May. 18, 2003. 01:00 AM

Barbs aside, 9/11 questions aren't going away



MICHELE LANDSBERG

I was just listening to the latest CIA transmissions through the fillings in my molars last week when I accidentally intercepted a secret internal memo from the National Post.

It went something like this: "Post readership hits bottom, journalistic integrity under question, editor dumped, columnists fleeing sinking ship — attack Toronto Star writer at once!"

Seriously, if I may be serious for a moment about the National Post, it was not so surprising to find myself the subject of a hostile editorial in that paper after I wrote about my unanswered 9/11 questions. The Post is a staunch voice for Bush America and brooks no dissenting voices. In tabloid fashion, it headed its editorial "Michele Landsberg Loses It."

I fully expected to be labelled a "conspiracy theorist" after interviewing Vision TV's Barrie Zwicker and writing about his challenges to the official version of what happened at the World Trade Center. But I was surprised by the nature of the ensuing attacks. The Post, and the dozen or so readers who were similarly enraged by my column, didn't come up with a single argument or documented fact. It was all quivering jowls, wild insults and expostulations.

The Post's entire argument, once I filtered out the verbiage ("crock", "nonsense," "comical," "embarrassing" and, that good old standby, "blinding hatred of the United States") came down to this: captured Al Qaeda commanders have confessed to the 9/11 crimes. End of story.

Except that what I was asking was a little different. Few of us doubt that murderous Saudi Arabian terrorists executed this massacre. But I wanted to know more. Why did the U.S. military, with the most powerful arsenal in world history, fail to prevent or at least try to stop a series of hijackings and crashes that went on for nearly two hours? Where was the Air Force?

If President Bush and his cabinet were not, at this very moment, still trying to censor, suppress and delay the publication of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11, if there had been honest disclosure and straight stories from the beginning, perhaps all these "dark questions," as the Post puts it, would never have arisen.

The great majority of people, sickened and overwhelmed by the horror of the attacks, unquestioningly accepts the White House version. Many thousands, however, are patiently stitching together the documented evidence and noting the huge holes in the fabric of that official story.

Just ask yourself how the United States, with its vast intelligence establishment and spy power, could have been caught unawares in such a drastic state of unpreparedness on Sept. 11.

President Bush, or, as he delights to call himself, the commander-in-chief, must certainly have been briefed about the ominous drumbeat of terrorist threats that were accumulating over the spring and summer of 2001. According to the report by Eleanor Hill, staff director for the Joint Inquiry, there had been "an unprecedented rise in threat" during that summer. U.S. government agencies had been warned by the intelligence community that there was a high probability of "spectacular" terrorist attacks by Al Qaeda "designed to inflict mass casualties. ... Attacks will occur with little or no warning."

The warnings included the possibility that airplanes would be used as weapons. There was even an April, 2001, intelligence report that terrorists planned "a spectacular and traumatic attack" like the first World Trade Center bombing, as well as an earlier report a group of Arabs planned to fly a plane into the World Trade Center or CIA headquarters.

According to Hill, these warnings went to "senior government officials" whom she was not allowed to name.

On that fateful morning, the first pictures of the burning tower were broadcast at 8:48 a.m. By then, according to a carefully documented timeline at http://www.cooperativeresearch.net, the Federal Aviation Administration, NORAD (joint U.S.-Canada air defence), the Pentagon, the White House and the Secret Service all knew that three commercial passenger jets had been hijacked.



Here begin the obfuscation and deceit, in small matters and large, that permeate the official narrative.

Disinformation was spewing all over the place that week after Sept.11. Serious newspapers actually reported that one hijacker's passport fluttered down from the roaring inferno to be found in the rubble by sharp-eyed intelligence officers.

The key question to me was one of air defence. There are, after all, standard procedures in the event of airplane emergencies. The FAA and NORAD have clear rules about any plane that suddenly loses radio contact with the tower or veers more than 15 degrees from its course.

Once the air traffic controller detects an emergency, he or she must inform aviation officials who alert NORAD. Fighter jets are then sent up to check out the straying plane, signal to it with dipped wings, escort it back on course or even force it down.

"We scramble aircraft to respond to any potential threat," said Marine Corps Maj. Mike Snyder, a NORAD spokesman, in an interview with the Boston Globe.

But it didn't happen that way on Sept. 11. The first reports from authoritative sources (NORAD's Snyder, Vice-President Dick Cheney and, most significantly, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers) all stated that no jets took off until it was too late.

Just two days after the catastrophe, on Sept. 13, Gen. Myers was confirmed as the new chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. On that day, he told the Senate Armed Forces Committee that no Air Force jets got into the air until after the attack on the Pentagon.

