Posted on 07/29/2002 5:51:10 PM PDT by mhking
I participate on a TV geek-type message board based in the UK. Generally, conversation talks quite a bit about the various news channels and how they present the news. Most of the time I don't have a problem with folks over there; I try to stay away (on purpose) from political discussions, because primarily they always fall into a mindset of 'the US is bad and evil, and we (the UK) are right' which does nothing but tick me off. The latest vitriol from there has me fuming to the n'th degree. They traditionally seem to hate FNC, and the other US TV networks as well - short CNN (some of the time). As you could imagine, in their collective mind's eye, BBC is 'God' and everyone else in the 'news game' is stupid. That is bad enough. The larger problem is demonstrated by the post I've got listed below. Some people there imply that what the US government is doing is 'evil' and even go as far as to imply that the US government had something to do with the events of 9/11. I'm beyond anger, and as a result, I'm not posting there at present.
"I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle. It is the United States which is perpetrating every maltreatment on women children and common people..."
Questions about the events of September 11
BBC LDN
Joined: 06 May 2002
Posts: 290
Right.
I have rather a lot to say on this matter, because my work is currently directly related to it, and as such I have been doing rather extensive research on it.
So... let's start here:
The person who, shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center, was announced as "the prime suspect" (without any evidence being publicised) was Osama bin Laden, who has made no secret of his animosity toward the US for its support of Israeli subjugation of the Palestinians, for what he sees as the Americans' defilement of Saudi Arabia (the location of two of the three holiest Islamic sites), the continued bombing of Iraq, and the Americans' support of the (what he believes to be) apostate regimes of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The contempt with which the US is regarded by certain Arab organisations, and the involvement of Arabs in the ineffective bombing of the WTC in 1993, means that Arabs are automatically suspected in any terrorist attack against the US (as they were in the Oklahoma City bombing, until the US Government announced that Timothy McVeigh was the culprit.
Within hours of the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon, the mainstream media whores were quoting "Government sources" as stating that Osama bin Laden was the likely culprit. As the WTC bombers intended, most Americans (and indeed most of the world) immediately believed this claim, and now regard him as the perpetrator of this atrocity and the entire Arab world as their enemy - a reaction welcomed by many in Israel. Many people in Arab countries also believe he did it, because for them Osama bin Laden personifies the resentment against American exploitation of the third world which they themselves feel. But although he praised the attacks themselves, bin Laden has never said that he was behind the attacks himself; indeed, he has explicitly denied this:
-- Osama bin Laden, interview with Pakistani newspaper Ummat (Karachi), September 28 2001
After one of the video broadcasts from Al-Jazeera (which, it has been suggested even by the Western media, may have been an American forgery, since Osama bin Laden is shown wearing a US Army jacket - much as if Churchill had delivered his wartime speeches wearing a swastika armband and the uniform of a Luftwaffe colonel), Condoleeza Rice declared that this was an "admission" by bin Laden of responsibility for the attacks. It was not, but by claiming it was, she maintains the focus on "Arab terrorists", for whom no satisfactory evidence of implication has ever been publically presented.
Several thousand civilians died in the collapse of the WTC towers, and dozens of military personnel were killed in the attack on the Pentagon - though the numbers are small compared to:
the hundreds of thousands of civilians incinerated in the US fire bombings of Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo, and in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
the two to five million post-World War II refugees from the Soviet Union who were forcibly returned to Stalin, to face either immediate execution or a slow death in the Gulag, on the orders of Roosevelt and Eisenhower in Operation Keelhaul
the millions of civilians who died from hunger and disease as a result of US-instigated mass starvation of Germans during 1945-1950 under a plan overseen by Henry Morgenthau
the hundreds of thousands of Native Americans killed by white settlers in the 19th century or allowed to starve to death by the US Government in the 20th century
the murder of between 20,000 and 40,000 Vietnamese military personnel and citizens from 1968 to 1971 by the CIA in their political assassination program, Operation Phoenix
the million or so Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians killed by the American military in the 1960s and 1970s whilst defending their countries from American domination (or simply because they happened to be where the Americans carried out their carpet bombings)
the 200,000 civilians killed (using US-supplied equipment) as a result of Indonesia's invasion of East Timor in 1975, for which prior approval was given by the then US President and US Secretary of State (Ford and Kissinger)
the six million Brazilian Indians who have died as a result of the policies of American multinational corporations
the 10,000 to 20,000 people - mostly civilians - killed in the US-supported invasion of Lebanon by Israel in 1982
the 6,000 (perhaps as many as 20,000) Iraqi civilians killed during the 41 days and nights of bombing by the British and the Americans in 1991 (during which time the civilian infrastructure was targeted - this is in itself a war crime)
the tens of thousands of Iraqi conscripts slaughtered on the "Highway of Death" by US Navy pilots during their attempted retreat from Kuwait in 1991 (another war crime because the soldiers killed were not in a combat situation)
the tens of thousands of civilians in Sudan who have died due to the absence of medicines resulting from the destruction of the Sudanese pharmaceutical plant by American cruise missiles in 1998, and from the economic sanctions imposed on Sudan
the one to two million Iraqi civilians, two-thirds of them children, who have died in the last ten years as a result of the effects of tons of cancer-causing depleted uranium left over from the million or so exploded rounds of ammunition used in attacks by American warplanes in the 1991 American/British 6-week campaign against Iraq, and from the subsequent US/British-imposed economic blockade.
