Is anyone interested in Apollo missions...

[Ron Ecker]

The 9/11 debate, like so many other issues, is determined in large measure by the faith of those who are debating. In the case of those who defend the government's official story of what happened, this faith is grounded in establishment bulwarks like the 9/11 Commission, the journalists at Popular Mechanics and other mainstream media debunkers, scientists cited as experts by the government, etc. In the case of conspiracy theorists like myself, we are predisposed to distrust those same establishment forces, and thus will usually place more credence in alternative sources like the internet. I freely admit to being predisposed towards conspiracy theories. What is just as obvious, however, is that those who passionately try to debunk these theories are just as predisposed to disbelieve them.

Well said.

People have been warned down through the ages not to trust any government. But they go right on doing it.

[Kevin M. West]

The 9/11 debate, like so many other issues, is determined in large measure by the faith of those who are debating. In the case of those who defend the government's official story of what happened, this faith is grounded in establishment bulwarks like the 9/11 Commission, the journalists at Popular Mechanics and other mainstream media debunkers, scientists cited as experts by the government, etc. In the case of conspiracy theorists like myself, we are predisposed to distrust those same establishment forces, and thus will usually place more credence in alternative sources like the internet. I freely admit to being predisposed towards conspiracy theories. What is just as obvious, however, is that those who passionately try to debunk these theories are just as predisposed to disbelieve them.

Well said.

People have been warned down through the ages not to trust any government. But they go right on doing it.

And that's one of the mistakes that CTs make in their judgement of non-CTs. I don't trust the government very much at all, and I don't believe the official story because of its source. My belief in the official story is based on the facts as I've seen them and my knowledge of the relevant fields, and the research I've done in the years since 9/11. None of the CT claims hold up to any real scrutiny.

[Kevin M. West]

Thanks for the link with still images from the rest of the video - are you basically suggesting that the 'fat' Osama pic has been deliberately adjusted or distorted in Photoshop or something by a 'conspiracy theorist'?

The quality of that one frame doesn't match the rest of the video, draw your own conclusions.

[Len Colby]

The 9/11 debate, like so many other issues, is determined in large measure by the faith of those who are debating. In the case of those who defend the government's official story of what happened, this faith is grounded in establishment bulwarks like the 9/11 Commission, the journalists at Popular Mechanics and other mainstream media debunkers, scientists cited as experts by the government, etc. In the case of conspiracy theorists like myself, we are predisposed to distrust those same establishment forces, and thus will usually place more credence in alternative sources like the internet. I freely admit to being predisposed towards conspiracy theories. What is just as obvious, however, is that those who passionately try to debunk these theories are just as predisposed to disbelieve them. It becomes a case of "I'll ignore your evidence, and you'll igonre mine."

It’s not necessarily a question of who you trust as much as who gives the most logical answers and who best documents their claims and who has the backing of people with relevant expertise who examined the relevant issues. Many CT sites don’t document their claims or base their claims on non-authoritative sources other distort evidence and take it out of context. Quote abuse is rife in the truth movement often quotes are divided up by ellipses (…) and when you see what they left out you see why, the person didn’t mean to say what the “truthers” would have you believe. I’ll give two examples truthers quote an air traffic controller as saying "The speed, the maneuverability, the way that he turned, we all thought in the radar room, all of us experienced air traffic controllers, that that was a military plane" but they leave out the complete quote "The speed, the maneuverability, the way that he turned, we all thought in the radar room, all of us experienced air traffic controllers, that that was a military plane," O'Brien said. "You don't fly a 757 in that manner. It's unsafe." http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/hijackeWr.htm

In Loose Change they quote someone from a flight school as saying Hanjour was such a bad pilot he wouldn’t rent him a Cessna but they leave out the part where he said he was sure Hanjour would have had no trouble hitting the Pentagon.

The case of WTC building 7 is critical here, I can't see how any large hole in the side of that building could make it collapse.

But you’re not an engineer as with the Twin Towers it was acombination. Fireman reported the outer walls of the building leaning over or bowing long before collapse

The whole collapse theory is based on jet fuel melting the steel beams; there was no jet fuel in WTC 7, so why did it collapse?

