hijacked airliners were all characterized by their flight instructors as rather inefficient, if not hopelessly inept, pilots. That is especially striking in the case of Hani Hanjour who allegedly piloted AA 77 into the West Wing of the Pentagon executing a descending turn so difficult that even professional pilots are divided on the issue of whether or not it could be executed at all in a Boeing 757, the aircraft Hanjour allegedly piloted.


• Hani Hanjour, the alleged pilot of AA 77, chooses to aim for the West Wing of the Pentagon. That was an extremely odd choice of target as that part of the Pentagon was at the time udergoing renovation and as a result largely empty. That renovation included installation of blast-resistant windows and other modifications aimed at making the building more fire and blast-resistant. The approach to that part of the building was most difficult. But, knowingly or unknowignly, Hanjour still chose to perform a near-impossible meneuver directing the aircraft under his control at the section of the building opposite from where the offices of the Secretary of Defense and other top brass are. If Hanjour simply dove into the building aiming for the center he would have most likely killed a lot more people there.


• On September 11, 2001 a number of war games, some simulating aircraft hijackings were in progress. Mohammed Atta and his team seem to have chosen a very lucky day for them as, among other things, a number of false radar blips were inserted into civilian and military radar systems to simulate fake hijackings. As a result the air defense system in place had trouble distinguishing real-life hijacked aircraft from the make-believe ones which made proper response difficult if not impossible. This begs several questions. For instance, how often do multiple large-scale war games and disaster preparedness excercises take place on the same day? What is the likelyhood that a team of foreign terrorists alleged not to have any inside contacts would just so conveniently for them happen to schedule their strike for that particular day?

Filed under "Implausible"

• Al Qaeda, the group alleged to have been behind the attacks of 9/11, never openly claimed responsibility for them. That makes little sense, if only due to the fact that if they indeed were the perpetrators it would be rather naive of them to expect not to be found out as hardly ever in history has a perfect crime of such a monumental proportion been executed. So if you have indeed commited an act that is in line with your ideology, is likely to enhance your prestige amongst your followers and admirers and is, on top of that, virtually impossible to keep secret for long - then why not just announce it? Instead, according to the official version of 9/11, the culpability of Al Qaeda and its leader Osama Bin Laden was aknowledged by Bin Laden on a low-quality video tape found in Afghanistan. Several Arab aquaintances of mine while not voicing any strong opinions regarding this tape this way or the other claimed that while watching it on TV they could tell that the language spoken was Arabic but the quality of the recording was so poor that they had to read subtitles to understand what was being said. Meanwhile, some experts with a specific experience of translating Bin Laden's speeches claim that the above-mentioned "confession video" is a fake as are most if not all audio recordings attributed to Bin Laden in the recent years.


• The Secret Service fails to evacuate President Bush from the school where he is making a photo-op appearance while the attacks of 9/11 are unfolding. Consequently, no one in his security detail is reprimanded or sanctioned in any way. The event at the Emma Booker Elementary School had been scheduled in advance and was known to the public. It would have been absurd to assume that the President was not a target while a surprise attack was in progress. With a supposedly unknown number of potentially hostile hijacked airliners roaming the sky who and how could have known that one of them would not try and take out the school building where the President was attending an event of no decision-making value? What way was there that one could be sure terrorists would not try to level that building potentially killing the President along with hundreds of bystanders? If you were President and your security detail were so slow thinking on their feet wouldn't you consider firing them - simply out of concern for your own survival if for no other reason? In situations such as that of September 11, 2001 it would be entirely natural for anyone to think of whether or not the threat could directly impact them - in this case, if an airliner could be targeting the location they are at. Many a coworker of mine worried that the government facility I worked at on that day might come under attack. As someone familiar with pilotage I viewed that scenario as unlikely but overall, given the information available at the time, my coworkers' concerns didn't strike me being unreasonable or a sign of panic. Now take into account the fact that security operatives are specifically trained to anticipate potential threats to the persons or objects in their care. Their apparent failure to consider the possibility that an unfriendly airliner might be making its way towards the Booker Elementary would be a certain sign of being unfit for their duty.


