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Brainster said:
I personally see it as an enemy exploiting a weakness that we did not know was there because we could not conceive of such a savage and barbaric attack.
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That was my initial thought and after countless hours spent poring over both official and alternative theories, the song remains the same.
 
Brainster said:
But of course nobody here has been saying that incompetence is all there was to 9-11. I personally see it as an enemy exploiting a weakness that we did not know was there because we could not conceive of such a savage and barbaric attack.
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I feel much the same. Except I don't consider the 9/11 attacks as particularly savage or barbaric. Indeed, they pale in comparison to SOME things humans are capable of. The only staggering aspect of the attacks is the scale of death, and personally I'm not at all surprised that they were willing to kill so many "infidels".

I think we just never thought anyone would be so bold. When you look at it in hindsight it's such an obvious tactic for a terrorist attack that frankly I'm a little amazed 9/11 didn't happen 20 or 30 years ago.

But yeah, hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn't it?

-Gumboot
 
gumboot said:
I feel much the same. Except I don't consider the 9/11 attacks as particularly savage or barbaric. Indeed, they pale in comparison to SOME things humans are capable of. The only staggering aspect of the attacks is the scale of death, and personally I'm not at all surprised that they were willing to kill so many "infidels".

I think we just never thought anyone would be so bold. When you look at it in hindsight it's such an obvious tactic for a terrorist attack that frankly I'm a little amazed 9/11 didn't happen 20 or 30 years ago.
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Probably because the appetite for suicide missions was not so high among terrorist groups of the past. Remember, it was considered CW that suicide bombers would not come to America because the folks who do those sort of things (in Israel mostly) are typically carefully shepherded to their targets lest they lose their will.

Maybe barbaric is not the word I'm looking for; it's kind of a depraved indifference to life.
 
Brainster said:
We believe that the men and women of NORAD and the ATC centers were doing the best they could while operating under what we now understand to have been tragically mistaken assumptions. Were mistakes made? Yep. Were they honest mistakes? Yep.
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Just something I'd like to hear some opinions on.


"WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., charged Friday that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) have covered up "catastrophic failures" that left the nation vulnerable during the Sept. 11 hijackings.

"For almost three years now, NORAD officials and FAA officials have been able to hide their critical failures that left this country defenseless during two of the worst hours in our history," Dayton declared during a Senate Governmental Affairs Committee hearing."

"Dayton said NORAD officials "lied to the American people, they lied to Congress and they lied to your 9/11 commission to create a false impression of competence, communication and protection of the American people."

Here's the original source of the article:
http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/4904237.html

Its been removed and deleted from google's cache as well.

When honest people make an honest mistake do they lie about it and cover it up?

Or is Senator Dayton the liar?
 
Dazed said:
Just something I'd like to hear some opinions on.

Or is Senator Dayton the liar?
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Yers, he is, actually. This sounds like political band-standing.

If you knew ANYTHING you'd know that the NORAD deception to the commission lasted about five seconds. As soon as the commission got hold of the NORAD tapes they knew they had been told incorrect information.

Secondly, if you'd looked into it you'd know you have it all backwards.

NORAD's version of events presented chaos and incompetence. The real version of events actually paints NORAD in a BETTER light.

Indeed, NORAD did a BETTER job of responding to 9/11 than is reflected in their testimonies to the commission.

-Gumboot
 
Here are some specifics that senator Dayton seems to think qualify his comments.

"Dayton told leaders of the Sept. 11 commission, that, based on the commission's report, a NORAD chronology made public a week after the attacks was grossly misleading. The chronology said the FAA notified the military's emergency air command of three of the hijackings while those jetliners were still airborne. Dayton cited commission findings that the FAA failed to inform NORAD about three of the planes until after they had crashed."

"And, he said, a squadron of NORAD fighter planes that was scrambled was sent east over the Atlantic Ocean and was 150 miles from Washington, D.C., when the third plane struck the Pentagon - "farther than they were before they took off.""


On the face of things, I'd tend to agree with him.
I understand what you're saying though. They said they knew about the 3 planes while they were still flying, but then it turns out they didn't know about the planes until they crashed. This sort of "paints norad in a better light" as you say, because they found out too late to do anything, but it reflects poorly on the FAA. To be fair the FAA is mentioned in the article.


"Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., charged Friday that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)..."

Does it really matter which agency it is that benefits from the lie?
 
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Dazed said:
"Dayton told leaders of the Sept. 11 commission, that, based on the commission's report, a NORAD chronology made public a week after the attacks was grossly misleading. The chronology said the FAA notified the military's emergency air command of three of the hijackings while those jetliners were still airborne. Dayton cited commission findings that the FAA failed to inform NORAD about three of the planes until after they had crashed."
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NORAD weren't notified by the FAA. They were notified by the ATC Centres directly.

NEADS were notified about AA11 9 minutes before it crashed, UA175 crashed during the phone call from Boston Centre telling them about it, they were notified about AA77 2 minutes before it crashed, and they found out about UA93 4 minutes after it crashed.

So the Senator is incorrect.



Dazed said:
"And, he said, a squadron of NORAD fighter planes that was scrambled was sent east over the Atlantic Ocean and was 150 miles from Washington, D.C., when the third plane struck the Pentagon - "farther than they were before they took off.""
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A squadron? Two aircraft. Yes, they were scrambled to Whiskey 386 (military Airspace) on a 60 by 90 (60 miles on heading of 90 degrees) standard departure flight path. The Navy ATC handling the aircraft was confused over their destination so reverted to default proceedure.



