Len Colby

Recent history shows that Brazil will make the final because I moved here in 1993 and they've made it every Cup since then after a 24 year absence! LOL They should win it too because they are 5 - 2 in finals and 2 -1 since I've been here. These historic patterns prove little, France never made it to the finals before '98, Germany and Brazil played in every postwar Cup and one or the other made it to every post-war final except '78 (when Brazil came in 3rd) but they never played each other in the Cup till the last final. Also Brazil did make it to the finals in France and Argentina made it to the final in Italy so Mark's prediction off an all European final goes against recent history. Cup history goes against Mark's prediction. There was only Cup where Brazil, Germany or the host country didn't make it to the final that was 1938, there was only one Cup where neither finalist had been a finalist before that was 1934 Brazil as always will be the teem to beat but there are a lot of stong teams and always surprises, no one expected Germany or Brazil to do well lat time and who would have expected South Korea would make it to semis? As for my homeland The US doubt they'll make it to the 2nd round Len

Truth be told YOU brought up the black boxes on this thread. I replied and suggested if you wanted to furthur debate the issue that you start a new thread Len

The only thing that seems elementary is that some people need to improve their reading skills! I already addressed that obvious point. Faking CVR tapes would be relatively simple matter since they record on electromagnetic tape and CVR's can be bought on the Internet. This would have been especially easy for flight 11 because it was under the domination of the hijackers for 33 minutes (8:13 – 8:46) [1] and CVR tapes only record the last 30 – 32 minutes of a flight and no one knows what the hijackers' voices sounded like. Flight 175 was hijacked at about 8:42 [2] and crashed 21 minutes later so they only would have had 9 minutes of cabin crew dialogue to fake some of which could have been extracted from the ATC tape. Can FDR data be faked? I'm not sure but I don't think it would be too difficult and as stated above 9/11 CTists believe the FDR data for flight 77 was faked. Officially 4 black boxes, both of the ones from flights 77 and 93, were recovered but two, the CVR from flight 77 and the FDR from flight 93, were too badly damaged to retrieve any information. If we are too believe proven xxxx Mike Bellone he and 3 – 4 firefighters saw the recovered boxes, it would have made a lot more sense to say that any boxes they could not fake were also too badly damaged. The boxes aren't designed to withstand colliding into steel framed buildings at over 500 MPH and then have tons of debris collapse on them and then spend several days (or weeks) in a burning debris pile which may have gotten to 1500 F (815 C) in hotspots 1] http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timelin...ay_of_9/11=aa11 2] http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timelin...y_of_9/11=ua175 CVR = cockpit voice recorder FDR = flight data recorder ATC = air traffic control Len

