"THERE'S ONE TERRIBLE PILOT"

THE PRESIDENT STUMBLES INTO 9/11
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic/They Let it Happen
December 12 2006

One gaping hole in Bush’s account of his long dance with responsibility on 9/11 is how he first learned of the attack in New York and what he thought about it. Numerous people in the motorcade heading to the school before 9:00 were alerted to the first crash, and several eyewitness accounts have Bush informed before or shortly after arriving at the school that an airplane, probably a small private plane, had hit the World Trade Center. Bush himself has admitted to being informed by Andy Card, Carl Rove, and Condoleezza Rice; one report has the president musing in response that maybe the pilot had a heart attack, another that maybe it was bad weather. In all, Alan Wood and Paul Thompson at the Center for Cooperative Research counted six different stories of people informing him of this first plane’s crash. [1]

But Bush also has a seventh version, and it’s perhaps the most fascinating. On at least two occasions, Bush implied that he first heard of the crash from a TV left on in the hallway he was wandering before entering Miss Daniels’ room. At right around 9:00, a couple of minutes before the second plane hit, Bush said he “saw an airplane hit the tower” on the TV news. [2] But this is highly unlikely, as no footage of this event was aired until CNN obtained a video copy of the impact from a French camera crew that evening. Perhaps he meant to say he saw “the first plane had hit the tower,” and he was watching the smoking aftermath, which we all saw. But he repeated and clarified the story on January 5th, 2002; “when we walked into the classroom, I had seen this plane fly into the first building. There was a TV set on.” [3]

To my knowledge, no other government officials have backed this up – apparently the president had wandered off on his own at this point. These incongruous stories are certainly a curious window onto the President’s psychology. Everyone remembers where they were on 9/11, so why are his memories so strange and so obviously untrue?

Either way, the clincher is when he later recalled his thought process upon learning of the first plane to a Florida third grader named Jordan:“I used to fly myself, and I said, "There's one terrible pilot." And I said, "It must have been a horrible accident. But I was whisked off there - I didn't have much time to think about it." [4]

Let’s check the reasoning behind this conclusion, comparing it to Bush’s own experiences in the previous two months. In late July, Bush himself had been sleeping, dreaming peacefully of Crawford while floating on an aircraft carrier in Italy when he attended the 2001 G8 Summit in Genoa. This accommodation replaced the standard posh hotel on order of the Secret Service after warnings were received of a suicide hijacking threat (the crashing a plane into a building kind) against the collection of world leaders. According to the Los Angeles Times, Italian authorities closed the airspace over the venue and set up anti-aircraft guns, though the Summit continued with no incident. [5]

About two weeks later, after returning to Washington and then departing for a vacation in Crawford to dream of Genoa, Bush was informed of some kind of hijacking threat in the U.S. This was in his famous August 6th daily CIA briefing, entitled “Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S.,” which Bush later clarified he asked for in response to the Genoa affair. It stated that “FBI information […] indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.” [6] Traditional hijackings, it should be noted, do not really require any preparations, nor do they involve federal buildings on the ground. If by preparation they meant flight training, and if the building scoping was related to the air threat, the message should have been clear – suicide hijackings to bomb targets on the ground, as had been threatened at Genoa. It's not clear if this was clearly conveyed to the President at the briefing.

So in Bush’s mind, then:
Two-moth old threat of suicide hijacking (where a plane flies into a building)
+ One month old warning of possible “attack” involving a hijacking and/or New York buildings
+ A plane actually flying into a New York building known to attract terrorist attacks
= “Horrible accident… Terrible pilot.”

Is this chain of logic believable, even from George W. Bush? A year later, he still held to his story. He told 60 Minutes in an anniversary interview “I thought it was an accident. I thought it was a pilot error. I thought that some foolish soul had gotten lost and - and made a terrible mistake.” [7] “I was concerned about it, but there were no alarm bells,” he said elsewhere. And so, his services not required to deal with freak accidents, he calmly entered Miss Daniels’ room and surrendered to the power of story time at about 9:03, just as the second plane hit the WTC’s south tower.


Of course he learned a bare three minutes later that it was indeed terrorism and they were officially two-for-two, yet he failed to act decisively. I'm not terribly concerned with the five-to-seven minute Pet Goat episode, though the Booker Video is gripping. the problem for me is the next 55 minutes. Everybody who's broached the subject agrees that the only way the hijacked planes could have been stopped so late was by shooting them down and only the President could authorize that. By the official account anyway, he did not issue this authorization until about 10:05 or even as late as 10:18 - an hour or more after Andy Card's famous whisper and just as it became clear that the last plane had crashed.

But someone kept all the fighters well away from the targets anyway so Bush's serious dereliction of duty never became an issue. And once those planes completed their work unhindered, as Bush concluded to little Jordan, “when I got all the facts that we were under attack, there would be hell to pay for attacking America.” [8] And he should know, as the self-appointed collecter of payments on "hell's" behalf.

Sources:
[1] An Interesting Day: President Bush's Movements and Actions on 9/11 By Allan Wood, Paul Thompson. Center for Cooperative Research.
[2] Bush, George W. “President Meets with Displaced Workers in Town Hall Meeting” Orlando, FL. White House Press Release. December 4, 2001.
[3] Bush, George W. “President Holds Town Hall Forum on Economy in California.” Ontario, Calif. White House Press Release. January 5, 2002.
[4] See [2]. Orlando.
[5] “Italy Tells of Threat at Genoa Summit” Los Angeles Times. September 27, 2001.
[6] [partial] “Transcript: Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S.” CNN. April 10, 2004.
[7] “Bush Talks about the Moments of 9-11 as they unfolded for him.” CBS News. September 12, 2002.
[8] See [2]. Orlando.

