This guy is obviously full of crap. Can we debunk this? I got the author's permission to repost it here.

"Sure, you're welcome to. Just please include a link to it.

I've never been to Bad Astronomy, but "same old sophists" tells me what
I'm
missing!

cheers,

Jeff"




http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.co...de-to-911.html

Sunday, August 15, 2004
The Coincidence Theorist's Guide to 9/11
I posted an earlier version of this last week at Democratic Underground. I've added a number of more entries, and links for all.

Happy coincidenting!

That governments have permitted terrorist acts against their own people, and have even themselves been perpetrators in order to find strategic advantage is quite likely true, but this is the United States we're talking about.

That intelligence agencies, financiers, terrorists and narco-criminals have a long history together is well established, but the Nugan Hand Bank, BCCI, Banco Ambrosiano, the P2 Lodge, the CIA/Mafia anti-Castro/Kennedy alliance, Iran/Contra and the rest were a long time ago, so there’s no need to rehash all that. That was then, this is now!

That Jonathan Bush’s Riggs Bank has been found guilty of laundering terrorist funds and fined a US-record $25 million must embarrass his nephew George, but it's still no justification for leaping to paranoid conclusions.

That George Bush's brother Marvin sat on the board of the Kuwaiti-owned company which provided electronic security to the World Trade Centre, Dulles Airport and United Airlines means nothing more than you must admit those Bush boys have done alright for themselves.

That George Bush found success as a businessman only after the investment of Osama’s brother Salem and reputed al Qaeda financier Khalid bin Mahfouz is just one of those things - one of those crazy things.

That Osama bin Laden is known to have been an asset of US foreign policy in no way implies he still is.

That al Qaeda was active in the Balkan conflict, fighting on the same side as the US as recently as 1999, while the US protected its cells, is merely one of history's little aberrations.

The claims of Michael Springman, State Department veteran of the Jeddah visa bureau, that the CIA ran the office and issued visas to al Qaeda members so they could receive training in the United States, sound like the sour grapes of someone who was fired for making such wild accusations.

That one of George Bush's first acts as President, in January 2001, was to end the two-year deployment of attack submarines which were positioned within striking distance of al Qaeda's Afghanistan camps, even as the group's guilt for the Cole bombing was established, proves that a transition from one administration to the next is never an easy task.

That so many influential figures in and close to the Bush White House had expressed, just a year before the attacks, the need for a "new Pearl Harbor" before their militarist ambitions could be fulfilled, demonstrates nothing more than the accidental virtue of being in the right place at the right time.

That the company PTECH, founded by a Saudi financier placed on America’s Terrorist Watch List in October 2001, had access to the FAA’s entire computer system for two years before the 9/11 attack, means he must not have been such a threat after all.

That whistleblower Indira Singh was told to keep her mouth shut and forget what she learned when she took her concerns about PTECH to her employers and federal authorities, suggests she lacked the big picture. And that the Chief Auditor for JP Morgan Chase told Singh repeatedly, as she answered questions about who supplied her with what information, that "that person should be killed," suggests he should take an anger management seminar.

That on May 8, 2001, Dick Cheney took upon himself the job of co-ordinating a response to domestic terror attacks even as he was crafting the administration’s energy policy which bore implications for America's military, circumventing the established infrastructure and ignoring the recommendations of the Hart-Rudman report, merely shows the VP to be someone who finds it hard to delegate.

That the standing order which covered the shooting down of hijacked aircraft was altered on June 1, 2001, taking discretion away from field commanders and placing it solely in the hands of the Secretary of Defense, is simply poor planning and unfortunate timing. Fortunately the error has been corrected, as the order was rescinded shortly after 9/11.

That in the weeks before 9/11, FBI agent Colleen Rowley found her investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui so perversely thwarted that her colleagues joked that bin Laden had a mole at the FBI, proves the stress-relieving virtue of humour in the workplace.

That Dave Frasca of the FBI’s Radical Fundamentalist Unit received a promotion after quashing multiple, urgent requests for investigations into al Qaeda assets training at flight schools in the summer of 2001 does appear on the surface odd, but undoubtedly there's a good reason for it, quite possibly classified.

That FBI informant Randy Glass, working an undercover sting, was told by Pakistani intelligence operatives that the World Trade Center towers were coming down, and that his repeated warnings which continued until weeks before the attacks, including the mention of planes used as weapons, were ignored by federal authorities, is simply one of the many "What Ifs" of that tragic day.

That over the summer of 2001 Washington received many urgent, senior-level warnings from foreign intelligence agencies and governments - including those of Germany, France, Great Britain, Russia, Egypt, Israel, Morocco, Afghanistan and others - of impending terror attacks using hijacked aircraft and did nothing, demonstrates the pressing need for a new Intelligence Czar.

