loose change - any truth to it?

Catsmokinpot

http://www.loosechange911.com/

i didn't know where to put this, politics or humanities, because it really affects both, i have allot of questions about this film loose change, a documentary about what happened on september 11th, but its the complete opposite information to what we have all come to believe about what happened that day,

even on that day i had my questions about what happened to the pentagon, even people on the news stations reporting the event had questions about weather or not a plane even hit the pentagon. and i had watched a documentary about how the pentagon was undergoing renovations that summer, and was hit on the side that was renovated, now whether they planned the attack or not is questionable but to be honest i do think the US government knew about it before hand.

the film basically points a finger at the american government and accuses them of planning the attacks of september 11th and using it as a reason to carry out their morally questionable foreign policy, at first i was sceptical but all of the sources for this film are reasonably well respected factual sources, and while some of the evidence i have my own questions about, the rest paints a picture of an american government that doesn't give a fúck about anything or anyone even its own people, they are liars, and they are corrupt, things i have believed for a long time. im just wondering has anyone else seen this film and or read about it and do they have any opinions on it?

bonkey

Catsmokinpot wrote:

http://www.loosechange911.com/

i didn't know where to put this, politics or humanities, because it really affects both,

Or After Hours....

Or....where all three of those fora seem to shove said topic any/every time it has cropped recently....that being the Conspiracy Theories forum (under Hosted/ Public in the menus)

i have allot of questions about this film loose change,

Me too, but I doubt they're the same as yours. Most of mine are along the lines of "where did you get that from" when the author makes many of his claims.

Overall, I found it a very sloppy piece of so-called investigative reporting, but there are some interesting questions raised.

even people on the news stations reporting the event had questions about weather or not a plane even hit the pentagon.

Thats correct, and its perfectly normal and in keeping with conventional modern media practice. Nothing sinisted implied at all.

When a big story breaks, media have two choices:

1) Report unconfirmed claims, stressing that they are unconfirmed. They may not pan out, they may be contradictory, whatever....but you won't get scooped once you've reported it.

2) Say nothing until something is confirmed. This may take minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or years. You will be scooped every time, but there's a much better chance of not reporting non-fact.

Overwhelmingly, media go for option 1.....and yet we're surprised when it turns out that there's been conflicting versions of events. We also look back with a much calmer perspective and try and analyze the depth of meaning in off-the-cuff live reporting....applying what we know now to it, and assuming that the reporter was at least as well clued in.

the film basically points a finger at the american government

Without offering a shred of evidence except to quote from a somewhat-similar project at the start. After that, its a case of "this doesn't seem consistent, so its proof that the government were really behind it all" being the "logic" used.

at first i was sceptical but all of the sources for this film are reasonably well respected factual sources,

Are they? There's a quote from a CNN reporter, who - on teh day the "impact video" was released last week - was explaining how he was quoted out of context, and how the video author makes it appear that he's saying something that would be clear from the full reportniog clip was not what was being said.

The same selective editing has been found to have been used in other interviews/excerpts used.

Another example - an expert on flying makes comments that the plane woul dhave stalled had it flown a particular curve. But the author never tells us how we know that this turn was correctly extrapolated from the flight-path. Indeed, as far as I am aware, there is no definitive flight-plan, so at best we have an approximation of what line we think the plane took. SO it may be true that a 757 could not pull the curve asked about, but that doesn't mean that the guy flying it ever even tried to pull such a turn.

To be honest, I can't think of a single point made in the entire video where I didn't stop and ask where some key assumption/allegation came from, didn't question the logic, didn't spot the disingenuous reporting being used.....need I go on?

Put simply, I can't see whats impressive about this video at all. Its easy watching, and the style isn't bad, but the content is atrocious. I don't want to rip it too much (as to do so would also implicitly pass comment on those who put weight behind it), but the "reasoning" and evidential analysis smacks more of an episode of CSI than of reality.

im just wondering has anyone else seen this film and or read about it and do they have any opinions on it?

Personally, I'm wondering about the number of people who've started championing this movie left right and centre in recent weeks. I'm half-convinced its a viral-marketing move, personally.

jc

Zombrex

bonkey wrote:

Without offering a shred of evidence except to quote from a somewhat-similar project at the start. After that, its a case of "this doesn't seem consistent, so its proof that the government were really behind it all" being the "logic" used.

Agreed.

To the OP, the problem with the majority of conspiricy theories (not just 9/11) is that they nearly always go on what the theoriest believe should have happened, not what actually did. Instead of working off the evidence, which is what the people like the 9/11 crash investigators, 9/11 commission etc do, they work off their own speculation.

You can see this perfectly with the 9/11 theories

- The Pentagon rubble should have looked like this...

- The destroyed air-craft should have looked like this...

- The Pentagon lamp posts should have looked like this...

- The Pentagon cameras should have picked up this...

- The Air Force should have done this...

etc etc

And because the reality doesn't fit what the theorist believe should have been the reality if things happened they way they are claimed, they cry Conspiricy!

But if you look closely you see that there is actually no evidence in there, just speculation (often wild speculation).

There is no actual evidence that 9/11 was planned or carried out by the US government. Of course the theorists would say the government are hidding it. But that leads me on to the biggest flaw in the theorist reasoning, the belief that the US government could actually carry out something as massive and widespread as a multi-government agency coverup that would have to include thousands of federal and private employees from upper management to the grunts on the ground. And that is very hard to believe when the US government would probably f**k up selling snow to Eskimos.

