Since new competitive media have forced liberals to confront opposing points of view, they seem to have abandoned emotionalism as their main argument. Their new posture is mock hardheaded realism. Liberals flex their spindly little muscles and announce that everything that used to make them cry – guns, racial profiling, torturing suspects – simply doesn't work: The fact is, it doesn't work, this is according to several studies, and no, you can't see them, why would you ask?

Thus, for example, after decades of womanly hysteria about guns, we started getting statements like this from Fox News Channel's Alan Colmes to Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America: "Let's talk about some hard and cold facts, Larry. The fact of the matter is, Larry, that the odds that a home will be the scene of a homicide are much greater if there's a gun in the home." Soccer moms across America shot up straight at that one and said: I did not know that!

As the inestimable economist John Lott has shown, the study behind this flagrantly dishonest "cold hard fact" assumed that anyone killed by a gun in or near a home where anyone owned a gun was, therefore, killed by "a gun in the home." The study merely attests to the fact that people who live in high-crime neighborhoods tend to own guns. This is like the joke about diets causing people to be fat because most people on diets are fat. Or, as Lott says, on that theory of causation, hospitals must cause people to die because lots of people who die have been hospitalized recently. (Lott exposes dozens of such phony "studies" and shibboleths about guns in his splendid new book, "The Bias Against Guns.")

After 19 nearly identical-looking Muslim men hijacked four airplanes and murdered 3,000 Americans, people weren't in much of a mood for liberal preachiness about racial profiling. So instead of screaming and trying to make Americans feel guilty, liberals took a hardheaded realist approach. Asked if there was anything wrong with ethnic profiling at airports after 9-11, Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz said: "Yes, it doesn't work." Other, better ideas, he said, were face-recognition technology and national ID cards. These would work great – assuming we know who the terrorists are. But if we knew who the terrorists were, the only plane they'd be boarding would be on its way to Guantanamo.

Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin said that using appearance as a factor in screening airplane passengers "reflects not only poor judgment, but poor law enforcement." Good law enforcement apparently consists of goosing white paraplegics before they fly. On CNN, Juliette Kayyem, from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, assured viewers that "no one is disagreeing with" extra scrutiny for potential terrorists. But profiling "won't work." Al-Qaida, she said, "exists in places from Algeria to Zimbabwe." Since we're in America, wouldn't it be a big help if we could screen out the Americans? Liberals think "it doesn't work" has such a nice ring to it that the patent falsity of what they're saying should not detract from their argument.

After Sen. Teddy Kennedy tried to block federal funding for the government's program to fingerprint and photograph people entering the country from 25 Muslim nations, his sleazy back-door maneuver was defended on Fox News Channel's "O'Reilly Factor" by Sarah Eltantawi of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. Eltantawi said it was a "huge mischaracterization" to think she was going to complain about racial profiling. "That's not the argument I'm here to make." To the contrary, her objection – and Kennedy's objection – was that fingerprinting and photographing immigrants from terrorist-producing countries is "completely inefficient." And we all know Teddy Kennedy cannot abide inefficiency!

The recent capture of al-Qaida leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has led to an epidemic of "it doesn't work" claims with regard to torture. Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, former legal counsel to the CIA, National Security Agency and State Department, has been quoted as saying, "We don't use torture because it doesn't work." Torture indisputably works when you know you've got the right guy. We know who Mohammed is; we know he has information we want. There may be good and sufficient moral reasons for not torturing people for information, but efficacy is not among them.

It's as if liberals held focus groups on how to best present their ridiculous ideas and were told: Passion you've got! But what respondents say you lack is: intellection, thinking things through, understanding elementary human nature, and a basic awareness of what people are like. If conservatives have not yet persuaded liberals to give up on socialism and treason, we have at least gotten them to fake linear thinking. The next hurdle is substance.

I'm not kidding. I think I love this woman!

I did. So did the rest of the gang. Now she wont stop
trying to ride with us.

