Hannah Arendt, in her essay “Ideology and Terror” (1953), spends the last few pages talking about loneliness, isolation, and solitude. I knew what lay ahead as I read, as it was not my first time through, and I still don’t quite comprehend it. I expected her to say clearly that totalitarian states rely on isolated individuals, as the only power that individuals have is to band together with others. And she does say that, to wit:
It has frequently been observed that terror can rule absolutely only over men who are isolated against each other and that, therefore, one of the primary concerns of all tyrannical government is to bring this isolation about. Isolation may be the beginning of terror; it certainly is its most fertile ground; it always is its result. This isolation is, as it were, pretotalitarian; its hallmark is impotence insofar as power always comes from men acting together, “acting in concert” (Burke); isolated men are powerless by definition.
Here is what I brought into the essay regarding isolation: I was listening to David Sirota’s local talk show one morning, and the subject of 9/11 “Truthers” came up, and Sirota got very agitated and stated bluntly that such subject matter would never be debated on his show, that Truthers bring no evidence to the table, and that he does not discuss whether the sky is blue or water wet. And my immediate reaction was to sympathize with him, as he and I both harbor doubts about the official story. Some of that stuff is just too bizarre to believe (cell phone calls from 35,000 feet, a driver’s license that falls several hundred stories from an incinerated airliner and lands on a New York sidewalk, free-falling buildings whose ashes are laden with thermite and a 16 foot hole that consumed a Boeing 767.
Sirota is angry because he is a radio host, and therefore has to believe the official story. If he doesn’t, he’ll lose his job. So he has to force his mind to believe that 2+2=5 – not just pretend, as he cannot be one thing inside and another outside for long and be happy. He has to really believe it. That’s why he’s angry. It’s a hard thing to do (as Winston Smith might remind him).
That’s part of living in a totalitarian society, not that the Truthers know truth, but rather that we cannot even talk about it! So what if you say it’s absurd. Others think it’s not. At least let people discuss it. But that is the omnipresent state hovering over us, monitoring our thoughts. We are self-censoring.
We have internalized it now. We’re all living in fear of being discovered. We’re living in isolation. Those who don’t believe in 9/11 as officially told never discuss the matter with anyone who does believe that story. Discussion is not allowed. The subject invites only ridicule.
What we call isolation in the political sphere, is called loneliness in the sphere of social intercourse. Isolation and loneliness are not the same. I can be isolated — that is in a situation in which I cannot act, because there is nobody who will act with me — without being lonely; and I can be lonely — that is in a situation in which I as a person feel myself deserted by all human companionship — without being isolated. Isolation is that impasse into which men are driven when the political sphere of their lives, where they act together in the pursuit of a common concern, is destroyed.
It is not that the Truthers don’t have each other, but the attempt to isolate them is society-wide. They can have each other, but they are not allowed outside their group.
What makes loneliness so unbearable is the loss of one’s own self which can be realized in solitude, but confirmed in its identity only by the trusting and trustworthy company of my equals. In this situation, man loses trust in himself as the partner of his thoughts and that elementary confidence in the world which is necessary to make experiences at all. Self and world, capacity for thought and experience are lost at the same time.
So lonely are we that we seek comfort in taunting those who think they see a different reality. It’s gives Sirota comfort to ridicule his fears. It just shows that he’s not really got his mind right yet. He has doubts. But he’s working on it. He has convinced himself that it can be shown that 2+2 does not always equal 4, but he’s not stone-cold convinced about 5. But he’ll get there. Or he’ll quit his job, or get fired.
In the United States in 2011, in what I regard as a totalitarian state, we are unable to act unless our actions are useful to those in power (The Tea Party). Any other kind of action, such as Occupy and Truthing, is targeted for destruction. Truthing, in my mind, has no point to it, as no matter what 9/11 was, its effect was to merely accelerate us down the road of totalitarian state. Whether it was done by Muslims, Americans or Israelis is in that light nothing more than an academic pursuit. But Occupy is different in that it is seeking to bring together isolated actors in our society, and teach them once again that our power lies in joining arms. In a totalitarian state, that sort of organizing is regarded as dangerous.
There is always official blow-back when people attempt to organize outside of approved structures. Yes, we are allowed to be Republicans and Democrats, but anything beyond that in the political arena is frowned upon. For this reason, with Occupy (though not with the Tea Party), there will be blood.
Piece of Mindful 
there will be blood
Nothing more bloodthirsty than a Leftist wanting change.
I’ve seen quite a bit of discussion about 9/11 and the points you raise. The anomalies have been answered in a reasonable way, and the narrative you want to promulgate has more holes than the conventional wisdom. I think you are complaining because you want more people to accept your conclusions.
LikeLike
Substance, man. Substance!
I don’t want to discuss 9/11, as it requires I go down that road of inquiry, and it can be quite consuming. I am happy to let others do it. I simply respect their courage to do so in a totalitarian environment. It takes real rocks.
LikeLike
What spooled up courage is needed to discuss various 9/11 theories? It seems that you equate mocking of your kook theories with repression.
LikeLike
I don’t have any theories. We don’t begin to have enough information to fathom the events of that day.
I only know what is plainly absurd on its face. It’s truly emperor’s clothing phenom.
I don’t matter. However, if a public person expresses doubt, that person will pay a price. And that was my point – Sirota has internalized this, and suppressing his natural curiosity, and is angry as a result.
By the way, why do you feel a need to inject ridicule on this subject? That’s telling. You have doubts too?
LikeLike
To read and Arendt and come out believing that the United States is a totalitarian society suggests that you learned only what you wished to learn from her, and probably what no one else has ever “learned” from her. I think you enjoy “isolating” yourself to such an extreme extent, which then helps you to believe that we are all being somehow isolated by our totalitarian rulers.
The great difference between real totalitarian nations and countries like ours was articulated by an Eastern European who said, back in the 1970s, “Here, nothing happens and everything matters. In the West, everything happens and nothing matters.”
I don’t believe for a moment that we live in a totalitarian society. That is an insult to the people who have lived under one, and suffered in ways that we Americans can’t even begin to fathom. If we live under an “ism,” I would say it is “consumerism.” That’s what we’re really about. Give us our bread and circuses and we don’t give a damn about anything else. Our government doesn’t need to torture us; it just turns on the television.
LikeLike
I think you are missing a critical difference: In the old Soviet Union, people knew that news was lies and that public pronouncements about the economy and threats at the border by barbarians was all lies. They also knew to keep quiet about it. They looked at their shoes, kept their head down. That’s tyranny.
Here we really believe our news is real and that barbarians really are at our border. They are not. We really believe we are attacking evil people. We are not (we are really attacking, but they are not evil). We have so deeply incorporated the propaganda into our belief systems that we really do believe that 2+2=5. That’s totalitarianism, or total control of our perception and belief systems.
Arendt says that due to the ongoing birth of new people that the system is constantly under threat. This is why revolution are usually carried out by youth. This is where Occupy is coming from.
This essay was written in 1953, I emphasize, five years after passage of NSA and institution of the National Security State. She wrote it before forty years of inundation with the threat of communists (non-existent) and now ten years of threats of Muslim terrorists (non-existent). Forty years of intense agitprop like that normally destroys the intellect, Ellul reminds us. So ti should be no surprise that Americans imagine themselves free even as the state closes in around them.
LikeLike
Whe worst of totalitarianism in Europe under Stalin and Hitler didn’t happen overnight. In Germany for example, socialists and communists began staging major strikes in 1917. By 1919 communist suppression was a full-time activity. Assassinations. Riots continued before, and after Weimar Constitution was enacted. That lasted until 1933 when the Enabling Act amended the Constitution and Hitler became Chancellor. If 1945 marks the end, the trend lasted well over 25 years.