That John Ashcroft stopped flying commercial aircraft in July 2001 on account of security considerations had nothing to do with warnings regarding September 11, because he said so to the 9/11 Commission.

That former lead counsel for the House David Schippers says he’d taken to John Ashcroft’s office specific warnings he’d learned from FBI agents in New York of an impending attack – even naming the proposed dates, names of the hijackers and the targets – and that the investigations had been stymied and the agents threatened, proves nothing but David Schipper’s pathetic need for attention.

That Garth Nicolson received two warnings from contacts in the intelligence community and one from a North African head of state, which included specific site, date and source of the attacks, and passed the information to the Defense Department and the National Security Council to evidently no effect, clearly amounts to nothing, since virtually nobody has ever heard of him.

That in the months prior to September 11, self-described US intelligence operative Delmart Vreeland sought, from a Toronto jail cell, to get US and Canadian authorities to heed his warning of his accidental discovery of impending catastrophic attacks is worthless, since Vreeland was a dubious character, notwithstanding the fact that many of his claims have since been proven true.

That FBI Special Investigator Robert Wright claims that agents assigned to intelligence operations actually protect terrorists from investigation and prosecution, that the FBI shut down his probe into terrorist training camps, and that he was removed from a money-laundering case that had a direct link to terrorism, sounds like yet more sour grapes from a disgruntled employee.

That George Bush had plans to invade Afghanistan on his desk before 9/11 demonstrates only the value of being prepared.

The suggestion that securing a pipeline across Afghanistan figured into the White House’s calculations is as ludicrous as the assertion that oil played a part in determining war in Iraq.

That Afghanistan is once again the world’s principal heroin producer is an unfortunate reality, but to claim the CIA is still actively involved in the narcotics trade is to presume bad faith on the part of the agency.

Mahmood Ahmed, chief of Pakistan’s ISI, must not have authorized an al Qaeda payment of $100,000 to Mohammed Atta days before the attacks, and was not meeting with senior Washington officials over the week of 9/11, because I didn’t read anything about him in the official report.

That Porter Goss met with Ahmed the morning of September 11 in his capacity as Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has no bearing whatsoever upon his recent selection by the White House to head the Central Intelligence Agency.

That Goss's congressional seat encompasses the 9/11 hijackers' Florida base of operation, including their flight schools, is precisely the kind of meaningless factoid a conspiracy theorist would bring up.

It's true that George HW Bush and Dick Cheney spent the evening of September 10 alone in the Oval Office, but what's wrong with old colleagues catching up? And it's true that George HW Bush and Shafig bin Laden, Osama's brother, spent the morning of September 11 together at a board meeting of the Carlyle Group, but the bin Ladens are a big family.

That FEMA arrived in New York on Sept 10 to prepare for a scheduled biowarfare drill, and had a triage centre ready to go that was larger and better equipped than the one that was lost in the collapse of WTC 7, was a lucky twist of fate.

Newsweek’s report that senior Pentagon officials cancelled flights on Sept 10 for the following day on account of security concerns is only newsworthy because of what happened the following morning.

That George Bush's telephone logs for September 11 do not exist should surprise no one, given the confusion of the day.

That Mohamed Atta attended the International Officer's School at Maxwell Air Force Base, that Abdulaziz Alomari attended Brooks Air Force Base Aerospace Medical School, that Saeed Alghamdi attended the Defense Language Institute in Monterey merely shows it is a small world, after all.

That Lt Col Steve Butler, Vice Chancellor for student affairs of the Defense Language Institute during Alghamdi's terms, was disciplined, removed from his post and threatened with court martial when he wrote "Bush knew of the impending attacks on America. He did nothing to warn the American people because he needed this war on terrorism. What is...contemptible is the President of the United States not telling the American people what he knows for political gain," is the least that should have happened for such disrespect shown his Commander in Chief.

That Mohammed Atta dressed like a Mafioso, had a stripper girlfriend, smuggled drugs, was already a licensed pilot when he entered the US, enjoyed pork chops, drank to excess and did cocaine, was closer to Europeans than Arabs in Florida, and included the names of defence contractors on his email list, proves how dangerous the radical fundamentalist Muslim can be.

That 43 lbs of heroin was found on board the Lear Jet owned by Wally Hilliard, the owner of Atta’s flight school, just three weeks after Atta enrolled – the biggest seizure ever in Central Florida – was just bad luck. That Hilliard was not charged shows how specious the claims for conspiracy truly are.