What a delightfully dishonest piece of work. The formula is really quite simple, poor Ann can’t handle much more, you take something verifiably true and then sandwich in the lie which since the first item was true you are supposed to also accept as true.

Classic disinformation technique - tell the truth enough to gain credibility and then slide in the disinformation.

Yes, most of the hand wringing arguments made to support Gun Control are verifiably false. They rely upon cheap emotional arguments that do not hold up to rational analysis.

Then we slide in the lie: “After 19 nearly identical-looking Muslim men hijacked four airplanes and murdered 3,000 Americans, people weren't in much of a mood for liberal preachiness about racial profiling.”

We do not know, and there is no evidence to prove, even the nationality of the alleged 19 Invisible, Super Hijackers - who were able to get weapons through airport security without one being detected and then fly Jumbo Jets around the most protected airspace in the world and crash them into buildings.

The validity of her defense of profiling is then based upon the unproven assumption that the 19 Superjackers were in fact Arabs. Unproven assumption - which even the head of the FBI has been forced to acknowledge however reluctantly.

So the balance of her screed is set up on a FALSE PREMISE. This is classic DISINFORMATION. It is known as the “Straw Man”. You set up your own interpretation of your opponents position as “The” interpretation - with sufficient built in holes - and then you demolish the FALSE construct.

Combined with that is the time honored technique of casting your opponents position in the most emotionally negative wording possible: “preachiness” anyone?. Relying on cheap emotionalism, eh Annie?

Pot, meet Kettle.

There is a sound argument to be made for the use of profiling techniques in identifying potential threats. And it is certainly stupid to use “random” searches that include 85 year old Grandmothers as “potential” terrists’. However, in doing any form of threapt profilitng emphasis must be placed on “potential” - not proven. It is not science it is a collection of experience which has been shown to be correct slightly more often than it is wrong. Just because someone is a member of a particular group or exhibits certain styles of dress or speech does not prove the case that they are guilty of anything. However in her zeal to create a memorable slur such nuances are a bit over poor Annie’s head.

Then she moves on to suggest the validity of Torture as an information gathering technique. Of course after defending it as effective she carefully acknowledges that there are sound moral arguments against the use of torture. However, she is actually making the point that “Torture Works”. How delightful. I wonder if she would be so supportive were she on the receiving end? No, I think not. Like most closet NAZIs she supports the use of Terror only on “Enemies of Der State”.

“It's as if liberals held focus groups on how to best present their ridiculous ideas and were told: Passion you've got! But what respondents say you lack is: intellection, thinking things through, understanding elementary human nature, and a basic awareness of what people are like. If conservatives have not yet persuaded liberals to give up on socialism and treason, we have at least gotten them to fake linear thinking. The next hurdle is substance. “

Actually the next hurdle is to get Annie Anorexic here to tell the truth.

Annie does not lack “intellection” what she lacks is candor. It would be nice if someday she wrote an article that relied upon something other that a charicature of her Straw Man’s Position.

We've got to make Ann go away. She's using logic. We can't handle that.

Is how Dingo can write so many words and not say a damn thing.

You can sum up his diatribe with his normal one liner:

_______ is a paid shill.

In this case, insert Ann Coulter into the blank.

...if Airic deviated from it's usual pattern of character assassination and actually tried a rational argument.

Now, calm down Airic. That's a good boy. See those nice people in the White Coats? They're your friends. Now put on this nice LOOOONG Sleeve Jacket. It's just your style.

"I think I would be shocked if Eric deviated from his usual pattern of character assassination and actually tried a rational argument."

Imagine the commotion if YOU were to do the same.

Is that all you've got for us Dingo?

"XYZ is a paid shill??
XYZ can't make a logical argument because XYZ only uses classic disinformation tactics. XYZ only knows strawman tactics. XYZ meet kettle. XYZ is essentially nothing more than a liar."