It is the direction and trend that matter most. Means and methods matter little. The fact is: We are clearly moving away from the conventions and institutions that have defines the U.S.A. since the establishment of the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.
Perhaps what we are experiencing is not classic totalitatianism at all, but a 21st-Century variant unfolding before our very eyes. Many of the same elements are moving into place. How it develops is up to us. We (The People) are passive, uninformed, and ill-prepared to do battle with the forces lining up against us. As long as we do not surrender our will to think, create, and act, according to our own conscience and reason, we have a fighting chance to slow the process; or even stop it.
LikeLike
“That’s totalitarianism, or total control of our perception and belief systems.”
That is quote possibly the narrowest definition of totalitarianism ever put forth. George Orwell would not agree with you, and I don’t think Arendt would either.
In a truly totalitarian state, writing your blog under your real name would result in your speedy arrest, followed by torture and possibly death. I say again that it is an insult to the victims of totalitarianism to pretend that we live under a totalitarian system. You can’t just give your whimsical definitions to words with precise meanings.
LikeLike
I disagree. What I write here impacts no one, changes no views. This is part of the beauty of our totalitarian system, the illusion of free speech. Because our speech does not matter and does not change anything, we’re free to chatter away.
Here are two people who exercised free speech and paid a price: Bradley Manning, tortured and imprisoned, and Julian Assange, the ultimate free speaker, whom the US is pursuing via Sweden.
Orwell wrote about this stuff indeed, and Arendt talks about isolation versus loneliness. I’m talking about political isolation. We are not able to exercise any influence over our government, but most importantly, we are led to beleive that we do, and it is the belief that we do that is the total prison.
LikeLike
There is no single word yet for the type of rule emerging in the US (or in the EU). So instead of arguing over semantics, why not start imagining what it’s going to look like in 25 years. Here is one word for it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
LikeLike
Thank you – this is why I do this. You brought me a brand new concept.
LikeLike
If we didn’t argue over semantics, you might not have been inclined to introduce us to the concept of inverted totalitarianism. Definitions are very important because calling a thing by the wrong name makes it impossible to have a meaningful conversation. But with “inverted totalitarianism,” why, we have a whole new world of things to talk about. It appears to be a damned useful concept.
LikeLike
I seriously doubt that the definition of words is a big deal until those words are used in reference to activities by the US. If I say that the USSR or Cuba or North Korea is totalitarian, I doubt you’d have a problem. But turn on this country, and we suddenly have to be precise with our words. If we are going to say totalitarian, it must mean such and such. But underneath lay the real rub – that I think you suffer from stubborn illusions. Aggressive war, torture, extrajudicial murder, secret prisons, eavesdropping, and these damned metal detectors everywhere indicate that we are not so free as you think, and that walls are indeed closing in.
Let’s take another word, “Torture:” It is easily defined as use of violence to achieve political ends. But wait – isn’t that what the US does every day? SO now, when it is turned on the US, we have to redefine and, and here’s the official definition: “Use of violence by non-state entities to achieve political ends.”
Torture and totalitarianism are easy to define. There’s no problem. It’s only when it is time to self-examine that word precision gets difficult and we have to be careful about our semantics.
LikeLike
You even say it yourself, “I don’t want to talk about 9/11.” It’s a subject fraught with emotion, and people on both sides of it clam up and retreat to their positions immediately when it is brought up.
That being said, the reason Truthers are banned from discussions by anyone with common sense is that they’re impossible and infuriating to talk to, and refuse to look at any evidence that resides outside of their little bubble – and it is a very, very little bubble, with very few experts actually agreeing with what the Truthers have to say. I’ve never had a reasonable discussion with one – just like I’ve never had a reasonable discussion with a Birther or a Ron Paul supporter. They’re cut from the same cloth. Sorry.
And there was no thermite, BTW. That’s a myth perpetrated by truthers who don’t give a shit about facts.
LikeLike
I don’t want to talk about it. There are so many unknowns that people will spend their lifetimes looking into things. All that exists in my mind is enough doubt to disbeleive the official story, but nothing – and I mean nothing – as to what really happened.
What I object to is the wave-of-the-hand dismissals, as in “And there was not thermite, btw” – it’s not a late night bar brawl. Some very serious people contend that tests of materials in the area yield thermite. But see then, you’d have to go look that up, as I try to stay away from it. And you probably won’t do that, as you’ve already dismissed it.
So maybe they are only half the problem?
Anyway, as I said somewhere else, it’s academic, as no matter what happened that day, USAPATRIOT and the wars that followed and are still going on are real, and knowing the facts on ground zero will not change that. As Chomsky reminds us, no matter the facts of that day, since that day the US has committed far, far more serious crimes in response.
LikeLike
Well I suppose I prefer talking to you than a die-hard truther, but it seems to me that you’re setting yourself up to raise all of these questions – many of which have been answered – and then not be responsible for any of the criticism you receive afterwards. You seem to be blithely making these assertions and then disavowing any responsibility for their content.
And I really have researched the thermite question. This isn’t just a wave-of-the-hand thing. It’s not just a material that you can “find” at a site post-explosion. It’s a material reaction that creates several unique byproducts. And none of those products were found at the WTC site. Really.
There are a lot of people out there who have spent a lot of time attempting to debunk the hundreds of claims that 9/11 truthers have made. There’s a lot of mindless hatred out there for them – I certainly feel it – but there’s also been a ton of work done to show that their claims are false.
If you would like to see a website devoted to a thorough debunking of 9/11 claims, go to http://www.debunking911.com.
It’s OK to question official truths – but question your questions too.
LikeLike
See now, it starts and here we go. Like I said, I will be long gone before they ever get to the bottom of this. The evidence of presence of thermite has not been “debunked,” but rather challenged. Dr. Jones, a physicist who taught at BYU, stands by his words. In this climate, the mere challenging of information is referred to as debunking, and everyone gets all smug. So yes, it’s been challenged, as we might expect, but no, not debunked.
Dr. Jones was forced to resign his position at BYU after he made his claims. Seems to me I wrote something about life in a totalitarian thought-controlled society. He lost his job for speaking out.
Let me be clear: I do not know what happened that day. I have no expertise. My curiosity was triggered by the mere knowledge that in 2001 that it was impossible to make a cell phone call from an airliner. I was curious about that as I tried many times before and after. In 2006 the FBI changed the official story to say that all phone calls were made from seat back phones. Now that creates a problem because Flight 77 that hit the Pentagon had no seat back phones. Barbara Olsen called Ted from that flight. Twice.
See how it goes? These are not minor points. And yes, if I bring it up, then I have to get into it, and here I am getting into it. I only want to be a spectator. But honestly, to believe that a man could hijack an airliner, crash it into a building a hundred stories up, have the building be engulfed for a while in flames, and then collapse … and to find his drivers license on the street two blocks away … who’s being credulous here?
I love a good murder mystery. So I’m curious. The US has committed far worse crimes since that day, so there are far more importation fish to fry. But I stand by my contention, and Dr. Jones will support me, that it takes courage to speak out.
LikeLike
Why did you put “debunk” in quotation marks? I never said anyone has “debunked” Dr. Jones’ theory. But I DID say that there’s no actual evidence to back up his claims. And that the evidence that WOULD back up his claim – that of the two unique byproducts of a thermite reaction – are completely missing.
