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Jack White

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I find it quite interesting that while there are two ex USAF officers who are "inside job" theorists Col. George Nelson who wasinvolved in aircraft mantainence and Russ Whittenberg who was a fighter pilot, neither of them said they believe there was a "stand down"

Len

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Not even mentioning the collapse of WTC7 in their findings cannot be defended.

As I already pointed out determining why various buildings collapsed was not the main responsibilty of the Commision that originally was left up to the ASCE and FEMA and later to NIST. They didn't mention WTC 7 because ASCE and FEMA had not relesed their findings yet. The ASCE findings were incmplete NIST is still working on thei final report. One obvious reason it got less attention than the towers was that no one died in its collapse. Just as with the Twin Towers NO ONE with any RELEVANT expertise questions the conclusion that the building collapsed due to impact damage* and resultant fires

*In the case of WTC 7 the impact of debris from the North Tower

Len Colby posted a link and stated: "The bit about hijackers being trained by the gov't was dealt with here." As if somehow that was a rebuttal of what Ullah Jan wrote above. I went there and searched in vain for any identification or credentials of those responsible for the website. Perhaps I missed it. But they did write this good advice:

Whatever you believe about 9/11, the spreading of false claims helps no-one, and we'd like to play a small part in revealing some of them. We're not about debunking entire conspiracies, then, but will use this site to zoom in on what we think are the more dubious stories, revealing the misquotes, the distortions, the inaccuracies that are so common online.

But does this make us an authority? No. If we've an overall message here, it's check things for yourself. Don't trust a site just because it's telling you what you want to believe. Don't believe us without evaluating our arguments and checking the references we provide, either (we're as likely to make mistakes as anyone else). Look into the claims yourself, discover both sides of the argument, and make your own mind up. The truth deserves nothing less. (Bold mine)

I looked at what they offered about claims some of the highjackers were trained to fly by the U.S. Government. They cited Newsweek magazine as a source. Here is what Newsweek's team of authors said:

Sept. 15 — U.S. military sources have given the FBI information that suggests five of the alleged hijackers of the planes that were used in Tuesday's terror attacks received training at secure U.S. military installations in the 1990s.

THREE OF THE alleged hijackers listed their address on drivers licenses and car registrations as the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Fla.—known as the "Cradle of U.S. Navy Aviation," according to a high-ranking U.S. Navy source. Another of the alleged hijackers may have been trained in strategy and tactics at the Air War College in Montgomery, Ala., said another high-ranking Pentagon official. The fifth man may have received language instruction at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Tex. Both were former Saudi Air Force pilots who had come to the United States, according to the Pentagon source.

But there are slight discrepancies between the military training records and the official FBI list of suspected hijackers—either in the spellings of their names or with their birthdates. One military source said it is possible that the hijackers may have stolen the identities of the foreign nationals who studied at the U.S. installation.

The five men were on a list of 19 people identified as hijackers by the FBI on Friday. The three foreign nationals training in Pensacola appear to be Saeed Alghamdi and Ahmad Alnami, who were among the four men who allegedly commandeered United Airlines Flight 93. That flight crashed into rural Pennsylvania. The third man who may have trained in Pensacola, Ahmed Alghamdi, allegedly helped highjack United Airlines Flight 75, which hit the south tower of the World Trade Center.

My point is the information provided by the website that Len Colby provided to deal with "the bit about the highjackers being trained by the gov't" seems to either support or be inconclusive about Ullah Jan's claims. And frankly, whether it is or is not, the fact that they use sources like Wikpedia makes it incumbent to heed their advice and check the references they provide. And check other sources. Somehow, I think you do that Ron.

Mike Hogan

It's quite revealing that Mike didn't include this quote from the Newsweek article

"But there are slight discrepancies between the military training records and the official FBI list of suspected hijackers—either in the spellings of their names or with their birthdates. One military source said it is possible that the hijackers may have stolen the identities of the foreign nationals who studied at the U.S. installations."

This could could very well be the case as some of the people who were first identified as hijackers turned up very much alive.

