LIHOP suffers a blow?

[solidslade]

Clearly, their motto is, "For every devastation there is an opportunity."

SO?

You can say that for ANY war and any attack on the United States.

It doesn't have to be the "Neocons".


Taking advantage of situations for political gains? Does'nt that apply to ANY political party in the United States? For some reason Neocons are more "devious" for doing what is natural : they have their own agenda, they see certain events as a catalyst for such agenda, than they execute. Well isn't that whats supposed to happen?


The real contention here : whether or not there was criminal negligence, or obstruction of justice. It's got nothing to do if they are Neocons or Reptilian Uberlords from Space. You CTers can't seem to separate criticizing of political agendas from criticizing criminal agendas.




Dude, honestly, you are in the wrong subforum.

Go pester the politics people or something.

 

[Obviousman]

I'm still trying to figure something out with the "9/11 truthers".

On many occasions, I put forward an alternative theory: that the government, rogue elements within the government, or elements with high-level government connections set up a "dummy" organisation purporting to be an Islamic extremist group which "recruited" the hijackers and used them as patsies to carry out their neferious plans.

This would allow the truthers to support most, if not all, of the governments findings. It would give them a far more solid base on which to place their claims of "the gubmint did it".

But they don't. They delve into holgrammes, remote control aircraft, controlled demolitions, 'stand downs' of the US military, massive conspiracys (of course accompanied with "whistleblowing" and seemingly stupid "errors" which give the whole thing away), and any number of ridiculous scenarios.

Is this proof that the average "9/11 CTist" is of sub-normal intelligence?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Is this proof that the average "9/11 CTist" is of sub-normal intelligence?

I think two things are going on. One is that the average CTist is poorer than average at fixing beliefs based on the avialable evidence.

The other is that the appeal of CT is not just hating the government, it's the thrill of the CT process, of learning grand and secret things the government does not want them to know.

How can they get that kick from LIHOP theories, or minimalist MIHOP theories like yours? There are no photos to search for "evidence", no videos to watch. There are no details to pick apart and misinterpret. There are no secret planes, secret plans, secret bombs or secret death rays, just some guy tossing a memo in the trash. It's just no fun.

 

[PerryLogan]

LIHOP makes no sense

I have never thought the "let it happen" (LIHOP) theory of 9/11 made any more sense than the "made it happen" (MIHOP) theory. They are both completely ludicrous.

1) The administration would never have let the terrorists close down Wall Street. This is simply not something the Bush Gang (or the rogue elements within it) would allow to happen. As you may recall, the administration was extremely unhappy about Wall Street being closed. They damaged the health of New Yorkers by telling them the air was safe after 9/11. They would obviously not have allowed the attack if they had known about it beforehand. You can mount a similar argument about the attack on the Pentagon: these guys simply wouldn't allow it.

2) If LIHOP were true, we would not have seen so much "prior knowledge" and attempts to forewarn the administration. If anyone in the administration had known the attack was coming, they would have taken steps to reduce or eliminate forewarnings, which would be tremendously embarassing afterwards. If you're letting something happen, you don't want your own people repeatedly warning you about it! You try to engineer these things out of the picture. Otherwise, an angry populace will launch investigations, and you'd be busted.

3) If LIHOP were true, the administration would not have panicked and gone into brainlock when they got the news. They would have been prepared. They would not, for example, have left the President sitting there reading a goat story. They would have staged/rehearsed something to make their guy look good (even if he didn't know the secret plan).

As always, incompetence remains the best 9/11 scenario. Both MIHOP and LIHOP call for an administration with competent members, which we don't seem to have.

 

[Obviousman]

I think two things are going on. One is that the average CTist is poorer than average at fixing beliefs based on the avialable evidence.

The other is that the appeal of CT is not just hating the government, it's the thrill of the CT process, of learning grand and secret things the government does not want them to know.

How can they get that kick from LIHOP theories, or minimalist MIHOP theories like yours? There are no photos to search for "evidence", no videos to watch. There are no details to pick apart and misinterpret. There are no secret planes, secret plans, secret bombs or secret death rays, just some guy tossing a memo in the trash. It's just no fun.

