Forgetting America

Speaking of the “war on terror”, let’s take a few moments and look at some of the details of the horrible event that precipitated it and around which America’s foreign policy has been inextricably wrapped ever since.

One thing that struck me as odd in the days after 9/11 was Bush saying "We will not tolerate conspiracy theories [regarding 9/11]". Sure enough there have been some wacky conspiracy theories surrounding the events of that day. The most far-fetched and patently ridiculous one that I've ever heard goes like this: Nineteen hijackers who claimed to be devout Muslims but yet were so un-Muslim as to be getting drunk all the time, doing cocaine and frequenting strip clubs decided to hijack four airliners and fly them into buildings in the northeastern U.S., the area of the country that is the most thick with fighter bases. After leaving a Koran on a barstool at a strip bar after getting shitfaced drunk on the night before, then writing a suicide note/inspirational letter that sounded like it was written by someone with next to no knowledge of Islam, they went to bed and got up the next morning hung over and carried out their devious plan. Nevermind the fact that of the four "pilots" among them there was not a one that could handle a Cessna or a Piper Cub let alone fly a jumbo jet, and the one assigned the most difficult task of all, Hani Hanjour, was so laughably incompetent that he was the worst fake "pilot" of the bunch, with someone who was there when he was attempting to fly a small airplane saying that Hanjour was so clumsy that he was unsure if he had driven a car before. Nevermind the fact that they received very rudimentary flight training at Pensacola Naval Air Station, making them more likely to have been C.I.A. assets than Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. So on to the airports after Mohammed Atta supposedly leaves two rental cars at two impossibly far-removed locations. So they hijack all four airliners and at this time passengers on United 93 start making a bunch of cell phone calls from 35,000 feet in the air to tell people what was going on. Nevermind the fact that cell phones wouldn't work very well above 4,000 feet, and wouldn't work at ALL above 8,000 feet. But the conspiracy theorists won't let that fact get in the way of a good fantasy. That is one of the little things you "aren't supposed to think about". Nevermind that one of the callers called his mom and said his first and last name ("Hi mom, this is Mark Bingham"), more like he was reading from a list than calling his own mom. Anyway, when these airliners each deviated from their flight plan and didn't respond to ground control, NORAD would any other time have followed standard operating procedure (and did NOT have to be told by F.A.A. that there were hijackings because they were watching the same events unfold on their own radar) which means fighter jets would be scrambled from the nearest base where they were available on standby within a few minutes, just like every other time when airliners stray off course. But of course on 9/11 this didn't happen, not even close. Somehow these "hijackers" must have used magical powers to cause NORAD to stand down, as ridiculous as this sounds because total inaction from the most high-tech and professional Air Force in the world would be necessary to carry out their tasks. So on the most important day in its history the Air Force was totally worthless. Then they had to make one of the airliners look like a smaller plane, because unknown to them the Naudet brothers had a videocamera to capture the only known footage of the North Tower crash, and this footage shows something that is not at all like a jumbo jet, but didn't have to bother with the South Tower jet disguising itself because that was the one we were "supposed to see". Anyway, as for the Pentagon they had to have Hani Hanjour fly his airliner like it was a fighter plane, making a high G-force corkscrew turn that no real airliner can do, in making its descent to strike the Pentagon. But these "hijackers" wanted to make sure Rumsfeld survived so they went out of their way to hit the farthest point in the building from where Rumsfeld and the top brass are located. And this worked out rather well for the military personnel in the Pentagon, since the side that was hit was the part that was under renovation at the time with few military personnel present compared to construction workers. Still more fortuitous for the Pentagon, the side that was hit had just before 9/11 been structurally reinforced to prevent a large fire there from spreading elsewhere in the building. Awful nice of them to pick that part to hit, huh? Then the airliner vaporized itself into nothing but tiny unidentifiable pieces most no bigger than a fist, unlike the crash of a real airliner when you will be able to see at least some identifiable parts, like crumpled wings, broken tail section etc. Why, Hani Hanjour the terrible pilot flew that airliner so good that even though he hit the Pentagon on the ground floor the engines didn't even drag the ground!! Imagine that!! Though the airliner vaporized itself on impact it only made a tiny 16 foot hole in the building. Amazing. Meanwhile, though the planes hitting the Twin Towers caused fires small enough for the firefighters to be heard on their radios saying "We just need 2 hoses and we can knock this fire down" attesting to the small size of it, somehow they must have used magical powers from beyond the grave to make this morph into a raging inferno capable of making the steel on all forty-seven main support columns (not to mention the over 100 smaller support columns) soften and buckle, then all fail at once. Hmmm. Then still more magic was used to make the building totally defy physics as well as common sense in having the uppermost floors pass through the remainder of the building as quickly, meaning as effortlessly, as falling through air, a feat that without magic could only be done with explosives. Then exactly 30 minutes later the North Tower collapses in precisely the same freefall physics-defying manner. Incredible. Not to mention the fact that both collapsed at a uniform rate too, not slowing down, which also defies physics because as the uppermost floors crash into and through each successive floor beneath them they would shed more and more energy each time, thus slowing itself down. Common sense tells you this is not possible without either the hijackers' magical powers or explosives. To emphasize their telekinetic prowess, later in the day they made a third building, WTC # 7, collapse also at freefall rate though no plane or any major debris hit it. Amazing guys these magical hijackers. But we know it had to be "Muslim hijackers" the conspiracy theorist will tell you because (now don't laugh) one of their passports was "found" a couple days later near Ground Zero, miraculously "surviving" the fire that we were told incinerated planes, passengers and black boxes, and also "survived" the collapse of the building it was in. When common sense tells you if that were true then they should start making buildings and airliners out of heavy paper and plastic so as to be "indestructable" like that magic passport. The hijackers even used their magical powers to bring at least seven of their number back to life, to appear at american embassies outraged at being blamed for 9/11!! BBC reported on that and it is still online. Nevertheless, they also used magical powers to make the american government look like it was covering something up in the aftermath of this, what with the hasty removal of the steel debris and having it driven to ports in trucks with GPS locators on them, to be shipped overseas to China and India to be melted down. When common sense again tells you that this is paradoxical in that if the steel was so unimportant that they didn't bother saving some for analysis but so important as to require GPS locators on the trucks with one driver losing his job because he stopped to get lunch. Hmmmm. Further making themselves look guilty, the Bush administration steadfastly refused for over a year to allow a commission to investigate 9/11 to even be formed, only agreeing to it on the conditions that they get to dictate its scope, meaning it was based on the false pretense of the "official story" being true with no other alternatives allowed to be considered, handpicked all its members making sure the ones picked had vested interests in the truth remaining buried, and with Bush and Cheney only "testifying" together, only for an hour, behind closed doors, with their attorneys present and with their "testimonies" not being recorded by tape or even written down in notes. Yes, this whole story smacks of the utmost idiocy and fantastic far-fetched lying, but it is amazingly enough what some people believe. Even now, five years later, the provably false fairy tale of the "nineteen hijackers" is heard repeated again and again, and is accepted without question by so many Americans. Which is itself a testament to the innate psychological cowardice of the American sheeple, i mean people, and their abject willingness to believe something, ANYTHING, no matter how ridiculous in order to avoid facing a scary uncomfortable truth. Time to wake up America.