THE WARGAMES AND DRILLS (masterlist)

HOW COULD PEOPLE SO PREPARED FAIL TO STOP THE ATTACKS?

Michael Ruppert was among the first to draw major attention to the War Games of 9/11, a complex of drills in US airspace confusingly similar to the terrorist attack. These revelations, fleshed out for him by Barbara Honegger, formed what Ruppert called “in my opinion – the holy grail of 9/11 research,” noting how they seem to have scrambled the defense and were probably coordinated by a Maestro working for Dick Cheney. [1] The most high-profile breach of the subject yet was in March 2005 when Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), acting on Ruppert's tips, questioned Rumsfeld and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Richard Myers on the subject. She asked Myers "whether or not the activities of the four wargames going on on September 11th actually impaired our ability to respond to the attacks." Myers of course insisted that they in fact "enhanced our ability to respond." [2] anyone who's looked at the details of the air defense that day knows how ludicrous this statement really is.

While still a mystery to the wider public, these curiously-timed drills have received much attention and discussion within the 9/11 Truth movement - Emanuel Sferios, as he questioned the faulty claims of Loose Change and the ilk on the five year anniversary, cited as continued strong evidence eclipsed by the crap “the simultaneous wargames that were taking place on the morning of 9/11, and that prevented NORAD from intercepting the planes before they hit their targets.” [3] For those unfamiliar, here is a basic run-down of what we know and how (this is only partly compiled at the moment and will be edited and expanded over time).

NORAD EXERCISES:
(NORAD = North American Aerospace Defense Command, a US-Canada treaty organization launched during the Cold War)
USA Today reported in April 2004 that NORAD had run exercises before 9/11 simulating suicide hijacking attacks: “one of the imagined targets was the World Trade Center. In another exercise […] the target was the Pentagon – but that drill was not run after defense officials said it was unrealistic.” Most of these drills imagined hijackings originating overseas and coming in over the Atlantic, but USA Today noted “there were exceptions in the early drills, including one operation, planned in July 2001 and conducted later, that involved planes from airports in Utah and Washington State that were “hijacked.” [4] This drill was “conducted later” than July 2001, but not after September 11, and the date is apparently classified. Could this actually be the template for one of the war games of 9-11 itself?


1 > OPERATION VIGILANT GUARDIAN: The ironically dubbed “Vigilant Guardian” was the first to be widely acknowledged. The exercise to simulate a “crisis to North American Air Defense outposts nationwide.” Three different accounts of first notification of a hijacking indicate that there may have been simulated hijackings in at least Vigilant Guardian.

2 > OPERATION NORTHERN VIGILANCE: An "out-dated" Cold War exercise set up in the arctic with Canadian assistance to watch Russian meneuvers across the North Pole and "deny" them this attack route. But by drawing fighter and attention north, it opened another attack route on the East Coast...

3 > OPERATION NORTHERN GUARDIAN: Also set up in the Arctic and apparently related to Northern Vigilance, mentioned in the Toronto Star alongside it. Otherwise no details I’m aware of and undeserving of its own post.

4 > OPERATION VIGILANT WARRIOR: Mentioned exactly once as far as I know, by former White House counter-terror Czar Richard Clarke in his book Against All Enemies. Should have included "live-flies," actual planes in the air (manned or under remote control) pretending to be hijacked for the benefit of effective training.

In summary, these four NORAD exercises may have helped “jump-start” response on 9-11 by:
- Drawing fighters and attention away from the East Coast,
- Confusing commanders with the similarity of the drills to the actual attack,
- Inserting false radar blips, at least during the crucial first phase of the attack that hit New York.
- Possibly contributing, with continued radar inserts, to the presence of “ghost planes” like the phantom Flight 11 that distracted fighters from Flights 77 and 93.
- Possibly confusing the sky with remote-controlled live-flies.

The 9/11 Commission, tasked with brushing up the Official 9-11 for the history books, addressed the war games briefly. In one of their hearings, Commissioner John Lehman described them as one of the “happy circumstances” of 9-11, yet their final report makes no mention of any of them.

Other Drills (non-NORAD):

1 > GLOBAL GUARDIAN: Conducted alongside NORAD's Vigilant Guardian, GG was directed from the US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) center in Nebraska, and involved three E-4B National Airborne Operations Center planes, the “Doomsday” planes of the Cold War intended to control nuclear forces from the air in times of crisis. There are a also a couple of other bizarre coincidences surrounding Offutt that morning covered in the post.

2 > Unnamed NRO plane-into-building drill: First revealed in 2002 - National Reconnaissance Office - air-based recon via spy satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles. Corder connection?

3 > TriPOD: Trial Point of Dispensing, drill for bioweapons attack, lower Manhattan, sheduled for 9/12/01, but had its center set up with FEMA people on 9/11. The TriPOD center, as it turns out, served perfectly as the base to run response to the WTC collapse. How convenient. The main question remaining is - what type of FEMA people were there?

4 > TIMELY ALERT: Force Protection exercise, Army, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Allegedly related to 9/11, but apparently not. But then again... (link coming soon)

5 > Alleged Drill at Pentagon - plane-into-building, Mascal connection, Arlington Fire Dept. Bush expected there - Secret service at Helipad. Honegger and allegations of drill based on Fort Monmouth contingent and Burlingame connection.

