Split Thread Criticisms of 9/11 Commission Report

[Andy_Ross]

As to the skills of the hijackers as pilots. They might not have been good but they had Commercial Pilots Licenses.

As to debunking the video. If Jango was to look through the forum he would find threads that cover and debunk each of his points and questions.

there is no need to debunk this video specifically it is already covered elsewhere, all you need to do is spend some time and effort reading what is already here.

 

[HotRodDeluxe]

Confirmation of what? That you're political naive, yeah, thanks for agreeing

No, revise comprehension. Why do you feel you have to act in this fashion?

You perform one of the most fatally held positions in politics -- you give the government (any government mind you) the benefit of the doubt and completely underestimate the depths they'll go to reach their objective, no matter what it is or what laws it breaks, who it kills or how much it costs. It is a serious miscalculation on your part, and those who share the same view of any government at any level.

It is folly to do so when government has the monopoly on violence, among other things, yet here it is alive and well a fantasy of benevolent government. Grow up already, man.

I'm not as juvenile as those who think in a dualistic fashion and use false generalisations such as yourself. Your straw man is just that-an invention. Again, what have I stated in order for you to construct this elaborate straw man?

Partisan? In what way and for who/what?

You are unable to discern your own bias obviously.

Yes, sir. Many times actually. It was among the pleasant required reading I was tasked with in college. From this book: http://www.amazon.com/World-Ideas-Essential-Readings-College/dp/B003XZU1S0

I have obviously located it online too.

Then you know that it can't really be applied to a democratic government.

Thin skinned ye are then to shrivel underneath criticism.

Criticism? Is that what you call unfounded ad hominems? You invent stories and call it criticism. Wow, that is some critical thinking there, Pal.

If you don't know politics that well, no problem. But claiming you know your stuff and what you've offered thus far is miles apart from one another. Politics isn't hard to quote-unquote master. Many people find it too depressing, stupid, pointless, annoying. I don't. I'm a daily consumer of it. Have been for years now. It so happens that politics (among many other topics) is also a research topic of mine.

Yes, I've studied politics at a tertiary level, and what have I offered thus far form you to jump to such an irrational conclusion? This is really a bizarre conversation as you just seem to be attributing to me whatever takes your fancy at the time.

Your position, like so many others here, is a romanticized rubber stamped version of the U.S. Government (few here have even romanticized the Russian government). Your view isn't politically realistic ergo you're being politically naive.

I haven't even stated a position, nor have I detailed any political view, and yet you speculate with this feeble-minded nonsense.

You will have to stop with this silliness as it only makes you look uneducated. So, if you don't mind, would you mind answering my questions instead of just posting another unfounded diatribe?

 

[Jango]

From my post elsewhere..

The plan was financed and 'masterminded' by Bin Laden

My Response: I don't know if that is absolutely correct, though. I'm not doubting he helped finance the operation, but from all accounts, KSM brought the idea to bin Laden for consideration, of which, OBL obviously granted the operation to proceed. As you mentioned, KSM along with his nephew had grand terrorist designs against the U.S. before with the Bojinka Plot and they were associated with the '93 WTC Bombing, which gets the Blind Sheikh involved -- the history of the U.S. having Islamic fundamentalism gum on the bottom of its boot is very convoluted and quite strange actually.

Taking over 4 airliners, using 14 trained muscle hijackers, and 4 commercially trained pilots, and flying them into targets in under an hour, is hardly a "sophisticated penetration".

My Response: Your standard must be pretty high then, because to me, it most certainly was a 'sophisticated penetration'. Besides their covers being blown, they managed to carry out their operation, still inflict death and terror and take giant shots at iconic U.S. symbols of power.

How hard is it to cut the throats of 2 pilots who have their backs to the door and are strapped into their seats?

My Response: The 9/11 Commission was vague about a lot of the pilot/hijacker interactions. From the Commission report:

Reports from two flight attendants in the coach cabin, Betty Ong and Madeline “Amy” Sweeney, tell us most of what we know about how the hijacking happened. As it began, some of the hijackers—most likely Wail al Shehri and Waleed al Shehri,who were seated in row 2 in first class—stabbed the two unarmed flight attendants who would have been preparing for cabin service.
We do not know exactly how the hijackers gained access to the cockpit; FAA rules required that the doors remain closed and locked during flight. Ong
speculated that they had “jammed their way” in. Perhaps the terrorists stabbed the flight attendants to get a cockpit key,to force one of them to open the cockpit door, or to lure the captain or first officer out of the cockpit. Or the flight attendants may just have been in their way.