Hey! A Taswiegen! Cool.

That's what I figure - it doesn't give them a feeling of superiority, of "knowing something you do not", of being one of the "chosen few". Having to agree with government findings is probably very distasteful to them. Much better to disagree, and support an alternative proposition - no matter how absurd - rather than have to align themselves with ANYTHING the "gubmint" says.

 

[Oliver]

Straight from that bastion of "Left Coast" rabid Bush-fans; the LA Times.

My guess is probably not. LIHOPpers are no less religiously indoctrinated than MIHOPpers. Anything less than something wich would allow them to get completely carried away with thier unreasoning hatreds will probably be automatically discounted.

Interesting article either way. Even though (and I'm saying this as a Bush supporter) it just smells to me like someone is covering someone elses ass. I thought for sure Able Danger was going to lead somewhere, even if it was nothing more than one or more tragic blunders and missed opportunities.

I'm just suprised to see it end(?) so quietly, I guess.

It´s pretty strange that there are so many contradicting articles
out there - but the most interesting fact is that Anthony Shaffer
of the DIA said they had all needed information to possibly avoid
the attacks - but they weren´t allowed to use the Able Danger
data.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...&ct=result&cd=1&q=DIA+anthony+shaffer&spell=1

'Able Danger' Identified 9/11 Hijacker 13 Times
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200602\NAT20060215d.html

 

[Biggie]

bolding mine.

thats exactly the problem with these folks.

Where are the investigative journalists?

Where are the federal prosecutors?

None.

Unless they have credible sources and investigators, NOT THEORISTS, I'm just gonna keep rolling my eyes.

Ruppert's actually one of the better ones too. He was an LAPD detective before he became a journalist so he at least has some training in evidence gathering. Unfortunately he seems to have forgotten most of that training.

 

[ref]

1) The administration would never have let the terrorists close down Wall Street. This is simply not something the Bush Gang (or the rogue elements within it) would allow to happen. As you may recall, the administration was extremely unhappy about Wall Street being closed. They damaged the health of New Yorkers by telling them the air was safe after 9/11. They would obviously not have allowed the attack if they had known about it beforehand. You can mount a similar argument about the attack on the Pentagon: these guys simply wouldn't allow it.

You are assuming, that they would know beforehand that the towers would fall. There were the 'designed to take an aircraft hit' talks before 9/11 by Frank DeMartini and John Skilling. Had the towers not come down, Wall Street would hardly have been closed.

2) If LIHOP were true, we would not have seen so much "prior knowledge" and attempts to forewarn the administration. If anyone in the administration had known the attack was coming, they would have taken steps to reduce or eliminate forewarnings, which would be tremendously embarassing afterwards. If you're letting something happen, you don't want your own people repeatedly warning you about it! You try to engineer these things out of the picture. Otherwise, an angry populace will launch investigations, and you'd be busted.

How do you know what was done? Maybe we see only the tip of the iceberg that escaped to public knowledge or to the eyes of the people that demanded action already before 9/11. What else could they have done but ignore these warnings already out there? If you for a second think about the possibility of LIHOP.

3) If LIHOP were true, the administration would not have panicked and gone into brainlock when they got the news. They would have been prepared. They would not, for example, have left the President sitting there reading a goat story. They would have staged/rehearsed something to make their guy look good (even if he didn't know the secret plan).

So you actually try to say, that when your country is attacked you have no plans? Seriously? Even before 9/11 it seems totally absurd. In every country you immediately protect the ones in power, so the country would still function even when damaged. Every country. Why would you think yours would be different? If we buy your incompetence story, then there is no way they could have known the president couldn't be the next target. No way. But the goat story continues. No protection.

As always, incompetence remains the best 9/11 scenario. Both MIHOP and LIHOP call for an administration with competent members, which we don't seem to have.

I think you underestimate people. You say your administration is full of incompetent people? How did they get to be on those positions then. That's not incompetence. Or did they catch the incompetence only after they got power. Or are they good at the things they want to be good at. Those that matter to them.