PSYCHIC RUMSFELD'S WANDERINGS

Even as he did nothing about it, the Defense Secretary apparently developed a clairvoyant connection with the unfolding attack (at least according to Rumsfeld and a lackey). Just minutes before the first plane hit the World Trade Center, and apparently unaware of any hijackings in progress, Rumsfeld was talking about terrorism and the future of the Defense Department at a meeting in the Pentagon. He later told CNN’s Larry King that he had said “there would be an event that would occur in the world that would be sufficiently shocking that it would remind people again how important it is to have a strong, healthy Defense Department that contributes to - that underpins peace and stability in our world.” [1] According Representative Christopher Cox, who was present, Rumsfeld said at 8:44 “let me tell ya’, I've been around the block a few times. There will be another event.” He then repeated it for emphasis, “There will be another event.” Two minutes later he was vividly proven correct when American 11 hit the North Tower.

At 9:36, Rumsfeld was aware there was an attack underway, but reportedly knew nothing of flight 77 heading straight for him. At that time, the Secretary was still in the Pentagon, now hanging out alone with Representative Cox. According to the U.K. Telegraph, the men were watching TV coverage of the smoking towers in Manhattan when the old man said “believe me, this isn't over yet. There's going to be another attack, and it could be us.” “The next minute, just seconds later,” Cox recalled in a press release, “Flight 77 hit the Pentagon.” Cox, for one, was left with no doubt who was in charge, and urged Americans to “listen and unite” behind the President and Rumsfeld. [3]

Action Rumsfeld, dead center (screen shot, America Remembers)

But Rumsfeld didn’t seem to do anything useful with his alleged psychic powers. After his magic show for Cox, he left his 4th floor office and went outside. The Secretary wandered around to the blast site on the other side of the monstrous building and started helping the wounded, well in view of the television cameras. That’s great that he wanted to help, but paramedics get paid to do that. He gets paid to be link #2 in the national defense chain of command in a wartime emergency, and one who had recently upgraded his responsibility for just this sort of event. He could have helped the grounds crew mow the grass as well, but that didn’t have the same propaganda power as helping the bleeding and dying.

Besides, near the ambulances would have been a dangerous place for the Defense Secretary to linger – as a self-described scholar of such things, he should have known that terrorists often conduct a second strike right when the rescue workers show up. While his security personnel were reportedly not pleased with this decision, Rumsfeld himself almost seemed to know that wasn’t part of the plan. He remained there for about fifteen minutes, by most accounts, until his security detail rushed him away.

Richard Clarke offers a different, more logical account. Clarke claims Rumsfeld was in on his Counter-terrorism conference when it started, between 9:10 and 9:25. As he entered the Video center with its bank of television screens, Clarke “could see people rushing into studios around the city,” including “Rumsfeld at Defense.” [4] Upon receiving word the Pentagon was hit by a plane, Clarke noted “I can still see Rumsfeld on the screen, so the whole building didn’t get hit.” [5]

But the 9/11 Commission, based on Rumsfeld’s testimony, concluded the secretary was in his office, getting his daily intelligence briefing as the attack began. After he was interrupted to be told a second plane had his in New York, “he resumed the briefing while awaiting more information. After the Pentagon was struck, Secretary Rumsfeld went to the parking lot to assist with rescue efforts.” [6] This leaves very little time either for Clarke’s teleconference or a meeting on “the future of terrorism and the Defense Department.” These accounts simply don’t add up.

But we know where he wasn’t. Some officials had already gone down to their battle stations in the NMCC bunker even before the Pentagon was hit (which was already more than a half-hour after everyone knew we were at war), and others joined them around 9:45 and after. By 10:00, Montague Winfield had taken the NMCC over again from Leidig, and would later state “for 30 minutes we couldn't find [Rumsfeld]. And just as we began to worry, he walked into the door” at 10:30. [7] Top-notch 9/11 researcher Paul Thompson wondered “shouldn't Rumsfeld have reported to the NMCC long before? For nearly an hour, apparently no one knew if he was killed in the Pentagon explosion or not.” [8] Up to this point, he actually knew very little of the response going on. The 9-11 Commission’s final report noted “Rumsfeld told us he was just gaining situational awareness when he spoke with the Vice President at 10:39.” [9] The last hostile aircraft had crashed thirty-six minutes earlier.

[1] CNN. “Where were You on 9-11?“ Larry King Weekend. September 7, 2002. Accessed November 12, 2004 at: http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0209/07/lklw.00.html
[2] Cox, Christopher. “Chairman Cox's Statement on the Terrorist Attack on America.” Press Release. September 11, 2001. http://cox.house.gov/html/release.cfm?id=33
[3] Langley, William. “Revealed: what really went on during Bush's 'missing hours'” The Telegraph. December 16, 2004. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml? xml=%2Fnews%2F2001%2F12%2F16%2Fwbush16.xml
[4] Clarke, Richard. against All Enemies. Page 3.
[5] 37. Clarke. Pages 7-8.
[6] 9/11 Commission Final Report. Page 37.
[7] Thompson, Paul and the Center for Cooperative Research. The Terror Timeline. New York. Regan Books. 2004. Page 456.
[8] See [7]. Page 456.
[9] See [6]. Page 44

BOJINKA part VI: BRZEZINKSI'S BOMBSHELL / WHAT WAS LEFT OUT

Much of the information I’ve drawn on so far in analyzing Bojinka is from an excellent article on the plot published in December 2001. It was by Matthew Brzezinski, ordinarily a writer of fiction known for his 2001 novel Casino Moscow: A Tale of Greed and Adventure on Capitalism's Wildest Frontier, which was praised by Foreign Affairs magazine as “a shake-your-head, laugh-out-loud book, but one with a good deal to say.” [1] Yet he has also written one of the most widely read factual accounts of Bojinka’s discovery, originally published as “Bust and Boom” in the Washington Post magazine, and published elsewhere as “Operation Bojinka’s Bombshell.” In the article, Brzezinski noted “the suicide attacks coincided, almost to the day, with another fifth anniversary: the 1996 conviction, in a Manhattan court, of Bojinka's original plotters.” [2] September 11 is hardly close enough to the 5th to constitute much of an anniversary, but it does help Brzezinski close his article on an ominous note that ties this fantastic plot yet closer to the far more fantastic 2001 attacks. He also took a hard line in the new “War on Terror.” He said of suspects captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere “the last thing we want is having these guys back in circulation.” But he advised patience in taking them out; “we would be better served interrogating the life out of them rather than carrying out any sort of ‘swift justice.’” [3]

