Split Thread Criticisms of 9/11 Commission Report

[Childlike Empress]

Speaking of "overstatement":

That's more like an understatement and apologetics. Did you yet understand what we now know about Abu Zubaydah?

 

[ProBonoShill]

Welcome to 8 years ago:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2966650

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=89346

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=3608226#post3608226

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140141

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187336

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=170252

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=132904

 

[WilliamSeger]

That's more like an understatement and apologetics. Did you yet understand what we now know about Abu Zubaydah?

Let's finish this subject first. Here is your overstatement:

It was just myth making based on "evidence" derived from torture and a vivid fantasy sharpened by earlier projects.

It was "just" no such thing.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Let's finish this subject first. Here is your overstatement:

It was "just" no such thing.

It was indeed just such a thing. The last part of the sentence alluded to this, btw.

Now go and bring yourself up to date.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Not satisfied with the quote I provided? Fine. Here's some more to contemplate (and for beachnut to butcher the English language in response to):

[more quote-mining snipped]

Right?

Love the new suit, Mr. Emperor.

Dave

 

[WilliamSeger]

It was indeed just such a thing. The last part of the sentence alluded to this, btw.

Now go and bring yourself up to date.

Baloney. The report is very meticulous in citing the sources for their narrative. What percentage of it is "based on 'evidence' derived from torture?"

 

[Childlike Empress]

Baloney. The report is very meticulous in citing the sources for their narrative. What percentage of it is "based on 'evidence' derived from torture?"

We have already established that only a small part of the report contains the core narrative of the events of 9/11, which is to a large degree based on testimony derived from torture, with one main source having lost his Al Qaeda connection on the way through time.

 

[WilliamSeger]

We have already established that only a small part of the report contains the core narrative of the events of 9/11...

It appears to me that what we've now established is that you don't hesitate to go beyond overstatement.

...which is to a large degree based on testimony derived from torture, with one main source having lost his Al Qaeda connection on the way through time.

Um, no; (1) only a small part of the report is based on "detainee" statements, and (2) the Commission duly noted that those are untrustworthy, so they "evaluated their statements carefully and have attempted to corroborate them with documents and statements of others."

 

[jaydeehess]

Here's some criticism of the 9/11 Commission:

* Henry Kissinger was initially chosen to lead the inquiry.

And ultimately didn't. Aside from that just exactly how would that be criticism of the report even if he had been?

* President Bush and Vice President Cheney opposed the creation of an inquiry.

And ultimately it went ahead. I thought Bush/Cheney were so very powerful that they managed to create the attacks in the first place but not powerful enough to actually stop the commission from taking place?

* President Bush and Vice President Cheney spoke to the 9/11 Commission in private together without being putting under oath and without what they said being electronically recorded or transcribed and that the few notes allowed would not be made public.

Typical of investigations in which the POTUS or VPOTUS is interviewed.

* Philip Zelikow (who was on Bush's transition team) was the executive director.

Yes, and?

* Zelikow and Jamie Gorelick (President Clinton's Deputy Attorney General) were the only two allowed to see the most sensitive material.

I am sure that a Bush appointee and a Clinton appointee would be so very eager to cooperate with each other in a great and treasonous cover up.

* When government employees were interviewed by the commission, they were joined by "minders"

Citation? Besides , you don't think that govt agencies would supply lawyers for interviewees?

* The funding for the commission was an embarrassment.

So the take is that the Commission did not get enough money to do .... something, while NIST got a pile of money and didn't do enough? That pretty much summarize your take on this?

 

[jaydeehess]

Hamilton: The 9/11 Commission was created by statute. We had two responsibilities - first, tell the story of 9/11; I think we've done that reasonably well. We worked very hard at it; I don’t know that we’ve told the definitive story of 9/11, but surely anybody in the future who tackles that job will begin with the 9/11 Commission Report. I think we’ve been reasonably successful in telling the story.

IOW , Hamilton is stating that the report is good and successful in getting it basically all correct.

Hamilton: I cannot answer every question with regard to 9/11. I can answer a good many of them, but I can't answer them all.