And the FBI “changed its story” on cell phones? Again, that’s simply not true. Real research was done. 2 cell phone calls were made. 2. That’s it. And there’s simply no evidence to prove otherwise. None whatsoever. Just blithe assertions made by people who all read what each other write and don’t “trust” anything that actual researchers have done.
LikeLike
Oh, the “debunk” is from the website title. gotchya.
LikeLike
Steve T. speaks the truth about truthers. Most of what the truthers get frothed up about are red herring arguments. There are many real mysteries and unresolved questions about 9/11. Its obvious that the Pakistani and Saudi governments were involved. Given the close relationship between those in high places in the Saudi and US establishment in particular…its easy to jump to the conclusion that something fishy was happening.
Particularly when all of the Saudis and Pakistanis accidentally fingered by Abu Zubaydah under interrogation mysteriously died within months. The interrogation tapes were all…of course…destroyed. A person may be inclined to think these individuals were killed by the intelligence agencies of the US or Saudi Arabia as a natural course because they were revealed to be spies or traitors for a terrorist network…or maybe it was to close the books on them because it was starting to get a little too close to the truth of what was really going on.
In any event the real conspiracy to me is the obvious involvement of the Pakistani and Saudi governments. How far that rabbit hole goes though has not been answered.
Sorry. I know you dont want to talk about the specifics of 9/11.
LikeLike
P.S. Only two cell phone calls were made from hijacked planes on 9/11. The rest (62 phone calls) were from seatback phones. This was 2001, after all.
The two phone calls were both made from Flight 93 minutes before it crashed, when the plane’s elevation was approximately 2,000 feet. And they were both dropped in less than two minutes, because you’re right – cell phones on planes just don’t work very well.
Again, this is not a wave-of-the -hand dismissal. This is a set of documentable facts. Yet the conspiracy theories persist.
LikeLike
Again, you are citing challenged information as debunked. The official story about cell phones being seat back phones was not changed until 2006 – until that time, it was cell phones all the way down. And this created a problem, because for some of the calls, the callers’ cell phone number appeared on the receiving phones.
A seat back phone call could only be made by use of a credit card swipe in 2006. Therefore, there must be records somewhere of those credit card charges, probably turned over to the 9/11 commission. That would be prima facie, and you will have won your case. If indeed those phone calls were made and the credit card charges validate that fact, you’ve scored big. Please produce.
I do not know that a call from 2000 feet can be successful either do to tower switching problems. I emphasize, I do not know. I would verify that.
Listen, someday we have to talk about what constitutes a “conspiracy theory.” 19 Arabs is one for sure, but it only becomes an official nut job CS if it involves evildoing by Americans. But Americans kill people every day all over the globe, millions and millions since I’ve been alive. The idea that they would not kill a few thousand more does not trouble me.
You have not convinced me of effective rebuttal.
LikeLike
Are you kidding me? I have to produce credit card records? This is kind of like Obama having to produce a long-form birth certificate. Yeah, I’m equating. But it’s the same kind of black-hole-ever-moving-burden-of-proof-goalpost thing you get into with every conspiracy theorist out there. The similarities are hard to ignore.
I can receive and send text messages at 35,000 feet. This stuff is funky, reception is spotty, and calls would be difficult to place. Which would explain why there were only 2 that went through, and why they were dropped quickly. It’s not as simple as “phone calls can never work when you’re in a plane.”
If I was putting together a conspiracy, I probably wouldn’t have orchestrated a bunch of fake phone calls. It seems totally unnecessary – especially if I have a compliant media on my side along with several thousand minions working for me to put this thing into action. That seems totally implausible to me. this isn’t just because I’m inclined to believe the official story – it’s also because the very idea that people would go to such unnecessary lengths to put this thing into action is pretty damned dubious.
Listen – I don’t think the government has any qualms about killing folks either. But the problem with stuff like this is that there’s this giant event that took place with a hundred moving parts – including these phone calls. And conspiracy theorists have worked very hard to raise questions about every single one of these moving parts. And they should do that. But the odds of each single one of these parts being a conspiracy is dubious at best when taken on their own. Even more dubious is the idea that all of the questions raised about each one of these moving parts – when taken as a whole- constitutes something close to a reasonable doubt about the events of that day. I don’t think they do. Not even close.
Lots of questions exist. And they should. But the existence of questions in and of itself does not a reality make.
LikeLike
I did not say phone calls can never work when you’re in a plane. Anyone who has ever taken a multiple choice question test knows automatically that there is no “never.” There was no technology in place at that time to allow for cell phone calls from high altitude airliners, and signals from 35,000 feet simply could not be handed off from one tower to another, so that what you got was a signal, but inability to have a conversation.
A text message is a burst, and it does not require a tower handoff. it is 140 characters sent one time, and not on ongoing conversation. Good odds of that happening, but not always.
By the way, it is theoretically possible that a phone call could have been made from an airliner at 35,000 feet. All the gods might have smiled and a few words would have gotten through. But not 62 times. The odds were astronomical, and that’s why that part of the story had to be to be changed.
“You” don’t have to do anything but Google, and not even that. I wasn’t putting any burden on you regarding credit card records. I am only saying that if these phone calls were all made on seat back phones, then investigators verified this fact by the simple method of getting that information from the credit card companies. Even the widows and widowers would have that info, as they would have had to pay the credit card bills. It’s not hard – it’s the US government and these are professional people doing due diligence. If that is what happened, then you have a slam dunk. The information is available. They can do this stuff.
Hundred moving parts? Are you going all “irreducible complexity” on me? If 19 Arabs is a valid theory, then it will stand up to scrutiny. But to say “No scrutiny! If you scrutinize you are a conspiracy theorist!” is irrational. It was an emotional and taxing day for all of us. But there is no harm now in looking it over, asking questions and not accepting pat answers. That damned driver’s license is an anomaly. That should not have happened.
The people that did this knew they did not have to cover every base, that crowd psychology and emperor’s new clothes would protect them. They also knew there would be a few bright people who would ask inappropriate questions and that all they had to do was use ridicule and pressure to quarantine those people. Being a “conspiracy theorist” is like wearing a tin hat. It is hard, and people crumble. Airliners do not disappear into small holes, steel-girdered buildings do not collapse due to fire, steel does not melt at 1,000 degrees, and a lone drivers license does not survive the towering inferno.
If you are saing that 19 Muslims set out to hijack four jetliners, and that a guy in a cave with a laptop in Afghanistan arranged it, and that the most expensive security system on the planet had multi-serial fail – that everything just worked out for them – then all I do is put a little more burden of proof on you than you want to assume, and ask you to produce via the 9/11 Commission via Google one credit card statement showing one phone call made. Piece of cake.
LikeLike
You keep saying 35,000 feet. Not a single person has ever said that a cell phone call was placed at that altitude. So good job debunking a theory that was never put forward in the first place.
Again, there were 64 calls placed from the planes. 62 of them were placed on seatback phones. 2 were placed by cell phones, minutes before a plane crash landed. You’re pretending that the official “position” of the FBI was that those calls were all cell phone calls before 2006. This is totally untrue. A 2006 report stated definitively that this was the case, but there was nothing beforehand that said otherwise other than a few scattered media reports, who were more than likely operating on limited information.
This seems like a perfectly reasonable story to me – that so many calls were made, and that many were made from seatback phones, and only 2 cell phone calls got through, but only for a limited time. That the FBI would say otherwise and then change its story, on the otherhand, seems perfectly implausible, and furthermore is not backed up by the evidence.