On Sept. 15, The Boston Globe reported on a strange contradiction. The Globe quoted NORAD spokesman Snyder, who insisted that "the command did not immediately scramble any fighters even though it was alerted to a hijacking 10 minutes before the first plane ... slammed into the World Trade Center." He said the fighters remained on the ground until after the Pentagon was hit at 9:40 a.m. But The Globe also expressed puzzlement over the new official story that had just emerged. Now Americans were being told that fighter jets roared up from Cape Cod and from Virginia, but just didn't make it in time.

Furthermore, no explanation was ever offered for the bizarre fact that Andrews Air Force base, whose job it is to defend the U.S. capital just 19 kilometres away, had no fighter jets ready to go into action — despite the months of serious warnings of impending terrorist attacks.

And these are the people we're to trust with a missile defence system? They can't even get their stories straight, let alone defend their air space.

According to The Post and to some of their hot-eyed followers, to ask these questions is to indulge in "poisonous delusions ... that do not belong in a mainstream newspaper." I'm not sure they're the proper arbiters of mainstream journalism, but I'm willing to be "unintentionally comical" in pursuit of understanding.

And Nostradamus rocks!

Just kidding.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Michele Landsberg's column usually appears in the Star Saturday and Sunday. Her e-mail address is mlandsb@thestar.ca

...anyone we know?

"I fully expected to be labelled a "conspiracy theorist" after interviewing Vision TV's Barrie Zwicker and writing about his challenges to the official version of what happened at the World Trade Center. But I was surprised by the nature of the ensuing attacks. The Post, and the dozen or so readers who were similarly enraged by my column, didn't come up with a single argument or documented fact. It was all quivering jowls, wild insults and expostulations."

' Few of us doubt that murderous Saudi Arabian terrorists executed this massacre.'

***We The few .***

We doubt. And we don't care; you can't make us care.

Slipping one under the door with common (limited hang out)

knowledge and stacking it there with the more known items.

please.

...that it was likely not Saudi's but I put the article up anyway because I thought it illustrative of the kind of reaction even limited questioning in a major newspaper gets.

What I found significant as well was the comment "dozens of letters" which indirectly indicates that there are not as many people who believe the Official "Conspiracy Theory" as the powers that be would like. I think that is why we will see the Bush Junta continuing to press to keep the Congressional Milquetoast Report from being published.

However, the hopeful note here is that there are a few cracks in the Presstitute facade.

These guardians we have let bleed our country white

can't keep from tripping, you know, over their flat dicks.

They DEPEND upon a sycophantic press. It's sickening.

Where are more of these offended press hounds?

Sorry, I need to practice with my sword to channel.

...is that even if the few brave and honest Reporters at major outlets were to try to raise serious questions their Editors are the Choke Point. The Reporters, except the naive Cubs, know that to try and write a story not sanctioned spells the end of their career. Reality is with most major daily Newspapers and TV stations in the hands of very few, who are insiders, any attempt to get out an honest report simply will not be allowed to happen. That they continue on knowingly being a party to the disinfo game is why I call them Presstitutes. Jounalistic Integrity is as much an oxymoron as Military Intelligence, or Honest Politician. I would say laughable but I'm not laughing.

...not un noticed by the enemy. It's called doubt.

A growing consensus know that the regular media is a show and creditability is VITAL to them. This they are loosing

as the people begin to scratch their head when reality

doesn't match the program.

Despite the emerging physiological techniques employed

by focus groups of highly paid consultants and the

intensity of the effort. It's getting harder to cover the

growing pile of...

shaving cream.

i was involved in the 911 coverup

One thing that bothers me in particular is that one of the hijacked planes was allowed to fly all the way to Ohio from the east coast before turning back towards Washington. How could that be? I read one explanation somewhere that because of the end of the Cold War there were no interceptors with air-to-air missles available. That seems very, very unlikely, and even if it were true, what was to prevent a fighter plane, even a very old one, from shooting down or threatening to shoot down the airlineer with cannon or machine gun fire? It just does not make any sense.

There's bound to be a certain group of people based upon their personality types that make it where these questions never go away. That doesn't mean they're legitimate questions. In this case, they're not. There are people who, if they were still alive today, would be questioning "what really happened" behind the death of Julius Caesar. Just like this, the rest of us have figured out what happened and moved on. Because they can't move on isn't our problem. We just ignore these people and move along.

Please make it so the liberals use this questioning of 9/11as their platform for 2004. Please. Please.