On another thread Ron wrote: To which I replied: * I highlighted the paragragh above because Ron has yet to address it. To which Ron replied: "Michael Bellone did not claim to help find the black boxes at Ground Zero. He said he observed their recovery." Partially true "Bellone said he was on the scene when DeMasi and three FBI agents found one of the boxes but said the other two were uncovered in different locations, adding the agents left the scene with all three boxes." [ http://www.arcticbeacon.com/3-Dec-2004.html ] Without seeing a direct quote it's hard to say but it sounds like Bellone is claiming to have at least been 'along for the ride' at least part of the search. And he is the only person saying publicly that he saw the "black boxes" and he is the publisher and a co-author of the book in which DeMasi mentions having found them. "The worker who helped federal agents find the black boxes was fireman Nicholas DeMasi, who describes the recovery (three boxes out of a total of four) in one paragraph of his article in the book about Ground Zero." I don't have the book but I have only ever seen two paragraphs of it (page 108) quoted regarding the boxes: I think a few things are odd about this account: - In the first paragraph and beginning of the second it sounds like he and the agents had not found the boxes yet: he was "assigned" to help federal agents "to search for" them, when they "were getting ready to go" one of the agents accidentally pushed Demasi and his ATV with its "million dollars worth of equipment" down the stairs. But by the time it got to the bottom they had found three of the four boxes. Perhaps they went out and found the boxes after that but it's strange he wrote about the stairs incident but says nothing about how and where they actually located the boxes and how the expensive sophisticated equipment was used. It's odd that he mentions such an important find in such an off hand way. - The NYFD denies this happened presumably if he had been "assigned" to help the FBI (?) agents the assignment would have come from his commanders in the department. Is the department leadership helping cover up the murder of hundreds of their men and thousands of citizens? - We are not told the names of the agents nor which agency they worked for presumably if you are driving federal agents around Ground Zero in your ATV (he claims to have donated several to the NYFD) your would know their names or at least who they worked for. -No one else saw this or if they saw it haven't said anything. Indeed two members of a 9/11 truth group said "If DeMasi's story is true, then there has to be others at Ground Zero who may have witnessed the recovery of the black boxes...There may even be pictures or video of the recovery since FEMA and OSHA monitored the entire site." [ibid] Indeed Balloney told a CT researcher, "I know two or three others saw what went down, but they are not talking". He claims that they were intimidated by the agents "They confronted me and told me to not to say anything…I said give me a good reason? When they couldn't, I told them I wouldn't shut up about it" and "They got to those guys after they talked to me." [ http://www.arcticbeacon.citymaker.com/articles/article/1518131/17860.htm ] Again the account is puzzling why didn't Bellone mention this incident in the book? Did they only tell Bellone and the others but not DeMasi to shut up? If DeMasi was threatened and mentioned the find despite the threats why didn't he say anything about the intimidation in the book? And why would he make such an important revelation in such an off hand way in an obscure book 'self published' by Bellone's "charity" group? Also it's hard to believe the other firemen could be so easily intimidated, these are guys whose job it is to risk their lives to save those of strangers on a regular basis. Would they participate in a cover up involving an incident that killed hundreds of their colleagues and thousands of their fellow citizens? Highly unlikely, NYC firemen show no signs of being afraid to confront authority as shown by their 'riot' when Giuliani announced the suspension of efforts to find additional human remains at Ground Zero. DeMasi 'talked' and hasn't suffered any ill consequences and Bellone won't shut up and the only problems he's had were of his own making so what would the other firemen be afraid of, if Bellones story is true they'd be safer talking than keeping quite. "If they wanted to secretly find the black boxes why would they involved a fireman and a volunteer?" "Is it possible that at the time they looked for and found the black boxes in September 2001, the federal agents knew nothing of any government intent to keep it a secret?" Not according to Mr. Ballone in addition to the above he said, 'the day the 'black boxes' were secretly carted away agents acted like "something big was going down." ' [ibid] once again if true it's strange that DeMasi didn't mention this, the finding of the boxes comes across as no big deal something of less interest than the ATV getting push down the stairs in front of an expensive men's clothing store. "...if DeMasi is still alive..." He is listed with Verizon, why don't you give him a call? Bellone is a less than reputable source. His claim to have been made an honorary fireman has been disputed by the NYFD which arrested him for being in possession of stolen FD property. The Fire Marshal who arrested him called him "a fraud". http://www.gmtoday.com/news/local_stories/2005/October_05/10182005_10.asp There are other indications that he is less than honest. He seems to have told people he was a NYFD firefighter or even the "safety director" at Ground Zero. In a September 11, 2002 article from an MIT newsletter he is identified as a firefighter four times and once as "World Trade Center Task Force Fire Safety Director". http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2002/911-sunday-0911.html. In a Dec. 13, 2002 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article Bellone is described as "a civilian fire safety director" [ http://www2.jsonline.com/news/wauk/dec02/102901.asp ], In an article from the September 2002 issue of 'Big Apple Parent' Bellone is once again as a fire fighter and "Fire Safety Director". [ http://web.archive.org/web/20040207191032/http://www.parentsknow.com/articles/article.php?id=1031066144 ]. He is given similar titles in these articles: "fire safety director for the Fire Department" (church newsletter NYC April 23, 2003) [ http://www.ssmbos.com/Pages/sept11.html ]; "Mike Bellone...of the New York Fire Department … Fire Safety Director Mike Bellone of FDNY" (Naples, FL city government newsletter March 27, 2003) [ http://manager.naplesgov.com/updates/2003/20030331_-_March_31_2003.pdf ], "Michael Bellone, FDNY safety director" (NY Post, February 12, 2002) [ http://www.soundanalarm.net/babylon/revisited.html ]; "Five representatives of New York City firefighters… Mike Bellone was the safety director at Ground Zero. Several television programs interviewed him for programs to be aired today …Dennis Fisin worked at St. Paul's Chapel during the 10-month recovery." (Nevada Appeal, September 11, 2003 ) [ http://www.nevadaappeal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/.../NEWS/309110101 ]. They said he was interviewed by local TV stations, I wonder if he told them he was the "Fire Safety Director" at Ground Zero too. Seven separate publications including major newspapers over a one year period from New York, Boston, Wisconsin, Florida and Nevada gave him the same title obviously he was telling reporters, firefighters and others he was some sort of "safety director" at 'Ground Zero' despite the fact that he was a civilian volunteer and retired grocer who MIGHT have been named an "honorary firefighter". AFTER 9-11, this was disputed by the NYFD and he has two versions at times claiming he was so declared by an "engine company" at other times it was "by FDNY Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta" [ NY Post http://cms.firehouse.com/content/article/a...69§ionId=46 ] . It turns out that Bellone might not be the only member of his group to "exaggerate" according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the NY Post Fisin isn't firefighters either [ http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/200...s/22141245.html - NY Post see link below]. Numerous other publications describe him as a "firefighter", according to the Review-Journal "He mentioned a number of memorial quilts made by Nevada women were sent to his fire station." The problems don't stop there according to the NY Post Bellone's group the "TRAC Team" tries to represent itself as being associated with the NYFD and: The sentiment of the "former TRAC business associate" was echoed by the Fire Marshal who arrested him, "The bottom line is that I have a problem with individuals who prey on the emotions of the general public based on a tragedy." http://www.gmtoday.com/news/local_stories/...10182005_10.asp The guy sounds like a total BS artist to me. Perhaps the financial irregularities of "the TRAC team" were well meaning blunders and he is not into it for the money but at the least he seems to be a glory and attention hound. I grew up in NYC and have met lots of people like this, Walter Mittys who try to get you to believe their fantasies. He obviously is not reliable. As to Demasi's reliability it's hard to say but his association with Bellone and the other faux firemen isn't a good sign. His version leaves out many of the details of Bellone's account, he didn't say the FBI told him to keep quite or describe the black boxes. Nor did he say how and where the boxes were found nor how they were identified. Another aspect of Bellone's story doesn't add up. He says that he was told to by unnamed FBI agents to shut up about the black boxes. This would indicate that they were looking for the boxes with the intent to cover them up. Why then would they involve firemen and voluntary firemen? Firemen are trained of course to fight fires, rescue people trapped in fires and other dangerous situations and some have EMS training. Only fire marshals would have evidence recovery training. According to Wikipedia there only about 140 marshals in the NYFD* and DeMasi wasn't a fire marshal. The FBI on the other hand has dozens of specialized teams trained in evidence recovery. These units are known as Evidence Response Teams. * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Marshal According to the FBI: Not only are they trained in evidence recovery but they frequently investigate crash sites even when criminal activity is NOT suspected. They responded to sites of the Payne Stewart, Paul Wellstone and U. of Oklahoma basketball team crashes among others it is routine for them to assist the NTSB investigate crash sites (1) Some of these agents even go through join training with NTSB investigators (2). 1) - http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0101/28/sun.03.html, - http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:v3HyjKhQuokJ:minneapolis.fbi.gov/taskforc.htm - http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=oid%3A27323 - http://columbiatribune.com/2004/Nov/20041101News022.asp 2) http://www.ntsb.gov/Academy/CourseInfo/FBI_ERT_Archive.htm There was a large number of ERT agents in NYC after 9/11 So if they could mobilize over a 1000 agents trained in evidence recovery to go through a garbage dump and many of those agents had training and experience to investigate crash sites (which presumably includes finding black boxes) and they wanted to secretly find the black boxes why would involve firemen (at least one of them a volunteer) in the search? The same logic casts doubt on DeMasi's account. Perhaps he found three objects that he and maybe even the FBI agent mistook for black boxes. Perhaps he's making it up too. Perhaps he never made those claims – It's odd that he doesn't return reporters and 9/11 investigators calls and the only sources quoting him as saying he found the boxes are Bellone and a book published by the group Bellone found of which Bellone is listed as a co-author. Len