No you misubderstand the “official story” as do a good number of “inside jobbers” office content fires triggered by jet fuel fired weakened (not melted) thin floor trusses which cause them to sag and pull in perimeter and core columns. Crash induced structural damage especially dislodging of fireproofing was a crucial fire. You should really be familiar with the “official version” before questioning it. 7 WTC presumably had a similar level of fire loading (flammable material per square foot/meter) as the towers it also contained several tanks of diesel to power generators. Fires burned in the building unabated for 5 – 7 hours before it collapsed.

I'm sure you'll claim he was taken out of context, but the owner of the building was recorded as saying "we had to pull it," apparently meaning demolish it, in reference to WTC 7.

That’s not what he said and it was taken out of context, “pull” does not mean demolish a building with explosives

I only heard the one interview with William Rodriguez (thank you for coming up with his name), and he certainly never mentioned those other interviews. If he never mentioned the explosion or the fact he rescued others, then his credibility is certainly greatly diminished. I'll have to research that more.

I’ll start a new thread documenting this soon

As for the failure of our defense system to react to what an attack on our infrastructure, as an American, I am outraged by that alone. I don't know how many of you here are Americans, but for those that aren't, we boast early and often in our country about the incredible national security system we have, which is of course centered in the Pentagon. Really, it is just as unbelievable to me as the magic bullet theory to accept that this well guarded command center could stand idly by while a rogue plane was flying overhead for some 30 minutes or more. If that's the best they can do with my tax money, then I want a refund!

Though some training exercises entailed scenarios similar to 9-11 the system was set up to defend against hostile planes entering US and Canadian airspace. It had been years since a plane was hijacked in the air in the US, the only intercept over US airspace in the years preceding 9-11 (Payne Stewart’s plane) took over an hour and that was for a plane flying in a straight line with its transponder on in uncrowded airspace, the 1st intercept was already in the air for a training exercise, before 9-11 few people imagined it would be critical to intercept a hijacked plane in minutes.

We need to have an independent investigation of what happened that day; the 9/11 Commission, like the Warren Commission, was a whitewash designed, in its own words, "not to point fingers or assign blame."

You haven’t presented evidence that it was but I agree that to a degree it was a whitewash because it avoided some prickly issues such as:

1) Did the PANYNJ not having to comply with NYC fire and building codes contribute to the collapses.

2) Intelligence failures of the Clinton and especially Bush administrations.

I personally don’t rule out LIHOP theories but have yet to see any substantial evidence backing them.

A real independent investigation would call all those witnesses-government officials and conspiracy theorists alike-and try to determine what really happened.

Can you list any witnesses to the events of 9/11 or people with relevant expertise who weren’t called, I don’t think for example Alex Jones or Jim Fetzer could have added much.

Are any of the supposed hijackers really alive? That definitely needs to be answered, because if even one is, that alone destroys the muslims-gone-wild theory of 9/11.

There is no evidence any of them are.

President Bush should be questioned about his curious actions on September 11, 2001. How did he learn about the planes flying into the WTC?

I think he claims he was told by some aids, why is that relevant?

Why did he continue to calmly read the goat story to the children?

That is a good question could it be that he is a clueless idiot who doesn’t know what to do in public unless he’s rehersed it a few times. IIRC he staid in the class room for another 10 minutes or so. Now if this had been planned don’t you think Rove and card etc would have planned a script for him acting in a decicive and presidential manner instead he ended up being mocked in some dumb Leslie Nilsen movie (I don’t remember the title I only saw the trailer)

If all these "theories" are "wacko," or just plain wrong, that could be easily demonstrated by an independent investigation.

Since no legitimate concerns have been brought up it would be hard to justify another investigation.

A bipartisan congressional committee would hopefully do a better job of ferreting out the truth than the 9/11 Commission. And when it came to the same conclusions as the commission you’d call for yet another investigation.

Right now it looks like the debate will continue to be ignored by television networks and largely confined to internet forums. It could be argued that’s all it deserves but the truth is such theories have been covered by the networks, cable channels and mainstream newspapers and magazines.

