From the transcript:
"In the Vietnam War, the leaders of the White House claimed at the time that it was a necessary and crucial war, and during it, Rumsfeld and his aides murdered two million villagers. And when Kennedy took over the presidency and deviated from the general line of policy drawn up for the White House and wanted to stop this unjust war, that angered the owners of the major corporations who were benefiting from its continuation.
"And so Kennedy was killed, and Al-Qaeda wasn't present at that time, but rather, those corporations were the primary beneficiary from his killing. And the war continued after that for approximately one decade."
Perhaps we should invite him to join the group.
Full Version: Osama bin Laden's Views on the Assassination
QUOTE (Gary Buell @ Sep 8 2007, 02:23 AM) 
From the transcript:
"In the Vietnam War, the leaders of the White House claimed at the time that it was a necessary and crucial war, and during it, Rumsfeld and his aides murdered two million villagers. And when Kennedy took over the presidency and deviated from the general line of policy drawn up for the White House and wanted to stop this unjust war, that angered the owners of the major corporations who were benefiting from its continuation.
"And so Kennedy was killed, and Al-Qaeda wasn't present at that time, but rather, those corporations were the primary beneficiary from his killing. And the war continued after that for approximately one decade."
Perhaps we should invite him to join the group.
"In the Vietnam War, the leaders of the White House claimed at the time that it was a necessary and crucial war, and during it, Rumsfeld and his aides murdered two million villagers. And when Kennedy took over the presidency and deviated from the general line of policy drawn up for the White House and wanted to stop this unjust war, that angered the owners of the major corporations who were benefiting from its continuation.
"And so Kennedy was killed, and Al-Qaeda wasn't present at that time, but rather, those corporations were the primary beneficiary from his killing. And the war continued after that for approximately one decade."
Perhaps we should invite him to join the group.
Thanks for that Gary,
A convoluted but perceptive interpertation of contemporary history.
It's a shame he just didn't come out and say that JFK was killed by terrorists like him.
BK
The first and, to this day, most brilliantly succinct summation of what happened on 11/22/63 must be credited to none other than Malcolm X:
"The chickens have come home to roost."
So what's the subtext of this latest faux communication from the dramatic character OBL?
Well, expect to be told by the propagandists who crafted the message that all who agrees with Chomsky and everyone else cited on the tape as having keen perceptions of the American empire is by definition agreeing with and supporting OBL.
And if you understand the JFK hit to be what it truly was ... well, grow a beard and head for the cave!
What a diabolically efficient psyop, wouldn't you say?
Osama Bin Laden my olive, pocked derriere!
Charles
"The chickens have come home to roost."
So what's the subtext of this latest faux communication from the dramatic character OBL?
Well, expect to be told by the propagandists who crafted the message that all who agrees with Chomsky and everyone else cited on the tape as having keen perceptions of the American empire is by definition agreeing with and supporting OBL.
And if you understand the JFK hit to be what it truly was ... well, grow a beard and head for the cave!
What a diabolically efficient psyop, wouldn't you say?
Osama Bin Laden my olive, pocked derriere!
Charles
QUOTE (Gary Buell @ Sep 8 2007, 02:23 AM)
From the transcript:
"In the Vietnam War, the leaders of the White House claimed at the time that it was a necessary and crucial war, and during it, Rumsfeld and his aides murdered two million villagers. And when Kennedy took over the presidency and deviated from the general line of policy drawn up for the White House and wanted to stop this unjust war, that angered the owners of the major corporations who were benefiting from its continuation.
"And so Kennedy was killed, and Al-Qaeda wasn't present at that time, but rather, those corporations were the primary beneficiary from his killing. And the war continued after that for approximately one decade."
Perhaps we should invite him to join the group.
"In the Vietnam War, the leaders of the White House claimed at the time that it was a necessary and crucial war, and during it, Rumsfeld and his aides murdered two million villagers. And when Kennedy took over the presidency and deviated from the general line of policy drawn up for the White House and wanted to stop this unjust war, that angered the owners of the major corporations who were benefiting from its continuation.
"And so Kennedy was killed, and Al-Qaeda wasn't present at that time, but rather, those corporations were the primary beneficiary from his killing. And the war continued after that for approximately one decade."
Perhaps we should invite him to join the group.
Here's the group who obtained the video before it was meant to be released.
They seem to be taking seriously Paul Linebarger's theory on the study of propaganda.
http://www.siteinstitute.org/
QUOTE (Gary Buell @ Sep 8 2007, 02:23 AM)
From the transcript:
"In the Vietnam War, the leaders of the White House claimed at the time that it was a necessary and crucial war, and during it, Rumsfeld and his aides murdered two million villagers. [...]
"In the Vietnam War, the leaders of the White House claimed at the time that it was a necessary and crucial war, and during it, Rumsfeld and his aides murdered two million villagers. [...]
___________________________
Vietnam War. Rumsfield? Someone please enlighten me.
Thanks,
--Thomas
___________________________
QUOTE (Thomas Graves @ Sep 8 2007, 09:41 AM)
QUOTE (Gary Buell @ Sep 8 2007, 02:23 AM)
From the transcript:
"In the Vietnam War, the leaders of the White House claimed at the time that it was a necessary and crucial war, and during it, Rumsfeld and his aides murdered two million villagers. [...]
"In the Vietnam War, the leaders of the White House claimed at the time that it was a necessary and crucial war, and during it, Rumsfeld and his aides murdered two million villagers. [...]
___________________________
Vietnam War. Rumsfield? Someone please enlighten me.
Thanks,
--Thomas
___________________________
One is free to infer what one wishes, but I think he refers to the Rumsfeld/Cheney era under Nixon/Ford. To paraphrase a catchy little ditty, they didn't start the fire, but they kept it burning well past the time it was thought "necessary and crucial." Due to the skewed chronology in the quote, by referencing Rumsfeld prior to Kennedy, OBL appears to be blaming Rumsfeld for the war's entirety, but I submit the interpretation I have provided is closer to his actual intent.
Peter,
I'm suggesting that the reasons for inserting what I agree are "important truths" -- but by no means established-in-mainstream-thought-and-culture truths -- into the psyop are to taint that material and to discredit all who embrace it.
Can you think of more efficient ways to halt burgeoning truth movements in their tracks than by linking their messages to the Hitler of our time and labeling truth-speakers as Osama's messengers?
Osama bin Laden is a dramatic construct -- a character, if you prefer -- in a grand production.
We're extras.
As for Robert's keen-eyed catch of the Rumsfeld business: A clever psyop dramatist would work such a timeline error into the character's soliloquoy in order to add authenticity.
Charles
I'm suggesting that the reasons for inserting what I agree are "important truths" -- but by no means established-in-mainstream-thought-and-culture truths -- into the psyop are to taint that material and to discredit all who embrace it.
Can you think of more efficient ways to halt burgeoning truth movements in their tracks than by linking their messages to the Hitler of our time and labeling truth-speakers as Osama's messengers?
Osama bin Laden is a dramatic construct -- a character, if you prefer -- in a grand production.
We're extras.
As for Robert's keen-eyed catch of the Rumsfeld business: A clever psyop dramatist would work such a timeline error into the character's soliloquoy in order to add authenticity.
Charles
QUOTE (Peter Lemkin @ Sep 8 2007, 08:41 PM)
Robert, I miss your point, but highly regard your opinion, so can you expand on what you think.
Sure, Peter, but there's not much to add. Thomas Graves asked about the oddity of OBL, in his most recent release, blaming Donald Rumsfeld for the deaths of two million Vietnamese. I merely pointed out that prior to being your nation's oldest defense secretary, Rumsfeld was also its youngest defense secretary when he was tapped for the job by Gerald Ford in '75. As such, he was responsible for prosecuting the tail end of the Viet Nam conflict, but surely couldn't be blamed for the entirety of the carnage there, which one could rightly infer from OBL's wording [or perhaps a glitch in translation?]
I am greatly heartened by Charles Drago's reference to OBL as a 'dramatic character,' for I think this accurately reflects his role in contemporary events.
A few points I'd like to raise in this regard, corollaries to the JFK assassination that seem to have somehow escaped a few of our esteemed fellow Forum members.
First, on Nine-One-One Bush publicly identified OBL as the sole culprit, just as Oswald had been immediately identified as the sole assassin. In neither case had there been sufficient time to investigate and reach a tenable conclusion, but that was somehow deemed unnecessary by the accusing parties in both events. We know how [in]accurate the first charge was; I urge those with an open mind to consider that the second charge might have been equally misleading.
Second, just as Oswald proclaimed his innocence, and thereby missed a singular opportunity to propagandize for whatever cause might have compelled him, so too did OBL initially renounce - and disclaim responsibility for - the events of that dreadful day, and thereby forego a chance to proclaim what had led to the act. While prisons are full of those who falsely proclaim their innocence, it is also true that some innocent parties have not only been incarcerated but executed. It is worth recalling that the founding principles of the USA include the presumption of innocence, a formality never extended to either LHO or OBL.
Third, despite the mountain of so-called evidence levelled against Oswald, the closer one scrutinized any individual piece of that evidence, the more readily apparent it became that it didn't, nay couldn't, withstand examination without collapsing. Meanwhile, anything that might reasonably be viewed as exculpatory toward Oswald was either scuttled and ignored, or twisted to conform to a predesigned brief against him. Witnesses were intimidated, interviews were misreported, evidence was suppressed or baldly fabricated, and connections between Oswald and various branches of the US government were either falsely denied or deep-sixed. Can anyone who has pored over the Nine-One-One chronology presented by the US government claim it is any more accurate?
Fourth, despite desperate attempts to preclude any official investigation, the Bush administration was finally shamed into empanelling just such a probe. In announcing its formation, George Bush actually referred to it as a modern-day "Warren Commission," which those who have studied the Warren Report should bear in mind when studying the shoddy output of Kean, Hamilton, et al. It may have been an unintentional truth, but Bush accurately predicted the veracity of the Nine-One-One report when he made the comparison.
Fifth, an interesting parallel exists regarding the official version of both events. In the case of Oswald, he stood accused of having fired a rather shoddy weapon with a lethal accuracy unrivalled by those world-class marksmen who were press-ganged into attempts to replicate the feat. Rather than accept that no single shooter could achieve what was attributed to Oswald, the naysayers merely repeated the mantra that he must have done so, for that was the initial allegation, contrary facts be damned. Similarly, when skeptics on the Nine-One-One issue point out that OBL couldn't have predicted, nor arranged for, the inexplicable stand-down of US airpower on that dreadful day - that the event couldn't have occurred without some type of connivance by or contribution from someone within the US government itself - the modern-day nay-sayers repeat the mantra that a conspiracy within any quarters of the US government couldn't have gone unnoticed, and was hence impossible to credit, but nevertheless bray accusations toward a man half a world away whom, as they point out gleefully, lives in a cave. It is remarkable that those who denounce charges of US governmental collusion as an impossibly complex "conspiracy theory" nevertheless attribute that same impossibly complex feat to a single man in a cave that cannot be located. Does not the Bible caution against "Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel?"
Finally, it should not go unnoticed that in Bush's immediate identification of OBL as the mastermind of Nine-One-One, he didn't bother to include any basis for believing his charges to be true; he thought it sufficient to merely make the claim. While the US populace may be forgiven for having foolishly placed that degree of faith in their so-called [but appointed, not elected] leader's integrity and judgement then, with the benefit of hindsight, can any rational person still take this man's claims at face value? Having been so consistently wrong, about virtually everything ever claimed, is acceptance of his claims re: OBL anything more than an article of faith? Would those prepared to place their own fellow countrymen and women in harm's way not rest easier knowing, rather than merely supposing along with Bush, who was responsible?
Only this morning I encountered a man from Florida who has spent most of his adult life in the US military. We chatted amiably about a number of things Floridian [Kitty Harris, Charlie Crist, Jeb Bush - whom he extolled as a great governor, by the way], but when it came to George Bush, he said that all he knew was that nobody had launched an attack on US soil in the past five years, all credit for this, apparently, going to the USA's Dear Leader. When I asked if he didn't think it odd that somebody fiendishly clever enough to mount so complex a plot five years ago was somehow now too impotent to even explode a couple of car bombs in Daytona or New Jersey, just to remind us all of his continued existence and relevance, he said that he'd never really thought about it. Therein lies the rub; too few people are prepared to think for themselves and undertake the homework necessary to reach a personal conclusion, rather than one that has been prefabricated and premasticated for their consumption. [My new acquaintance from Florida was a splendid chap, by the way, and despite being a diehard Republican was quite willing to entertain any number of possibilities as at least theoretically possible, unlike certain hidebound Forum members with a far narrower view of the world and how it is made to work, by whom, and for what ends.]
I realize that all of the foregoing is far more than you asked for, Peter, and that I will likely be pilloried by some other Forum members for having the audacity to make some of the statements above. However, as the topic of the thread includes both JFK and OBL's observations on JFK's demise, I thought it might be the right time to remind some Forum members that they are ill-served by a credulous willingness to accept and parrot only what they've been told, rather than what they've discovered for themselves through diligent research. The same nation that was successfully lied to once on an issue of paramount importance can never rest easy in the belief that it could never happen again, a point that often seems lost on some here.
Even more parallels between 9-11 and 11-22 are noted:
Security stripping: The numerous exercises (Vigilant How's Your Father, et al) scheduled for that day in September effectively stripped/stood down air space and other relevant security measures routinely in place, thus rendering the New York and D.C. targets -- oh, how shall I put it -- uniquely insecure. Some 38 years before, what Vince Palamara and George Michael Evica, among others, have argued likely was a security stripping exercise was activated in Dealey Plaza in order to render fatally vunlerable a usually well protected target.
Either the Cat in the Cave and the Lone Nut were the luckiest loonies in history when they chose to strike on the very days that uncommon, top secret tests of protective measures guarding their respective targets were scheduled, or we're being lied to.
There are no other options on the table.
Control of the body: WTC wreckage that should have undergone post mortem examination within a larger criminal investigation was isolated, altered, and eventually sold for scrap. Ditto the earthly remains of JFK.
The storylines' respective villains: Both OBL and LHO are fictive constructs as well as flesh and blood. More duality for our little melodramas. More confusion.
Charles
Security stripping: The numerous exercises (Vigilant How's Your Father, et al) scheduled for that day in September effectively stripped/stood down air space and other relevant security measures routinely in place, thus rendering the New York and D.C. targets -- oh, how shall I put it -- uniquely insecure. Some 38 years before, what Vince Palamara and George Michael Evica, among others, have argued likely was a security stripping exercise was activated in Dealey Plaza in order to render fatally vunlerable a usually well protected target.
Either the Cat in the Cave and the Lone Nut were the luckiest loonies in history when they chose to strike on the very days that uncommon, top secret tests of protective measures guarding their respective targets were scheduled, or we're being lied to.
There are no other options on the table.
Control of the body: WTC wreckage that should have undergone post mortem examination within a larger criminal investigation was isolated, altered, and eventually sold for scrap. Ditto the earthly remains of JFK.
The storylines' respective villains: Both OBL and LHO are fictive constructs as well as flesh and blood. More duality for our little melodramas. More confusion.
Charles
QUOTE (Robert Charles-Dunne @ Sep 8 2007, 07:33 PM)
First, on Nine-One-One Bush publicly identified OBL as the sole culprit, just as Oswald had been immediately identified as the sole assassin. In neither case had there been sufficient time to investigate and reach a tenable conclusion, but that was somehow deemed unnecessary by the accusing parties in both events. We know how [in]accurate the first charge was; I urge those with an open mind to consider that the second charge might have been equally misleading.
It was an eerie and uncomfortable sense of deja vu watching the major news networks announce OBL's responsibility within minutes of each other, and mere hours after the event.
Another perceptive post by Robert Charles-Dunne.
QUOTE (Robert Charles-Dunne @ Sep 9 2007, 12:33 AM)
QUOTE (Peter Lemkin @ Sep 8 2007, 08:41 PM)
Robert, I miss your point, but highly regard your opinion, so can you expand on what you think.
Sure, Peter, but there's not much to add. Thomas Graves asked about the oddity of OBL, in his most recent release, blaming Donald Rumsfeld for the deaths of two million Vietnamese. I merely pointed out that prior to being your nation's oldest defense secretary, Rumsfeld was also its youngest defense secretary when he was tapped for the job by Gerald Ford in '75. As such, he was responsible for prosecuting the tail end of the Viet Nam conflict, but surely couldn't be blamed for the entirety of the carnage there, which one could rightly infer from OBL's wording [or perhaps a glitch in translation?]
I am greatly heartened by Charles Drago's reference to OBL as a 'dramatic character,' for I think this accurately reflects his role in contemporary events.
A few points I'd like to raise in this regard, corollaries to the JFK assassination that seem to have somehow escaped a few of our esteemed fellow Forum members.
First, on Nine-One-One Bush publicly identified OBL as the sole culprit, just as Oswald had been immediately identified as the sole assassin. In neither case had there been sufficient time to investigate and reach a tenable conclusion, but that was somehow deemed unnecessary by the accusing parties in both events. We know how [in]accurate the first charge was; I urge those with an open mind to consider that the second charge might have been equally misleading.