Nice quote mine. Standing alone it obviously contradicts the previous quote you posted. Even at that its a very weak criticism. Such a complex sequence of events there is likely to be some things that are not answerable, Hamilton is simply being honest.

Hamilton: I don’t believe for a minute that we got everything right. We wrote a first draft of history.
We wrote it under a lot of time pressure, and we sorted through the evidence as best we could.

Which again, he believes still got the story correct.

We were extremely frustrated with the false statements we were getting.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/08/...gon/index.html

Which piggybacks onto this:
Quote:
"We to this day don't know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us," said Thomas H. Kean, the former New Jersey Republican governor who led the commission. "It was just so far from the truth. . . . It's one of those loose ends that never got tied."
Quote:
"I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described," John Farmer, a former New Jersey attorney general who led the staff inquiry into events on Sept. 11, said in a recent interview. "The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years. . . . This is not spin. This is not true."

All of which indicates that the truth did come out and that commissioners believe they got around the obstacles put in place. Its pretty obvious, though commissioners would likely be reluctant to say outright, that the military was embarrassed and putting a lot of CYA into action.

So all you have is people saying that the task was difficult but that it succeeded.

thanks for playing.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Um, no;

Um, yes.

(1) only a small part of the report is based on "detainee" statements,

Which happens to be the part that contains the core narrative, aka OCT of 9/11.

and (2) the Commission duly noted that those are untrustworthy, so they "evaluated their statements carefully and have attempted to corroborate them with documents and statements of others."

And we (not including you as you're still wasting everybody's time instead of reading up on the information I provided) now know how successful those attempts could have been given that at least one main source now officially isn't connected to Al Qaeda at all.

KSM btw was written into the narrative at a specific point people who payed attention from the beginning remember as the "Sheikh swap".

 

[carlitos]

aka OCT of 9/11.

 

[funk de fino]

We have already established that only a small part of the report contains the core narrative of the events of 9/11, which is to a large degree based on testimony derived from torture, with one main source having lost his Al Qaeda connection on the way through time.

You haven't read it.

 

[WilliamSeger]

And we (not including you as you're still wasting everybody's time instead of reading up on the information I provided) now know how successful those attempts could have been given that at least one main source now officially isn't connected to Al Qaeda at all.

LOL, given that we now have the video of OBL claiming to have personally picked the hijackers, and "martyr" videos from several of them vowing to give their lives for radical Islamism, it appears that what you call "myth making based on 'evidence' derived from torture" was a highly accurate description of the "OCT." I'm not concerned with your belief system; I'm only concerned with your disingenuous attempts to justify it.

 

[pgimeno]

Key point there. 'Some' is not 'all', which is what the commission wanted.

Another failure.

But not an important one, right?

Right. There's enough evidence available to the public to prove most of the narrative. The missing parts *might* point to CYA strategies, but not to a significantly different story.

 

[pgimeno]

No, we were at the point where you read and understand the information I provided in return to your question. Next is your comment on that, not hand-waving.

Here's our exchange so far:

"The commission"? They didn't look into any collapses. It was just myth making based on "evidence" derived from torture and a vivid fantasy sharpened by earlier projects.

Without delving into the first part, I think the second part of your claim (highlighted) is highly inaccurate. The commission report cites lots of sources, none of them includes torture. Can you cite just one passage where evidence was derived from torture?

ETA: Just for the sake of example, recently, Commission member Miles Kara published an interview with Lt.Col. O'Brien, the pilot of the C-130 that looked for AA77 before it crashed. http://www.oredigger61.org/?p=6314 - does it look like that evidence was derived from torture to you?

Three letters: KSM

Fair enough.

Detainee Interrogation Reports

Chapters 5 and 7 rely heavily on information obtained from captured al Qaeda members.
​

http://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/US/9-11/911Report.htm#p146

What about the rest of the report? ETA: It's 13 chapters, you know. How do you derive 'myth making based on "evidence" derived from torture and a vivid fantasy sharpened by earlier projects' from that?