Dazed said:
On the face of things, I'd tend to agree with him.
I understand what you're saying though. They said they knew about the 3 planes while they were still flying, but then it turns out they didn't know about the planes until they crashed. This sort of "paints norad in a better light" as you say, because they found out too late to do anything, but it reflects poorly on the FAA. To be fair the FAA is mentioned in the article.
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NORAD's original version was totally lacking in logic - it had them scrambling aircraft to intercept flights that hadn't been hijacked yet. IMHO the most likely explanation is the NORAD staff hadn't reviewed 9/11 before giving their presentation and really weren't sure what happened that day.

Some find this impossible to believe, given the amount of time they had, but they ignore what NORAD was doing during that time. Operation Noble Eagle has stretched NORAD to the absolute limit of its capabilities, and it doesn't surprise me at all that while struggling to cover the US with this operation, they lacked the man hours to properly investigate what NEADS did on 9/11.

Essentially NORAD's original version lumps the blame for failed intercepts squarly with them. The true version makes it clear that intercept was impossible, and that NORAD did an exemplary job getting aircraft airbourne and ready as fast as they did, all things considered.

-Gumboot
 
If there was incompetence, which I think there was, it was higher up than the average NORAD or FAA worker. It was higher up than ATC. The incompetence I believe existed, comes from the same place as the arrogance, that also contributed to 9/11...namely from the executive branch of the USG. I think there were lots of warnings about 9/11. Not specific, not detailed, but enough that I think more could have been done. Perhaps a general warning to all airport security to be extra vigillent, I do not know I am not an expert.

I think the USG executive were over confident, arrogant, and perhaps some thought the threats were not to be taken seriously.

However, The question then always comes to my mind...ok, so now if you believe they were incompetent, explain what they should have done instead. The trouble is, I am not sure, besides warning security, what more they could have done.

One CTer over at CS blog once suggested that they should have grounded all flights in the USA prior to 9/11. My argument to him was "for how long" if the warnings suggested an "impending attack" but did not offer a date, then how long do you halt all flights. Stop them for more than a couple of days and you would bankrupt the airlines. That in turn would effect the economy drastically...so that didnt seem practical.

I guess, what I am trying to say, is that the USG executive, in some areas to me exhibited incompetence, but I have no answer for what they should have done instead.

TAM
 
T.A.M. said:
I think there were lots of warnings about 9/11. Not specific, not detailed, but enough that I think more could have been done. Perhaps a general warning to all airport security to be extra vigillent, I do not know I am not an expert.
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This is the problem. It's very easy to say "they could have done something". But as soon as you look into what they actually could have done, you realise really there's nothing they could have done.

Consider how negatively people have responded to security measures put in place post 9/11. Consider how people react to security alerts these days.

This is all with the hindsight of 9/11.

Now travel back to pre 9/11 and imagine the US Government issuing similar security alerts. Imagine them establishing similar security measures.

The American people wouldn't have a bar of it.

I don't believe there was ANYTHING the US Government could have done to prevent 9/11. Why not? Because the American people wouldn't have ALLOWED it.

-Gumboot
 
Dazed said:
Just something I'd like to hear some opinions on.


"WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., charged Friday that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) have covered up "catastrophic failures" that left the nation vulnerable during the Sept. 11 hijackings.

"For almost three years now, NORAD officials and FAA officials have been able to hide their critical failures that left this country defenseless during two of the worst hours in our history," Dayton declared during a Senate Governmental Affairs Committee hearing."

"Dayton said NORAD officials "lied to the American people, they lied to Congress and they lied to your 9/11 commission to create a false impression of competence, communication and protection of the American people."

Here's the original source of the article:
http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/4904237.html

Its been removed and deleted from google's cache as well.

When honest people make an honest mistake do they lie about it and cover it up?

Or is Senator Dayton the liar?
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Politics, it has been going on for a long time.
 
Did anyone see this article in the New York Times? The government is VERY SLOW in adopting new technology. Al Qaeda (nimble) was able to make full use of the internet and other technology to coordinate their activities, while the intelligence agencies were saddled with dinosaur technology that might have been considered cutting edge in the early 1990s. Sorry to spoil the troofers belief in all this advanced secret technology and magical capabilties portrayed by Hollywood and television shows like CSI.

Though, even with all the best modern technology, it's still an immense challenge to find the needles in the haystack, connect those dots, and have something specific (a time and place) and actionable for the government to prevent 9/11. The worker bees at all the various agencies tried their best with their dinosaur technology. I'm sure they agonize over missed clues and what they could have done differently to connect the dots.
 
Abbyas said:
Gentlemen, Gentlemen!

I invited Hierosis to come on this board and speak about a specific topic. He does not have to give us his entire political views/a timeline of events on 9/11 to make a point that he feels is valid.

Considering the response he's getting (not that at times he isn't dishing a bit of it out himself), I would completely understand his not desiring to elaborate on every single opinion he has on the matter.

Just as I don't appreciate it that when I make a point, a CTer demands that I show him every single piece of evidence I have that Atta was involved, or EXACTLY how I think the WTC7 fell.

I, however, am thoroughly enjoying some of the more respectful debate and edification (jiminy, gumboot, thank you).

I still love everyone here. And so does my mother.
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So, as his hostess, can you clarify for us:
What the devil was the question?
 
gumboot said:
This is the problem. It's very easy to say "they could have done something". But as soon as you look into what they actually could have done, you realise really there's nothing they could have done.
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My personal layman opinion on this is that in the months prior to 9/11, there was also alot of bureaucratic obstacles and small department politics, maybe even nonchalance that prevented the right information to go to the right place (the CTists misinterpret this as deliberate obstruction).

This is why I think Hierosis' claim that some people should have been held accountable has merit.
 
The latest spin:

wherestree.jpg


Because nobody could have cut down a tree in five years...
 
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