Second, just as Oswald proclaimed his innocence, and thereby missed a singular opportunity to propagandize for whatever cause might have compelled him, so too did OBL initially renounce - and disclaim responsibility for - the events of that dreadful day, and thereby forego a chance to proclaim what had led to the act. While prisons are full of those who falsely proclaim their innocence, it is also true that some innocent parties have not only been incarcerated but executed. It is worth recalling that the founding principles of the USA include the presumption of innocence, a formality never extended to either LHO or OBL.
Third, despite the mountain of so-called evidence levelled against Oswald, the closer one scrutinized any individual piece of that evidence, the more readily apparent it became that it didn't, nay couldn't, withstand examination without collapsing. Meanwhile, anything that might reasonably be viewed as exculpatory toward Oswald was either scuttled and ignored, or twisted to conform to a predesigned brief against him. Witnesses were intimidated, interviews were misreported, evidence was suppressed or baldly fabricated, and connections between Oswald and various branches of the US government were either falsely denied or deep-sixed. Can anyone who has pored over the Nine-One-One chronology presented by the US government claim it is any more accurate?
Fourth, despite desperate attempts to preclude any official investigation, the Bush administration was finally shamed into empanelling just such a probe. In announcing its formation, George Bush actually referred to it as a modern-day "Warren Commission," which those who have studied the Warren Report should bear in mind when studying the shoddy output of Kean, Hamilton, et al. It may have been an unintentional truth, but Bush accurately predicted the veracity of the Nine-One-One report when he made the comparison.
Fifth, an interesting parallel exists regarding the official version of both events. In the case of Oswald, he stood accused of having fired a rather shoddy weapon with a lethal accuracy unrivalled by those world-class marksmen who were press-ganged into attempts to replicate the feat. Rather than accept that no single shooter could achieve what was attributed to Oswald, the naysayers merely repeated the mantra that he must have done so, for that was the initial allegation, contrary facts be damned. Similarly, when skeptics on the Nine-One-One issue point out that OBL couldn't have predicted, nor arranged for, the inexplicable stand-down of US airpower on that dreadful day - that the event couldn't have occurred without some type of connivance by or contribution from someone within the US government itself - the modern-day nay-sayers repeat the mantra that a conspiracy within any quarters of the US government couldn't have gone unnoticed, and was hence impossible to credit, but nevertheless bray accusations toward a man half a world away whom, as they point out gleefully, lives in a cave. It is remarkable that those who denounce charges of US governmental collusion as an impossibly complex "conspiracy theory" nevertheless attribute that same impossibly complex feat to a single man in a cave that cannot be located. Does not the Bible caution against "Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel?"
Finally, it should not go unnoticed that in Bush's immediate identification of OBL as the mastermind of Nine-One-One, he didn't bother to include any basis for believing his charges to be true; he thought it sufficient to merely make the claim. While the US populace may be forgiven for having foolishly placed that degree of faith in their so-called [but appointed, not elected] leader's integrity and judgement then, with the benefit of hindsight, can any rational person still take this man's claims at face value? Having been so consistently wrong, about virtually everything ever claimed, is acceptance of his claims re: OBL anything more than an article of faith? Would those prepared to place their own fellow countrymen and women in harm's way not rest easier knowing, rather than merely supposing along with Bush, who was responsible?
Only this morning I encountered a man from Florida who has spent most of his adult life in the US military. We chatted amiably about a number of things Floridian [Kitty Harris, Charlie Crist, Jeb Bush - whom he extolled as a great governor, by the way], but when it came to George Bush, he said that all he knew was that nobody had launched an attack on US soil in the past five years, all credit for this, apparently, going to the USA's Dear Leader. When I asked if he didn't think it odd that somebody fiendishly clever enough to mount so complex a plot five years ago was somehow now too impotent to even explode a couple of car bombs in Daytona or New Jersey, just to remind us all of his continued existence and relevance, he said that he'd never really thought about it. Therein lies the rub; too few people are prepared to think for themselves and undertake the homework necessary to reach a personal conclusion, rather than one that has been prefabricated and premasticated for their consumption. [My new acquaintance from Florida was a splendid chap, by the way, and despite being a diehard Republican was quite willing to entertain any number of possibilities as at least theoretically possible, unlike certain hidebound Forum members with a far narrower view of the world and how it is made to work, by whom, and for what ends.]
I realize that all of the foregoing is far more than you asked for, Peter, and that I will likely be pilloried by some other Forum members for having the audacity to make some of the statements above. However, as the topic of the thread includes both JFK and OBL's observations on JFK's demise, I thought it might be the right time to remind some Forum members that they are ill-served by a credulous willingness to accept and parrot only what they've been told, rather than what they've discovered for themselves through diligent research. The same nation that was successfully lied to once on an issue of paramount importance can never rest easy in the belief that it could never happen again, a point that often seems lost on some here.
Very informative, Charles.
I'm just a daft old Brit when it comes to 911 and the role UBL played in it.
And so I get easily confused.
Firstly, UBL is likened to Hitler - he was the key man responsible for the tragic event.
Some time later, no one in Uncle's official apparatus seems to care about him. UBL is apparently allowed to escape at Tora Bora as he is of no real consequence to US efforts in Afghanistan. Various people argue about this, but the CIA commander on the ground is categorical - UBL was basically allowed to "slip away".
UBL is also not listed on the FBI's most wanted top ten for anything related to 911. He is wanted by the FBI (and on the top ten list) for deaths caused to Americans outside of the continental United States. Remarkable.
The confusion seems to be that you don't get on the list unless you've been formally charged and Usama hasn't been formally charged with 911. Remarkable and confusing.
Does anybody know the year UBL stopped being a pawn of the US and became his own pawn (if he ever did?)? It's a genuine question. Was it shortly after the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan or a long time after? I'm curious, because I have it on what I consider fairly good authority (although what that exactly is I don't really know) that UBL was connected to counterfeit US dollars as late as 1997, and that said dollars were traced back to a PO Box in Virginia. The implication, if I understand it correctly, is that UBL was being fed these dollars by you know who. Oh Lordy...
But whether you love him or hate him, UBL seems to be like a Jack-in-the-Box who leaps up for a star performance on television at the oddest times. Perhaps it's just me, but his latest guest appearance seemed to coincide with the news of the Brits pulling out of Basra Palace - and event that is regarded as the de facto retreat - and which it was reported caused fury to George Bush.
Yours in wickedness,
David
QUOTE (Robert Charles-Dunne @ Sep 9 2007, 12:33 AM)
QUOTE (Peter Lemkin @ Sep 8 2007, 08:41 PM)
Robert, I miss your point, but highly regard your opinion, so can you expand on what you think.
Sure, Peter, but there's not much to add. Thomas Graves asked about the oddity of OBL, in his most recent release, blaming Donald Rumsfeld for the deaths of two million Vietnamese. I merely pointed out that prior to being your nation's oldest defense secretary, Rumsfeld was also its youngest defense secretary when he was tapped for the job by Gerald Ford in '75. As such, he was responsible for prosecuting the tail end of the Viet Nam conflict, but surely couldn't be blamed for the entirety of the carnage there, which one could rightly infer from OBL's wording [or perhaps a glitch in translation?]
I am greatly heartened by Charles Drago's reference to OBL as a 'dramatic character,' for I think this accurately reflects his role in contemporary events.
A few points I'd like to raise in this regard, corollaries to the JFK assassination that seem to have somehow escaped a few of our esteemed fellow Forum members.
First, on Nine-One-One Bush publicly identified OBL as the sole culprit, just as Oswald had been immediately identified as the sole assassin. In neither case had there been sufficient time to investigate and reach a tenable conclusion, but that was somehow deemed unnecessary by the accusing parties in both events. We know how [in]accurate the first charge was; I urge those with an open mind to consider that the second charge might have been equally misleading.
Second, just as Oswald proclaimed his innocence, and thereby missed a singular opportunity to propagandize for whatever cause might have compelled him, so too did OBL initially renounce - and disclaim responsibility for - the events of that dreadful day, and thereby forego a chance to proclaim what had led to the act. While prisons are full of those who falsely proclaim their innocence, it is also true that some innocent parties have not only been incarcerated but executed. It is worth recalling that the founding principles of the USA include the presumption of innocence, a formality never extended to either LHO or OBL.
Third, despite the mountain of so-called evidence levelled against Oswald, the closer one scrutinized any individual piece of that evidence, the more readily apparent it became that it didn't, nay couldn't, withstand examination without collapsing. Meanwhile, anything that might reasonably be viewed as exculpatory toward Oswald was either scuttled and ignored, or twisted to conform to a predesigned brief against him. Witnesses were intimidated, interviews were misreported, evidence was suppressed or baldly fabricated, and connections between Oswald and various branches of the US government were either falsely denied or deep-sixed. Can anyone who has pored over the Nine-One-One chronology presented by the US government claim it is any more accurate?
Fourth, despite desperate attempts to preclude any official investigation, the Bush administration was finally shamed into empanelling just such a probe. In announcing its formation, George Bush actually referred to it as a modern-day "Warren Commission," which those who have studied the Warren Report should bear in mind when studying the shoddy output of Kean, Hamilton, et al. It may have been an unintentional truth, but Bush accurately predicted the veracity of the Nine-One-One report when he made the comparison.
Fifth, an interesting parallel exists regarding the official version of both events. In the case of Oswald, he stood accused of having fired a rather shoddy weapon with a lethal accuracy unrivalled by those world-class marksmen who were press-ganged into attempts to replicate the feat. Rather than accept that no single shooter could achieve what was attributed to Oswald, the naysayers merely repeated the mantra that he must have done so, for that was the initial allegation, contrary facts be damned. Similarly, when skeptics on the Nine-One-One issue point out that OBL couldn't have predicted, nor arranged for, the inexplicable stand-down of US airpower on that dreadful day - that the event couldn't have occurred without some type of connivance by or contribution from someone within the US government itself - the modern-day nay-sayers repeat the mantra that a conspiracy within any quarters of the US government couldn't have gone unnoticed, and was hence impossible to credit, but nevertheless bray accusations toward a man half a world away whom, as they point out gleefully, lives in a cave. It is remarkable that those who denounce charges of US governmental collusion as an impossibly complex "conspiracy theory" nevertheless attribute that same impossibly complex feat to a single man in a cave that cannot be located. Does not the Bible caution against "Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel?"
Finally, it should not go unnoticed that in Bush's immediate identification of OBL as the mastermind of Nine-One-One, he didn't bother to include any basis for believing his charges to be true; he thought it sufficient to merely make the claim. While the US populace may be forgiven for having foolishly placed that degree of faith in their so-called [but appointed, not elected] leader's integrity and judgement then, with the benefit of hindsight, can any rational person still take this man's claims at face value? Having been so consistently wrong, about virtually everything ever claimed, is acceptance of his claims re: OBL anything more than an article of faith? Would those prepared to place their own fellow countrymen and women in harm's way not rest easier knowing, rather than merely supposing along with Bush, who was responsible?
Only this morning I encountered a man from Florida who has spent most of his adult life in the US military. We chatted amiably about a number of things Floridian [Kitty Harris, Charlie Crist, Jeb Bush - whom he extolled as a great governor, by the way], but when it came to George Bush, he said that all he knew was that nobody had launched an attack on US soil in the past five years, all credit for this, apparently, going to the USA's Dear Leader. When I asked if he didn't think it odd that somebody fiendishly clever enough to mount so complex a plot five years ago was somehow now too impotent to even explode a couple of car bombs in Daytona or New Jersey, just to remind us all of his continued existence and relevance, he said that he'd never really thought about it. Therein lies the rub; too few people are prepared to think for themselves and undertake the homework necessary to reach a personal conclusion, rather than one that has been prefabricated and premasticated for their consumption. [My new acquaintance from Florida was a splendid chap, by the way, and despite being a diehard Republican was quite willing to entertain any number of possibilities as at least theoretically possible, unlike certain hidebound Forum members with a far narrower view of the world and how it is made to work, by whom, and for what ends.]
I realize that all of the foregoing is far more than you asked for, Peter, and that I will likely be pilloried by some other Forum members for having the audacity to make some of the statements above. However, as the topic of the thread includes both JFK and OBL's observations on JFK's demise, I thought it might be the right time to remind some Forum members that they are ill-served by a credulous willingness to accept and parrot only what they've been told, rather than what they've discovered for themselves through diligent research. The same nation that was successfully lied to once on an issue of paramount importance can never rest easy in the belief that it could never happen again, a point that often seems lost on some here.
Very informative, Charles.
I'm just a daft old Brit when it comes to 911 and the role UBL played in it.
And so I get easily confused.
Firstly, UBL is likened to Hitler - he was the key man responsible for the tragic event.
Some time later, no one in Uncle's official apparatus seems to care about him. UBL is apparently allowed to escape at Tora Bora as he is of no real consequence to US efforts in Afghanistan. Various people argue about this, but the CIA commander on the ground is categorical - UBL was basically allowed to "slip away".
UBL is also not listed on the FBI's most wanted top ten for anything related to 911. He is wanted by the FBI (and on the top ten list) for deaths caused to Americans outside of the continental United States. Remarkable.
The confusion seems to be that you don't get on the list unless you've been formally charged and Usama hasn't been formally charged with 911. Remarkable and confusing.
Does anybody know the year UBL stopped being a pawn of the US and became his own pawn (if he ever did?)? It's a genuine question. Was it shortly after the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan or a long time after? I'm curious, because I have it on what I consider fairly good authority (although what that exactly is I don't really know) that UBL was connected to counterfeit US dollars as late as 1997, and that said dollars were traced back to a PO Box in Virginia. The implication, if I understand it correctly, is that UBL was being fed these dollars by you know who. Oh Lordy...
But whether you love him or hate him, UBL seems to be like a Jack-in-the-Box who leaps up for a star performance on television at the oddest times. Perhaps it's just me, but his latest guest appearance seemed to coincide with the news of the Brits pulling out of Basra Palace - and event that is regarded as the de facto retreat - and which it was reported caused fury to George Bush.
Yours in wickedness,
David
For the similarities between 11/22 and 9/11, Peter Dale Scott brings out a number of significant ones in his talks, as transcribed on another thread.
Is there a complete transcript of OBL's latest speech?
As for the speech's content, American analysists have decided that it wasn't written in Arabic and translated to English, but written primarily by American Adam Gadahn (aka Adam Pearlman "Azzam the American" and translated to Arabic for OBL to read.
Adam Pearlman, a Jew from California, was a one time rock music critic with an affinity for heavy metal.
BK
Is there a complete transcript of OBL's latest speech?
As for the speech's content, American analysists have decided that it wasn't written in Arabic and translated to English, but written primarily by American Adam Gadahn (aka Adam Pearlman "Azzam the American" and translated to Arabic for OBL to read.
Adam Pearlman, a Jew from California, was a one time rock music critic with an affinity for heavy metal.
BK
Great thread!
Isn't it interesting that bin Laden always pops up when Bush needs him the most?
The Bush presidency was floundering in 2001, until 9/11.
In his 2004 video OLB may as well have been wearing a "Kerry for President" button
four days before the election, giving the Preznit a crucial boost.
Now he pops up just as the Bush Crime Family is rolling out it's fall war product,
Surge II.
I'm convinced there's a direct line between Dealey Plaza and the Green Zone
by way of the Gulf of Tonkin and Ground Zero -- false flag operations designed
to facilitate the black markets in weapons, oil, and narcotics.
Guns, Oil, Drugs -- the G.O.D. in which they trust.
http://www.infowars.com/articles/London_at..._coinciding.htm
Isn't it interesting that bin Laden always pops up when Bush needs him the most?
The Bush presidency was floundering in 2001, until 9/11.
In his 2004 video OLB may as well have been wearing a "Kerry for President" button
four days before the election, giving the Preznit a crucial boost.
Now he pops up just as the Bush Crime Family is rolling out it's fall war product,
Surge II.
I'm convinced there's a direct line between Dealey Plaza and the Green Zone
by way of the Gulf of Tonkin and Ground Zero -- false flag operations designed
to facilitate the black markets in weapons, oil, and narcotics.
Guns, Oil, Drugs -- the G.O.D. in which they trust.
http://www.infowars.com/articles/London_at..._coinciding.htm
QUOTE (Robert Charles-Dunne @ Sep 9 2007, 12:33 AM)
QUOTE (Peter Lemkin @ Sep 8 2007, 08:41 PM)
Robert, I miss your point, but highly regard your opinion, so can you expand on what you think.
Sure, Peter, but there's not much to add. Thomas Graves asked about the oddity of OBL, in his most recent release, blaming Donald Rumsfeld for the deaths of two million Vietnamese. I merely pointed out that prior to being your nation's oldest defense secretary, Rumsfeld was also its youngest defense secretary when he was tapped for the job by Gerald Ford in '75. As such, he was responsible for prosecuting the tail end of the Viet Nam conflict, but surely couldn't be blamed for the entirety of the carnage there, which one could rightly infer from OBL's wording [or perhaps a glitch in translation?]
I am greatly heartened by Charles Drago's reference to OBL as a 'dramatic character,' for I think this accurately reflects his role in contemporary events.
A few points I'd like to raise in this regard, corollaries to the JFK assassination that seem to have somehow escaped a few of our esteemed fellow Forum members.