I urge Mr. Jeffries and Mr. Thorne to go over the other 9-11 threads on this forum, most of the point you’ve brought up have already been addressed. I also recommend the following sites:

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

http://www.jnani.org/mrking/writings/911/king911.htm

http://www.debunking911.com/

http://internetdetectives.biz/case/loose-change

The cut up tape was of the recollections of flight controllers after the fact nothing would have prevented them from repeating what they said.

I have no intention of addressing all your points, but this one jumped off the page at me. "Nothing would have prevented them from repeating what they said"? How about fear?

How many employees, if a supervisor deliberately and demonstratively destroys something they said, are going to keep running their mouths or repeat themselves, once they start wondering what might happen to them if they don't keep their mouths shut, particularly on something as deadly as 9/11?

Ron how do we know about this incident? Presumably it was because one or more of the flight controllers talked. Why he, she or they have only told half the story? Wouldn’t that be the most dangerous thing to do? They could have spoken to the press anonymously. Do you think the FAA supervisor was in on it too?

There's a TV show called "The Fear Factor." I've never watched it, but I don't have to watch it to know that a fear factor exists, something that debunkers of government conspiracy theories ignore when they ask where all the whistleblowers are. (Just as in the JFK case, I imagine that a lot of potential whistleblowers on 9/11 are dead, and a lot of others know it.)

I’ve yet to hear of mysterious deaths of anybody related to 9/11. Rodriguez is still alive so is Scott Forbes so is the pseudo-fireman who said he saw three of the black boxes from the WTC crashes and so is the fireman who claimed to have found them.

[Anthony Thorne]

Edmonds only joined the FBI after 9/11 and was a low level translator of Turkish, Persian (Farsi) and Azeri, languages unlikely to have been used by any of the suspects from the “official” version, show me where she indicated she thought 9/11 was an “inside job”

Why? I never said that she did. The way I phrased it was that she and others were extremely unhappy with the official story and suspected there was a cover-up. Just Googling her name brings up many interviews and articles that support that assertion, and your comment begs the question – if she’s so irrelevant, why has she been slapped with a gag order?

Please provide a citation for you claim about the people who knew Atta.

Sander Hick’s THE BIG WEDDING, covered elsewhere on this forum.

Show us where the Jersey Girls indicated they suspected an “inside job”.

Again, your choice of words, not mine, and they express their strong unhappiness with the official report on camera in 9/11-PRESS FOR TRUTH.

As I stated above I only got through the 1st few minutes before I gave up because it was such crap.

Good for you, but if you want me to engage in a critique, try watching the whole thing, otherwise I'd have an unfair advantage.

Bush and Cheney are unlikely to have confessed during their testimony.

As with your comments about the tape being destroyed, if these things are so irrelevant, why are they being covered up?

Nice to see some supportive comments in this thread – I’m not overly interested in ping-ponging back and forth with rebuttals, as I’ve seen little to change my mind and doubt anything I say will change Kevin’s, which is fine. I’ll dig into the older 9/11 threads on this forum at a future date.

[Don Jeffries]

Len,

You refer to "non-authoritative sources," which is the usual way that non-governmental or non- mainstream media sources are referred to. Most of us "conspiracy theorists" believe that very powerful forces were behind the events of 9/11. Thus, we are not likely to trust any source that the establishment has decreed is "authoritative." I realize this puts the conspiracy theorist in the advantageous position of being able to deflect the views of various "experts" by claiming it's just another part of the coverup. You touch on this when you note that I'd likely not trust the results of a congressional investigation. You're probably right; while calling for a congressional investigation, most of us would be resigned to the fact that such an investigation would probably just rubber stamp the official version of events. I remember how disappointed I was in the House Assassinations Committee all those years ago. The Senate Select Committe on POW-MIAs was similarly disallusioning. On this side, we'll have to debate the issue as best we can with the sources we have. At least we can agree on the fact that our president is an idiot.