So your answer to the question of how a hijacked airliner was allowed to fly hundreds of miles from the east coast to Ohio and back again without being confronted by fighter planes is so what? It sounds to me that you are the type of sicko who, if confronted with proof that Bush knew would have the same answer - "so what"?

Yours and others key assumption that "fighter jets" will always intercept errant passenger flights is based on what? This is such a strawman you've built. None of you or anyone else know what the fuck you're talking about. Give some examples of other commercial flights being intercepted automatically by military planes after going of course. Regardless of what the internet tells you about what's "supposed" to happen in such a situation, things don't always go according to plan. Besides that, you have no idea what the "paln" is to begin with.

Before you start building strawmen to burn them down, you better make sure they'll stand up long enough to light.

I have no idea of what you mean by pain, unless that is what you experience whey you try to exercise your few brain cells. Nothing you said explains why a hijacked airliner was allowed to fly to Ohio and back after the World Trade Center tragedy had already taken place - without any fighter planes even trying to contact it.

On Shaw AFB, if you are telling the truth, tell us more. Tell us what you know.

...as if anyone involved in your fantasy cover-up would tell IndyMedia.

"Tell us what you know."

The truth is out there, Mulder. But it's not what you want to hear.

where have you looked?

Just do a Google search and make up your own mind.

...play a "One Note Samba"? Their entire repetoire of tactic is to call a Conspiracy Theorist everyone who finds that it strains credulity that 19 incompetent pilots (not able to competently fly a Cessna 180 - top speed about 220 - in a power dive) were somehow able to commandeer 4 top of the line JET Airliners (top speed in level flight of 500 plus - and several orders of magnitude more complex to fly), without even one of the Airliner Pilots giving an alarm, fly them around in the most protected airspace in the World unmolested for 2 hours while they miraculously learned how to fly them - and master maneuvers worthy of a Combat Pilot, and were then able to crash them into major buildings while NORAD and the Air Force stood idly by with their thumbs up their ass. And this they did because they "hate our freedoms".

Contrast that with Golfer Payne Stewarts last flight when 10 minutes after his Plane veered off course it had an F-15 Escort.

Truthfully the Apologists for the Official "Conspiracy Theory" have exactly 2 arguments which they use in a variety of forms:

1. A slavish, slack jawed, credulous as a 2 year old, moronic inistance that the Official "Conspiracy Theory" is the only credible explanation - while ignoring any evidence to the contrary.

AND

2. Name calling of anyone who raises awkward questions like:

Why did John Ashcroft cease flying Commerical in late July 2001 citing "unspecified threats"?

How was it that 4 experienced Airline Captains and their Co-Pilots were unable between the 8 of them to tap out a 4 Digit distress code? This is standard procedure that they all would have been drilled in.

Why did Gee Duhbya continue to read a Goat Story to a group of Grade School Kids for 20 minutes after he was informed of the second impact on the WTC?

Why did he say he saw the first impact, on the day it occurred, when the film of the first impact did not surface until the next day?

Why did FEMA fly in a team the night before? (The Team leader let that Cat out of The Bag in a Radio Interview and a transcript is available.)

Who ordered the Air National Guard to stand down the day before the attack?

How did a barely trained pilot hijacker, with no flight time or rating on the aircraft, execute a move described by Air Traffic Control as like a military maneuver in precision? It is deadly apparent to me that the following does not compute:

He descended in a tight spiral 7000 feet in 2 minutes (in a 757 a commercial passenger jet not an F-15) leveled off at tree top height, actually clipping some of the foliage, and struck a 71 foot high wall (the height of the Pentagon) precisely in the one section under reconstruction - thus causing a minimum of casualties. (Also, curiously enough, it was on the exact opposite side of the Pentagon from where all the top Brass are located.) This is a maneuver that would be challenging to a master pilot let alone someone who had never flown a large aircraft before. Can we say cognitive dissonance?

Why didn't the FBI release the air traffic controller's protocols? Why have they, the controllers, to this day not been allowed to talk to the press?

Why were several of the Flight Data Recorders, designed to withstand any conceivable crash, said by the FBI to be inoperable and unreadable (particularly some of the cockpit conversations)?

How were all hijackers identified just 2 days after the attack?

Why did all 19 names not appear on the passenger list until 2 days after the hijacker list was released?

Why do none of the hijacker’s names appear on the passenger lists United Airlines and American Airlines gave to CNN? There are no Middle-Eastern/Islamic names on the original lists. (I have copies if you would like one.)

Why do the seat positions of the hijackers in the FBI report differ from the seat numbers given by Stewardesses in the hijacked planes (reported via cellphone calls)?

