Former conspiracy believer here

[holycanoli]

Attack aircraft? Fighters armed with cannon and air-to-air missiles were scrambled.

I agree but they were not over the capitol building for about an hour after the first hit on the tower was made and nearly 45 minutes after the 2nd tower was hit.

 

[8den]

I agree but they were not over the capitol building for about an hour after the first hit on the tower was made and nearly 45 minutes after the 2nd tower was hit.

Okay you've not from "none at all" to 45 minutes.

Holy what, for you, would have been an acceptable response time?

 

[MRC_Hans]

Again, my apologies for not being as smart as you in term of military capabilities but to me, when you don't plan on securing the capitol, you're being derelict in your duties either as a general or on the civilian side.

The Capitol? Was the Congress convening at the time? If not, why should the Capitol, as a building, be a primary object to defend? Surely, there must be more important potential targets.

Hans

 

[Unalienable]

It wasn't the first conspiracy theory I had swallowed, either. In retrospect, it is obvious that every time I've fallen for one it was primarily for emotional reasons rather than rational ones. A conspiracy theory doesn't stick unless it has some kind of emotional appeal.

Diagoras, I too used to gobble up conspiracy theories to help satisfy my gut hunch that the people in power today are capable of enormous evil. I tried to approach everything skeptically, but the problem is that I basically was exposing myself to propaganda with an attitude "I am too smart to be brainwashed". I don't care how intelligent you are--after enough hours, it wears you down.

However I detect a crucial difference between your experience and my own. You seem to lump "conspiracy theories" into one nice, neat, package, so that then you can set the entire heap aflame. In my experience it's not that easy at all. Conspiracy theorists often find themselves studying history, both old and recent. And contrary to popular belief, not all of the history that conspiracy theorists use to bolster their opinion is false.

What I found is that many of the historical accounts asserted by the so-called wackos are not false; these are not conspiracy theories per say, but dark periods in human history. I hesitate to provided examples in fear of my point being derailed in the details, but you know what I'm talking about--the real conspiracies. Perhaps we should not endorse the conspiracy theorists' conclusions, but I think any intelligent person should want to reach some sort of conclusion. There is too much at stake!!!

Is America slipping into authoritarianism? Is the Bill of Rights on its last legs? To what extent do we really have a free press? These are very serious questions, and I am glad that I exposed myself to every possible perspective, from the delusional paranoids to the blissful pollyannas.

 

[Nick227]

Again, if I'm going to believe in some conspiracy, I'm going to need to see some evidence.

Yeah, sure, corporations frequently act against the interests of the public for profits. But you have to realize that these are human beings here. They do have consciences, and they do have some semblance of basic human morality. It takes some serious brainwashing or some serious mental problems to overcome one's instinctual aversion to killing thousands of people in cold blood. Do you honestly think that hundreds, maybe thousands, of people could have put those basic moral thoughts out of their head, and have never spoken to anybody about it?

If you are brainwashed into thinking that Allah is going to reward you for killing the infidels, and you have been brainwashed into dehumanizing the infidels as evil people who deserve to be punished, it's not hard to get someone to martyr themselves and take thousands of lives in cold blood. That's the kind of thing I can understand. But who's going to steer a plane into a building of innocent people so their boss can make a buck?

And more to the point, what kind of company is going to even consider such a risky maneuver? I mean, there are so many ways you could be caught trying to set up such an elaborate scheme like 9/11 and trying to shut everybody up afterwards. If you screw up just once, the whole plan backfires, your corporation probably collapses and you're thrown in prison for life if not executed. Not exactly the kind of investment that a calculated risk-analyzing capitalistic thinker is going to make.