 

[T.A.M.]

Welcome to the forum Ref.

You are assuming, that they would know beforehand that the towers would fall. There were the 'designed to take an aircraft hit' talks before 9/11 by Frank DeMartini and John Skilling. Had the towers not come down, Wall Street would hardly have been closed.

I am gathering what you are saying is that from an LIHOP pov, they had no foreknowledge of building collapse, which makes sense, and so they LIH figuring it would merely be aiplanes into buildings and nothing more. OK, from the LIHOP perspective I can see this.

How do you know what was done? Maybe we see only the tip of the iceberg that escaped to public knowledge or to the eyes of the people that demanded action already before 9/11. What else could they have done but ignore these warnings already out there? If you for a second think about the possibility of LIHOP.

I agree with Perry here. I think if they were aware that an attack was coming, and they knew when and where, which is one of the premises of the LIHOP pov, than we would not see the plethora of documented warnings that have been brought to the public view in the 5 years since the attacks.

So you actually try to say, that when your country is attacked you have no plans? Seriously? Even before 9/11 it seems totally absurd. In every country you immediately protect the ones in power, so the country would still function even when damaged. Every country. Why would you think yours would be different? If we buy your incompetence story, then there is no way they could have known the president couldn't be the next target. No way. But the goat story continues. No protection.

You are right, the USG is prepared for an attack, even pre-9/11, and that is why the Vice President was elsewhere, and was wisked away. It is why every place the president goes, is cleared by SS prior to his arrival. I think the valid point Perry makes, is that if the LIHOP pov were reality, than one would expect a much more orchestrated "reaction" to the events, a command of the situation from the outset, not 5-7 minutes of sitting reading, but rather an immediate leaving, followed by a well orchestrated Press Conference or immediate removal to AF1.

I think you underestimate people. You say your administration is full of incompetent people? How did they get to be on those positions then. That's not incompetence. Or did they catch the incompetence only after they got power. Or are they good at the things they want to be good at. Those that matter to them.

Here I agree with both of you. I think every Government will tend to have a mixture of competent and incompetent individuals within it. I also think that it is not as black and white as you are "competent" or not. For some situations, person X may be quite competent, and then not for others. As well, you must look at whether an organization within govt, or a branch of govt is "competent" as a whole or not.

IMO, there were glaring acts of incompetence in certain organizations on 9/11, and also many mistakes borne out of confusion. What I see NO EVIDENCE of is malcious intent wrt allowing 9/11 to happen on purpose OR making it happen.

TAM

 

[gumboot]

What I find odd is the theories all miss the most glaring obvious explanation.

Let's see. We have

1) MIHOP - the government carries out 9/11 itself
2) LIHOP - the government allows 9/11 to happen
3) Incompetence - the government fails to stop 9/11 because it is incompetent

In all of the above cases blame still lies with the government. It's still the CT action of blaming the government because it's a lot more comforting than the alternative.

The alternative is what I think is the case.

4) Nothing Could Be Done - the USA were beaten by a superior enemy

This is an unpleasant possibility for people to accept, because it implies another attack could happen at any time, and that there's nothing that can prevent it. It requires acceptance that the USA is vunerable, not impenatrable.

Sure, there's incompetence in government. You must be talking about several million people. Statistically some of them will be incompetent. But I don't think that's why 9/11 happened. It happened because the government were beaten. They couldn't stop it. End of story.

Why does absolutely no one put forward this possibility?

-Gumboot

 

[Brainster]

In terms of how I would regard the administration, LIHOP would be nearly as bad as MIHOP, if we're talking about LIHOP meaning that the administration knew 9-11 was coming but allowed it to happen to further their own ends. I'd be in favor of capital punishment for any administration officials that knew.

Gumboot, I suspect that most of us here would agree with #4--not MIHOP, not LIHOP, not incompetence, but an enemy that exploited weaknesses in the system that were not obvious to us.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I think the most likely scenario for what actually happened involves elements of #3 and #4. The US government was complacent about the possibility of terrorist attacks, but while the 9/11 plan could theoretically have been nipped in the bud once the hijackers were on board the planes it was more or less a fait accompli.

