9/11 landfill (or, as we prefer to call it, the STUPID thread)

[Sulkdodds]

I want to hear more about Cthulhu eating the undersea internet cables.

Was it AL who liked to imagine the dark old god sucking on the cables like spaghetti, and computers all over the world suddenly being yanked out of people's homes?

 

[W4d5Y]

... *door slam*

First, get settled on these issues, than move to another one.

I am not arguing with anyone of you. True.
Because neither you have the guts to, neither can I change my stance on these issues.

I thought chemtrails were the the best example of crappy, untestable conspiracy theories.

I turned out to be wrong.
(for example...meh, I'm sometimes quite deranged. People tell me I'm a miracle of multitasking, but actually it's quite annoying being like, on drugs all the time because there's sooo much you can think of to tell everybody else and the world.
It actually turns out I was sincerely thought to have been on drugs because I was talking about how I dreamt I got my head cut open with chainsaws and other medical equipment and suddenly started talking about something totally else, it was just awesome.
I actually know what it's like to have smoked weed, although I never did.)

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

I am not arguing with anyone of you. True.
Because neither you have the guts to, neither can I change my stance on these issues.

No, I think you'll find that it's just that no-one cares. Or that you present your "arguments" in such a poor way that no-one is going to bother spending the time or effort to debate them with you.

It's really not that we're overawed by your amazing TruthPower.

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

No, I think you'll find that it's just that no-one cares. Or that you present your "arguments" in such a poor way that no-one is going to bother spending the time or effort to debate them with you.

A bit of both methinks. And the horrible layout of his posts too.

 

[Que-Ever]

why did he ever come here? Does he even like half-life?

 

[Solaris]

-And now they're putting aluminium and barium up in the air to worsen climate change, which of course the media invented in the first place.

HOLY SHIT, THEY ARE WORSENING SOMETHING, EVEN THOUGH IT DOESNT EXIST???!??!?!??!?!?

You ****ing maniac.

 

[Jintor]

Haaaaard, Eviiiiidence, Neeeeed, sooommmmme!

 

[Druckles]

Edit: Nevermind

 

[W4d5Y]

Why KSM's confessions don't sound true to Robert Baer

It's hard to tell what the Pentagon's objective really is in releasing the transcript of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession. It certainly suggests the Administration is trying to blame KSM for al-Qaeda terrorism, leading us to believe we've caught the master terrorist and that al-Qaeda, and especially the ever-elusive bin Laden, is no longer a threat to the U.S.

But there is a major flaw in that marketing strategy. On the face of it, KSM, as he is known inside the government, comes across as boasting, at times mentally unstable. It's also clear he is making things up. I'm told by people involved in the investigation that KSM was present during Wall Street Journal correspondent Danny Pearl's execution but was in fact not the person who killed him. There exists videotape footage of the execution that minimizes KSM's role. And if KSM did indeed exaggerate his role in the Pearl murder, it raises the question of just what else he has exaggerated, or outright fabricated.

Just as importantly, there is an absence of collateral evidence that would support KSM's story. KSM claims he was "responsible for the 9/11 operation from A-Z." Yet he has omitted details that would support his role. For instance, one of the more intriguing mysteries is who recruited and vetted the fifteen Saudi hijackers, the so-called "muscle." The well-founded suspicion is that Qaeda was running a cell inside the Kingdom that spotted these young men and forwarded them to al-Qaeda. KSM and al-Qaeda often appear bumbling, but they would never have accepted recruits they couldn't count on. KSM does not offer us an answer as to how this worked.

KSM has also not offered evidence of state support to al-Qaeda, though there is good evidence there was, even at a low level. KSM himself was harbored by a member of Qatar's royal family after he was indicted in the U.S. for the Bojinka plot ? a plan to bomb twelve American airplanes over the Pacific. KSM and al-Qaeda also received aid from supporters in Pakistan, quite possibly from sympathizers in the Pakistani intelligence service. KSM provides no details that would suggest we are getting the full story from him.

Although he claims to have been al-Qaeda's foreign operations chief, he has offered no information about European networks. Today, dozens of investigations are going on in Great Britain surrounding the London tube bombings on July 7, 2005. Yet KSM apparently knew nothing about these networks or has not told his interrogators about them.

The fact is al-Qaeda is too smart to put all of its eggs in one basket. It has not and does not have a field commander, the role KSM has arrogated. It works on the basis of "weak links," mounting terrorist operations by bringing in people on an ad hoc basis, and immediately disbanding the group afterwards.

Until we hear more, the mystery of who KSM is and what he was responsible for is still a mystery.

Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, is the author of See No Evil and, most recently, the novel Blow the House Down

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1599861,00.html

Secret evidence. Denial of habeas corpus. Evidence obtained by waterboarding. Indefinite detention. The litany of complaints about the treatment of prisoners at Guant?namo Bay is long, disturbing and by now familiar. Nonetheless, a new wave of shock and criticism greeted the Pentagon's announcement on February 11 that it was charging six Guant?namo detainees, including alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, with war crimes--and seeking the death penalty for all of them.

Now, as the murky, quasi-legal staging of the Bush Administration's military commissions unfolds, a key official has told The Nation that the trials have been rigged from the start. According to Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor for Guant?namo's military commissions, the process has been manipulated by Administration appointees to foreclose the possibility of acquittal.

Colonel Davis's criticism of the commissions has been escalating since he resigned in October, telling the Washington Post that he had been pressured by politically appointed senior Defense officials to pursue cases deemed "sexy" and of "high interest" (such as the 9/11 cases now being pursued) in the run-up to the 2008 elections. Davis, once a staunch defender of the commissions process, elaborated on his reasons in a December 10, 2007, Los Angeles Times op-ed. "I concluded that full, fair and open trials were not possible under the current system," he wrote. "I felt that the system had become deeply politicized and that I could no longer do my job effectively."

CONTINUED BELOW
Then, in an interview with The Nation in February after the six Guant?namo detainees were charged, Davis offered the most damning evidence of the military commissions' bias--a revelation that speaks to fundamental flaws in the Bush Administration's conduct of statecraft: its contempt for the rule of law and its pursuit of political objectives above all else.