I know indeed. Chapters 5-7 are the core of the narrative. Before and after are tales of history and recommendations of how to proceed. The wonderful institution of Heimatschutz, ehm, no, Staatssicherheit, jeez, sorry, "Homeland Security" was proposed in that "report" to a great length.

Ok, let's start from the beginning.

Do you have anything to object about the reliability of chapter 1 (“WE HAVE SOME PLANES”) and its numerous footnotes detailing the corroborative evidence it's based on? ETA: That chapter alone has 241 footnotes, most of which are references to the evidence it's based on, some of which in turn have been made available through NARA.

I reacted to the information "KSM" by acknowledging my mistake, and to the information "Chapters 5-7 are the core of the narrative [...]" by focusing on the ones I'm interested in rather than on the ones you are.

My interest is in finding out why you are ditching the whole report just based on the fact that a very small part of it (if any) relied solely on information acquired through torture, and how that trumps, in your view, the overwhelming rest of the evidence that points to the many facts reported that day. The movements of the terrorists, the attacks, and everything else, facts which are not based on evidence obtained from torture.

Basically, I don't see your jump from "this is the core narrative", even admitting your premise, to denying the validity of the rest of the report when taken at face value.

 

[Jango]

Can you read, Jango?

No.

 

[Jango]

And ultimately didn't. Aside from that just exactly how would that be criticism of the report even if he had been?

Kissinger is controversial even by mainstream accounts. He's also a ruthless pragmatist. And what would be practical to him? Well, I think you know the answer to that.

And ultimately it went ahead. I thought Bush/Cheney were so very powerful that they managed to create the attacks in the first place but not powerful enough to actually stop the commission from taking place?

It wouldn't be the first time that an administration caved to public demands. In this instance, having caved to popular demand, they went along and managed the Commission from the inside.

Typical of investigations in which the POTUS or VPOTUS is interviewed.

Such as?

Yes, and?

Ever heard of: Conflict of interest? No? Google is here to help.

I am sure that a Bush appointee and a Clinton appointee would be so very eager to cooperate with each other in a great and treasonous cover up.

They did. They were protecting their bosses, much like Sandy Berger who stole documents from the National Archives.

Citation? Besides , you don't think that govt agencies would supply lawyers for interviewees?

http://www.apnewsarchive.com/2003/S...operation/id-32cdbf9e849b80fbfe8a34d793d80c4a
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jul/10/september11.usa
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/08/politics/08CND-TERR.html
http://www.scribd.com/doc/13279605/...tive-Branch-Minders-Intimidation-of-Witnesses

 

[beachnut]

Kissinger is controversial even ...

It wouldn't be the first time ...

Such as?

Ever heard of:...

They did. They were protecting ...

http://www.apnewsarchive.com/2003/S...operation/id-32cdbf9e849b80fbfe8a34d793d80c4a
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jul/10/september11.usa
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/08/politics/08CND-TERR.html
http://www.scribd.com/doc/13279605/...tive-Branch-Minders-Intimidation-of-Witnesses

A Gish Gallop, with no comment included, of political and quote-mined filed news stories to cover up another failed claim, a virtual "smoke" screen of BS?

 

[HotRodDeluxe]

Kissinger is controversial even by mainstream accounts. He's also a ruthless pragmatist. And what would be practical to him? Well, I think you know the answer to that.

And what do you speculate would be practical to Kissinger?

It wouldn't be the first time that an administration caved to public demands. In this instance, having caved to popular demand, they went along and managed the Commission from the inside.

But you have no evidence of this.

Ever heard of: Conflict of interest? No?

What body or agency do you feel should have undertaken the job in order to avoid accusations of conflict of interest?

They did. They were protecting their bosses, much like Sandy Berger who stole documents from the National Archives.

More speculation?

http://www.apnewsarchive.com/2003/S...operation/id-32cdbf9e849b80fbfe8a34d793d80c4a
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jul/10/september11.usa
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/08/politics/08CND-TERR.html
http://www.scribd.com/doc/13279605/...tive-Branch-Minders-Intimidation-of-Witnesses

These all originate from one source and the Justice Department response to the accusation seems reasonable to me.