The closest thing to a plausible LIHOP theory is the idea that the Bush administration's complacency in the early days was partially an honest belief that terrorists weren't much of a threat, and partially the knowledge that even if there was a successful major terrorist attack on a US target that it would play to their advantage anyway.

 

[uk_dave]

The closest thing to a plausible LIHOP theory is the idea that the Bush administration's complacency in the early days was partially an honest belief that terrorists weren't much of a threat, and partially the knowledge that even if there was a successful major terrorist attack on a US target that it would play to their advantage anyway.

I certainly believe there was complacency, but there is also realism, in that within an open free society you will never be able to protect against terrorist acts.

Yes the airline security should have been tighter but you have the travelling public (that's you guys) who want air travel to be quick and easy and to not be bothered by petty regulations regarding what they can and can't carry on board a plane.

An interesting aside: We have a 'fly on the wall' documentary series which has been running since before 2001, based in Heathrow Airport and showing the day to day operations.

A couple of episodes spring to mind -

1. A guy from chicago travelling with a violin case as part of his carry-on luggage jokes to the check-in staff that it contains a machine gun. Before he knows what's happening he's got heavily armed police questioning him about what he's carrying and why he claimed it was a machine gun. He was not a happy camper but, after 9/11 I doubt he would ever have made such a stupid joke even if he hadn't been hauled over the coals about it.

2. American tourist is stopped on entering the country because he has live amunition in his carry-on, though no gun. He'd forgotten it was there, and obviously no one had picked it up when he left the US.

I know from personal experience of travelling in the states before 9/11 how easy it was for virtually anyone to go to the departure gate even if they weren't flying. Even subsequent to 9/11 I have experienced boarding a plane in Las Vegas for a flight to LA and being told via the PA that Nevada State law only requires ID to be available as you board and only to be shown if asked for.

 

[Wayne Manzo for Pres]

I think the real crux of the matter is that IF we are to believe that 9/11 was a government conspiracy, it would have taken a lot of people. Since most conspiracies are given up/away by a member of the "team", wouldn't one tend to believe that one of our conspirators would have spilled the beans by now? There is nothing more thrilling to a human than a secret.....

 

[ref]

Welcome to the forum Ref.

Thanks

I am gathering what you are saying is that from an LIHOP pov, they had no foreknowledge of building collapse, which makes sense, and so they LIH figuring it would merely be aiplanes into buildings and nothing more. OK, from the LIHOP perspective I can see this.

That's exactly what I meant. The public knowledge before 9/11 based on the interviews of the likes of DeMartini and Skilling. Construction manager DeMartini was implying the towers could even take multiple aircraft hits. And the head structural engineer, late John Skilling was taking it so far, as to say that the towers could even take the fuel dumped into the building.

"Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed," he said. "The building structure would still be there."

http://archives.seattletimes.nwsour...web/vortex/display?slug=1687698&date=19930227

The key words are 'the building structure would still be there'. So I don't think it was really an assumption before 9/11 that the towers could actually fall from this.

I agree with Perry here. I think if they were aware that an attack was coming, and they knew when and where, which is one of the premises of the LIHOP pov, than we would not see the plethora of documented warnings that have been brought to the public view in the 5 years since the attacks.

Depending on how you looks at it. The LIHOP doesn't really need that many conspirators. Only the ones at the very top not acting to anything. And it makes it seem that more real, when there is actually genuine confusion among all the other people involved. This can be compared for example to the NORAD response. How many people would it take to place some well positioned fake radar blips to the screens? It would take one single person. And that could create the entire air force response to fail. Not saying that is what happened, just suggesting that it wouldn't take that many people to create actual and very real confusion.

You are right, the USG is prepared for an attack, even pre-9/11, and that is why the Vice President was elsewhere, and was wisked away. It is why every place the president goes, is cleared by SS prior to his arrival. I think the valid point Perry makes, is that if the LIHOP pov were reality, than one would expect a much more orchestrated "reaction" to the events, a command of the situation from the outset, not 5-7 minutes of sitting reading, but rather an immediate leaving, followed by a well orchestrated Press Conference or immediate removal to AF1.