Catsmokinpot

well, im banned from afterhours so it cant go in there :rolleyes:

id have to agree with most of your views, however, on the subject of the plane hitting the pentagon, there was no wreckage, an engine that didn't come from the plane, and there was plenty of other camera angles they could have shown us of the crash, so why didn't they? if they wanted to shut up all the theorists why didnt they

now there's three things that make me think this is entirely possible isn't even to do with evidence about 9/11 its to do 1. with the vietnam war, and the reasons for going to war with vietnam, they faked attacks on their own warships in the gulf of tonkin to go to war with the vietnamese

http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=90&
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b1829bc5816.htm
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/tapes.htm

2. then there's the fact that japan was trying to surrender during the summer of 1945, and also the question as to whether or not dropping the atomic bombs shortened the war.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1995/vo11no17/vo11no17_bomb.htm
http://members.aol.com/essays6/abomb.htm
http://www.aems.uiuc.edu/HTML/ChalkGuides/Hiroshima.html

Even Dwight D. Eisenhower who was commanding general of the american army at the time didn't agree with it, a man who actually knew about the war

http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm

these alone make me think that if they can do this they can do anything, even to their own people

3. also what makes me think that american corporations had allot to do with why we are going to war was the warning eisenhower gave to the american people about what he called the military industrial complex which was a conglomeration of military industry and government, and power from these parties could be misplaced and not in the interests of the nation as a whole heres the part of the speech.

Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote:

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction...

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.

i think what eisenhower warned everyone about is happening, and were ****ed coz we cant do a thing about it

bonkey

Catsmokinpot wrote:

however, on the subject of the plane hitting the pentagon,

Ah yes...

there was no wreckage,

Yes, there was.

The author od Loose Change was engaged in yet more misconstrual of what was said by overplaying the use of the term "vaporized", rather than actually addressing the facts.

Furthermore, I believe the author attributes the term "vaporized" to being the official explanation, even though this particular term is not used in any official explanation of what happened.

an engine that didn't come from the plane,

Did it not? Again, by concentrating on the outside dimensions of a jet engine, and ignoring the detail, the author makes an apparently-convincing argument that the pieces should have been so much larger.

There's that word again, eh? He believes it should have been larger, and offers what is either a disastrously-poorly-researched argument or one that is deliberately misleading in order to "prove" his point.

and there was plenty of other camera angles they could have shown us of the crash, so why didn't they?

This is a good question. However, there are two issues behind it:

1) Did they actually show the crash? Its easy to suspect taht they might have, or could have, but did they?

2) Assuming they did show the crash, why haven't they been released?

Well, this is more complex, but effectively if one follows the history of the footage. Firstly, 4 or 5 frames were leaked from the security cameras. This I believe was against the stated policy of the administration that no evidence would be released while the case was ongoing.

Those leaks prompted a FoI request for any / all information concerning video evidence of the crash. THis should include the other tapes, if they showed the crash.

The FoI request was levelled at the DoD, and was refused on grounds of prejudicing the Moussaoui trial. Note that the DoD claimed to having only one tape which showed the crash, and that this is all the trial asked for the release of....so the trial had a different scope to the original FoI.

So, does the DoD have the other tapes, or does someone else have them?
Do the tapes actually show anything?

More importantly....

Why has no-one who really cares made an explicit FoI request for the tapes taken from the Sheraton hotel etc, regardless of whether or not they show the crash???

If they show nothing, there is no grounds for refusing their release. If their release is objected to on the grounds that they do show something, there is a serious problem with the DoDs insistence that it had only one tape pertaining to the crash.

It seems there is a logical step to be taken here that all those who are fully convinced something is wrong are unwilling to take. Why is that? Why don't they want to even ask for the answers to the questions they complain are unanswered?

jc

Catsmokinpot

bonkey wrote:

It seems there is a logical step to be taken here that all those who are fully convinced something is wrong are unwilling to take. Why is that? Why don't they want to even ask for the answers to the questions they complain are unanswered?

there's no room for descent anymore america has an "if you're not with us you're against us" or your a terrorist attitude anyone who does try to find out is

i know what ya mean i just think if they didnt censor the 9/11 commissions report none of this speculation would be happening, and what did they have to hide? its a bull**** excuse that they didnt want the enemy to know how they collected information.....

and also the rumors that Condoleeza Rice warned San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown not to fly the morning before? - i personally think this one is a clincher that something was up, not necesarily that the attacks was organised by the government, but that they knew about it, and that they did nothing because they were going to use it to give america reason to go to war....

Zombrex

Catsmokinpot wrote:

now there's three things that make me think this is entirely possible isn't even to do with evidence about 9/11 its to do

Oh I agree that it is entirely possible that the US administration would want to do this (they did after all go to war to win an election), I'm saying that there is little probability they could actually do it.

Think about what would be necessary to fake something like this. Aside from smuggling 4 passanger planes out of the skies without anyone noticing (and then hiding and destroying these planes) you would have to, at the bear minium, include thousands of people in this plot.