Debunking Popular Mechanics lies:
http://www.lookingglassnews.org/viewstory.php?storyid=6880
someone else debunking Popular Mechanics crap:
http://www.serendipity.li/wot/pop_mech/reply_to_popular_mechanics.htm
still more debunking Poopular Mechanics:
http://letsroll911.org/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=5505
and still more debunking of Popular Mechanics:
http://www.reopen911.org/ericreubt.htm

Poopular Mechanics staff replaced just before laughable “debunking” article written:
http://www.reopen911.org/hiddenhand.htm
another neo-con 9/11 hit piece explodes, is retracted:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2006/180806hitpiece.htm
Professor Steven Jones debunks the N.I.S.T. “report” as well as the F.E.M.A. one and the 9/11 commission "report":
http://www.infowars.com/articles/sept11/wtc_buildings_collapse_steven_jo...
N.I.S.T. scientist interviewed:
http://www.teamliberty.net/id235.html
F.B.I. says no hard evidence linking Osama bin Laden to 9/11 which is why his wanted poster says nothing about 9/11:
http://forum.afghansite.com/index.php?showtopic=9349
Fire Engineering magazine says important questions about the Twin Tower “collapses” still need to be addressed:http://fe.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=OnlineArticles&SubSection=Display&PUBLICATION_ID=25&ARTICLE_ID