First, on Nine-One-One Bush publicly identified OBL as the sole culprit, just as Oswald had been immediately identified as the sole assassin. In neither case had there been sufficient time to investigate and reach a tenable conclusion, but that was somehow deemed unnecessary by the accusing parties in both events. We know how [in]accurate the first charge was; I urge those with an open mind to consider that the second charge might have been equally misleading.
Second, just as Oswald proclaimed his innocence, and thereby missed a singular opportunity to propagandize for whatever cause might have compelled him, so too did OBL initially renounce - and disclaim responsibility for - the events of that dreadful day, and thereby forego a chance to proclaim what had led to the act. While prisons are full of those who falsely proclaim their innocence, it is also true that some innocent parties have not only been incarcerated but executed. It is worth recalling that the founding principles of the USA include the presumption of innocence, a formality never extended to either LHO or OBL.
Third, despite the mountain of so-called evidence levelled against Oswald, the closer one scrutinized any individual piece of that evidence, the more readily apparent it became that it didn't, nay couldn't, withstand examination without collapsing. Meanwhile, anything that might reasonably be viewed as exculpatory toward Oswald was either scuttled and ignored, or twisted to conform to a predesigned brief against him. Witnesses were intimidated, interviews were misreported, evidence was suppressed or baldly fabricated, and connections between Oswald and various branches of the US government were either falsely denied or deep-sixed. Can anyone who has pored over the Nine-One-One chronology presented by the US government claim it is any more accurate?
Fourth, despite desperate attempts to preclude any official investigation, the Bush administration was finally shamed into empanelling just such a probe. In announcing its formation, George Bush actually referred to it as a modern-day "Warren Commission," which those who have studied the Warren Report should bear in mind when studying the shoddy output of Kean, Hamilton, et al. It may have been an unintentional truth, but Bush accurately predicted the veracity of the Nine-One-One report when he made the comparison.
Fifth, an interesting parallel exists regarding the official version of both events. In the case of Oswald, he stood accused of having fired a rather shoddy weapon with a lethal accuracy unrivalled by those world-class marksmen who were press-ganged into attempts to replicate the feat. Rather than accept that no single shooter could achieve what was attributed to Oswald, the naysayers merely repeated the mantra that he must have done so, for that was the initial allegation, contrary facts be damned. Similarly, when skeptics on the Nine-One-One issue point out that OBL couldn't have predicted, nor arranged for, the inexplicable stand-down of US airpower on that dreadful day - that the event couldn't have occurred without some type of connivance by or contribution from someone within the US government itself - the modern-day nay-sayers repeat the mantra that a conspiracy within any quarters of the US government couldn't have gone unnoticed, and was hence impossible to credit, but nevertheless bray accusations toward a man half a world away whom, as they point out gleefully, lives in a cave. It is remarkable that those who denounce charges of US governmental collusion as an impossibly complex "conspiracy theory" nevertheless attribute that same impossibly complex feat to a single man in a cave that cannot be located. Does not the Bible caution against "Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel?"
Finally, it should not go unnoticed that in Bush's immediate identification of OBL as the mastermind of Nine-One-One, he didn't bother to include any basis for believing his charges to be true; he thought it sufficient to merely make the claim. While the US populace may be forgiven for having foolishly placed that degree of faith in their so-called [but appointed, not elected] leader's integrity and judgement then, with the benefit of hindsight, can any rational person still take this man's claims at face value? Having been so consistently wrong, about virtually everything ever claimed, is acceptance of his claims re: OBL anything more than an article of faith? Would those prepared to place their own fellow countrymen and women in harm's way not rest easier knowing, rather than merely supposing along with Bush, who was responsible?
Only this morning I encountered a man from Florida who has spent most of his adult life in the US military. We chatted amiably about a number of things Floridian [Kitty Harris, Charlie Crist, Jeb Bush - whom he extolled as a great governor, by the way], but when it came to George Bush, he said that all he knew was that nobody had launched an attack on US soil in the past five years, all credit for this, apparently, going to the USA's Dear Leader. When I asked if he didn't think it odd that somebody fiendishly clever enough to mount so complex a plot five years ago was somehow now too impotent to even explode a couple of car bombs in Daytona or New Jersey, just to remind us all of his continued existence and relevance, he said that he'd never really thought about it. Therein lies the rub; too few people are prepared to think for themselves and undertake the homework necessary to reach a personal conclusion, rather than one that has been prefabricated and premasticated for their consumption. [My new acquaintance from Florida was a splendid chap, by the way, and despite being a diehard Republican was quite willing to entertain any number of possibilities as at least theoretically possible, unlike certain hidebound Forum members with a far narrower view of the world and how it is made to work, by whom, and for what ends.]
I realize that all of the foregoing is far more than you asked for, Peter, and that I will likely be pilloried by some other Forum members for having the audacity to make some of the statements above. However, as the topic of the thread includes both JFK and OBL's observations on JFK's demise, I thought it might be the right time to remind some Forum members that they are ill-served by a credulous willingness to accept and parrot only what they've been told, rather than what they've discovered for themselves through diligent research. The same nation that was successfully lied to once on an issue of paramount importance can never rest easy in the belief that it could never happen again, a point that often seems lost on some here.
Great post, Robert.
QUOTE (Peter Lemkin @ Sep 9 2007, 01:38 PM)
QUOTE (William Kelly @ Sep 9 2007, 06:28 PM)
As for the speech's content, American analysists have decided that it wasn't written in Arabic and translated to English, but written primarily by American Adam Gadahn (aka Adam Pearlman "Azzam the American" and translated to Arabic for OBL to read.
Adam Pearlman, a Jew from California, was a one time rock music critic with an affinity for heavy metal.
BK
Adam Pearlman, a Jew from California, was a one time rock music critic with an affinity for heavy metal.
BK
Bill, I just saw another article on the web saying it was written by Mossad agents....so the psyops have begun..... I haven't been able to find a full transcript. Here is the most complete I've seen on Al Jezeera [so the translation should be well done].
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B4D...D551838261C.htm
Actually Pearlman was at best a quarter Jewish and was raised more or less agnostic on a goat farm without running water or electricity by his hippie parents. His father who was the son of a member of the ADL converted to Christianity and was a Halal butcher. Under Jewish law religion is passed maternally in cases of mixed marriage so not even his father let alone Pearlman himself would be considered Jewish. Alex Jones’ Goebbels, Joseph Watson, claimed without offering any evidence that he was a “ Jewish Mossad agent who once wrote stinging essays condemning Muslims as "bloodthirsty terrorists"
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/may20...07phonytape.htm
What he actually wrote in his essay “On Becoming Moslem” was (emphasis added)
“Having been around Muslims in my formative years, I knew well that they were NOT the bloodthirsty, barbaric terrorists that the news media and the televangelists paint them to be.”
http://web.archive.org/web/20060629223641/...ims/yahiye.html
So let see Pearlman, wasn’t Jewish, said the opposite of what Watson claimed he did and no evidence was presented to support the unlikely contention he was a Mossad agent
The problem with believing Jones and Watson and other disreputable liars of their ilk is well… that they are disreputable liars. It’s more than ironic that people who take them seriously decry the unreliability and bias of the MSM. I’m not saying the media isn’t at times and on certain issues unreliable and biased it’s just such problems are relative and are just as if not more pervasive in much of the alternate media.
More on Gadahm:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Yahiye_Gadahn (well referenced)
http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1...amp;IssueNum=66
QUOTE (Len Colby @ Sep 10 2007, 02:07 PM)
Alex Jones’ Goebbels, Joseph Watson, claimed without offering any evidence that he was a “ Jewish Mossad agent who once wrote stinging essays condemning Muslims as "bloodthirsty terrorists"
...................
The problem with believing Jones and Watson and other disreputable liars of their ilk is well… that they are disreputable liars..........
...................
The problem with believing Jones and Watson and other disreputable liars of their ilk is well… that they are disreputable liars..........
Between the "Nazi" epithets and "direputable liars" assertions, it seems Len finds it insufficient to rebut what offends him and must resort to less gentlemanly methods of discourse. That is his right, but it hardly elevates the debate above the very muck and mire he so decries.
For a somewhat more evenhanded evaluation of Jones' role in the mediasphere, one might try reading BBC report Greg Palast's thoughts on the topic, which can be found at: http://www.infowars.com/print_palast.htm
Alex Jones [is] the only major radio host concerned about my story for BBC about George Bush killing off the investigation of WAMY, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, prior to September 11.
The FBI said they were a "suspected terrorist organization," but Bush's intelligence chiefs called off the hunt of the US branch of the organization led by Abdullah bin Ladin. Now, the Somalian government has arrested Osama bin Ladin's messenger, the man who took his latest tape to Al Jazeera TV ... a staff member of WAMY.
Shortly thereafter, George Bush's buddy, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, invited WAMY to meet in his palace where he told them: "There is no extremism in religion." Really? Maybe the prince hasn't read the murder-promoting propaganda issued by WAMY found in the apartment of the World Trade Center bombers ... or seen their terror-cheering pep talks to Muslim teenagers at their summer camp in Florida... we at BBC London obtained the video tape (something the FBI can't seem to do).
Here's where you and I agree, Alex: there really are terrorists out there. But we won't find them or stop them by repealing the first, second and fifth amendments to the Bill of Rights. They will be caught (and would have been caught before September 11) if our President and his minions stop protecting the Saudi Arabian financiers of berserkers.
Thank you for your courage, Alex. Some consider BBC TV the "left wing" and your program the "right wing." The truth is neither left nor right ... and I applaud you for disseminating unpleasant realities.
A lot of my friends and colleagues may be surprised to read this: after all, BBC Television is considered "left wing" by Americans and the Alex Jones considered "right wing." But the truth is neither left nor right, and I applaud Alex Jones for standing alone among major syndicated radio hosts for broadcasting hard realities too unpleasant for the mainstream US media.
Jones is fearless and thoughtful. Do I agree with everything the man says? Heck, no. But then, he probably wouldn't accept all my views either. This isn't about opinions, this is about the dissemination of crucial news otherwise denied the American public by the mainstream media propaganda machinery.
Let me give you three examples from my experience. I've broadcast three stories for BBC Television Newsnight London which have received international attention, but have suffered a virtual blackout on US commercial radio and TV ... except the Alex Jones show. They are
1. The IMF/World Bank documents. In early 2000, BBC TV and the Guardian newspapers of London released sections of a large cache of confidential documents from inside these agencies, the financial arm of the new globalization order. They reveal secretive plans for a virtual financial coup d'etat in several nations, from Argentina to Tanzania. The documents reveal the IMF and World Bank's knowing destruction of economies and cruel hidden demands on these nations.
The information was top of the news in Europe, Latin American and page one in Turkey. Yet in the USA, editors ignored this damning information on the New World Order, in part because US news editors believe the information is far too sophisticated for Americans to understand. Not Jones, he explained the information, gave it a lengthy hearing for his listeners, showing a respect for their intellect not common to US commercial broadcasting.
2. The Bush Administration's hindering FBI and CIA investigations of the bin Ladin family and Saudi Arabian funding of terror prior to September 11, 2001.
US broadcasters were scared to death of airing this report shown on BBC Television's Newsnight on November 6, 2001. Dan Rather of CBS news, who appeared on Newsnight, said that to report stories asking such questions would get him lynched ... he was to fearful to do it. Not Jones. He gave the BBC and Guardian story (which won a California State University journalism award) a full airing. A year later, the US media is beginning to cover the story, timidly, where Jones took it on without hesitation.
3. Theft of the US presidential election. No one could accuse Alex Jones of being a Democratic Party partisan, yet he reported what other mainstream US media delayed reporting for six months: the BBC story that the Bush family and allies had fixed the vote in Florida by illegally removing tens of the thousands of legal Black voters from the state's voter rolls in the months before the November 2000 election. The Washington Post did run the story ... six months after Jones gave the information to his listeners.
You don't have to agree with everything Alex Jones says or reports to say, this guy is a national treasure, a light breaking through the electronic Berlin Wall of the US media establishment.
Greg Palast
London/ New York"
Palast, the author of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (Penguin Plume 2003), reports for BBC Television's Newsnight.
Len says "It’s more than ironic that people who take them seriously decry the unreliability and bias of the MSM." Here we have Greg Palast, just such a MSM reporter, illustrating the bias of the MSM in the most concrete terms, and calling Jones a "national treasure." Perhaps Len will care to liken Palast to Himmler or Goerring or employ some other broadbrush "anti-Semite" smear, and likewise assert that the BBC reporter, too, is a "disreputable liar."
Such coarse tactics cheapen the debate that might otherwise occur, and reflect more poorly upon the author than his intended victims. It is richly ironic that a radio host willing to trace the roots of radical anti-Semitism and Islamic extremism, while his fellows will not, is compared by Len Colby to Hitler.
As always, caveat emptor.
Another common fingerprint in the JFK hit and 9/11 is the old lost luggage trick. One of Mohamed Atta's bags, with a suicide note therein, was conveniently left behind for discovery when he boarded American Flight 11. It was recently related on this forum that a bag belonging to Lee Harvey Oswald was found at the Mexico City airport after the assassination. However, as I recall this report was based entirely on a footnote in Dick Russell's book The Man Who Knew Too Much. Does anyone know which note on which page? I started to look for it, but as anyone knows who is familiar with that hefty tome it's an impossible task without some specific reference in the index. And perhaps Dick Russell, who is a member of the forum, could give us additional info as to his source etc.
QUOTE (Ron Ecker @ Sep 10 2007, 03:40 PM)
Another common fingerprint in the JFK hit and 9/11 is the old lost luggage trick. One of Mohamed Atta's bags, with a suicide note therein, was conveniently left behind for discovery when he boarded American Flight 11. It was recently related on this forum that a bag belonging to Lee Harvey Oswald was found at the Mexico City airport after the assassination. However, as I recall this report was based entirely on a footnote in Dick Russell's book The Man Who Knew Too Much. Does anyone know which note on which page? I started to look for it, but as anyone knows who is familiar with that hefty tome it's an impossible task without some specific reference in the index. And perhaps Dick Russell, who is a member of the forum, could give us additional info as to his source etc.
Ron, I am the guilty party on this one. You can find the relevant portion in the original edition on page 775, footnote # 17, which says: "The source who told the author about the tape recording of Oswald's voice being in [Win] Scott's possession requested anonymity. I can only add that this source was well positioned to know about this and had no reason to fabricate the story. The same source suggested there was something very odd about the CIA's awareness of Oswald's Mexico City trip. "It had to do with some luggage that was found at the airport," which indicates that Oswald may have flown into (or out of) Mexico at some point. The source believed that Oswald may in fact have flown to Havana and back to Mexico City."
It seems to me that if this "luggage" had been lost during some prior trip to or from Havana, it would have been more widely reported by CIA, since much of the cable traffic originating from there was devoted to depicting a relationship between Oswald and Castro and/or KGB. Such a discovery of LHO luggage would have sealed the deal, though it would raise obvious questions about how and when LHO made such a trip, given his demonstrable presence elsewhere throughout the time period. A more plausible possibility, to me at least, is that the luggage was designed to implicate Oswald in a trip to Havana immediately post-assassination, which is why all news of it seems to have been scuttled. How does his luggage get to Mexico City when Oswald is in police custody? Clearly, Russell's source prefers to think Oswald had previously been to Havana rather than entertain the notion this bit of evidence had been planted, presumably to be discovered after the assassination, leading to the inference that the assassin had sought refuge in Havana after committing the dastardly deed.
I tried repeatedly to get further information from Dick Russell on this tiny but salient detail, to no avail.
Speaking of Russell: Can anyone expand on the story that he was about to publish an explosive (don't forget to duck, John) history of CIA mind control operations, only to pull back at the eleventh hour because he couldn't nail down an all-important confirmation of the work's central thesis?
Charles
Charles
QUOTE (Peter Lemkin @ Sep 10 2007, 04:14 PM)
As in Dick Russell knew no more, or declined to tell any more?
At the time [2001?], Dick replied that it would require much time to explain details he'd largely shelved/forgotten, and his time was then occupied with writing or promoting [can't recall which] a new book, Eye Of The Whale. I didn't press him very hard, for two reasons. First, given that his source had insisted on anonymity, I knew it was cheeky of me to even ask for more details [though I'd have gladly settled for any info falling short of naming a name.] Second, I learned long ago that unwavering persistence in such matters makes one seem more an obsessive pest than a diligent researcher.
Russell is a first class investigator, as his mid-70s output in the Village Voice had already illustrated to me well prior to his writing "TMWKTM." Perhaps once his source on this luggage matter has died, Russell will no longer feel compelled to honour the source's request for anonymity. In the meantime, he has devoted much time and energy to environmental matters. Remarkably, though it often appears hopeless, saving the world from environmental disaster may prove far less quixotic than solving the Kennedy assassination mysteries. Godspeed to Dick, whatever his current endeavours.
QUOTE (Robert Charles-Dunne @ Sep 9 2007, 12:33 AM)
QUOTE (Peter Lemkin @ Sep 8 2007, 08:41 PM)
Robert, I miss your point, but highly regard your opinion, so can you expand on what you think.