When asked if he thought the men at Guant?namo could receive a fair trial, Davis provided the following account of an August 2005 meeting he had with Pentagon general counsel William Haynes--the man who now oversees the tribunal process for the Defense Department.

"[Haynes] said these trials will be the Nuremberg of our time," recalled Davis, referring to the Nazi tribunals in 1945, considered the model of procedural rights in the prosecution of war crimes. In response, Davis said he noted that at Nuremberg there had been some acquittals, which had lent great credibility to the proceedings.

"I said to him that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process," Davis continued. "At which point, [Haynes's] eyes got wide and he said, 'Wait a minute, we can't have acquittals. If we've been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can't have acquittals. We've got to have convictions.'"

Davis submitted his resignation on October 4, 2007, just hours after he was informed that Haynes had been put above him in the commissions' chain of command. "Everyone has opinions," Davis says. "But when he was put above me, his opinions became orders."

Reached for comment, Defense Department spokesperson Cynthia Smith said, "The Department of Defense disputes the assertions made by Colonel Davis in this statement regarding acquittals."

"The fact that [Haynes] said there can be no acquittals will stain the entire [tribunal] process," says Scott Horton, who teaches law at Columbia University Law School and has written extensively about Haynes's conflicts with the Judge Advocate General's (JAG) corps, the judicial arm of the armed forces, which is charged with implementing the military commissions. According to Horton, Haynes tried to cut the JAG corps out of internal debates over the detention and prosecution of detainees, knowing it was critical of the Administration's views. In private memos and in public Senate testimony, high-ranking officers of the corps have repeatedly expressed concerns about the Administration's justification of "extreme interrogation techniques."

"The JAG corps consists of a group of rigorous professionals, but Haynes never trusted them to do their job," says Horton. "His clashes have always had the same subtext--they want to be independent; he wants them to do political dirty work."

Haynes, a political appointee and chief legal adviser to Defense secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates, was nominated in 2006 by the Bush Administration for a lifetime seat as a judge in the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. But his nomination never got out of committee, primarily because of the opposition of Republican Senator (and former military lawyer) Lindsey Graham and other members alarmed over Haynes's role in writing, or supervising the writing of, Pentagon memos advocating the use of harsh interrogation techniques the Geneva Conventions classify as torture.

Currently, in his capacity as Pentagon general counsel, Haynes oversees both the prosecution and the defense for the Guant?namo commissions.

"You would think a person in that position wouldn't be favoring one side," says Colonel Davis.

Told of Davis's story about Haynes, Clive Stafford Smith, a defense attorney who has represented more than seventy Guant?namo clients, said, "Hearing it makes me think I'm back in Mississippi representing a black man in front of an all-white jury."

He adds, "It confirms what people close to the system have always said," noting that when three prosecutors--Maj. Robert Preston, Capt. John Carr and Capt. Carrie Wolf--requested to be transferred out of the Office of Military Commissions in 2004, they said they'd been told the process was rigged. In an e-mail to his supervisors, Preston had said that there was thin evidence against the accused. "But they were told by the chief prosecutor at the time that they didn't need evidence to get convictions," says Stafford Smith.

At the time, the military wrote it off as "miscommunication" and "personality conflicts." And then there were changes in personnel. "They told us that the system had been cleaned up...but I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same," says Stafford Smith.

The terrible truth is that even if acquittals were possible, the government has declared that it can continue to detain anyone deemed an "enemy combatant" for the duration of hostilities--no matter the outcome of a trial. Most of the 275 men held at Guant?namo are classified as "enemy combatants," and the hostilities in the "war on terror" could be never-ending.

Says ACLU staff attorney Ben Wizner, "The trial doesn't make a difference. They can hold you there forever until they decide to let you out." The one person to be released from Guant?namo through the judicial process, Australian David Hicks, pleaded guilty. As Wizner wrote in the Los Angeles Times in April 2007, "In an ordinary justice system, the accused must be acquitted to be released. In Guant?namo, the accused must plead guilty to be released."

Still, the trials serve a purpose for the government by providing the semblance of a legitimate judicial process. According to defense attorneys involved--and many of the former prosecutors, like Davis--the process is political, not legal.

"If someone was acquitted, then it would suggest we did the wrong thing in the first place. That can't happen," says Horton sardonically. "When the government decides to clear someone, it calls the person 'no longer an enemy combatant' instead of just saying they made a mistake."

He adds, "For people like Haynes, justice is meant to serve the party."

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080303/tuttle

 

[W4d5Y]

Rigged Trials at Gitmo

Last week the Department of Defense launched a major media offensive. It announced that trials of six ?high-value detainees? linked to the attacks on 9/11 would be charged in proceedings before the Guant?namo military commissions this spring. Specific accusations concerning the roles played by each of the six in the tragedy of 9/11 were all over the media. For the most part, the media has only lightly embroidered the Pentagon?s script. The Washington Post told us about the ?clean team? that the Pentagon had sent in, top-notch no-nonsense prosecutors to do the job. PBS?s NewsHour gave an extended segment over to the Pentagon?s key spokesman on the issue, Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann, to set out the case for the proceedings.

Curiously, this ran side-by-side with a series of public presentations by leading figures of the Administration?Attorney General Mukasey, Steven Bradbury (acting head of Justice?s Office of Legal Counsel), Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell and even President Bush himself?shoring up the Administration?s barely comprehensible position on waterboarding and other coercive interrogation techniques. The overlap was not coincidental, because the two projects were closely intertwined. The Administration took the position that it doesn?t presently authorize waterboarding, but now acknowledges that it did in the past and reserves that it might again in the future. It argues that there?s nothing wrong with waterboarding, and that any waterboarding done in the past was done lawfully. Why not just say that waterboarding is ?torture?? There?s one immediate reason: doing so would exclude a mass of evidence that appears to be available for the pending prosecutions.

