9/11 Obstructionism

If I'm not mistaken, the FBI had a computer with some good info., but they could not take a look at what it had because of fear of lawsuits.

As George Will said (paraphrasing), "The problem is not the FBI looking into all our computers, it's the FBI not looking into one computer."

 

The motivation for this is unclear. Is it just a Profile in Political Cowardice? A contempt for democracy and open accountable government?

It seems to be part of a continual pattern: Cheney refusing to disclose what his contacts were with Enron officials and other energy executives; the closed meetings of the Pentagon parallel intelligence network that provided cooked and erroneous intelligence regarding wmd that was at odds with other more established agencies, like the CIA, the Sate Department and the Department of Energy.

Doesn't any of this worry you who generally support Bush? What if there were real lapses in intelligence pre 911 that can be corrected and we don't hear about it? Is possible damage to Bush's career either deserved or possibly undeserved important enough to just bury this? Do you always think that you can count on possibly negligent government officials to investigate themselves and take steps to correct things without public outcry?

 

OK, I can't keep quiet any more. I'll add a few points to the above articles.

(1) Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses and condemned to death by the Ayatollah Khomeini, was not allowed to fly on the major airlines in the week preceding Sept 11, 2001.

(2) Gov Jeb Bush of FL activated the FL National Guard on Sept 7th, 2001. Why? The reason was posted on his web site: Terrorism. (Damnit, Jeb! Stick to the script!) I'm sure Dubya's presence in FL was a coincidence.

(3) Mohammed Atta's luggage mysteriously didn't make it to the connecting flight (Portland, ME-Boston, MA). It contained all sorts of "incriminating evidence" (flight manuals, letters written to family members that experts later debunked as not being written by a Muslim).

(4) Jets were not scrambled until too late on 9/11, although they're supposed to launch immediately upon an airliner diverting from its flight plan.

(5) White House staffers took Cipro a week or two before 9/11.

(6) Building 7 (I think), a smaller WTC building, exploded for no known reason. Pictures of it look like a bomb detonated inside it (a hole in the middle of the structure). Falling shrapnel from the other buildings could not have caused this.

(7) Condi Rice telling Meet the Press how they never imagined these airplane attacks could happen over U.S. soil, although reports for years state that terrorists were planning to do exactly that.

(8) Eyewitnesses in PA report a military fighter jet flying low to the ground just before the plane nose-dived. Wreckage was strewn over a very wide area. FBI officials arrived and told an eyewitness and the town mayor that no military jets were in the area. Gee, thanks, guys. Guess I'll get some glasses. And have my hearing checked. And take some time off from work: oh the stress!

(9) Dubya reported not once but twice to different groups how he watched the LIVE footage of the first plane hitting the WTC. Guess what? That footage was never LIVE. The 2nd WTC attack, yes. Saying this once indicates mistaking the 1st attack with the 2nd; but he said it twice, on different occasions. "Oh my goodness what a horrible pilot." No, George. But nice try.

(10) Why have all 4 videocamera tapings of the Pentagon attack gone missing? Why have we never seen them? Are we really supposed to believe someone trained at a Cessna flight school could maneuver a gigantic airliner 270 degrees and bring it in so low and so accurately....oh, never mind.

(11) Newsweek reported how quite a few Pentagon staffers cancelled flight plans on 9/11.

I could go on and on.

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Those ladies are brave, but I wish the mainstream media had the guts to report it. But they won't.

So many people act like George W. Bush is such a hero. But let me finish with a paraphrase from "Rebuilding America's Defenses," the neo-con wetdream Bible written about 10 years ago, that advocates striking at countries that could threaten U.S. interests (naming Iraq, Syria, Iran, and North Korea) and adding that the rest of the world might not go along with the strategy, barring a massive external attack like Pearl Harbor.

 

Actually Bush is scared that it will come out that his administration didn't do anything.