In the footnotes is this:

. In accordance with FAA regulations, United 93’s cockpit voice recorder recorded the last 31 minutes of sounds from the cockpit via microphones in the pilots’ headsets, as well as in the overhead panel of the flight deck. This is the only recorder from the four hijacked airplanes to survive the impact and ensuing fire.The CVRs and FDRs from American 11 and United 175 were not found,and the CVR from American Flight 77 was badly burned and not recoverable.

If I presented information like that to you or anyone else in this section, they wouldn't but it. It is obvious they do not conclusively know how the hijackers got into the cockpits or what 3/4 of the cockpits had recorded I.e. they're speculating. They even said one of their two primary sources of information 'speculated' that the hijackers had 'jammed their way in'. It is vague and speculative.

The military awareness of the hijacked flights were as follows;

AA11 - 9 minutes
UA175 - 0 minutes
AA77 - 3 minutes
UA93 - -4 minutes (NEADS got information on UA93 4 minutes after it had already crashed).

My Response: Which timeline version is that? One of the versions provided by the responsible agencies, the version the 9/11 Commission came up with? Also, where does the F.A.A. manager destroying evidence on 9/11 show up on your radar? Or that NORAD as well the FAA had lied to the 9/11 Commission, which is plainly stated in the press or in internal commission documentation. They complained about being deceived. The bigger issue here is that the hijackers should have never set foot on any of the planes to begin with.

He was refused once. Several other times he took cross country flights. Hani Hanjour was chosen for the Pentagon hit because of its difficulty to hit, baring on the fact that he was the most experienced pilot of the group. Hani Hanjour had a CPL, multi-engine instrument endorsement with training towards a Boeing 737 type endorsement.

My Response: Hani is an interesting case study. From the F.B.I. timeline, it shows that Hani was doing flight training in the U.S. during the early 90's. As the NYTimes article I linked to says though, some of Hani's flight instructors were shocked about his exploits because he was a terrible pilot.

My Response:

It wasn't hard to figure out. No body else had the capability, and Bin Laden had a known history for it.

My Response: Above you said that the operation wasn't sophisticated, but here you are saying that *only* OBL had the capability to do something like 9/11. Besides the obvious contradiction, you're discounting a whole bunch of organizations, private or government, that had and still has the capability to do something like 9/11. Money + highly skilled men can accomplish wonders.

Furthermore, no hijacking in the past has flown airliners into buildings. Prior to 9/11, hijacked flights landed or sat at chosen airfields and ransomed demands. We know the military were expecting this, it's fair to say so were the passengers.

My Response: Except that 'suicide hijacking' had become a known 'thing' in intelligence circles prior to 9/11. Do you think U.S. Intelligence didn't notice the Algerian plot in France? No one from U.S. Intelligence spoke to their French counterparts about the plot? September 11th, 1994 saw a man try to fly a plane into the White House. Did the Secret Service not think about the kamikazing of planes into the White House after that? The U.S. Navy and Department of Defense had already detailed knowledge of kamikaze planes. But as we can see in recorded videos, the government immediately feigned ignorance. And that was in spite of recorded documentation proving absolutely that the opposite was in fact true: they knew that planes were going to be used as weapons.

Delayed - No, they needed to wait for the other investigations to be completed. Such as PENTTBOM.

My Response: No. Investigative concerns of that nature were not President Bush's or Vice President Cheney's concern. They did not want one to be done. This is also a recorded fact.

Set up to fail - Taken from Thomas Kean, but missing some context. He also stated "But did in fact do the biggest government investigation in our history.". "We told the story as it was".

My Response: Who made a whole bunch of contradictory statements from start to finish. He complained about the minders but then said they were okay then he disliked them again. Hamilton has some choice quotes, For and Against, including, We Don't Know Everything. Who to believe?

Conflict of Interest - You could claim any official investigation is. Baseless and based on opinion.

My Response: It is not baseless. Philip Zelikow was the executive director. He was part of President Bush's transition team. You know exactly what that means in terms of him being the executive director for the 9/11 Commission. It is a clear cut conflict of interest, not because he worked for the government but because he worked for President Bush himself. Not to mention, his personal relationship with the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice.