• Mohamed Atta, the alleged leader of the terrorist team, checked in a suitcase containing incriminating evidence at the airport in Portland, Maine. Contents included Boeing airliner flight manuals, a copy of the Koran, Atta's will and other papers that later helped federal investigators to trace back the terrorist plot. However, it is very strange that Atta would pack all these things. What he expected to need for the actual hijacking he would have been expected to take with him as carry-on. But why would he carefully collect items that could easily arouse suspicion and pack them in his luggage? According to the FBI he and Abdulaziz Alomari arrived at the airport in Portland with only a few minutes to spare. If any airline security or law enforcement officer became suspicious of them and decided to question them for any length of time that may have interfered with the timing of the whole operation. Why would an expertly trained terrorist such as Atta chance that?


• The 9/11 Commission whose creation the Administration initially opposed was finally created after a staggering 411 day delay. Its final report some came to call The 9-11 Omission Report. This is hardly a joke given the glaring inconsistencies and omissions littering that report. For instance, the mystery of WTC 7 is not mentioned there once. The Administration appears largely content with what the Commission came up with even though one would expect that the country's leadership would be interested in a true exhaustive analisys of how a surprise attack of such magnitude could ever materialize. The unprecedented events of that day also have significant implications for many industries such as insurance, architecture, firefighting, urban planning and others. Yet there does not apear to be much open discussion of such implications. That appears to run counter to what would be expected if 9/11 were truly what the official story would have us believe.


• Sibel Edmonds is a Turkish American linguist who worked in the FBI's translations unit from September 20, 2001 to March 22, 2002. She was fired following her discovery of deliberate inefficiency, incompetence and potential criminal activity, some in her opinion related to the 9/11 terror attacks, in the unit and attempts to report her concerns up the chain of command. She was consequently fired, intimidated and silenced by a gag order issued by the Attorney General. Consequent legal action by Edmonds was blocked by the Administration, ostensibly on the 'State Secrets Privilege' grounds. The 9/11 Commission reluctantly spoke to her, but whatever she had to say never made its way into the Commission's final report. On August 1, 2004 Edmonds wrote a public letter to the Commission's Chairman Thomas Kean. Here's part of what she has to say regarding her allegations and subsequent gag orders issued to her, "After almost three years the American people still do not know that thousands of lives can be jeopardized under the unspoken policy of ‘ protecting certain foreign business relations.’ The victims family members still do not realize that information and answers they have sought relentlessly for over two years has been blocked due to the unspoken decisions made and disguised under ‘ safeguarding certain diplomatic relations.’ Your report did not even attempt to address these unspoken practices, although, unlike me, you were not placed under any gag." Now it is perfectly legitimate for you to ask why anything Sibel Edmonds alleges is to be trusted in the first place. There is certainly no reason to take anything she says at face value but it is worth noting that the Justice Department Inspector General had pretty much acknowledged the validity of Edmonds' allegations. In fact, it was after reading the above-quoted letter of hers that this author started to have serious doubts about the true nature of the 9/11 Commission Report. Even years after 9/11 it doesn't look like the FBI's translation capabilities are a serious concern to the powers that be as the picture still appears to be that of dire inefficiency. Does this agree with the notion of an all-out "war on terror"?
  


• If there is nothing to hide then why is the US government hiding so much, including records of things anyone could have observed? The question mainly pertains to the multitude of 9/11-related materials the government is reluctant or outright unwilling to release. For instance, the feds are still holding on to some of the videos of the Pentagon attack that were taken by security cameras located in public places.

Please note that the list offered in this article is by no means complete or exhaustive. Can you reconcile these anomalies with the official version of the events of 9/11? Many experts have tried and failed. It must be noted that failure to explain the "impossible" claims alone must inescapably lead one to the conclusion that the official story is a sham, likely designed to cover up the real story.

Let me reiterate it. You've got to either demonstrate - to yourself and preferably others - that the impossible and highly improbable events suggested by the official explaination of the events of 9/11 are somehow possible or to accept that the official explaination of what happened does not hold water. In case it is the latter your choice fundamentally is whether to accept this reality as inevitable or join those who demand a real investigation of 9/11. That choice is yours, and yours alone.

Whistleblowers Are Not Protected, Mr. Goss

11 March 2006

Former FBI translator and whistleblower Sibel Edmonds has written an open letter to CIA Director Porter Goss in response to his New York Times op-ed. What follows is exerpts from her letter with some comments by yours truly.