Corporations get greedy. Free market principles get lost, for sure. But there are deeper things than this that are concerning here. Increasing evidence that the mass media is under a degree of centralised control, viz seemingly separate media orgs all kowtowing to a covert party line when required. The covert and systematic destruction of a myriad older cultures across Africa and Latin America by the World Bank and IMF, countries progressively drawn into one central global trade network under a high degree of centralised control. The continued maintenance of an "us and them" Western culture with orchestrated hate figures like Russians or terrorists, sustained by the media and keeping people busy with some largely fictitious enemy out there, rather than examining what's going on at the apex of their own country or culture. The bombardment of people with short term pharmaceutical solutions to their increased feelings of social and cultural estrangement, and the systematic blockading of effective long-term treatments. The covert maintenance of an utterly ineffective illicit drug control policy by USG, ensuring people stay addicted whilst effective treatment strategies are not examined, and the CIA fund covert strategic ops with the cash they make from drug-running.

It's hard to prove. I wouldn't say for a second otherwise. But the patterns of activity in key social and political areas point to a covert centralised agenda being progressively pursued by an organised group largely hidden from the public gaze.

Yes, we're all humans. But people with high psychological damage often adopt overtly dualistic "us and them" worldviews simply to cope with pain and fear. The feeling of control, the feeling of power over others ameliorates inner feeings of weakness and the need for vulnerability. History has shown that people can do some pretty evil **** to each other once they've become disaffected, de-empathised, once they identify one group as "us" and another as "them."

False flag ops to keep the Western public focussed on exterior hate-figures and dramas are nothing new. Vietnam, for example. It's a pay-off for people down the line, arms manufacturers, but mostly it's to keep people locked into fear. To keep them malleable, and flexible to your will. To keep them voting for their own incarceration with Patriot Act type legislation. The CIA have so many crime and drug contacts from decades of dodgy ops they could have set up a terrorist cell in Afghanistan easy. You create cell structure at each layer of the operation. Everyone not at the top on the terrorist cell believes they are going to die for Allah. At the top of the cell, the head man knows the deal and connects back with his contact in the West. Simultaneously you plan the op and feed info back to your man in Afghan. If you need to draw fire a little on the day with some military exercises to keep your own guys busy, then you can do that too. Very few people need know. CIA have for years been operating with covert agendas and cell structure, need-to-know policies.

It's not about one country's dominance over another. It's about global control of people and extending that control...aggressively, where needed.

Nick

 

[chillzero]

Stop bickering!!

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: chillzero

 

[Nick227]

So Nick, are you saying that radical Islamist terrorists don't exist? Are all of those suicide bombers etc just patsies of the evil West? Are you saying that they couldn't organise themselves without assistance from the CIA (or whoever)?

If so, it sounds a bit racist. If not, please explain just what it is that you are saying.

Just saying that the World Bank or the IMF are more interested in making a profit than improving the lives of the poor is no great revelation to me and neither is it proof of some world domination conspiracy. Just bankers doing their usual stuff.

Radical Islamic terrorists exist. Radical Islamic terrorists with the suss to set up 9/11 on their own I'm skeptical about. The whole op is way too pat. With the media, Iraq, Afghanistan, Patriot Act, new Western hate-figures, and arms contracts. I don't buy it.

You don't need to control everything to control the world. In fact controlling absolutely everything is counter-productive. You just need to know where the big levers are, the big fulcrums, the places where, if you control that, you've have the majority say.

With the World Bank and IMF I don't think it's so much about profit. There's only so much money you can usefully have. Check out some of the multitude of non-CT, humanitarian and local on-the-ground sources on the activities of these orgs. Doesn't their agenda look like covert globalisation?

A Fate Worse Than Debt, Susan George 1988
50 Years Is Enough

Nick

 

[Dave Rogers]

Radical Islamic terrorists exist. Radical Islamic terrorists with the suss to set up 9/11 on their own I'm skeptical about. The whole op is way too pat. With the media, Iraq, Afghanistan, Patriot Act, new Western hate-figures, and arms contracts. I don't buy it.

What worries me about that attitude is it's not far from crypto-racism. The assumption is that we clever Westerners are intelligent enough to set up all kinds of false-flag operations designed to confuse and bamboozle, but a group of Arabs, while capable of hijacking airliners when manipulated into doing so by us clever Westerners, don't have the initiative or the organisational ability to plan it on their own. It's almost harking back to the logic of the British Empire and the white man's burden; these people aren't clever enough to run their own lives and countries, so we have to run their countries for them. It would be ironic, though hardly unusual, if a basically anti-imperialist movement should come so closely to mimic the attitudes of the people it claims to oppose.