Cover up from start to finish - Opinionated, agreed with by people who have never read the report themselves.

My Response: I have read the report. I have the report in many different formats too. They omitted a lot of stuff, things the press reported and then there wasn't a whole bunch of information sharing afterward, in spite of the Commissions request of transparency with all of the information they used to come to their conclusions. But, to date, we still haven't gotten to see Their Math. That did not fly for me in math class, so why should it fly with them over something as serious as 9/11?

It included testimony, it wasn't based on it. But I am unfamiliar with the claim the records were destroyed. There seems to be no evidence provided of this.

My Response: It isn't hard to find. Google "C.I.A. Destroyed Torture Tapes". It has been played out in the media for years but was ended by the Attorney General Holder.

Commission report was not an engineering report. It's objective was to;

"The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9-11 Commission), an independent, bipartisan commission created by congressional legislation and the signature of President George W. Bush in late 2002, is chartered to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks. The Commission is also mandated to provide recommendations designed to guard against future attacks."

My Response: Yet it talked about the Twin Towers.

True, to which I also have some issues. Able Danger was investigated in 2006, and found:

""In December 2006, a sixteen-month investigation by the US Senate Intelligence Committee concluded "Able Danger did not identify Mohamed Atta or any other 9/11 hijacker at any time prior to September 11, 2001

My Response: It is reassuring that after a lot of data was purposefully destroyed, that investigators were able to come to firm conclusions about this.

the intelligence c*ck-up that lead to 9/11.

My Response: The intelligence agencies always get blamed. Many from those agencies have said they had all they needed which is backed up by other forms of information like from the press and government documentation itself.

OBL did not have connections to the CIA. OBL was not Tim Osman, and did not receive anything aid from the US during the Soviet conflict.

My Response: There was widespread proliferation of money and weapons in that war, anything but an absolute environment. One of the things, besides money and guns, that the U.S. helped provide to that war was ideology. $50,000,000+ in specialized textbooks were created and shipped to educate the Mujaheddin. Prior to and after the '93 WTC bombing, the press and think tanks talked about blowback from the U.S. operation with the Mujaheddin. That narrative didn't really surface, besides from Chomsky, post 9/11. It certainly isn't talked about now in regards to ISIS -- who are nothing more than a new version of the pre 9/11 Taliban who were created during the Afghan-Soviet War. Damn Islamic fundamentalist gum!

There was a hijack drill planned for the afternoon of 911, but it did not begin and certainly did not involve airliners crashing into buildings.

My Response: Your link is just as inconclusive as the official record is on this. There were simulations going on that morning, which we can hear in some of the audio transcripts -- 'is this real world?' And then there is this: http://www.boston.com/news/packages/sept11/anniversary/wire_stories/0903_plane_exercise.htm Bizarre coincidence indeed.

I do know the commission did a number of subpoena's to get through some inaccuracies they were being told, such as the FAA and NEADS timelines.

My Response: Yes, because they were lying to the commissioners. Again, there is ample documentation of this that a rudimentary Google search will bring to your reading pleasure. Do you know how to do custom Google searches?

I am also aware of untruths which may have been told regarding how much the CIA knew about al-Qaeda operatives in California.

My Response: How much did the C.I.A. know then? And how do you know how much they knew?

Saying people lying to the commission therefore means the Bush administration killed 3,000 of its own people is a long stretch of the imagination.

My Response: Of course, that's why additional information is needed to get to that conclusion, which exists in plenty, unfortunately.

In reality it's called political bs and people covering up their own ass.

My Response: From what? Criminal negligence? Conspiracy? What exactly were they covering their asses from? I always hear that -- CYA. But what were they covering-up and why doesn't it matter?

Partly right.

My Response: No, it is exactly right.

Opinionated.

My Response: Tell that to the Jersey Girls who helped get the investigation off the ground, whose questions were not answered or even asked to begin with.

Welcome to a non-punitive world.

My Response: Except it isn't. Non-punitive classes would be more accurate. Tocqueville wrote about that after he visited America.

Pentagon drill was for an accidental crash from one of the hundreds of aircraft which overfly it every week from Regan National Airport right next door.

Source.

FEMA with the towers in crosshair is not based on an aircraft being flown into it. Remember it was attacked in 1993.

NORAD claim is based on the War Games already mentioned. See above source.

NRO drill had nothing to do with a hijacked plane. It was for an accidental plane crash.