Sir, as you must very well know after your years in Congress as a representative and as a member of the intelligence committee, there are no meaningful legal protections for whistleblowers. What is troubling is that while you are well aware of the fact that there are no meaningful or enforceable laws that provide protection to national security whistleblowers, you nevertheless state that such workers are covered by existing laws. That is simply false. You state that "the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act was enacted to ensure that current or former employees could petition Congress, after raising concerns within their respective agency, consistent with the need to protect classified information." The Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, which appears to be the legal channel provided to national security employees, turns out on closer inspection to be toothless. Please refer to the recent independent report issued by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) on National Security Whistleblowers on December 30, 2005. The report concludes that there currently are no protections for national security whistleblowers - period. Let me provide you with a recent example illustrating the fallacy of your claim:

In December 2005, Mr. Russ Tice, former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence analyst and action officer, sent letters to the chairs of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, and requested meetings to brief them on probable unlawful and unconstitutional acts conducted while he was an intelligence officer with the NSA and DIA.  In his letter Mr. Tice, as a law abiding and responsible intelligence officer, stated "Due to the highly sensitive nature of these programs and operations, I will require assurances from your committee that the staffers and/or congressional members to participate retain the proper security clearances, and also have the appropriate SAP cleared facilities available for these discussions." On January 9, 2006, the NSA sent an official letter to Mr. Tice stating "neither the staff nor the members of the House or Senate Intelligence committees are cleared to receive the information."

Now, Mr. Goss, please explain this to the American public: What happened to your so-called appropriate congressional channels and protections available to national security whistleblowers? Mr. Goss, what "protected disclosure to congress"? According to the NSA no one in the United States Congress is "cleared enough" to hear reports from national security whistleblowers. Please name one whistleblower to date who has been protected after disclosing information to the United States Congress; can you name even a single case? Or, is that information considered classified? How do we expect the United States Congress to conduct its oversight responsibility and maintain the necessary checks on the Executive Branch, when agencies such as yours declare the members of congress "not cleared enough" to receive reports regarding conduct by these agencies? Where do you suggest employees like Mr. Tice go to report waste, fraud, abuse, and/or illegal conduct by their agencies? Based on your administration's self-declared claim of inherent power and authority of the executive branch overriding courts and the United States Congress, what other channels are left to pursue?

Okay, now let's move to this notion you and the administration seem to be so very keen on: Classified & Sensitive Information. Let's start by asking how we define "classified & sensitive information," and who decides what is classified and sensitive? According to the statement by Thomas S. Benton, National Security Archive, on March 2, 2005, during the congressional hearing on "Emerging Threats: Overclassification & Pseudo-Classification," the deputy undersecretary of defense for counterintelligence and security declared that 50% of the Pentagon's information was over-classified, and the head of the Information Security Oversight Office said it was even worse, "even beyond 50%." Don't you find the percentage of falsely classified information appalling? Well, you should; it is your responsibility, because the executive branch, under the office of the United States President, is solely responsible for classification or pseudo-classification of information. Now, based on this knowledge, what should happen when you tell the public, when you tell the United States Congress and the media "Oh, you are not allowed to have this information; this information is highly sensitive and classified"? This is what should happen: we, the people, the Congress, and the media, should first ask you for the merits of the classification; have you prove to us that the information in question should in fact be classified; and you, the executive branch, have the obligation to truthfully respond.

On the issue of classification in your op-ed you go further and cite the cost of unauthorized disclosure to the American taxpayer, "unauthorized disclosures have cost America hundreds of millions of dollars." Since you brought up the issue, let's explore it fully and give the American people the real facts, shall we? The Office of Management and Budget report on classification costs to U.S. agencies (the CIA's are still classified; but of course!), gave us a benchmark number and some sense of comparative expense to the taxpayer - the reported dollar figure was over $6.5 billion in fiscal 2003. Now, since the percentage of falsely classified data has been determined to be in the range of 50%, the cost of our agencies' pseudo classification to the American taxpayer amounts to over $3 billion. Mr. Goss, you do the math; do you really want to attempt to twist and misuse the cost of classification to try to strike a chord with the taxpayers? It is not going to stick; wouldn't you agree?

Whistleblowers Are Not Protected, Mr. Goss
Sibel Edmonds,  February 11, 2006

This is, in my opinion, a very well worded document testifying to the great danger of unchecked classification powers. I have already said that:

It is my opinion that the classification mechanism currently in use in the US is deeply flawed and needs to be revised. One idea would be to have an independent body - maybe a committee of some sort outside of the government - that would decide what gets classified and for how long. The system we have now is broken and a threat to our security and liberties.