The US administration might have something to gain from 9/11 but a lowly FA crash inspector wouldn't. How would you convince him to lie about this when he would know simply from being told to lie, that his government killed hundreds of American civilians.

bonkey

Catsmokinpot wrote:

there's no room for descent anymore america has an "if you're not with us you're against us" or your a terrorist attitude anyone who does try to find out is

Thats why the US government suppressed the Loose Change video, right?

Thats why there isn't a single copy of it anywhere, the author is hiding out in a manner comparable to Salman Rushdie, sitting beside Michael Moore, regretting the day that they dared to cross The Man.

Thas why there was no FoI requests made by Justice Watch, CNN and others for the first tape.

Thats why MiB-types are standing over my desk, right now, guns drawn, instructing me to Step Away From the Keyboard, Sir.

And it also explains why Bush and his Administration are enjoying a reported 99.999% popularity and approval rating.

Nope. Not in this reality. The notion that there's no room for dissent is an even bigger fiction than the contents of Loose Change.

i know what ya mean i just think if they didnt censor the 9/11 commissions report none of this speculation would be happening,

Thats a ridiculous notion.

This speculation started before the 9/11 comissions report, has criticised the findings as well as the holes, and in general shows a tendency to dismiss any new findings as after the fact cover-up revisionism if they don't suit their argument, or some sort of startling incontrevertible revelation if they do.

There is no credible reason to believe that the 911 comission report started this, or that it would have ended it had it contained different material.

its a bull**** excuse that they didnt want the enemy to know how they collected information.....

Who offered that as the excuse for witholding information regarding to the 911 events? No, really, cause its the first time I've heard it in that regard.

and also the rumors that

Rumours. We should definitely put weight behind those. After all, they're far more reliable than anything else.

personally think this one is a clincher

And therein lies the problem.

With respect, I would suggest that if you think a rumour is sufficient grounds to "clinch" anything, then its your analytical skills/methodology and/or your skepticism that you should be questioning, and not the events of September 11, 2001.

jc

bonkey

bonkey wrote:

Why has no-one who really cares made an explicit FoI request for the tapes taken from the Sheraton hotel etc, regardless of whether or not they show the crash???

It would appear I've made a bit of a cock-up with my reasoning to date on this issue.

Apparently, while the FBI etc are within their rights to seize such tapes, and use them for purposes such as trial, they cannot release them to the public as the tapes remain the property of the original owner.

In other words, those tapes are not subject to FoI requests, and the only way in which they can be released to the public is if they are returned to their owners who subsequently release them.

So, the question changes. Has the Sheraton hotel etc. asked for their tape(s) back? If so, what was the response. If not, why not.

Catsmokinpot

bonkey wrote:

Thats why the US government suppressed the Loose Change video, right?

Thats why there isn't a single copy of it anywhere, the author is hiding out in a manner comparable to Salman Rushdie, sitting beside Michael Moore, regretting the day that they dared to cross The Man.

Thas why there was no FoI requests made by Justice Watch, CNN and others for the first tape.

Thats why MiB-types are standing over my desk, right now, guns drawn, instructing me to Step Away From the Keyboard, Sir.

And it also explains why Bush and his Administration are enjoying a reported 99.999% popularity and approval rating.

Nope. Not in this reality. The notion that there's no room for dissent is an even bigger fiction than the contents of Loose Change.

they don't do that anymore they ruin peoples credibility by spreading rumours, smear campaigns, look at john kerry and his run for office, and people actually believe their government is doing good with their foreign policy, fox news, other news sources.

bonkey wrote:

Thats a ridiculous notion.

This speculation started before the 9/11 comissions report, has criticised the findings as well as the holes, and in general shows a tendency to dismiss any new findings as after the fact cover-up revisionism if they don't suit their argument, or some sort of startling incontrevertible revelation if they do.

There is no credible reason to believe that the 911 comission report started this, or that it would have ended it had it contained different material.


Who offered that as the excuse for witholding information regarding to the 911 events? No, really, cause its the first time I've heard it in that regard.

ok well you think there is no conspiracy, and no ulterior motives, i believe there is, and i don't believe it is entirely ridiculous to believe there is some sort of cover-up vietnam, W.W.II, watergate, enron, now halliburton and dick cheney and you think there was no cover-up?

when i look at the rumours and speculation, i see a coverup, i see motive, i see history, its been done before, dont believe its not being done as we speak

bonkey wrote:

Rumours. We should definitely put weight behind those. After all, they're far more reliable than anything else.


And therein lies the problem.

With respect, I would suggest that if you think a rumour is sufficient grounds to "clinch" anything, then its your analytical skills/methodology and/or your skepticism that you should be questioning, and not the events of September 11, 2001.

jc

i understand what your saying, its easy to dismiss rumours as being bogus, but its kind of an obscure rumour to spread, but do you think that its entirely ridiculous to believe that they did know anything about it? i mean this coupled with the fact that they censored the report, there's allot of people who do say that they had prior evidence

there's allot of evidence to suggest that the number of people that died in the holocaust was exaggerated, but history is written the people who win.