And you’re not allowed to use the “You just Googled that” argument on me. If that were a valid argument, then none of us would be allowed to blog. It’s what we do. So deal with it.
And nice job with a little subtle racism at the end there. I’m perfectly able to believe that a small number of people could have accomplished 9/11. I don’t give a shit if they’re in a cave and happen to be wearing turbans. And it’s well documented that they were very well-financed. And having dealt with some giant bureacracies in my day, I’m totally willing to believe that they outsmarted the giant, top-heavy security apparatus that hasn’t dealt with a real domestic attack since Pearl Harbor. it’s about 95% more probably than your theory.As for the hundred moving parts, you misread me. My argument is thus: Each of these little conspiracy theories are only slightly compelling. There’s not much to them, but I suppose I’m able to say, “yeah, I guess that’s possible.” But someone who believes the whole thing was fake has put 100 “yeah, I guess that’s possible” pieces together in order to form an argument. And for me, it becomes a probability problem at that point. Meaning, one event may have a 10% possibility of having happened, and another one may have the same probability. But the probability of both of those things happening is 10% X 10% – which equals 1%. And when you’ve got a hundred of those, it becomes less and less probable for me.
Granted, you’re dealing with the same thing. You really believe that anything that comes out as an official’s mouth has a small chance of being true. And so on and so forth.
LikeLike
The official story, promulgated by the 9/11 commission, was that the calls were placed from cell phones. Recipients noted that the origins of the calls were familiar numbers. In 2006 the official story officially moved, as, if an ordinary guy like me can figure out what’s not possible, any amount of appealing to authority might not wash? Ergo, it became seat back phones, and the impossibility of that on Flight 77, where the original explanation was a seat back collect phone call (impossible) became a cell phone at 2000 feet, still unlikely. Both stories shifted.
Like I said, if it was seat back phones, each and every call produced a credit card charge. This was a massive, thorough, professional and diligent investigation. Surely they followed up on that, and documents exist not only with the people who paid the bills, but also with the companies who issue bills each month. If these people can produce a drivers’ license from a towering inferno, they can produce a piece of paper saying that a phone call was made, a charge issued and paid. What’s the problem.
And, you’re going the wrong way with your numbers. Each bit of evidence put forth by the tinfoil hat sets diminishes the official story. It’s not algebra. It’s arithmetic. On the algebra side, the likelihood of massive fail of every security system I service failing diminishes exponentially as you multiply them, but the increase in strength of evidence produced by each new revelation by doubters increases arithmetically. In one case you multiply, in the other you add.
One phone bill.
LikeLike
You mean the 9/11 commission report backs up your preconceived notions about what happened here? Now, where would you read such a thing?
Try reading it. Oh, screw it. I’ll do it for you:
“Shortly thereafter, the passengers and flight crew began a series of calls from GTE airphones and cellular phones.”
This is the only time that passengers are mentioned to have made calls in the entire 500+ page 9/11 commission report.
In the reality-based world, this is the 9/11 commission making a factual statement that was then backed up by later reports.
In the conspiracy theorists world, this amounts to the government’s official “position” being that passengers called their loved ones from their cell phones at 35,000 feet. And then these theorists write that interpretation down with a convincing kind of certainty, and you repeat it here with equal certainty. I’ll ask you again to read that sentence from the report and see if it merits the kind of certainty about the government “taking a position” that you’ve given it.
No stories have shifted here. It’s a convenient narrative, but one that doesn’t line up with reality.
Again, these are all documented facts, but they don’t penetrate the Truther bubble. The 9/11 Commission report is available online in its entirety. I Googled the hell out of it.
LikeLike
Several points: One, you are very dismissive, very angry in your demeanor. This is precisely the attitude that Sirota’s adopted that morning, and I contend that it results from your own internal turmoil, as you have to internalize the 2+2=5 concept that Orwell wrote about. You cannot pretend to believe while harboring doubt. You really have to believe, so you crush the doubt and do so with great anger, attacking critics, demeaning them, accusing them of stupidity, credulity, insanity? This is your internal perception system at work. I’ve merely brushed over a few topics, and you’ve gone postal.
Two, you are forcing me to go where I do not want to go. I am compulsive by nature (all accountants are, as it is our job.) If I do a little of this, I will do a lot, and I do not want to do that. I want others to do t for me, and merely read the exchanges between proponents and doubters. But they do not confront one another – doubters try, but proponents keep their distance and sneer and call names.
That said, if you want to pursue the matter further, I suggest you do so, but not on my dime. I only asked two things – explanation the drivers license in a non-bizarro world, and provide official documentation of one phone call made from an air phone. You’ve done neither. I would not, if I were you, cite the 9/11 Commission Report as your evidence, as it is the center of the dispute. Doubters have worked it over every which way but loose, and are highly skeptical about the content, process and conclusions.
Just this one little exchange sent me off reading, and as a result I could hit you with a shopping list of problems regarding the whole circus of phone calls, including the DOJ backing off from the Ted Olsen story during the Moussaoui trial. Olsen himself claimed that she made the calls collect, as she didn’t have her purse, then wavered, then went back. Since the calls were made to DOJ, who log all calls in and out, a record exists.
Burden of proof, I don’t want it. The right to doubt official truth, I claim ownership. I remain deeply, deeply skeptical, especially since 9/11 was used to justify a maniacal killing spree by the Pentagon. Get me out of this movie.
LikeLike
Only one point:
You used the 9/11 Commission report as the basis for this idea that the government “changed their story.” You claimed that the report said one thing about cell phone usage – making it the “official position” of the government, and then that the FBI changed their tune later. This is flatly untrue, as I showed you in my previous comment – meaning that the government never made the claim that you say it did.
But your response now to this is that the 9/11 Commission report doesn’t matter. Meaning it doesn’t matter unless you can falsely claim that it bolsters your point.
I’m not going down the conspiracy theory hole with you. It’s the “long-form” birth certificate hole. Let’s keep it simple. It’s easy to ask questions, but when those questions get answered you come up with more. You’re right – this is too time consuming.
I’ve shown you several flaws in your argument. The site wasn’t “laden with thermite.” No cell phone calls were made at 35,000 feet – and furthermore, no one has ever claimed that this was the case.
LikeLike
But the site was, according to one expert, “laden with thermite.” Others stepped forward to deny the claim and the poor schmuck was Churhilled. That’s not quite “debunking.” I think what you are saying is that your wish that it not be discussed further can now be satisfied by official support from counter-experts, which negates debate or meeting of minds.
And the 9/11 report came out a few years after the incident and itself became the center of controversy with testimony ignored or not sought. They never tested for thermite, but should have. It was the FBI that was making public statements regarding cell phones, not officially ruling them out until 2004. (The FBI recently admitted they do not have enough evidence to convict OBL.)
The information regarding cell phones was reported to the FBI by the call recipients. Most originated on Flight 93, giving us the details of the fanciful “Let’s Roll” story. That is where the controversy originates. The 9/11 Commission merely reported what had become the official story and in spite of call recipients. (One woman told the FBI that she received three calls from her husband, and she was certain of that because his number came up on caller ID. This while the plane was at 30,000 feet. The 9/11 Commission did not include her testimony, but she stands by it. Barbara Olsen’s first call to Ted came at around 9:20, at which time Flight 77 was somewhere around 14- 20,000 feet. So the FBI concluded in 2004 that her call had been made from the seat back phone. 9/11C changed that to cellular.
So your documented facts are countered by other documented facts, and you are merely selecting those that you like best. Relying on the 9/11 Commission for your underlying data is to ignore the very substance of the controversy, that the Commission was a huge coverup. That is what your “Truthers” (my “Doubters”) maintain.