Dave

 

[Nick227]

What worries me about that attitude is it's not far from crypto-racism. The assumption is that we clever Westerners are intelligent enough to set up all kinds of false-flag operations designed to confuse and bamboozle, but a group of Arabs, while capable of hijacking airliners when manipulated into doing so by us clever Westerners, don't have the initiative or the organisational ability to plan it on their own. It's almost harking back to the logic of the British Empire and the white man's burden; these people aren't clever enough to run their own lives and countries, so we have to run their countries for them. It would be ironic, though hardly unusual, if a basically anti-imperialist movement should come so closely to mimic the attitudes of the people it claims to oppose.

Dave

Yes, fair enough - "suss" wasn't a good choice of words and could be misconstrued here. But it's about access to info rather than some implicit cleverness or lack of it.

Nick (race background Anglo-Iranian)

btw, not being facetious but could I ask - does the possibility that it's true concern you, or more the race implications?

 

[Dave Rogers]

Yes, fair enough - "suss" wasn't a good choice of words and could be misconstrued here. But it's about access to info rather than some implicit cleverness or lack of it.

Same objection. Obtaining freely available information is a task that requires intelligence, although frankly not all that much. What did the hijackers need to know that they couldn't have found out using Google? The Payne Stewart interception could well have been a pointer to the difficulty of intercepting aircraft within the US borders, and that wasn't a secret. How to hi-jack an airliner is Terrorism 101 stuff, as is smuggling contraband through airport security. Learning to fly requires nothing more than money. The Twin Towers, the Pentagon and the Capitol are on the map. Airline schedules are published. KSM and OBL both have engineering degrees, and took a chance that the towers might fall based on their specialist knowledge. What else did they need to know?

Nick (race background Anglo-Iranian)

Hence, not Arab.

Dave (as Caucasian as it gets)

 

[Nick227]

Same objection. Obtaining freely available information is a task that requires intelligence, although frankly not all that much. What did the hijackers need to know that they couldn't have found out using Google? The Payne Stewart interception could well have been a pointer to the difficulty of intercepting aircraft within the US borders, and that wasn't a secret. How to hi-jack an airliner is Terrorism 101 stuff, as is smuggling contraband through airport security. Learning to fly requires nothing more than money. The Twin Towers, the Pentagon and the Capitol are on the map. Airline schedules are published.

Hi Dave,

Would you say that it would have been as easy to carry out the attacks whether you were, for example, being given information and assistance from figures with direct access to Western military intelligence as not?

KSM and OBL both have engineering degrees, and took a chance that the towers might fall based on their specialist knowledge.

Can you explain me the bolded bit? Don't quite follow.

caucasian as it gets

As in Caucasus mountains, northern Iran?

Nick

 

[Dave Rogers]

btw, not being facetious but could I ask - does the possibility that it's true concern you, or more the race implications?

Responding to the edit - what concerns me is that, given that there is nothing about the 9-11 operation that appears particularly difficult for a well-funded terrorist organisation to undertake provided they have operatives prepared to take on a suicide mission, the statement that Arabs could not have done this is difficult to interpret as anything other than racism. I'm not sure what you mean by "the possibility that it's true".

Dave

 

[Nick227]

Responding to the edit - what concerns me is that, given that there is nothing about the 9-11 operation that appears particularly difficult for a well-funded terrorist organisation to undertake provided they have operatives prepared to take on a suicide mission, the statement that Arabs could not have done this is difficult to interpret as anything other than racism.

Well, I wasn't aware that it would be as easy to undertake the operation as you seem to be implying. I must admit I had assumed that US air defences would have figured for this kind of thing more. BTW, I can be a bit rascist at times, so thanks for bringing it up.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the possibility that it's true".

Sorry, I meant the overall scenario, not just 911. Does it concern you?

Nick

 

[Dave Rogers]

Would you say that it would have been as easy to carry out the attacks whether you were, for example, being given information and assistance from figures with direct access to Western military intelligence as not?