While your dogmatic spasms and canine dedication to your dementia is intriguing, your shop-worn cliches and boistorous harangues are most annoying.

I grow weary of your flippant attitude towards the truth.

Why doesn't Diogenes just parrot the official line and
play ball?

That's what I'm doing, you idiot. Page 37 in our little red book. READ!!!!

...offers no rationale for his tawdry intellectually and morally bankrupt and lying assertions about my above posted critique.

Demonstrate one falsehood Airic.

You cannot.

You are a liar, a shill, and a specialist in cheap, but thankfully very weak, assassinations.

BUSH LIED, CHILDREN DIED. It really is that simple.

911 - What Really Happened?

"The validity of her defense of profiling is then based upon the unproven assumption that the 19 Superjackers were in fact Arabs. Unproven assumption - which even the head of the FBI has been forced to acknowledge however reluctantly."

--even the head of the FBI has been forced to acknowledge--

Provide link documenting such.

That is EXACTLY the crap I was going to grab.

Dingo, links to whatreallyhappened.com do not count.

You called me a liar. Now back up your accusation.

The article is available at a multiplicity of Web Sites. Do your own homework.

Demands to do research are not accepted at this department. Try Google.

Hint:http://www.americanfreepress.net/051302/FBI_Admits__No_Evidence_/fbi_admits__no_evidence_.html

BUSH LIED, CHILDREN DIED. It really is that simple.

And YOU called ME a liar!

You have got to be kidding me.

YOU call ME a liar, and then back up one of YOUR own lies with a dubious"exclusive" article to the incredulous American Free Press that doesn't even say what YOU said it does?

You've got nerve boy, I'll give that to you.

If you were in my face calling me a liar, and all you had to back up your tripe was that shit, you'd be getting popped in the nose.

Damn! I'm missing page 37 from my little red book! Guess I'll have to wing this one. OK, let's see...how about this:

Anything a conservative Republican says is the God's-honest truth. Anything anyone else says in contradiction to the Republicans is a damnable lie.

When confronted with the truth, change the subject or assail your detractor's character.

When responding to critics, steal their ideas and then parrot them back a day later with your own spin.

Eric and Daveman, can I join you swell guys, now?

...and his numerous videotaped confessions and boastings. Not to mention his henchmen.

Why is an "exclusive" article written by a proven idiot that makes a living selling conspiracy theory junk to morons like you, submitted to a radical neocon "alternative" media website, proof of anything except the fact that Dingo is a brain-dead lying son-of-a-bitch?

Kiss My Fucking Ass

Here's what Muller said:

http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/speeches/speech041902.htm

You can't quote opinions from leftist publications and expect them to be taken as fact. Not going to happen here at IMC.

A bunch of people, including the idiots here, have taken an op-ed piece by Michael Collins Piper and run with it like it is the gospel truth of intrepreting what Robert Mueller said. This is what is presented as documented evidence by the left these days. It's like you all latch onto the same sinking hope and cast it out expecting everyone to bite the poison just because you did. Everyday I have less and less to worry about. You and your comrades are in self-destruct mode. I'm just gonna stand out of the way and let it happen.

Where's that piece of shit Dingo at now?? Come out of your hole troll and defend yourself! YOU FILTHY LYING VERMIN!

Call me a liar then spew lies.

You're a cretin of the highest order and anyone that buys ANY of your tripe is a fool.

Hey Eric,

Did you know that on Sept 11 the Regional Director of the FBI's NY office was killed in Bldg 7? Wasn't the FBI investigating some financial case in MA that would have exposed a lot of high-ranking capitalists? Do you think the CIA might have used one of their special drones (which they seem to love to use to assassinate people) and fired a Hellfire missile at the FBI office in order to halt the investigation? No, the CIA would never KILL FBI AGENTS to silence them. No, that could never happen. Could it?

