Hard News: The March for Democracy
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If they weren't clever enough to orchestrate it (Iraq I mean) then they were at least too stupid to prevent it.
Of course they orchestrated it. This has never really been in question. And yes, of course Bin Laden was an agent of the US. So was Saddam. That they both turned into sworn enemies is neither surprising nor proof of shadowy dealings: it's simply how the cold war worked, and the public in the US has always accepted that.
Perhas the 9/11 Truth movement is a pathological reaction to that cynical acquiescence. Either way, they're not helping the cause of the critics of that imperialist logic - quite the opposite.
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I feel trolled, and I don't like it.
I know how you feel but how often do I have to say...
Like I've said before, I find both sides of this to be various shades of bullshite. There will always be agendas, either before or after such a horrendous act, that will be aided by nefarious explanations.
Let me make this as clear as I can.
I am neither Jewish nor an anti-semite, I am also not a Zionist, a "Truther", a bigot or a troll. I just have doubts about the truth of the explanations, all of them. -
That they both turned into sworn enemies is neither surprising nor proof of shadowy dealings: it's simply how the cold war worked, and the public in the US has always accepted that.
Perhas the 9/11 Truth movement is a pathological reaction to that cynical acquiescence.
In my opinion, the public didn't accept that, because they never had the shades of grey explained to them. The only part of the old saying about my enemies enemy being my friend that they picked up on was 'friend', which was sort of interpreted in a BFF, best buds for life sort of a way.
I doubt more than a small proportion of the population really understood, even in the most general sense, the proxy wars being fought in their name in SE Asia, Africa and S America.
The 9/11 truth movement is simply one among many reactions to the post-9/11 question 'why do they hate us!?'. It's difficult to ignore the fact that you may not be as universally loved and revered as you think you are when it's shoved in your face in a way you can't ignore.
Charlie Wilson's war is not a bad example to make. In real life, Representative Wilson saw the Afghan proxy war in the most simplistic of terms: simple, yet noble tribesmen valiantly battling for their freedom against a powerful monolithic oppressor. When he finally managed to get close enough to meet a few of them (towards the end of the conflict his CIA contacts allowed him to travel there), he was rather taken aback by their lifestyle and beliefs, which were ferocious and savage well beyond his comprehension.
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I am neither Jewish nor an anti-semite, I am also not a Zionist, a "Truther", a bigot or a troll. I just have doubts about the truth of the explanations, all of them.
So why did you choose to link to that one in particular? Honest question.
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So why did you choose to link to that one in particular? Honest question.
It has its origins in one of the first reports on the incident (the "Dancing Israelis" story") and as far as I can tell it is current, 14 April 2010, it is also the least inflammatory report of the current story. Even 911 Myths doesn't totally debunk it.
The New York Times article seems not to be on-line and I apologise for referencing a Fox News article but at that point in time even Fox was trying to be accurate. The Bin Laden denial in that article is interesting too as is the Colin Powell take on Bin Laden's involvement. -
When he finally managed to get close enough to meet a few of them (towards the end of the conflict his CIA contacts allowed him to travel there), he was rather taken aback by their lifestyle and beliefs, which were ferocious and savage well beyond his comprehension.
Well, when I got close enough to meet a few of them, back in 1972, they were fine, if a little wild and very few of them carried guns. The Bedouin still ran camel trains through there. These days The Bedouin look like This and the camel trains are history.
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But Steve, assuming one can rely on any statement in that "report", which frankly I don't, it doesn't present any evidence in support of the claimed conspiracy at all. It boils down to saying "this event was convenient for Israel." Every geopolitical event is convenient for someone, but it doesn't follow that therefore that someone conspired to make it happen.
The dancing Israelis story seems to boil down to one person claiming she saw some young men acting inappropriately (as of course many people do when shocked). If that's not complete debunking, what would count?
I simply cannot see how you would find these credible evidence that Israel is behind 9/11 (or even peripherally involved, for that matter) unless you are predisposed to believe that anyway. If this is the best you can muster for disbelieving the standard account of what happened it is a pretty poor showing.
(By the way, what kind of double think does it take to cite Colin "evidence of WMD" Powell here? Is it ok to believe his public statements as long as they support your theories?)
The Ron Paul thing I note is quick to distinguish how they're not anti-Semitic and how some of the people they cite have Jewish ancestry. They do protest too much.
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Well, when I got close enough to meet a few of them, back in 1972, they were fine, if a little wild and very few of them carried guns.
The Soviets invaded in 1979, and stayed until 1989.
A decade of brutal occupation and the funnelling of thousands of modern weapons into the country may have had something to do with it.