That's a conspiracist's question. I would ask, what is there about the attacks that would require any such information?

Can you explain me the bolded bit? Don't quite follow.

Osama bin Laden has stated that his aim was for the jet fuel to melt the steel and bring down the Twin Towers. He was wrong, but unfortunately not wrong enough.

Dave

 

[Dave Rogers]

As in Caucasus mountains, northern Iran?

No, as in the US meaning of the term. Having now looked it up, it's singularly inappropriate in this context. Strike "Caucasian", replace with "North-Western European".

We're getting a bit out of step here because I'm trying to reply to your edits. As I think I've tried to convey, there's nothing about the conventionally accepted 9-11 narrative that strikes me as in any way prohibitively difficult for a well-funded, middle-eastern based terrorist organisation with well-educated operatives prepared to undertake suicide attacks and prepared to trust a certain amount to luck; particularly not given that having four airliners hijacked and then shot down by the USAF could very easily be spun into a massive propaganda victory anyway.

Dave

 

[Minadin]

I agree but they were not over the capitol building for about an hour after the first hit on the tower was made and nearly 45 minutes after the 2nd tower was hit.

Okay you've not from "none at all" to 45 minutes.

Holy what, for you, would have been an acceptable response time?

I think that sometimes people are more familiar with Langley, Virginia, which is the suburb of Washington DC where the CIA headquarters is located, and hence gets a fair amount of movie time in flicks such as Mission: Impossible. It's only about 7 miles away from the mall in DC:

But, it doesn't have an airfield; at least it doesn't have one closer than Dulles or Reagan. So, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to say that these interceptors were scrambled from this location. To the best of my knowledge, the fighters were stationed at Langley AFB, which is still in Virginia, but it's just outside of Newport News, which is entirely across the state, 130 miles away from DC:

Of course, there's also some pesky details with regard to what the pilots thought their orders were, and the general confusion of the day, but that's all been covered before. I think that these immediate response time expectiations may just be an honest mistake on the part of some people.

 

[Vincent Vega]

At short notice? Yes. There's no such thing as 100% protection. A peace-time domestic-originating threat to the Capitol, from the air, was not considered likely. The cost of maintaining protection for such a highly unlikely threat would be enormous. The military does not have endless funds.

Until 0903 no one on the ground had any idea the US was facing a coordinated terrorist attack. At that time all strikes had been against New York. It was not until 0921 that the military or FAA had any notion that Washington DC might be a target.

NORAD were not notified of the hijacking of UA175 until 0903:


The United States military's power is in force projection - their ability to bring military power to any corner of the globe within a matter of days. Most of their operational military assets are focused on this role - carrier task groups, Marine expeditionary forces, the 82nd Airborne, special operations, and so forth.

NORAD has two roles - a relatively minor peace time role and a much more extensive role in the event of a full scale attack. The 9/11 attacks fell between these two - a peace time, domestic originated, small scale attack. NORAD were not designed to deal with that sort of threat, and were not capable of dealing with it.

As for "vital assets", I would say the US military's most vital assets are their carrier battle groups, all of which are protected 24/7 by a fighter CAP. None of the US military's major commands are based at the Pentagon.

I don't think you understand the impossibility of what you're expecting to have happened. NORAD had two pairs of fighters to cover the entire north east sea board. Their role in hijackings was strictly limited to escort and observation duties.

I don't know where your 48 minutes comes from, but 0921 was the first time NORAD had any awareness that Washington DC might be a target. That's not 48 minutes warning, that's 16 minutes warning. NORAD duties required aircraft to be airbourne 15 minutes after a scramble was issued. Find me a fighter that can fly from Langley to Washington DC, locate and intercept a low-level airliner travelling at 400MPH, ascertain that airliner has hostile intent, engage the airliner and shoot it down, all in 60 seconds, and you may have a point.

In my view you're letting you Hollywood-informed expectations cloud your understanding of how the real world operates.

It was Congress that clipped NORAD's wings.

NORAD had five fighters in the air less than an hour after they knew something was happening. By two hours, there were CAPs over New York City and Washington DC with as many as a dozen fighters airbourne.