[Len Colby]

Edmonds only joined the FBI after 9/11 and was a low level translator of Turkish, Persian (Farsi) and Azeri, languages unlikely to have been used by any of the suspects from the “official” version, show me where she indicated she thought 9/11 was an “inside job”

Why? I never said that she did. The way I phrased it was that she and others were extremely unhappy with the official story and suspected there was a cover-up. Just Googling her name brings up many interviews and articles that support that assertion, and your comment begs the question – if she’s so irrelevant, why has she been slapped with a gag order?

Show us where the Jersey Girls indicated they suspected an “inside job”.

Again, your choice of words, not mine, and they express their strong unhappiness with the official report on camera in 9/11-PRESS FOR TRUTH.

People often conflate any questioning of the report with “not believing the official story”. It’s my impression that Edmonds’ and the Jersey Girl’s view is closer to mine than it is to yours i.e. that the 19 named hijacker carried out the attacks at the behest of OBL and that although they didn’t have direct foreknowledge of the attacks various government officials failed in their responsibilities by ignoring various warning signs and that the 9/11 Commission glossed over or even covered up those failures.

Kristen Breitweiser, one of the Jersey Girls called for Bush to implement the Commission’s recommendations which would be odd if she though the conclusions they were based on a sham.

"We told them from the beginning when we lobbied for this, that independent commission reports are pointless if they sit on a shelf collecting dust. We will make sure, more than anything, that these recommendations are put into effect."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...R7EB37.DTL&

She also said, “I'm anti-terrorist” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristen-breitweiser/ 10-30-2006 post

If I’m wrong perhaps you can point out where they contradict this. At what point in the video do the Jersey Girls spell out their gripes?

Please provide a citation for your claim about the people who knew Atta.

Sander Hick’s THE BIG WEDDING, covered elsewhere on this forum.

Yeah I saw that thread it only had a handful of posts and that aspect was not delved into. For the benefit of those of us who don’t have the book perhaps you could outline what they said and tell us how it casts doubt on the belief that he carried out the attacks for OBL. You could try plugging snippets of the appropriate passages into Google to see if they are online. Hicks made Chapter 9 available online; I’ll read it when I find time http://www.sanderhicks.com/chapter9.html.

As I stated above I only got through the 1st few minutes before I gave up because it was such crap.

Good for you, but if you want me to engage in a critique, try watching the whole thing, otherwise I'd have an unfair advantage.

I don’t have unlimited time so I am unwilling to watch a 2 hour “documentary” what ever its subject or viewpoint after spotting numerous errors and distortions in the 1st few minutes (plus I find the narrator’s voice irritating). The film itself is not especially interesting to me. If however you want to highlight specific claims it makes and tell me where they are made (i.e. how many minutes and seconds from the begging) I’ll be willing to take a look.

I commented on the video here:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...mp;p=84656&

and here:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...mp;p=76613&

Bush and Cheney are unlikely to have confessed during their testimony.

As with your comments about the tape being destroyed, if these things are so irrelevant, why are they being covered up?

Why would Bush and Cheney want their testimony kept secret. I can see a number of reasons:

They are very big on the idea of “executive privilege” they didn’t even want to testify and only did so due to extreme pressure part of the whole imperial presidency. They might have done so because they could, just to show “who’s boss”.

They might have made embarrassing revelations.

They might have lied, no record = no repercussions or perjury charges, Clinton was impeached and almost removed from office for lying about a sex act.

They could have had legitimate national security concerns.

Len,

You refer to "non-authoritative sources," which is the usual way that non-governmental or non- mainstream media sources are referred to.

Griffin cited the manual for a consumer flight simulator regarding FAA policy, I don’t consider that authoritative nor do I for example consider Alex Jones authoritative because his claims are normally on backed by other pages from his site and when he cites independent sources he frequently misrepresents what they have said.

Numerous CT sites claim the Edificio Windsor in Madrid was a steel framed building but don’t cite any sources all news accounts and fire engineering articles I seen about the fire said it was a concrete building except for its steel perimeter columns.

I consider the lead structural engineer of the WTC and other engineers with expertise in high rise construction authoritative sources I don’t consider someone with a “masters degree” in “architecture” from a non accredited school with almost no classes on structural mechanics an authoritative source.

"The Senate Select Committe on POW-MIAs was similarly disallusioning."