But while the American mainstream media presented the story with the main spotlight on the Pentagon and its announcements and some trivial sideshows in which bickering lawyers raised quibbles about vexatious technicalities like the hearsay rule, access to exculpatory evidence and the ever-present torture, overseas the Guant?namo proceedings got a different treatment. Outside of the United States, ?Guant?namo? is a by-word for torture, authoritarian abuse and injustice. And the fact that the U.S. had elected to put these six detainees on trial before a military commission in Guant?namo drew a predictable review. ?There will not be six persons on trial, but seven,? editorialized the predictably pro-American German newspaper Die Zeit. The seventh, of course, is the Bush Administration and its hopelessly corrupted concept of justice.

The American media seems by-and-large not to understand the ?justice? angle of the military commissions debate. They instantly want to run into the weeds with extended discussions of evidentiary issues, and they miss the glaring question that hangs over the entire affair. And now a week into the process, the proposed trials have taken a strange twist. Will the American media at last recognize that the real questions about this process go to the fundamental independence of the courts? Dramatic disclosures in an article published yesterday in The Nation require them to take a close look at it. So far, they don?t seem to be willing to do so. Here?s the core of Ross Tuttle?s dramatic piece:

According to Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor for Guant?namo?s military commissions, the process has been manipulated by Administration appointees in an attempt to foreclose the possibility of acquittal. Colonel Davis?s criticism of the commissions has been escalating since he resigned this past October, telling the Washington Post that he had been pressured by politically appointed senior defense officials to pursue cases deemed ?sexy? and of ?high-interest? (such as the 9/11 cases now being pursued) in the run-up to the 2008 elections. Davis, once a staunch defender of the commissions process, elaborated on his reasons in a December 10, 2007, Los Angeles Times op-ed. ?I concluded that full, fair and open trials were not possible under the current system,? he wrote. ?I felt that the system had become deeply politicized and that I could no longer do my job effectively.?

Then, in an interview with The Nation in February after the six Guant?namo detainees were charged, Davis offered the most damning evidence of the military commissions? bias?a revelation that speaks to fundamental flaws in the Bush Administration?s conduct of statecraft: its contempt for the rule of law and its pursuit of political objectives above all else. When asked if he thought the men at Guant?namo could receive a fair trial, Davis provided the following account of an August 2005 meeting he had with Pentagon general counsel William Haynes?the man who now oversees the tribunal process for the Defense Department. ?[Haynes] said these trials will be the Nuremberg of our time,? recalled Davis, referring to the Nazi tribunals in 1945, considered the model of procedural rights in the prosecution of war crimes. In response, Davis said he noted that at Nuremberg there had been some acquittals, something that had lent great credibility to the proceedings.

?I said to him that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process,? Davis continued. ?At which point, [Haynes?s] eyes got wide and he said, ?Wait a minute, we can?t have acquittals. If we?ve been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can?t have acquittals, we?ve got to have convictions.??

Davis submitted his resignation on October 4, 2007, just hours after he was informed that Haynes had been put above him in the commissions? chain of command. ?Everyone has opinions,? Davis says. ?But when he was put above me, his opinions became orders.?

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/02/hbc-90002460

 

[W4d5Y]

Colonel Davis is not just any JAG officer. He was an up-and-comer widely viewed in his peer group as someone in line for a star, and ultimately perhaps, to be the Air Force’s Judge Advocate General. He is also no whining civil libertarian, but rather a no-nonsense conservative, whose prior scraps with civilians in the Pentagon came over the restraints they put on his ability to charge forward and prosecute cases.

In particular, Davis and other Guant?namo prosecutors were crest-fallen over the handling of the case of David Hicks. An Australian sheepskinner turned Middle East adventurer, Hicks was labeled one of the “worst of the worst” and was charged with being a weapons-toting terrorist. Just as his trial got under way, and Davis confidently delivered a searing opening promising to make Hicks out as a bloodthirsty figure who had betrayed his homeland and turned to a path of “Islamic” violence, the public learned that a plea-bargain had been reached. Curiously however, all this transpired without involving the prosecutors. You might well wonder how that was possible. And indeed, that is the very nub of the current accusations over the rigging of the commissions, because the handling of the Hicks case quite dramatically supports Colonel Davis’s charges. Over the next several weeks, the details of the Hicks plea bargain—which led very quickly to a minimal sentence for Hicks, his transfer to Australia, and his release—trickled out. Apparently the Hicks case turned on one single issue: politics. Indeed, electoral politics.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard was facing a difficult election campaign. The imprisonment of David Hicks was figuring as a terrible issue for him and his Liberal Party. Public opinion has swung against his government, as people, led by the legal community, questioned how an Australian citizen could be abandoned to the perils of Guant?namo—when the U.K. and other nations had fetched their nationals home. Vice President Dick Cheney visited Howard, discussed the Hicks case, and returned home. Within a short period, a Cheney prot?g?e, particularly close to Cheney’s chief of staff David Addington, Susan J. Crawford, was installed as the convening authority for the Military Commissions, and Ms. Crawford’s legal advisor quickly negotiated a plea bargain with Hicks’s attorneys. Later it was learned that Jim Haynes, known for his tight connections with the Vice President’s office, had played a key role as intermediary in the affair.

The Australian public welcomed the release of David Hicks, but the manipulation of his case produced a significant scandal. It was, as several Australian papers charged, the impermissible manipulation of legal proceedings through a political process and for political reasons–which many speculated is about all the Guant?namo process had been from the outset. John Howard and his Liberal Party were humiliated at the polls, and in an astonishing embarrassment, voters in Howard’s own constituency decided to retire him from political life. But American media reacted to the entire affair with a collective yawn.

So the first high profile military commissions case ran its full course. And it turned on nothing except politics. Not a good sign for the future.

But as foreign media were regularly observing, there was something extremely fishy about these “military” commissions. In fact one of the major insights critics offered up was that they were not really “military” at all. They had the appearance of being “military,” because the courtroom scene on which all the cameras focused were filled with men and women in uniform. But as the Hicks case showed, the military actors were all like so many marionettes. Behind the scenes, the puppet masters were pulling the strings. And the puppet masters were suspiciously partisan political figures. Two were points of focus. The first is Susan J. Crawford, who served as convening authority. In the military justice system the convening authority is a uniformed military commander whose command responsibility covers the territory or subject matter of the legal proceedings. He is the “convening authority” because the military justice process is seen as an extension of his command authority. Under the doctrine of Yamashita, military commanders have a specific responsibility to implement the laws of armed conflict, and they may in fact bear liability if they fail in this duty.