Catsmokinpot

Wicknight wrote:

The US administration might have something to gain from 9/11 but a lowly FA crash inspector wouldn't. How would you convince him to lie about this when he would know simply from being told to lie, that his government killed hundreds of American civilians.

well, if you threaten someone with their life, or the life of their family.... i know id do anything

im not saying it happened im just saying its possible

bonkey wrote:

So, the question changes. Has the Sheraton hotel etc. asked for their tape(s) back? If so, what was the response. If not, why not.

again not saying it happened just saying its possible, but more of the same, easiest way to get people to do something, threaten them with their life, you think they're not capable of it? if your capable of killing your capable of threatening someone with their life

Sam Vimes

i'm sure a lot of the video can be rebutted but not all of it. there are definitely things that don't fit the facts. most notably:

1. building 7, the only steel structure in history to be destroyed by fire, also the amazingly regular nature with which it collapsed

2. jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel

3. fbi agents threatened with arrest if they went after the terrorists training

4. their names were purposely kept off watch lists for the airlines

5. the part of the pentagon that was hit was the only part that had just been renovated to withstand exactly such an attack

6. the air force on average takes 11 minutes to intercept a wayward plane and on that day it took an hour and a half, even after the planes hit the wtc

7. the steel from the building was whisked away and melted down within two months before the 9/11 commission could examine it and in violation of international law because after such an incident, engineers are required to study the building so they can make better buildings (i'm not 100% sure its a law but it certainly makes sense)

i could go on. you can rubbish 90% of the evidence from the day but that still leaves that 10% that can't be explained away

bonkey

COmmander Vimes wrote:

i'm sure a lot of the video can be rebutted but

But what?

I don't think anyone has suggested that there are no irregularities, no unanswered questions and no possibility of the official story being anything less than the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

So really....but what?

You agree that most of the video can be rebutted. Not only that, but some of it can be shown to be either disastrously ineptly researched if not deliberately misleading. Combine these two bits together, and what can one say about the overall scenario that Loose Change puts together, only that it is nowhere nearly as compelling as its fanboys would have us believe.

This so-called documentary is in its second edition. Entire portions have significantly changed.....and yet huge amounts of the criticism to do with the first release remains valid. Its as if the author ignored all the flaws pointed out, and simply changed bits to fit better with what had become more interesting/popular theories. This further calls into doubt any notion that it was simply editorial oversight, or unintentionally flawed research. IN short, the more one looks at it, and the fact that this is the second version to be released, the more one can only conclude that the flaws are deliberately left in....because they are central to reachign the conclusion.

there are definitely things that don't fit the facts.

Being pedantic, I'm going to ask you to remember this bit. don't Fit the facts ... I'll come back to it.

1. building 7, the only steel structure in history to be destroyed by fire, also the amazingly regular nature with which it collapsed

Building 7 is one of the most contraversial aspects of things, I agree. However, I'd like you to consider this:

The only pictures of hte south-side of hte building show smoke pouring out of literally every window while the north side (the one the cameras typically show) had virtually nothing. Eyewitness accounts - from firechiefs and the like (y'know..the same type of people who's expert testimony is central to establishing any alternate-theory claim) are on record as saying there was a 20-storey hole in the South face. Thats almost 1/2 the height of the building. In fact, there's tons of eyewitness testimony which indicate massive structural damage...but again, the intact North side shows little/nothing of this, so we're expected to believe that []ithis[/i] particular eye-witness testimony should be given no weight, even when we should take what other firemen etc. say as gospel.

So here's the thing. No-one - except those who want to believe something sinister happened - is seriously suggesting WTC7 fell from fire. The original FEMA erport basicalkly said they couldn't explain it, but if they had to take a guess it was fire. The NIST investigation, for which the report is still being worked on, was started precisely because FEMA couldn't figure it out.

2. jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel

No official explanation claims steel was melted by jet fuel.

3. fbi agents threatened with arrest if they went after the terrorists training
4. their names were purposely kept off watch lists for the airlines

I can't see the need to rebut something that firstly hasn't been proven in the first place.

5. the part of the pentagon that was hit was the only part that had just been renovated to withstand exactly such an attack

This is an uncontested statement of fact. How can that not fit with the facts?

6. the air force on average takes 11 minutes to intercept a wayward plane and on that day it took an hour and a half, even after the planes hit the wtc

What is this average based on? Where did it come from? Are the conditions comparable?

What are you saying doesn't gel? That it took too long? No-one is questioning that. That its normally faster? I'd need to see the basis on which "normally" is worked out before commenting....so my first question would be for the author to support his claim before it could be or would need to be rebutted.

7. the steel from the building was whisked away and melted down within two months before the 9/11 commission could examine it and in violation of international law because after such an incident, engineers are required to study the building so they can make better buildings (i'm not 100% sure its a law but it certainly makes sense)

Actually, this one can be rebutted. Its downright untrue.

FEMA, NIST, and the other relevant authorities were all granted access to the site, and to the materials before they were taken away. They all obtained the infromation they wanted to. Not one of them was prvetned from gathering the evidence they wanted to. This is a complete fabrication on hte part of the Loose Change authors. It is possibly based on some fantastical objection that because the public weren't allowed in to review the evidence that something is kooky. But, see, here's the thing....thats how criminal investigations are run. You don't have over evidence to any Tom Dick or Harry who wants it, nor to you allow them entry to the site.

Now, someone will (as they have in hte past) undoubtedly say that maybe FEMA, NIST et al didn't get all they wanted, and are being pressured into publically saying they did. Or maybe they're in on "it". Its a hollow argument, though. Its a classic tacttic of trying to make something which is possible out to be something which is probable...with nothing to go on.

