[Jane of Arc]

On the morning of 9-11-2001 I woke up, made some coffee and scuffed into the living room. I sat down on the couch and searched for the remote. Still half asleep, I turned on the TV to CNN. BAM!!! The first WTC was hit!

My first thought after seeing this was WHERE IS NORAD? Something was terribly wrong in America. Our gazillion dollar National Defense is not working today? What the hell is going on?

I stood there for well over an unbelievable hour screaming at the TV ...

Where is NORAD?

Where is NORAD?

WHERE WAS NORAD?

This is a VERY informative radio show: http://media.putfile.com/Randi-Rhodes-on-NORAD-and-911

[Wafflepudding]

NORAD was designed and concieved primary to enforce MAD, not to shoot down hijacked airliners. In a way it WAS concieved to shoot down jet planes, but these were clearly hostile Soviet Tupolev bombers which could be detected with plenty of prior notice, not US civilian aircraft. It was relatively easy to drop the ball, and lets not forget, at the time (supposedly) no one knew the plan was to fly the planes into the towers. Many other plane hijackings by middle-eastern extremists ended in a less gruesome manner and there WERE live passengers inside the plane. I'm thinking when the moment of truth came, no one wanted to take the political fallout of shooting down a plane full of American citizens, which eventually costed more but at the time was not foreseen. Even if it could, again, heads would roll, and the prime directive of this administration, and even the military today is "Cover your ass".

[-V-]

again, waffle, you are working too hard at "covering their ass" for them. It was known that terrorists might use airliners as weapons and there was plenty of time for NORAD to take part in proceedings regardless of what type of plane it was.

"Covering their ass" would have been to have the planes in their sites and let the President make the decision, or if he was too busy reading My Pet Goat, the VP, etc.. NORAD only needed to do their job, like any good soldier is told to do. In this case, perhaps, told NOT to do???

[Jane of Arc]

Pudding ~

NORAD has been updated many times since it's bi-national beginning with Canada in 1958. So, your reference to the Cold War status as it concerns 9/11 is irrrevelant.

When has NORAD ever "dropped the ball"? Please back up this grand sweeping statement with facts and site cases?

You say, no one knew the 'plan' was to fly planes into towers? As soon as any plane flies off course NORAD or the Air Force is on them like flies on stink. Doesn't matter if they knew "the plan" or not. Need I site incidences when they were on the rogue plane in a matter of minutes? Come on.

Puddin ~ here's a question for you: If you were these "terrorists" and you had this amazing 'plan' wouldn't you assume that America has a pretty slamming defense system? Wouldn't you research how fast it takes the US military to scramble to intercept a plane off course? Wouldn't you want to have these attacks happen as simultaneously as possible seeing that NORAD historically responds in supersonic fashion? Would you permit yourself one and a half hours floating around US air space???

(Isn't it convenient that NORAD didn't work that day???)


Mr. Anderson ~ Please feel free to jump into this conversation. Pudding needs a little help here again.

[Wafflepudding]

V: I thought that was what happened. After all quite a few people supporting CTs have talked about "stand down orders" coming from the top of the administration, and that much, I agree, is VERY PLAUSIBLE.

Pudding ~

NORAD has been updated many times since it's bi-national beginning with Canada in 1958. So, your reference to the Cold War status as it concerns 9/11 is irrrevelant.

(Isn't it convenient that NORAD didn't work that day???)


True, NORAD has been updated many times. What has been updated? The missile defense initiatives count as an update to NORAD's mission from detection to interdiction of ICBM launches, those are costly and much publicized yet irrevelant when it comes down to shooting civilian airliners. The RADAR grid along Canada has also been frequently updated, and again that's beside the point. Which "Updates" are you talking about?

You're ignoring my point. Airliner hijackings have resulted in hostage situations in the past, there was no reason to think differently until the first plane hit.

You're judging the situation from your perspective, from the now. Try to place yourself on the moment, with the information and the context available THEN. If your first reaction to a hostage situation on a jet liner is to shoot the plane down, I don't want you as head of NORAD, not before 9/11 and not after.

When has NORAD ever "dropped the ball"? Please back up this grand sweeping statement with facts and site cases?

I said "It was relatively easy to drop the ball". Not "NORAD always drops the ball", not "NORAD has never been effective". It's frustrating to discuss these things if you keep reading things I didn't say.

