Posted on 02/15/2005 1:19:18 AM PST by JohnHuang2
On April 20, 2001, a Peruvian military jet pilot confused a small plane carrying missionaries for one carrying drug runners and shot it down. In the last two weeks, MSNBC has been leading the charge to bring this case to closure.
Its on-air personnel Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough in particular have been asking hard questions about why no charges have been brought against CIA agents who may have lied about the nature of this crash. The MSNBC website invites citizens to communicate their concerns about this presumed cover-up through MSNBC to the U.S. government.
This would be all well and good were it not for the likely role that MSNBC played in the cover-up of TWA Flight 800. On July 18, 1996, about 12 hours after TWA Flight 800 exploded off the coast of Long Island, a military officer off the record told a very tired Fox News senior reporter that "a major screw-up" had occurred and that the "White House" had ordered the military to "stand down" for 48 hours until policy decisions were reached.
This did not surprise the Fox journalist. For hours the previous evening, Fox News had reportedly been involved in a bidding war for an amateur video tape of the 747 being destroyed by what appeared to be missile fire. When the electronic bidding war reached $50,000, Fox was eliminated from the process.
The high bidder seems to have been NBC and/or its new sister network, MSNBC. This makes market sense in that MSNBC had been launched just two days prior, and the publicity would have been well worth the cost. Still, I say "seems" because my sources here will not speak on record, nor will MSNBC follow up on queries. Here is exactly what I know, no more, no less.
In the summer of 2001, my partner James Sanders, and I were negotiating with Broadcast Network News (BNN) the world's largest independent news producer to distribute our documentary on the subject of TWA Flight 800, "Silenced." These were serious negotiations. The person with whom we were communicating was BNN's chief executive officer, Steve Rosenbaum.
One day that summer, Rosenbaum called me in a state of high excitement. "Jack," he said, "you will not believe the conversation I just had." Although Rosenbaum thought our video had market potential, he was not at all convinced of our thesis, namely that missiles had been fired at TWA Flight 800. The conversation in question eliminated just about all doubt.
As Rosenbaum explained, he had been interviewing a candidate for a position as BNN's technical director at a rooftop cafe when an airplane passed overhead. The conversation moved naturally to airplanes and then, with Rosenbaum taking the lead, to TWA Flight 800.
"I've seen the video," said the candidate, who had until recently been working at MSNBC.
"You mean 'Silenced'?" said Rosenbaum, a little surprised.
"No," the candidate answered, "the video, the actual video of the plane being shot down."
As the candidate told Rosenbaum, late on the night of the crash, editors at MSNBC had the tape on their monitors when "three men in suits" came to their editing suites, removed the tape, and threatened the editors with serious consequences if they ever revealed its contents.
The threats worked all too well. Despite my repeated requests, Rosenbaum could not get the technical director, whom he hired, to go on record. Over the years, I have asked various producers at MSNBC to follow up, but if they did, they kept what they learned to themselves.
Earlier in his research, Sanders had been approached by a technician at another station who had monitoring the competition's feeds from Long Island and made a bootleg copy of that same amateur video. What is more, he withheld a copy from the FBI when its agents came to confiscate whatever relevant tapes his station might have. Despite a series of phone calls, Sanders could not persuade the technician to hand over the tape. His fear was palpable enough, however, to convince Sanders that he was telling the truth.
Although I have not seen the video myself, I have heard from scores, if not hundreds, of credible people who swear they saw it on television in the first hours after the crash. That at least one among the hundreds of eyewitnesses would have had a video camera handy during a beautiful summer sunset evening makes perfect sense. The FBI admits to having confiscated two still photos and predictably writes off the images to dirt or scratches on the lens. A video would have been much harder to dismiss.
Nelson DeMille has obviously heard these stories as well and perhaps more. In his best-selling novel, "Night Falls," a confiscated amateur video drives the plot. Although he spices the video up a bit in the retelling, DeMille is not just spinning fantasy. His insider details have the ring of authenticity about them.
What makes the MSNBC involvement all the more ironic is that the CIA was responsible for producing the 15-minute animated video used successfully to discredit the eyewitness testimony. If the MSNBC producers are interested in exposing not just a routine CIA cover-up, but the most consequential cover-up in American history, my fellow investigators and I will be happy to lead them right to the source.
There is admittedly much we still do not know about the explosion of TWA Flight 800, but we know enough about the CIA cover-up to bring indictments. Before turning on the CIA, however, MSNBC might want to look inward. The CIA at least had the excuse of national security. If MSNBC had reasons for betraying its journalistic ethics, I am not sure I know what they are. Indeed, had its new executives stuck to their guns that night, they might very well have prevented Sept. 11.
I apologize for getting indignant.
There are just as many things going on in this world that I am not aware of, so don't go considerin' yurself spesshul!
I was at a Holiday Inn in Wichita, KS having dinner in the bar on July 17, 1996. It was early that Wednesday evening and there were maybe a couple dozen of us there, eating or having something to drink. A big screen TV had news on, and the downing of Flight 800 became the story and the conversation of the night.
Wichita, of course is a Boeing town, and there were a couple of Boeing engineers there. As we heard reports, saw video, heard eyewitness reports of seeing something streaking toward the plane moments before it exploded, the speculations began. One or two of the eyewitness reports came from officers in the military. Before that evening concluded for us there in Wichita, most of us parted believing that whatever brought that plane down was external to the plane, i.e. most likely a missle. 747's do not blow up like that on their own.