Now...lets quickly go back to that bit I said I was gonna get back to....

there are definitely things that don't fit the facts.

Well, from what I've seen...

Point 1: what didn't fit the facts was the allegation that it fell purely from fire...which has only been made in such an unqualified manner by those looking for something sinister.

Points 2, 5, and 6: Are statements of fact. How they can simultaneously not fit with the facts is beyond me.

Points 3 and 4: May or may not be true in the first place. If they are, however, then its not that they don't fit with the facts as once again the are facts. They'd raise interesting questions, though, I admit. First, though, we'd need to establish just how true they are. If its from Loose Change, I'd rank the chances of it being the whole, unadulterated truth as being pretty small.

Point 7: Does indeed not gel with the facts...because its untrue.

So of your 7 unanswerable points, 3 don't need to be asnwered as they're statments of fact. One is a misrepresentation of what the official version of events is, one is downright false, and two are of questionable origin.

If you seriously consider this to be the "cream of the crop" in tough questions that remains after the drek has been taken away from the claims made in the movie.....well.....you're setting your bar a bit low I would have thought.

you can rubbish 90% of the evidence from the day but that still leaves that 10% that can't be explained away

Lets assume I agree with your breakdown. I don't...as the above probably makes clear...but lets go with it anyway.

What that means is that there is only 10% of this evidence which could be "cleanly" used in a conspiracy theory. Of the remainder, we have a mix of stuff which is downright wrong and stuff which is not impossible but nowhere near as definite as many supporting alternate theories make it out to be. Lets say this mix is 50-50.

So, of all the "alternate truth" evidence, 45% should be thrown out, 45% should be qualified in terms of how uncertain it is or how many alternates are also possible, and 10% seems to raise serious questions.

I challenge you to find a theory which actually pays attention to this. One where the 45% thats downright rubbish has been all thrown out, the 45% "maybe" stuff is honestly used and shown to be only "maybe", and the 10% is where the bulk of the reasoning rests

I do not believe that such a theory exists.

fly_agaric

Catsmokinpot wrote:

i know what ya mean i just think if they didnt censor the 9/11 commissions report none of this speculation would be happening, and what did they have to hide?...

Cóck-ups? People always go into CYA mode when they drop the ball and the govt. agencies chraged with defending the American people from domestic terrorists or foriegn attack plans etc. didn't exactly achieve their goals on Sept. 11th. Which reflects badly on them, and on the people in power (Bush and co.)

bonkey

fly_agaric wrote:

Cóck-ups?

Or perhaops just how badly the US really was prepared to deal with something like this?

After all, its been noted that most of the "security improvements" since then are more about giving teh illusion of security than actually giving security.

The truth is that security costs, and the US isn't willing to pay. So it relies instead on the illusion of security. When that fails, the last thing that will be done is an admission taht "well, you were never really secure in the first place".

This is why I question things like the 11-minute intercept average for US-based airforce cover. My guess is that this figure - if it exists - is more a comforting number taken from tests, training scenarios, and calculations, rather than being a proven average of response times to genuine threats within US airspsace.

So is it suspicious that the reality of a threat-response didn't match what the public believed it should? I'd go so far in the opposite direction, I'd say it would be suspicious if it did match up.

Catsmokinpot

bonkey wrote:

Or perhaops just how badly the US really was prepared to deal with something like this?

After all, its been noted that most of the "security improvements" since then are more about giving teh illusion of security than actually giving security.

The truth is that security costs, and the US isn't willing to pay. So it relies instead on the illusion of security. When that fails, the last thing that will be done is an admission taht "well, you were never really secure in the first place".

This is why I question things like the 11-minute intercept average for US-based airforce cover. My guess is that this figure - if it exists - is more a comforting number taken from tests, training scenarios, and calculations, rather than being a proven average of response times to genuine threats within US airspsace.

So is it suspicious that the reality of a threat-response didn't match what the public believed it should? I'd go so far in the opposite direction, I'd say it would be suspicious if it did match up.

i just find it hard to believe, that the american government could be that unprepared, what with systems like echelon in place, norad, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

their comms and reconnaissance systems and experts are second to none, i mean they knew there were no WMDs in iraq, they used it as an excuse, once the war started they switched from "WMDs" to "Freeing Iraq" and filtered WMDs out of the equation altogether

David19

Catsmokinpot wrote:

their comms and reconnaissance systems and experts are second to none, i mean they knew there were no WMDs in iraq, they used it as an excuse, once the war started they switched from "WMDs" to "Freeing Iraq" and filtered WMDs out of the equation altogether

Basically you just posted this thread so you could bash America, right? You don't seem too interested in discussing actual facts. You haven't replied to a lot of bonkey's rebuttals.

growler

why isn't this in the conspiracy forum , there's no point in discussing this stuff when its' proponents aren't going to listen to any logical explanations.

bonkey

Catsmokinpot wrote:

i just find it hard to believe, that the american government could be that unprepared,

I agree. Its hard to understand how all this technology which watches the rest of the world didn't spot something happening inside the US - the one place they don't actually look.

I'm joking...its not that hard at all.

Let me guess though...you also find it hard to believe that the US isn't spying on all these internal calls etc. Right?

their comms and reconnaissance systems and experts are second to none,

Indeed. The only problem they have is the ridiculously massive amounts of data they collect, and the comparatively small number of these experts they have to do anything meaningful with it.