You damn sure they are prepared for the attack. What I would like to suggest is the point of creating an image. This is all psychology. You may not agree but give it a thought anyway.

The reaction everybody expects is the swift one. The president would be rushed to safety and the goat story would end in an instant. They knew there would be cameras.

So what do you have. You have probably blocked all the warnings from the very top. You have probably created a massive confusion amongst the people responding to the actual attacks at the FAA and NORAD so they could hit their targets. Your story would be, that there was a lot of incompetence and confusion, we were not prepared etc. So what would fit this perfectly? The incompetence of the very president.

The president is the first persen to be associated with the administration. Our brains act in a way that associates things, gets very strong first impressions and hangs to them etc. Here you have an image of an incompetency at the very top. A president that looks like he has no idea what to do. A president that looks like there is no plan. A president that looks like this really is a surprise to everybody. Everybody's very first impression is, that they really caught us and the incompetence image was started right away.

What if it was all planned? You knew there would be other stories about incompetence later on. They would not be so surprising and people would buy that more easily, when they have already seen that the very person associated with administration and leadership has no clue what to do. Psychology and creating the first image for the later events.

Here I agree with both of you. I think every Government will tend to have a mixture of competent and incompetent individuals within it. I also think that it is not as black and white as you are "competent" or not. For some situations, person X may be quite competent, and then not for others. As well, you must look at whether an organization within govt, or a branch of govt is "competent" as a whole or not.

Exactly, nothing is black and white. Some are competent on other things, some on others. That why we have different positions in the administration and try to get the best people for every particular position. Then they start acting as a whole. Then you have agendas some agree on and some not. It's a mixture of different people, positions and power. It would be too simplified to just say, that the entire administration is incompetent. You would have to break it down to pieces and see what really actually happened, who was involved, and why were these particular decisions made.

IMO, there were glaring acts of incompetence in certain organizations on 9/11, and also many mistakes borne out of confusion. What I see NO EVIDENCE of is malcious intent wrt allowing 9/11 to happen on purpose OR making it happen.

TAM

There seems to be incompetence and confusion. But that is also very easy to manufacture and it would seem very real, because the people in the actual organisations would not know anything. Of course, the evidence for this is almost impossible to gather. That's why it would be such a clever string of events. And that's why most people here have come to the conclusion that this really was real. Wouldn't that be the most advanced and most clever plan of all? Make it look like incompetence, but behind the scenes everything was planned. And nobody could prove it.

This reply was written from a LIHOP point of view just to give an alternative view on things. This may or may not be my own stand.

 

[332nd]

What I find odd is the theories all miss the most glaring obvious explanation.

Let's see. We have

1) MIHOP - the government carries out 9/11 itself
2) LIHOP - the government allows 9/11 to happen
3) Incompetence - the government fails to stop 9/11 because it is incompetent

In all of the above cases blame still lies with the government. It's still the CT action of blaming the government because it's a lot more comforting than the alternative.

The alternative is what I think is the case.

4) Nothing Could Be Done - the USA were beaten by a superior enemy

This is an unpleasant possibility for people to accept, because it implies another attack could happen at any time, and that there's nothing that can prevent it. It requires acceptance that the USA is vunerable, not impenatrable.

Sure, there's incompetence in government. You must be talking about several million people. Statistically some of them will be incompetent. But I don't think that's why 9/11 happened. It happened because the government were beaten. They couldn't stop it. End of story.

Why does absolutely no one put forward this possibility?

-Gumboot

I wouldn't say no one puts forward that theory. IMO We simply didn't see that kind of attack comming and we got cracked in the jaw. I do believe that incompetence had something to do with it, but in the end our weaknesses were exploited and we paid dearly.

 

[PerryLogan]

Give me a break. This is the most incompetent administration in galactic history. Remember "Bin Laden Determined To Strike Inside the United States"?

We had the Worst Administration Ever™, and the enemy cashed in on it. It's really quite simple.