Nor did he include this from the web page:

" "What we have here is a situation of people with identical names", said Harry White, public affairs officer at the base. He said the school has had more than 1,600 people with the first name Saeed, spelled various ways, and more than 200 with the surname Alghamdi.

White maintains, however, that none of the Saeed Alghamdi students was involved with terrorist activity. "We have found no direct connection between any of the foreign students trained at NAS Pensacola and any of the terrorist suspects,? he said."

There was also a NY Times article which says some of these identifications were cases of mistaken identity, I will try to find it.

Indeed if one goes to http://192.com/ you will there are 144 Attas registered to vote in the UK 13 of them have MOHAMMED or some varient as their first or middle name. If 13 British citizens have that name how many Mohammed Attas are there in the World obviously quite a few.

Rather than take my or Mike's word for it I suggest that any one whose interested check out this page read it carefully and read all the linked articles

http://www.911myths.com/html/trained.html

Len

Edited by Len Colby
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If the tape is genuine, Bin Laden is obviously exaggerating his role in taking full responsibility for 9/11. To cite a few examples, his hand-picked operatives did not take down WTC7. His handpicked operatives did not send the scrambled jets from Langley flying east over the ocean instead of toward the Washington area until they were ordered to turn around. His handpicked operatives did not fly Flight 77 into the one single section of the Pentagon that had been recently reinforced and was not fully reoccupied, thus magnanimously minimizing loss of life and damage to the building. (Who might have wanted to do that?) His handpicked operatives did not tell the U.S. Secretary of Defense to hide from his duties and responsibilities in his office during the attacks, nor did they tell the Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to hide in the office of Senator Max Cleland till the attacks were over, nor did they tell General Wingate, in charge at the Pentagon war room, to take that morning off beginning at exactly 8:30 am, nor did they arrange to have the U.S. President remain preoccupied with a pet goat story during the attacks (his Secret Service men thus seemingly endangering a whole schoolhouse full of children). There are many things that Bin Laden and his hand-picked operatives could not have arranged to assure the uninterrupted success of the 9/11 operation.

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If the tape is genuine, Bin Laden is obviously exaggerating his role in taking full responsibility for 9/11. To cite a few examples, his hand-picked operatives did not take down WTC7.

They took down WTC 1 which dammaged a set fire to and ultimately took down WTC 7

His handpicked operatives did not fly Flight 77 into the one single section of the Pentagon that had been recently reinforced and was not fully reoccupied, thus magnanimously minimizing loss of life and damage to the building. (Who might have wanted to do that?)

The evidence shows that they did. How would Hani Hanjour know what part of the Pentagon "had been recently reinforced and was not fully reoccupied"?

His handpicked operatives did not .. tell General Wingate, in charge at the Pentagon war room, to take that morning off beginning at exactly 8:30 am,
nor did they arrange to have the U.S. President remain preoccupied with a pet goat story during the attacks (his Secret Service men thus seemingly endangering a whole schoolhouse full of children).

Except for the last few minutes before he left the school it was not known after the 2nd plane hit that another plane had been hijacked. I agree that Bush's actions showed him to be a complete moron who was clueless without an advisor to tell him what to do.

I believe that if Bush & Co. knew what was going to happen Rove would have scripted him taking some bold action and acting all presidential. His actions earned him scorn. I saw a trailer for "Scary Movie 4" (or was that 5?) and they mock Bush (as portrayed by Leslie Neilsen) in the school [i won't seen the movie but that part made me laugh]

Ron what difference would it have made if Bush, Rummy, Wingate and Myers were "at battle stations"?

Len

Edited by Len Colby
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here's the jist of it.An audio tape perporting to be bin laden has been placed on a jihadist web-site.

On the tape (which has, at time of writing yet to be authenticated) Bin Laden takes full responsibility for the 911 attacks, and even claims to have hand picked the operatives.

I would be interested to know what members make of this.

It's hard to say Steve, It's probably real but would be surprised if the CIA or some rival Jihadist or Lord knows who faked it.

Len

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Guest Stephen Turner
It's hard to say Steve, It's probably real but would be surprised if the CIA or some rival Jihadist or Lord knows who faked it.

Len

Thanks Guys, To cover all viewpoints it seems to me that there are three possibilities.