Twin Towers’ construction certifiers say they should have easily withstood it:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2004/121104easilywithstood....
USA Today interview with the last man out of the South Tower, pursued by a fireball:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2001/12/19/usat-escape.htm
Janitor who heard explosions and escaped has testimony ignored by 9/11 whitewash commission:
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/ignoring_9-11.html
Janitor starts speaking out about it and his apartment is burglarized, laptop stolen:
http://kurtnimmo.blogspot.com/2005/08/apartment-of-nine-eleven-hero-will...
Firefighters tell of multiple explosions:
http://www.wnbc.com/news/1315651/detail.html
Eyewitnesses tell of explosions:
http://research.amnh.org/users/tyson/essays/TheHorrorTheHorror.html
Interview with another firefighter telling of explosions:
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/Banac...
Firefighter saw “sparkles” (strobe lights on detonators?) before “collapse”:
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/Fitzp...
Other eyewitnesses talk of seeing/hearing explosions:
http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2005/11/more-proof-911-inside-job-w...
Surviving eyewitnesses talk of multiple explosions there:
http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/veliz-bombs.htm
Cutter charge explosions clearly visible:
http://www.rense.com/general63/cutt.htm
The pyroclastic cloud (that dust cloud that a second before was concrete) and how it wouldn’t be possible without explosives:
http://st12.startlogic.com/~xenonpup/physics/
Detailed description of the demolition of the Twin Towers:
http://gordonssite.tripod.com/id2.html
Freefall rate of “collapses” math:
http://www.911blimp.net/prf_FreeFallPhysics.shtml
More about their freefall rate “collapses”:
http://www.serendipity.li/wot/second_wave.htm
Video footage of the controlled demolition of the Twin Towers:
http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/video%20archive/
Video footage of the controlled demolition of WTC # 7 building:
http://911research.wtc7.net/talks/wtc/videos.html
More of WTC # 7 controlled demolition:
http://www.wtc7.net/
Naudet brothers' video footage of the North Tower crash:
http://www.911blimp.net/vid_Naudet.shtml
Photos of the Pentagon’s lawn (look at these and see if you can tell me with a straight face that a jumbo jet crashed there):
http://www.911blimp.net/cached/HuntTheBoeing!.htm
More photos of this amazing lawn at the Pentagon:
http://cryptogon.com/docs/Introducing%20the%20amazing%20Penta-Lawn%202000!%20(9-11).htm
Very unconvincing fake “Osama” “confession” tape:
http://welfarestate.com/wtc/faketape/
More about the fake “Osama” tape:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/osamatape2.html
Fake “Mohammed Atta” “suicide” letter:
http://www.welfarestate.com/wtc/fake-letters.txt
Commercial pilots disagree with “official” 9/11 myth:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/september_11_us_government_accused.htm
More commercial jet pilots say “official” myth is impossible:
http://www.masternewmedia.org/2001/10/31/commercial_jet_pilots_analysis_...
Impossibility of cell phone calls from United 93:
http://www.physics911.net/cellphoneflight93.htm
More about the impossible cell phone calls:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO408B.html
Experiment proves cell phone calls were NOT possible from anywhere near the altitude the “official” myth has them at:
http://physics911.ca/org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=9
Fake Barbara Olson phone call:
http://www.vialls.com/lies911/lies.htm
Where the hell was the Air Force?
http://www.welfarestate.com/wtc/af-scramble.txt
More about the Air Force impotence question:
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0331-11.htm
Sept. 10th 2001, Pentagon announces it is “missing” $2.3 trillion (now why do you think they picked THAT day to announce it? So it could be buried the next day by 9/11 news):
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml
Unocal pipeline-through-Afghanistan plan:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0513/p05s01-wosc.html
Unocal pipeline-through-Afghanistan plan mentioned:
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2006/05/19/OutOfAfghanistan
More on Unocal Afghan pipeline:
http://www.newscentralasia.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=10...
The attack on Afghanistan was planned in the summer of 2001, months before 9/11:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1550366.stm
Pentagon deliberately misled 9/11 Commission:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=EGG20060...
Evidence destruction by authorities and cover-up:
http://www.flcv.com/coverup.html/
9/11 whitewash Commission and NORAD day:
http://fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/071204_final_fraud.shtml
The incredible fish tales of the 9/11 Commission examined:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=%20GR200...
Jeb Bush declares state of emergency 4 days before 9/11 for Florida, saying it will help respond to terrorism:
http://www.eionews.addr.com/psyops/news/jebknew.htm
Steel debris removal from Ground Zero, destruction of evidence:
http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/groundzero/cleanup.html
Over two hundred incriminating bits of 9/11 evidence shown in the mainstream media:
http://thewebfairy.com/killtown/911smokingguns.html
Tracking the “hijackers”:
http://www.welfarestate.com/911/
“Hijacker” patsies:
http://911review.org/Wiki/HijackersPatsies.shtml
“Hijackers” receiving flight training at Pensacola Naval Air Station:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0208/S00085.htm
Several accused "hijackers" still alive and well, wondering why they are accused:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1559151.stm
Yet the F.B.I. insists that the people it claims were the "hijackers" really were the "hijackers":
http://www.prisonplanet.com/fbi_denies_mix_up_of_911_terrorists.htm
No Arabs on Flight 77:
http://www.sierratimes.com/03/07/02/article_tro.htm
Thirty experts say “official” 9/11 myth impossible:
http://911fraud.blogspot.com/2005/06/us-governments-offical-911-story-is...
“Al Qaeda” website tracks back to Maryland:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/alqmaryland.html
Al Qaeda videos uploaded from U.S. government website:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2004/140704governmentwebsite.ht...
Operation: Northwoods, a plan for a false-flag “terror” attack to be blamed on Castro to use it as a pretext for America to invade Cuba, thankfully not approved by Kennedy back in 1962 but was approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and sent to his desk:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/us_terror_plan_cuba_invasion_pretext.html