See now, I went there. I am obsessive, and I want to dig further, but I will not will not. But just a little bit of digging is enough to debunk your debunking and leave matters still quite unsettled.
For the record, “conspiracy theory” also applies to
12919 Muslims, and as used in this country refers to any suspicious that Americans misbehave. We are quite free, even encouraged, to engage in theorizing about our enemies. For instance, if I say that I have evidence that Castro killed Kennedy, I’ll march straight to the Atlantic Monthly. But if evidence is, say, American mobsters employed by the CIA in Cuban operations, that is a conspiracy theory.See how it works?
Now, I am reading about economics, America before 1491, the origins of the gospels and the meaning of happiness. I will not will not go near 9/11 again.
Oh, by the way, ‘splain the driver’s license, and find documentation of one seat back call.
I said GOOD DAY!
LikeLike
According to one professor in Salt Lake City who never set foot near Ground Zero in the aftermath of the attacks, the site was “laden with thermite.” Have you considered looking at the basis of this claim? You should try it. The whole point of thermite is that it, you know, reacts in a way that melts metal – and the end product is, you know, NOT thermite. So if there was a whole bunch of thermite in the ruins, then the demolition didn’t exactly work properly, don’t you think?
That being said, there was actually not thermite found. None. Zero. And if you dig down into Olson’s claims, you’ll see that even he is not claiming that there was thermite found. There were other materials found – like, say, sulfur and aluminium- that are used in the production of thermite. He’s saying that because these materials were found in the rubble, there must have been thermite there. And he calls it “thermitic residue.” There are no other experts who agree with the assertion – and furthermore, the people who actually recovered and analyzed the material do not agree with this assertion. But I’m sure they were all in on the conspiracy.
Anyways, in his spare time – when he’s not pushing these allegations – Jones is busy trying to prove that Jesus was in America for a period of time, and of pushing doctored photos that purport to show pools of molten metal after the attack. Yes, I’m smearing him. But he’s both a nutcase AND a serial liar. Again, this is your only “expert.”
Also, would it interest you to know that thermite has never been used in a controlled demolition? Ever? Probably not.
Onto the cell phones (again):
“It was the FBI that was making public statements regarding cell phones, not officially ruling them out until 2004.”
Care to source this? You see, it’s one thing for officials to go out into the media and utter the words “cell phone” from time to time. It’s another thing entirely for an investigative entity to take the “position” that only cell phones were used. And every single report issued has stated that both cell phones and seatback phones were used. Every single one. So you can go find some irregularities in the thousands of public statements made by grieving family members after the attack, or you can look to the findings of the investigation. And the findings state that 64 phone calls were made. 2 were from cell phones. And there have been absolutely no conflicting reports or “positions” by the FBI on this. None. You’re pulling together a random hodgepodge of quotes about this and creating a narrative that doesn’t actually exist.
“So the FBI concluded in 2004 that her call had been made from the seat back phone. 9/11C changed that to cellular. ”
This is flatly untrue. Again, you only cite the 9/11 commission report when you can falsely claim that it backs your assertions. Read the damned commission report. Link above.
And all of this masks the main point here – which is this: There’s a lot of complications and possibilities regarding the phone calls that happened in those planes. And at the end of the day, none of us were there – and everyone who was there is dead. This lends itself to speculation. But if what you say is true, and these phone call claims are part of a cover-up, than here are the alternatives:
1. A whole bunch of expert voice impersonators made phone calls and pretended to be the loved ones of the people who received the calls. They were so believable that there’s not a single person who received a call thought that it was from someone other than their relative. Oh, and this would require that the actual passengers be killed in some other fashion or locked away forever with no contact with the outside world.
2. Every “family member” who claims to have received a phone call isn’t actually a “family member” at all but part of the conspiracy. They are either covert agents or have been paid off by the government to perpetrate these lies.
….And you seriously think I’m the one who’s pulling the 2+2=5 trick? The official story – that 64 phone calls were made, and 2 were from cellular phones at an elevation of 2,000 feet and were dropped in less than 2 minutes – makes sense. It really requires no mental acrobatics. Your story, on the other hand, requires a LOT of mental acrobatics when you really dig down into what it actually means.
Seriously. Put these two stories side by side. Yours requires a massive coverup involving voice impersonators or covert killings of passengers. Mine requires seatback phones. That’s it. Who’s engaging in acrobatics here?
LikeLike
You’re really rattling my cage, and I am getting pissed off. It’s why I am sitting here writing about this stuff when I don’t want to even think about it.
First, I deliberately brought up this topic under the heading of totalitarianism because that word embraced the word “total.” It is Orwell’s example – that a circus dog that jumps through a hoop on command is impressive, but for the dog to do with voluntarily is even more so. That is totalitarianism, total control of mind and body.
There is a debate going on among adherents to the official story, and some very curious, brave and bright people who are not swayed by the power of official truth. With each item they bring up, they are ridiculed as if to not be in line with the official story is a form of mental illness. It is not. It is a sign of mental acuity. To blindly follow official truth and every expert produced by the very people who should be investigated is a sign of fear (and of ridicule, as you are ridiculing me), submission, and the need for acceptance.
Second, I want it to play out. Nothing that I have read indicates that the doubters and skeptics have answers. They only want an investigation. I want to hear critics and beleivers go head-to-head, and calmly discuss what is known, all of the testimony of witnesses, and grill the people who are putting forth the evidence that you are citing as factual and effective “debunking.” You’re much to quick to buy in, circus dog.
Third, I’ve witnessed this phenomenon before with the Warren Commission Report, which in the end was effectively (to my satisfaction) debunked. For all of the years that skeptics (bright, inquisitive people, many of whom are obsessive) said the WC was a cover-up, all they got was ridicule and sanity questioned. It has taken fifty years, and enough people have come forward now to piece together the true events of 11/22/63. It was a long chain of events, a perfect storm of sorts, and it cost JFK his life. The real culprit was RFK, who was so arrogant that he openly taunted the mobsters who were at that time assisting the CIA in a terrorist operation in Cuba. All the while these people were doing what they thought a patriotic duty (also wanting their casinos back), Bobby’s justice department was pursuing them. They hated Bobby, and in the words of Carlos Marcello, decided to cut off the head of the dog rather than the tail. There was a plan in place to murder Castro with a bogus “Russian defector” (there were several, Oswald was just one who was trying to get into Cuba) set up to be a patsy. The mobsters merely turned the plan around and used it to hit JFK. Bobby spent the rest of his days in morbid guilt, having caused his brothers death, banging Jackie (not to be flip – they loved each other deeply and Bobby consoled Jackie in the dark days when JFK so openly abused her), but openly exposing himself to assassination, almost a death wish.
The job of the Warren Commission was to cover everything up, not because there was a government conspiracy to murder JFK, as there was not. But there was a real danger that a confrontation with the Soviets would result, as the plan to off Castro could be exposed using a fake Russian defector to pin blame on the Soviets. Earl Warren did not participle in the actual proceedings of the Warren Commission but agreed to
participateallow his name to be used (after being cornered by LBJ, a very persuasive man) because he weighed the options and saw greater good. He was an honorable man, and so agreed to particulate in a lie.That took fifty years, and countless lives were lost, reputations destroyed as bright, sensible and brave (and obsessive) people tried to get to the truth.
Do I beleive the 9/11 Commission report? No. Why? Because it is not an independent body. Whatever happened that day, the mere fact that the government did not stop it, that there was massive serial (therefore exponentially unlikely) failure, means that the government cannot be trusted to investigate itself! We need an independent body, a real investigation, perhaps the Russians would be so kind.