It’s always been my impression that there was no real evidence that Vietnam or other southeast Asian countries continued to hold US POWs after 1975, perhaps you could start a thread on the subject. There are a few Vietnam and Vietnam era veterans who are members here.

"At least we can agree on the fact that our president is an idiot."

Too bad we can’t agree on something positive! But if we try hard enough I’m sure we can.

[Len Colby]

bump

[John Simkin]

Letters in response to George Monbiot's article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,2007936,00.html

George Monbiot treats me as a "gibbering idiot" in his article on the so-called "9/11 conspiracy virus" (Comment, February 6). I confess to being one of those who has been "infected by a virus" - the virus of scepticism towards the official fairytale on 9/11. This virus, according to Mr Monbiot, has "sucked my brains through my eyes" and made my "lips foam" and my "eyes roll". But I think even presumed patients like me deserve a right to respond to Mr Monbiot's hallucinations.

First of all, most veterans sceptics on 9/11, such as myself, have not been infected by the film Loose Change which the author considers as the origin of the "virus". We had studied the events of 9/11 long before the film was even conceived. Using our common sense and critical faculties, we have discovered numerous anomalies, contradictions and misrepresentations in the official account of the events of September 11 2001. So many, in fact, that they fill volumes. I refer readers to Paul Thompson's excellent timeline on 9/11, posted on www.cooperativeresearch.org and the books on 9/11 by Professor David Ray Griffin, whose academic credentials are beyond dispute, but is referred demeaningly by Mr Monbiot as a "high priest" of 9/11 conspiracists (sic).

As Mr Monbiot is so confident that the official tale on 9/11 is true and that he can safely dismiss sceptics as "gibbering idiots", I hereby offer to him a prize of £1,500 if he can send to me or have published within the next two weeks any verifiable evidence that proves beyond reasonable doubt that the 19 individuals named by the FBI as the hijackers of 9/11 actually boarded the aircraft which crashed on 9/11. Without such proof, it is simply indecent to accuse these individuals of mass murder, let alone commit the crime of aggression against Afghanistan, start an indefinite "war on terror" and lie to the world.

Elias Davidsson

Reykjavik

Iceland

George Monbiot is as sweeping in his dismissal of the 9/11 doubters as some of the claims of their conspiracy theories (February 7).

The engineer Professor Steven Jones at Brigham Young University has questioned the thermal powers of kerosene fuel from the planes to affect supporting steelwork sufficiently for it to buckle and become semi-molten. In a completely unrelated investigation, physicist Dr Judy Wood has shown that the official verdict of cascading masonry successively demolishing lower floors could not have been achieved within the time range of the seismic record.

In his haste to rubbish the neocon conspiracy advocates for distracting attention from the real abuses of power by Bush et al, Monbiot is in danger of glossing over equally valid, scientifically based concerns of disturbing inadequacies in the official explanation.

Bryn Jones

Bath

What if the "official" account of what happened on 9/11 is false? What if, in fact, it's a lie, and a big one at that, complete with corporate/media/propaganda cover-up? Without backing from the media the story wouldn't fly. What would that make this "war on terror"? A fraud? Since when do steel buildings freefall to the ground, like the World Trade Centre? Ever watched the video of it coming down? They didn't play it much on CNN or NBC. Ever wonder why? Because it's the smoking gun of the whole thing. It's proof because it's an obvious controlled demolition, which we all know takes weeks of planning, hence, foreknowledge of the attack, which means, an inside job.

Chris Noth

Davenport

Iowa

By using Loose Change as the basis for his argument, Monbiot does the 9/11 truth movement a disservice, implying that there is no thoughtful, rational and scientific research being undertaken. As a starting point, the two books on the subject by the "high priest" Professor David Ray Griffin are the complete antithesis of the intellectually sloppy approach that Monbiot decries.

Owen Bellamy

Royston

Hertfordshire

[Anthony Thorne]

All good questions Len, I have some specific answers for you but it'll have to wait till this Sat/Sun.

