RUSS: Provided you are up to multiple discussions here, i will continue. Say the word, and i will move aside and let you and Scientologist continue one on one.
I realize Operation Northwoods was only a plan but it does indicate intent. It at the very least did include the killing of innocent civilians whether or not they were "American". It also implies that the killing of U.S. servicemen was a possibility if you consider the layers of the plan. Bolding is mine. The Maine had fatalities and also took place in Cuban waters.
Agreed, that Op NW was a plan, that indicated intent. The question is by who. Kennedy rejected the plan. You will get no argument out of me, that in politics there are dark, reprehensible seeds. It is a stretch, for me, to go from Op NW in the sixties, to 9/11 in 2001.
“Word came that Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania. Aides frantically called the White House to find out whether a military jet had shot it down.
'The vice president was a little bit ahead of us,’ said Eric Edelman, Cheney's national security advisor. ‘He said sort of softly and to nobody in particular, 'I think an act of heroism just took place on that plane.'"
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLI...ney/index.html
My first impression, is that I do not know if Cheney was aware of a "Flight 93" up until they were made aware of the crash. He was aware of the attacks in NYC, and of course they knew of the Pentagon crash. There has been alot of debate about how accurate Mineta's testimony was, both in content, and also in his recollection of the time things occured. As well there has been some debate about what he meant when he said "of course the order stands" as to what the order actually was. There is speculation on both possibilities, that it was to shoot down the plane, or not to shoot it down.
Now if Cheney did mean to shoot it down, than his line about heroism makes no sense, as he would assume that the plane, Flight 93, was shot down as per his order.
If Cheney meant (his order was to) not shoot down the plane, than would he not, upon hearing that flight 93 crashed, assume that something else must have happened, given he told them not to shoot it down, but it went down. One possibility is that he felt that maybe someone on board had done something heroic.
I suppose the third option, maybe what you are getting at, is that he knew all along that the plane would go down, and that fabrications of what had happened on board had already been created...I can see where you are coming from, but I believe the opinion is tainted by the pov you have taken with the whole thing...ie it is a conspiracy. Take your notion of it being an "inside job" out, and then look at it, and I for one think the third option to be the least likely.
As well, if Cheney were one of the evil plotting conspirators, and a diabolical plan it was, if it happened, why on this earth would he casually let such damning testmony out?
The least likely thing of all the possibilities that would've happened to that aircraft is that passengers could take control of the cockpit and cause the hijackers to crash it. There is no historical precedent for such a thing to even come up with the idea. In retrospect we were told the 4 hijackers had bombs, knives, box cutters and mace. They were overpowered? Inexperienced hijackers might have lost control of a plane they had never flown before, a bomb may have gone off, or maybe it was shot down. Is there any other "official" evidence that something else took place on that plane to suggest Cheney's psychic powers?
If you read the transcript of the Voice recorder, It does not indicate until the very end that they were able to get into the cockpit, and that was after considerable beating upon the cokcpit door. What is hard to understand. These people had accounts from family members that the USA was under attack by terrorists taking over planes and ramming them into buildings. At this point, they likely figured they were going to die unless they did something, so they gathered themselves, formed a plan, and carried it out.
The hijackers, most likely had no bombs, but made threats they did. They had knives, and mace, but at the time, they (the hijackers) were locked in the cockpit, so these things did not factor into it, until the passengers broke into the cockpit.
I will answer this in two parts. By facilitated I mean that a very small element of our own USG had total awareness and that others in the chain of command followed orders without knowing what was going on and that certain operations were conducted by agencies outside of the US. I believe that our Intelligence agencies were actually on the trail and pursuing this with patriotic integrity.
This is a common argument used, but I do not buy it, especially without someone at least providing a reasonable idea of how exactly this was carried out wrt the 9/11 attacks in particular. It is easy to say...oh a few big wigs knew, and the rest just followed orders, but that is not nearly good enough.
I have no argument with the quote on pg 14 of the PNAC article. There is no doubt, NONE, that the USG policy on the middle east for the upcoming years involved a military presence there.
The connection to a quote 40 pages later, that is specifically referenceing the introduction/development/production of new INTELLIGENT DEFENSE WEAPONRY AND SYSTEMS (the pearl harbour quote refers to this) is very weak. The Afghan and Iraq Wars have bogged the USG down in a long bloody battle, both physically and politically, and has not advanced the agenda of devloping and producing INTELLIGENT WEAPONRY and SYSTEMS, but rather has just depleted existing elements of the current defense weaponry and systems. The war has also likely cost the REPS the congress and the executive. This is not even to mention that the super cabal people claim carried out 9/11, couldnt even get some WMDs and facilities planted in Iraq, once they had Saddam on the run, in order to justify their war. That seems to me, to be a much easier thing to do than 9/11.
The greatest cover-up is the 9/11 Commission itself which, "the Bush administration initially opposed the creation of" in the first place
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...11.commission/ . It was established more than a year after 9/11 and given an original budget of only $3 million to investigate the greatest single tragedy on American soil in our history. They were allotted only 18 months and the timing was adjusted because they didn't want the final reporting to occur during election season. After the 9/11 Commission Report was finally released they actually did a road show promoting it like celebrities. They have marketed it and pushed it like a dime store novel. In September of 2006 it was even being turned into a "comic" book or "graphic novel.
As far as the delay of the set up, or the original opposition, I will conceed, though I have not read enough about the finer aspects of this.
As to the budget and time, what (besides the commonly used clinton investigation, which is not a fair comparison, given the numbers include the Whitewater affair and court costs, I believe) is the basis for saying $3 Million was too little and 18 months not enough time. Also, was this initial $3 Million, when given, given with the message "This is all you are getting."
As to the marketing of it, while in poor taste, agreed, they probably did so for political reasons.
Americans were painfully affected by this attack as a country. We have a right to know how and what happened in all respects and any legitimate government would have honored this. Bush and Cheney had to be literally pressured into testifying before the 9/11 Commission. One of their conditions was, "There will be no recording of the session, and there will not be a stenographer in the room" which , "means there will be no verbatim account of the question-and-answer session, but Gonzales said, 'information will make ... its way into the report in some fashion or another, I suspect'"
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...11.commission/ .
Why would they be opposed to an investigation of the greatest crime ever perpetrated against America and then not want any "verbatim account" of their testimony?
My stance on this is that trying to prevent a 9/11 investigation for the cover up of involvement or ineptitude are both unacceptable.
I feel that this part is certainly troubling, in the sense that I think both should have testified independent of the other, and that details should have been recorded at the time. I am no BUSH defender, and I suspect the reason for both being present is that BUSH needed help so as not to F&*k things up...but to be covering for the killing of 3000 americans...no I do not think so.
I have no issues with your perspective on the poll.
TAM