Aida Fariscal, whom Brzezinski describes as “a disgruntled former cop,” and his primary source for the article, was cited by the CIA for her leading role in busting up Bojinka and saving perhaps thousands of lives. After 9/11 she said “this should have never, ever been allowed to happen. All those poor people dead.” [4] (Does she know of another way to get “useful casualty lists?”) In a Washington Post Q and A session with Brzezinski following release of his story, one question pitched was “how much of the evidence that was documented in the Philippines […] could have been fabricated? I'm not questioning the veracity of your reporting. I'm just wondering if the Philippine government is seeking for a handout to “combat terrorism” when in reality they might use it for other operations.” Brzezinski admitted money was a factor, but noted of Fariscal’s account “I tend to believe its authenticity since her interests and those of the Philippine [government] don't necessarily coincide. Besides U.S. intelligence sources have not disputed any of its validity, even though the material is clearly embarrassing to them.” [5]

While we might wonder what the Filipinos did with the money they were given (Clinton, the Pope, and eleven airliner bombings, all narrowly averted in one arrest! That’s gotta be worth some Benjamins), one could also wonder what American authorities would get out of the bargain. The embarrassment from Brzezinski’s “bombshell” may have seemed a small price to pay for such a coup of a cover story for Shadow 9-11. And it could’ve been more embarrassing, but Matt had damage control in mind. Despite Bojinka in both its phases, as he had just reported it, he said after his story was published, “no one imagined something like this [was] possible, and there was no US precedent to justify heightened security. Bojinka was about blowing planes up, not hijacking them.” [6]

As Matthew noted: “Bojinka was about blowing planes up, not hijacking them.” From Matt’s account were missing two key elements that might have made the connection unavoidable. Suicide attack from the air was there, but it was one guy in a small plane – the missing links to become 9/11 would be an increase in scale - hijacking an airliner - and multiplying that into synchronized suicide hijackings.

Peter Lance, a veteran investigative reporter with ABC News, TV writer (Miami Vice, Missing Persons, etc.), and a regular guest on Coast to Coast AM, is a respected expert the massive government “cover-up” over its incompetence and underestimation of al Qaeda. [7] Lance is not a subscriber to Shadow 9-11 by a long shot, but his analysis of the Bojinka plot is worthy of note. In his book 1,000 Years for Revenge (2003) he explained that Murad’s phase two was from the beginning centered not on crop dusters with bombs but on a suicide hijacking of an airliner. Lance cites as clear evidence a January 20, 1995 memo written by Col. Rodolfo Mendoza, Murad’s main interrogator:

”What the subject [has] in his mind is that he will board any American commercial aircraft pretending to be an ordinary passenger. Then he will hijack said aircraft, control its cockpit, and dive it at the CIA headquarters. He will use no bomb or explosives. It is simply a suicidal mission that he is very much willing to execute.” [8]

While Brzezinski’s two-phase Bojinka collectively hinted at 9/11, Mendoza’s account is of a plan that Lance accurately calls “a virtual blueprint of the 9/11 attacks,” if one simply multiplies by four - or divides by three. Lance also cites Murad mentioning ten other men receiving flight training at the time of his arrest, indicating that phase two was more ambitious even than what happened, planning eleven suicide hijackings to match the lofty number in the famous phase one. [9] Murad’s “more trained pilots” were already hitting the books and the simulators at the time of his arrest, and pending the provision of eleven teams of backup “muscle” hijackers, the plan was set. Philippine authorities say they passed all this information on to their U.S. counterparts. [10]

So why the earlier reports from U.S. and Philippine sources referring to a bomb-laden crop-duster or Cessna at the heart of Murad’s plot (when the plot is mentioned at all)? Was Mendoza’s memo, or the batch of terrorists earning their wings, suppressed from the record for some reason? Why didn’t Brzezinski’s investigation turn up this exaggerated 9-11 script written up in 1994, instead offering a muted, distanced version like a Muslim Frank Corder?

THE MIRACLE PASSPORTS

While there is some evidence directly contradicting the FBI’s hijacker identification, the very logic behind their strongest positive evidence is itself the weakest link in the chain. For example, the miracle passports:

Al Suqami's Passport, found after plane impact and catastrophic collapse, from which nearly nothing survived.

Just five days after the attack, ABC News reported a remarkable find at the WTC site, where the four “indestructible black boxes” and two cockpit voice recorders were supposedly never found and presumed destroyed. An FBI "grid search” turned up the laminated paper passport of Satam al Suqami (#4). [1] Shortly thereafter, the Manchester Guardian reported, ringleader Mohammed Atta’s passport {#1) was discovered two blocks away from the twin towers. “We had all seen the blizzard of paper rain down from the towers,” the paper noted, “but the idea that Atta's passport had escaped from that inferno unsinged would have tested the credulity of the staunchest supporter of the FBI's crackdown on terrorism.” [2] While it has raised eyebrows in certain circles, as far as the official story, Atta’s incredible passport has passed through INS screens, traffic stops, airport screens, the plane’s explosive impact, and possibly the towers’ collapse before being found and widely accepted as hard proof of his involvement.