This is what the American people choose to ignore. The sheer arrogance of the American citizens is beyond comprehension, the overwhelming air of supremacy and delusions of utter innocence, astounding.
There is no denying that, whoever was responsible for the attacks - and as my opening paragraphs suggested, the exact identity of the perpetrators remains questionable - they were atrocious, but what is almost more shameful is the American attitude that they did nothing to deserve it, that they, the great American people, were attacked completely without provocation or reason. Yet they utterly fail to understand that the attacks - if indeed they were conceived by the Arab world - were a reaction to American foreign policy, to years of interference and ill-considered boosting of their own interests abroad, NOT an unprovoked, incomprehensible, meaningless act of terrorism.
America expresses outrage at the deaths of several thousand of its citizens, but ignores responsibility for the deaths of tens of millions of civilians at the hands of its military and its CIA - and still expects-- no, DEMANDS the world's sympathy for its loss.
On September 11, I will pay my respects to the innocent victims of the attacks, for those that were killed were not warriors on a battlefield, but people going about their own business - even if, for most of the victims, that business was taking place in the greatest symbol of America's conceit and self-interests, the vast business centre encased in a monumental duolith showcasing the United States' capitalist mindset and sheer arrogance.
But it was tragic that so many had to die. The great sadness is that the ignorance continues; September 11 did not 'hammer the point home'; rather it propagated an even greater ignorance of America's own culpability for its actions, and developed it further to include total blind advocation of anything and everything proposed by the US Government under the banner of the "war against terrorism".
In view of the $30 billion given annually to the FBI, the CIA and other US intelligence agencies, why were these agencies so completely unaware of this conspiracy before they saw its results on CNN?
Why has the apparent incompetence described above been rewarded with yet more billions of dollars?
The four United Airlines and American Airlines jets took off with an average occupancy of 27%. That four airliners from the top airlines leaving from the East Coast around 0900 on a weekday for the West Coast would all have such low occupancy is unlikey. Why was this?
Why would hijackers intending to crash planes into the WTC hijack jets taking off from Boston, rather than from somewhere nearer such as JFK in New York, which would conserve fuel aboard, thus maximising destruction?
Why would hijackers intending to crash a place into the Pentagon hijack a jet from Dulles Airport, and allow it to fly for an hour away from its target before turning around and flying another hour back to it (knowing that military jets during this time could have been expected?
American Flight 77 (the jet which supposedly crashed into the Pentagon, although evidence for this is somewhat sketchy) was hijacked at about 0900, at about the same time as the WTC impacts, and its change of course back towards Washington, or its transponder being turned off, would have been known to flight controllers, who were aware of the impacts; why then were US Air Force jets not scrambled to intecept AA77, when there were US Air Force jets at seven locations normally ready to take off at ten minutes' notice, and when particularly the Pentagon, Capitol Hill and the White House were unguarded potential targets for a plane acting suspiciously shortly after two other aircraft were used as makeshift missiles elsewhere?
Where are the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder (the black boxes)? These black boxes are designed to survive any crash. Have they been examined by experts from the National Transportation Safety Board, the American agency which usually investigates plane crashes? If not, why not?
In particular, what is on the CVR and FDR from United Flight 93, the jet which crashed in Pennsylvania? Were there any recorded radio transmissions from this jet just prior to its crash, and if so, what were they? Why, exactly, did this jet crash?
"Workers at Indian Lake Marina [six miles from where UA93 crashed] said that they saw a cloud of confetti-like debris descend on the lake and nearby farms minutes after hearing the explosion that signaled the crash at 10:06am Tuesday." (--Pittsburgh Post Gazette, 13 Sep 2001) If the plane was not shot down, but rather remained intact until hitting the ground, how could this debris travel the six miles from the crash site to Indian Lake in minutes , when there was only a 10mph wind blowing? (For wind-borne debrus to travel six miles in, say, six minutes, requires a 60mph wind.)
Why did President George W Bush do nothing (except listen to a little girl's story about her pet goat) during the thirty minutes between when he was informed that the second jet hit the WTC and the Pentagon impact?
Why did the significantly less badly damaged South Tower collapse first, 47 minutes after it was hit, rather than the North Tower (which was hit first and collapsed 104 minutes after being hit, even though the fire (and damage caused by the initial impact) in the North Tower (the alleged cause of the collapse) was much more intense?