Your theory is that, on 9-11, the "government" fired a Hellfire missile at BLDG 7 in order to kill a FBI agent who was investigating some "high-ranking capitalists". Is that it?

No, you're not given to flights of fantasy are you bri?

Is there ANY conspiracy theory that points to a nafarious government plot that you DON'T believe?

Airic had a hissy fit. I’m so impressed. He doesn’t like the source. Oh, gee whilikers I guess I am going to collapse into my crying towel.

Sorry Airic but there is nothing that definitively links the 19 Arab SuperTerrorists to the WTC/Pentagon “attack”.

There is a fair amount questioning the identification of those “suspects”.

1. http://www.worldmessenger.20m.com/alive.html

2. http://cnn.allpolitics.printthis.clickability.com/pt/printThis?clickMap=printThis&fb=Y&url=http%3A//www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/21/inv.id.theft/&title=CNN.com%20-%20Expert%3A%20Hijackers%20likely%20skilled%20with%20fake%20IDs%20-%20September%2021%2C%202001&random=0.10708749695777009&partnerID=2001&expire=-1

3.http://www.metimes.com/2K1/issue2001-38/reg/fbi_deepens_probe.htm

4. http://geocities.com/mknemesis/passengers.html

5.http://www.mujahideen.fsnet.co.uk/wtc/wtc-hijackers.htm

6http://web.archive.org/web/20011125195658/www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-warid1021.story?coll=ny-top-headlines

7. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/23/widen23.xml

September 16-23, 2001: Reports appear in many newspapers suggesting that some of the people the US says were 9/11 hijackers are actually still alive:
1) Ahmed Alnami is still alive and working as an administrative supervisor with Saudi Arabian Airlines, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. [Los Angeles Times, 9/21/01] He had never lost his passport and found it "very worrying" that his identity appeared to have been stolen. [Telegraph, 9/23/01] However, there is another Ahmed Alnami who is ten years younger, and appears to be dead, according to his father. [ABC News, 3/15/02]
2) Saeed Alghamdi is alive and flying airplanes in Tunisia. [Los Angeles Times, 9/21/01, Telegraph, 9/23/01, BBC, 9/23/01] He says he studied flight training in a Florida flight schools for parts of the years, 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001. [Arab News, 9/18/01]
3) Salem Alhazmi is alive and working at a petrochemical plant in Yanbou, Saudi Arabia. [Los Angeles Times, 9/21/01, Telegraph, 9/23/01] He says his passport was stolen by a pickpocket in Cairo three years ago and that pictures and details such as date of birth are of him. [Guardian, 9/21/01, Washington Post, 9/20/01, Saudi Gazette, 9/29/02]
4 and 5) The brothers Waleed M. Alshehri and Wail Alshehri are alive. A Saudi spokesman said, "This is a respectable family. I know his sons, and they're both alive." The father is a diplomat who has been stationed in the US and Bombay, India. [Los Angeles Times, 9/21/01, Arab News, 9/19/01] There is a second pair of Saudi brothers named Wail and Waleed M. who may have been the real hijackers. Their father says they've been missing since December 2000. [ABC News, 3/15/02, Arab News, 9/17/01] The still living Waleed M. Alshehri is a pilot with Saudi Airlines, studying in Morocco. [Los Angeles Times, 9/21/01, AP, 9/22/01] He acknowledges that he attended flight training school at Dayton Beach in the United States. [BBC, 9/23/01, Daily Trust, 9/24/01] He was interviewed by US officials in Morocco, and cleared of all charges against him (though apparently the FBI photos are still of him!). [Embry Riddle Aeronautical University press release, 9/21/01] The still living Wail Alshehri is also apparently a pilot. [Los Angeles Times, 9/21/01] What are the odds that two Saudi terrorist brothers would find two other Saudi brothers with the same names who were pilots with one even training in Florida?
6) Abdulaziz Alomari is alive and working as a pilot for Saudi Arabian Airlines. [New York Times, 9/16/01, Independent, 9/17/01, BBC, 9/23/01] He claims that his passport was stolen in 1995 while he was living in Denver, Colorado. [Los Angeles Times, 9/21/01] "They gave my name and my date of birth, but I am not a suicide bomber. I am here. I am alive." [Telegraph, 9/23/01, London Times, 9/20/01]
7) On September 19, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. distributes a "special alert" to its member banks asking for information about the attackers. The list includes "Al-Midhar, Khalid. Alive." The Justice Department later calls this a "typo." [AP, 9/20/01, Cox News, 10/21/01] The BBC says: "There are suggestions that another suspect, Khalid Almihdhar, may also be alive." [BBC, 9/23/01] The Guardian says Almihdhar is believed to be alive, but investigators are looking into three possibilities. Either his name was stolen for a hijacker alias, or he allowed his name to be used so that US officials would think he died, or he died in the crash. [Guardian, 9/21/01] Almihdhar is wanted for other terrorist acts (see January 15, 2000), so it's not surprising he's still hard to find. There are three official pictures of Almihdhar - one of them doesn't look at all like the other two (see photos on left).
8) Marwan Alshehhi may be alive in Morocco. [Saudi Gazette, 9/18/01, Khaleej Times, 9/20/01] Family and neighbors don't believe he took part in the attacks. [Reuters, 9/18/01]
9) Atta's father says he spoke to his son on the phone on September 12, 2001 (see September 19, 2001 (C)).
10) No one claims that Hamza Alghamdi is still alive, but his family says the FBI photo "has no resemblance to him at all" (on the other hand, Ahmed Alnami's family says his FBI picture is correct). [Washington Post, 9/25/01]
11) Majed Moqed was last seen by a friend in Saudi Arabia in 2000. This friend claims the FBI picture doesn't look like Moqed. [Arab News, 9/22/01] There are three official pictures of Majed Moqed - one of them doesn't look at all like the other two (see photos on below right).
12) The Saudi government has claimed Mohand Alshehri is alive and was not in the US on 9/11, but no more details are known. [AP, 9/29/01]
The Saudi government insists that five of the Saudis mentioned are still alive. [New York Times, 9/21/01] On September 20, FBI Director Mueller says: "We have several others that are still in question. The investigation is ongoing, and I am not certain as to several of the others." [Newsday, 9/21/01] On September 27, after all of these revelations, FBI Director Mueller states, "We are fairly certain of a number of them." [Sun Sentinel, 9/28/01] Could it be that the bodies (and sometimes faces) in question are correct, but the names were stolen? For instance, the Telegraph notes, "The FBI had published [Saeed Alghamdi's] personal details but with a photograph of somebody else, presumably a hijacker who had "stolen" his identity. CNN, however, showed a picture of the real Mr. Alghamdi." [Telegraph, 9/23/01] Police have even determined who sold at least two of the hijackers their fake ID's. [BBC, 8/1/02] On September 20, The London Times reported, "Five of the hijackers were using stolen identities, and investigators are studying the possibility that the entire suicide squad consisted of impostors." [London Times, 9/20/01] Briefly, the press took this story to heart. For instance, a story in the Observer on September 23 put the names of hijackers like Saeed Alghamdi in quotation marks. [Observer, 9/23/01] But the story died down after the initial reports, and it was hardly noticed when Mueller stated on November 2, 2001: "We at this point definitely know the 19 hijackers who were responsible,'' and claimed that they were sticking with the names and photos released in late September. [AP, 11/03/02] Yet many of the names and photos are known to be wrong. Perhaps embarrassing facts would come out if we knew their real names, such as more terrorists who studied at military bases or were on watch lists?

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/main/AAcoverup.html

There’s more but why beat a dead horse - eh Airic?

BUSH LIED, AND PEOPLE DIED. It really is that simple.

911 - What Really Happened?

You have got to be kidding me. You're still in denial.

