2157 replies to this topic

[pallidin]

Sky, are these people really so unaware of commonly known, well documented facts?

Disturbing. Maybe they just hang-out on "fringe-sites"

[tribalactivity]

does everyone forget what happened after 911? Insurance premiums went through the roof, who profited from it? The Banks and Insurance companies!

[pallidin]

tribalactivity, on 17 January 2013 - 01:46 AM, said:

does everyone forget what happened after 911? Insurance premiums went through the roof, who profited from it? The Banks and Insurance companies!

And your point is?

[skyeagle409]

pallidin, on 17 January 2013 - 01:36 AM, said:

Sky, are these people really so unaware of commonly known, well documented facts?

Disturbing. Maybe they just hang-out on "fringe-sites"

I have said before that claims of 9/11 conspiracist are ignorant-based. I have visited some of those conspiracy websites and was amazed at the high level of the disinformation and misinformation they were spewing. In some cases, I caught them outright lying.

I am retired from the USAF and have worked for defense contractors in the aviation field for well over 40 years and I can confirmed from decades of experience in aircraft maintenance and as a pilot,  that much of what those CT websites have posted does not occur in the real world of aviation and they are in fact, deliberately posting false information.

[pallidin]

skyeagle409, on 17 January 2013 - 01:49 AM, said:

I have said before that claims of 9/11 conspiracist are ignorant-based. I have visited some of those conspiracy websites and was amazed at the high level of the disinformation and misinformation they were spewing. In some cases, I caught them outright lying.

I am retired from the USAF and have worked for defense contractors in the aviation field for well over 40 years and I can confirmed from decades of experience in aircraft maintenance and as a pilot,  that much of what those CT websites have posted does not occur in the real world of aviation and they are in fact, deliberately posting false information.

Exactly.

[redhen]

Little Fish, on 17 January 2013 - 12:28 AM, said:

great, so you agree this is prima facie, so why was this covered up by the 911 commission?

Go back and re-read our prima facie dialogue. it sounds like you're equivocating. At one point you meant the denotation and literal translation; at first face/look; subject to further investigation, not the usual connotation; self evident.

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I already told you.
zelikow (with the cfr and the cia) wrote the document "imagining the transforming event",

p1

Right. Think tanks, think up stuff.

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it was zelikow who also primarily wrote the 911 commission report which concluded "911 was a failure of imagination",

p2

I'll buy that

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sothey imagined it and failed to imagine it, all at the same time, so the 911 commission report was a coverup.

(intermediate conclusion)

At the same time? The 911 commission report must necessarily come after the CFR speculative document.
So the think tank thought up one of many scenarios, the gov't read it, said thanks, and then ignored it. Happens all the time in governments. It's almost like a "a failure of imagination". Bureaucracies are not known as innovators, stuff takes a long time to  get done in western democracies. /shrug, that's the price we pay.

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I already told you.
Rumsfeld was the defence secretary.
Rumsfeld was helping stretcher the injured on the pentagon lawn.
Rumsfeld was in his office on the opposite side of the pentagon to the plane strike (a very large buildiing).
Rumsfeld took the time to travel from one side of the building to the other and then proceed to help the injured.
Rumsfeld was therefore not available during that period to give approval for any requests of scramble (and maybe even longer since his whereabouts were unknown previous to this period).

Ok, accounts differ as to exactly how long he was unavailable, half hour? While looking for this info, I see why he went out of the building to the crash site, same reason I would have; "He later recalled that "I wanted to see what had happened. I wanted to see if people needed help." http://en.wikipedia....Donald_Rumsfeld

It goes back to my deer in the headlight suggestion, people forget about priorities and stuff they have to do.
" Some 12 hours after the attack, Torie Clarke, Mr Rumsfeld's press secretary, asked him if he had phoned Joyce, his wifeof 47 years, to tell her he was safe. When he replied that he hadn't, she blurted out: "You son of a b****."
Mr Rumsfeld admitted: "I never did call her."

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Rumsfeld knew that he had to be available to give approval of scramble orders because he was the one who changed the procedure to require his approval for scramble orders, so he cut himself out of the loop knowing his being accessible was essential for a military response. if this was a surprise attack then rumsfeld should have been available to respond to the approval requests, not involving himself with first aid duties.

"he cut himself out of the loop" ? Ok, that's your interpretation.

