Thanks for the debunking.
Openly acknowledged.
I am not the person to turn to here. jimd3100 is, he is obviously far better informed about these matters than I am.
I don't see you addressing his (or paloalto's or...) posts and claims as pertinently as mine. I wish you were - that is my point here: Address the actual arguments, not the arguers.
I'm interested in historical facts, so I have on the one hand no opposition to them being presented, and on the other hand a strong dislike for the presentation of false ones (especially when presented in the manner of well-established background facts, which is how long-debunked rumors like the Saudi escape flight myth become so persistent).
I have far less interest in political narratives and spin, unless they are either destructive or useful. Paloalto's narrative, however accurate the historical facts he builds them around, is about how the Bush administration must have known about the 9/11 attacks in advance; in other words, LIHOP conspiracy, which is part of the same old truther nonsense, and hence neither destructive nor useful.
Jimd's political narrative is more neutral: people engaged in geopolitics make compromises and end up with strange bedfellows. This is not surprising; the Saudi's habit of playing both sides of the pro-West anti-West fence is well known, and of course governments on both sides play along. The details are interesting, but they don't tell a story that's either potentially useful or potentially destructive. That is in large part due to the Truth Movement's years-long effort to render their own general topic, hidden conspiracies related to 9/11, a uninhabitable wasteland littered with the burning husks of absurd false claims.
Oystein's narrative e.g. "They paid for the crime of the century…" demonstrates the transition from jimd's historical digging to political spin, with the assistance of demonstrable untruths that happened to fit in. You literally applauded that; possibly you would wish me to also "address" jimd's claims by engaging in the same. Perhaps taking the opposite spin, for maximum entertainment value. "You can't prove nothin' and America hell yeah!"
Letting the narrative filter the facts,
turning history into performance art where everything is subservient to appearances and genre tropes, is not in my nature to perpetrate or tolerate no matter which "side" of whatever issue is doing it. It's what Truthers did, but they're not the only ones, by a long shot. The only reason for claiming planes were holograms is that it fits the style of a high-tech ninja conspiracy thriller. (Have you taken the red pill?) The only reason for claiming secret flights whisked high-ranking Saudis away through closed airspace is that it fits the style of a smoked-filled-room political scandal potboiler.
I appreciate that you've accepted the correction, but I note that that doesn't seem to have affected your enthusiasm for Oystein's story.
For my part, I do not applaud.
If you want my political narrative, that I see as most likely based on the facts I have, I'll summarize it briefly but any discussion of it should adjourn to a different subforum. America is a decadent and crumbling empire, currently in the phase (seen in many past decadent crumbling empires in history) in which it's controlled by the oligarchy. Its collapse began before I was born and will continue for a century or more after I'm gone. (People confuse collapse with apocalypse, which is silly.) The collapse is based on thermodynamics; it can be slowed or hastened but not arrested or reversed. And other world powers, including China and Russia and Europe, are on or heading for similar slopes with different timing but equal inevitability. There are seven billion people in the world, and we're keeping most of them alive by desperately chewing through non-renewable resources while neglecting the social and material infrastructure that makes it possible to do that. That means there's not enough of those resources to keep the current population alive for their currently expected lifespans, nor to build alternative systems with anywhere near the same capacities. It follows that the bloodbaths of the 21st century will make those of the 20th look like the period of relative peace and prosperity that it actually was.
I hope I'm wrong. But since I don't think I am, you might be able to see that the revelation that certain U.S. Repulicocrats were being strange bedfellows with certain Saudi Shiunnis on and around 9/11, or that U.S. policies have either accidentally or by design helped keep the middle east in misery for generations, is not particularly shocking nor politically useful. And a single event fifteen years ago in which fewer people died than died that same day (and every day) from cigarette smoking, was a milestone along that trajectory, not the pivotal historical turning point that such examination implies it should be. With or without embellishment by creative Truther myths, it's not going to inspire any calls for reform or any uprisings. Americans, given the Truth Movement's scorched earth and the passage of fifteen years, are more riled by Hillary's emails. Can't fix it by yelling how wrong it is.
History's actually a lot more interesting when every detail that comes to light isn't being co-opted (or rejected) as being the "smoking gun" (or being obvious disinfo) for (or against) someone's pet theory or narrative. Even my own.