Two men made that claim one of whom is a Ground Zero volunteer named Michael Bellone. He was recently arrested by NYFD fire marshals for possession of stolen NYFD property, a "charity" he runs owes money to several creditors, including the company that printed the book. He is also in the habit of posing as a NYC fireman and calling himself the "safety director" at Ground Zero. He sounds like a habitual xxxx / con man to me. The other was a veteran fireman and friend of Bellone whose name escapes me but has made no public comments about this. He is quoted in a single sentence of a book published and co-authored by Bellone. My theory is that Bellone made it up and his friend not wanting to embarrass him doesn't say anything. The story seems odd to me. The FBI had over 1000 agents in NYC after 9-11 trained in evidence recovery who frequently investigate plane crashes. If they wanted to secretly find the black boxes why would they involved a fireman and a volunteer? Also 9-11 CTists believe the CVR tape from flight 93 and the FDR data from flight 77 were faked. If they have the technology to fake CVR tapes and FDR data why wouldn't they calim to have useable tapes from all 8 recorders with info that reinforced the "OCT"? Ron (or anybody else) if you want to debate this case start a new thread Len

Most 9/11 "inside job" theorists believe that the Boeing 757's and 767's involved in the 'attacks' were remotely controlled by the plotters. There seems to be two schools of thought. 1) All Boeings or at least all 757's and 767's have built in remote control capability that overrides the pilots and seemingly disables the plane's communication systems (radios and "Air Phones"). 2) such capability was surreptitiously added to the four planes involved shortly before 9/11. What I have yet to see is any evidence that such technology exists for large passenger planes or if it exists could be applied to those two Boeing models. I have seen it mentioned claimed on CT sites (without citation) that Boeing researched such technology to thwart hijackers but haven't seen any indication the research developed operational systems or was implemented. Also even if such a technology exists it would make sense that it would cut off communications. Boeing denises it developed this technology. I really doubt such a system would be seriously considered, making the plane land at an airport other than the one demanded by hijackers would endanger the passengers and crew. The last hijacking in which a plane was in the air or got diverted of a US carrier or flight starting in the US was in 1988, the last with fatalities (17 deaths) was a Pan Am flight from Karachi in 1986, the last hijacking with a fatality of a flight flying in the US was in 1983. Hijackings with fatalities even on foreign flights and airlines are extremely rare, I only found 7 cases with more than 2 deaths in the 20 years preceding 9/11 only one, a 1994 Air France flight from Marseille ( 7 deaths) was on an airline from or a flight starting in a developed country. Several 757s and 767s were hijacked and there are no reports of the planes being remotely controlled. [ Paragraph above based on info from the following databases http://aviation-safety.net/database/dblist...〈=en&page=7 and http://www.airdisaster.com/cgi-bin/database.cgi ] Nor have I seen reasonable explanations as to how remote control capability could have been added later (theory 2) without extensive retrofitting and dozens (if not hundreds) maintenance people from American and United being involved and others at those airlines to make sure those specific planes were assigned the designated flights. Another problem with the 2nd theory (and 1st) is Boeing's design philosophy that allows pilots to override the computerized systems. Also the 777 (developed years after the 9/11 models) was Boeings first "fly by wire" (i.e. flight controls are electronic rather than mechanical) model [ http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/boe202.shtml ] OK 9/11 CTists – give it your best shot. Len

Owen, I agree with John, your post was very impressive but I have a few questions and doubts. What do you think motivated such a massive conspiracy? Do you think the UN, World media, human rights organizations and left wing political groups were "in on it" or were they unwitting dupes? Why has virtually no one outside of Slavic countries picked up on this? To be honest many of the sources are questionable, Eastern European and Balkan intelligence services, the official Serbian news service, a Serbian police detective accused of torture, milosovic.org, various organs of the Yugoslavian/Sebian governments etc Do you have evidence of similar chicanery in Bosnia? Were all the reported cases of ethnic cleansing and other atrocities there faked also? I don't think the (unconfirmed) charge that Bosnia gave OBL a passport in 1993 to be that damaging he probably did help them and I would expect an embattled country to be grateful for any help it received and back then he was only starting to create problems for the West It is possible the Bosnian ambassador was not aware of all of bin Laden's activities and he had been a CIA asset only a few years before. Len

There was no reason to investigate Willie Brown's "warning" for reasons spelled out above. Where were they planing to travel to and when? If Griffen left that out of his book it's probably because they weren't scheduled to take an early morning flight to California. Was the cancellation linked to the State Dept. memo cited in the 2nd linl of my 1st post?If you could provide a link to the Newsweek article the story would be easier to evaluate To me it sounds more like the kind of stuff the HSCA would have looked into. The report was far from perfect and has some mistakes but that doesn't mean that the absurd CT's re^9-11 have any validity I agree but that still doesn't prove 9-11 was an inside job. I would support release of this material

You wrote (edited for clarity) That’s basically the same thing, how many hairs can you split on the head of a pin? What order could they have given that would have prevented the attacks from going through? They could have scrambled jets from Langley sooner but they still could have used the “excuse” that flight 77 wasn’t spotted on radar until a few minutes before. NORAD didn’t have any radar coverage of the 48 contiguous states before 9/11, planes without transponders on only show up as ‘blips’ on primary radar, there was no primary coverage in some area including most of West Virginia which the 757 flew over, there would have been thousands of blips in the primary radar for the DC area. Even if the fighters had made it to DC in time there is no guarantee they would have been able to intercept the 757 let alone shoot it down. It is also doubtful that any President would have made the politically difficult decision to shot it down. Shooting down a jetliner over DC probably would have resulted in casualties on the ground, 11 people were killed in sparsely populated Lockerbie, 43 people were killed when an El Al cargo plane crashed into an apt building in Amsterdam, etc etc. My point exactly Ron, John Shaw NEVER said that Felt told him anything about smoke or an explosion, AFAIK only Cramer made that claim hence the question. Cramer is one person the appropriate pronoun would have been 'he'.