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Stephen,
There is so much said about who is to blame, the truth is hidden, it certainly isn't the people of Afghanistan or Iraq. These people have suffered enough for hundreds of years yet gain no sympathy. However, when somebody points the finger in a more likely direction they are always shot down in flames and accused of being a nutty conspiracy theorist, or worse. When truth fails, follow the money.
I don't know what to believe, it just saddens and angers me that it is always the poor that suffer.
Rich, absolutely. The current situation ain't making it any easier for them either. -
There is so much said about who is to blame, the truth is hidden, it certainly isn't the people of Afghanistan or Iraq. These people have suffered enough for hundreds of years yet gain no sympathy. However, when somebody points the finger in a more likely direction they are always shot down in flames and accused of being a nutty conspiracy theorist, or worse. When truth fails, follow the money.
It wasn't the people of Iraq or Afghanistan. It was a group of conspirators operating mostly out of Saudi Arabia, and they certainly weren't poor either. There is multiple and convergent evidence of their involvement, virtually none for any other explanation, yet I suspect we won't hear the end of various alternative theories any time soon because hey, people need hobbies. It irritates me a bit that they dress this fascination with chasing the most ridiculous ideas as a commitment to scepticism, or the Truth, or racial tolerance, or pacifism, or anti-imperialism, when it's none of those things.
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I am fully persuaded that bin Laden blindsided the Taliban and that in any case the war in Afghanistan is a dreadful, futile waste of life. I am fully persuaded that the war in Iraq is most likely a combination of Bush's daddy issues and imperial oil needs. Those are truths that aren't hidden but are out there in plain sight. The victims of those wars have every sympathy from me and I don't need Truther fantasies to feel it.
The Truthers are in a way the people who can't handle the truth -- they apparently don't believe there would have been a war in Iraq without 9/11 (ignoring the bizarre illogic of faking an attack by Saudis to launch a war in Iraq), whereas I have no problem in believing that at all. They believe that airlines and the military and the fragile technological systems and the trust that underpin the modern world are too strong to be vulnerable to anything except state-sanctioned meddling, whereas I have no problem believing that a clever barbarian who's willing to die for the cause can easily disrupt them.
What I'm not persuaded by are, as you put it, "nutty" theories that actually have the propaganda effect of putting critics of both wars on the side of loons. I guess we differ on what we consider a more likely direction. Believing everything, believing nothing, it's just abdicating your common sense for the joy of wallowing in your powerlessness.
Frankly, if I were a real conspiracy theorist, I would expect malicious intelligence agencies to be behind Truthers. Truther theories exaggerate the power of the establishment and demoralise left-wing opposition. I guess this is why I find them more infuriating than, say, creationism.
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Here's something you really can be angry about: The Ground Truth: The Untold Story of America Under Attack on 9/11 by John Farmer, chief counsel to the 9/11 Commission.
It is a story of official fecklessness and lies before, during and after the attacks. And it doesn't need exotic conspiracies; it's well enough documented.
The crazy thing about this is that the top Google result for the book is the conspiracy site Prison Planet. It's relatively difficult to find a mainstream news report about it. Kind of does my head in, that.
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Oh, and also: Ron Paul is a racist lunatic of many years' standing.
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It was a group of conspirators operating mostly out of Saudi Arabia, and they certainly weren't poor either. There is multiple and convergent evidence of their involvement, virtually none for any other explanation,
Here is some of that virtually none for any other explanation,
What Did Israel Know in Advance of the 9/11 Attacks? and this The Five Dancing Israelis Arrested On 9-11
Now show me yours. -
Here is some of that virtually none for any other explanation,
Well, at least you've stopped being disingenous about what you believe. I wonder why you didn't answer Stephen's perfectly straightforward question earlier.
The proof for the Al Qaeda connection to 9/11 is not in any one place, but you ought to be able to find it by your good old self by consulting them, whatchamacallem, newspapers and the such. Plenty of primary documents related to the investigations are in the public domain, too. Wikipedia as always is a pretty good port of call.
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After spending fifteen minutes reading that stuff all I can think is 'who gives a shit!' The evil that men do, and all that. It was bad. They, whoever they were, were bad. Bad shit continues to happen, in spite of, or because of (e.g. Guantanamo) the lies and BS that was/is propagated on both sides before, during, and after 9/11.
And what have we learned? Not a lot, if recent evidence is anything to go by. Perhaps I could read that Farmer book, but I suspect it would disappoint and sadden me even more. If you start to believe it was easily preventable, where does that leave us?