By mid afternoon NORAD had 300 fighters in the air supported by AWACS and tankers, had implemented a modified version of the wartime SCATANA Plan, and had CAPs over every major US city.

I don't think you appreciate just how phenomenal an achievement that was.

Nonsense. This Cessna penetrated Soviet airspace from outside. The aircraft on 9/11 didn't even have to do that. Secondly, the Russians protected their airspace much more harshly than the US does. Simply compare the number of commercial airliners the Russians have shot down for entering their airspace unannounced with the number the US has shot down.

The vast majority of the fighters based around the US are for training purposes or for defending the USA in the event of a full scale attack. During peace, when there's no threat of an air attack, those defenses are not on standby, because frankly maintaining them on standby is flat out impossible. Instead a skeleton crew of fourteen fighters was maintained at seven bases around the perimeter of the contiguous USA, tasked primarily with intercepting drug smugglers trying to sneak through the ADIZ down near Florida, and occasionally popping up to investigate commercial airliners coming from overseas who had suffered radio or transponder failures.

That's all they were there to do. That has always been NORAD's mission, for over fifty years.

You don't seem to appreciate the logistical difficulty of maintaining the sort of defenses you expect. I suggest you do some reading up on Operation Noble Eagle, and in particular the enormous strain this put on the part time pilots and ground crew of the Air National Guard.

It's simply not feasible. No country in the world can maintain what you expect during peace time.

-Gumboot

For a Kiwi you know WAY too much about US strategic air defense.

The NWO cat may be paying you a visit!

 

[Nick227]

That's a conspiracist's question. I would ask, what is there about the attacks that would require any such information?

Are you implying that the state of US air defence on that day was normal, and either well-known or reasonably easy for a terrorist group to establish? (I'm presuming this is how you're backing your comment about racism. Could be wrong)

I'm not trying to defend a position here. I'm actually just interested as to what your viewpoint is.

Osama bin Laden has stated that his aim was for the jet fuel to melt the steel and bring down the Twin Towers. He was wrong, but unfortunately not wrong enough.

He sounds like a CTist himself! Did his engineering degree not give him knowledge of the relative melting point of steel and the burning temperature of jet fuel? Do you really believe this guy planned the attack? Seems like an odd thing to not be aware of, if it was his stated intent to bring the towers down.

Nick

 

[Dave Rogers]

Are you implying that the state of US air defence on that day was normal, and either well-known or reasonably easy for a terrorist group to establish?

I think that the general consensus is that the state of US air defence on that day was normal for that time, yes. The knowledge that Payne Stewart's private jet took 80 minutes to intercept was available to anyone prepared to look through newspaper archives, and could have served as an indication as to how long the hijackers might get before interception themselves. And as I said, four hijacked airliners shot down by NORAD is still a success, albeit a smaller one.

He sounds like a CTist himself! Did his engineering degree not give him knowledge of the relative melting point of steel and the burning temperature of jet fuel?

(1) Yes to the former but quite possibly no to the latter.
(2) His comments may have been mistranslated or simplified, he may have considered the effects of the building contents.
(3) He may have been spinning the results after the fact.

Do you really believe this guy planned the attack? Seems like an odd thing to not be aware of, if it was his stated intent to bring the towers down.

It was his stated intent after the fact. We can't be certain whether the collapse of the towers was intended in advance, whether OBL thought they might fall but would have been satisfied with just severe damage, or whether it had never occurred to him that they might collapse but he chose to claim that had been the intention. It doesn't particularly matter, because just crashing the planes into the towers was a spectacularly high-profile operation whatever followed.

Overall, I'm just pointing out that these were not, to use the language of some truthers, "cave-dwellers", but educated and intelligent people who were quite capable of planning four co-ordinated hijacks.

Dave

 

[Belz...]

Are you implying that the state of US air defence on that day was normal, and either well-known or reasonably easy for a terrorist group to establish?

All they had to know was that NORAD was not supposed to deal with such threats, and that under the threat of bombs on board, the passengers would comply.