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of course anything is possible but there's no evidence. he sat in the chair for at least seven minutes after the second crash without saying anything to anyone and without anyone saying anything to him. whether bush made the decision to stay or whether someone else made the decision to stay, the decision to stay is not consistent with the security threat, unless it was known the school was not to be a target.

I am not privy to U.S. secret protocol and plans for protecting the president. Are these online or something? lol

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"The day after 9/11, Canada’s Globe and Mail commented: “For some reason, Secret Service agents did not bustle [Bush] away.” The background for this comment was explained by Philip Melanson, the author of a book about the Secret Service. “With an unfolding terrorist attack,” Melanson said, “the procedure should have been to get the president to the closest secure location as quickly as possible.” That this indeed would have been standard operating procedure is illustrated by the fact that, as soon as the second strike on the World Trade Center was seen on television, one agent said to Sarasota County Sheriff Bill Balkwill: “We’re out of here. Can you get everybody ready?”
http://www.globalres...-classroom/8555

so once again we see a departure from long standing standard procedure.

Ah, so Philip Melanson has the secret protection plans. I see he was an academic at UMass, and also wrote a book about the history of the Secret Service. Well, I don't think your appeal to authority is convincing. Sure one could guess that in case of attack, the pres is whisked away as outlined in some crisis flowchart. But there are so many variables and unknowns about authority, jurisdiction, leeway, etc.

Ideally, in order to make a very strong case, your explanation would be the only one conceivable that would make sense. Sort of like Hume's criteria for a miracle. I'm not asking for that though. But If you can't see any other possible explanations to all your premises on this thread,  and assumptions, then you are being dogmatic.

[Diablo Blanco]

and then, on 12 January 2013 - 05:19 AM, said:

Maintaining a secret by the numbers of people it would have taken to execute such a plan is impossible imo.  

How many people would it take? There are roughly 5 million freemasons in the world and they're keeping secrets.

[Little Fish]

redhen, on 17 January 2013 - 02:03 AM, said:

Go back and re-read our prima facie dialogue. it sounds like you're equivocating. At one point you meant the denotation and literal translation; at first face/look; subject to further investigation, not the usual connotation; self evident.

you are just wordsmithing.
prima facie -  "A fact presumed to be true unless it is disproved. referring to a lawsuit or criminal prosecution in which the evidence before trial is sufficient to prove the case unless there is substantial contradictory evidence presented at trial", so without substantial contradictory evidence the conclusion is valid (not necessarily true, but valid nevertheless). it reverses the burden of proof - you have to refute it or accept it.
http://legal-diction...com/prima facie

you agree that rumsfeld changed the scramble and intercept procedure to gave him control of the military defence response, and we know that the response failed.

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At the same time? The 911 commission report must necessarily come after the CFR speculative document.

"all at the same time" was sarcasm, i was highlighting the contradiction. it's clear to me now you are not up for an honest discussion, or maybe you are one of the 71%.

they imagined the event and wrote about it. then the same guy wrote the commission report which concluded they failed to imagine....and you are happy with this lie?

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So the think tank thought up one of many scenarios, the gov't read it, said thanks, and then ignored it. Happens all the time in governments. It's almost like a "a failure of imagination". Bureaucracies are not known as innovators, stuff takes a long time to  get done in western democracies. /shrug, that's the price we pay.

ah, the dumb blond with finger in mouth defence.

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Ok, accounts differ as to exactly how long he was unavailable, half hour? While looking for this info, I see why he went out of the building to the crash site, same reason I would have; "He later recalled that "I wanted to see what had happened. I wanted to see if people needed help." http://en.wikipedia....Donald_Rumsfeld

he's the secretary of defence and the nation is under attack, not some curious passer by walking the dog. his and your explanation are not believable.

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It goes back to my deer in the headlight suggestion, people forget about priorities and stuff they have to do.
" Some 12 hours after the attack, Torie Clarke, Mr Rumsfeld's press secretary, asked him if he had phoned Joyce, his wifeof 47 years, to tell her he was safe. When he replied that he hadn't, she blurted out: "You son of a b****."
Mr Rumsfeld admitted: "I never did call her."

sure, that's what the secretary of defence does when the country is under attack /sarcasm. you are appealing to the absurd. forget? he had just rewritten the hijack response procedure to require his own permission for a defence response, and he forgot? do you think these procedures are not drilled?