Sure, Peter, but there's not much to add. Thomas Graves asked about the oddity of OBL, in his most recent release, blaming Donald Rumsfeld for the deaths of two million Vietnamese. I merely pointed out that prior to being your nation's oldest defense secretary, Rumsfeld was also its youngest defense secretary when he was tapped for the job by Gerald Ford in '75. As such, he was responsible for prosecuting the tail end of the Viet Nam conflict, but surely couldn't be blamed for the entirety of the carnage there, which one could rightly infer from OBL's wording [or perhaps a glitch in translation?]
I am greatly heartened by Charles Drago's reference to OBL as a 'dramatic character,' for I think this accurately reflects his role in contemporary events.
A few points I'd like to raise in this regard, corollaries to the JFK assassination that seem to have somehow escaped a few of our esteemed fellow Forum members.
First, on Nine-One-One Bush publicly identified OBL as the sole culprit, just as Oswald had been immediately identified as the sole assassin. In neither case had there been sufficient time to investigate and reach a tenable conclusion, but that was somehow deemed unnecessary by the accusing parties in both events. We know how [in]accurate the first charge was; I urge those with an open mind to consider that the second charge might have been equally misleading.
Second, just as Oswald proclaimed his innocence, and thereby missed a singular opportunity to propagandize for whatever cause might have compelled him, so too did OBL initially renounce - and disclaim responsibility for - the events of that dreadful day, and thereby forego a chance to proclaim what had led to the act. While prisons are full of those who falsely proclaim their innocence, it is also true that some innocent parties have not only been incarcerated but executed. It is worth recalling that the founding principles of the USA include the presumption of innocence, a formality never extended to either LHO or OBL.
Third, despite the mountain of so-called evidence levelled against Oswald, the closer one scrutinized any individual piece of that evidence, the more readily apparent it became that it didn't, nay couldn't, withstand examination without collapsing. Meanwhile, anything that might reasonably be viewed as exculpatory toward Oswald was either scuttled and ignored, or twisted to conform to a predesigned brief against him. Witnesses were intimidated, interviews were misreported, evidence was suppressed or baldly fabricated, and connections between Oswald and various branches of the US government were either falsely denied or deep-sixed. Can anyone who has pored over the Nine-One-One chronology presented by the US government claim it is any more accurate?
Fourth, despite desperate attempts to preclude any official investigation, the Bush administration was finally shamed into empanelling just such a probe. In announcing its formation, George Bush actually referred to it as a modern-day "Warren Commission," which those who have studied the Warren Report should bear in mind when studying the shoddy output of Kean, Hamilton, et al. It may have been an unintentional truth, but Bush accurately predicted the veracity of the Nine-One-One report when he made the comparison.
Fifth, an interesting parallel exists regarding the official version of both events. In the case of Oswald, he stood accused of having fired a rather shoddy weapon with a lethal accuracy unrivalled by those world-class marksmen who were press-ganged into attempts to replicate the feat. Rather than accept that no single shooter could achieve what was attributed to Oswald, the naysayers merely repeated the mantra that he must have done so, for that was the initial allegation, contrary facts be damned. Similarly, when skeptics on the Nine-One-One issue point out that OBL couldn't have predicted, nor arranged for, the inexplicable stand-down of US airpower on that dreadful day - that the event couldn't have occurred without some type of connivance by or contribution from someone within the US government itself - the modern-day nay-sayers repeat the mantra that a conspiracy within any quarters of the US government couldn't have gone unnoticed, and was hence impossible to credit, but nevertheless bray accusations toward a man half a world away whom, as they point out gleefully, lives in a cave. It is remarkable that those who denounce charges of US governmental collusion as an impossibly complex "conspiracy theory" nevertheless attribute that same impossibly complex feat to a single man in a cave that cannot be located. Does not the Bible caution against "Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel?"
Finally, it should not go unnoticed that in Bush's immediate identification of OBL as the mastermind of Nine-One-One, he didn't bother to include any basis for believing his charges to be true; he thought it sufficient to merely make the claim. While the US populace may be forgiven for having foolishly placed that degree of faith in their so-called [but appointed, not elected] leader's integrity and judgement then, with the benefit of hindsight, can any rational person still take this man's claims at face value? Having been so consistently wrong, about virtually everything ever claimed, is acceptance of his claims re: OBL anything more than an article of faith? Would those prepared to place their own fellow countrymen and women in harm's way not rest easier knowing, rather than merely supposing along with Bush, who was responsible?
Only this morning I encountered a man from Florida who has spent most of his adult life in the US military. We chatted amiably about a number of things Floridian [Kitty Harris, Charlie Crist, Jeb Bush - whom he extolled as a great governor, by the way], but when it came to George Bush, he said that all he knew was that nobody had launched an attack on US soil in the past five years, all credit for this, apparently, going to the USA's Dear Leader. When I asked if he didn't think it odd that somebody fiendishly clever enough to mount so complex a plot five years ago was somehow now too impotent to even explode a couple of car bombs in Daytona or New Jersey, just to remind us all of his continued existence and relevance, he said that he'd never really thought about it. Therein lies the rub; too few people are prepared to think for themselves and undertake the homework necessary to reach a personal conclusion, rather than one that has been prefabricated and premasticated for their consumption. [My new acquaintance from Florida was a splendid chap, by the way, and despite being a diehard Republican was quite willing to entertain any number of possibilities as at least theoretically possible, unlike certain hidebound Forum members with a far narrower view of the world and how it is made to work, by whom, and for what ends.]
I realize that all of the foregoing is far more than you asked for, Peter, and that I will likely be pilloried by some other Forum members for having the audacity to make some of the statements above. However, as the topic of the thread includes both JFK and OBL's observations on JFK's demise, I thought it might be the right time to remind some Forum members that they are ill-served by a credulous willingness to accept and parrot only what they've been told, rather than what they've discovered for themselves through diligent research. The same nation that was successfully lied to once on an issue of paramount importance can never rest easy in the belief that it could never happen again, a point that often seems lost on some here.
RCD,
It has been my contention, to many of my friends and others with whom I've discussed the events of 911 and related issues, that had I been in charge of follow-up terroist acts in the USA I could have succeeded in achieving OBL purportedly stated goals. If indeed he had wanted to secure an ongoing state of terror in the USA and do serious economic and pyschological damage it would have only taken a few easily implemented tactics. 1) kidnap and publicly execute via video several cultural icons i.e. entertainers, sports figures, politicians. If one considers the shock value of the public executions of total strangers we witnessed, then imagine the effect of the brurtal slaying of say Michael Jordan, katie Couric, Oprah or others would have on the public. And yes, I know they have bodyguards, but a well planned attack on an individual cannot be thwarted. 2) A systematic series of attacks across the USA on soft targets. Many people believe that the token security at sporting events has deterred any attacks at those venues. I belive that determined plotters could pull off a series of succeesful attacks at any number of professional or collegiate events. The morale of the American public would plummet if we felt like we lost our freedeom to attend sporting events. Likewise as you mentioned a slew of automatic weapon slaughters or suicide bomber attacks at shopping malls across the country would bring the economy to a near standstill in weeks, if not days. The attacks at high schools and fast food outlets through the years demonstrate the ease with which these types of attacks could be orchestrated. One only has to recall the stae of panic in the days of the DC slayings by a couple of snipers to understand the impact. People may boast that they wouldn't allow the terroists to win and that they would continue to go to sporting events and malls, but the hysteria following the sniper attacks and anthrax scares gives lie to that scenario.
The above mentioned plots could easliy be caried out by a few dozen highly motivated individuals. Does anyone believe there aren't that many people available to OBL? How many days would it take in illegal border crossiings for enough terrorists to infiltrate the country to carry out similar plans? Either OBL is a complete incompetent at terror tactics or....well fill in your own thoughts.
Herb
QUOTE (Robert Charles-Dunne @ Sep 9 2007, 12:33 AM)
QUOTE (Peter Lemkin @ Sep 8 2007, 08:41 PM)
Robert, I miss your point, but highly regard your opinion, so can you expand on what you think.
Sure, Peter, but there's not much to add. Thomas Graves asked about the oddity of OBL, in his most recent release, blaming Donald Rumsfeld for the deaths of two million Vietnamese. I merely pointed out that prior to being your nation's oldest defense secretary, Rumsfeld was also its youngest defense secretary when he was tapped for the job by Gerald Ford in '75. As such, he was responsible for prosecuting the tail end of the Viet Nam conflict, but surely couldn't be blamed for the entirety of the carnage there, which one could rightly infer from OBL's wording [or perhaps a glitch in translation?]
I am greatly heartened by Charles Drago's reference to OBL as a 'dramatic character,' for I think this accurately reflects his role in contemporary events.
A few points I'd like to raise in this regard, corollaries to the JFK assassination that seem to have somehow escaped a few of our esteemed fellow Forum members.
First, on Nine-One-One Bush publicly identified OBL as the sole culprit, just as Oswald had been immediately identified as the sole assassin. In neither case had there been sufficient time to investigate and reach a tenable conclusion, but that was somehow deemed unnecessary by the accusing parties in both events. We know how [in]accurate the first charge was; I urge those with an open mind to consider that the second charge might have been equally misleading.
Second, just as Oswald proclaimed his innocence, and thereby missed a singular opportunity to propagandize for whatever cause might have compelled him, so too did OBL initially renounce - and disclaim responsibility for - the events of that dreadful day, and thereby forego a chance to proclaim what had led to the act. While prisons are full of those who falsely proclaim their innocence, it is also true that some innocent parties have not only been incarcerated but executed. It is worth recalling that the founding principles of the USA include the presumption of innocence, a formality never extended to either LHO or OBL.
Third, despite the mountain of so-called evidence levelled against Oswald, the closer one scrutinized any individual piece of that evidence, the more readily apparent it became that it didn't, nay couldn't, withstand examination without collapsing. Meanwhile, anything that might reasonably be viewed as exculpatory toward Oswald was either scuttled and ignored, or twisted to conform to a predesigned brief against him. Witnesses were intimidated, interviews were misreported, evidence was suppressed or baldly fabricated, and connections between Oswald and various branches of the US government were either falsely denied or deep-sixed. Can anyone who has pored over the Nine-One-One chronology presented by the US government claim it is any more accurate?
Fourth, despite desperate attempts to preclude any official investigation, the Bush administration was finally shamed into empanelling just such a probe. In announcing its formation, George Bush actually referred to it as a modern-day "Warren Commission," which those who have studied the Warren Report should bear in mind when studying the shoddy output of Kean, Hamilton, et al. It may have been an unintentional truth, but Bush accurately predicted the veracity of the Nine-One-One report when he made the comparison.
Fifth, an interesting parallel exists regarding the official version of both events. In the case of Oswald, he stood accused of having fired a rather shoddy weapon with a lethal accuracy unrivalled by those world-class marksmen who were press-ganged into attempts to replicate the feat. Rather than accept that no single shooter could achieve what was attributed to Oswald, the naysayers merely repeated the mantra that he must have done so, for that was the initial allegation, contrary facts be damned. Similarly, when skeptics on the Nine-One-One issue point out that OBL couldn't have predicted, nor arranged for, the inexplicable stand-down of US airpower on that dreadful day - that the event couldn't have occurred without some type of connivance by or contribution from someone within the US government itself - the modern-day nay-sayers repeat the mantra that a conspiracy within any quarters of the US government couldn't have gone unnoticed, and was hence impossible to credit, but nevertheless bray accusations toward a man half a world away whom, as they point out gleefully, lives in a cave. It is remarkable that those who denounce charges of US governmental collusion as an impossibly complex "conspiracy theory" nevertheless attribute that same impossibly complex feat to a single man in a cave that cannot be located. Does not the Bible caution against "Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel?"
Finally, it should not go unnoticed that in Bush's immediate identification of OBL as the mastermind of Nine-One-One, he didn't bother to include any basis for believing his charges to be true; he thought it sufficient to merely make the claim. While the US populace may be forgiven for having foolishly placed that degree of faith in their so-called [but appointed, not elected] leader's integrity and judgement then, with the benefit of hindsight, can any rational person still take this man's claims at face value? Having been so consistently wrong, about virtually everything ever claimed, is acceptance of his claims re: OBL anything more than an article of faith? Would those prepared to place their own fellow countrymen and women in harm's way not rest easier knowing, rather than merely supposing along with Bush, who was responsible?
Only this morning I encountered a man from Florida who has spent most of his adult life in the US military. We chatted amiably about a number of things Floridian [Kitty Harris, Charlie Crist, Jeb Bush - whom he extolled as a great governor, by the way], but when it came to George Bush, he said that all he knew was that nobody had launched an attack on US soil in the past five years, all credit for this, apparently, going to the USA's Dear Leader. When I asked if he didn't think it odd that somebody fiendishly clever enough to mount so complex a plot five years ago was somehow now too impotent to even explode a couple of car bombs in Daytona or New Jersey, just to remind us all of his continued existence and relevance, he said that he'd never really thought about it. Therein lies the rub; too few people are prepared to think for themselves and undertake the homework necessary to reach a personal conclusion, rather than one that has been prefabricated and premasticated for their consumption. [My new acquaintance from Florida was a splendid chap, by the way, and despite being a diehard Republican was quite willing to entertain any number of possibilities as at least theoretically possible, unlike certain hidebound Forum members with a far narrower view of the world and how it is made to work, by whom, and for what ends.]
I realize that all of the foregoing is far more than you asked for, Peter, and that I will likely be pilloried by some other Forum members for having the audacity to make some of the statements above. However, as the topic of the thread includes both JFK and OBL's observations on JFK's demise, I thought it might be the right time to remind some Forum members that they are ill-served by a credulous willingness to accept and parrot only what they've been told, rather than what they've discovered for themselves through diligent research. The same nation that was successfully lied to once on an issue of paramount importance can never rest easy in the belief that it could never happen again, a point that often seems lost on some here.
RCD,
It has been my contention, to many of my friends and others with whom I've discussed the events of 911 and related issues, that had I been in charge of follow-up terrorist acts in the USA I could have succeeded in achieving OBL's purportedly stated goals. If indeed he had wanted to secure an ongoing state of terror in the USA and do serious economic and pyschological damage it would have only taken a few easily implemented tactics. 1) kidnap and publicly execute via video several cultural icons i.e. entertainers, sports figures, politicians. If one considers the shock value of the public executions of total strangers we witnessed, then imagine the effect of the brurtal slaying of say Michael Jordan, katie Couric, Oprah or others would have on the public. And yes, I know they have bodyguards, but a well planned attack on an individual cannot be thwarted. 2) A systematic series of attacks across the USA on soft targets. Many people believe that the token security at sporting events has deterred any attacks at those venues. I belive that determined plotters could pull off a series of succeesful attacks at any number of professional or collegiate events. The morale of the American public would plummet if we felt like we lost our freedeom to attend sporting events. Likewise, as you mentioned, a slew of automatic weapon slaughters or suicide bomber attacks at shopping malls across the country would bring the economy to a near standstill in weeks, if not days. The attacks at high schools and fast food outlets through the years demonstrate the ease with which these types of attacks could be orchestrated. One only has to recall the state of panic in the days of the DC slayings brought on by a couple of snipers to understand the impact. People may boast that they wouldn't allow the terrorists to win and that they would continue to go to sporting events and malls, but the hysteria following the sniper attacks and anthrax scares gives lie to that scenario.
The above mentioned plots could easliy be caried out by a few dozen highly motivated individuals. Does anyone believe there aren't that many people available to OBL? How many days would it take in illegal border crossiings for enough terrorists to infiltrate the country to carry out similar plans? Either OBL is a complete incompetent at terror tactics or....well fill in your own thoughts.
Herb
Herb, you can't see the forest for the trees. This isn't a war of "let's see how many innocent people we can kill" or "let's see how much terror we can spread" it's a war to get the US out of the mid-east. Bin Laden is not stupid. He knows damn well that increasingly vicious attacks on US soil, against "innocent" entertainers respected world-wide, would DRASTICALLY increase support for US policies throughout the non-Arab world, and probably even backfire in the Arab world.
It's a big messy situation, with psyops on both sides. It''s ridiculous, IMO, to think Bush is running the show. Bush's inability to catch Bin Laden, and his failed "war" against terrorism, has DAMAGED not only his own legacy, but his father's legacy. It has bankrupted the American economy, and cost the American people the good will of the international community. Even worse, for Bush personally, it has cost his base, the Republican party, control of congress, and most probably the White House. It has also cost him his friends. One after another Bush's cronies have resigned in disgust and disgrace. Powell, Ashcroft, Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Armitage, Tenet, Card, Miers, Rove and now Gonzalez. Pretty much all that's left is Dick and Condi. Those still holding onto the pipedream that Bush, a man who recently called Australians "Austrians," is some sort of Sith Lord have got another think coming, IMO. History WILL show that Bush is a bonehead, and as bad as if not worse than our worst Presidents: Buchanan, Johnson, Grant, Harding, Hoover... The only thing that could change that is Bin Laden's attacking the US again, and giving Bush carte blanche to bomb the heck out of another Arab country.
Thinking Bush is running Bin Laden, or has invented Bin Laden, is like thinking Bill Clinton was behind Ken Starr's investigation into his cigar manipulations. Bizarre.