Even then, the experts in question did raise flags, and again the illusion of security was shown in the manner in which these flags went unnoticed.

One could argue that they didn't go unnoticed, but were suppressed, were faked in the first place to add credibility, or something even more sinister and conspiratorial. I still tend to put weight, however, behind the old adage that one should never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity.

Showing that these flags were raised but ignored, claiming that Bush should have known beforehand that something was coming, and that he should have tackled the known problems (most of which still exist) with regards to security in the US....these are all perfectly valid arguments. However, they do not suggest malice - they just don't rule it out.

And that's where we begin to walk different paths, I think. I see a pattern of incompetence, failure, the ignoring of problems, opportunism etc. - all typical political traits. I believe this is (mostly) justified on the grounds that these problems have been around for a long time, no previous president ever got badly stung by them, so why kick up a fuss when you could take an extra week or two off...and hey...if they do go wrong, the first thing you ask yourself is not "how did this happen", because you know the answer to that. No. The first thing you ask yourself is "how can I best use this".

You see malice - and from what I can see its predominantly because its not impossible for there to be malice there, and, well, that seems to be about it.

Its like the problems in NO from Katrina. Everyone knew the levees were in weak shape, but hell, they had been for decades and NO had dodged all the direct-hit bullets before that.....so why go to the effort of allocating and spending a fortune no it when you've better things to be doing. Hell, it worked for everyone else, so why change things now.

Some people saw malice there too. I've even seen suggestions that Bush refused funding because he wanted NO to get wiped out if/when a storm finally hit!!! No, really! And what was the reasoning behind that? Again, it boiled down to being simply the case that the pattern of behaviour doesn't make malice impossible...and whoever was making the argument apparently wanted to believe in malicicious intent.

I'm as critical of the Administration as the next guy, but at this stage, I think the Administration's best friends are probably their worst critics. What I mean by that is their best friends are the ones making the most outrageous and unproveable claims against them. It detracts in so many ways from the valid and more solid criticisms that can be laid at their feet, and saves them so much work in generating their own stories to do the same.

And you know what..whatever about the truth of the claims made in Loose Change, I bet the Administration looks at the whole conspiracy thing from time to time and has a quiet smile to itself whilst thinking "How can I best use this".

So please...continue with your Rage Against The Machine.....its what they'd want you to do, after all.

jc

DublinWriter

It always amuses me when people say "ohhh the US Government couldn't have pulled something like that off!".

Firstly, look at the whole Area 51 installation, an USAF R&D site so secret that the US Government denied that it even existed until a few years ago.

How come in it's whole 50+ year history, and considering the 1000's of people that must have worked there, both civilian and military, not one single person has ever talked about it to the press?

David19

DublinWriter wrote:

It always amuses me when people say "ohhh the US Government couldn't have pulled something like that off!".

Firstly, look at the whole Area 51 installation, an USAF R&D site so secret that the US Government denied that it even existed until a few years ago.

How come in it's whole 50+ year history, and considering the 1000's of people that must have worked there, both civilian and military, not one single person has ever talked about it to the press?

I presume that some people did talk about it. That's how you know about it. Anyway, there's a big difference between keeping a military base secret and keeping the fact that they flew planes into a few buildings(resulting in the death of a few thousand people) secret.

Zombrex

DublinWriter wrote:

It always amuses me when people say "ohhh the US Government couldn't have pulled something like that off!".

Firstly, look at the whole Area 51 installation, an USAF R&D site so secret that the US Government denied that it even existed until a few years ago.

How come in it's whole 50+ year history, and considering the 1000's of people that must have worked there, both civilian and military, not one single person has ever talked about it to the press?

A few points.

Firstly, thats not the US Government, it is the US Air Force. You might say they are the same thing but they aren't. The system an elisted man or woman is under is a lot difference than a civil servant.

Secondly, Area 51 is the worst kept "secret" in US Military history. I would not read much into the fact that the USAF denies it exists. The USAF denies lots of things exist, (or more accurately they refuse to comment either way), that is standard practice for secret information in any army or airforce, even if something is not that secret.

Thirdly all civilian employees at Area 51 sign non-disclosure agreements before they start working there. That means they are legally required to keep quite about what they see, and if they break that they can go to jail (sometimes for serious crimes like treason) The fact that none have come forward as whistle blowers would imply that there is actually nothing illegal or fantastical going on at Area 51, not the other way around.

Fourthly all civilian employees and military personel at Area 51 would have been highly vetted for the positions there, and probably constantly monitored to ensure the highest level of security. They aren't going to let the author of Billy Bob's Alien Conspiricy Blog get a job at Area 51

The people who would have to be involved in a 9/11 conspiricy would not all have been elisted in the army or airforce, or under obligations to take orders (not that it would have mattered because it would be illegal for a soldier or pilot to carry out that order). Neither would they have signed legal non-disclosure agreements to stop them speaking out (which would have been illegal anyway since they ask you to keep quiet about an illegal act), or would they necessarily have been vetted to see if they were suitable for handling top secret information.

Catsmokinpot

David19 wrote:

Basically you just posted this thread so you could bash America, right? You don't seem too interested in discussing actual facts. You haven't replied to a lot of bonkey's rebuttals.

i agree with most of his points thats why......

and yes i do dislike american foreign policy and im not alone

bonkey

DublinWriter wrote:

It always amuses me when people say "ohhh the US Government couldn't have pulled something like that off!".