On September 13, a “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Student Identity Card” was found at the Pentagon fingering hijacker Majed Moqed (#14), and believed by the secret Service to have been forged. [3] Suicide pilot Ziad Jarrah’s passport (#16) was also found, badly burnt but with just his picture and name intact and readable, at the impact site of flight 93 in Pennsylvania, as pictured below. [3]

Clearly visible and readable: Ziad Jarrah. Not much else survived the crash of Flight 93.

Three attack scenes. Four crashes. Four passports. Four times a miraculous find even one or two of which is beyond the realm of easy believability. But the again acceptance of the official myth has never relied on facts but rather of a deep fear of the alternative, so the evidence has been taken.

Sources:
[1] “No Signs of Survivors: Recovery Efforts Intensify; FBI Launches ‘Grid’ Search.” ABC News. September 16, 2001. Accessed June 19, 2004 at: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/WTC_recovery_010916.html
[2] Karpf, Anne. “Uncle Sam’s Lucky Finds.” The Guardian. March 19, 2002. Accessed December 2, 2004 at: http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/disinfo/deceptions/guardian_usluckyfinds.html
[3] Secret Service report for the FBI PENTTBOM investigation, Oct. 10, 2001. Monograph on 9/11 and Terrorist Travel, Chp 2 - 9/11 Commission.
[4] Thompson, Paul. “The Two Ziad Jarrahs.” http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/essay.jsp?article=essayjarrah

TERRORLAND V

A Map of coincidences surrounding 9/11 and the follow-up Anthrax scare, made by the author in 2004
Refer to the other Terrorland posts for more detail on the terrorists and flight training. Posts on the Anthrax attack hopefully coming eventually.



(Click image to enlarge to readable size - opening in a new window allows you to reference this map when readin other posts.)

HEADING AND SPEED

The five fighters were scrambled not toward their targets, already hundreds of miles distant. Instead, they were sent out over ocean on complicated and apparently confused flight plans. Otis pilot Duff said they departed on a “2-8-0 heading - basically towards New York City.” [1] But the route recorded by Paul Thompson in his Terror Timeline book shows a path south over the ocean instead of west-southwest along the coast.

The Langley fighters were sent due east, over the ocean, instead of north-northwest to the Pentagon. The 9/11 Commission concluded in their final report. “unlike a normal scramble order, this order did not include a distance to the target, or the target’s location.” [2] Confused orders and/or noise restrictions over land have also been cited as reasons for this easterly flight. In July 2004, Senator Mark Dayton (D-MN) issued a rare criticism of NORAD, whose massive failures “left this country defenseless during two of the worst hours in our history.” Dayton noted that when 77 hit, the Langley fighters were still far to the east, “farther [from the Pentagon] than they were before they took off.” [3]

The speed of the fighters once airborne is impossible to gauge unless we see the path actually flown in a given time. They were both sent the wrong direction at first, so we know they didn’t take the shortest, straight-line routes, and exact information on this is incomplete, perhaps top-secret. So a reconstruction seems incredibly tedious and uncertain.

But even in accounts that cite or imply actual speeds we see serious disagreements. Jere Longman, in his book Among the Heroes, explained that the Langley pilots “were sent east over the Atlantic Ocean, and then north up the coast They likely reached six hundred miles an hour in a couple of minutes.” [4] Major General Paul Weaver, director of the Air National Guard, said with no embarrassment that the pilots flew “like a scalded ape,” topping 500 mph. [5] Literally, there are cars that have driven faster than that.

An important factor to consider, as widely noted by defense apologists, is that supersonic flights on intercepts over the continental U.S. were banned by the Environmental Protection Agency, sonic booms being considered noise pollution. But an aircraft must travel at least 750 miles per hour for a sonic boom to be heard on the ground. So why were they reported to be going 150-250 mph slower than supersonic – even though they were over the ocean instead of over land? And why was this EPA regulation allowed to interfere with the defense on 9/11 instead of being ignored like all the others?

To hear the Otis pilots speak, the rule was ignored. Duff said clearly to the BBC “I was supersonic.” [6] Aviation week described Duff and Nasty as “flying supersonically.” On another occasion, he said “it just seemed wrong. I just wanted to get there. I was in full-blower all the way.” [7] An F-15, like the one he was flying, can travel a top (full-blower) speed of 1,875 mph (compared to a 767's top speed of just under 600mph). An F-16 (like those sent from Langley) can top out at 1500 mph. Clearly somebody isn’t telling the truth here.

Scrambled sooner, sent the right direction, and allowed to floor it, these fighters may well have made a difference – yet the prime worry, apparently, was avoiding an EPA speeding ticket.

Sources:
[1] “Clear the Skies: 9/11 Air Defense.” BBC Video. 2002. Produced and directed by Peter Molloy, Hosted by Gavin Hewitt.
[2] National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. “The 9/11 Commission Report.” New York. W.W. Norton. 2004. Page 27.
[3] Ruppert, Michael C. “Crossing the Rubicon.” Gabriola Island, BC, CA. New Society Publishers. 2004. Page 440.
[4] Longman, Jere. “Among the Heroes: United Flight 93 and the Passengers and Crew who Fought Back.” New York. Harper Collins. 2002.
[5] Thompson, Paul. The Failure to Defend the Skies on 9/11.” Posting Date unlisted. Accessed November 29, 2004 at: http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/essay.jsp?article=essayairdefense
[6] See [1].
[7] Scott, William B. “Exercise Jump-Starts Response to Attacks.” Aviation week’s Aviation Now. June 3, 2002. Accessed April 27, 2003 at: http://www.aviationnow.com/content/publication/awst/20020603/avi_stor.htm
[8] Paul Thompson and the Center for Cooperative Research. “The Terror Timeline.” New York. Reagan Books. 2004. Page 380.