[Brian Smith]

Take a look at this short video. The perpatrators had disinformation people already in place, in the first minutes and hours after their crime was executed. Listen closely to the guy wearing the Harley Davidson tee shirt in the Fox News clip at the beginning. Does this guy sound like he is repeating something he was told to say, as if reading from a script? He says he "witnessed" the towers collapsing, and that there is no doubt that they collapsed solely due to the intense fires, and "mostly structural failure." This guy is a total plant. No doubt about it -- http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/80.html

Edited February 10, 2007 by Brian Smith

[Paul Rigby]

Take a look at this short video. The perpatrators had disinformation people already in place, in the first minutes and hours after their crime was executed. Listen closely to the guy wearing the Harley Davidson tee shirt in the Fox News clip at the beginning. Does this guy sound like he is repeating something he was told to say, as if reading from a script? He says he "witnessed" the towers collapsing, and that there is no doubt that they collapsed solely due to the intense fires, and "mostly structural failure." This guy is a total plant. No doubt about it -- http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/80.html

Brian,

Exactly the same thing happened in the immediate aftermath of the public execution of the hapless Brazilian electrician in London. The eyewitness concerned went on ITN (?) news shortly afterwards offering an account alarmingly consonant with the earliest fairy tales emanating from the Metropolitan Police. Appears, then, that this is now a standard feature of political policing/state terrorism -and was, I have no doubt, back in 1963!

Paul

[Anthony Thorne]

I didn't get as much time over the weekend as I'd hoped, but I'll tackle questions as I get the time.

Please provide a citation for your claim about the people who knew Atta…For the benefit of those of us who don’t have the book perhaps you could outline what they said and tell us how it casts doubt on the belief that he carried out the attacks for OBL.

My original mention of Atta was “..folks who knew Atta in Florida are advised by the FBI to keep their mouths shut...” – this after you basically suggested that the ‘confessional culture’ in the US would allow anyone with a juicy story at variance with the official one to get airtime or attention. This description of those ‘people that knew Atta’ comes from page 36 of THE BIG WEDDING, in the midst of Sander Hicks’ profile of BARRY AND THE BOYS author Daniel Hopsicker – Hopsicker eventually wrote a Florida-specific investigation into the background of the 9/11 attackers titled WELCOME TO TERRORLAND.

"Like many other witnesses who knew Atta, Keller says she has been harassed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Of course, Keller was never called as a witness by the 9/11 Commission. Everything she says about the man contradicts the official story. The FBI says that Atta left the area of Venice, Florida at the end of 2000, but just by digging through the local papers, Hopsicker points out that they lied: Atta lived with Amanda Keller in the Sandpiper Apartments, across the street from the Venice airport, in April 2001.

The FBI and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have paid a visit to anyone who knew Atta and might challenge the official story. Atta’s and Amanda’s neighbour told Hopsicker, “At first, right after the attack, they told me I must have been mistaken, in my identification. Or they would insinuate that I was lying. Finally, they stopped trying to get me to change my story, and just stopped by once a week to make sure I hadn’t talked to anyone.” Amanda was eventually pressured into claiming that the Atta she knew and slept with was a different Mohamed Atta.”

As far as how Hicks’ book ‘casts doubt on the belief that he [Atta] carried out the attacks for OBL’, I’ll just quote the book directly – this isn’t a piece by piece breakdown of the evidence Hicks uses to make his case, just a summary of his general argument.

“The official story from the FBI is that Atta was a fundamentalist Muslim who hated America and led the 9/11 attacks. In real life, however, Atta seemed to be something of an Egyptian double agent who fell in love with an American ex-stripper and did a lot of coke.

Hopsicker’s Keller interviews, on video and in the book, report that Atta already had a full pilot’s license when he came to Florida. He was a very Westernized playboy, going on three-day cocaine and booze binges in Key West with Amanda Keller. Bizarre behavior for a jihadist who allegedly wrote in his diary just before 9/11 that his corpse was not to be touched by female hands.”

Hicks then devotes his next chapter (“The Enigma of Atta, and the Precedent of Double-Agent Egyptians”) to that same topic, going through the 9/11 Commission Report and using mainstream articles that contradict it (along with interviews he conducted with Peter Dale Scott and TRIPLE CROSS author Peter Lance) to make his case. More later, if anyone is still interested.