1, Its Bin Laden, he enjoys pulling the Neo Cons tail in this manner.

2, its Bin laden but not the Bin Laden Bush would lke us to believe in, he was a CIA asset in the 80,s and remains one to this day.

3, Its a total fake got up by the agency, Bin Laden is in all probability dead, and has been for some time.

Yer pays yer money and you takes yer choise.

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If I have missed any please add your own.

4. Its a total fake got up by the agency, Bin Laden doesn't mind taking the rap because it helps him recruit people.

My belief:

5. He's responsible and enjoys taking credit because it boosts his ego and helps him recruit people.

Off Topic!

Stephen - # 17 for your signature - Joe D did it because of JFK's affair with Marilyn...

Edited by Steve Ulman
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Ron what difference would it have made if Bush, Rummy, Wingate and Myers were "at battle stations"?

Hi Len,

I've heard people say this time and time again. I find it incredible that at a time of national crisis, when nobody knows exactly whats going on or how far this threat extends that the President and senior cabinet ministers/ secretaries would not be rushed to safe points or areas where they safely oversee the situation.

As we have often heard the US government believes that terrorist organisations are trying to get their hands on Nuclear weapons or something similar ( a dirty bomb), surely the possibility of these being used would have been taken into consideration during the attacks.

What difference it would have made is irrelevant, what does matter is that it would be irrational not to protect the president and others just to save face and not cause panic.

I'm not commenting specifically on 9/11, this should be applied to any national emergency.

It is my opinion that the precautions taken were not sufficient.

All the best,

John

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With the release of the NORAD tapes, it was necessary to revise and update my article "United Flight 93 and the NetJet." I have now completed that chore (August 5, 2006). Rather than try to post the whole article again as before, which requires some reformatting etc. for links in the many footnotes, I am deleting the old version here and simply providing the link to the new online version for those interested. Most of the posts in this thread are unfortunately irrelevant to the subject matter anyway.

http://www.crevmore.com/united.html

Edited 10/15/07 to update URL.

Edited by Ron Ecker
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The mayor of San Frasisco received an anonymous warning that it wouldn't be safe to fly, and he wasn't the only one.

Then I assume you will have no trouble saying who these other people were and document your claims.

What you said about the "Willie Brown warning" was highly misleading and inaccurate.

1) I noticed that you failed to mention that Brown is a liberal (albeit machine) Democrat. Odd that one of the plotters would have risked the security of the entire operation to warn him. If such a plot were revealed all involved would face the death penalty. Odd that he would get warned and Barbara Olsen didn't, unless you believe Tom Flocco and she is still alive.

2) The theory that Brown was "warned" seems especially strange since he was in no danger. He was scheduled to fly out of San Francisco at 8 AM western time (11 AM on the east coast). True not all conspirators would know all the details but if they were informed enough to know the day presumably they would also know the plan was to attack targets in NYC and DC early in the morning (early morning flights have less passengers and are less prone to delays).

3) The warning was not anonymous; Brown said he got it from his "security people at the airport".

4) The warning came on Sept. 10 but was not specifically for Sept. 11. Nor did it tell him not to fly only that "Americans should be cautious about their air travel".

5) Brown paid so little heed to the warning he was waiting for his ride to the airport when he heard about the attacks and later said the call "didn't come in any alarming fashion, which is why I'm hesitant to make an alarming statement."

For 2 – 5 above see http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/09/12/MN229389.DTL

6) One would think that if a friend had warned Brown, not only would he have not been on his way to the airport but he would have kept his mouth shut be he told the press about it. If he knows something why hasn't he said anything else? If he is telling the truth about the warning why would he lie about the source?

7) There is no independent confirmation he got such a call. Might he have made it up to get attention?

8) It seems that if Brown received such a warning it was probably not based on "insider" information but rather on a State Department travel advisory issued Sept. 7 according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

"Bin Laden's people had made statements three weeks ago carried in the Arab press in Great Britain that they were preparing to carry out unprecedented attacks in the U.S.," she said. "Whether that was the derivation of this (State Department ) bulletin, I don't know."

The warning dealt primarily with military bases in Japan and Korea.