It's a big messy situation, with psyops on both sides. It''s ridiculous, IMO, to think Bush is running the show. Bush's inability to catch Bin Laden, and his failed "war" against terrorism, has DAMAGED not only his own legacy, but his father's legacy. It has bankrupted the American economy, and cost the American people the good will of the international community. Even worse, for Bush personally, it has cost his base, the Republican party, control of congress, and most probably the White House. It has also cost him his friends. One after another Bush's cronies have resigned in disgust and disgrace. Powell, Ashcroft, Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Armitage, Tenet, Card, Miers, Rove and now Gonzalez. Pretty much all that's left is Dick and Condi. Those still holding onto the pipedream that Bush, a man who recently called Australians "Austrians," is some sort of Sith Lord have got another think coming, IMO. History WILL show that Bush is a bonehead, and as bad as if not worse than our worst Presidents: Buchanan, Johnson, Grant, Harding, Hoover... The only thing that could change that is Bin Laden's attacking the US again, and giving Bush carte blanche to bomb the heck out of another Arab country.
Thinking Bush is running Bin Laden, or has invented Bin Laden, is like thinking Bill Clinton was behind Ken Starr's investigation into his cigar manipulations. Bizarre.
Thinking that Bush is anything other than a B-movie hack butchering his lines is like thinking that Lambchop had her paw up Shari Lewis's tush.
(Apologies to U.K. readers whose childhoods were not haunted by one of America's least clever puppeteers.)
It's like Bugliosi's circular anti-conspiracy argument: Do you really believe that the CIA or the Mafia would have hired a nut like Oswald to kill Kennedy?
Charles
(Apologies to U.K. readers whose childhoods were not haunted by one of America's least clever puppeteers.)
It's like Bugliosi's circular anti-conspiracy argument: Do you really believe that the CIA or the Mafia would have hired a nut like Oswald to kill Kennedy?
Charles
Pat says...
Thinking Bush is running Bin Laden, or has invented Bin Laden, is like thinking Bill Clinton was behind Ken Starr's investigation into his cigar manipulations. Bizarre.
Pat is out of touch.
Jack
Thinking Bush is running Bin Laden, or has invented Bin Laden, is like thinking Bill Clinton was behind Ken Starr's investigation into his cigar manipulations. Bizarre.
Pat is out of touch.
Jack
QUOTE (Robert Charles-Dunne @ Sep 10 2007, 11:24 AM)
Between the "Nazi" epithets and "direputable liars" assertions, it seems Len finds it insufficient to rebut what offends him and must resort to less gentlemanly methods of discourse. That is his right, but it hardly elevates the debate above the very muck and mire he so decries.
[…]
Such coarse tactics cheapen the debate that might otherwise occur, and reflect more poorly upon the author than his intended victims.
[…]
Such coarse tactics cheapen the debate that might otherwise occur, and reflect more poorly upon the author than his intended victims.
Perhaps you can cite examples of when I “decried” ‘ungentlemanly’ language directed at public figures who aren’t members of this forum. Last time I checked Jones and Watson were NOT members here thus they are just as much fair game as: Bush, to whom similar epitaphs are directed at on a regular basis (including by me); or the Clintons who Ron refers to as a ‘criminal family’ (or words to that effect); or Cokie Roberts, Norman Mailer, Gus Russo and Joan Mellen who’ve all been called “whore” here etc but I don’t remember you objecting on those occasions. Nor do I remember you objecting when Jack accused several members of the forum of being “accessories after the fact” to the JFK assassination or when Peter without provocation insinuated that members of this forum were Nazi’s etc. Nothing from you about how those “coarse tactics cheapen(ed) the debate”. But you are right I should have been more diplomatic in my description of Jones and Watson.
QUOTE
Len says "It’s more than ironic that people who take them seriously decry the unreliability and bias of the MSM." Here we have Greg Palast, just such a MSM reporter, illustrating the bias of the MSM in the most concrete terms, and calling Jones a "national treasure." Perhaps Len will care to liken Palast to Himmler or Goerring or employ some other broadbrush "anti-Semite" smear, and likewise assert that the BBC reporter, too, is a "disreputable liar."
I find it highly unlikely that Palast is anti-Semitic since he’s Jewish. I highly respect him and think it’s unfortunate that his reporting doesn’t get wider distribution in the US. I don’t agree with everything he says though. I disagree with his opposition to gun control and disagree with his assessment of Jones. I imagine that Jones picking up on stories of his that other outlets didn’t would make him a bit partial. Jones and his sidekicks aren’t ‘courageous’ they will pick up on anything that fits his (their) worldview, sometimes they portray it accurately but all too frequently they distort it or lie as they did with the article about Gadahn. Palast recently said that “inside job” theories are nonsense I wonder if his assessment of Jones has changed.
http://www.911blogger.com/node/9029
QUOTE
It is richly ironic that a radio host willing to trace the roots of radical anti-Semitism and Islamic extremism, while his fellows will not, is compared by Len Colby to Hitler.
Just when did Jones “trace the roots of radical anti-Semitism”? Speaking of anti-Semitism take a look at that article about Gadahn, the thrust of which was ‘the guy’s Jewish he must he a Mossad agent’. I’ve yet to hear your reaction to the distorted version of the truth which emanated from Jones’ site.
QUOTE (Len Colby @ Sep 10 2007, 10:19 PM)
or the Clintons who Ron refers to as a ‘criminal family’ (or words to that effect)
The term is "crime family" (see, for example, the Corleones and the Bushes). And, to borrow a phrase from the late Tosh Plumlee, I mean it in the nicest possible way.
QUOTE (Jack White @ Sep 10 2007, 09:04 PM)
Pat says...
Thinking Bush is running Bin Laden, or has invented Bin Laden, is like thinking Bill Clinton was behind Ken Starr's investigation into his cigar manipulations. Bizarre.
Pat is out of touch.
Jack
Thinking Bush is running Bin Laden, or has invented Bin Laden, is like thinking Bill Clinton was behind Ken Starr's investigation into his cigar manipulations. Bizarre.
Pat is out of touch.
Jack
I'm perfectly willing to believe that Bush and Cheney have cynically exploited Bin Laden's existence to expand Presidential power and reward their friends. But Bin Laden is undoubtedly a thorn in their side. Bush's failure to catch him has been a major embarrassment to his administration, and has hurt his party.
Now, if Bush were to somehow "catch" Bin Laden just in time for the next election... I have to admit my suspicions would skyrocket.
Administrations and political parties are expendable props, managed so as to project the illusion of choice.
QUOTE (Pat Speer @ Sep 10 2007, 07:32 PM)
I'm perfectly willing to believe that Bush and Cheney have cynically exploited Bin Laden's existence to expand Presidential power and reward their friends. But Bin Laden is undoubtedly a thorn in their side. Bush's failure to catch him has been a major embarrassment to his administration, and has hurt his party.
Not at all. In March of 2002 Bush said he didn't even think that much about
bin Laden, and the gop won big in 2002.
The Bush family and the bin Laden family are long-time business partners.
Black markets thrive in chaos.
Mission accomplished.
duped post...on a thread showing people duped!
QUOTE (Len Colby @ Sep 10 2007, 11:19 PM)
Perhaps you can cite examples of when I “decried” ‘ungentlemanly’ language directed at public figures who aren’t members of this forum.
You're missing the point, or avoiding it. We all engage in degrees of literary hyperbole for dramatic effect. Invocations of Hitler, however, carry a special resonance, a fact that is not lost on you, I'm sure. When you disparage the messenger in such a fashion, rather than rebut whatever silliness you think they have concocted in their message, you dilute your own intent. That is the point I tried to make, irrespective of whether that messenger is or isn't a member of this Forum.
Last time I checked Jones and Watson were NOT members here thus they are just as much fair game as: Bush, to whom similar epitaphs are directed at on a regular basis (including by me); or the Clintons who Ron refers to as a ‘criminal family’ (or words to that effect); or Cokie Roberts, Norman Mailer, Gus Russo and Joan Mellen who’ve all been called “whore” here etc but I don’t remember you objecting on those occasions. Nor do I remember you objecting when Jack accused several members of the forum of being “accessories after the fact” to the JFK assassination or when Peter without provocation insinuated that members of this forum were Nazi’s etc. Nothing from you about how those “coarse tactics cheapen(ed) the debate”.
I don't read all the posts here [would that I had that amount of free time.] I also deliberately avoid threads where I suspect the vitriol will be more caustic than enlightening, which is my right. Life is short; I don't intend to spend mine reading juvenile taunts and name-calling. Also, I am not a Forum moderator and am under no obligation to slap the wrists of all those who offend the rules.
But you are right I should have been more diplomatic in my description of Jones and Watson.
Thank you. It is a gracious admission on your part.
I find it highly unlikely that Palast is anti-Semitic since he’s Jewish.
The one doesn't negate the possibility of the other, as the recent arrests of neo-Nazis Israeli citizens seems to bear out.
I highly respect him and think it’s unfortunate that his reporting doesn’t get wider distribution in the US. I don’t agree with everything he says though. I disagree with his opposition to gun control and disagree with his assessment of Jones.
I've yet to meet a person with whom I agree on all things. Despite your differences with Palast on a few issues, you discern in him a genuine effort to spread vital information to those who most need it. I'm sure he is pleased with anyone who helps him do that, Jones included, despite Palast's own reservations about some of Jones' material. [Just for full disclosure, I have had limited exposure to Jones' output. Whatever the merits of his content may or may not be, I've been largely unimpressed, primarily due to a hyperbolic zeal that, to me at least, lessens the intended effect.]
I imagine that Jones picking up on stories of his that other outlets didn’t would make him a bit partial. Jones and his sidekicks aren’t ‘courageous’ they will pick up on anything that fits his (their) worldview, sometimes they portray it accurately but all too frequently they distort it or lie as they did with the article about Gadahn.
And you are free to call them on anything specious, as you've done here. References to Jones' sidekick as "Goebbels" weren't really necessary to make the point, as you've now graciously acknowledged.
Palast recently said that “inside job” theories are nonsense I wonder if his assessment of Jones has changed.
Email him. I'd be equally interested in his opinion.
http://www.911blogger.com/node/9029
Just when did Jones “trace the roots of radical anti-Semitism”?
If you refer back to my prior post, it's in the first few paragraphs of Palast's article/endorsement.
Speaking of anti-Semitism take a look at that article about Gadahn, the thrust of which was ‘the guy’s Jewish he must he a Mossad agent’.
Too often, the Jonathan Pollards of this world make such a presumption all too easy to sell to the credulous. AIPAC and similar agencies of semi-covert influence over the governments of other nations likewise bolster such presumptions. Mossad operatives have at least twice been caught using multiple false Canadian identities, including passports. While we in Canada rather frown upon such things, for it now makes Canadians instantly suspect as possible Mossad agents to unfriendly nations while travelling in the Middle East, such ill-considered tradecraft also creates the suspicion that just about anyone might be a Mossad apparatchik. While such a ruse might be effective [who would feign being a Canadian, of all things - other than Yanks in Europe with Maple Leaf flags on their backbacks, I mean?], it becomes a liability in the longer term, inciting the very paranoia you describe - ‘the guy’s Jewish he must he a Mossad agent,’ even if he is Canadian.
I’ve yet to hear your reaction to the distorted version of the truth which emanated from Jones’ site.
As noted above, I don't seek out Jones, but encounter his output fairly often in my cyber-travels. However, when time permits, I'll happily examine whatever distortions may be on offer at the links you have provided.
You're missing the point, or avoiding it. We all engage in degrees of literary hyperbole for dramatic effect. Invocations of Hitler, however, carry a special resonance, a fact that is not lost on you, I'm sure. When you disparage the messenger in such a fashion, rather than rebut whatever silliness you think they have concocted in their message, you dilute your own intent. That is the point I tried to make, irrespective of whether that messenger is or isn't a member of this Forum.
Last time I checked Jones and Watson were NOT members here thus they are just as much fair game as: Bush, to whom similar epitaphs are directed at on a regular basis (including by me); or the Clintons who Ron refers to as a ‘criminal family’ (or words to that effect); or Cokie Roberts, Norman Mailer, Gus Russo and Joan Mellen who’ve all been called “whore” here etc but I don’t remember you objecting on those occasions. Nor do I remember you objecting when Jack accused several members of the forum of being “accessories after the fact” to the JFK assassination or when Peter without provocation insinuated that members of this forum were Nazi’s etc. Nothing from you about how those “coarse tactics cheapen(ed) the debate”.
I don't read all the posts here [would that I had that amount of free time.] I also deliberately avoid threads where I suspect the vitriol will be more caustic than enlightening, which is my right. Life is short; I don't intend to spend mine reading juvenile taunts and name-calling. Also, I am not a Forum moderator and am under no obligation to slap the wrists of all those who offend the rules.
But you are right I should have been more diplomatic in my description of Jones and Watson.
Thank you. It is a gracious admission on your part.
I find it highly unlikely that Palast is anti-Semitic since he’s Jewish.
The one doesn't negate the possibility of the other, as the recent arrests of neo-Nazis Israeli citizens seems to bear out.
I highly respect him and think it’s unfortunate that his reporting doesn’t get wider distribution in the US. I don’t agree with everything he says though. I disagree with his opposition to gun control and disagree with his assessment of Jones.
I've yet to meet a person with whom I agree on all things. Despite your differences with Palast on a few issues, you discern in him a genuine effort to spread vital information to those who most need it. I'm sure he is pleased with anyone who helps him do that, Jones included, despite Palast's own reservations about some of Jones' material. [Just for full disclosure, I have had limited exposure to Jones' output. Whatever the merits of his content may or may not be, I've been largely unimpressed, primarily due to a hyperbolic zeal that, to me at least, lessens the intended effect.]
I imagine that Jones picking up on stories of his that other outlets didn’t would make him a bit partial. Jones and his sidekicks aren’t ‘courageous’ they will pick up on anything that fits his (their) worldview, sometimes they portray it accurately but all too frequently they distort it or lie as they did with the article about Gadahn.
And you are free to call them on anything specious, as you've done here. References to Jones' sidekick as "Goebbels" weren't really necessary to make the point, as you've now graciously acknowledged.
Palast recently said that “inside job” theories are nonsense I wonder if his assessment of Jones has changed.
Email him. I'd be equally interested in his opinion.
http://www.911blogger.com/node/9029
QUOTE
It is richly ironic that a radio host willing to trace the roots of radical anti-Semitism and Islamic extremism, while his fellows will not, is compared by Len Colby to Hitler.
Just when did Jones “trace the roots of radical anti-Semitism”?
If you refer back to my prior post, it's in the first few paragraphs of Palast's article/endorsement.
Speaking of anti-Semitism take a look at that article about Gadahn, the thrust of which was ‘the guy’s Jewish he must he a Mossad agent’.
Too often, the Jonathan Pollards of this world make such a presumption all too easy to sell to the credulous. AIPAC and similar agencies of semi-covert influence over the governments of other nations likewise bolster such presumptions. Mossad operatives have at least twice been caught using multiple false Canadian identities, including passports. While we in Canada rather frown upon such things, for it now makes Canadians instantly suspect as possible Mossad agents to unfriendly nations while travelling in the Middle East, such ill-considered tradecraft also creates the suspicion that just about anyone might be a Mossad apparatchik. While such a ruse might be effective [who would feign being a Canadian, of all things - other than Yanks in Europe with Maple Leaf flags on their backbacks, I mean?], it becomes a liability in the longer term, inciting the very paranoia you describe - ‘the guy’s Jewish he must he a Mossad agent,’ even if he is Canadian.
I’ve yet to hear your reaction to the distorted version of the truth which emanated from Jones’ site.
As noted above, I don't seek out Jones, but encounter his output fairly often in my cyber-travels. However, when time permits, I'll happily examine whatever distortions may be on offer at the links you have provided.
I know of several cases of "anti-semitic" Jews. Some people put ethics above race.
Jack
Jack
QUOTE (Charles Drago @ Sep 11 2007, 02:40 AM)
Administrations and political parties are expendable props, managed so as to project the illusion of choice.
Exactly. And so are so-called "terrorists". And any target country of choice. Or expendable skyscrapers
that are heavily insured.
Jack
Pat wrote:
Thinking Bush is running Bin Laden, or has invented Bin Laden, is like thinking Bill Clinton was behind Ken Starr's investigation into his cigar manipulations. Bizarre.
Jack wrote:
Pat is out of touch.
One can only assume then that Jack believes that the POTUS subscribes to the Oliver Stone view of the JFK assassination as now endorsed by Mr. Bin Laden.
Thinking Bush is running Bin Laden, or has invented Bin Laden, is like thinking Bill Clinton was behind Ken Starr's investigation into his cigar manipulations. Bizarre.
Jack wrote:
Pat is out of touch.
One can only assume then that Jack believes that the POTUS subscribes to the Oliver Stone view of the JFK assassination as now endorsed by Mr. Bin Laden.
QUOTE (Tim Gratz @ Sep 11 2007, 04:49 AM)
Pat wrote:
Thinking Bush is running Bin Laden, or has invented Bin Laden, is like thinking Bill Clinton was behind Ken Starr's investigation into his cigar manipulations. Bizarre.