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"he cut himself out of the loop" ? Ok, that's your interpretation.

no one ordered him to make himself unavailable. his own action took himself out of the loop and that action undermined the defence response during a critical time.

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I am not privy to U.S. secret protocol and plans for protecting the president. Are these online or something? lol

Ah, so Philip Melanson has the secret protection plans. I see he was an academic at UMass, and also wrote a book about the history of the Secret Service. Well, I don't think your appeal to authority is convincing. Sure one could guess that in case of attack, the pres is whisked away as outlined in some crisis flowchart. But there are so many variables and unknowns about authority, jurisdiction, leeway, etc.

oh sure its all so complicated no one really understands it /sarcasm. are you stating that the professor is not a legitimate expert? it was evidenced by the agent's statement "we're out of here" but you ignored that bit.
furthermore you are on record suggesting the appropriate response WAS to get the president out of there since you appealed to the "deer in the highlights" as an excuse for not doing so, now you are committing the appealing to ignorance fallacy in appealing to a lack of evidence. it's obvious to me your belief is driving your thinking.

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Ideally, in order to make a very strong case, your explanation would be the only one conceivable that would make sense. Sort of like Hume's criteria for a miracle. I'm not asking for that though. But If you can't see any other possible explanations to all your premises on this thread,  and assumptions, then you are being dogmatic.

evidence trumps speculation and appeal to ignorance.

Edited by Little Fish, 17 January 2013 - 10:28 AM.

[redhen]

Little Fish, on 17 January 2013 - 10:26 AM, said:

you are just wordsmithing.
prima facie -  "A fact presumed to be true unless it is disproved. referring to a lawsuit or criminal prosecution in which the evidence before trial is sufficient to prove the case unless there is substantial contradictory evidence presented at trial", so without substantial contradictory evidence the conclusion is valid (not necessarily true, but valid nevertheless). it reverses the burden of proof - you have to refute it or accept it.
http://legal-diction...com/prima facie

Morning Fish. Here's what you said on pg 40; "great, so you agree this is prima facie, so why was this covered up by the 911 commission?"  Here you use the term prima facie to denote self -evident. And I told you then that it's not self evident,  many people don't accept it. It is prima facie when taken to mean at first glance, subject to further investigation.

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you agree that rumsfeld changed the scramble and intercept procedure to gave him control of the military defence response, and we know that the response failed.

Agreed, but other responses failed that day, starting with lax TSA screening processes that welcomed the terrorists. This is something that still needs to be seriously addressed.

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"all at the same time" was sarcasm, i was highlighting the contradiction. it's clear to me now you are not up for an honest discussion, or maybe you are one of the 71%.

Ok, the sarcasm was not apparent.

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they imagined the event and wrote about it. then the same guy wrote the commission report which concluded they failed to imagine....and you are happy with this lie?

I already explained. Zelikow and the CFR put out many hypothetical scenarios, that's their job. Was Zelikow responsible for approving and implementing security measures to thwart his imagined scenario? No. Like many think tank opinions and suggestions, this one was shelved. Then Zelikow wrote as part of the 911 commission that there was a failure of imagination, on the governments part. Or do you think that he meant he had a failure of imagination. Such an admission would be absurd.

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he's the secretary of defence and the nation is under attack, not some curious passer by walking the dog. his and your explanation are not believable.

sure, that's what the secretary of defence does when the country is under attack /sarcasm. you are appealing to the absurd. forget? he had just rewritten the hijack response procedure to require his own permission for a defence response, and he forgot? do you think these procedures are not drilled?

You'd be surprised how people react when under tremendous stress.

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no one ordered him to make himself unavailable. his own action took himself out of the loop and that action undermined the defence response during a critical time.

"no one ordered him to make himself unavailable"  Aha ! So there was no conspiracy. Thank you

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oh sure its all so complicated no one really understands it /sarcasm. are you stating that the professor is not a legitimate expert? it was evidenced by the agent's statement "we're out of here" but you ignored that bit.

He may be an expert in the history of the Secret Service, but he's not in a position to know what the current secret plans are to protect the pres and ensure continuity of the government.

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furthermore you are on record suggesting the appropriate response WAS to get the president out of there since you appealed to the "deer in the highlights" as an excuse for not doing so,

Correct.