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They, whoever they were, were bad. Bad shit continues to happen, in spite of, or because of (e.g. Guantanamo) the lies and BS that was/is propagated on both sides before, during, and after 9/11.
On both sides? Which sides would those be?
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Your so-called explanation is self-contradictory. Let me quote it to you:
"Whether or not Israeli spies had detailed foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks, the Israeli authorities knew enough to warn the U.S. government in the summer of 2001 that an attack was on the horizon."
Right, so is it a conspiracy, or not?
I see they note Pollard's arrest as "an exception". Yeah right. How about "it doesn't fit with our theory, so we'll ignore it."
What happens when we check the only direct references? Why, we find selective quoting. Eg, your pals link to Yehdit America. When I click through, I find in the very first paragraph:
"Note to those being referred to this article by one of several antisemitic, conspiracy-theory web sites: Please notice that these sites have left out the following important passage: "The five denied dancing. I presume the neighbor was not near them and does not understand Hebrew. Furthermore, the neighbor complained that the cheerful gang on the roof spoke Arabic. As far as I understand it, that neighbor has had previous problems with the company, and she could have been waiting for an opportunity to avenge the owners." In other words, the one "witness" was not telling the truth. "
So why should I find any of the rest credible when even less then 5 minutes without even looking for debunking cribs elsewhere, just using the material provided itself, starts to turn up problems? (I got home 10 minutes ago and I'm still sweating).
Oh yeah, your mates are mates with Holocaust deniers. I'm going to assume that you're just gullible. Have you checked out the rest of the site? Do you find it all equally credible? If not, why is this one bit you linked to credible? If yes, then... fuck you.
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Here is some of that virtually none for any other explanation,
What Did Israel Know in Advance of the 9/11 Attacks? and this The Five Dancing Israelis Arrested On 9-11
Now show me yours. -
On both sides? Which sides would those be?
Pendant. All sides? Who came out of this clean? According to the review of Farmer's book, and most other reports, not many, if any.
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I just struggle to think of sides, that's all. A lot of institutions came out pretty badly: government, the media, civil society organisations and their capacity to oppose war or measures lilke the Patriot Act.
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and their capacity to oppose war or measures like the Patriot Act.
You support them? When necessary and justifiable maybe, but I struggle to see how Iraq or Afghanistan are either of these things, perhaps with the benefit of hindsight. The cynicism around 9/11 stems partly from the fact it was exploited so liberally for political, and military gain, at the expense of civil liberties.
AI says: Denial of Rights: Amend the USA PATRIOT Act Now!
American Muslim has multiple articles: CIVIL RIGHTS AND THE PATRIOT ACT .Anyway, maybe I should read that book. It is a veritable minefield, and boobquake suddenly seems decidedly safer.
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You support them?
Que? No. Of course not.
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"Whether or not Israeli spies had detailed foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks, the Israeli authorities knew enough to warn the U.S. government in the summer of 2001 that an attack was on the horizon."
Seriously. The US government knew that an attack on US soil using aeroplanes was imminent. The Israelis sending the same message wouldn't have added anything.
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[Offensive comment deleted -- RB]
[for purposes of clarity, the crack was a reference to speaking to "the Wellington branch of Mossad" in a reply to Stephen. Hardly the worst thing you've ever read, but in the circumstances, unfunny and unhelpful. - RB]
I just struggle to think of sides,
There are many but the ones that suffer the most are the poor and the innocent. And certainly not the Saudis who you seem the put as No. 1 suspect
It wasn't the people of Iraq or Afghanistan. It was a group of conspirators operating mostly out of Saudi Arabia, and they certainly weren't poor either.
A Saudi connection in wanting a war against Iraq wouldn't seem unlikely after the Kuwait invasion, however, I would not think destroying the Twin Towers and thousands of lives would have led to that but it did. It just seems that you, Gio, accept the official story because "it was in the papers and Wikipedia proves it" and that is just so not your usual stance, have you got something to hide? ;-)
Stephen,
Oh yeah, your mates are mates with Holocaust deniers. I'm going to assume that you're just gullible. Have you checked out the rest of the site? Do you find it all equally credible? If not, why is this one bit you linked to credible? If yes, then... fuck you.
Conditional insults are so much nicer than blind ones, don't you think? Also, you may note, that I linked to the same site that Russell did are you lumping him in with that ?. By your logic if there is an inconsistency in an article then the whole thing is rubbish, we have to sort the wheat from the chaff, as it were, we have to be selective, we have to use our own judgement, otherwise we are but sheep.
And please, try not to be so defensive. It doesn't become you.
Peace.
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