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). Ron - My question was neither rhetorical nor stupid. If it had been you should have been able to give a reasonable answer. In your 1st post on this thread you stated that the absence of Myers, Rumsfeld and Bush "assure(d) the uninterrupted success of the 9/11 operation". I obviously asked my question in that context so far neither you nor John have shown how the "success of the 9/11 operation" would have been interrupted if they had not shirked their responsibilities. Would the Pentagon attack have been prevented? Would the Twin Towers have resisted collapse longer? I agree Bush and Rumsfeld should have taken a more active role that morning but I haven't seen any evidence that this would have reduced the death and destruction that day. Len

Some people have said that Hoover didn't tackle the Mafia because they had comprimising photos of him (dressed as a woman with one of his lovers IIRC) others have suggested he was in cahoots with them. What do you think of these charges? Please elaborate. Len

Why don't? Believe it or not Ron, it didn't take me that long to write my reply, which is not that much longer than your post. I thought you were retired. Give it a couple of days. All I'm asking you to do is back your claims and explain logical holes in your theories - if truth really is on yourside it shouldn't be too difficult or time consuming. Len

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? That should read Cramer "claimed" he read the transcript on the day of the crash, is there any confirmation of his story? Who are "they" Cramer is only one person. I also find it odd that a small 911 service would have transcripts made the same day, esp. a day when they would have been unusually busy. The link within your link that alleges that dispatcher Shaw denied there was any reference to explosion and fire does not work. True the Internet Archive has been down most of today http://www.archive.org/ your can try the url on it later. In this story Shaw recounts the call and makes no mention of Felt saying anything about an explosion or smoke. The reporter spoke to Cramer about the call again there's no mention of smoke or hearing an explosion. http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/20011207dispatcher1207p3.asp You also failed to address other points raised on the page. If there was an explosion 8 minutes before the crash we would expect debris to have shown up over 50 miles from the crash site if it was flying at 400 mph (almost 70 miles if it was going 500 mph and 20 miles if it was going 150 mph which is close to the stall speed of a 757. There are no witness accounts that I have seen saying anything about noticing any damage to the plane or smoke coming from it. Accounts vary but almost all say the 757 was flying erratically, low to the ground and then suddenly pitched the right and then plunged to the ground at a 90 degree angle. In any case, the FBI confiscated the tape, and Cramer 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. "Changed his story"? When did Shaw ever say Felt mentioned a smoke or an explosion? Please provide a link to the WorldNetDaily / Daily Mirror story, I did some googling and couldn't find it. I any case is there any confirmation other than from Cramer that this happened? Our British friends should be able to clarify this but my impression is that the Daily Mirror is not exactly the UK's most reputable news source. http://static.sky.com/images/pictures/1118970.jpg 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. Please provide examples of documented cases of such alteration of evidence by the FBI. Also I think it would he hard if not impossible to have faked Felt's voice well enough to fool his brother and other family members (see below). True they could have edited the existing tape but that probably would have caused continuity problems. 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. Please explain exactly was "implausible" about Barbara Olson's call and how her husband contradicted himself. Do you think she's really alive? Or perhaps you think he was complicit in her death? As for the calls from the planes -Some where made from airphones. -The planes were not always at cruise altitude and it's believed that all the flights were flying fairly low at times after getting hijacked -No one has shown that cellphone calls from high altitude would not work at the locations they were 'supposedly' made. The only study along those lines was carried out over London, Ontario. It shows calls at 8000 feet having a 5 – 13 % success rate. The conspiracist who carried out the study didn't fly any higher than that but extrapolated lower figures for higher altitudes. http://www.physics911.net/projectachilles.htm It should be noted the study was carried out a mathematician with no telecommunications experience. 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. ????????????? How did the FBI or whoever fake a call by Felt that could fool his own brother and other family members? According to this report from the Pittsburg Tribune other family members heard the tape too. http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_90401.html.I don't understand your theory do you think they faked the call by accident? Or perhaps they didn't have their cover stories straight? So you suspect they faked a call by Felt to 911 saying he heard an explosion and saw smoke, then they faked the tape the call without Felt saying anything about smoke or an explosion? What then caused flight 93 to crash? This is almost as odd as your suggestion that an AA 757 swooped down on the Pentagon but managed to fly away unnoticed and at that very moment a missile or drone not seen by any witnesses or spotted by radar hit the building. Why would they go to all the effort to hijack a plane only to fake it's destruction by a bomb? Like Alice said things are getting "curiouser and curiouser". Len