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now you are committing the appealing to ignorance fallacy in appealing to a lack of evidence. it's obvious to me your belief is driving your thinking.

Not so. This fallacy  consists of a claim where "It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false,".
I have never said that my premise p was true because it has not been proven false.  I simply think your evidence does not warrant your claims, and these claims are too weak to justify your conclusion, that 911 was an inside job.

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evidence trumps speculation and appeal to ignorance.

It sure does. Now show me the evidence that Rumsfeld was part of a conspiracy to disarm Americas (and Canada since they are also part of NORAD) national defense systems for a few days to facilitate a foreign attack that caused more American deaths than Pearl Harbor?

Here's what I quoted from one of my logic textbooks on the Sandy Hook conspiracy thread;

"The point is that the more a claim accords with our background beliefs, the less strong its own credentials must be. (The claim that is snowed in Minnesota in December does not need strong credentials to be accepted). The less a new claim is in accordance with these background beliefs, the stronger its own credentials must be), (The claim that it snowed in Florida in July needs very strong credentials). Any new claim, no matter how outlandish (that is, no matter how much it conflicts with our background beliefs), could conceivably turn out to be true. But some claims are so outlandish they must have extraordinary strong credentials if they are to be taken seriously."   The elements of reasoning, 5th edition, Munson - Black

Or more succinctly as Carl Sagan would say, "extraordinary claims, require extraordinary evidence"

p.s. by background beliefs is meant the reasonable beliefs that you already hold. Of which most of them are accepted from the word of others, since we can't be experts in everything.

An example from the book; "Consider the following:
A neighbour says seven hippopotamuses have knocked down your clothesline poles.

Our background beliefs about natural habitats and the security of the local zoo make it incredibly unlikely that hippos should appear in our yard. These beliefs are so well grounded that they make it much more likely that our neighbour is mistaken in his claim (he could be drunk or a practical joker)  than that the hippopotamuses are there."  ibid p 198

[flyingswan]

<p>

redhen, on 17 January 2013 - 03:12 PM, said:

Here's what I quoted from one of my logic textbooks on the Sandy Hook conspiracy thread;

"The point is that the more a claim accords with our background beliefs, the less strong its own credentials must be. (The claim that is snowed in Minnesota in December does not need strong credentials to be accepted). The less a new claim is in accordance with these background beliefs, the stronger its own credentials must be), (The claim that it snowed in Florida in July needs very strong credentials). Any new claim, no matter how outlandish (that is, no matter how much it conflicts with our background beliefs), could conceivably turn out to be true. But some claims are so outlandish they must have extraordinary strong credentials if they are to be taken seriously."   The elements of reasoning, 5th edition, Munson - Black

I think the problem here is that you are debating people who have the background belief that the US Government is a completely evil organisation, therefore any accusation of responsibility for a crime doesn't need strong credentials.

[redhen]

flyingswan, on 17 January 2013 - 03:59 PM, said:

<p>

I think the problem here is that you are debating people who have the background belief that the US Government is a completely evil organisation, therefore any accusation of responsibility for a crime doesn't need strong credentials.

I think you are on to something. These beliefs are fostered in universities by leftist professors and teaching assistants. I think I will start on a new thread on this Marxist agenda.

New thread here http://www.unexplain...howtopic=241258

Edited by redhen, 17 January 2013 - 04:49 PM.

[Q24]

redhen, on 17 January 2013 - 03:12 PM, said:

Agreed, but other responses failed that day, starting with lax TSA screening processes that welcomed the terrorists. This is something that still needs to be seriously addressed.

I’d let the TSA off on this one, seeing as the hijackers had at first glance legitimate VISAs, obtained from the CIA-run consulate in Jeddah.  Of more note is the concerted CIA effort to prevent the FBI blocking access to the country for the terrorists (future hijackers) or having them removed from their U.S. residence thereafter for a period of months up to 9/11, despite the known ‘Al Qaeda’ connection and threat posed.  It’s a long story with evidence from multiple official sources, but 9/11 would not have happened, at least not as we know it, without that assistance from the CIA, and it reaches higher into the Bush administration than that.

The above is all some of the argument I promised to run through but I didn’t want to disrupt Little Fish’s flow just yet.  I must say redhen, you are providing some strange responses to his posts – particularly in regard to Zelikow and Rumsfeld.