MYERS: WHEN THINGS ARE HAPPENING

MYERS, WHEN THINGS ARE HAPPENING
ACTING CHAIRMAN ACTING AS IF NOTHING'S AMISS
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic/They Let It Happen
January 10 2007

Gen. Richard Myers, CJCS from Sept. 2001-Sept. 2005

In September 2001 Air Force General Richard Myers was Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, scheduled on the 13th to be promoted and replace outgoing Chairman Henry Shelton. Myers was able to get a slight head start, taking over as acting JCS Chairman on the morning of September 11th as Shelton left on a trip to Europe on prearranged but unspecified business. [1] It was supposed to be a routine day, of course, but the nation's top military officer, and the optional number three link in the National Defense Chain of Command was filled at the last moment by Myers, who took the spot just as the day’s JCS/NORAD war games, and the 9/11 hijackings, began.

But he while he was, perhaps unwittingly, caught in a ready-made conspiracy theory crossfire, Myers was not in the thick of things during the battle of the World Trade Center or even the Pentagon strike. According to American Forces Press Service, Myers:

“was on Capitol Hill that morning in the offices of Georgia Sen. Max Cleland to discuss his confirmation hearing to become chairman. While in an outer office, he said, he saw a television report that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. “They thought it was a small plane or something like that,” Myers said. So the two men went ahead with the office call. Meanwhile, the second World Trade Center tower was hit by another jet. “Nobody informed us of that,” Myers said. “But when we came out, that was obvious. Then, right at that time, somebody said the Pentagon had been hit.” [2]

Myers’ recollection, then, was that his fifty-minute meeting with Cleland (apparently from about 8:50 to 9:40) just sort of eclipsed the whole attack for him. Are we to believe that no one would bother to interrupt the Acting JCS Chairman, perhaps legally required to coordinate the defense, for over a half an hour after the second plane hit? This was the point at which everybody else, even President Bush, realized we were under attack. It was bigger and uglier and closer to home than Pearl Harbor by far, and Myers says nobody pulled his head out of the sand for him at all, that he just stumbled into awareness after his meeting had run its course, at the moment the third plane hit.

Myers then drove across town to the NMCC beneath the wounded Pentagon, which he later described as “essentially my battle station when things are happening.” [3] Or in this case, as things just got done happening. The 9/11 Commission says he arrived and joined the conference in session just before 10:00. [4] The last plane, Flight 93, crashed at 10:06 and the attack was over.

Sources:
[1] Balz, Dan and Bob Woodward. “America's Chaotic Road to War: Bush's Global Strategy Began to Take Shape in First Frantic Hours After Attack.” Washington Post. January 27, 2002. Page A01. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42754-2002Jan26
[2] Rhem, Kathleen, Sgt. 1st Class. “Myers and Sept. 11: “We Hadn't Thought About This.”” American Forces Press Service. October 23, 2001 Accessed November 6, 2004 at: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Oct2001/n10232001_200110236.html
[3] General Richard B. Myers, Senate Confirmation Hearing. Senate Armed Services Committee. September 13, 2001. Accessed August 5, 2005 at: http://www.attackonamerica.net/genrichardbmyerssenateconfirmationhearing9132001.htm
[4] 9/11 Commission Final Report. Page 38.

BOJINKA VII: PROFESSED IGNORANCE / MAINTAINING THE FOCUS

Bojinka’s second phase, when seen head-on, shows that the evolution to the full-on coordinated suicide airliner tactics of 9-11 was in fact complete as 1995 dawned. No wonder U.S. authorities and their allies and relatives have so distanced themselves from awareness of it, and hewn such a close line of quarantine around references to it. Immediately after September 11 was allowed to happen, the implications started dropping that they were never told about phase two at all. For example, FBI spokesman John Collingwood wrote a letter to the Washington Post in October 2001:

“The FBI had no warnings about any hijack plots. There was a widely publicized 1995 conspiracy in Manila to remotely blow up 11 U.S. airliners over the Pacific, but that was disrupted. And, as is the practice, what was learned in that investigation was widely disseminated, even internationally, and thoroughly analyzed by multiple agencies. It does not connect to the current case.”[1]

Collingwood makes no reference at all to the part of the plot that clearly “connects.” By Peter Lance’s account, Murad was turned over to the FBI in April 1995. After a few weeks with the flight student, the Bureau produced a final memo on May 11. For whatever reason, with access to Philippine interrogators’ reports and to Murad himself, the memo contained not a word about any suicide plot. [2] Thus what was widely available for analysis was indeed void of phase two references.

And at the 1996 trial it went completely unmentioned. Even Colonel Mendoza, who had headed the interrogation and discovered phase two, was never called to testify, and himself went totally unmentioned in the trial, even by his assistant when he testified. Lance noted that by these omissions, “the FBI seemed to be going out of its way to avoid even a hint of the plot that was ultimately carried out on 9/11.” [3]

In all the detail in Richard Clarke’s account of Bojinka, he made no mention at all of Murad nor of his phase two and its suicide plane attacks, even in its tamer Brzezinski version. The 9-11 Commission described the Bojinka plot, by name, as “the intended bombing of twelve U.S. commercial jumbo jets over the Pacific during a two-day span.” [4] They did not mention Murad’s second phase either, but their reference to 12 jets is interesting. At least one CNN report from 1996 said 12 planes were to be involved, perhaps including Murad’s solo hijacking, as mentioned in Mendoza’s memo, meaning the Commission indirectly verified this early awareness.