Nevertheless that's actually a favorable argument for my perspective, NORAD HAS SCREWED UP BEFORE. From Wikipedia:

"On November 9, 1979, a technician in NORAD loaded a test tape but failed to switch the system status to "test," causing a stream of constant false warnings to spread to two "continuity of government" bunkers as well as command posts worldwide. A similar incident occurred on June 2, 1980, when a computer communications device failure caused warning messages to sporadically flash in U.S. Air Force command posts around the world that a nuclear attack was taking place. "

From http://www-ee.stanford.edu/~hellman/Breakthrough/book/pdfs/sennott.pdf : "a total of 1152 moderately serious false alarms ocurred during the period 1977-1984. An average of almost 3 false alarms per week... The issue of false alarms is considered so sensitive that data are no longer being released by the American government".

Not only does NORAD screw up, it screws up 3 times per week on average. How effective NORAD really is, apparently, is "sensitive information". Suspicious? you bet.

As soon as any plane flies off course NORAD or the Air Force is on them like flies on stink. Doesn't matter if they knew "the plan" or not. Need I site incidences when they were on the rogue plane in a matter of minutes? Come on.

Yes please. Cite instances where an American civilian airliner veering off course has warranted immediate interception by fighter jets.


here's a question for you: If you were these "terrorists" and you had this amazing 'plan' wouldn't you assume that America has a pretty slamming defense system? Wouldn't you research how fast it takes the US military to scramble to intercept a plane off course? Wouldn't you want to have these attacks happen as simultaneously as possible seeing that NORAD historically responds in supersonic fashion? Would you permit yourself one and a half hours floating around US air space???

Flight 11 started veering off course at 8:16, and crashed into WTC 1 at 8:46. That's half an hour. Flight 175 was (apparently) hijacked at 8:41 and crashed at 9:03 AM, that's 24 minutes (175 also left the gate at 7:59, around the same time flight 11 took off so there's your "simultaneously as possible"). Flight 77 was hijacked between 8:51 and 8:54, and crashed at 9:37, that's 43 minutes (It was scheduled to depart at 8:10, and was hijacked 8 minutes after flight 11 hit WTC1, I'd call that good planning). All in all, if the planes had adhered to the schedules, and all hijackings had occured around the same time, the operation would have been much faster, but they apparently compensated for the delays as best as they could.

All planes spent less than 45 minutes airborne, less than half the time you said NORAD had to shoot them down. I trust you already know how many fighters we had airborne and ready that day and where and how long would it take them to get to the planes, you do the math.

But enough arguing, what exactly is your account of what happened that day? There were no planes and only CD? There were remotely controlled planes loaded with explosives? There were RC planes and demo charges were planted in WTC and the pentagon beforehand? They used bunkerbuster missiles with a bigger airframe? what?

[Jane of Arc]

Puddin' ~

You're right. Enough arguing. We could go back and forth forever. I could cite you endless examples of NORAD intercepting planes off course according to protocol. It's a no-brainer. It's one Google search. Were they perfect? No. But, they are extremely well-trained. Normally jets would have been on the wingtips of each airliner in under 20 min. waiting for orders to shoot them down or not. And if the airliners were headed for the WTC's or the Pentagon they would of been shot down under normal circumstances. But, as we all know NORAD wasn't functioning that day. And the air missle defense around the Pentagon wasn't activated that day either. Miraculously.

But let's get to the bigger picture. You, for some reason, want to believe that our government is inept? Is that it? And you believe we were attacked by amazingly well-organized terrorists? Terrorists that couldn't fly worth a damn? Terrorists that pulled air stunts with jumbo jets deemed impossible to do by experienced pilots? And do you actually believe in this mythical "War on Terror"? And do you believe that a jumbo jet fit through that little hole in the Pentagon? And do you believe it was no big deal there was no plane wreckage at the Pentagon? And do you think it's fine that the CIA took the videotapes from every structure around the Pentagon within 5 minutes and won't show them to the public? (Except for one blur that looks like a missle they were forced to release under the Freedom of Information Act.) And do you believe tens of millions of dollars in trading on Wall St. based on pre-knowledge of 9/11 was a fluke? And you believe when Larry Silverstein said the decision was made to "pull it" he was talking in tongues? And you believe that for the first time in history an un-hit modern skyscraper (Bldg. 7) was brought down by fire in perfect pancake demolition fashion? And why did Bush try to stop the 9/11 investigation? And why did the CIA and FBI within hours after the attacks release photos of the terrorists to the news media? Huh? And why haven't we pursued Bin Laden who supposedly orchestrated the worst attack on American soil? Why is this "Hitler" scott free? Does that make any sense at all?

I can go on and on and on and on.