But unlike her predecessor, Major General John D. Altenburg, Susan J. Crawford is a convening authority who has never worn a uniform nor held a military command. She is a civilian. Indeed, her principal qualification for the position appears to be her political proximity to Vice President Cheney, and specifically to his legal policy guru, David Addington. In fact at an event held last year to mark Crawford’s retirement as a military appeals judge, she went out of her way to note the presence of and thank just one person, her friend David Addington.

Given this tight relationship, it then emerges as no surprise that Crawford and her office are so receptive to the concerns of Vice President Cheney’s office and so prepared to allow another Addington crony, Jim Haynes, to dictate the terms of the proceedings.

But, unseemly as this situation was already, it actually got much worse following the Hicks case. Apparently judging the military commissions process as a matter of tight personal concern, Jim Haynes decided he needed to have tighter and more direct control over them. He then proposed a change in the command structure for the participants. They were to be subordinated directly to his command.

Haynes crafted and secured Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England’s signature on two documents. The first, which can be examined here, directs that Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann, Legal Advisor to the convening authority and the person who effectively manages her office, reports to Paul Ney, DOD Deputy General Counsel (Legal Counsel), who, of course, in turn, reports to Jim Haynes.

The second memorandum, which can be examined here directs that Colonel Morris Davis, the Chief Prosecutor, reports to Brigadier General Hartmann, who reports to Ney, who reports to Haynes. This memorandum was particularly necessary as an after-the-fact adjustment to cover Haynes’s manipulation of the Hicks case, establishing a chain-of-command justification for his intervention to direct the plea bargain resolution of the case.

Same relationship exists for the Chief Defense Counsel, who reports to Paul Koffsky, DOD Deputy General Counsel (Personnel & Health Policy) who, like Ney, reports to Haynes.

The cumulative effect of these changes masterminded by Haynes is plain enough: the already very obvious threads attached to the commission participants were replaced with some crude hemp rope. It was obvious to all observers who was calling the shots. And it was plainly illegal and unethical. Professional rules require the defense counsel, prosecutor, and judges to exercise independent professional judgment. Moreover, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 guarantees the professional independence of these actors in the process. The command structure crafted by Haynes was plainly designed to achieve the political subordination of the JAGs, defying the MCA’s guarantee of independence.

Davis resigned because he felt the commissions system was rigged. He also filed a formal complaint over the improper role played by the convening authority’s legal advisor in the Hicks case. That complaint is in the process of investigation by the Department of Defense. Here is a memorandum posted to the Department of Defense’s website concerning the still pending investigation and the issues raised. Note that while Davis was not in a position to premise the complaint on Haynes’s involvement, that is the 800 pound gorilla in the room. But Davis was not the only, nor even the first prosecutor to resign. Three others–Maj. Robert Preston, Capt. John Carr and Capt. Carrie Wolf–asked to be relieved of duties after saying they were concerned that the process was rigged. One said he had been assured he didn’t need to worry about building a proper case; convictions were assured.

Of course, the number of defense counsel claiming that the system is stacked against them is legion. I surveyed the views of the defense lawyers, and the serious mistreatment they frequently faced at the hands of the Rumsfeld Pentagon, in this article.

Even the chief judge at Guant?namo, Colonel Ralph Kohlmann is plainly troubled by the military commissions arrangement. He wrote in a paper published in 2002 that “even a good military tribunal is a bad idea.” Col. Kohlmann argued that the “apparent lack of independence” of military judges would present “credibility problems.” Col. Kohlmann wrote these words before the obvious political manipulation of the Hicks case and before Haynes’s jiggered the command structure to place himself in control of the entire process. The “apparent lack of independence” of which he wrote has ballooned into a nightmarish reality.

Brigadier General Hartmann is a focal figure in all of this. His “independent judgment” has been dramatically displayed in his testimony before a Senate Committee. He was asked a few questions about waterboarding and torture, and the answers he gave were strictly those of his puppet master. A number of senators, from both parties, expressed their disgust with his stooge-like behavior. Moreover, Hartmann has now made the media rounds dramatizing the trials, denouncing the defendants as terrorist murderers who are finally seeing a glimpse of justice. Now, they may well be terrorist murderers who deserve to be prosecuted and receive severe sentences–but it is highly inappropriate for Hartmann to be making such statements. As legal adviser to the convening authority, any decisions in the case will be referred to him. And he has now publicly prejudged the cases, disqualifying himself under applicable ethical rules from playing the role which has been delegated to him. Even more to the point, the fact that a person who serves as a sort of appellate authority would be involved in media spectacles designed to demonstrate the importance of the case against the accused reflects very poorly on the entire process, and will undermine public confidence in any result that it produces.

Hartmann was quick to invoke the model of the Nuremberg trials, calling these proceedings a “modern Nuremberg.” In fact, the Nuremberg process is worthy of emulation and had the Bush Administration turned to its grand design, or even some of the other model international tribunals, most of the embarrassment that now surrounds the Gitmo moral swamp would have been avoided. Robert H. Jackson, arguably America’s greatest attorney general, was responsible for structuring those proceedings. He made clear throughout that he was guided by two concerns. The first was to do justice. And the second was to be damned sure that the public recognized that justice was being done. He accomplished both goals, and the result was a landmark international law and a point of pride for America.

But the military commissions crafted by the Bush Administration are an embarrassing stain compared to Nuremberg. One of the main reasons is that they have been crafted by political hacks out on a partisan agenda, and the experts who could have done a credible job–first among them the military lawyers in the JAG corps–have been ignored or overruled at each turn. The ability of defense counsel to conduct a meaningful defense has been impeded, with gains coming grudgingly only after the Supreme Court overturned the first, colossally incompetent structure in Rasul. Most menacingly, the specter of torture hovers over the current military commissions proceedings, with the acknowledgement that many of the defendants were subjected to techniques which the entire world (excluding only the Bush Administration) considers to be torture.