On Classification Powers, February 19, 2005

For one thing, I am deeply troubled by the notion that there is information classified to the members of Congress. I am more and more leaning towards the opinion that nothing ought to be classified to them; yes, one of them may turn out to be a traitor, but the same potentially holds for appointed security operatives, whether military or civilian.

There exists a widespread notion that preventing sensitive information from being disclosed enhances national security - if not always, then most of the time. Edmonds' letter calls that into question:

Let's try your security angle on the subject of classification, where you state "disclosure of classified intelligence inhibits our ability to carry out our mission and protect the nation." The entire 9/11 Commission report includes only one finding that the attacks might have been prevented (Page 247 & 376). They quote the interrogation of the hijackers' paymaster, Ramzi Binalshibh, who commented that if the organizers, particularly Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, had known that the so-called 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, had been arrested at his Minnesota flight school on immigration charges, then Bin Laden and KSM would have called off the 9/11 attacks, because news of that arrest would have alerted the FBI agent in Phoenix who warned of Islamic militants in flight schools in a July 2001 memo; a memo that vanished into the FBI's vaults in Washington. The Commission's wording is important here: only "publicity" could have derailed the attacks. Classification is indeed a very important mechanism, if it is applied diligently and wisely; however, as illustrated above, in certain circumstances, even with respect to national security information, classification can run counter to our national interests.

Mr. Steven Aftergood, the Director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, so very eloquently stated "the information blackout may serve the short-term interests of the present administration, which is allergic to criticism or even to probing questions. But it is a disservice to the country. Worst of all, the Bush administration's information policies are conditioning Americans to lower their expectations of government accountability and to doubt their own ability to challenge their political leaders. Information is the oxygen of democracy. Day by day, the Bush administration is cutting off the supply."

Mr. Goss, since you proudly quoted from the Rob-Silberman Report released in March 2005, let me do the same and present you with another quote: "In just the past 20 years the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, NRO, and the Departments of Defense, State, and Energy have all been penetrated. Secrets stolen include nuclear weapons data, US cryptographic codes and procedures, identification of US intelligence sources and methods (human and technical), and war plans. Indeed, it would be difficult to exaggerate the damage that foreign intelligence penetrations have caused." It appears that the only ones not privy to our so-called sensitive government and intelligence information are the American citizens, since our enemies and allies have been successfully penetrating all our intelligence agencies (including yours sir) and nuclear labs and facilities. Sir, with all due respect, you have not even succeeded in protecting your own agencies, offices and facilities against foreign penetration; you seem to be incapable of conducting appropriate background checks on your own employees; you failed to protect us against the 9/11 attacks; and you have failed in gathering intelligence and reporting it accurately on the Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. With this kind of record how can you go on lecturing the Congress and the American people on your superiority and inherent authority to do whatever you wish, however you wish, and without having to provide any report or any answer to anybody, including the United States Congress?

Last year, the CIA, your agency, classified the entire findings of the Inspector General's investigation into the failures of CIA managers prior to 9/11. Sir, I believe you made the case for this classification based on your intention to protect the wrongdoers within the CIA bureaucracy from being "stigmatized." Is this what your op-ed intended to say? Did you mean to say that these national security whistleblowers may end up stigmatizing the wrongdoers and incompetents within the rank and file of the CIA by divulging information that you decided to classify to prevent exposure of embarrassing and criminal activity? Was that a Freudian slip, since nowadays the lines get blurry between classification for national security purposes and classification to protect the agency's bureaucrats?

While Ramzi Binalshibh hardly strikes me as a reliable witness in this particular instance there may be some truth to what he is saying - namely that had the Al Qaeda leadership known how close the US authorities came to discovering the 9/11 plot they may have opted to save their troops for another day and called the operation off. Whether that is the case or not, Edmonds makes a very compelling case that classification, just like any powerful tool, can do both good and harm - and in the hands of incompetents tends to do the latter.

While formally the letter is addressed to Porter Goss in reality it is addressed to all of us. The importance of the issues that Edmonds is raising can simply not be overstated.

This just in from the courtroom

March 8, 2006

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The man the government presented as its FBI expert on Al Qaeda admitted in federal court Tuesday that no FBI agents had alerted him before Sept. 11, 2001, that Zacarias Moussaoui had been arrested in Minnesota trying to learn to fly jumbo jets just weeks before the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked.