Let's recap what went down in this thread yesterday, for those that are just too lazy to decipher your encrypted bullshit. It went like this:

Dio: "Invective, blather, rant, spew. Ann Coulter is a paid shill, blah blah. FBI director Robert Mueller has admitted that there's no proof that the 9-11 hijakckers were even Arab. Rant spew drip drool"

Eric: "Can't you do better than your normal harangue on this article?"

Dio: "You can't disprove even ONE SINGLE THING I've said because YOU are a liar and a paid shill!"

Eric: "Oh please. Why don't you back up that drippage about Robert Mueller then smart guy?"

Dio: "I don't have to. I'm a megalomaniac, and I can libel anyone I damn well please. I can lie about anyone from YOU to the director of the FBI, if I choose to do so, and that's just the way it is. If you don't like it, tough shit. Go out and prove me a liar. Here's a link to a dubious Neocon alternative news forum with an EXCLUSIVE article written by a man with less credibility than even me that completely corroborates my tripe."

Eric: "You're insane. Here's a link with Robert Mueller's exact words. They don't even come close to saying that "there's no evidence that the hijackers were not Arab" as you've suggested. You lied and then called ME a liar."

Dio: (Mysteriously vanishes from the conversation for several hours).

Dio: (Reappearing much later) "Rant spew blather blaather blather blather vitriol invective blather."

I'm done chasing your ghosts. You have zero credibility. Anyone that actually does ANY of the legwork chasing down the actual FACTS of the GARBAGE you spew forth will uncover after an EXTREMELY short time and with MINIMAL effort that YOU ARE A COMPULSIVE LIAR and you put your lies forth as works of FICTION that YOU create in an EFFORT at what YOU call original thought.

ANY IDIOT CAN TAKE AN ISSUE AND FLIP IT ON IT'S HEAD AND CLAIM HE'S CREATED SOMETHING UNIQUE.

And that's what you liberals do.

It takes a real stand up kind of person to research THE FACTS and tell the TRUTH about them.

This is obviously NOT within YOUR abilities.

back to the top

...you can twist my point as much as you want however the facts are clear.

Before I go any further - just one point - I do not have to remain at your beck and call. The fact that I was not on the Site active means just that I was not active on the site. You can try to spin that any way you want but it still comes up the same.

Now on with the show:

1. Of those who were assigned the role of terrists' we now know 8 to be alive and living elsewhere.

2. Director Mueller has admitted in public that their is no clear link to the named individuals.

3. He further admitted that they had probably used false I.D.s.

Just given those 3 points we can conclude:

1. There is nothing in the public record proving the alleged hijackers to be either Arab or Muslim, and the FBI director has admitted, indirectly, that they have no clear evidence as to their actual identities.

They could well be Arabs but there is no definitive evidence proving that point. They could be Arab "looking" and certainly there is no clear proof they were Muslim - or at least devout. There are at least 2 other major Religions practiced in the Middle East by people of Arabic Descent - Christianity and Judaism, and i am sure that their are as well Agnostics, Gnostics, and Atheists as well. An easily planted Koran in a Bar proves nothing. Someone setting up a Patsy would of course plant evidence identifying the Patsy.

2. It is possible to theorize that this could have been a False Flag Operation pinning the blame on Arab Muslims.

Again no definitive proof one way or the other.

All we do know is that it is uncertain as to the actual identities of the 19 Super Terrorists.

You can try to distort my position all you want. All I ever said was the identities of the hijackers was unproven and I stand behind that conclusion.

Now Cite your proof that they were Arab Muslims.

BUSH LIED, AND CHILDREN DIED. It really is that simple.