Documents show that Zelikow and other government officials and departments who would form the Bush administration (at both high and low levels) certainly imagined the “transforming event” or “catastrophic and catalyzing event” more than once in the years prior 9/11.  The intelligence that Al Qaeda wanted to attack New York and were in preparation for airliner hijackings was even on Bush’s desk the month prior 9/11.  It was a nonsense for the 9/11 Commission or Condi Rice to declare the reason for not preventing the attack, “a failure of imagination”.  It would have been more correct for the 9/11 Commission to declare it, “a failure to pro-actively respond to that imagined and intelligence”.  And that’s at a minimum, because as initially noted in this post, it was not simply that the CIA and Bush administration did nothing, it’s that they forged in the exact opposite direction to be expected in preventing what had been imagined and presented in intelligence.

As for Rumsfeld, he made himself unavailable (it is absolutely ridiculous he was out on the Pentagon lawn with the U.S. under attack and NORAD in need of direction).  The ‘conspiracy’ would therefore be between Rumsfeld and others who created and carried out the attack.  Your rebuttal there was very poor.

PS Sources for all the above available on request.  I hope to come back to the initial point raised in this post in a lot more detail once you and Little Fish are finished – I’d be interested to know how close it comes to meeting your standards and/or what excuses you can provide not to accept almost blatant conclusions.

flyingswan, on 17 January 2013 - 03:59 PM, said:

I think the problem here is that you are debating people who have the background belief that the US Government is a completely evil organisation, therefore any accusation of responsibility for a crime doesn't need strong credentials.

I’m sure you’d like to absolve Neocon individuals of the Bush administration of all history and precedent; start them with a nice clean slate on 9/11, but that’s not going to happen.  You know, I'd love to read your biography on Cheney, jolly kind, fair and sincere man.  As Bush tried to mention, there’s an old saying: -





Well shame on you.

[flyingswan]

Q24, on 17 January 2013 - 05:06 PM, said:

I’m sure you’d like to absolve Neocon individuals of the Bush administration of all history and precedent; start them with a nice clean slate on 9/11, but that’s not going to happen.  You know, I'd love to read your biography on Cheney, jolly kind, fair and sincere man.  

I am certainly not a fan of Cheney, particularly on account of his role in promoting the war in Iraq.  However, that doesn't mean that he is automatically guilty of anything you care to accuse him of.

[skyeagle409]

Q24, on 17 January 2013 - 05:06 PM, said:

I’d let the TSA off on this one, seeing as the hijackers had at first glance legitimate VISAs, obtained from the CIA-run consulate in Jeddah.  Of more note is the concerted CIA effort to prevent the FBI blocking access to the country for the terrorists (future hijackers) or having them removed from their U.S. residence thereafter for a period of months up to 9/11, despite the known ‘Al Qaeda’ connection and threat posed.  It’s a long story with evidence from multiple official sources, but 9/11 would not have happened, at least not as we know it, without that assistance from the CIA, and it reaches higher into the Bush administration than that.

That doesn't make any sense because the CIA and its headquarters were a target of those terrorist, the same terrorist the CIA has been taking out with drone attacks. In other words, they were not the buddies  you tried to portray them to be.

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The intelligence that Al Qaeda wanted to attack New York and were in preparation for airliner hijackings was even on Bush’s desk the month prior 9/11.

Thank you for confirming that there was intelligence that al-Qaeda wanted to attack New York. After all, I have brought up that fact as well, and remember, countries around the world were warning the United States that terrorist were in the stages of carrying out their attack upon America, which obviously had nothing to do with a government conspiracy.

.

Edited by skyeagle409, 17 January 2013 - 06:32 PM.

[skyeagle409]

flyingswan, on 17 January 2013 - 05:16 PM, said:

I am certainly not a fan of Cheney, particularly on account of his role in promoting the war in Iraq.  However, that doesn't mean that he is automatically guilty of anything you care to accuse him of.

Those 911 conspiracy folks continue to dream up unfounded conspiracies without evidence. One example was when asked for evidence, they posted a well known hoaxed video of WTC7, which was clearly a hoax as indicated by the reversed image of WTC7 and added flashes by the author, not to mention the UFO he pointed out. Despite the many warnings the video was a hoax, some trumpeted that video as evidence that WTC7 was demolished by explosives. A prime example as to why they cannot be taken seriously.