Eight of the names the FBI published as the purported hijackers are proven to be alive and were elsewhere on the planet at the time of the attack. (This is proven and I can document it. Would you like a copy?)

Why did the FBI ignore, and allow to leave unquestioned, Bin Laden's family, who left the United States the day after the attack? U.S. airspace was closed to ALL AIR TRAVEL at the time.

Why did the Pentagon release a new video version or translation of the Bin Laden home video?

Why was it released only 8 hours after a translation by the German magazine MONITOR was released?

Why, according to MONITOR magazine, were the most controversial statements translated incorrectly?

Does the time stamp on the Bin Laden video indicate that it was found two weeks after it was produced?

Why was the video released?

Why after a lot of valid questions arose about the films authenticity was it dropped, like it had never existed, from mainstream press reports, and Bush Administration PR flacks ceased heralding it as “the smoking gun”?

I don’t pretend to have answers to these questions. But, they are valid and there are many many more unanswered questions associated with the event. It is a cinch that the Official "Conspiracy Theory" does not account for any of the forgoing.

So all the Shills, PsyOps, Apologists, and PR Flacks have at their disposal is childish credulousity and personal insults. They have no rebuttal, no documentation, and no case.

AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHT 77.
8:20 am : Flight 77 departs from Dulles Airport. Some 20 miles from the Pentagon.

8:50 : Last radio communication with flight 77. Now some 280 miles from the Pentagon.

8:56 : Transponder contact lost. Now some 335 miles from the Pentagon.

9:00 : Flight 77 turns and heads for the Pentagon (Washington DC). Now some 370 miles away from the Pentagon.

The hijackers finally make their move (and about time, all the time they are getting further and further away from where they started, and of course, further and further away from where they are headed).

To give the Air National Guard/USAF a fighting chance the intrepid hijackers wait till they are about 400 miles away from their target before turning back.

But even though the hijackers are more than sporting about the whole affair (after all they have given the USAF over 40 minutes to get aircraft up to investigate, and if necessary, shoot them down) the totally incompetent (read corrupt) USAF isn't quite up to the job.

9:37 : AA77 crashes into the southwest side of the Pentagon. Now, precisely 0 miles from the Pentagon.

The question that you must ask yourself, is :

Why didn't the hijackers, hijack flight 77 when it was only, say, 30 miles from the Pentagon?

Well, lets have look at the evidence from another angle.

• Flight 77 leaves Dulles International Airport at 8:20 am.
• Flight 77's transponder is turned off at 8:56 am.

The fact that flight 77's transponder was turned off means only that the aircraft stopped transmitting its name and altitude, etc, but it was still very visible to radar.

• Flight 77 disappears from all radar screens a couple of minutes later, somewhere near the Ohio border.
• An aircraft appears on radar south of Washington DC, close to the city.
• This aircraft eventually crashes into the Pentagon.

So the aircraft that crashed into the Pentagon could not possibly have been flight 77. This is simply because, if it had flown from the Ohio border back to Washington DC it would have been visible to radar for the entire trip. And, we are told that it was not. So given this, why do most people believe that flight 77 hit the Pentagon? Because the media told them so (and this is the one and only reason that most believe flight 77 hit the Pentagon). But the evidence (without even examining the Pentagon scene itself) already says that this is impossible.

The next question that you must ask yourself, is :

How did flight 77 sneak all the way from the Ohio border to Washington DC without being spotted by any of the multitude of radar stations in the area? The Russians are keen to know.

we know how embarrassing it is to have a private aircraft

land in Red Square but four commercial jet liners are bit different da? From your own airports. HaHaHa. We were worried for nothing.

Much vodka for your defense dept.

Want some boiled potato?

...is a variation on our "old friend" the Anarchist Spammer. The "something other than flight 77 hit the Pentagon" story has been questioned by several of the serious researchers into 911 as being disinformation.

Why this is so is that one way to plant disinformation and use it is to plant a plausible sounding story that can be discredited and then use the discreditation to tarnish the innocent party who bit on the disinfo.

Be wary. I personally am not convinced that it was something other than flight 77. The evidence is too murky and puts you on shaky ground.

I would file it in the "Gray Area File". Not proven, not disproven, but suspect.

Neither are fleas, but we've learned how to manage co-existance with them.

All of us KOBE members are flea-ridden. Don't you wish WE would go away? I just love being a cyberterrorist!

www.kobehq.com

cyborterrorist? HaHaHaHaHa.....

HaHaHaHa.

yawn.

Compared to all liberals and conservatives, I am God. Fuck all of you!

http://www.kobehq.com