But as Shultz pointed out, the mere fact that a warning was issued indicates that "something was cooking."

And indeed, in the one-page alert, the State Department said it had received information in May 2001 "that American citizens may be the target of a terrorist threat from extremist groups with links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organization."

"Such individuals have not distinguished between official and civilian targets," the report said, adding, "As always, we take this information seriously. U.S. Government facilities worldwide remain on heightened alert."

"They had some sort of rumbling of something," Shultz said, "even if they didn't pinpoint it in the right direction."

U.S. State Department representative Julie Reside in Washington downplayed the significance of the bulletin yesterday, saying it was only the latest in a series of "periodically" issued public warnings by the department.

Reside said warnings are available to media organizations and on the state department's Web page.

"If it was based on intelligence, we cannot, of course, provide any details, " Reside said.

It's not the first time this year that the bin Laden organization was mentioned in a "worldwide caution." The first warning came in May, and was later updated on Sept. 7 to include the threats to U.S. military personnel in Asia.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...L

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Ron please provide link to verifiable sources for these various claims. A few observations.

I believe it was one of the air traffic controllers who directed the plane to confirms the crash. Obviously the controller in Cleveland would have no way of knowing if people on the ground a few hundered miles away in Pennsylvania had sighted it

Probably there weren't any planes that could be easily scrambled in the area. The USAF only had 14 planes in 7 locations ready to be scrambled. On the east coast the loacations were Otis AFB whose fighters were patrolling the skies over NYC, Langley AFB whose fighters were patrolling DC and Tyndall AFB in Florida whose fighters probably could have been put to better use the being sent a few thousand miles away. In any case the contoller didn't have direct contact with air force bases and took the sensable step of asking a plane in the area to take a look.

As for the 911 call. Both the operator who took the call and David Felt's brother who heard the tape denied that he (Felt) said anything about smoke or an explosion. http://911myths.com/html/explosion_and_smoke.html

Len

.

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Guest Stephen Turner

Has this tape been authenticated yet, I can find no further mention of it in the English press, or on the net. Steve, thanks for the suggestion, I will keep it in mind.

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Ron what difference would it have made if Bush, Rummy, Wingate and Myers were "at battle stations"?

Although John has already taken the time to answer this dumb question, I will now take the time to respond with one example. (Perhaps I shouldn’t call the question dumb, I should call it rhetorical, as I have to believe that you asked the question already knowing the answer, as any intelligent person would know, your purpose in asking it I can only guess, unless it was to test the intelligence of others).

Two days after the 9/11 attacks, Richard Myers, an Air Force general and Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared on Capitol Hill for his confirmation hearing. It was this hearing that his meeting with Senator Max Cleland on the Hill was about on the morning of 9/11, consuming all of his time, without interruption for things like an attack on America, from right after the first plane hit the WTC until Flight 77 hit the Pentagon.

At this hearing, Myers could not even tell the confirmation committee, which naturally had questions about the military response to 9/11, when or if jet fighters had been scrambled. It is unclear whether this was because the military was still working on an scenario about scrambled jets, or whether Myers had simply never heard of a briefcase, which is something that important officials carry around with them containing important documents to refer to when asked the most basic and obvious questions at things like confirmation hearings. Myers simply told the committee, "So we stood it up. And we started talking to the federal agencies. The time I do not know is when NORAD responded with fighter aircraft. I don't know that time." With specific regard to "the (plane) that eventually crashed in Pennsylvania," Myers said, "I do not know, again, whether we had fighters scrambled on it." He not only didn't know the time, he didn't know, two days after the attacks, whether the military had scrambled any jet fighters at all to try to reach Flight 93.

Myers's excuse? "As you remember," Myers told the senators, "I was not in the Pentagon at that time, so that part of it is a little hazy." Myers offered no excuse, given his haziness, for not having a shred of documentation with him to answer a question that he had to know would be asked.