Can't you see what happened after 9/11 was just exactly what the globalists needed? Please, you first...tell me your bigger picture of that fateful day, Puddin', because I don't get how a smart kid like you isn't at least a little suspicious?

[Wafflepudding]

Alright, here's my take on it so far (it's gonna be kinda long so bear with me here please):

The Bush administration from the get-go was put there by corporate interests by electoral fraud back in 2000, with an agenda elaborated by the PNAC and a campaign largely funded by energy and defense companies. The idea from the start was to milk the country for all it's worth, and use the military to further corporate America's interests overseas. However they needed a believable excuse to put their plans in motion. Since mid 2000 Bush was already looking for a reason to start a war with Iraq. However America was not in the frightened paranoid state it was after 9/11, so they wouldn't just buy his crap right off the bat.

Now, for some reason all the forewarnings about Bin Laden and Al-Quaeda by people like John O´Neil were ignored, whether this was the result of incompetence (like the way the Katrina impending disaster was dismissed) or deliberately left alone to fester in the hopes that it would eventually provide justification for an attack on the middle east, I'm not sure. Mere months before 9/11, both the FBI and the CIA had reasons to believe an attack on the WTC was imminent and had enough reason to detain the hijackers. The official explanation claimed it was the result of "poor communication between agencies", but again these warnings could have been deliberately dismissed.

Either way American homeland defense had become complacent after the end of the cold war without a clear enemy that directly threathened our national security. We were looking out, not in, as evidenced by the budget cuts in several intelligence and armed services during the 90's. The public did not know (and mostly still doesn't) about the bloody mess half a century of American intervention in middle-eastern affairs has left behind. They did not know that many people had good reason to hate us fanatically, and they did not think a bunch of underfunded, badly trained third world extremists represented much of a threat. "What can they do? we're protected by the most powerful military, the finest intelligence agencies and the most sensitive radar network on earth!"

But as it turns out, none of these were designed to counter foreign terrorist threats other than the ocassional hijacking and hostage taking (like the ones commited by PLO sympathizers during the 80's or the Iran hostage crisis). I think it was akin to installing barbed wire to protect yourself from malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Much noise on the media (both official and entertainment media) was made about America's imperviousness to foreign attack, and it provided the same hollow, false sense of security the "duck and cover" civil defense campaigns did in their time. In short, there was an atmosphere from general society to the highest echelons of complacency and arrogance. The elite thought they could just push and push without the arabs pushing back, and the general public didn't even know or care.

As a result of these factors, or deliberate "stand down" orders from the highest levels of the government, the group of hijackers managed to hit 3 of the 4 targets they had intended. From their perspective their mission was a success, America was frightened and humbled, they showed the rest of the arab world that you CAN fight back against "the great satan" despite American technological and military superiority, and they sent a message to "zionists" and Americans that they were not beyond harm.

Meanwhile things were looking up for the Bush administration, they finally had the pretext they needed, however attempts to link 9/11 and Iraq directly failed, in fact they were so tenuous they weren't chosen as the big selling point of the Iraq war two years later (choosing WMD instead). The evidence clearly indicated that the responsible parties did NOT HAVE OIL, and that we were stepping on our own landmines leftover from the cold war (the CIA-Bin Laden relation for instance). But the Texas bully had the country riled up and he had to show that he wasn't all talk and no walk, so despite reasonable requests by the Taliban that we turned over evidence of Bin Laden's involvement in 9/11 before they turned him in, we marched in and the rest you all know how it went down.

The defense companies were pleased, another war means higher revenues, but the Afghanistan war just didn't cost us enough in materials, and Afghanistan is not an oil rich country. Iraq was just around the corner. They forged evidence about enrichment programs, cooked up a WMD story (which was believable since we GAVE him the WMDs in the 80's) and were hell bent on invading Iraq regardless of Saddam cooperating or not, but it turns out they made a grave miscalculation: Saddam had actually complied, no WMDs remained in Iraq, and now they had a public relations disaster on their hands. So they tasked their usual marketing boys (Coulter, Limbaugh, Murdoch, O'Reilly, etc) with a critical mission: Prevent a repeat of the Vietnam war, confuse the American public so they wouldn't question it but again, they made a big miscalculation, they forgot that TV, Radio and magazines had a new 21st century competitor that couldn't easily be censored or supressed. And again their plans did not go smoothly.

However they have profited regardless, from multibillion dollar bloated reconstruction contracts granted without competition, to the high and steady defense spending, no matter who wins in Iraq, they already won, they have their cash, their stock prices have gone way up, and they have (so far) got away with it squeaky clean.