I'm equally amused at how often I have to clarify in threads like this that I have never claimed that the US government couldn't have been involved in a conspiracy - simply that the argument put forward to back up such an allegation (i.e. the allegation that not only could they be involved, but were so) doesn't hold up to scrutiny at all.

Indeed, I'm not sure anyone on this thread (or any like it) have said that it is flat-out impossible for there to be an Administration-led conspiracy of some sort here.

The thing is that to get from "not impossible" to "credibly probable" you need good evidence and a solid argument. Loose Change provides neither.

What happens in Area 51 is a very good example of this. It is not impossible that bodies of aliens from a crash in the 40s (or whenever) really are/were stored and examined there. Its simply not credibly probable. So when someone says that this is what's out there, one should ask on what basis - other than it simply having a non-zero probability - the claim is made, and then judge the probability on how well this basis stands up.

Alternately, one can bob ones head and go "Wow. Aliens, government conspiracy, and its not impossible. And youve provided me with a basis that you say holds up and that I couldn't be bothered really looking at. I'm sold."

This latter approach adds mass to the belief, but popularity and credible probability have little if anything to do with each other. It doesn't matter if 99% of the world's population believe in Loose Change or the Area 51 Aliens. The arguments behiond both simply are not credible.

jc

growler

DublinWriter wrote:

Firstly, look at the whole Area 51 installation, an USAF R&D site so secret that the US Government denied that it even existed until a few years ago.

How come in it's whole 50+ year history, and considering the 1000's of people that must have worked there, both civilian and military, not one single person has ever talked about it to the press?

maybe because the projects they were working on were related to national security, maybe no one involved felt they had a moral obligation to speak out about all the alien testing being done there :rolleyes: , maybe because they would have been ,quite rightly,arrested for revealing government / military secrets to the enemy?

The logistics needed to pull off 911 as an inside job would have required hundreds of people (US citizens, with friends and family in NY, Washington) to have no morals whatsoever.... now that would really surprise me.

Catsmokinpot

David19 wrote:

I presume that some people did talk about it. That's how you know about it. Anyway, there's a big difference between keeping a military base secret and keeping the fact that they flew planes into a few buildings(resulting in the death of a few thousand people) secret.

they faked attacks on their own ships in the gulf of tonkin so they could go to war with vietnam.... a threat to thier own interests, they admitted this...

growler wrote:

why isn't this in the conspiracy forum , there's no point in discussing this stuff when its' proponents aren't going to listen to any logical explanations.

conspiracy sounds to me like nutjobs.... i see a documentary about something and i have some questions, i wasnt saying that the evidence was 100% viable, i was looking for opinions, if i posted this in the conspiracy theories forum id get nutjobs agreeing with me, and id be preaching to the choir

Catsmokinpot

growler wrote:

The logistics needed to pull off 911 as an inside job would have required hundreds of people (US citizens, with friends and family in NY, Washington) to have no morals whatsoever.... now that would really surprise me.

hundreds of people.... hmmmm theres only 280 million people in the country, they couldnt find that many bad people could they?, i find it hard to believe that someone could rape a 1day old baby but it happened only recently..... now i dont think they actually flew the planes into the buildings, thats been clarified to me now, im just saying that i think they had prior knowledge, and they did nothing.

bonkey

Catsmokinpot wrote:

they faked attacks on their own ships in the gulf of tonkin so they could go to war with vietnam....

Not quite.

They didn't fake attacks. They claimed they were attacked when they hadn't been.

a threat to thier own interests, they admitted this...

Again, you're only showing that the US has - on occasion - been less than honest. This lends support to the notion that it is not impossible that they are also lying with respect to 911.

It does not tell us that they are lying, nor would it tell us what those lies would be.

If it were possible to show that the US Administration hardly ever tells the truth, or generally lies, then we'd have reasonably solid grounds to assume that at least part of what we're being told about 911 is untrue.

Hell, I'd agree that there are reasonably solid grounds to believe that at least part fo what we're being told is untrue (or is, at least, less than the full truth).

However, it still doesn't tell us what those lies are, even if we assume they exist. Loose Change makes very specific allegations, not only about what it believes the lies are, but what the truth behind the lies also is. The author puts together his case, but (from my perspective) its a poor case on closer analysis.

The saddest part of it all is that the people who are saying "we have questions we would like answers for" are increasingly being drowned out by people saying "we were lied to and here's what we think really happened". Increasingly, people are intrepreting the asking of any questions as some sort of association with alternate conspiracy theories. Like I said...the Administration's best friend....

Hey...y'know what...maybe the Administration secretly funded Loose Change to stop someone else asking the right questions and/or to minimise the chances that they'd be taken seriously. They made it, they use viral marketing to push it into the 'net consciousness, release the security-cam tape to bring it back into the mainstream's attention briefly, and then and now they're giggling merrily at how no-one is paying any attention any more to whatever it was we were on the verge of finding out.

It all makes perfect sense. Its absolutely within the bounds of whats possible. And I'd never say that the govt would never do something like that, because its just they're type of sneaky.

Its so obvious, it must be true

growler

Catsmokinpot wrote:

hundreds of people.... hmmmm theres only 280 million people in the country, they couldnt find that many bad people could they? .