Is Myers really that stupid? No, there are a lot of adjectives I could use to describe Myers, but stupid isn't one of them. Let's suppose that Myers had been at the Pentagon, instead of in effect hiding in Cleland’s office. Obviously one of the first things he would have had to ask in his capacity as Acting Chairman in such a situation was whether or not jet fighters were being scrambled. Would it have made any difference had he been there to ask this elementary question, or to order it done? Most probably yes, in the case of Flight 93, which was considered to be hijacked by 9:34 (radio contact was lost after 9:27, which was justification enough for military assistance), was never lost track of for any appreciable time, and did not crash until 10:03, just as F-16s were reportedly arriving (having not taken off from Langley to head for DC till 9:30, while Myers was still meeting with Cleland). But Myers, as we know, remained in a location that morning where he was ostensibly without a clue as to what was going on in the outside world, and where he was therefore conveniently not in a position to have to ask questions or give any orders.

I could cite the other examples, such as the Secretary of Defense virtually hiding in his Pentagon office, as Myers was virtually hiding in Cleland's, after both twin towers had been hit. Rumsfeld declined an invitation from assistant secretary Victoria Clarke and other officials to walk with them down the hall to the National Military Command Center (the obvious way to gain "operational awareness," as Rumsfeld himself likes to call it, and where he would be expected to ask such questions as whether or not jet fighters had been scrambled), saying that he wanted to stay in his office and "make a few phone calls."

This phone-calls excuse is not even included in Rumsfeld’s own accounts of that morning (it's from Clarke’s account). According to Rumsfeld, he simply sat in his office and listened to his daily CIA briefer as usual until the building was hit (at which point he had "no idea" what might have hit it).

But enough on the subject, I’ve wasted enough time already. (Was that the purpose of your question?)

Edited by Ron Ecker
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Ron please provide link to verifiable sources for these various claims. A few observations.

I believe it was one of the air traffic controllers who directed the plane to confirms the crash. Obviously the controller in Cleveland would have no way of knowing if people on the ground a few hundered miles away in Pennsylvania had sighted it

Probably there weren't any planes that could be easily scrambled in the area. The USAF only had 14 planes in 7 locations ready to be scrambled. On the east coast the loacations were Otis AFB whose fighters were patrolling the skies over NYC, Langley AFB whose fighters were patrolling DC and Tyndall AFB in Florida whose fighters probably could have been put to better use the being sent a few thousand miles away. In any case the contoller didn't have direct contact with air force bases and took the sensable step of asking a plane in the area to take a look.

I will presently be editing the post, to include more details on fighters, and links where they still exist.

As for the 911 call. Both the operator who took the call and David Felt's brother who heard the tape denied that he (Felt) said anything about smoke or an explosion. http://911myths.com/html/explosion_and_smoke.html

The dispatch supervisor Glen Cramer read, on the day of the crash, from the call transcript. He had also monitored the call, handled by John Shaw. Do you really believe that they or the person who wrote the transcript just made up the explosion and fire?

The link within your link that alleges that dispatcher Shaw denied there was any reference to explosion and fire does not work. In any case, the FBI confiscated the tape, and Cranmer was told not to discuss it (per an extensive report by London's Daily Mirror, quoted by WorldNetDaily 1/25/03). It is therefore hardly surprising if his subordinate Shaw changed his story subsequently.

The tape that Felt's brother heard was played for him by the FBI. That makes the tape worthless, given that discredited agency's proven track record of manufacturing, destroying, ignoring, or altering evidence, notably in cases where any government "conspiracy" is at all suspected.

There is a legitimate question, based on the known physics, as to how many of the cell phones calls from the hijacked airliners were actually made, as opposed to being produced by the government. Particularly suspect is Barbara Olson's unrecorded, implausible as quoted call from Flight 77 to her husband, given that Ted Olson, who is on record as saying there are times when the government has to lie, couldn't get his story straight about it, and the 9/11 Commission could do little to help him out.

Was the Felt call bogus too? If so, that raises interesting questions. Was there a scenario in effect by which the plane was to be shot down, and then its destruction blamed on a terrorist bomb? (There were two radio transmissions conveniently heard from hijacked Flight 93 saying that there was a bomb on board.) Felt's call would have been confirmation of a bomb. But any such scenario was of course jettisoned, and the tape of Felt's call may have been edited accordingly.

All part and parcel of the unanswered questions of 9/11.

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