Jack wrote:
Pat is out of touch.
One can only assume then that Jack believes that the POTUS subscribes to the Oliver Stone view of the JFK assassination as now endorsed by Mr. Bin Laden.
Thinking Bush is running Bin Laden, or has invented Bin Laden, is like thinking Bill Clinton was behind Ken Starr's investigation into his cigar manipulations. Bizarre.
Jack wrote:
Pat is out of touch.
One can only assume then that Jack believes that the POTUS subscribes to the Oliver Stone view of the JFK assassination as now endorsed by Mr. Bin Laden.
What a bizarre comment. Makes no sense at all.
I believe OBL is a fictional character at this point whose words are scripted by the PCG.
Jack
Well Jack does the PCG then now believe that it killed JFK because he was going to pull out of Vietnam? If it does it seems bizarre that it will have the mythical Bin Laden accuse it of the assassination. THAT is what I think is bizarre.
Do you follow?
Do you follow?
Jack, do you have a list of the current members of the PCG?
I assume the members some time have policy differences. Do they decide such disputes by a democratic vote of the group?
How does one become a member of the PCG? Are there ex officio members?
Has any member of the PCG ever "talked"?
I assume the members some time have policy differences. Do they decide such disputes by a democratic vote of the group?
How does one become a member of the PCG? Are there ex officio members?
Has any member of the PCG ever "talked"?
For the record, what's the consensus on ABL?
Is the video a fake or he is still alive?
Is the video a fake or he is still alive?
Peter wrote:
I still find it hard to believe Bush's PR firms would write some of that text....but anything is possible.
The whole Forum could be retitled the "Anything is Possible" Forum.
Did Greer shot JFK in front of Jackie and for some reason she never said anything about it?
Was the moon landing "faked"?
Did a Bush PR firm write Bin Laden's speech?
Well, all of these propositions might be pretty hard for most to swallow, but what the heck, anything is possible. Why waste time thinking and writing only about ideas that make sense?
I still find it hard to believe Bush's PR firms would write some of that text....but anything is possible.
The whole Forum could be retitled the "Anything is Possible" Forum.
Did Greer shot JFK in front of Jackie and for some reason she never said anything about it?
Was the moon landing "faked"?
Did a Bush PR firm write Bin Laden's speech?
Well, all of these propositions might be pretty hard for most to swallow, but what the heck, anything is possible. Why waste time thinking and writing only about ideas that make sense?
QUOTE (Peter Lemkin @ Sep 11 2007, 11:05 AM)
I finally saw the entire text and talk...its long...and covers an interesting range of topics. I still find it hard to believe Bush's PR firms would write some of that text....but anything is possible. Someone find the full text and post..it is very interesting in many places! Stranger than that is that the video actually freezes [OBL doesn't move] in large portions, but the voice continues and then his image moves again....showing something not 'kosher' is up!....
microscopic and blurry full text here: [help find a better version!]
http://anthologyoi.com/blogish/asides/osam...l#CleanedImages
microscopic and blurry full text here: [help find a better version!]
http://anthologyoi.com/blogish/asides/osam...l#CleanedImages
Peter,
On the UBL tape, one has to concede the possibility of it being a morphed production.
The fact is that the US military looked at this technological possiblity long ago. The July 1994 US Army War College/Strategic Studies Institute publication: "The Revolution in Military Affairs and Conflict Short of War" is merely 32 pages long, but is packed with strategies for the future (and highlky reccomended reading, in my view). Included is morphing.
Sigificantly, the authors note that the main "constraint" to the full use of emerging technologies are "American values and attitudes" and that "...overcoming these constrains to make RMS [Revolution in Military Affairs].." feasible, would "require fundamental changes in the United States - an ehtical and political revolution may be necessary to make a military revolution". Key components of RMA were psychotechnologies - of which morphing techniques were a part. In fact, the authors project a future hypothetical scenario, dated 2010, where morphing technology forms part of the whole psychotechnology strategy.
Also significant, I think, is the comment that "...external manipulation of the American public psychology was defined as a security threat", which begs the observation that domestic manipulation of the publicis not a security threat - but rather a security requirement.
Lastly, the authors in their hypothetical situation discuss "US strike forces" attacking "neutral targets to support the psychological campaign as computer-generated insurgent leaders claimed credit for the raids. At times, even the raids themselves were computer-invented 'recreations.' "
from the horses mouth so to speak...
David
Normal text = my original post
blue = Robert
red bold = my reply
I find it highly unlikely that Palast is anti-Semitic since he’s Jewish.
The one doesn't negate the possibility of the other, as the recent arrests of neo-Nazis Israeli citizens seems to bear out.
True which is why I said "highly unlikely" the leader of the Nazi march in Skokie IL (home to America's largest Holocaust survivor community) was not only Jewish but the son of a Holocaust survivor, Mark Lane has long been associated with Willis Carto one of America's “leading” neo-Nazi’s. But I don't think the Israeli case is a good example, from what I’ve read most/all of them like “Pearlman” only had one Jewish grandparent.
I highly respect him and think it’s unfortunate that his reporting doesn’t get wider distribution in the US. I don’t agree with everything he says though. I disagree with his opposition to gun control and disagree with his assessment of Jones.
I've yet to meet a person with whom I agree on all things. Despite your differences with Palast on a few issues, you discern in him a genuine effort to spread vital information to those who most need it. I'm sure he is pleased with anyone who helps him do that, Jones included, despite Palast's own reservations about some of Jones' material. [Just for full disclosure, I have had limited exposure to Jones' output. Whatever the merits of his content may or may not be, I've been largely unimpressed, primarily due to a hyperbolic zeal that, to me at least, lessens the intended effect.]
Then we largely agree on Jones but I hold the inaccuracy of his offerings against him more than his demagoguery.
I think I was wrong about Palast’s position on gun control he said was opposed to “repealing the first, second and fifth amendments to the Bill of Rights” the 2nd is the one that guarantees the right to “bear arms” but he also wrote an article condemning congress for passing a law that protected gun manufacturers from being sued by the victims og gun violence and their next of kin.
Just when did Jones “trace the roots of radical anti-Semitism”?
If you refer back to my prior post, it's in the first few paragraphs of Palast's article/endorsement.
Then I must be a bit slow unless you were referring to radical Islam
Speaking of anti-Semitism take a look at that article about Gadahn, the thrust of which was ‘the guy’s Jewish he must he a Mossad agent’.
Too often, the Jonathan Pollards of this world make such a presumption all too easy to sell to the credulous. AIPAC and similar agencies of semi-covert influence over the governments of other nations likewise bolster such presumptions. Mossad operatives have at least twice been caught using multiple false Canadian identities, including passports. While we in Canada rather frown upon such things, for it now makes Canadians instantly suspect as possible Mossad agents to unfriendly nations while travelling in the Middle East, such ill-considered tradecraft also creates the suspicion that just about anyone might be a Mossad apparatchik. While such a ruse might be effective [who would feign being a Canadian, of all things - other than Yanks in Europe with Maple Leaf flags on their backbacks, I mean?], it becomes a liability in the longer term, inciting the very paranoia you describe - ‘the guy’s Jewish he must he a Mossad agent,’ even if he is Canadian.
By the same logic couldn’t one say ‘the guy’s black he must be a criminal’? In any case Gadahm isn’t and never was Jewish
I’ve yet to hear your reaction to the distorted version of the truth which emanated from Jones’ site.
As noted above, I don't seek out Jones, but encounter his output fairly often in my cyber-travels. However, when time permits, I'll happily examine whatever distortions may be on offer at the links you have provided.
I’d be interested in hearing your reply you strike me as one of the wiser members of this forum (How brown is my nose now? LOL)
blue = Robert
red bold = my reply
QUOTE (Robert Charles-Dunne @ Sep 11 2007, 12:22 AM)
QUOTE (Len Colby @ Sep 10 2007, 11:19 PM)
I find it highly unlikely that Palast is anti-Semitic since he’s Jewish.
The one doesn't negate the possibility of the other, as the recent arrests of neo-Nazis Israeli citizens seems to bear out.
True which is why I said "highly unlikely" the leader of the Nazi march in Skokie IL (home to America's largest Holocaust survivor community) was not only Jewish but the son of a Holocaust survivor, Mark Lane has long been associated with Willis Carto one of America's “leading” neo-Nazi’s. But I don't think the Israeli case is a good example, from what I’ve read most/all of them like “Pearlman” only had one Jewish grandparent.
I highly respect him and think it’s unfortunate that his reporting doesn’t get wider distribution in the US. I don’t agree with everything he says though. I disagree with his opposition to gun control and disagree with his assessment of Jones.
I've yet to meet a person with whom I agree on all things. Despite your differences with Palast on a few issues, you discern in him a genuine effort to spread vital information to those who most need it. I'm sure he is pleased with anyone who helps him do that, Jones included, despite Palast's own reservations about some of Jones' material. [Just for full disclosure, I have had limited exposure to Jones' output. Whatever the merits of his content may or may not be, I've been largely unimpressed, primarily due to a hyperbolic zeal that, to me at least, lessens the intended effect.]
Then we largely agree on Jones but I hold the inaccuracy of his offerings against him more than his demagoguery.
I think I was wrong about Palast’s position on gun control he said was opposed to “repealing the first, second and fifth amendments to the Bill of Rights” the 2nd is the one that guarantees the right to “bear arms” but he also wrote an article condemning congress for passing a law that protected gun manufacturers from being sued by the victims og gun violence and their next of kin.
QUOTE
It is richly ironic that a radio host willing to trace the roots of radical anti-Semitism and Islamic extremism, while his fellows will not, is compared by Len Colby to Hitler.
Just when did Jones “trace the roots of radical anti-Semitism”?
If you refer back to my prior post, it's in the first few paragraphs of Palast's article/endorsement.
Then I must be a bit slow unless you were referring to radical Islam
Speaking of anti-Semitism take a look at that article about Gadahn, the thrust of which was ‘the guy’s Jewish he must he a Mossad agent’.
Too often, the Jonathan Pollards of this world make such a presumption all too easy to sell to the credulous. AIPAC and similar agencies of semi-covert influence over the governments of other nations likewise bolster such presumptions. Mossad operatives have at least twice been caught using multiple false Canadian identities, including passports. While we in Canada rather frown upon such things, for it now makes Canadians instantly suspect as possible Mossad agents to unfriendly nations while travelling in the Middle East, such ill-considered tradecraft also creates the suspicion that just about anyone might be a Mossad apparatchik. While such a ruse might be effective [who would feign being a Canadian, of all things - other than Yanks in Europe with Maple Leaf flags on their backbacks, I mean?], it becomes a liability in the longer term, inciting the very paranoia you describe - ‘the guy’s Jewish he must he a Mossad agent,’ even if he is Canadian.
By the same logic couldn’t one say ‘the guy’s black he must be a criminal’? In any case Gadahm isn’t and never was Jewish
I’ve yet to hear your reaction to the distorted version of the truth which emanated from Jones’ site.
As noted above, I don't seek out Jones, but encounter his output fairly often in my cyber-travels. However, when time permits, I'll happily examine whatever distortions may be on offer at the links you have provided.
I’d be interested in hearing your reply you strike me as one of the wiser members of this forum (How brown is my nose now? LOL)
QUOTE (Tim Gratz @ Sep 11 2007, 09:48 AM)
Well Jack does the PCG then now believe that it killed JFK because he was going to pull out of Vietnam? If it does it seems bizarre that it will have the mythical Bin Laden accuse it of the assassination. THAT is what I think is bizarre.
Do you follow?
Do you follow?
Have we learned nothing?
What better way to discredit the truth than to have the likes of bin Laden speak it?
Charles
QUOTE (Pat Speer @ Sep 10 2007, 08:54 PM)
Herb, you can't see the forest for the trees.
Pat, I think Herb sees quite clearly a critical detail that seems to have escaped many others. How is it possible that OBL was capable of masterminding or orchestrating the Nine-One-One horrors, but since that time has been unable to so much as blow up a mailbox on US soil? Should that odd unwillingness to continue what was begun not make people wonder who the true author/s of the original event was/were? And should they not likewise wonder what the intent of the original event might have been? Let us recall that the original attempt to bring down the WTC would never have transpired without the timely aid provided by an FBI agent provocateur, who was subsequently all but disowned by the very FBI men controlling him. Can we really be certain, at this date and with so much official obfuscation in the interim, that what we've been told about the second attack is genuine? To the contrary, I would argue that we know what we've been told to date is untrue; we are simply uncertain about what actually is true. Again, it is not so different from the Kennedy assassination, is it?
The Project for a New American Century, penned by the very same people who would thereafter run the "appointed" government, virtually prescribed what would be necessary in order to sell to the US populace its plans for the Middle East - "a new Pearl Harbour" - and that prescription was filled. Those who don't subscribe to conspiracy in the PNAC achieving its stated goals must rely upon "coincidence theory" to rationalize how it transpired that a purported enemy - albeit one with longstanding ties to both Bush the Elder's CIA and his private business interersts - provided precisely the provocation PNAC thought necessary to achieve its goals. It is not Herb White's eyes that deceive him.
This grotesquely provocative act has been described as a war on "American freedoms" and a clash of civilizations and much else. But since those who first envisioned "a new Pearl Harbour" - and got it - are now prosecuting the desired war on terror made possible by that provocation, where is the adversary that should be fighting back on US soil? Having launched the sneak attack that PNAC thought necessary, where is the followup? It is as though the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, but had made no plans whatsoever to thereafter continue fighting against the US.
This isn't a war of "let's see how many innocent people we can kill" or "let's see how much terror we can spread" it's a war to get the US out of the mid-east. Bin Laden is not stupid. He knows damn well that increasingly vicious attacks on US soil, against "innocent" entertainers respected world-wide, would DRASTICALLY increase support for US policies throughout the non-Arab world, and probably even backfire in the Arab world.
So, you're saying that Nine-One-One was designed to kill innocent civilians, just as a greeting card or a mission statement, but that any subsequent acts by him against other US civilians would somehow undermine his popularity? It is a distinction with no discernible difference, in my view.
It's a big messy situation, with psyops on both sides. It''s ridiculous, IMO, to think Bush is running the show. Bush's inability to catch Bin Laden, and his failed "war" against terrorism, has DAMAGED not only his own legacy, but his father's legacy.
What "inability" to catch OBL? Had there been such an interest, would the Bushites really have allowed chartered flights to spirit all the Bin Ladens in the USA out of the country immediately after the event? Had there been such an interest on Bush's part, would US forces at Tora Bora have really been ordered to not fire upon the positions where they were certain OBL was residing? It's an odd war in which innocents and enemy combatants found half a world away are sequestered in Gitmo, while the putative figurehead they serve is provided safe sanctuary by those who allegedly seek him. When's the last time OBL's name actually passed Bush's lips? Yes, Bush adopted a very aggressive public posture of going after OBL; in reality, Bush has shown OBL nothing but solicitude. What an odd way to seek out an enemy, "dead or alive." Apparently "alive" is Bush's preference. Why?
It has bankrupted the American economy, and cost the American people the good will of the international community.
But it has also fattened the bottom lines of corporate interests controlled by the Bush family and its retainers. Why only keep your eye on the debit side of the ledger? If you do not view the asset side of the ledger, how will you ever know who profits most from these events?
Even worse, for Bush personally, it has cost his base, the Republican party, control of congress, and most probably the White House. It has also cost him his friends. One after another Bush's cronies have resigned in disgust and disgrace. Powell, Ashcroft, Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Armitage, Tenet, Card, Miers, Rove and now Gonzalez. Pretty much all that's left is Dick and Condi. Those still holding onto the pipedream that Bush, a man who recently called Australians "Austrians," is some sort of Sith Lord have got another think coming, IMO. History WILL show that Bush is a bonehead, and as bad as if not worse than our worst Presidents: Buchanan, Johnson, Grant, Harding, Hoover... The only thing that could change that is Bin Laden's attacking the US again, and giving Bush carte blanche to bomb the heck out of another Arab country.
Precisely. So why hasn't that happened? Because Bin Laden's lost interest? Because he's too busy trying to arrange a date for himself with Whitney Houston? Or because he wasn't the one who orchestrated the first attack? And those who did orchestrate it realize they cannot stage another such event without being caught? Which do you truly find more persuasive?
Thinking Bush is running Bin Laden, or has invented Bin Laden, is like thinking Bill Clinton was behind Ken Starr's investigation into his cigar manipulations. Bizarre.
You posit an adversarial relationship where none exists. Bush the Elder certainly played a role in creating the original Bin Laden, the one who helped triumph over the Soviets in Afghanistan. And let's not forget that the Bushes and Bin Ladens have both seen great profits - via Carlyle - as a direct result of the key event six years back. Seventy five billion and counting isn't exactly chump change. Comparisons to Clinton and Starr - neither of whom saw any true benefit from their adversarial relationship - are well wide of the mark, as I'm sure Herb White could illustrate in a heartbeat.