Where is the proof that the hijackers were both Arab and Muslim?

http://www.newsday.com/ny-usprob212376908sep21.story

 

AMERICA'S ORDEAL

 

Murky Facts Plaguing Probe

By John Riley and Shirley E. Perlman
STAFF WRITERS

September 21, 2001

On Sept. 1, a man using the name Nawaq Alhamzi registered at the Pin-Del Motel in Laurel, Md. He was recorded as having an address of 161 Lexington Ave. in New York City, and holding New York driver's license number 3402142-D.

On Sept. 14, the FBI identified Alhamzi as one of the 19 hijackers involved in last week's terrorist attacks, and investigators eventually found their way to the Pin-Del Motel.

But the records, apparently, led nowhere. The address turned out to be a Quality Hotel in Manhattan, whose records show they never had a guest by that name. New York's Department of Motor Vehicles says that it never issued a license to anyone with that name, and uses numerical codes that don't resemble the one in the motel's records.

Such dead ends, by most accounts, have become commonplace as FBI agents and reporters try to pin down murky facts about the hijackers, and yesterday - amid reports that some of those identified as hijackers are alive and well - FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged that his agency still is confused about the true identity of several of the hijackers named last week.

"I know I said at the outset that I had a high level of confidence on the identities of the hijackers. We have several hijackers whose identities were those of the names on the manifests," Mueller said. "We have several others that are still in question. The investigation is ongoing, and I am not certain as to several of the others."

Mueller's comments followed interviews earlier this week in which the father of Mohamed Atta - identified as a hijacker of one of the flights that destroyed the World Trade Center and a key player in the entire plot - said from Egypt that he had spoken to his son after the crashes, and reports in both Arab and American newspapers that Saudi Arabian officials have been in touch with men who have the same names as several suspected hijackers.

Among them: Waleed Alshehri, the son of a Saudi diplomat and a pilot with Saudi Arabian Airlines. After the FBI identified a man by that name as a hijacker, it seized records from Embry Riddle Aeronautical College in Daytona Beach, Fla., of a graduate by that name, and some press reports identified him as the son of a Saudi diplomat.

But Saudi Arabia's al-Medina newspaper quoted Saudi diplomat Ahmed Alshehri as saying that his son was still alive and a pilot for Saudi Arabian Airlines. Saudi papers have reported that other men with the same names as hijackers had been victims of passport theft.

Another sign of the confusion: An alert issued Wednesday by the Federal Reserve Board asking banks to supply information about financial transactions in the names of the suspected hijackers indicates that one hijacker named by the FBI - Khalid al-Midhar - is now believed to be alive. The spelling of the names of several other suspects has been changed from the list the FBI released Sept. 14.

Similar uncertainties, according to the Department of Defense, continue to surround the possible association of hijackers with training programs for foreign military officers at U.S. military installations around the country. Although the Defense Department has acknowledged that people with the same names as those attributed to hijackers were associated with such programs at bases in Florida, Alabama and Texas, a spokeswoman said yesterday they weren't sure whether those individuals were in fact hijackers.

"There are some discrepancies of ages used by the hijackers that don't match with the people who went to our schools," said Air Force Lt. Col. Ginger Blazicko. "The FBI is specifically investigating that."

Justice Department spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said at a briefing yesterday that the hijacker names issued by the FBI were based on the "best information available" last week, and that investigators were looking into questions of stolen identities. However, she refused to specify how many names or which names were in doubt.

Experts said the confusion probably reflected a mixture of difficulties with Arabic spellings, confusion of people with identical names, identity theft and purposeful efforts to sow confusion by the hijackers.

"These people are clever," said Michael Gunter, a terrorism expert at Tennessee Technical University. "This is another world of changing identities and false identities. We may not ever know who some of these people were after all the name changes, the transliterations, the spelling differences."

In other developments in the hijacking investigation yesterday, federal agents outside Chicago arrested Nabil al-Marabh, a man they have been seeking because of reported contacts with two of the hijackers. Agents arrested three other men in Detroit on Wednesday during a raid on an apartment they believed was occupied by al-Marabh.