Details: Dr. Jones is a MORMON, you idiot. All Mormons believe that Jesus visited America, just as Catholics believe that they are drinking blood. Why is his religious faith being ridiculed? And he is saying that he found signatures of thermite in WTC dust, samples provided to him for testing by OTHER people who were at the site. No one has claimed that weapons-grade thermite is used in regular demolition. That’s a straw man argument. Dr. Jones said that he found evidence of it from Ground Zero samples. It needs further investigation by independent and qualified people, independent being key, and again I would call on the Russians. Also, if thermite was used, not all of it would be expended. There would be both signature and residue. In addition to molten metal (the site continued to burn for weeks), people have seen pock-mark holes in the wreckage. Jet fuel does not burn at high enough temperature to cause metal to collapse, not even close, and even if it did, that would not explain building seven.
Cell phones: Those witnesses who testified to receipt of cell phone calls form high altitude were not allowed to testify, but their testimony was taken by the FBI prior to 9/11C. 9/11C’s wave of the hand dismissal is merely a nice package that explains only what it chose to explain, ignoring what it chose to ignore. Barbara Olsen’s first call to her husband had to have come at a time when the airliner was between 14-20,000 feet. The timeline mandates it. Deena Burnett was adamant that she received three sell phone calls from her husband while he was at 30,000 feet, and that his ID popped up on her phone. You say she’s just grieving. I get it. That explains it. Is she also crazy? Mormon?
It was only theoretically possible at that time for cell phone calls to be made from high altitude, and highly unlikely. The greater odds are that none got through, that a signal might pop up, and disappear, but that no voice transmission would happen. That technology is available now, but only came available after 2001.
Were voices simulated? Given that it was realistically impossible to complete a call, but that many calls (including seat back) were said to have been competed that day (according to recipients and not 911C), it would appear so. It is indeed contradictory, and I have no answer to that. It will play out over time, long after I am dead there might be an answer. It is possible to morph voices these days, re Bob hope at the Oscars last year. Technology exists now, but I don’t know about then.
I have no answers to much of anything, as I’m not an expert and must play the who-do-you-trust game, and I do not trust the government with its massive serial exponential fail that day to do a good investigation of itself. If there were so many fucks ups that day, why has no one ever been held to account, fired, that sort of thing? And for the record, your wave of the hand answer, that they just fucked up because they just fuck up a lot doesn’t satisfy me. Aircraft going off course is a routine occurrence, and fighter jet response to each incident is also routine. For the system to fail four times on the same day – serial exponentially improbably failure … how do you spell credulous?
Now, you’ve done your cage rattling, so walk away happy. You’ve forced me to enter an area I want no part of due to my obsessive nature. I am bright, curious, and not afraid of ridicule. If you come back here, do three things: One, explain the fucking drivers license, two, offer a document of one fucking seat back call via a credit card statement or phone company record, and three: explain how Barbara Olsen’s 14,000 foot cell phone call magically became 2000 feet. [Also, Google Payne Stewart some time too.]
LikeLike
Fine – you start this off with the very basis of your argument being that adherents to the official story have internalized contradictions and believe that 2+2 = 5. Next time you start a discussion like that, don’t get surprised when someone throws it back at you and talks down to you a little bit. Pot. Kettle. Black.
I know it’s fun for you to believe that people who believe most of the official story are simply too stupid to think that their government is capable of killing or deceit. It’s fun to see yourself as a warrior fighting for truth in a world where everyone is just too stupid to see it. But things aren’t so simple. Let’s play a little question and answer game just so you understand all of the “turmoil” that my poor, misguided soul is “internalizing.”
Q: Does the government lie?
A: Yes.
Q: Does the government hire impersonators to call their loved ones while pretending to be on a plane that’s about to crash? Does the government then assassinate or imprison the passengers of said plane so that said plane can then harmlessly crash into a field?
A: Hell no. You’d have to be either insane or living in a Hollywood movie to believe such a fantastical story.
Q: Did the Bush Administration and their friends in the oil industry benefit from 9/11?
A: Of course.
Q: Did the CIA load the WTC buildings with explosives while simultaneously planting thermite on steel girders, fly empty planes painted to look like 767s into the buildings right before igniting the thermite, melting the girders, and then blowing up the explosives, causing 3,000 people in the buildings to die, and either assassinate or “disappear” the supposed passengers of the plane? Did they also fly a Surface to Surface missile (WTF?) into the Pentagon and pretend it was a plane? Did the media, the government, and several large corporations then conspire to keep the “Truth” from the American people?
A: Hell no. Talk about fantastical. We don’t live in a Hollywood movie. There’s a difference between a government that lies and government that plays the role of a fucking Batman villain bent solely on destruction. You view our government just like the Tea Party views A-rabs and Mexicans. And just like them, you might as well cower under your bed – because they’re coming to get you!!!
Q: Is the government capable of killing people? Do they do so regularly?
A: Yes.
Q: Is our government capable of being caught off guard in the first domestic attack since Pearl Harbor, and the first one in mainland America since the Civil War?
A: Of course. Just because they’re white, well-financed, and have the biggest toys doesn’t mean they can’t get caught off guard. And it doesn’t mean they have a contigency plan for planes flying into buildings. That’s the point of an operation that uses a small number of people. It catches people off guard. And this thing about catching people off guard – IT WORKS. It’s why we have Navy SEALS and Green Berets.
Play the “I don’t have answers” game all you want. But all of the questions you’re asking have been answered. And you may not like the answers – but they’re solid enough that even people without internal contradictions can accept them. Start answering your own questions sometime. I already have. And I’m not interested in what I see. Not because I have internal contradictions – but because I’m not an idiot, and I don’t think my government is loaded with Batman villains.
One more thing. David Sirota isn’t on your side. When he goes off the rails, it’s because he thinks what you believe is absurd. Sorry.
LikeLike
You have not answered aythng. You have only talked to yourself, questioning, and I think, my sanity in the process. I am far more schooled in propaganda and thought control than in the details of blowing up buildings and simulating voices. I can only tell you that it took fifty years of doubt to get to a final explanation of JFK, and that we don’t get to live 100 years. Your basic questions are ‘would they’ and ‘could they?’ Would they wantonly kill people? Absolutely. I first came upon this horror scene in Vietnam. They have no compuntions about killing people. Would they they then take several hundred people off planes, lie to them, take them somewhere and kill them? Yes. Evidence? Nazis did this. Response? Nazis were bad people. My response? Sociopaths don’t only live in Germany in the 1940’s They are always with us. They are several percentage points of us, the US more than most countries but at least 2% everywhere.
I am not playing the I don’t have the answers game. I am playing the I don’t have the time game, or I will never know the answers, but will not let go of questions.
Sirota? On my side? WTF? Do you know how to read? The guy is a time bomb.
Gatting caught off guard?
1/101/100 chance, just to grab a number. Basic statistical analysis. Sure can happen once. Twice? 1/1000′ Thrice? 1/1,000,000. Four times in one day? 1/100,000,000. It may not boil down to that, but I have emphasized to you the difference between independent and dependent variables. The odds of two unlikely things happening are multiplied. Works pretty well. Fuckups are normal, but should not all point in one direction, and these people are pretty damned good, Which is why I pointed you at Payne Stewart. Just a guy in a Cessna, two fighter jets within twenty minutes.Something happened that day that caused massive total fail in the normal defense system. Something more than human frailty. You have 60-70 years left. I don’t. Figure it out, don’t listen to their bullshit stories.