And officials can’t come right out and say they’ve never heard of phase two; Rex Hudson noted it in his 1999 report. Vincent Cannistrano, former CIA counter-terrorism director, said “no question about it. We knew about the pilots and suicide plots.” As for why this did not lead to any workable prediction of 9-11, he explained, they “just didn't put two and two together.” [5]

After the alleged costs of that bad math became clear, the official U.S. mantra indeed remained “unprepared, unforeseen, unimagined.” A flood of revelations of advance warnings hit the news in the spring of 2002 to curious effect; on the one hand, these revelations eclipsed earlier allegations of direct government execution and kept the terrorists center stage. But on the other hand, they demonstrated that no imagination or foresight was required to prevent the hijacking attacks.



An embarrassed Bush administration responded by repeating the same mantra even louder. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice went on the defensive, claiming repeatedly on May 16th the government had no idea that an airborne terrorist attack was even a possibility. Rice said “I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon, that they would try to use […] a hijacked airplane as a missile” [6] Fleischer told reporters “never did we imagine what would take place on September 11th, where people used those airplanes as missiles and as weapons.” He also took some heat off the President, stating that Bush “did not… not… receive information about the use of airplanes as missiles by suicide bombers. This was a new type of attack that had not been foreseen.” [7]

Even in 2004 the story held; Bush himself stated on April 13 “there was nobody in our government, and I don’t think the previous government, that could envision flying airplanes into buildings on such a massive scale.” [8] There’s a certain desperate evasiveness in these confused and clearly false assertions. The obvious explanation for this is that, as they’ve argued, they couldn’t have prepared to meet the threat because they’d never even imagined it. But they had to know people would see right through this position as stories about warning flooded out, with no sign of stopping.

While Bojinka phase two was a great idea, one must wonder, after Murad’s disastrous arrest and interrogation, would al Qaeda be dumb enough to have expected to succeed? If Philippine investigators and American report-writers are any indication, the element of surprise should have been blown years before a scaled-down Bojinka was realized on September 11th. In fact, the reason that the administration can claim they’ve never heard of the tactic is because it has never before happened. Numerous attempts have been made, but world governments and simple bad luck had thwarted all such plots up to that point. But somehow Bojinka finally came true in one place and at one time only - at the very military and financial heart of the world’s sole Superpower on September 11, 2001. They insist they simply hadn’t realized there was such a threat there to defend against.

And this is, curiously, a long-term silence. Throughout this chapter we’ve seen evidence of a see-no-evil strategy towards this tactic, from the FBI to the Pentagon to the Bush White House, from 1994 until the 9-11 attacks, with continued affirmations of ignorance to the present time. It almost smells like a long-held Pentagon proprietary concept, a rainy day project that can never be talked about, neither confirmed or denied, a top-secret Scenario 12-E. It first appeared, we are told, in the wake of the Corder crash and the failed Eiffel Tower attack as the silenced Cetron report. Within weeks of being handed to the Pentagon, it became tangled with al Qaeda via the prescient Bojinka phase two, extracted from Abdul Murad, that we hardly heard a peep about until after 9/11.

While Sonny Razon saw the occurrence of the first successful suicide hijacking attack as proof the U.S. had ignored his warnings, perhaps they actually did listen very closely, and the success of Shadow 9/11 is the proof.

PHANTOM FLIGHTS

Two hijacked planes had targeted Washington – AA77 and UA93. The Langley pilots, those nearest to Washington during the attack were somehow never told of either. So why were they even in the air? According to the 9/11 Commission, they were chasing American 11 an hour after it crashed. According to the 9/11 Commission, they were going to intercept Flight 11. While the Otis pilots had been looking for it until at least 9:03 am, well after it had crashed, somehow it was misreported to NEADS at 9:21 that American 11 was still airborne and headed for Washington. Thus, the commission concludes, the Langley pilots were going to intercept the ghost flight nearly an hour after it crashed. The Commission reported: “we have not been able to identify the source of this mistaken FAA information.” [1]

Did someone make this up, or were they actually seeing it as a radar blip on their screens? During the course of the 9/11 Commission’s hearings, I recall an official testifying that a number of reported hijackings that morning turned out to be “phantoms.” These non-existent planes turning up as real on radar screens further confused response, notably by distracting the Langley pilots from a real plane – American 77 – that was official invisible on these same screens until right before it hit the Pentagon.

FAA Administrator Jane Garvey told Richard Clarke, after the first two planes had crashed, “we have reports of eleven aircraft off course or out of communications, maybe hijacked.” [2] Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said “we probably had maybe about ten unaccounted for planes.” [3] Florida State Congressman Adam Putnam, who was aboard Air Force One with President Bush, was told at 11:30 there was a threat against them. Putnam explained “at the time… [the President] said that there were six aircraft that were not accounted for.” [4] In his bunker beneath the White House, Cheney had at least two possible run-ins with ghost planes, which he aggressively ordered shot down. Were all of these simply the result of confusion and uncertainty, with every communications problem getting a plane called in as a possible hijack? Or was there something stranger at work?