 

[gumboot]

Give me a break. This is the most incompetent administration in galactic history. Remember "Bin Laden Determined To Strike Inside the United States"?

We had the Worst Administration Ever™, and the enemy cashed in on it. It's really quite simple.

Yes but it's not about an imcompetent administration, is it? It's about an incompetent GOVERNMENT. That means the FAA were incompetent, the FBI were incompetent, the CIA were incompetent, NORAD were incompetent... get the idea?

Because the terrorists didn't "beat the administration". They Beat NORAD. They beat the FAA. They beat the FBI and CIA... and so forth.

What the terrorists "cashed in on" was your free liberal society with free uninhibited movement of people.

Remember, incompetence is not the same thing as "failure". Incompetence doesn't only imply that the government did not stop the attacks. It implies they are not qualified or capable of performing their intended tasks.

In the example of NORAD, you cannot claim NORAD acted incompetently, because it was never NORAD's intended task to intercept domestic aircraft flying over CONUS airspace.

In addition, a claim of "9/11 occured due to government incompetence" you are not only saying that the government is not qualified or capable of performing their intended tasks, you are ALSO saying this is the PRIMARY reason 9/11 occured.

This is of course false. The primary reason 9/11 occured is because a group of fanatical terrorists chose to carry it out. This is the ONLY thing which is actually REQUIRED in order for 9/11 to occur. It does not require an incompetent administration, nor an incompetent government.

Lastly, this new incompetent administration only came into power less than 8 months prior to 9/11, by which stage the hijackers were already in the USA training for their mission.

I'd be curious to see what it was that the administration immediately implemented that stopped intelligence agencies preventing the attacks in the following 8 months.

Or do people honestly think there's some sort of magical "incompetence" wave that ripples through every single government department the moment a new president is sworn into office?

-Gumboot

 

[aggle-rithm]

That's a pretty silly post, Solidslade.

The reason 9/11 MIHOP conspiracy theories in general are hilariously silly is that they propose a conspiracy of vast scale doing things that make no sense. Building fake planes, planting bombs, planting evidence and so on. These theories are usually ridiculously baroque and always totally lacking in evidence.

The only thing LIHOP theories have in common with MIHOP theories is that in both cases they ask you to believe that people in the US government would want to see the USA attacked. It's far-fetched, but far less so than MIHOP fairy stories.

I will put it this way. If documentation emerged in the future proving that senior Bush administration officials knew exactly what Al Quaeda were planning before 11/9/2001, and the evidence withstood examination, I'd convert to being a LIHOP believer. I don't think that is likely to happen, but it's within the realm of what is possible.

I think this is a far more likely LIHOP scenario:

1. They knew of the attacks in advance
2. They kept the knowledge secret for fear of tipping off the terrorists
3. They tried to stop the attacks, but bungled it badly
4. They tried to cover their own @sses by keeping the whole thing quiet

I still would find it hard to believe that NOT ONE person would step forward if this were the case. There would still have to be many, many people involved in the coverup, including several who have quit the Bush administration in disgust since then.

 

[aggle-rithm]

What I find odd is the theories all miss the most glaring obvious explanation.

Let's see. We have

1) MIHOP - the government carries out 9/11 itself
2) LIHOP - the government allows 9/11 to happen
3) Incompetence - the government fails to stop 9/11 because it is incompetent

In all of the above cases blame still lies with the government. It's still the CT action of blaming the government because it's a lot more comforting than the alternative.

The alternative is what I think is the case.

4) Nothing Could Be Done - the USA were beaten by a superior enemy

Nitpick -- "alternative" means "the other choice of two".

Besides, there is a fifth possibility, which I thought of while watching a documentary about Operation Bararossa during WWII. Josef Stalin received ample warning that the Nazis were going to attack; he even knew the exact date. However, Stalin dismissed all the intel as being part of a disinformation campaign, and he refused to allow his troops to go on alert, despite the pleas of his generals. The result: a complete massacre by German army.

So, did Stalin "Let it happen on purpose"? Or was he just a CT'er who somehow got put in charge of a country, with disastrous results?