Pat, I think Herb sees quite clearly a critical detail that seems to have escaped many others. How is it possible that OBL was capable of masterminding or orchestrating the Nine-One-One horrors, but since that time has been unable to so much as blow up a mailbox on US soil? Should that odd unwillingness to continue what was begun not make people wonder who the true author/s of the original event was/were? And should they not likewise wonder what the intent of the original event might have been? Let us recall that the original attempt to bring down the WTC would never have transpired without the timely aid provided by an FBI agent provocateur, who was subsequently all but disowned by the very FBI men controlling him. Can we really be certain, at this date and with so much official obfuscation in the interim, that what we've been told about the second attack is genuine? To the contrary, I would argue that we know what we've been told to date is untrue; we are simply uncertain about what actually is true. Again, it is not so different from the Kennedy assassination, is it?
The Project for a New American Century, penned by the very same people who would thereafter run the "appointed" government, virtually prescribed what would be necessary in order to sell to the US populace its plans for the Middle East - "a new Pearl Harbour" - and that prescription was filled. Those who don't subscribe to conspiracy in the PNAC achieving its stated goals must rely upon "coincidence theory" to rationalize how it transpired that a purported enemy - albeit one with longstanding ties to both Bush the Elder's CIA and his private business interersts - provided precisely the provocation PNAC thought necessary to achieve its goals. It is not Herb White's eyes that deceive him.
This grotesquely provocative act has been described as a war on "American freedoms" and a clash of civilizations and much else. But since those who first envisioned "a new Pearl Harbour" - and got it - are now prosecuting the desired war on terror made possible by that provocation, where is the adversary that should be fighting back on US soil? Having launched the sneak attack that PNAC thought necessary, where is the followup? It is as though the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, but had made no plans whatsoever to thereafter continue fighting against the US.
This isn't a war of "let's see how many innocent people we can kill" or "let's see how much terror we can spread" it's a war to get the US out of the mid-east. Bin Laden is not stupid. He knows damn well that increasingly vicious attacks on US soil, against "innocent" entertainers respected world-wide, would DRASTICALLY increase support for US policies throughout the non-Arab world, and probably even backfire in the Arab world.
So, you're saying that Nine-One-One was designed to kill innocent civilians, just as a greeting card or a mission statement, but that any subsequent acts by him against other US civilians would somehow undermine his popularity? It is a distinction with no discernible difference, in my view.
It's a big messy situation, with psyops on both sides. It''s ridiculous, IMO, to think Bush is running the show. Bush's inability to catch Bin Laden, and his failed "war" against terrorism, has DAMAGED not only his own legacy, but his father's legacy.
What "inability" to catch OBL? Had there been such an interest, would the Bushites really have allowed chartered flights to spirit all the Bin Ladens in the USA out of the country immediately after the event? Had there been such an interest on Bush's part, would US forces at Tora Bora have really been ordered to not fire upon the positions where they were certain OBL was residing? It's an odd war in which innocents and enemy combatants found half a world away are sequestered in Gitmo, while the putative figurehead they serve is provided safe sanctuary by those who allegedly seek him. When's the last time OBL's name actually passed Bush's lips? Yes, Bush adopted a very aggressive public posture of going after OBL; in reality, Bush has shown OBL nothing but solicitude. What an odd way to seek out an enemy, "dead or alive." Apparently "alive" is Bush's preference. Why?
It has bankrupted the American economy, and cost the American people the good will of the international community.
But it has also fattened the bottom lines of corporate interests controlled by the Bush family and its retainers. Why only keep your eye on the debit side of the ledger? If you do not view the asset side of the ledger, how will you ever know who profits most from these events?
Even worse, for Bush personally, it has cost his base, the Republican party, control of congress, and most probably the White House. It has also cost him his friends. One after another Bush's cronies have resigned in disgust and disgrace. Powell, Ashcroft, Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Armitage, Tenet, Card, Miers, Rove and now Gonzalez. Pretty much all that's left is Dick and Condi. Those still holding onto the pipedream that Bush, a man who recently called Australians "Austrians," is some sort of Sith Lord have got another think coming, IMO. History WILL show that Bush is a bonehead, and as bad as if not worse than our worst Presidents: Buchanan, Johnson, Grant, Harding, Hoover... The only thing that could change that is Bin Laden's attacking the US again, and giving Bush carte blanche to bomb the heck out of another Arab country.
Precisely. So why hasn't that happened? Because Bin Laden's lost interest? Because he's too busy trying to arrange a date for himself with Whitney Houston? Or because he wasn't the one who orchestrated the first attack? And those who did orchestrate it realize they cannot stage another such event without being caught? Which do you truly find more persuasive?
Thinking Bush is running Bin Laden, or has invented Bin Laden, is like thinking Bill Clinton was behind Ken Starr's investigation into his cigar manipulations. Bizarre.
You posit an adversarial relationship where none exists. Bush the Elder certainly played a role in creating the original Bin Laden, the one who helped triumph over the Soviets in Afghanistan. And let's not forget that the Bushes and Bin Ladens have both seen great profits - via Carlyle - as a direct result of the key event six years back. Seventy five billion and counting isn't exactly chump change. Comparisons to Clinton and Starr - neither of whom saw any true benefit from their adversarial relationship - are well wide of the mark, as I'm sure Herb White could illustrate in a heartbeat.
QUOTE (Robert Charles-Dunne @ Sep 11 2007, 04:10 PM)
QUOTE (Pat Speer @ Sep 10 2007, 08:54 PM)
Herb, you can't see the forest for the trees.
Pat, I think Herb sees quite clearly a critical detail that seems to have escaped many others. How is it possible that OBL was capable of masterminding or orchestrating the Nine-One-One horrors, but since that time has been unable to so much as blow up a mailbox on US soil? Should that odd unwillingness to continue what was begun not make people wonder who the true author/s of the original event was/were? And should they not likewise wonder what the intent of the original event might have been? Let us recall that the original attempt to bring down the WTC would never have transpired without the timely aid provided by an FBI agent provocateur, who was subsequently all but disowned by the very FBI men controlling him. Can we really be certain, at this date and with so much official obfuscation in the interim, that what we've been told about the second attack is genuine? To the contrary, I would argue that we know what we've been told to date is untrue; we are simply uncertain about what actually is true. Again, it is not so different from the Kennedy assassination, is it?
The Project for a New American Century, penned by the very same people who would thereafter run the "appointed" government, virtually prescribed what would be necessary in order to sell to the US populace its plans for the Middle East - "a new Pearl Harbour" - and that prescription was filled. Those who don't subscribe to conspiracy in the PNAC achieving its stated goals must rely upon "coincidence theory" to rationalize how it transpired that a purported enemy - albeit one with longstanding ties to both Bush the Elder's CIA and his private business interersts - provided precisely the provocation PNAC thought necessary to achieve its goals. It is not Herb White's eyes that deceive him.
This grotesquely provocative act has been described as a war on "American freedoms" and a clash of civilizations and much else. But since those who first envisioned "a new Pearl Harbour" - and got it - are now prosecuting the desired war on terror made possible by that provocation, where is the adversary that should be fighting back on US soil? Having launched the sneak attack that PNAC thought necessary, where is the followup? It is as though the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, but had made no plans whatsoever to thereafter continue fighting against the US.
This isn't a war of "let's see how many innocent people we can kill" or "let's see how much terror we can spread" it's a war to get the US out of the mid-east. Bin Laden is not stupid. He knows damn well that increasingly vicious attacks on US soil, against "innocent" entertainers respected world-wide, would DRASTICALLY increase support for US policies throughout the non-Arab world, and probably even backfire in the Arab world.
So, you're saying that Nine-One-One was designed to kill innocent civilians, just as a greeting card or a mission statement, but that any subsequent acts by him against other US civilians would somehow undermine his popularity? It is a distinction with no discernible difference, in my view.
It's a big messy situation, with psyops on both sides. It''s ridiculous, IMO, to think Bush is running the show. Bush's inability to catch Bin Laden, and his failed "war" against terrorism, has DAMAGED not only his own legacy, but his father's legacy.
What "inability" to catch OBL? Had there been such an interest, would the Bushites really have allowed chartered flights to spirit all the Bin Ladens in the USA out of the country immediately after the event? Had there been such an interest on Bush's part, would US forces at Tora Bora have really been ordered to not fire upon the positions where they were certain OBL was residing? It's an odd war in which innocents and enemy combatants found half a world away are sequestered in Gitmo, while the putative figurehead they serve is provided safe sanctuary by those who allegedly seek him. When's the last time OBL's name actually passed Bush's lips? Yes, Bush adopted a very aggressive public posture of going after OBL; in reality, Bush has shown OBL nothing but solicitude. What an odd way to seek out an enemy, "dead or alive." Apparently "alive" is Bush's preference. Why?
It has bankrupted the American economy, and cost the American people the good will of the international community.
But it has also fattened the bottom lines of corporate interests controlled by the Bush family and its retainers. Why only keep your eye on the debit side of the ledger? If you do not view the asset side of the ledger, how will you ever know who profits most from these events?
Even worse, for Bush personally, it has cost his base, the Republican party, control of congress, and most probably the White House. It has also cost him his friends. One after another Bush's cronies have resigned in disgust and disgrace. Powell, Ashcroft, Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Armitage, Tenet, Card, Miers, Rove and now Gonzalez. Pretty much all that's left is Dick and Condi. Those still holding onto the pipedream that Bush, a man who recently called Australians "Austrians," is some sort of Sith Lord have got another think coming, IMO. History WILL show that Bush is a bonehead, and as bad as if not worse than our worst Presidents: Buchanan, Johnson, Grant, Harding, Hoover... The only thing that could change that is Bin Laden's attacking the US again, and giving Bush carte blanche to bomb the heck out of another Arab country.
Precisely. So why hasn't that happened? Because Bin Laden's lost interest? Because he's too busy trying to arrange a date for himself with Whitney Houston? Or because he wasn't the one who orchestrated the first attack? And those who did orchestrate it realize they cannot stage another such event without being caught? Which do you truly find more persuasive?
Thinking Bush is running Bin Laden, or has invented Bin Laden, is like thinking Bill Clinton was behind Ken Starr's investigation into his cigar manipulations. Bizarre.
You posit an adversarial relationship where none exists. Bush the Elder certainly played a role in creating the original Bin Laden, the one who helped triumph over the Soviets in Afghanistan. And let's not forget that the Bushes and Bin Ladens have both seen great profits - via Carlyle - as a direct result of the key event six years back. Seventy five billion and counting isn't exactly chump change. Comparisons to Clinton and Starr - neither of whom saw any true benefit from their adversarial relationship - are well wide of the mark, as I'm sure Herb White could illustrate in a heartbeat.
Pat, I think Herb sees quite clearly a critical detail that seems to have escaped many others. How is it possible that OBL was capable of masterminding or orchestrating the Nine-One-One horrors, but since that time has been unable to so much as blow up a mailbox on US soil? Should that odd unwillingness to continue what was begun not make people wonder who the true author/s of the original event was/were? And should they not likewise wonder what the intent of the original event might have been? Let us recall that the original attempt to bring down the WTC would never have transpired without the timely aid provided by an FBI agent provocateur, who was subsequently all but disowned by the very FBI men controlling him. Can we really be certain, at this date and with so much official obfuscation in the interim, that what we've been told about the second attack is genuine? To the contrary, I would argue that we know what we've been told to date is untrue; we are simply uncertain about what actually is true. Again, it is not so different from the Kennedy assassination, is it?
The Project for a New American Century, penned by the very same people who would thereafter run the "appointed" government, virtually prescribed what would be necessary in order to sell to the US populace its plans for the Middle East - "a new Pearl Harbour" - and that prescription was filled. Those who don't subscribe to conspiracy in the PNAC achieving its stated goals must rely upon "coincidence theory" to rationalize how it transpired that a purported enemy - albeit one with longstanding ties to both Bush the Elder's CIA and his private business interersts - provided precisely the provocation PNAC thought necessary to achieve its goals. It is not Herb White's eyes that deceive him.
This grotesquely provocative act has been described as a war on "American freedoms" and a clash of civilizations and much else. But since those who first envisioned "a new Pearl Harbour" - and got it - are now prosecuting the desired war on terror made possible by that provocation, where is the adversary that should be fighting back on US soil? Having launched the sneak attack that PNAC thought necessary, where is the followup? It is as though the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, but had made no plans whatsoever to thereafter continue fighting against the US.
This isn't a war of "let's see how many innocent people we can kill" or "let's see how much terror we can spread" it's a war to get the US out of the mid-east. Bin Laden is not stupid. He knows damn well that increasingly vicious attacks on US soil, against "innocent" entertainers respected world-wide, would DRASTICALLY increase support for US policies throughout the non-Arab world, and probably even backfire in the Arab world.
So, you're saying that Nine-One-One was designed to kill innocent civilians, just as a greeting card or a mission statement, but that any subsequent acts by him against other US civilians would somehow undermine his popularity? It is a distinction with no discernible difference, in my view.
It's a big messy situation, with psyops on both sides. It''s ridiculous, IMO, to think Bush is running the show. Bush's inability to catch Bin Laden, and his failed "war" against terrorism, has DAMAGED not only his own legacy, but his father's legacy.
What "inability" to catch OBL? Had there been such an interest, would the Bushites really have allowed chartered flights to spirit all the Bin Ladens in the USA out of the country immediately after the event? Had there been such an interest on Bush's part, would US forces at Tora Bora have really been ordered to not fire upon the positions where they were certain OBL was residing? It's an odd war in which innocents and enemy combatants found half a world away are sequestered in Gitmo, while the putative figurehead they serve is provided safe sanctuary by those who allegedly seek him. When's the last time OBL's name actually passed Bush's lips? Yes, Bush adopted a very aggressive public posture of going after OBL; in reality, Bush has shown OBL nothing but solicitude. What an odd way to seek out an enemy, "dead or alive." Apparently "alive" is Bush's preference. Why?
It has bankrupted the American economy, and cost the American people the good will of the international community.
But it has also fattened the bottom lines of corporate interests controlled by the Bush family and its retainers. Why only keep your eye on the debit side of the ledger? If you do not view the asset side of the ledger, how will you ever know who profits most from these events?
Even worse, for Bush personally, it has cost his base, the Republican party, control of congress, and most probably the White House. It has also cost him his friends. One after another Bush's cronies have resigned in disgust and disgrace. Powell, Ashcroft, Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Armitage, Tenet, Card, Miers, Rove and now Gonzalez. Pretty much all that's left is Dick and Condi. Those still holding onto the pipedream that Bush, a man who recently called Australians "Austrians," is some sort of Sith Lord have got another think coming, IMO. History WILL show that Bush is a bonehead, and as bad as if not worse than our worst Presidents: Buchanan, Johnson, Grant, Harding, Hoover... The only thing that could change that is Bin Laden's attacking the US again, and giving Bush carte blanche to bomb the heck out of another Arab country.
Precisely. So why hasn't that happened? Because Bin Laden's lost interest? Because he's too busy trying to arrange a date for himself with Whitney Houston? Or because he wasn't the one who orchestrated the first attack? And those who did orchestrate it realize they cannot stage another such event without being caught? Which do you truly find more persuasive?
Thinking Bush is running Bin Laden, or has invented Bin Laden, is like thinking Bill Clinton was behind Ken Starr's investigation into his cigar manipulations. Bizarre.
You posit an adversarial relationship where none exists. Bush the Elder certainly played a role in creating the original Bin Laden, the one who helped triumph over the Soviets in Afghanistan. And let's not forget that the Bushes and Bin Ladens have both seen great profits - via Carlyle - as a direct result of the key event six years back. Seventy five billion and counting isn't exactly chump change. Comparisons to Clinton and Starr - neither of whom saw any true benefit from their adversarial relationship - are well wide of the mark, as I'm sure Herb White could illustrate in a heartbeat.
When they arrest me for "crimes against Bush", I want Robert Charles-Dunne
to argue my case.
Jack
QUOTE (Pat Speer @ Sep 10 2007, 08:54 PM)
Herb, you can't see the forest for the trees. This isn't a war of "let's see how many innocent people we can kill" or "let's see how much terror we can spread" it's a war to get the US out of the mid-east. Bin Laden is not stupid. He knows damn well that increasingly vicious attacks on US soil, against "innocent" entertainers respected world-wide, would DRASTICALLY increase support for US policies throughout the non-Arab world, and probably even backfire in the Arab world.
It's a big messy situation, with psyops on both sides. It''s ridiculous, IMO, to think Bush is running the show. Bush's inability to catch Bin Laden, and his failed "war" against terrorism, has DAMAGED not only his own legacy, but his father's legacy. It has bankrupted the American economy, and cost the American people the good will of the international community. Even worse, for Bush personally, it has cost his base, the Republican party, control of congress, and most probably the White House. It has also cost him his friends. One after another Bush's cronies have resigned in disgust and disgrace. Powell, Ashcroft, Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Armitage, Tenet, Card, Miers, Rove and now Gonzalez. Pretty much all that's left is Dick and Condi. Those still holding onto the pipedream that Bush, a man who recently called Australians "Austrians," is some sort of Sith Lord have got another think coming, IMO. History WILL show that Bush is a bonehead, and as bad as if not worse than our worst Presidents: Buchanan, Johnson, Grant, Harding, Hoover... The only thing that could change that is Bin Laden's attacking the US again, and giving Bush carte blanche to bomb the heck out of another Arab country.