[Len Colby]

I didn't get as much time over the weekend as I'd hoped, but I'll tackle questions as I get the time.

Please provide a citation for your claim about the people who knew Atta…For the benefit of those of us who don’t have the book perhaps you could outline what they said and tell us how it casts doubt on the belief that he carried out the attacks for OBL.

My original mention of Atta was “..folks who knew Atta in Florida are advised by the FBI to keep their mouths shut...” – this after you basically suggested that the ‘confessional culture’ in the US would allow anyone with a juicy story at variance with the official one to get airtime or attention. This description of those ‘people that knew Atta’ comes from page 36 of THE BIG WEDDING, in the midst of Sander Hicks’ profile of BARRY AND THE BOYS author Daniel Hopsicker – Hopsicker eventually wrote a Florida-specific investigation into the background of the 9/11 attackers titled WELCOME TO TERRORLAND.

I’ve read some of Hopsicker’s work and wasn’t very impressed though some parts were interesting. Can you be more specific about who these people were? I wasn’t the person who used the “confessional culture” argument but I think the author was referring to participants in the “plot” not witnesses. Presumably there is no documentation for these claims and Hopsicker and Hicks can report them because the people supposedly told to “keep their mouths shut” didn’t.

"Like many other witnesses who knew Atta, Keller says she has been harassed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Of course, Keller was never called as a witness by the 9/11 Commission. Everything she says about the man contradicts the official story. The FBI says that Atta left the area of Venice, Florida at the end of 2000, but just by digging through the local papers, Hopsicker points out that they lied: Atta lived with Amanda Keller in the Sandpiper Apartments, across the street from the Venice airport, in April 2001.

Hopsicker made a big deal about that too, I don’t think it makes a difference one way or the other if he lived in Venice or Miami an hour or two away. You have yet to provide any documentation for these claims.

The FBI and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have paid a visit to anyone who knew Atta and might challenge the official story. Atta’s and Amanda’s neighbour told Hopsicker, “At first, right after the attack, they told me I must have been mistaken, in my identification. Or they would insinuate that I was lying. Finally, they stopped trying to get me to change my story, and just stopped by once a week to make sure I hadn’t talked to anyone.” Amanda was eventually pressured into claiming that the Atta she knew and slept with was a different Mohamed Atta.”

There is evidence she was talking about somebody else and it’s possible that the sect of Islam Atta belonged to permitted the kind of behavior she described.

http://911myths.com/html/strip_clubs.html . Who backs Hicks’ and Hopsicker’s claims?

In any case putting too much weight on one witness is unreasonable if we don’t know his or her reliability. This is especially true of strippers, I’ve known a few ever dated one.

As far as how Hicks’ book ‘casts doubt on the belief that he [Atta]carried out the attacks for OBL’, I’ll just quote the book directly – this isn’t a piece by piece breakdown of the evidence Hicks uses to make his case, just a summary of his general argument.

“The official story from the FBI is that Atta was a fundamentalist Muslim who hated America and led the 9/11 attacks. In real life, however, Atta seemed to be something of an Egyptian double agent who fell in love with an American ex-stripper and did a lot of coke.

Hopsicker’s Keller interviews, on video and in the book, report that Atta already had a full pilot’s license when he came to Florida. He was a very Westernized playboy, going on three-day cocaine and booze binges in Key West with Amanda Keller. Bizarre behavior for a jihadist who allegedly wrote in his diary just before 9/11 that his corpse was not to be touched by female hands.”

Hicks then devotes his next chapter (“The Enigma of Atta, and the Precedent of Double-Agent Egyptians”) to that same topic, going through the 9/11 Commission Report and using mainstream articles that contradict it (along with interviews he conducted with Peter Dale Scott and TRIPLE CROSS author Peter Lance) to make his case. More later, if anyone is still interested.

Ditto above I’d like to see evidence other that the word of a coke head stipper who might have been talking about someone else.

[Len Colby]

double post!

But I'll make this a PS

After denying it at first Atta's dad basiclly admitted his son had been one of the hijackers

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/07/19/...rror/index.html

Edited February 13, 2007 by Len Colby