My Response: And they had institutional knowledge of kamikaze planes.

Something I too take issue with, but long shot for linking this to an 'inside job'.

My Response: It is a piece among the puzzle but is most definitely a dark piece of which there isn't a lot of exposure on or a conclusive resolution. 'We found no evidence that' on a case where 'lots of evidence was destroyed' isn't a hard conclusion to come to, it is the convenient one.

I cannot find a source for this. Link anybody?

My Response: https://web.archive.org/web/2010061...-content/uploads/2010/06/FOIAresponseGIF1.gif

NIST effectively discovered how a buildings with similar designs to WTC7 destroyed by the removal or compromising of a single column. The wrong people get their hands on that information, and indeed it would “jeopardize public safety“.

My Response: Except you know it, just told me, and it is on the Internet. Weird...

What's new. As it happens, they have released bucket loads of information through FOIA requests, as has NIST.

My Response: Yeah, no big deal. They gave us something to read. We know there is more, but we only get what they give us. Come on, man.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Is that a deliberate attempt to make it hard to respond to your post?
Why would you do that?

 

[Ape of Good Hope]

Last week he found the emoticons, this week it's 'fun with formatting'.

 

[pgimeno]

Jango, I've replied to you about the video in a more appropriate thread:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10542140#post10542140

It's blatantly off-topic here.

 

[beachnut]

I admitted as much -- there is change. I would be quite historically wrong to say otherwise, which I didn't. I said 'rarely'. U.S. History has recorded more status quo upkeep than transformative change. And there has been more transformative change in matters of populism than in matters of the state, like security.

The appropriate time frame would be 238 years.

* It took 89 years for slavery to be outlawed.
* It took 144 years for women to have the right to vote.

Those are populist changes that occurred before our births (I'm assuming on your part, at least). ... The government will cave to popular demand if it is sufficiently strong enough, even pulling out of war, as was seen with the Vietnam War.

In terms of national security though, U.S. History records far more status quo than change. This is where 'rarely' really applies, as does the continuance of previously enacted policy. ... assassination of American citizens without due process of law (started by Bush 43) and also indefinite detention (also started by Bush 43).

Go back now to the Church Committee. President Ford went against the grain and discontinued and outlawed certain practices, like assassinations of world leaders, which President Carter followed. President Reagan, however, did not. Ford had also worked to curtail domestic spying done by the security services, though it never did stop, and it has been a part of the U.S. national security paradigm since before J. Edgar took over at the F.B.I. But every POTUS denies allegations of domestic spying. They have to. "Yes, we're spying on Americans..." isn't going to win hearts and minds here, for as President Kennedy said: "The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment."
But it happens and happened during his heyday nonetheless. It has too. There is too much money and power at stake for it not to.

Are you going to explain how the Kennedy quote dovetails with your money and power stuff? Do you know what Kennedy was talking about, or did you google up the quote to fit the rest of the BS?

 

[Jango]

Is that a deliberate attempt to make it hard to respond to your post?
Why would you do that?

Why would you assume that I was and not just following spoiler/tag protocol? Wherever I've posted, quoting a spoiler requires a response in a spoiler. Besides, how hard is it to do some copying & pasting?

 

[Jango]

Are you going to explain how the Kennedy quote dovetails with your money and power stuff? Do you know what Kennedy was talking about, or did you google up the quote to fit the rest of the BS?

His words are clear. Why are you having such a problem with this? What are you disagreeing with exactly anyway? Why would you think I didn't know what President Kennedy was talking about? I've not only read the speech, but I've listened to the audio of it too. Have you? Do you even know what you're arguing about anymore?

 

[beachnut]

His words are clear. Why are you having such a problem with this? What are you disagreeing with exactly anyway? Why would you think I didn't know what President Kennedy was talking about? I've not only read the speech, but I've listened to the audio of it too. Have you? Do you even know what you're arguing about anymore?

Five questions; you must be learning, but...

You can't explain what he talking about. You don't know what he is talking about, you blundered into using as a quote mine for unrelated BS.

If you knew what he was talking about you could tell me; instead you ask questions; because you can't explain what he was talking about.


Have you figured out the smoke yet? no -

 

[LSSBB]

Five questions; you must be learning, but...

You can't explain what he talking about. You don't know what he is talking about, you blundered into using as a quote mine for unrelated BS.