That Hilliard’s plane had made 30-round trips to Venezuela with the same passengers who always paid cash, that the plane had been supplied by a pair of drug smugglers who had also outfitted CIA drug runner Barry Seal, and that 9/11 commissioner Richard ben-Veniste had been Seal’s attorney before Seal’s murder, shows nothing but the lengths to which conspiracists will go to draw sinister conclusions.

Reports of insider trading on 9/11 are false, because the SEC investigated and found only respectable investors who will remain nameless involved, and no terrorists, so the windfall profit-taking was merely, as ever, coincidental.

That heightened security for the World Trade Centre was lifted immediately prior to the attacks illustrates that it always happens when you least expect it.

That Hani Hanjour, the pilot of Flight 77, was so incompetent he could not fly a Cessna in August, but in September managed to fly a 767 at excessive speed into a spiraling, 270-degree descent and a level impact of the first floor of the Pentagon, on the only side that was virtually empty and had been hardened to withstand a terrorist attack, merely demonstrates that people can do almost anything once they set their minds to it.

That none of the flight data recorders were said to be recoverable even though they were located in the tail sections, and that until 9/11, no solid-state recorder in a catastrophic crash had been unrecoverable, shows how there's a first time for everything.

That Mohammed Atta left a uniform, a will, a Koran, his driver's license and a "how to fly planes" video in his rental car at the airport means he had other things on his mind.

The mention of Israelis with links to military-intelligence having been arrested on Sept 11 videotaping and celebrating the attacks, of an Israeli espionage ring surveiling DEA and defense installations and trailing the hijackers, and of a warning of impending attacks delivered to the Israeli company Odigo two hours before the first plane hit, does not deserve a response. That the stories also appeared in publications such as Ha'aretz and Forward is a sad display of self-hatred among certain elements of the Israeli media.




<shortened to fit>

I could go on. And on and on. But I trust you get the point. Which is simply this: there are no secrets, an American government would never accept civilian casualties for geostrategic gain, and conspiracies are for the weak-minded and gullible.

posted by Jeff at 5:15 PM

Eerrrr...

You do realize that this is pretty Ad Hominem, right? Insults like this are pretty much against the rules here.

__________________
There are few left who
Stare at the skies with wonder
Wishing to know more;
The clouds still drift by above
But the eyes below are blind.
--Laura Lundberg

Check out my writing, maybe.

too bad every fact here is verifyable!!
no secrets??
take off your blinders

i agree!! apparently you are unaware of the biggest conspiracy of them all--the "official" version of 9/11

Umm, that wasn't Kookbreaker's comment. That was part of the conspiracist's screed. It's a bit of sarcasm aimed at anyone who doesn't accept the conspiracy theory, which is....

What?

The common denominator of all of the 9/11 CTs seems to be that they never get around to producing a comprehensive theory of those events, presenting positive evidence in its favor and demonstrating how that theory fits all the available data and explains it better than any competing theory.

Instead we keep getting treated to apparently random sniping at details of the commonly held explanation, with the implication that if said explanation isn't absolutely perfect in every detail, it fails in everything and can be replaced by a CT to be named later.

It's much the same faulty reasoning that we see from Apollo Hoax Believers, pseudoscience cranks and creationists, and it has grown very tiresome.

I'm off to work now, to that blessed domain where the question of "does it work the way I said it would?" is impervious to all the handwaving in the world.

__________________
Please enjoy your trip through this door.

Ah, alright.

__________________
There are few left who
Stare at the skies with wonder
Wishing to know more;
The clouds still drift by above
But the eyes below are blind.
--Laura Lundberg

Check out my writing, maybe.

It certainly wasn't. Kookbuster is likely a sock of Jason's, this post is just a smoke screen to make him look skeptical and muddy the waters. I must have really crawled under his skin.

This post is my first to this thread.

I agree...why else would a brand new poster attempt to confuse other posters here with a user name so close to yours. And notice that this "new poster" has only posted in the same threads as Jason posted in.

Time to "alert" the authorities...

__________________
"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

Guys, please stop speculating over whether or not he's a sock puppet. Report his posts if you think he is, but it's pretty much rude to speculate on such things.

__________________
There are few left who
Stare at the skies with wonder
Wishing to know more;
The clouds still drift by above
But the eyes below are blind.
--Laura Lundberg

Check out my writing, maybe.

It certainly illustrated a point. A nym like "KookBuster" grants immediate acceptance. Witness Snuhwolf or whoever he is, agreeing immediately with a post that in fact illustrates the faulty thinking behind the believers of the official claim.

Rather masterful, I'd say.

But, if you say I'm Jason, then no doubt I too will be banned.

Why?

I've PMed Fraser...

I agree...I apologize...

__________________
"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

I edited my post after I realized I just read some of the last lines, and didn't really pay attention to the post. My fault.