Even most critics concede the professionalism and integrity of the military lawyers who are assigned to the military commissions system as judges, prosecutors and defense counsel. Their professionalism and integrity are not an issue, or more precisely, protecting their professionalism and integrity from political predators is the issue. Critical attention focuses today just where it did at the outset: on the political hacks who have shamelessly attempted to manipulate the system, and whose misconduct is bringing shame and opprobrium upon the United States. Colonel Davis’s description of his conversation with Haynes comes as a surprise to no one who has been tracking this issue. To the contrary, it is a bit of the well-understood reality of the situation bubbling to the surface.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/02/hbc-90002460

 

[Eejit]

Triple posting, lal.

 

[W4d5Y]

It was necessary. I exceeded the characters-limit, which I only twice have managed so far, once completely thanks to my own ability to write insideous huge amounts of 9/11 related topics. So blame the authors of the articlest and my laziness to cut them down in size. Kthx.

One question - who of you guys actually thinks 9/11 had been preventable?

 

[Nemesis6]

Had been preventable if...?

 

[Druckles]

Anything's preventable. That's not being very specific. Do you mean "do I believe that the government purposefully didn't do anything?"

 

[Eejit]

It could easily have been prevented wadsy, all the US had to do was not build the WTC in the first place -.-

 

[W4d5Y]

Eejit, that's the best answer I could have imagined.
What I want to know is, do you think 9/11 was inevitable and that there was nothing that the government could have done.
Okay, I know the answer, it's no of course, but it's my question how big you think the possibility is that a government agency...or the whole governing body...At least individuals at the top would have forknowledge that would have made it impossible for the terrorists to carry out their objectives, which did not happen, and therefore would convict those of premeditated murder and treason.

It's just a question, because I basically just want to find an answer to that question.
I'm not asking wether you believe my opinion, but I'm just asking what you do not believe in and for what reason.

I just want to establish a basic platform for us all where we can stand and agree on, before we continue upwards where our individual opinions kick in.

But I just want to rule out that anybody falls to Condy Rice's lies that "Noone could (not) have imagined that these people..." blahblahblah and so on first -.-

Because I really have no clue wether the failure to properly connect the dots was accidental or actually with a clearly outlined intent. Both is quite possible, but that's why I ask you first.

 

[CptStern]

who the **** cares? upwards of 600,000 people have died as a result of the invasion of iraq ..the fact that the reasoning behind was obviously a sham doesnt seem to phase you 9/11 truthers ..it's the far bigger story, one that isnt full speculative drivel like conspiracies around 9/11 ..seriously you people are wasting your ****ing time when the conspiracy is right in front of your ****ing noses, and they dont even attempt to hide

but NOOOOOOOOO ..9/11 ..the guided missles, the flame retarded steel ..it's like logic kicked you people in the head

 

[W4d5Y]

You are wasting your time. There's nothing to discuss about Iraq because everyone knows the whole thing was a complete scam, and those who do not do not deserve being talked to, neither would this people be capable of bringing up the braincells to actually elaborate on the topic...On the other hand 9/11 is what really matters because it defined the outline of our modern, renewed aggressive foreign policy.
If we could bring forward a new mindset on those circumstances people would finally start realizing that any motivation the western governments own are in some way cruel, and that they had been foolish to be driven by and steered fear and obidience because of the external threat they face...

Yet if that threat were not as dangerous as the politicians would want to have us believe, what would this mean for peace and justice in our world?
Quite much, when I think about it.

Also, may I remind you you failed to answer my question?

What is your stance on the probability of government complicity in typical possible false flag operations like 9/11, '93 WTc, OH city bombing and 7/7?

 

[CptStern]

You are wasting your time. There's nothing to discuss about Iraq because everyone knows the whole thing was a complete scam, and those who do not do not deserve being talked to, neither would this people be capable of bringing up the braincells to actually elaborate on the topic...On the other hand 9/11 is what really matters because it defined the outline of our modern, renewed aggressive foreign policy.

you havent a ****ing clue .foreign policy is virtually unchanged ..9/11 is not the catalyst for anything except the invasion of iraq ..you people are so ****ing deluded that you cant see this ..the war in iraq will continue to affect us for generations to come

If we could bring forward a new mindset on those circumstances people would finally start realizing that any motivation the western governments own are in some way cruel, and that they had been foolish to be driven by and steered fear and obidience because of the external threat they face...

and by proving that steel could not have melted is the way to accomplish this? give me a ****ing break, the reason why this is so popular is two fold: a) people are too stupid to do any actual research so listening to some idiotic story around the "real truth behind 9/11" satisfies their stupidity/ignorance/laziness and b) those that are are already crazy/conspiracy theorists have something new to cling on to for dear life because god knows the Kennedy assassination has been done to death ...which one are you? I think the answer is pretty clear

Also, may I remind you you failed to answer my question?

what question? I ignore you 90% of time

What is your stance on the probability of government complicity in typical possible false flag operations like 9/11, '93 WTc, OH city bombing and 7/7?

who ****ing cares? seriously because I dont give two shits ..why? because there is far more compelling stuff that's right in front of our faces, one that isnt speculative idiotry made up by people who are more than a few cards short of a full deck

 

[Druckles]

You are wasting your time.

So what am I doing here? Or anyone for that matter?

7/7?

And I just realised how almost thankful that it was that day and no other, simply because your American couldn't attempt to recall it backwards. Thinking of 7/7 still kinda depresses me D:

 

[W4d5Y]

Sorry if I didn't quite catch that. I think you need moar syntax.

Well, anyway, from what I've been told, 7/7 appears to be indisputably an insider's work. Maybe from the MI5. There's really some odd, odd stuff going on there.

Can you recall the last time police would claim they had found explosive devices in a suspected terrorist's car which he just happened to leave behind before going to a suicide mission with the intention to kill as many people as possible.
Yet they did not present anything that would allow public scrutiny of that evidence.
Indeed, they just decided to blow their alleged findings up.

Ooookay.