duplicate post deleted

The rest of Randy's comments are in bold. It sounds like you read a different thread to me. While there have been some personal battles the primary focus of both sides has been events related to 9/11. If you can identify any "disinformation" coming from the 'debunking' camp than please point it out. "I don't know what hit the Pentagon. I'm less concerned about that than i am about this: i know that my government is telling me lies about what happened on Sept. 11." Since all of the below is far outside the topic of this thread I'll keep my replies brief. If Randy or anybody else wants to debate them further I would suggest starting new threads or using more appropriate existent ones. "I know it's quite possible for leaders to sacrifice a number of their own people, in the pursuit of whatever they may be attempting to obtain. That's been true throughout human history. From the very beginning, we've been hammered with "It was a failure on the part of American intelligence..." That's this generation's Magic Bullet Theory. When in fact we received warnings of terrorist attacks using airplanes from: Afghanistan, Argentina, Britain, Cayman Islands, Egypt, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Jordon, Morocco and Russia. Plus people working in our own intelligence agencies who were simply ignored. Warnings from 1994 up to Sept. 10, 2001 (Censored 2006, pg. 206)." Please provide verifiable sources for all these warnings, how many of them had information that was specific enough to have prevented 9/11? A few probably did, but can you show that the failure to act on them was due to conspiracy rather that bureaucratic malaise and lack of interagency cooperation or perhaps even criminal negligence? This is the same intelligence community that was caught off guard by the over throws of the Shah and Samoza and the Teheran embassy take over, and Iraq's invasions of Iran and Kuwait, the same intelligence community that was unable to detect high level moles with in its midst for many years (Ames, Hanssen, Walker etc). This was the same intelligence community that was unable (or unwilling) to plant evidence of WMD's in Iraq. It is also interesting to that these warnings started coming during the Clinton administration, when most of the hijackers entered the US during this period. Also the directors of the principle intelligence agencies were appointed by the ex-governor of Arkansas. Do you think Clinton was "in on it" too? Let's consider and even bigger intelligence failure. In 1940 The French missed numerous signs (including the precedent of WWI) that they would be invaded through the "Low Countries", are we to assume then that the (Socialist) French government was "in cahoots" with Hitler? The failure of the US intelligence community was serious but there is no hard evidence it was intentional. To large certain degree the 9/11 "inside job" theories help Bush, Rove and Cheney because many people conflate baseless "conspiracy theories" with legitimate criticism that the Bush administration ignored the threat of terrorism before 9/11 and afterwards used it as an excuse to push it's rightwing agenda. "And again, i'm less concerned about proving what hit the Pentagon, when i read that 1 day before the planes were hijacked 1,535 contracts were traded on put stock options. As of Sept. 29, 2001, investors whose identities have not been made public made over $2.5 million dollars from United and American Airlines stocks. (Censored 2006, pg. 222) " Matthew dealt with that rather nicely I thought. "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 people were and document your claims. What you said about the "Willie Brown warning" was highly misleading and inaccurate. I started a new thread for this topic.http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=6979 "Then we have the usual destruction of evidence -dumping all the steel beams into the ocean." Bullxxxx that's not what happened "I found this to be particularly interesting: even if you buy the Party line about why building #7 collapsed (it was not struck by an airplane) it would have been the first time of a fire-induced collapse of a steel framed building." Not true, google "McCormick Center Fire" and "Sight and Sound Theater fire". The theater used the same type of fireproofing as the WTC's 1, 2 and 7. But while it's true that no high rises had completely collapsed due to fire before 9/11 there had been several partial collapses. In 1991 the Philadelphia Fire Department was worried about the Meridian Place fire. The structural engineers the fire department consulted warned there was danger of a "pancake structural collapse". [ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jfk-research/message/4358 - One of the links in that post expired, the new one is: http://www.wconline.com/CDA/Archive/24ae78...000f932a8c0____ note that several certified engineers say there were no signs that explosives were used ]. Can you cite and previous cases of center core buildings that had fires fueled by about 15 ,000 gallons of diesel fuel which were basically unattended for 7 hours after it (the building) was severely damaged by the collapse of 2 neighboring buildings? One veteran NYFD captain reported a 20 story hole in the south facade http://www.firehouse.com/terrorist/911/mag...e/gz/boyle.html ) While WTC 7 was not hit by a 250,000 lb. plane it was struck by debris from two 5000, 000 ton (1,000,000,000 lb.) buildings. http://911myths.com/html/wtc7___silverstein.html http://www.geocities.com/debunking911/pull.htm "Then a careful examination of the evidence would certainly be warranted if for no other reason than to learn some valuable lessons about the safety of high rise buildings." NIST and several other groups of engineers are still studying the collapse of WTC 7. "Some things are not going to be possible for the little people to find out, simply 'cause we don't have the power. You follow the money, and follow the evidence; 2 standard approaches of investigation that work quite well, everything else is smoke and mirrors. (How much has Haliburton made off of the war in Iraq by now?)." The evidence suggests that WTC's 1, 2 & 3 collapsed as a result of Boeing 767's being flown into the first 2 buildings. Find me one structural engineer or civil engineer or fire engineer or licensed architect or forensic engineer or failure analyst or explosives/demolition expert or mechanical engineer / materials scientist (with experience or expertise in construction methods or materials*) who says that fire and impact damage were not sufficient to bring down those buildings or that they think explosives were used and we'll have something to talk about (on another thread). Len * No more dental filling specialists please!