No, an error done by me; I'm often absent-minded, and don't think clearly often. You cannot judge this board based on my mistakes.

Because Jason was banned for breaking rules. Sock Puppeting is breaking the rules as well.

Do I really need to spell this out for you?

__________________
There are few left who
Stare at the skies with wonder
Wishing to know more;
The clouds still drift by above
But the eyes below are blind.
--Laura Lundberg

Check out my writing, maybe.

You're all free to do anything you wish. Except, it would seem, address the original post. You'd all much rather talk about "sockpuppets" and the like.

It seems rather deficient on the part of supposed debunkers.

Before I realized the "deception", I was getting ready to PM Kookbreaker and ask if he had sustained head trauma recently as his posts were not making any sense.

If you want to call that "immediate acceptance" be my guest.

__________________
"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

The point was in NightWulf accepting en toto a (still unaddressed) piece that clearly called into question many, many aspects of the 9/11 story.

He stamped it with an "I agree with this post", mainly due to the nym attached to it. It's quite likely he didn't read it.

I was hoping the post would be addressed, but that doesn't appear to happen.

Is it really too much to ask to try to get my name right? I'm Lonewulf. Not Nightwulf. Not anything else you're mentioning.

I also am not working intentionally to create a misconception and confusion through naming myself.

I've already addressed my mistake, and I still submit that I do not represent everyone here. I am a minority of one.

__________________
There are few left who
Stare at the skies with wonder
Wishing to know more;
The clouds still drift by above
But the eyes below are blind.
--Laura Lundberg

Check out my writing, maybe.

I knew I shouldn't have joined that hammer fight this morning.

My sincere apologies to Kookbreaker for confusing him with the troll. By way of extenuation I can only claim that since K.B.'s been active in the other 9/11 threads and since I'm very familiar with the nick from JREF it was a pretty natural mistake. If only we had avatars- I'd surely have noticed the absence of Dear Leader...

However, I thought it might be worth taking a look at some of the claims in the troll's cut-n-paste. Here's what I've come up with for the first three:

A laundry list of scandals doesn't constitute evidence of a specific person's wrongdoing in a specific case. This kind of "these are baaad people so they must be guilty of whatever I accuse them of" innuendo would instantly be recognized and barred as prejudicial and irrelevant in a court; why should it suddenly become a valid argument when asserted by a troll on a message board?

Quite right- it's not a basis for drawing any conclusion at all, because the assertion that Riggs was "Jonathan Bush's bank" is a falsehood.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004May14.html

Bush wasn't running Riggs Bank, he owned a business which they bought, and ultimately wound up in charge of running that particular subsidiary. Calling it "Jonathan Bush's bank", with the clear intent to imply that he was owner or CEO of the unit which was involved in financial scandals is, at best, an invalid inference and at worst an outright lie.

So, what was Marvin Bush's connection with Securacom/Stratesec?


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

http://anderson.ath.cx:8000/911/hj05.html


And, what services did Stratesec provide at Dulles?

http://anderson.ath.cx:8000/911/hj05.html


And what happened at Dulles?

http://channel.nationalgeographic.co.../timeline.html

Sure looks like the passenger screening system failed, but as noted above, Stratesec wasn't in charge of this, so we needn't try to torture logic into the belief that a company director whose primary duties involved financial committees could somehow exert enough control over the daily operations of one of its contractees to ensure that the hijackers had a clear coast. The conspiracist claim here is just another atttempt at creating a prejudicial atmosphere which fails at the first touch of reality.

Perhaps if Stratesec had been in charge of passenger screening the hijackers wouldn't have made it onto the plane. Who can say?

Glancing at the rest of the mishmosh it looks to me like there are some other demonstrable falsehoods and half-truths sprinkled throughout. Anyone else wanna take a turn?

__________________
Please enjoy your trip through this door.

Guys, please relax on the "Troll" accusations. Things are growing just a bit too heated.

__________________
There are few left who
Stare at the skies with wonder
Wishing to know more;
The clouds still drift by above
But the eyes below are blind.
--Laura Lundberg

Check out my writing, maybe.

Well, that rant (in the OP) is grade-A fertilizer. Tell him to read "Ghost Wars." It explains the relationship between the United States and insurgent forces in Afghanistan perfectly and clearly.

Take this for instance:

The reason the subs were called away was that they would only be able to fire cruise missiles. Cruise missiles make big explosions. Osama bin Laden always stayed in camps where there were women and children. The subs had been there for years, and never fired since collateral damage would always result. Ergo, the subs were useless, and were called away.

So. I highly recommend the book. All of its information is from primary sources (interviews and government reports) and it is heavily footnoted. So I'll trust it over this guy.

__________________
Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?