ALL blame for these type of incidents should be placed squarly at the feet of Islamic extremists.

We in the west are simply reacting to the outrages caused by terrorist lunatics and when innocent Muslims get caught up in the malestrom they need to realise that their anger should be directed at the extreme elements of their society who are causing all this.

If a bunch of people who all wore blue hats started killing people we would instantly be suspicious of all people wearing blue hats. And we should be! It would be reckless not to be.

If you are an innocent blue hat wearer you should be angry as hell at those in your ranks who have turned your simple, peaceful fashon statement into a problem for all society.

I probably know about as much about Muslim culture as I do about the Christian Bible (which is to say, about as much as the average man-on-the-street Christian knows about Viking culture), however I know that in Muslim culture you are suppose to pray 5 times a day, at specific times. Depending on who taught you your religion missing (or being late) with one of the prayers might not be a bad thing (Allah, after all, is benificent). However depending on how long this flight of theirs was (it doesn't look like too long) and how strict their brand of Islam is it would be considdered a major affront to skip one of the prayer sessions.

This reminds me a story of a girl in my area, who wanted to pray at school and asked permission to use one of the empty classrooms during her lunch break for the purpose. The school at first said no (I can't remember whether they cited the no prayer in school rule or the fact that she wouldn't be under teacher supervision as the reason), I think after pressure from the girl's parents and the muslims of the area they gave in. In this case as I recall the girl was particularly worried because the timing of leaving for school meant that she couldn't engage in Morning Prayer, and was worried that Allah would think poorly of her if she missed two prayers a day.

Reminds me of another story too, a man was getting up and acting strangely on a plane, babbling incoherently. So security jumped in (I forget what exactly happened, it was years ago). It turned out the man was having a seizure at the time. The point is you can't just assume that someone talking in a strange language and standing up is going to do something, for all you know, they're just some tourist who can't speak english telling their companion(s) that they need to use the lavatory.

Looks like we'll just have to agree to disagree here. I'll admit that I too would have felt some discomfort at seeing them get up to pray, and not the same discomfort I feel when my parents pray when my wife and I have dinner with them (but similar).

The fact is, you're talking about condemning a whole religion's peaceful practice (praying) because some of them have been bad actors and that doesn't jive with the freedom I'd like to see in America.