[-V-]

when you build a case you really put a lot of construction work into it, Waf. In this case, i can't argue with anything you've said, though i maintain the 9-11 hole goes even deeper. Well done -- karma 2 u.

[Jane of Arc]

Puddin' ~

Thank you for your effort. It's really appreciated.

So, in a nutshell you believe that "a bunch of underfunded, badly trained third world extremists" accomplished the attacks of 9/11 on America acting alone?

And you believe that the PNAC members and others just simply lucked out getting the "new Pearl Harbor" they needed by chance?

Is this correct? If not, please clarify. :)

[Wafflepudding]

No, in a nutshell, I am not sure if the Bush administration "lucked out" or they knew about the plot and let it happen (for obvious reasons). And quite frankly, I think there isn't conclusive evidence supporting one conclusion over another. What is clear though, is that this administration (and to a lesser extent every administration that has added fuel to the middle eastern fire) is largely responsible for 9/11, and they have consistently covered their asses through scapegoating and deception.

And about the "extremists": These were poorly trained by G8 armed forces standards, this does not mean they are incompetent or incapable of hijacking a plane and crashing it against a relatively large building smack dab in the middle of NYC, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world. Consider also that plane hijackings are not an unprecedented act, in fact the threat was part of popular culture during the 80's and the 90's, are you gonna claim that these were also part of the conspiracy?

Before underestimating muslim extremists, consider that the Bush administration made the same mistake, and it turns out that these "underfunded badly trained third world extremists" have frustrated the US army for the last 3 years. Most of these people live in unsanitary conditions, use 50 year old weaponry, have no close air support, and no semblance of standarized basic training and yet they keep killing American troops in armor, destroying armored vehicles and in general, succeeding against the vastly superior American army on a weekly basis.

In short if being the underdog meant it was impossible to win, no guerrilla campaign would have ever been successful. And these people have been at war with our modern, expensive, well organized, well trained and technologically superior army for years with no sign of waivering, in fact, we're throwing the towel first. Think about that before underestimating third world extremists.

On a more personal note, I believe that thinking that because they're poorer, dumber and few they can't harm us is arrrogant and cocky. There is no small enemy.

[Jane of Arc]

Puddin' ~

Okay ... so in a nutshell ... you believe that "underfunded badly trained third world extremists", who shouldn't be underestimated, attacked America on 9/11 acting alone.

And you believe that the PNAC members and other globalists just simply lucked out getting the "new Pearl Harbor" they needed by chance ... OR ... they knew about it and let it happen.

Is this correct?

[Wafflepudding]

Correct. But I wouldn't say it was luck exactly. If 9/11 hadn't happened, they would have still gone ahead with the WMD fraud. Would it have been succesful without 9/11? who knows.

In truly Orwellian fashion, this war benefits the elite on all sides of the conflict:

Corporate America earns record profits.
Bushco has a cozy retirement secured after this.
Terrorist leaders like Bin Laden have hundreds of thousands of potential new muslim recruits to further their agenda.
True threats to world safety (I'm talking about Kim Jong-Il and Donald Rumsfeld, not Iran) are left to their own devices.
The Saudies and other persons who actually fund Islamic extremists are also taking advantage of the spike in oil prices.
And politicians and the media everywhere, as always, are spinning the conflict for their own purposes.

Except, you know, the pawns. Fellow Americans and desperate muslims both gullible and blindly trusting of the authorities that they serve under. The bloodly gristle for the war machine.

[Jane of Arc]

Ok good. Now, let's venture our brains out a little further. Why not. We both love games. Let's think outside the box.

If you can imagine PNAC being so corrupt as to know about the coming attacks on America and so corrupt that they allow them to happen because they see the benefit in these attacks, can you imagine them helping to facilitate them a little bit?

[Wafflepudding]

Tentatively yes but clarify what you mean by "facillitate"

[Jane of Arc]

Facilitate means to make possible or easier.

[Wafflepudding]

I know, facilitate in what sense? stand down orders? CIA cooperation? I don't see where you're going with this yet.

[Jane of Arc]

You eloquently describe the corruption. Years of corruption. You accurately state, in my opinion, that "in truly Orwellian fashion, this war benefits the elite on all sides of the conflict." You agree that PNAC is so corrupt it would of allowed the coming attacks on America for their benefit.

So, in acknowledging the level of corruption you've described can you imagine these elites, the members of PNAC and other globalists doing anything, something that would facilitate the success of the attacks for their gain? Is it possible?

[Wafflepudding]

Yes

[Jane of Arc]

Welcome to Zion.