It would come out that Bush's team didn't follow the plan to thwart Al-Qaeda that was left to them by the Clinton administration. The Clinton team came up with a plan that would have put special ops in Afghanistan on the ground looking to find Bin Laden, it would have cut funding to Al Qaeda from phony charities. Clinton's plan suggested calling on other governments to help and join in the fight to stop Al Qaeda. The plan was presented on a number of occasions to the Bush team, who were didn't take any real action other than a few meetings, where they considered the plan, and decided it was probably a good one. Sandy Berger in a meeting with Condi Rice warned her directly about having to deal with Bin Laden. Then add that to the FBI reports that were sent warning of airline hijackings etc.

Clinton's team came up with the plan in 2000, but sadly it wasn't acted upon until after 9/11. One senior Bush official told Time magazine that the plan was basically everything the Bush administration started doing after 9/11.

Congress also proposed taking money from the 'Star Wars' missle defense program to spend on terrorism. Donald Rumsfeld was aghast and threatened to get a presidential veto if Congress tried it.

These kinds of things are already out there. I think bringing attention to these facts and who knows what else, is maybe what the Bush administration doesn't want to focus attention on.

Also thank goodness the myth that Sudan wanted to hand over Bin Laden and Clinton refused has been cleared up.

 

You're not actually saying that the US government flew those planes into the WTC and Pentagon are you? If so you're taking something a lot stronger than Cipro.

 

I don't think that's what he's saying. But it shows that there are a lot of questions left unanswered. The Bush Administration obviously knew something was coming, and likely even had specifics. It's pretty dang reasonable to investigate what went wrong, who screwed up, and how we can keep it from happening again.

However, seeing how much this administration has gained since Sept. 11, it's not surprising they don't want to roll-back this country's blind faith in the American government.

 

he was, and he did....he was in Houston the day before. do you think he walked here?

this stuff is so ridiculous. yes, roxtia...the administration personally carried out the attacks on 9/11. they're just not telling YOU. most of the rest of us in republican circles know this already...i shaved my entire body in preparation of the day. we're actually all islamic extremists, but we also worship owls and elephants.

in closing, i'd like to add...halliburton. thank you, and good night.

 

That is exactly what he is saying, and he has said it before several times.

What I find so hilarious is this lunatic is never corrected by the other lefties on this BBS. In fact, this permanent fixture of the "back slapping cadre" is well respected for his level of hatred for our President.

.....funny stuff.

 

Madmax, I know it is a lot easier to pick on a misguided poster who thinks Bush planned 9/11, if that is what he said.

As far as your other straw man. The guys who flew the planes on 9/11 and their supporters are responsible for that action. Duh.

Now answer the question raised. Should we have a public airing of possible negligence by US secruity agencies regarding 911?

Don't you think the public has the right to know?

 

read his last paragraph, gv...that's exactly what he's saying...that Bush wanted to strike out at nations and so he needed an excuse to do it...so they created the mirage of a massive terrorist attack...by personally killing 3000 americans.

 

Lunatic, part 2.

 

i didn't set up any straw man, glynch...a post like that just makes me mad. doesn't it you?? even a little bit??? even despite your dislike for the administration??

i don't know if we should or shouldn't...i don't know how i feel on that...on one hand, i'm not sure it tells us anything. governmental immunity prevents any sort of lawsuit. the public has a right to know things to the extent they don't compromise security...i realize that's very easy for a tyrant to hide behind..but i'm not sure how else you live with it.

ultimately, i'm not about assigning political blame to anyone for what happened on 9/11. not at all. logical people don't point at rape victims and say, "yeah...she had it coming to her." the same is true of civilians murdered in office towers.

 

Whether the administration knew or not that something was coming is debatable. But they certainly received multiple warnings about the danger, and in fact received proposed plans on how to deal with it from the Clinton team. None of the warnings or plans were acted on until after 9/11.

On Bush advisor speaking of the Clinton team's plan told Time magazine that it included everything the Bush team has been doing since 9/11. However the plan had been available to the Bush administration from the first day he took office. Sandy Berger also met with Condi Rice and warned her of the dangers specifically of Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden.

So while the Bush administration might not have known, but they were certainly warned. So the leap that they did know does not make someone a lunatic.

 

Didn't we always know of the threat of hijackers crashing planes into landmarks...or power plants...or other targets?? I mean, it doesn't take James Bond to figure that one out.