That was one of several key elements about Sept. 11 and Al Qaeda that FBI Supervisory Agent Michael Anticev said he didn't know or was never informed about by other top law enforcement officials.

...

Asked a wide range of questions, many of them dealing with major Al Qaeda enterprises such as the attack on the U.S. destroyer Cole and a plot to blow up planes over the Pacific Ocean, Anticev often answered by saying merely, "I don't know … I've heard that … I guess so."

He was the government's first witness in the federal sentencing trial of Moussaoui, a French citizen facing a possible death sentence as a Sept. 11 collaborator.

Anticev was presented to the court as one of the bureau's top experts on Al Qaeda; he said he had honed the specialty since 1996 and eventually helped supervise other agents working on Al Qaeda squads.

...

McMahon asked Anticev about the Finsbury Park Mosque in England, a notorious meeting place for Moussaoui and other radical Muslims and a recruitment center for Al Qaeda.

"I have very limited knowledge on that," he said.

MacMahon asked Anticev about Abu Hamza al Masri, the virulent anti-American cleric at the mosque, who long has been sought in this country on terrorism-related charges.

"I really don't know too much about him," Anticev said. "I know he's a very radical fundamentalist imam who was inspiring jihad."

On the question of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed being apprehended and said to be the Sept. 11 mastermind, an event that many Bush administration sources have described, Anticev responded: "Well, I know from the media that he is in some kind of custody."

Al Qaeda Expert Offers Few Details at Moussaoui Trial
Richard A. Serrano, Los Angeles Times, March 8, 2006

Serrano's is a pretty colorful account of the Moussaoui trial, definitely worth a read. No, it does not exclusively consist of FBI-bashing:

The government's second witness, FBI Agent Jim Fitzgerald, one of two case agents on the Moussaoui case, described the work of the Sept. 11 investigation set up after the terrorist attacks.

In contrast to Anticev, Fitzgerald was crisp and sharp on the stand, speaking without notes as he led the jury through a comprehensive chronicle of the 19 hijackers' travels to America and described them as working in pairs until their final assignments.

He also testified that they often acted in this country just as Moussaoui did.

For instance, Fitzgerald said, many set up post office boxes and e-mail accounts and took fitness training. They bought small knives and took flight lessons. They generally used their own names.

Agent Fitzgerald - who, it would seem, was not presented as a top-notch expert - appears professional, confident and honest:

... he admitted that even though Moussaoui emulated the hijackers, there was no evidence he ever met or spoke with any of the 19.

"Sir, I cannot put him with them," Fitzgerald told the defense lawyer.

But let us take another look at Supervisory Agent Michael Anticev who it would be my guess was meant to be a witness with a clout, maybe even a star witness. With my characteristic lack of modesty allow me to state that my Al Quaeda expertise likely exceeds his. Unless he posseses some kind of special expertise such as knowledge of Arabic or other relevant languages, that is - but if he possesed that sort of knowledge it would be even more surprising that he knows so little about the subject, that he hasn't, for instance, read any of Abu Hamza al Masri's sermons. I would if I were to testify in the trial of a man whose alleged crimes were likely inspired by those sermons. All I've got, of course, is anecdotal reports, but it still leads me to believe that most likely Anticev posseses no special linguistic skills, no special knowledge of relevant culture and history and his overall knowledge of the subject is not even at the level of somebody who as a layman would simply do some reading on the subject. Unfortunately that sort of apparent incompetence when it comes to counterterrorism is not that different from what is being reported from Guantanamo and elsewhere.

Regardless of how knowledgeable Anticev is of Al Qaeda in general, it is unlikely his knowledge and expertise would have made any difference in preventing 9/11 as he was not even informed of Moussaoui's arrest. And even had Moussaoui told investigators that he planned to participate in what would become the 9/11 it is far from certain that any one from the top-level leadership of the security services would have listened to him any more than they did to Coleen Rowley who happened to be an FBI agent and who, along with a number of colleagues, suspected that Moussaoui did in fact intend to perpetrate something akin to what the government now acuses him of keeping mum about.

So, was it a crime for Moussaoui to keep silent about a terrorist attack that he knew was in the works - in case he actually knew about it which is not proven? Maybe. Does it amount to direct participation? That's questionable but possibly so. What do we know beyond a reasonable doubt? I would say, not very much: we know that Moussaoui trained to be a suicide pilot and was a member of Al Qaeda, a terrorist group.