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 .

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.

I have questions about the official version. The people who sponser these polls aren't intellectually honest they ask leading very open questions but try to put a more specific spin on them after the fact. It appears the pilots from Otis said they did go supersonic even though this was normally prohibited. The problem is that it takes a few minutes to accelerate to such high speeds and they may have been routed over the ocean to prevent collisions with other aircraft in one of the World’s busiest air corridors. I’m looking into this and hopefully will be able to post tonight or tomorrow. Len

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

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

My reaction to Wittenberg was very different. My 'beef' with Ahmed's passage that you quoted was that it was devoid of any EVIDENCE or INFORMATION which contradicted my position it was merely the opinion of a non-expert. I never challenged Wittenberg's expertise, quite to the contrary I provided a link to confirm it. I however cited about 8 other airline pilots with similar expertise who disagreed with him and suggested his conclusions might have been "clouded by his extremist political views". How is that any different from "inside job" conspiracy theorists like Ron suggesting that the "sheeple" fail to see the obvious because they've been brainwashed? I didn't see you object to that. Or any different that suggesting that witnesses to the Pentagon crash can't be trusted simply because they are a) Republicans b} military, or c) work for USA Today or CNN? Wittenberg strikes me as the type who got 'hot and bothered' about fluoridation of water in the 60's and the bar codes on the back of road signs in the 80's. To suggest that people's political views don't effect their judgment is naïve, for example anti-Semites and anti-Zionists are more likely to think Israel attacked the USS Liberty knowing it was a US ship while supporters of Israel are more likely to believe they thought it was Egyptian, what ever the truth in that case it's hardly a coincidence. Your list of my replies to Wittenberg oddly left out the other pilots I cited also 1) – 4) aren't separate points, 2) 3) and 4) were in support of 1). I didn't really cite Jasper's opinion or expertise but rather the airline pilots quoted in his article. As for Piper I see nothing wrong in questioning if an anti-Semite who bragged on this very forum about his intellectual dishonesty might have been swayed by his biases when he wrote a book that (despite his denials) has "the Jews killed JFK" as it's basic premise. Later flight. Talking about the "failure" to intercept flight 93 is silly because as I already pointed out: 1) It crashed hundreds of miles befoe reaching its presumed target. 2) The "official story" is that it would have been intercepted. AND 3) Some people theorize that it was intercepted and shot down. As for flight 77 consider that it took 81 minutes to intercept the only civilian plane intercepted over the US in the 10 years proceeding 9/11 and that plane 1) was flying in a straight line 2) had its transponder on 3) was flying in uncrowded airspace 4) was intercepted by a fighter already in the air. You are entitled to your opinion; I would take it more seriously if you could come up with any evidence that contradicts my conclusions about the failure to intercept flights 11 and 175. Your views seem to have been shaped by Ahmed's error filled book (chapter at least). Also how do you presume to spek for others? I told you that because you criticized mine suggesting that it was worthless. I said that specifically because you claimed that I made an assertion that was not backed by the link I provided when in truth it very clearly was. My reference to your courage was to whether or not you would have enough to admit that several of you points were erroneous (see above). When and if you admit this I will obviously have to (and gladly) acknowledge that you didn't lack the courage to do so, until then it's an open question. You are wrong. I only dislike four members of this forum. One of them is Piper but I won't mention the names of the other three though the answer is probably obvious. Why are you a bad person? True, but I normally don't expect to convince my opponents when I debate on forums, more commonly the "target audience" is undecided "lurkers". I'd also be interested in "hearing" if others were convinced one way or the other by what you or I have posted myself. Peace Len Colby 1) http://www.globalresearch.org/org.htm, http://nafeez.mediamonitors.net/ 2) http://www.amazon.com/gp/sitbv3/reader/ref=sib_dp_pt/102-7470844-8584948?%5Fencoding=UTF8&asin=0930852400 3] I don't know very much about Mr. Israel except that he defends many controversial positions many of which I agree with (denouncing the invasion of Iraq) and others that I disagree with (he and other writers for his Website are associated with a group called the "International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic" [ http://www.icdsm.org/more/belongs.htm, http://www.icdsm.org/more/1feb.htm, http://www.icdsm.org/ ] 4) Amazon doesn't allow cutting and pasting of book excerpts any typos were inadvertent.