I guess it is possible that the US security services (or whoever) managed to recruit some hundreds of sociopaths to their cause , personally , I doubt it. Nor do I believe that the US Administration knew what was about to happen and failed to act, their intelligence was patchy and unspecified from what we know, again, if precise knowledge existed I would expect someone to have spoken up about it by now. Regardless of the macro-view of the US and its foreign policy , the administration, security, military etc. are made up of thousands of individual human beings not all of whom are likely to be so morally bankrupt / brain washed as to play along with such unprecedented criminality.

Catsmokinpot

bonkey wrote:

Not quite.

They didn't fake attacks. They claimed they were attacked when they hadn't been.


Again, you're only showing that the US has - on occasion - been less than honest. This lends support to the notion that it is not impossible that they are also lying with respect to 911.

It does not tell us that they are lying, nor would it tell us what those lies would be.

If it were possible to show that the US Administration hardly ever tells the truth, or generally lies, then we'd have reasonably solid grounds to assume that at least part of what we're being told about 911 is untrue.

Hell, I'd agree that there are reasonably solid grounds to believe that at least part fo what we're being told is untrue (or is, at least, less than the full truth).

However, it still doesn't tell us what those lies are, even if we assume they exist. Loose Change makes very specific allegations, not only about what it believes the lies are, but what the truth behind the lies also is. The author puts together his case, but (from my perspective) its a poor case on closer analysis.

The saddest part of it all is that the people who are saying "we have questions we would like answers for" are increasingly being drowned out by people saying "we were lied to and here's what we think really happened". Increasingly, people are intrepreting the asking of any questions as some sort of association with alternate conspiracy theories. Like I said...the Administration's best friend....

Hey...y'know what...maybe the Administration secretly funded Loose Change to stop someone else asking the right questions and/or to minimise the chances that they'd be taken seriously. They made it, they use viral marketing to push it into the 'net consciousness, release the security-cam tape to bring it back into the mainstream's attention briefly, and then and now they're giggling merrily at how no-one is paying any attention any more to whatever it was we were on the verge of finding out.

It all makes perfect sense. Its absolutely within the bounds of whats possible. And I'd never say that the govt would never do something like that, because its just they're type of sneaky.

Its so obvious, it must be true

sorry i worded that wrong, my bad but still they lied, and US dead: 58,191 and US wounded: 153,303 because of it... way more than 9/11 and they killed over a million people..... for their own gain.

im sorry if im lied to once i lose trust in the people who are lying to me, and we've been lied to loads of times.

and i completely agree, the people going and making false claims about 911, eg. loose change arent making it any better but the one investigation that could have told us the truth has been censored. and why was that if they werent lying to us?

on a side note, i watched a bbc horizons special last night called "why we fight" about americas reasons for going to war have a look at it, its interesting.

bonkey

Catsmokinpot wrote:

if im lied to once i lose trust in the people who are lying to me, and we've been lied to loads of times.

Well, you do have to consider that the Bush Administration did not cause the Tonkin Affair.

Just because someone else in teh same position, quite some time ago told a few porkies with disastrous consequences shouldn't be the driving force that would make you lose trust in the current crew.

There's plenty of stuff they've managed all on their ownsome for that

the one investigation that could have told us the truth has been censored.

This is the bit where my background is failing me (and I dont' have the chance to check it up at the mo).

What was censored?

The reason I'm asking is because I'd draw a comparison with Fitzgerald's (?) investigation into the Plame affair. He's come straight out and said that the public will almost-definitely never hear the details of what happened, and what he found out, because thats the way the law has to work in order to make his job possible in the first place.

With the 911 Report, we got the findings of the comission. The FEMA and NIST reports told us what their conclusions were.

The suggestion I've seen elsewhere that the public should be handed the evidence for personal scrutiny is simply unfeasible, not to mention unprecedented. Its one step short of a call to a return to mob-style justice, where the public should be allowed make their own decisions as to whether or not the law was broken. Its only one step shy of suggesting that they also be allowed dish out justice if they believe the system has failed them.

The simple truth is that in pretty-much every investigation, we don't get all the details, nor should we. So is 911 any different? Was there information which we should have been give but weren't, as opposed to information we'd like to have but which wouldn't normally form part of what we'd get from an investigation's findings?

I agree it would be nice to see the Sheraton tape, for example, but I also accept that it is not within the rights of any federal agency to release that tape (assuming they have it) and can only imagine that those who will take any excuse to knock the system would be going apoplectic about how brazenly illegal such an act was, were they to do it. The most one could expect is that the tape be returned to its owners, who in turn choose to release it. Now, this also hasn't happened, but no-one to date seems to have tracked down that road far enough to check if the Sheraton have asked for it back, or if it is unusual for the federal agencies to hold on to evidence in cases of this profile for this sort of duration.

So again, I don't rule out that there is something untoward here, but the simple existence of evidence which has not been released into the public domain doesn't establish that something's rotten in the state of Denmark.

But like I said...I can't do much/any checking at the mo, so maybe you're referring to some other censorship I haven't heard of / have forgotten.

and why was that if they werent lying to us?

Do you really believe the only reason the government ever witholds information from the public is to cover up lies?

on a side note, i watched a bbc horizons special last night called "why we fight" about americas reasons for going to war have a look at it, its interesting.

Cheers. Will do.