LikeLike
Again – your answer is that of course the government can lie and kill, therefore the Hollywood super-villain fairy tail of 9/11 truthers must be accurate. That’s not an argument. It’s a distraction.
I would point out again that your original claims: That the officials claim that phone calls were made at 35,000 feet and the site debris was “laden with thermite” vary in accuracy from the range of “complete bullshit” to “claims of one expert in Salt Lake City (exagerrated for good measure).” That’s not a very good track record, no matter how many follow up questions you’ve posed. And that’s not me saying 2+2= 5. It’s me saying your claims are demonstrably false.
As for the driver’s license – it was a passport, and it can be explained just as well as every other piece recovered from the wreckage – including body parts and other photos, pieces of clothing, seats, and identification. If the government planted one, they planted them all, seeing as how it was empty planes and/or missiles that hit those buildings. Wait a minute… they must have planted the body parts AFTER they killed all of the passengers in a field in Ohio! Wow, they really ARE evil. (Again, I’ve taken your “question” to its logical end, and the answer is absurd. This is where your questions tend to lead me, oddly enough.)
LikeLike
jones, whom I admire even though he even believes there was a Jesus, which is not true in my opinion, is one of scores of professional people who have done critical analyses of available evidence*. He’s not crazy even if he has the temerity to make his conclusions, stick to them endure sliming and lose his job. Man has some chops, you think? Maybe just not ceazy?
I said nothing about body parts, don’t know anything about them. I latch on to those things I can grasp, that those calls you now say they never said were made that witnesses whose testimony was excluded said they received from 30,000 feet. Mormons everywhere!
I know nothing about the circumstances in the field in PA. I have stayed away from this. You’re bringing new stuff to me. But do step back, look at the enormity of the crime, and imagine that just as everything went wrong on our side with the most sophisticated defense system in the world, that the dude with the laptop in he cave had everything go right. What are the odds?
Have you no skepticism at all?
I watched a video as we drove yesterday. It was Pakistani TV with subtitles so there were probably Mormons doing the translating. It was the next door neighbor to the compound where they killed Osama describing events of the night. Because it was not American journalism, before they put the interview on air, they verified his identity and address. The interviewer was highly skeptical throughout. The man said that three helicopters flew in, but only one landed. Men got off, and speaking Pashtun, went door-to-door telling people to stay indoors or be shot. Then other men left the helicopter and went inside. He did not hear gunfire. After twenty minutes or so, the men came out of the compound, got back on the helicopter. As it took off, it exploded. He was sure that everyone on board was dead. He and neighbors from all over rushed to the compound, whose gates were open, and went inside. It was a horrible scene, and he could not count bodies because it was just scattered pieces, arms and heads and torsos.
Team six, the guys who supposedly killed Obama, later died in a crash in Pakistan, we are told, august eighth or thereabouts. It was a crash of a Natioanl Guard copter on a secret mission, shot down by a lucky shot from a rocket launcher. It was the single largest death toll for any day in that war. All of Team Six are dead now, and not just the poor schmucks who died in the bin Laden compound.
IPad stopped allowing me to type, and to finish this in edit mode, so this part was not emailed to you.
*the reason you cannot verify the phone calls is that evidence is guarded. If it’s slam dunk, evidence beyond assurances of important people, would help. The Warren Commission released like 26 volumes of evidence, all out of order and not indexed, but it appears that in 1964 there were somewhat higher bars set for critical analysis of proceedings.
LikeLike
I am pretty much done with this, but should point out that your new set of facts, that all of team six is dead, is also complete bullshit. Not all of Team six was part of the bin Laden raid. And none of the members of team 6 who died in the helicopter crash were part of the bin Laden raid – nor has any official anywhere ever said such a thing. What a horrendous load of shit.
You might want to question the veracity of your sources when they seem so eager to just make shit up as they go.
LikeLike
This was a surprise to me. I knew in the early 2000’s that Osama was dead. After all, if he did not do it, he would be a real pain in the ass. He was murdered in late 2001.
I do not know why they felt a necessity to “kill” him in 2011. But it bolsters my faith in human nature that they had to kill the 10-12 people that night, knowing they would not keep quiet. These kids they recruit really believe the lies. Helicopter or accidental death scenes played ad nauseum in Vietnam, where Americans were not fighting before 1964′ yuk yuk, but death tolls were high, there were a lot of accidents and crashes to explain the 4000 deaths before Tonkin. Of course I was too young at the time as you are now. I did now come of age until 38. There is hope for you.
Why they killed the remaining members of Team six? It can be many things, but usually it is too many people knowing too much shit, and there is fear of security leaks so they just blow them up. It serves two purposes. One, it kills people who know things, two, it warns others to shut the fuck up.
Below is a transcript of the Bashir interview. I saw it first hand but it is gone now. I totally get your cut and run, but your last paragraph is completely inaccurate. 10-12 died the night of the raid when the helicopter blew up, the rest in August. Team six is body parts.
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread704479/pg1
LikeLike
Jesus. A few members of Team six were killed in a helicopter crash that killed 35 total servicemembers. That’s it. The whole unit has not been eliminated or killed. That would be like me finding out that a few members of the Green Berets had been killed and just assuming that they’re all dead.
Team Six wasn’t invented for the bin Laden raid. They’ve been around since the 80s. You’re operating on incredibly limited information – thinking that they were invented out of thin air and then killed without a fuss. Some of them participated in the bin Laden raid, but most of them didn’t. So the fact that members of the troop were killed in a helicopter crash and did not happen to be the same ones who participated in the bin Laden raid is actually not stunning. That you would assume they are is an assumption – and a foolish one, at that.
Every single member who participated in that raid is still alive. Every single one of them. And no one has ever said any differently. Or do you have a Steven Jones copycat you’re reading on this topic?
You have really floored me with this one – it’s beyond crazy, and I know not what to say. Pull your head out. Seriously.
LikeLike
Too bad I cannot find that interview, but the transcript I provided was accurate. The next door neighbor to the Bin Laden compound, Mohammed Bashir, watched from the roof laying down as the supposed Bin Laden killing went on. There were three helicopters, only one landed, and when the men got back on, as it took off it exploded, and everyone aboard was killed. No other helicopter landed, and later American and Pakistani troops sealed the area and cleaned it up. That was the “kill Osama” raid in April.
In August, and since we were in Europe I did not know this, there was another crash, and we were told that members of Team Six were aboard and killed. Reports of the crash are all over, most say that Team members were aboard, a few deny it. At this time the ones who died in the earlier raid could have been added to those the list of those actually aboard, as military people say 38 is way too many for that helicopter. but the other members of Team six who did not participate in the April raid were killed too.
Most likely members of the team were talking among themselves about going public with what they knew, especially since these units are tight-knit. It appears to me that the original members in the April raid were murdered in cold blood and the August crash was clean up, and a warning.
Since I was very sure that Osama was long dead, I merely assumed that the raid had been staged – no photos published, body buried at sea – that kind of nonsense requires mountains of credulity, but Americans are not known for insight. Even I was surprised at the brutality. This is some cold-blooded shit. These are scary people, these Americans.
Who said that Navy Seal Unit Team Six was invented? Not Me. Follow the link above. I am somewhat surprised that you are so bought in, but you are still very young. As the saying goes, if you like sausage, don’t ask how they make it. If you love your country, don’t ask how they run it. I don’t suffer from love of country. I was disabused of that somewhere arounf 1988, lwhen you were about five.