Thinking Bush is running Bin Laden, or has invented Bin Laden, is like thinking Bill Clinton was behind Ken Starr's investigation into his cigar manipulations. Bizarre.
It's a big messy situation, with psyops on both sides. It''s ridiculous, IMO, to think Bush is running the show. Bush's inability to catch Bin Laden, and his failed "war" against terrorism, has DAMAGED not only his own legacy, but his father's legacy. It has bankrupted the American economy, and cost the American people the good will of the international community. Even worse, for Bush personally, it has cost his base, the Republican party, control of congress, and most probably the White House. It has also cost him his friends. One after another Bush's cronies have resigned in disgust and disgrace. Powell, Ashcroft, Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Armitage, Tenet, Card, Miers, Rove and now Gonzalez. Pretty much all that's left is Dick and Condi. Those still holding onto the pipedream that Bush, a man who recently called Australians "Austrians," is some sort of Sith Lord have got another think coming, IMO. History WILL show that Bush is a bonehead, and as bad as if not worse than our worst Presidents: Buchanan, Johnson, Grant, Harding, Hoover... The only thing that could change that is Bin Laden's attacking the US again, and giving Bush carte blanche to bomb the heck out of another Arab country.
Thinking Bush is running Bin Laden, or has invented Bin Laden, is like thinking Bill Clinton was behind Ken Starr's investigation into his cigar manipulations. Bizarre.
Pat,
I don't know what you meant by I can't see the forest etc. And I never implied Bush was in charge of UBL. My point was that if indeed we are to believe what we hear about terrortists, and Al Qaeda in particular, that their goal is to tramatize the USA through fear and damage our economy, it is much more easily accomplished through different tactics than large scale attacks over long intervals.
Therefore I don't buy into the official version of 911 or terrorist tactics and goals espoused by many of the so-called experts.
Herb
QUOTE (Pat Speer @ Sep 10 2007, 08:54 PM)
Herb, you can't see the forest for the trees. This isn't a war of "let's see how many innocent people we can kill" or "let's see how much terror we can spread" it's a war to get the US out of the mid-east. Bin Laden is not stupid. He knows damn well that increasingly vicious attacks on US soil, against "innocent" entertainers respected world-wide, would DRASTICALLY increase support for US policies throughout the non-Arab world, and probably even backfire in the Arab world.
It's a big messy situation, with psyops on both sides. It''s ridiculous, IMO, to think Bush is running the show. Bush's inability to catch Bin Laden, and his failed "war" against terrorism, has DAMAGED not only his own legacy, but his father's legacy. It has bankrupted the American economy, and cost the American people the good will of the international community. Even worse, for Bush personally, it has cost his base, the Republican party, control of congress, and most probably the White House. It has also cost him his friends. One after another Bush's cronies have resigned in disgust and disgrace. Powell, Ashcroft, Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Armitage, Tenet, Card, Miers, Rove and now Gonzalez. Pretty much all that's left is Dick and Condi. Those still holding onto the pipedream that Bush, a man who recently called Australians "Austrians," is some sort of Sith Lord have got another think coming, IMO. History WILL show that Bush is a bonehead, and as bad as if not worse than our worst Presidents: Buchanan, Johnson, Grant, Harding, Hoover... The only thing that could change that is Bin Laden's attacking the US again, and giving Bush carte blanche to bomb the heck out of another Arab country.
Thinking Bush is running Bin Laden, or has invented Bin Laden, is like thinking Bill Clinton was behind Ken Starr's investigation into his cigar manipulations. Bizarre.
It's a big messy situation, with psyops on both sides. It''s ridiculous, IMO, to think Bush is running the show. Bush's inability to catch Bin Laden, and his failed "war" against terrorism, has DAMAGED not only his own legacy, but his father's legacy. It has bankrupted the American economy, and cost the American people the good will of the international community. Even worse, for Bush personally, it has cost his base, the Republican party, control of congress, and most probably the White House. It has also cost him his friends. One after another Bush's cronies have resigned in disgust and disgrace. Powell, Ashcroft, Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Armitage, Tenet, Card, Miers, Rove and now Gonzalez. Pretty much all that's left is Dick and Condi. Those still holding onto the pipedream that Bush, a man who recently called Australians "Austrians," is some sort of Sith Lord have got another think coming, IMO. History WILL show that Bush is a bonehead, and as bad as if not worse than our worst Presidents: Buchanan, Johnson, Grant, Harding, Hoover... The only thing that could change that is Bin Laden's attacking the US again, and giving Bush carte blanche to bomb the heck out of another Arab country.
Thinking Bush is running Bin Laden, or has invented Bin Laden, is like thinking Bill Clinton was behind Ken Starr's investigation into his cigar manipulations. Bizarre.
Pat,
I don't know what you meant by I can't see the forest etc. And I never implied Bush was in charge of UBL. My point was that if indeed we are to believe what we hear about terrortists, and Al Qaeda in particular, that their goal is to tramatize the USA through fear and damage our economy, it is much more easily accomplished through different tactics than large scale attacks over long intervals.
Therefore I don't buy into the official version of 911 or terrorist tactics and goals espoused by many of the so-called experts.
Herb
QUOTE (Robert Charles-Dunne @ Sep 11 2007, 05:10 PM)
QUOTE (Pat Speer @ Sep 10 2007, 08:54 PM)
Herb, you can't see the forest for the trees.
Pat, I think Herb sees quite clearly a critical detail that seems to have escaped many others. How is it possible that OBL was capable of masterminding or orchestrating the Nine-One-One horrors, but since that time has been unable to so much as blow up a mailbox on US soil? Should that odd unwillingness to continue what was begun not make people wonder who the true author/s of the original event was/were? And should they not likewise wonder what the intent of the original event might have been? Let us recall that the original attempt to bring down the WTC would never have transpired without the timely aid provided by an FBI agent provocateur, who was subsequently all but disowned by the very FBI men controlling him. Can we really be certain, at this date and with so much official obfuscation in the interim, that what we've been told about the second attack is genuine? To the contrary, I would argue that we know what we've been told to date is untrue; we are simply uncertain about what actually is true. Again, it is not so different from the Kennedy assassination, is it?
The Project for a New American Century, penned by the very same people who would thereafter run the "appointed" government, virtually prescribed what would be necessary in order to sell to the US populace its plans for the Middle East - "a new Pearl Harbour" - and that prescription was filled. Those who don't subscribe to conspiracy in the PNAC achieving its stated goals must rely upon "coincidence theory" to rationalize how it transpired that a purported enemy - albeit one with longstanding ties to both Bush the Elder's CIA and his private business interersts - provided precisely the provocation PNAC thought necessary to achieve its goals. It is not Herb White's eyes that deceive him.
This grotesquely provocative act has been described as a war on "American freedoms" and a clash of civilizations and much else. But since those who first envisioned "a new Pearl Harbour" - and got it - are now prosecuting the desired war on terror made possible by that provocation, where is the adversary that should be fighting back on US soil? Having launched the sneak attack that PNAC thought necessary, where is the followup? It is as though the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, but had made no plans whatsoever to thereafter continue fighting against the US.
This isn't a war of "let's see how many innocent people we can kill" or "let's see how much terror we can spread" it's a war to get the US out of the mid-east. Bin Laden is not stupid. He knows damn well that increasingly vicious attacks on US soil, against "innocent" entertainers respected world-wide, would DRASTICALLY increase support for US policies throughout the non-Arab world, and probably even backfire in the Arab world.
So, you're saying that Nine-One-One was designed to kill innocent civilians, just as a greeting card or a mission statement, but that any subsequent acts by him against other US civilians would somehow undermine his popularity? It is a distinction with no discernible difference, in my view.
It's a big messy situation, with psyops on both sides. It''s ridiculous, IMO, to think Bush is running the show. Bush's inability to catch Bin Laden, and his failed "war" against terrorism, has DAMAGED not only his own legacy, but his father's legacy.
What "inability" to catch OBL? Had there been such an interest, would the Bushites really have allowed chartered flights to spirit all the Bin Ladens in the USA out of the country immediately after the event? Had there been such an interest on Bush's part, would US forces at Tora Bora have really been ordered to not fire upon the positions where they were certain OBL was residing? It's an odd war in which innocents and enemy combatants found half a world away are sequestered in Gitmo, while the putative figurehead they serve is provided safe sanctuary by those who allegedly seek him. When's the last time OBL's name actually passed Bush's lips? Yes, Bush adopted a very aggressive public posture of going after OBL; in reality, Bush has shown OBL nothing but solicitude. What an odd way to seek out an enemy, "dead or alive." Apparently "alive" is Bush's preference. Why?
It has bankrupted the American economy, and cost the American people the good will of the international community.
But it has also fattened the bottom lines of corporate interests controlled by the Bush family and its retainers. Why only keep your eye on the debit side of the ledger? If you do not view the asset side of the ledger, how will you ever know who profits most from these events?
Even worse, for Bush personally, it has cost his base, the Republican party, control of congress, and most probably the White House. It has also cost him his friends. One after another Bush's cronies have resigned in disgust and disgrace. Powell, Ashcroft, Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Armitage, Tenet, Card, Miers, Rove and now Gonzalez. Pretty much all that's left is Dick and Condi. Those still holding onto the pipedream that Bush, a man who recently called Australians "Austrians," is some sort of Sith Lord have got another think coming, IMO. History WILL show that Bush is a bonehead, and as bad as if not worse than our worst Presidents: Buchanan, Johnson, Grant, Harding, Hoover... The only thing that could change that is Bin Laden's attacking the US again, and giving Bush carte blanche to bomb the heck out of another Arab country.
Precisely. So why hasn't that happened? Because Bin Laden's lost interest? Because he's too busy trying to arrange a date for himself with Whitney Houston? Or because he wasn't the one who orchestrated the first attack? And those who did orchestrate it realize they cannot stage another such event without being caught? Which do you truly find more persuasive?
Thinking Bush is running Bin Laden, or has invented Bin Laden, is like thinking Bill Clinton was behind Ken Starr's investigation into his cigar manipulations. Bizarre.
You posit an adversarial relationship where none exists. Bush the Elder certainly played a role in creating the original Bin Laden, the one who helped triumph over the Soviets in Afghanistan. And let's not forget that the Bushes and Bin Ladens have both seen great profits - via Carlyle - as a direct result of the key event six years back. Seventy five billion and counting isn't exactly chump change. Comparisons to Clinton and Starr - neither of whom saw any true benefit from their adversarial relationship - are well wide of the mark, as I'm sure Herb White could illustrate in a heartbeat.
Pat, I think Herb sees quite clearly a critical detail that seems to have escaped many others. How is it possible that OBL was capable of masterminding or orchestrating the Nine-One-One horrors, but since that time has been unable to so much as blow up a mailbox on US soil? Should that odd unwillingness to continue what was begun not make people wonder who the true author/s of the original event was/were? And should they not likewise wonder what the intent of the original event might have been? Let us recall that the original attempt to bring down the WTC would never have transpired without the timely aid provided by an FBI agent provocateur, who was subsequently all but disowned by the very FBI men controlling him. Can we really be certain, at this date and with so much official obfuscation in the interim, that what we've been told about the second attack is genuine? To the contrary, I would argue that we know what we've been told to date is untrue; we are simply uncertain about what actually is true. Again, it is not so different from the Kennedy assassination, is it?
The Project for a New American Century, penned by the very same people who would thereafter run the "appointed" government, virtually prescribed what would be necessary in order to sell to the US populace its plans for the Middle East - "a new Pearl Harbour" - and that prescription was filled. Those who don't subscribe to conspiracy in the PNAC achieving its stated goals must rely upon "coincidence theory" to rationalize how it transpired that a purported enemy - albeit one with longstanding ties to both Bush the Elder's CIA and his private business interersts - provided precisely the provocation PNAC thought necessary to achieve its goals. It is not Herb White's eyes that deceive him.
This grotesquely provocative act has been described as a war on "American freedoms" and a clash of civilizations and much else. But since those who first envisioned "a new Pearl Harbour" - and got it - are now prosecuting the desired war on terror made possible by that provocation, where is the adversary that should be fighting back on US soil? Having launched the sneak attack that PNAC thought necessary, where is the followup? It is as though the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, but had made no plans whatsoever to thereafter continue fighting against the US.
This isn't a war of "let's see how many innocent people we can kill" or "let's see how much terror we can spread" it's a war to get the US out of the mid-east. Bin Laden is not stupid. He knows damn well that increasingly vicious attacks on US soil, against "innocent" entertainers respected world-wide, would DRASTICALLY increase support for US policies throughout the non-Arab world, and probably even backfire in the Arab world.
So, you're saying that Nine-One-One was designed to kill innocent civilians, just as a greeting card or a mission statement, but that any subsequent acts by him against other US civilians would somehow undermine his popularity? It is a distinction with no discernible difference, in my view.
It's a big messy situation, with psyops on both sides. It''s ridiculous, IMO, to think Bush is running the show. Bush's inability to catch Bin Laden, and his failed "war" against terrorism, has DAMAGED not only his own legacy, but his father's legacy.
What "inability" to catch OBL? Had there been such an interest, would the Bushites really have allowed chartered flights to spirit all the Bin Ladens in the USA out of the country immediately after the event? Had there been such an interest on Bush's part, would US forces at Tora Bora have really been ordered to not fire upon the positions where they were certain OBL was residing? It's an odd war in which innocents and enemy combatants found half a world away are sequestered in Gitmo, while the putative figurehead they serve is provided safe sanctuary by those who allegedly seek him. When's the last time OBL's name actually passed Bush's lips? Yes, Bush adopted a very aggressive public posture of going after OBL; in reality, Bush has shown OBL nothing but solicitude. What an odd way to seek out an enemy, "dead or alive." Apparently "alive" is Bush's preference. Why?
It has bankrupted the American economy, and cost the American people the good will of the international community.
But it has also fattened the bottom lines of corporate interests controlled by the Bush family and its retainers. Why only keep your eye on the debit side of the ledger? If you do not view the asset side of the ledger, how will you ever know who profits most from these events?
Even worse, for Bush personally, it has cost his base, the Republican party, control of congress, and most probably the White House. It has also cost him his friends. One after another Bush's cronies have resigned in disgust and disgrace. Powell, Ashcroft, Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Armitage, Tenet, Card, Miers, Rove and now Gonzalez. Pretty much all that's left is Dick and Condi. Those still holding onto the pipedream that Bush, a man who recently called Australians "Austrians," is some sort of Sith Lord have got another think coming, IMO. History WILL show that Bush is a bonehead, and as bad as if not worse than our worst Presidents: Buchanan, Johnson, Grant, Harding, Hoover... The only thing that could change that is Bin Laden's attacking the US again, and giving Bush carte blanche to bomb the heck out of another Arab country.
Precisely. So why hasn't that happened? Because Bin Laden's lost interest? Because he's too busy trying to arrange a date for himself with Whitney Houston? Or because he wasn't the one who orchestrated the first attack? And those who did orchestrate it realize they cannot stage another such event without being caught? Which do you truly find more persuasive?
Thinking Bush is running Bin Laden, or has invented Bin Laden, is like thinking Bill Clinton was behind Ken Starr's investigation into his cigar manipulations. Bizarre.
You posit an adversarial relationship where none exists. Bush the Elder certainly played a role in creating the original Bin Laden, the one who helped triumph over the Soviets in Afghanistan. And let's not forget that the Bushes and Bin Ladens have both seen great profits - via Carlyle - as a direct result of the key event six years back. Seventy five billion and counting isn't exactly chump change. Comparisons to Clinton and Starr - neither of whom saw any true benefit from their adversarial relationship - are well wide of the mark, as I'm sure Herb White could illustrate in a heartbeat.
RCD,
Thanks for smelling my drift, as a somewhat redneck buddy of mine would be wont to infer. The absence of any subsequent terrorist activity on US soil is the primary motivation for me to doubt the
official version of 9/11. It might lead some sentient beings to surmise that just possibly there are a couple of very good reasons that we haven't seen further actions in the USA. 1) It provides the Bush regime the ability to claim that their diligence has prevented or squashed all terrorist plots on the homeland 2) They (not the terrorists) are saving an additional attack for when the timing is most propitious, say perhaps close to an election, when they are about to be ousted from power.
If I had to bet the house on the true story of 9/11 it would be something along the lines of criminal negligence. I have a strong hunch that there were elements within our government and other centers of power, that had knowledge of the impending plans for the attacks on 9/11. If one is familiar with the incident of the "dancing Israelis" and the activities of the Israeli "art students" one has the sense that
quite possibly Mossad was monitoring the movements of many of the prime actors in the 9/11 plot and deemed it in their best interests not to share it with US intel, or at least elements in US intel that would have taken action to prevent the attacks.
If one throws into the stew the facts about concurrent "war games" and security stand downs during the hijackings, one can become quite paranoid about prior awareness of the plot by those of a certain political bent. And just because you are paranoid, doen't mean no one is out to get you.
Herb
QUOTE (Jack White @ Sep 11 2007, 01:35 AM)
I know of several cases of "anti-semitic" Jews. Some people put ethics above race.
So Jack, are you saying that being anti-Semitic is ethical and (by extension) that not being anti-Semitic is unethical?
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