The FBI said al-Marabh, who was working at the Seven Day Liquor Store, was being held on an Immigration and Naturalization Service request, and on a warrant issued in Massachusetts for assault with a knife. A FBI spokesman said the agency was working to make sure that the al-Marabh who was arrested was the man agents were looking for.

Besides his reported contacts with two of the hijackers, investigators also reportedly have found links between al-Marabh and Raed Hijazi, an alleged associate of Osama bin Laden who is jailed in Jordan on charges that he plotted to blow up a hotel there during the millennium celebration on Jan. 1, 2000. The Detroit News reported yesterday that it had located a Michigan driver's license issued last year to a Nabil al-Marabh to drive trucks carrying explosives and radioactive material.

Also yesterday, police in India provided new information on two Newark men who were on a flight out of Newark Airport to San Antonio on the morning of the hijackings, and were held after an altercation with Drug Enforcement Administration resulted in the discovery of box cutters and cash in their possession. They are being held in New York.

Indian police said both men had obtained more than one passport. The man identified by U.S. officials as Ayub Ali Khan was actually Gul Mohammed Shah, and had obtained a false passport under the name Khan in 1992. The other man, Mohammed Jaweed Azmat, had obtained a passport in 1991, giving false names for his parents and dates of birth different from those on a 1984 passport.

Tom Brune of Newsday's Washington bureau contributed to this story, which was supplemented with wire reports.

Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.

 

Now if memory serves, top FBI dog also said something in or around June, 2002 that went even further. I don't have that handy. Do you know what I'm talking about and have a URL to a source?

wish I had it alll, ready to go

Well Dingo, I don't know. You've made me think. I found this though:

http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm/include/detail/storyid/438504.html

Looks like those 8 guys (or 6 or whatever) may just be walking around with the same names or be victims of identity theft.

But YOU'RE RIGHT!

There are some unanswered questions here, and I'm starting to get pissed.

No bin Laden, no Hussein, no WMDs and now, after all my gyrations, the FBI can't even say beyond a reasonable doubt that they know who those terrorists were.

At this point, I think I'll try being more receptive.

Somethings not right here.

...that people should question and decide on the facts is really where I am at.

What is true is true for you.

I cannot force anyone to look or accept my conclusions.

Further I don't expect you to. If at some point we are at agreement it should be because you have examined the facts and arrived at that conclusion on your on determination.

I would have it no other way.

To Archive Man: I seem to recall such but I don't have it in my files - which I must admit I have been reorganizing so I could have it without knowing it. Otherwise the only thing I can suggest is to go to Googlewatch and use their Google Proxy to do some untraced searching.

Diogenes -- thanks. I'll do that. Ironically enough, that article Eric posted gives me a clue on the timeframe of those subsequent Mueller comments. I think it might have been following one of his testimonies to the hill, now that I rack my brain. Perhaps it was around June, 2002 or thereabouts. Anyway, I'll find it.

Hey Eric, thanks. Interesting that it would be you (initially skeptical) to find and post that story. I missed that one.

As for strange unanswered questions in general, it's always wise to keep an open and highly critical mind. That's kind of obvious, right? But sometimes it's harder to do than one might think!

Not everything is a conspiracy, of course. But likewise, conspiracies happen frequently in history, and sometimes they grow out of just generic ass covering after screw-ups. There are many wacky theories floating around when it comes to the events of 9-11, but we can say without any doubt that the full truth of what happened and how it happened isn't an open book, out in public, and there are many issues -- many questions -- that are fair ground for investigation and/or review as said issues are downright strange, contradictory, and/or fly in the face of standard operating procedures, conventions and the like. You can look at these things or not.

If you want to start looking at this subject, I'd recommend:

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/
and
http://unansweredquestions.org/

These sites are not without bias/agenda, as found at the contribution level of any given article, but they are a cut above most other sites.

Also, it's worth pointing out that people on the right and the left are looking into what happened with a skeptical eye.