LikeLike
I found the interview – go down the page a ways to the “subtitled” interview.mkeep in mind the this the May 2 event when Osama was supposedly killed, and not the August 8 crash where other members odmTeam six were killed. I doubt the poor schmucks aboard the helicopter even had a clue that this would be the official story.
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread704479/pg1
Two things for sure: Mohammed Bashir is probably Mormon, and for sure has his head up his ass.
LikeLike
Oops – wrong link.
http://www.infowars.com/pakistan-tv-report-contradicts-us-claim-of-bin-ladens-death/
LikeLike
You would be the worst investigator ever. You know that, right? You find one guy on the internet who tells you what you want to hear, and you’re all over it like stink on shit. You do realize that once investigators find a clue, they look for corroborating evidence, right? They don’t just accept the story of one man as absolute truth.
You have no corroborating evidence – in fact, many neighbors were interviewed in the days after the attack – one of them live-tweeted it without realizing it. But I’m sure any neighbor who told a story that you don’t like is in on the conspiracy.
But you’re right. Everything you read on the internet is true. Well, except for establishment news sources, government sources, establishment bloggers, and people who you know to be too stupid to “get it.” Which only leaves you websites like “abovetopsecret.com” and “wheresobamasbirthcertificate.com.” Yeah, it’s not much to work with – but what’s a subversive to do?
LikeLike
Wow, did not see that coming.
Doubt is the beginning of the road, not the end. That’s all I do. I doubt. You on the other hand accept official truth as signed with an imprimatur.
One of us is gullible, the other going to take a shower now.
LikeLike
I think you should debate creationism. It is a much more fertile topic, and not just one but many dozens of real professors and holders of advanced degrees have been fired or shunned for advocating theories contrary to those accepted by our totalitarian masters.
LikeLike
Ed, I get you derision, as I live in a world that you don’t visit often. Things are what they are and not what I am told they are. If you are living in tyranny and know it is such, then I would argue that you are not totally in its grip. You are still thinking. If you have internalized the system, and accept all that is going on around you, which I will not shopping list again, and still think we are a free country, then I suggest your perceptions are under house management.
LikeLike
Ed,
Not to put too fine a point on it, but are these real (American)totalitarian masters or inverse totalitarian masters? I did not laughing out loud, but could not hold back one tiny chuckle.
LikeLike
That had me laughing, did you and S.T. argue like that around the dinner table? While very entertaining to read Infowars and the other Alex Jones’ conspiracy websites are not credible sources of information.
I have another conspiracy theory of my own, which I dont actually subscribe to but its at least as credible as the rest if not more. After the first WTC bombing in 1993 it came out in court testimony that the bombers intent was to bring down one of the towers with the blast and knock it onto the other one…two birds with one stone.
Wouldn’t it then be prudent to pre-wire the WTC in such a fashion that if this was tried again and one tower was damaged to the extent it threatened to topple into another or one or both were going to fall in manner that threatened extensive damage to the surroundings..that you could potentially bring doqn the damaged tower (or both)
LikeLike
(cont.) with a contingency plan of pre-wired explosives.
After the attacks of 9/11, the threat materialized and the decision was made to bring them down to minimize the damage. Obviously such a situation and/or decision could not be made public (or at least would not be).
This has the same holes as any 9/11 theory, I think in particular i believe the explosives would have to have been replaced on nearly a yearly basis. But it is interesting. It would explain the claimed presence of thermite residue and claimed anomalies with the collapse itself. I dont really think thats what happened but I could see someone in the govt at some point in the 90s coming to the conclusion that attempting this as a last second countermeasure would be the prudent step to take (assuming its even possible). My theory is worthy of an Alex Jones mention Im waiting for him to follow up on it.
LikeLike
That’s all beyond me. Steve is independent-minded, which means that he gets after me, as he should.
Regarding “credible” sources, neither Jones or Inforwars matter, and since most American news sources are not credible, we are pretty much on our own right? both are new to me – what matters is the Pakistani TV Interview. Is it real? Is it accurately translated? Dismissing it for the channel by which it got to us is not creible. since I am one who believes that OBL died in late 2001, obviously, the interview confirms my bias.
LikeLike
I love Jones but he is such a clown and some (not all) of his material is so outlandish that it almost makes me wonder if thats the point. Discredit the real stories that may be out there by associating them with someone who can so easily (and voluntarily) be discredited.
Pakistani TV is definitely not a credible source either in general. The major outlets there are openly controlled by the govt and intelligence services. They openly tout the 9/11 conspiracy theories (as does the general public in the mideast). Which you could take as a sign that their media is not controlled and is willing to tackle tough questions..but I would say its their very own form of agitprop for their own domestic audience. The ones in pakistan who start sniffing a little too close to the truth (as in their own govt’s complicity with ‘al queda’) get a toe tag.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MF04Df03.html
Like I said above, in my opinion the biggest conspiracy is the obvious involvement of the Saudi and Paki govts in 9/11. Where that leads i dont know.
LikeLike
Oh yeah, I get that every country has its own internal propaganda system. some are aggressively active, like ours, N Korea’s, Cuba’s, others ore passive, like Italy, Northern Europe, Spain.
But you play it to your advantage. The best place to get information about the US is from other countries-even Canada is a good source, but Al Jazeera and rt.com are tops. We, on the other hand, can be a good source of information about Iran or Libya or Syria or anyone else we want to attack.
Now, back to the interview. It is the interview we are interested in. Is it real or staged? Are the translations accurate? If you say anything other than “I don’t know'” you’ve got a ways to go on the incredulity front. You’ve pretty much said they are fake without a scintilla of an idea
LikeLike
I dont have any reason not to believe the transcript so Ill take it that its accurate. Is the interview real or is it staged is a good question, as well as: “is the guy lying” for reasons of his own.
After reading the transcript one thing that popped out to me as odd is that this guy is talking on the phone to the leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party at the outset. Sort of seems like he is almost asking permission to give this interview. Jamaat-e-Islami is a very conservative religious party, has ties to extremist elements in pakistan (as well as the military and intelligence services) and is kind of like the Republicans of Pakistan. That alone seems really weird. Whether that means he is lying and is trying to plant a fake story for whatever reason I dont know…but that would be the answer I lean towards.
So moving past that..if we assume he is telling the truth and leave aside the inherent probability that eye witness testimony is generally innacturate particularly in a dark chaotic environment like this…I’m not really sure what it means. So he is saying that one of the helicopters crashed and there were dead American bodies everywhere right? I know the govt can pull all kinds of off the books stuff to cover things up, but I would also assume these guys have families and its probably not as easy to sweep mass casualties of US servicemen under the rug as it might seem in the movies.
So Im not saying he is lying…but he has a motivation to lie at the least given who he is talking to on the phone for starters. To convince me that what he is saying is true is going to require more. It seems more likely to me that he is either lying or genuinely confused about what he saw that night. But of course I dont really know what happened.
LikeLike
I don’t know the significance of the phone call, whether it is can he talk or should he talk. What he said is dangerous. I doubt that darkness obscured his vision of an explosion. The Pentagon admits there was a crash that night but says that none were injured.
Regarding deaths, secret ops are normally kept secret, which is why i mentioned to Steve that normal practice in Vietnam was to “kill” already dead soldiers in accidents and crashes, this prior to Tonkin when Americans were not officially fighting. But for Navy Seals on secret ops to be out of touch with family is not unusual. It is unusual, since the August 6 crash was a classified mission supposedly, to go public with it so quickly. But at that time the families would be told of the deaths that actually happened on May 2. SOP.
LikeLike