That may not be much but that is surely enough to lock him up for a long time, possibly for life. But the government is definitely trying hard to execute him. I don't have much sympathy for him and despite my general opposition to the death penalty don't particularly care if he dies in an execution chamber. Except for one thing - this is somewhat akin to the way the case of Timothy McVeigh was handled. Up to his very execution the government seemed to be doing all it could and then some to see to it that McVeigh does not draw one more breath than absolutely necessary; and as we now know there may have been reasons for that other than the rightful indignation - namely, that those involved in the coverup of the Oklahoma City bombing could well have had significant interest in making sure that McVeigh is permanently silenced. Could something similar be at play here with Moussaoui?

The secret 9/11 evidence: what is the government hiding?

March 3, 2006

A society of experts and scholars has now joined with Judicial Watch in calling for release of videos that are being held by the Department of Defense, which are essential to understanding events at the Pentagon that transpired on September 11, 2001. Scholars for 9/11 Truth, which is dedicated to exposing falsehoods and establishing truths about the events of 9/11, has gone beyond Judicial Watch by calling for the release of other films and evidence that, its officers maintain, are essential to understanding 9/11.

"It is outrageous that the government is withholding this vital information", said James H. Fetzer, founder and co-chair of the society. "This concerns one of the monstrous events of our time and deserves to be in the public domain." The group, whose members include such prominent figures as David Ray Griffin, Morgan Reynolds, John McMurtry, Wayne Madsen, Robert Bowman, Webster Tarpley, and Andreas von Buelow, has been speaking out against what its own research suggests has been complicity by elements of the administration in the crime.

They are calling for immediate release of the full Pentagon surveillance tape as well as video tapes seized by FBI agents minutes after the Pentagon hit; a complete inventory of the plane wreckage and debris from Flights 11, 77, 93, 175 or any other aircraft that crashed or was destroyed on September 11, 2001, including, but not limited to their location (whether warehoused or otherwise), catalog of photographs and videotapes taken of any items from the planes, and results of all tests and examinations conducted concerning any of these items.

Experts Call for Release of 9/11 Evidence
PRWeb, March 1, 2006

I would like to specifically emphasize, once again, that just like in the case of the Oklahoma City Bombing where a surveillance tape shot by a camera pointed out into a public street has been classified by the authorities, many of the pieces of evidence being requested now fall into the same category: they were recordings of events taking place in a location open to the public; while such recordings can be made secret temporarily while the investigation into a crime is ongoing permanent removal of such recordings from the public domain can not possibly be justified and is an assault on our freedom. It is also a threat to our security as it allows the law enforcement to avoid pressure and censure in the event some corrupt law enforcement officials decide to turn a criminal investigation into a sham.

The tapes of the Pentagon strike - some of them, if not all - were also shot from a public location and depict what just about anybody could have seen. 911Truth.org presents some very interesting details of this whole situation in an article titled "Government Responds to Flight 77 FOIA Request":

According to a Washington Times news report that has been removed from the Web (still available on the "Wayback Machine" search engine), hotel employees had time enough to watch "the film in shock and horror several times before the FBI confiscated the video as part of its investigation."

As for the gas station, which is "open only to Defense Department personnel," it is "the last structure between the Pentagon and the hillside that, hours later, would become a wailing knoll." Its owner was interviewed by the Richmond Times-Dispatch in December 2001:

Velasquez says the gas station's security cameras are close enough to the Pentagon to have recorded the moment of impact. "I've never seen what the pictures looked like," he said. "The FBI was here within minutes and took the film." (Article archived at nationalgeographic.com)

The swift confiscations are suspicious; the agents were obviously dispatched to grab the videos immediately after the Pentagon was struck.

Within minutes? Not bad for an agency incapable of even properly processing a criminal trying to turn himself in. And also remember that those were surprise attacks no one could have imagined. Yet the FBI knew exactly where to go to colect those tapes. Gotta' love those fed supermen (and women)!

To conclude here let me state that I do not know what is being hidden here; it is possible that some of the evidence contains nothing of consequence and is being held by the government for the sole purpose of having independent 9/11 researchers go down a wrong track. The possibilities here are numerous and I wouldn't be able to even list them all; I also feel I don't need to. It is sufficient that I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that the results of the so-called official investigation into the events of 9/11 are worthless. We have got this monstrous crime that has not been resolved; quite possibly, those responsible for it have not been held to account. This is an outrage that is crying out to all of us.