The example of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater or saying "Bomb" in the airport isn't nearly the same and I think they are disingenuous examples. Praying doesn't fit into the same category nor does a person(s) discomfort and/or fear of praying muslim's match up with dangerous pranking (the fire in the theater or bomb example).

I'm with Hank on this one. Given the recent and not so recent history of Muslim radicals and their penchant for blowing up airplanes and flying them into buildings, I don't think it's unreasonable to express concern when you see a group of Muslim clerics stand up in an airplane, move to the aisle, and start praying on all fours.

Religious freedom is grand but not grand enough to risk MY life for it. Being afraid given these circumstances is more than enough reason to suspend someone's so-called religious freedoms for a few hours. As Hank points out, your freedom of speech is curtailed from departure to arrival.

Besides, unless these imams are complete morons, they knew such a stunt would cause a stir and I suspect that was precisely their intent all along - "The imams were returning to Phoenix after attending a conference in Minneapolis of the North American Imams Federation." Hmmm, a curious confluence of events don't you think?

Anyway, I assume that many devout Muslims have traveled by air in this country during evening prayer time but have had the good sense to realize an airplane is not the place to assert their religious freedoms. But then again, maybe it should be everyone's right to yell FIRE in a crowded theater without consequence. I mean no one objects when I yell FIRE in the privacy of my own home.

Amen to Hank's post. heh heh

Just thought I'ld double stress the "out loud". Doubt if people would have been so jittery if they had prayed silently.

Think of it this way: It sounds as if they were outside the norms of airport culture (behavoir), and given this post 9-11 world, the otherness of it in that airport setting aroused suspicion and fear. Very human and life protective response to otherness in this environment.

Remember that mentally ill people acting or talking weirdly have also been removed from planes.

OTOH ....IF....their behavoir was really not all that odd, then it was an out of line response, but it sounds like it was strange airplane/airport behavoir that provoked a logical response.

Broadminded as I like to think I am, if I saw a group of Muslims rocking and chanting in an airport, or on an airplane, I can honestly say it would scare the shit out of me. I’m honest enough to admit that I’d want them to stop doing it.

KNOWING there is a current climate of fear over potential terrorism (and mind you: there are recent-history REASONS we visualize unfortunate connections between Muslims and crashed airplanes) couldn't these peace-loving devout Muslims hold off on praying in public for a few hours? Is their Allah going to send them to hell for missing one midday prayer?

Maybe they do deserve an apology. Maybe they have a "right" to pray in airports.

Maybe I have a "right" to stand around in the airport and talk about what a "bomb" the recent Bond movie was. (It wasn’t, of course – I loved it.)

The difference is, I'm enough of an adult to know I would be tempting fate to do so. Beyond that, I’m also compassionate enough, neighborly enough, to be aware that saying the “B” word in an airport might scare others around me. And so I wouldn’t do it.

I would suggest these nice people should practice their religion at the top of their lungs, and in public, every other place BUT on or near airplanes full of us ignorant, rude non-Muslims.

Lest we forget, we atheists think the practices of Islam are every bit as silly and intrusive as those of Christianity. Just as I don't want Christians planting Ten Commandments monuments in the town square, or knocking on my door to hand me tracts about Armageddon, or god-blessing me every time I sneeze, or DEMANDING that store greeters say "Merry CHRISTmas" instead of "Happy Holidays" ...

... I’d really rather Muslims held off on standing up on an airplane and gathering in the aisle for some devout rocking and chanting – at least for the few hours they happen to be on the same plane with me.

It’s just a matter of being a good neighbor, is what it is.

And no matter what culture they come from, in MY culture, we expect that from everybody.

...

...

Just as an aside, I know very little about the guys involved. But this smells to me EXACTLY like the “Shriek! Shriek! My little boy couldn’t wear his ‘My Jesus Trumps Your Darwin’ t-shirt to high school science class!” thing. A deliberately-engineered publicity ploy – which succeeds precisely because we DON’T live in the oppressively draconian society they’re trying to make it out to be.

I think those of us who are atheists should look at these “religious oppression” stories more carefully, and ask ourselves just how much sympathy we should really have. If these were Christians gathering in the aisle on a plane, making a deliberate show of their religion at some inopportune moment – say when the pilot had turned on the “Fasten Seat Belts” sign – I’d find it supremely annoying, and would want them, too, to stop.