Now, someone's ID was found in three seperate places. This is murky, however it doesn't really indicate anything, because maybe some terrorist might decide to irrate the authorities for whatever reason.

But the first true smoking gun I was presented about this thing was Mohammed Sidique Khan's bio.


More on that later.


Well, that day is just...weird.

 

[W4d5Y]

you havent a ****ing clue .foreign policy is virtually unchanged ..9/11 is not the catalyst for anything except the invasion of iraq ..you people are so ****ing deluded that you cant see this ..the war in iraq will continue to affect us for generations to come

Uhm, yes it did?
It defied bush's initial program not to engage in nation building?

But maybe again I am wrong because they actually sought to topple saddam from day one of his presidency and also he signed the attack orders for afghanistan on september 10th...

and by proving that steel could not have melted is the way to accomplish this? give me a ****ing break, the reason why this is so popular is two fold: a) people are too stupid to do any actual research so listening to some idiotic story around the "real truth behind 9/11" satisfies their stupidity/ignorance/laziness and b) those that are are(???) already crazy/conspiracy theorists have something new to cling on to for dear life because god knows the Kennedy assassination has been done to death ...which one are you? I think the answer is pretty clear

I think you are talking about the intergranular melting thing, are you?
Well, the twin towers obviously are some sort of spiritual/phallic symbol for CTs, so you might get it now.
Any I personally do think that I do research this, while I cannot claim that I did this with scientific scrutiny and sources all the time.
Well, neither would you.

Hold on, did you ever investigate in this anyway?

what question? I ignore you 90% of time

kthx soab

who ****ing cares? seriously because I dont give two shits ..why? because there is far more compelling stuff that's right in front of our faces, one that isnt speculative idiotry made up by people who are more than a few cards short of a full deck

Okay, what compelling stuff? About what? What are you talking about? What's going on!? Who am I!? WHAT IS MY PURPOSE!!!

Speculative?
You call somebody leaving the whole military communication system
to a rookie from 8:30 to 10:00 on 9/11, and having informed the affected person of doing so on september 10th and failing to give any explanation of what he did in that timeframe in front of the comission speculative?

You never managed to tell me because you constantly were screaming flame-ure at the top of your lungs at me.

 

[CptStern]

Uhm, yes it did?
It defied bush's initial program not to engage in nation building?

that makes no sense

But maybe again I am wrong because they actually sought to topple saddam from day one of his presidency and also he signed the attack orders for afghanistan on september 10th...

you mean this?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4587368/

ya that's certainly proves 9/11 was an inside job :upstare:

I think you are talking about the intergranular melting thing, are you?
Well, the twin towers obviously are some sort of spiritual/phallic symbol for CTs, so you might get it now.

what? utter gibberish, what the hell are you talking about? phallic symbols? perhaps bush has erectile dysfunction? ..what does any of this have to do with anything?

Any I personally do think that I do research this, while I cannot claim that I did this with scientific scrutiny and sources all the time.
Well, neither would you.

Hold on, did you ever investigate in this anyway?

why would I investigate something that anybody with even a modicum of intelligence would see is nothing more than what it seems

Okay, what compelling stuff? About what? What are you talking about? What's going on!? Who am I!? WHAT IS MY PURPOSE!!!

i dont know ..to annoy the **** out of hl2.netters?

Speculative?
You call somebody leaving the whole military communication system
to a rookie from 8:30 to 10:00 on 9/11, and having informed the affected person of doing so on september 10th and failing to give any explanation of what he did in that timeframe in front of the comission speculative?

you're making a mountain out of a molehill ..what does that PROVE? ..be specific ..asking questions without providing answers is just being lazy and proves absolutely nothing

You never managed to tell me because you constantly were screaming flame-ure at the top of your lungs at me.

tell you what? what the hell are you talking about?

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

Sorry if I didn't quite catch that. I think you need moar syntax.

Well, anyway, from what I've been told, 7/7 appears to be indisputably an insider's work. Maybe from the MI5. There's really some odd, odd stuff going on there.

Can you recall the last time police would claim they had found explosive devices in a suspected terrorist's car which he just happened to leave behind before going to a suicide mission with the intention to kill as many people as possible.
Yet they did not present anything that would allow public scrutiny of that evidence.
Indeed, they just decided to blow their alleged findings up.

Ooookay.


Now, someone's ID was found in three seperate places. This is murky, however it doesn't really indicate anything, because maybe some terrorist might decide to irrate the authorities for whatever reason.

But the first true smoking gun I was presented about this thing was Mohammed Sidique Khan's bio.


More on that later.


Well, that day is just...weird.

No I know you are not only an idiot, but a disgusting little shit as well. How dare you dishonor the memories of all the people who died in London with of your adolesant fantasies. Same goes for 9/11.

Fuck off. Nobody likes you. Go hang yourself if you want. In fact, please do.

 

[W4d5Y]

Lol, ask Blair.
Ask him why they deny military explosives were used.
Is that dishonorable? That they possibly lied about those who allegedly killed those people?
And provided cover for others because they were assets of MI5?

And that you people know nothing about 9/11 because you can't really grasp the whole scale of it, as opposed to me?

Obama is a fascist neocon. And Hitlery a fearmongering omgalquaida!-hugger.

 

[Direwolf]

Okay, I know I'm going to have to regret this later, but thought I'd throw my own small point about the melting theory into all of this. I don't claim to be an expert or anything of the sort, but I'm four years into my education as a Mechanical Engineer, so I do know a thing or two about these types of structures.

In a rigid structure under a static load, such as the metal load-bearing areas of a skyscraper, the forces that are at work are rather astounding. The important distinction is that these loadings are, for the most part, of a static nature and change very slowly, if at all. A structure such as the one in the towers really is fantastically strong, but there are quite a few ways in which they can be made to fail.