Would a limited amount of jet fuel burning in an enclosed space (with little oxygen available for combustion) actually produce temperatures high enough (some 1538°C/2800°F) to melt massive steel beams (and ALL the steel beams, since steel conducts heat efficiently) enclosed in concrete in just 47 minutes? If so, wouldn't the twin towers have buckled and bent, and toppled over onto the surrounding buildings of the Lower Manhattan Financial District, rather than collapsing neatly upon themselves in the matter of a controlled demolition?
Why were such huge quantities of ash and dust produced? How could fire convert concrete into dust? Has the ash been chemically analysed to determine what it really is, and how it might have been produced?
Why were no aircraft fragments, identifiable as coming from a Boeing 757, recovered from the Pentagon crash site?
Why were no remains of the approximately sixty passengers and crew on the jet which allegedly hit the Pentagon returned to relatives?
Far too many questions - no-one willing to offer satisfactory replies.
Bah. What is almost most shameful of all is that this boob and the clowns who think his way totally miss the point. Its not that we dont think these murderous monsters had some perceived injustice they were acvting against, its that we dont gave a damn. To waste effort trying to apologize for your killers by attempting to understand them is a joke. I dont care what they desired, what they feared, what they dreamed. They are beneath contempt, as was Hitler, Stalin, Tojo, and all the other scum this fool seems to think the US was worse than (we bombed Dresden to stop Hitler, shame on us. We bombed Tokyo to end things like the Rape of Nanking, shame on us. Stalin killed millions, must be our fault). This guy just sucks. AAAAAARGH!
the hundreds of thousands of civilians incinerated in the US fire bombings of Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo, and in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
I wouldn't let rankle. This guy is either mentally incompetent or on drugs. Perhaps both. Certain factions in Great Britain can't get over the fact we booted their arses out of this country and that they are no longer an empire. Plus there is the fact Great Britain, over the course of history, isn't lily white when it comes to human rights.
He can include the RAF's leadership in this at any time.
Hey! I never thought of it from that point of view.
They were flying American built airliners that day too! Boeing must be behind this!
Wonder who made the video camera that they recorded Bin Laden with - reckon the Japanese are in on this as well?
It's a world-wide conspiracy against Afghanistan!!!
If you take a look at the link, you can see in that entire subject area, how they pontificate about how evil we are - the subject started when I posted what the US TV networks were doing ot mark 9/11. Things degenerated from there.
A little while ago, I posted a note that basically (and politely) said screw you, we believe the way we want and ain't gotta answer to you, and am refusing to discuss it further with them. The ones that figure out that I'm telling them to go play with themselves in a dark room will get mad and try to get the board owner to boot me off, but knowing him, he'll laugh and let me be.
Many in Europe feel that way. Most, if not all third world countrys do as well. Call it a case of international class envy.
PS Most Europeans didn't have a problem with Americans when American soldiers where spilling their blood in WW 2 to help save them from Hitler. Funny how that works!
Because you're a friggin' moron to even ask the question. We know that the hijackers made at least twelve different dry run flights. They knew which day of the week had the smallest occupancy.
An even more stupid question. The hijackers needed the plane to be at fairly high altitude--at least 15-20,000 feet--when they seized it. A commotion in the cabin at low altitude would almost certainly cause a crash, as it did with Flight 93. The flights from Boston would reach cruising altitude just as they bypassed New York; hence they were perfect for the task.
These people were not experienced pilots and had minimal experience with airborne navigation. Apparently they used topographical features as cues to seize the planes, and the cue for Flight 77 was the Ohio River.
Occam's Razor says it was just complacency and incompetence. But I'm sure Conspiracy Boy knows better.
Any crash? Where does it say that, nitwit?
See above. There was a fight in the cockpit at an altitude of 500 feet. DUH!
Cause, maybe, the debris wasn't "wind-borne"? Maybe it was "big friggin' explosion-borne"?
I am not familiar with this, so I can't answer. Based on his previous "facts," I am not willing to give this guy the benefit of the doubt.
How does this person feed himself? Anyone over the age of three knows that the WTC towers were unique in that they were primarily held up by their steel exoskeletons. Flight 175 hitting the south tower destroyed more of the exoskeleton than Flight 11 hitting the north tower did.
Ah, and this guy is a professional fire engineer, too? How exactly was there "limited oxygen" in an office building with standard ventilation and at least a quarter of its windows above the 91s floor blown or smashed out? There was an enormous amount of office paper in the towers, and the fire fed primarily on that. The towers collapsed downward because the first parts of the building to give way were the trusses that connected each floor to the steel exoskeleton.
I don't believe this to be true.
I don't know that this is true, and if it is, it's because the plane crashed and burned in an enclosed area.
What a remarkable collection of idiocies.
The REAL Brits know the score by and large.
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