The same interesting site used to explain how the Holocaust never happened. But Hufschit removed that, supposedly he did this under pressure from Dr. Steve Jones because be wanted to join st911

You criticized the quality of my research but your criticisms were based more on your mistakes than mine, as a response I pointed out your mistakes. Your tone seemed to me to be mocking and I replied accordingly, you say that wasn't your intention I'll take your word for it and leave it up to the others who read this thread to decide if my reaction was reasonable. I was hoping you would admit you mistakes like I admitted mine thus far you haven't. Perhaps I could have worded the responses you numbered 1 – 7 more diplomatically but they were all (except possibly 5 and 7) valid, unlike most of your criticisms of my post. I didn't link his book with any books on the subjects in the list, I pointed out that just because the author of a book (or website) says something doesn't make it true. As you pointed out people can cite sources to prove just about anything so I pointed out that there are books with premises that most members of this forum would think are absurd yet are full of "documentation". As I show below Ahmed's book has several assertions that are false or unsubstantiated. You did present his opinion without citing an iota of the "evidence" he used to reach his conclusion. It's hard for me to reply without knowing which quotes that I cited or links I provided you are referring to but most if not all the people I quoted were people with demonstrated expertise and/or personal knowledge of what they speak: pilots who have flown 757's or other jetliners saying it wasn't so hard to crash a 757 into the Pentagon, one of "Hani's" flight instructors saying he was a good pilot, the director of one of the flight schools he went to saying she cried on the morning of 9/11 because she knew he was involved, the manager of another flight school saying they had good instructors, a 757/767 pilot saying the controls on a flight simulator were identical to the controls of 767's and most (if not all) the links were to people giving their expert opinions or contained factual information. Mr. Ahmed on the other had as far as I can tell has no experience in or expert knowledge of: military or civil aviation, radar, flight control, national security issues, the SOP's of the FAA, NORAD or the USAF, terrorism etc etc. He worked many years as a researcher for a human rights organization I've never heard of before founding his own "think tank" he makes no reference to his educational background on his sites (1) or the "about the author" blurb of his book (2) so I presume he doesn't have a college degree, he could even be a secondary school drop out as far as I know. I read two chapters of his book on Amazon (2) and was not very impressed: I - Executive Summery - he provides no documentation for any of his claims in this chapter, though it's possible there is "documentation" for them in the rest of the book. II – Chap. 5 "The Collapse of Standard Operating Procedures on 9-11" 1) He documents broad claims made by other writers or things that are NOT in dispute but not points in contention for example: i) He quotes Jared Israel (3) "The FAA, NORAD and the military have cooperative procedures by which fighter jets intercept commercial aircraft under emergency conditions. These procedures were not followed" (4) but he doesn't tell us what evidence Israel presented. ii) He quotes FAA rules stating the pilots have to file flight plans and closely follow the designated flight paths. iii) On the other hand he provides NO BACKING for the following: "Air Traffic Controllers routinely request fighter craft to intercept commercial planes for various reasons when problems faced can not be solved through radio contact e.g. to inform commercial pilots when their planes are off course or to assess the situation directly. The deviation of commercial planes from their designated flight path is a common problem solved via interception…" Once in 10 years is routine and common? He cites the only case in the decade before 9/11 as if it were just one example of a common occurrence. Nor does he provide backing for his claim that 8 minutes from "scramble order" to take off "is almost triple the normal amount of time for such aircraft to go from "scramble order" to 29,000 feet". He says that the "US Air Force's own website" says this happens in 2.5 minutes but doesn't provide a direct quote or a link and proves that he is not very good at math. ( Evan and Matthew in your professional opinions is it possible to go from scramble order to 29,000 feet in 2.5 minutes as a matter of routine? ). 2) He some times misrepresents his sources presumably this is unintentional for example he quotes the NTSB report of the Payne Stewart crash and reports the time of the last radio contact and time of interception but leaves out the references to the different time zones and claims the elapsed time was 21 minutes when in fact it was 81. 3) Some of his sources are third hand. For example he quotes a New York Press article which indirectly quoted a New York Times article stating that air traffic controllers knew that flight 11 had crashed into the Trade Center giving the impression that it was controllers in contact with NORAD. But according to the Complete 9/11 Timeline those were controllers in Newark and they only suspected that. A serious researcher should have used the NYT article as his source. 4) He makes other mistakes, for example he mentions that McGuire AFB is much closer to NYC than Otis but doesn't provide evidence that that base had pilots on scramble alert. He cites the top speed of these aircraft but doesn't take into account that supersonic flight is normally restricted or that (based on what I've read {Evan, Matthew?} it takes several minutes to reach such speeds).

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 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

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