The easiest is just a sudden change from a static loading to a dynamic one. Such buildings are of course expected to regularly experience some dynamic loads from factors such as wind or the regular influx and out flux of people and equipment. However, the dynamic load that can be created by even the smallest failure in a structure like this is so large that it easily overwhelms a structure that was designed for a static loading. Maybe a slightly defective pillar (or vertical beam or whatever you wish to call it) crumples first, meaning that it's weight is very suddenly transferred the pillars around it, and while those pillars could probably take that load if it was applied slowly, maybe one of them fails too, and now that much more load is applied the remaining ones. Pillars would just fail faster and faster, and then you'd get a partial floor collapse, and then things just start accelerating. Once that first failure occurred, all of these events would follow faster than anyone could even perceive it. Of course one failure wouldn't do it (that would be a criminally bad design), but when a plane just hit the building, no matter how strong it was, multiple points of failure would be expected anyway.

But even if a physical impact such as a very large plane hitting a building while traveling very quickly didn't cause any points of failure, it could very likely still cause a collapse. The conspiracy theorists are correct in stating that jet fuel wouldn't be enough to render the steel construction of such a building molten, but it wouldn't need to. It wouldn't even need to make it anywhere close to that state. If you put only a fraction of the thermal energy that melting would require into a metal building structure under heavy load, you're going to get large amounts of thermal expansion, followed by fatigue failures, crack propagation, and a lot of other 10 dollar words. What this means is that in addition to the normal static forces that the structure is experiencing, you now have a very large amount of internal forces acting on ever joint, rivet, bracer, and weld in the area of the crash, and a whole lot of new failure points for these forces to exploit. Honestly, from a mechanical perspective I would expect it to take a conspiracy to keep those towers up.

 

[Eejit]

^ That.

 

[Solaris]

W4edy, refute that^ or perm ban imo

 

[Tyguy]

Guys, why are you being so negative towards him, haven't you seen loose change!!!!


/projectile vomit

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

Lol, ask Blair.
Ask him why they deny military explosives were used.
Is that dishonorable? That they possibly lied about those who allegedly killed those people?
And provided cover for others because they were assets of MI5?

Why the shit would it matter what ****ing type of explosives were used. You are such an idiot, you weren't even they're. You weren't in this country. You have no idea what you are talking about, to say the government did it is laughable.

And that you people know nothing about 9/11 because you can't really grasp the whole scale of it, as opposed to me?

And the fact that you have no life, no friends and write about your pathetic adolesant fantacies while jerking off to Alex Jones? The fact that you don't know what you are talking about and contribute absoutly nothing at all to the forum, or indeed the world?

Obama is a fascist neocon. And Hitlery a fearmongering omgalquaida!-hugger.

No. **** off. You through around fascist constantly when I doubt you even know what it means. Nobody likes you, you will die alone and you should leave right now.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

Oh my dear lord. It's...it's like he never left.

CTD.

 

[repiV]

Lol, ask Blair.
Ask him why they deny military explosives were used.
Is that dishonorable? That they possibly lied about those who allegedly killed those people?
And provided cover for others because they were assets of MI5?

And that you people know nothing about 9/11 because you can't really grasp the whole scale of it, as opposed to me?

Obama is a fascist neocon. And Hitlery a fearmongering omgalquaida!-hugger.

Jesus Christ. MI5 is an intelligence agency staffed by civilians, that isn't even particularly secretive. They recruit openly for specific vacancies in the media and via their website - almost all of which are desk jobs, I can assure you they don't have an in-house crew of suicide bombers for teh CONSPIRACEEEZ.
Just because you're utterly convinced of something that's idiotic and stupid doesn't make you a crusader of truth and justice, and just because everyone thinks you're a moron doesn't make you a persecuted minority.

 

[Jintor]

And by the way... you're the only person who can grasp the huge scale of it? But you've proven time and time again that you don't have a ****ing clue about anything.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Jesus Christ. MI5 is an intelligence agency staffed by civilians, that isn't even particularly secretive. They recruit openly for specific vacancies in the media and via their website - almost all of which are desk jobs, I can assure you they don't have an in-house crew of suicide bombers for teh CONSPIRACEEEZ.

To be fair, that didn't stop the organisation "bugging and burgling its way across London" in the 70s. But that's the kind of thing secret services tend(ed) to do, and Wadsy is still stupid.

 

[repiV]

To be fair, that didn't stop the organisation "bugging and burgling its way across London" in the 70s. But that's the kind of thing secret services tend(ed) to do, and Wadsy is still stupid.

The intelligence services used to be far more secretive than they are today. Until recently the very existence of the Secret Intelligence Service (aka MI6) was denied, but now they have a website and a list of vacancies.

The MI5 website leaves you in no doubt as to what their purpose is.

 

[_Z_Ryuken]

Okay, I know I'm going to have to regret this later, but thought I'd throw my own small point about the melting theory into all of this. I don't claim to be an expert or anything of the sort, but I'm four years into my education as a Mechanical Engineer, so I do know a thing or two about these types of structures.

In a rigid structure under a static load, such as the metal load-bearing areas of a skyscraper, the forces that are at work are rather astounding. The important distinction is that these loadings are, for the most part, of a static nature and change very slowly, if at all. A structure such as the one in the towers really is fantastically strong, but there are quite a few ways in which they can be made to fail.

The easiest is just a sudden change from a static loading to a dynamic one. Such buildings are of course expected to regularly experience some dynamic loads from factors such as wind or the regular influx and out flux of people and equipment. However, the dynamic load that can be created by even the smallest failure in a structure like this is so large that it easily overwhelms a structure that was designed for a static loading. Maybe a slightly defective pillar (or vertical beam or whatever you wish to call it) crumples first, meaning that it's weight is very suddenly transferred the pillars around it, and while those pillars could probably take that load if it was applied slowly, maybe one of them fails too, and now that much more load is applied the remaining ones. Pillars would just fail faster and faster, and then you'd get a partial floor collapse, and then things just start accelerating. Once that first failure occurred, all of these events would follow faster than anyone could even perceive it. Of course one failure wouldn't do it (that would be a criminally bad design), but when a plane just hit the building, no matter how strong it was, multiple points of failure would be expected anyway.