But saying that...and then saying that somehow the Bush administration could have prevented this thing...are two entirely separate statements altogether. We all knew that eventually there would be some sort of significant terrorist attack here in the States...but posting the kind of stuff of Roxtxia did is entirely different.

 

No, it makes me scratch my head for a half-second and then draws a . Conspiracy theories are (generally) not something I take offense at, at least not if there isn't any truth. Most people take serious offense to these things as a result of the cognitive dissonance created when something strikes a note of truth.

It is not about lawsuits it is about the truth, no matter how painful that truth may be.

If the woman could have expected the police to stop her attacker (raped outside a police station) then we should place the blame on both the attacker and the people who were assigned to protect but were derelict in their duties. This inquiry is about identifying and correcting the lapses that caused our law enforcement agencies to miss 9/11.

 

you wanna know what "security lapses" caused us to miss 9/11....here it is...i'll break it down for you in one word...it's called, "liberty."

see...we believe in things like the 4th amendment...we believe in due process...we believe that people have certain expectations of privacy...now we want to look back at the authorities we demonize and say they did us wrong by not being more stringent...by not searching people more...by not being more intrusive. we hear people b**** here everyday about the override of our liberties since 9/11...if that's what it takes to keep us safe, can you imagine what the reaction would have been if those plans had been implemented before 9/11??? can you hear the people now talking about the creation of a police state??

we had some intelligence that al qaeda was planning on doing something in the states..i'm guessing we've had intelligence similar to that since the first Gulf War.

ultimately, what upsets me about this is that it's nothing more than a political attack...that's it. i don't like the president...hey, he's probably behind the attacks that killed a few thousand Americans.

great.

 

ultimately, what upsets me about this is that it's nothing more than a political attack...that's it. i don't like the president...

I'm sure you feel that this is true, but how do we know without an investigation that is out in the open?

How can you be sure that there wasn't negligence?

you wanna know what "security lapses" caused us to miss 9/11....here it is...i'll break it down for you in one word...it's called, "liberty."

Come on don't be silly or overly drmatic.. It could be something as small as the FBI not having the type of culture in which they take reports from the field offices seriously. Changing a few procedures is hardly an attack on 'liberty".

 

you wanna know what "security lapses" caused us to miss 9/11....here it is...i'll break it down for you in one word...it's called, "liberty."

There a thousand ways that public hearings benefit us. What did we know? What kind of intelligence would have helped us? What went wrong? Are/were there communication issues between intelligence agencies? Was information not getting to the right people? Have these things been corrected? These are the kinds of things hearings get answers to. Public scrutiny is the absolute best way to improve the system - if the goal really is to minimize the likelihood of another attack, then there HAS to be public analysis of the situation - embarrassment to the administration or not.

We went through ridiculous public scrutiny of Clinton's personal life for political reasons... but you know what? I guarantee it made him less likely to have another affair than had it all been kept quiet. Public accountability is the best motivator for improvement.

 

glynch, i think you misunderstood me. my point wasn't that changing procedures would be an attack on liberty, necessarily...my point is that we live in a very open society, and the terrorists are able to exploit that. that's all i meant. yes, we could do a much better job of assuring the safety of every citizen from terrorist attack...but we'd better be willing to check the Bill of Rights at the door. Israeli security officials have been telling us for years now that we're too lax about security...but, like you, I'm not ready to become like Israel to be more secure.


as for your first point...what do we hope to find? so we find negligence...isn't the lesson already learned? haven't we already learned just how capable these terrorist groups are? again, we were told by countless "experts" that one day, the terrorists would rise up and bite us. they did. it sucked. but what i'm hearing in the tone of these posts is more of a blame game. "well clinton told those guys they better watch out...and they just ignored him!" well what the hell was clinton doing all those years, if he knew there was such a threat? and what was bush 1 doing before that?? and reagan before that?? terrorism is nothing new...people were hijacking planes back in the 70's and early 80's. we knew this was a threat...and yes, we didn't take it as seriously as we should have. i don't know how that works logistically...or what "taking it seriously" actually looks like. but clearly we didn't take those threats seriously enough....