To this day, I am convinced that a missle brought down that plane. My question now - was it a terrorist missle, or did a missle test go awfully wrong. The cover up that began so soon that night points suspicion at a missle test gone wrong.
We need to know the truth about Flight 800, and we need the country to know the truth. The truth about Flight 800 may be key to stopping any further Clinton presidency.
Words mean things. Pattern, to pilots anyway, is how they get in line to land at an airport, if they are flying under Visual Flight Rules. TWA was not in or near a/the pattern, and commercial planes don't fly VFR in any case. It was not even near where it normally would have been if it were following the other JFK Europe bound departures. And that is why the accident happened: It was more that 5000 feet lower than normal.
ML/NJ
The lower altitude is also a minor issue, since there is no guarantee of higher-altitude use which would allow military missile-launching so close to airport traffic. As I said before, the military has a great deal of airspace designated for their own use well away from commercial airports. Of course, it could have been an accidental launching during transit, but this seems somewhat unlikely.
Who are you, Hillary Clinton?
Virtually everything I cited would be admitted as evidence in an American court of law. In some case the provenance of the item like the ATC radar images would have to be demonstrated, but in case you are not aware, no one ever claimed they weren't genuine. They just claimed that the extra blip approaching TWA 800 was noise or a photographic artifact. (Maybe they could try for a year or two to produce another such artifact without resorting to Photoshop?)
ML/NJ
The Hamptons are about 80 miles east of JFK. Saying this is "so close" to airport traffic is rediculous. Since you're a (Wow! An IFR rated) pilot, why don't you have a look at the New York Sectional and tell everyone what the legend says that is printed just south of where TWA 800 fell.
ML/NJ
Woudn't hundreds, if not thousands of people have taped the video if it were ever on TV?
If TWA 800 went down because of terrorists, we would expect them to try again.
If TWA 800 went down because of a military accident, we would expect the military to try to prevent this from happening again.
Down boy! You were the one who, in 163, got all pompous and pedantic with me about 'traffic patterns' and VFR.
You would have thought so.
When Al Gore was thinking about running abin for President, John Kerry mentioned Flight 800 in a speech where he was speaking about terrorism.
Some say it is why Gore didn't put his hat back in the ring.
I am now. I stand corrected. the EO is interesting.
Now the personal attacks start. I question the conspiracy, and now I am the target. I see how things work. Nice, really.
I do not know what happened that night. I refuse to be lured into believing that 200 to 300+ people are directly involved in some coverup to protect the 'Toon. I have strong beliefs that there are righteous, upstanding Americans that would not put up with perpetuating some ruse for no reason other than cover for a politician.
All I can say about the radar is that the frequency and type used by civilian radar is prone to false returns, caused by birds, weather, and any number of things. It does not make a good witness here.
The years have gone by and nobody has come forward with real evidence that there was a conspiracy, and until there is, I cannot buy into the notion that there is. We all know that there are ways of seeing to it that a video of this incident (IF one existed) would come to light. What are they waiting for? All we get are third party accounts of what they saw, and MIB showing up in studios and confiscating stuff. I am not sure that a badge is enough to get into a video production studio, much less make off with a video tape. In a previous life I had the occasion to go to one, and the secrity there was tight, way before security was hip. Even when property is seized, there is a receipt of what was taken, signed by the Agent in charge.
Don't hate me because I question your belief in this. Early on, there was a lot of bad information being passed around as fact. I had to personally clear up some of it, and it was not easy. Check out the Alamo Girl postings on this matter.
Grapple was in NAVSPECDEVGRP at the time. I believe it has since changed commands.
Grapple was in NAVSPECDEVGRP at the time. I believe it has since changed commands.
E.O. # 13039
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
_______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release March 12, 1997
EXECUTIVE ORDER
- - - - - - -
EXCLUSION OF THE NAVAL SPECIAL WARFARE DEVELOPMENT GROUP
FROM THE FEDERAL LABOR-MANAGEMENT RELATIONS PROGRAM
By the authority vested in me as President by the
Constitution and the laws of the United States of America,
including section 7103(b)(1) of title 5 of the United States
Code, and having determined that the Naval Special Warfare
Development Group has as a primary function intelligence,
counter-intelligence, investigative, or national security
work and that the provisions of Chapter 71 of title 5 of the
United States Code cannot be applied to this organization in
a manner consistent with national security requirements and
considerations, Executive Order 12171 of November 19, 1979,
as amended, is further amended by adding the following at the
end of section 1-205:
"(i) Naval Special Warfare Development Group."
WILLIAM J. CLINTON
THE WHITE HOUSE,
March 11, 1997.
I am well, and I hope you are as well.
Thank you for the further information on Mr. Rosenbaum.
Seems you know a lot about him,so why did you claim he didn't exist?
Trying to truly exemplify your screenname?
I have a hard time believing all this. Although I think we all agree that the mainstream media is in bed with the Clintons/Democrats, it's my experience that a journalist will never pass over an oppritunity to make a name for himself/herself.
I thank posters on this thread, on both sides of the issue at hand.
Mr. Quarterpanel is correct, as well, that posters should keep in mind to stick to attacking THE ISSUE, instead of the POSTER.
Sometimes, I fall into that trap myself, but I try to make amends to the poster.
WE ALL WANT THE SAME THING. The TRUTH.
Just remember that without some physical evidence, or sworn testimony, YOUR truth, HIS truth, MY truth, are all on equal ground.
So far, the best that can be said is that something unusual occurred, and all evidence points to external forces, not airframe component failure.
And the FBI went to a lot of trouble to keep the truth hidden.
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