But even if a physical impact such as a very large plane hitting a building while traveling very quickly didn't cause any points of failure, it could very likely still cause a collapse. The conspiracy theorists are correct in stating that jet fuel wouldn't be enough to render the steel construction of such a building molten, but it wouldn't need to. It wouldn't even need to make it anywhere close to that state. If you put only a fraction of the thermal energy that melting would require into a metal building structure under heavy load, you're going to get large amounts of thermal expansion, followed by fatigue failures, crack propagation, and a lot of other 10 dollar words. What this means is that in addition to the normal static forces that the structure is experiencing, you now have a very large amount of internal forces acting on ever joint, rivet, bracer, and weld in the area of the crash, and a whole lot of new failure points for these forces to exploit. Honestly, from a mechanical perspective I would expect it to take a conspiracy to keep those towers up.

Sounds good, but what I'm wondering is why everything below the impact zone collapsed. It seems to me at least one of the decapitated segments should have toppled over. Is the design really that unstable under these circumstances concerning dynamic loads?

 

[Nemesis6]

The way I remember it is this - The plane flies into the top, and weakens the top structure. When it has sufficiently weakened that part, one floor collapses, and the pancake effect ensues when the structure has been weakened by the fire. I'd check popular mechanics if I were you, because I could be totally wrong. Coincidentally, Loose Change's head nut... I mean "director" Dylan Avery calls them "tractor driving hicks", so that's all the more reason to check it.

 

[Direwolf]

Sounds good, but what I'm wondering is why everything below the impact zone collapsed. It seems to me at least one of the decapitated segments should have toppled over. Is the design really that unstable under these circumstances concerning dynamic loads?

There are three important things to consider when thinking about why the top just doesn't fall off, because that seems to be what you'd expect. The first is simply the huge scale of one of the towers and their construction. Most of what you can see of what "makes up" the tower cannot actually support the tower, instead these parts (such as walls, floors, windows, copy machines, etc) stay there because they're attached to the parts of the tower that are responsible for holding up the entire structure (the metal framework of the tower). And even that framework has only been designed to hold a static load (plus a little more for safety), and only an axial load, meaning a force that acts upon the axis of the building.

The important thing to keep in mind is that once that framework has been compromised, say on the right side of the building, all of a sudden the left side is experiencing a bit of transverse load, in addition to an increased axial load from having to support more of the top of the building than normal. Again, any stable building should be able to handle some of that load, but we're talking about a huge catastrophic failure so this force will be far above and beyond anything it can handle. If there are structural failures at the wrong points then gravity could even cause the whole thing to torque slightly, again something it was never really designed for. And once the top of the building gets the tiniest amount of downward speed, the energy stops being potential energy and starts becoming kinetic energy. The force being applied to the metal framework at this point doesn't just increase, it increases exponentially (E=0.5mv^2).

What this boils down to is that now even the parts of the building that were designed to support it (and thats a relatively small part) are going to offer no meaningful resistance to all the forces being applied. At this point the whole thing (both above and below the break) might as well be made out of cardboard, and its going to disintegrate as it travels downward faster and faster.

The top of the tower obviously didn't fall straight down, both did in fact shift a little bit, but a few feet to one side or the other isn't very noticeable when it's a building thats falling. But what's falling is better identified as rubble than a specific section of the building because theres nothing in the building that can stand up to the kind of forces that are now in play.

 

[jverne]

Okay, I know I'm going to have to regret this later, but thought I'd throw my own small point about the melting theory into all of this. I don't claim to be an expert or anything of the sort, but I'm four years into my education as a Mechanical Engineer, so I do know a thing or two about these types of structures.

In a rigid structure under a static load, such as the metal load-bearing areas of a skyscraper, the forces that are at work are rather astounding. The important distinction is that these loadings are, for the most part, of a static nature and change very slowly, if at all. A structure such as the one in the towers really is fantastically strong, but there are quite a few ways in which they can be made to fail.

The easiest is just a sudden change from a static loading to a dynamic one. Such buildings are of course expected to regularly experience some dynamic loads from factors such as wind or the regular influx and out flux of people and equipment. However, the dynamic load that can be created by even the smallest failure in a structure like this is so large that it easily overwhelms a structure that was designed for a static loading. Maybe a slightly defective pillar (or vertical beam or whatever you wish to call it) crumples first, meaning that it's weight is very suddenly transferred the pillars around it, and while those pillars could probably take that load if it was applied slowly, maybe one of them fails too, and now that much more load is applied the remaining ones. Pillars would just fail faster and faster, and then you'd get a partial floor collapse, and then things just start accelerating. Once that first failure occurred, all of these events would follow faster than anyone could even perceive it. Of course one failure wouldn't do it (that would be a criminally bad design), but when a plane just hit the building, no matter how strong it was, multiple points of failure would be expected anyway.

But even if a physical impact such as a very large plane hitting a building while traveling very quickly didn't cause any points of failure, it could very likely still cause a collapse. The conspiracy theorists are correct in stating that jet fuel wouldn't be enough to render the steel construction of such a building molten, but it wouldn't need to. It wouldn't even need to make it anywhere close to that state. If you put only a fraction of the thermal energy that melting would require into a metal building structure under heavy load, you're going to get large amounts of thermal expansion, followed by fatigue failures, crack propagation, and a lot of other 10 dollar words. What this means is that in addition to the normal static forces that the structure is experiencing, you now have a very large amount of internal forces acting on ever joint, rivet, bracer, and weld in the area of the crash, and a whole lot of new failure points for these forces to exploit. Honestly, from a mechanical perspective I would expect it to take a conspiracy to keep those towers up.

being myself a 3rd year structural engineer, i agree to most of what you said.
as far as i know buildings are rarely designed to withstand specific dynamic loads, they just increase the safety factor of the static load to compensate for it. some dynamic loads are compensated for like (snow, wind, moving objects inside the building), but designing without computers how would a plane hit affect the structure...i hardy doubt it.

most elements have their weaknesses, like concrete not withstanding stretch tensions, steel frames (especially I beams) being vulnerable to axial torque. chances of failure are horrendously big.
and besides, steel loses most of it's strength at 500C degrees. and 500 degrees is pretty easy to reach in well ventilated, combustible rooms.

in my mind there is no doubt that the towers fell due to the plane hit. it's the events before and after the attack which smell fishy.