If you knew what he was talking about you could tell me; instead you ask questions; because you can't explain what he was talking about.


Have you figured out the smoke yet? no -

I know, I figured it out!

The Commies caused 9/11. And Kennedy predicted it too!

 

[Jango]

Oversight was being talked about earlier in the thread. I watched this on C-Span not that long ago.

http://www.c-span.org/video/?324983...attorney-general-nominee-sally-quillian-yates

Fast-forward to Senator Grassley at 23:57. As the conversation proceeds, we see a Senator being respectfully denied access to information he has requested, which he complains about citing 'oversight'.

 

[ozeco41]

Oversight was being talked about earlier in the thread. I watched this on C-Span not that long ago.

http://www.c-span.org/video/?324983...attorney-general-nominee-sally-quillian-yates

Fast-forward to Senator Grassley at 23:57. As the conversation proceeds, we see a Senator being respectfully denied access to information he has requested, which he complains about citing 'oversight'.

Can do but why should I?

What is the point YOU are making? Or would like to make? One sentence should do.

Then I can decide if YOUR point warrants me watching the video.

I see no benefit to me in following up on an undefined claim.

 

[Jango]

Can do but why should I?

What is the point YOU are making? Or would like to make? One sentence should do.

Then I can decide if YOUR point warrants me watching the video.

I see no benefit to me in following up on an undefined claim.

The point is that mechanisms designed to protect the system of governance of my people, like Congressional oversight, has been perverted by excessive secrecy in government. The Chairman of the Judiciary Committee has been requesting information from the administration and they have stonewalled him for over a year and Ms. Yates, the nominee to be U.S. Deputy Attorney General, respectfully denied his request for information to do his duty of overseeing.

 

[ozeco41]

The point is that mechanisms designed to protect the system of governance of my people, like Congressional oversight, has been perverted by excessive secrecy in government. The Chairman of the Judiciary Committee has been requesting information from the administration and they have stonewalled him for over a year and Ms. Yates, the nominee to be U.S. Deputy Attorney General, respectfully denied his request for information to do his duty of overseeing.

Ignoring the hyperbole of "perverted" - how is "excessive" determined? Has that process been broken? where does your claim fit against the rule of law under constitutional provisions?

Is her "respect[ful] deni[al]" in accord with the rule of law and due process? What counter processes apply? Have they been followed?

Has it been demonstrated that the barrier to his "duty of overseeing" falls outside the constitutional provisions for rule of law?

 

[Jango]

Ignoring the hyperbole of "perverted" -

What word would you use to describe it then? If you don't like 'perverted', would 'dictated by' be better, or something of that general nature to mean that the concerns for secrecy have grown stronger than the mechanisms to maintain the checks and balances of power in government.

how is "excessive" determined?

There have been U.S. investigations into 'overclassification' dating back to the 1950's IIRC. Simply put, overclassification is reached when more government records are classified than declassified because the default posture is to classify everything.

Has that process been broken?

Oversight? I don't know how to evaluate it in terms of being 'broken', but I can confidently say that oversight isn't airtight, 100/100.

where does your claim fit against the rule of law under constitutional provisions?

From my reading, it would be something like this:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

This too:

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

Here too:

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by
this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Here as well:

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

Is her "respect[ful] deni[al]" in accord with the rule of law and due process? What counter processes apply? Have they been followed?

I suppose that Senator Grassley could go through the FOI process with the government to get the information that properly allows him to doing the job of oversight. It may become a complicated issue of who pays for what, as the FOI process is not usually free. So would Senator Grassley have to pay for the information to do his job more effectively straight from his own pocket, or could it be labeled a work expense so the taxpayers pay for it? I don't know if Senator Grassley is going to take the administration to the FOI courts about this. He may just complain a few more times before the next POTUS comes in and his demands for information will fall by the wayside.

Has it been demonstrated that the barrier to his "duty of overseeing" falls outside the constitutional provisions for rule of law?

Secret orders from secret courts certainly fall within the purview of the House of Representatives and the Senate because they are the ones who legislate and when the laws of the land are not being carried out by the executive as proscribed, it is their job to nip that in the bud. Well, when the law of the land is being openly violated because of a secret order from a secret court and oversight by Congress is not being allowed, we've now moved into checks & balances problems, or in other words, a Constitutional crisis. There are many to choose from on several different fronts. I know this isn't news to you.