Among the air-based War Games being held that morning was Operation Northern Vigilance, set up in the arctic with Canadian assistance. They were there, NORAD explained, “to monitor a Russian air force exercise” that was happening just on the other side of the North Pole. [5] In addition to possibly drawing fighters and radar attention away from the East Coast, Northern Vigilance also, for whatever reason, involved radar “inserts,” blips that would look like planes to radar controllers but in reality corresponded to nothing. How many inserts were used, on whose screens, and inserted into which air traffic regions are all questions that remain unanswered. As it became clear an attack was underway, at 9:00 am, NORAD officially cancelled the exercise and erased the inserts. But until that time, they may have added to the confusion in the air. And this is only the reported possible source of such phantom flights. There are so many other ways in which false radar/transponder data could be seen as real and thus conceal the attack planes beneath a swarm of decoys. The confusion would only have to hold for about 30-45 minutes, just long enough to get all the targets – or at least all but one – through our normal air defenses. If this was the plan, it worked like a charm and the catalyzing event was realized.

Sources:
[1] 9/11 Commission Final Report. Page 26
[2] Clarke, Richard A. “Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror.” New York. Free Press. 2004. Page 4.
[3], [4] “Clear the Skies.” BBC Video. 2002.
[5] Ruppert, Michael C. “Crossing the Rubicon.” 2004. Page 342.
[6] Thompson and the CCR. The Terror Timeline. 2004. Page 386.

BOJINKA V: FLORIDA 2001: BOJINKA BECOMES 9/11?

Clearly the U.S. government knew, and had been reminded, that suicide pilots presented a serious threat. But if they’d been watching for Bojinka, they’d have seen 9/11. Murad’s “more trained pilots” would be widely reported to be training inside the U.S. in the months before the attacks, in Minneapolis, Phoenix, and elsewhere, but these reports would go ignored and buried. One famous arrest was made, but no leads beyond that were followed, and all evidence points to purposeful top-down counter-counter-terrorism.

The three out of four 9/11 suicide pilots that trained in Jeb Bush’s Florida were apparently never even reported or noticed at all, even as their plot, it seems, took a serious turn there. In fact, they didn’t seem to know what they were doing at first. While they pursued flight training for big jets, or anything they could get enrolled for, they also were looking at buying their own small planes.

As ABC News reported, ringleader Mohammed Atta, supposedly financed by Saudi billionaires, went to the United States Department of Agriculture in Spring 2001 for a $600,000 loan to buy their first crop-duster. He was turned down, which might have had something to do with his dozen or so not-so-subtle hints he dropped to the loan agent that he wanted to use the plane to attack America. The agent, one Johnelle Bryant, described Atta’s eyes as “black” and “evil,” and she passed a polygraph test. Her superiors placed some sort of gag order on her, but she bravely defied it to sit down and tell her story to ABC (“Face to Face with Evil”). Perhaps it was Atta’s alleged threat to slit Bryant’s throat and steal the money that had something to do with getting turned down, but luckily it didn’t get him reported. She didn’t say a word until after she saw his face on the news in mid-September.

The ABC story explained:
“Being turned down for the loan altered the hijackers' plans. According to law enforcement officials, packing twin-engine planes with explosive chemicals, making it a flying bomb, had been the terrorists' plan since the mid-1990s. When Atta reported to his group that he could not get a loan to buy smaller planes, the plan was switched to hijacking passenger jets, according to what Abu Zabaydah, a top lieutenant of Osama bin Laden, has told American interrogators since his capture.”

We are to believe the evolution from Bojinka to 9/11 happened right there, in front of Johnelle Bryant’s USDA office in mid-2001, as the plotters regrouped from their failure to fund the project with American government loans. One can only wonder how Johnelle feels about this, or whether she even believes her own story or Zabayadah’s extracted confession.

Source: Ross, Brian. “Face to Face With a Terrorist: Government Worker Recalls Mohamed Atta Seeking Funds Before Sept. 11.” ABC News. June 6, 2002. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/ross_bryant020606.html

FLIGHT 93 AND THE AUDIO RECORD

The biggest problem for the remote control theory is the audio record: the phone calls, transmissions, and cockpit voice recorders that prove the hijackers were present and presumably responsible for the attacks. This is really not as big a problem as most people would like to think, easily achievable with a few voice actors, voice technology, or even a few real “victims” in on the plot and held back from destruction. But questioning these pivotal phone calls is hard, a supremely emotional issue. How does one imply that someone was lied to that cruelly, or offer probably false hope their loved ones are still alive? Thus this issue has been largely danced around.

Nonetheless, the audio record has its problems: Cockpit audio of the hijackers talking to the passengers was accidentally heard, recorded, and later presented from flights 11 and 93. That both Ziad Jarrah and Mohammed Atta would be able to run the hundreds of controls necessary to fly these monsters into their targets, but then both hit the transmit button instead of the cabin address button seems possible, but a little coincidental on two of the four flights. It seems almost as likely that these oddly feedback-laden transmissions were faked by, as Joe Vialls termed it, “an unidentified “special effects” department, perhaps hell-bent on making listeners later believe that the suitably distorted “guttural” voice belongs to an “Arab hijacker” trying to steal an American airliner.” [1]

Then there are the cockpit voice recordersby which we can normally hear what happened in the cockpit of a crashed plane. Flights 11, 175 and 77 yielded nothing (no indestructible black boxes found for any of them either, which is odd). But 93’s CVR yielded thirty minutes of audio thoroughly consistent with the inspirational official story. Family members of the victims on that flight have been allowed to listen to it but not talk about it. This means either there were hijackers and a cockpit intrusion on Flight 93, or else the CVR was simply switched off, with this recording planted in its memory before takeoff, or somehow faked later.

Otherwise the audio field is owned by phone calls from passenger and crew. The total number of calls to contend with is fairly low; only two to three calls each from flights 11, 77, and 175 have been published to my knowledge, in stark contrast to the flood of ten calls from Flight 93. Some of these calls were sent via “Airfone,” special phones built into and transmitted from the plane itself. They are designed to send phone signals from the air to the ground, offered in lieu of the FAA ban on cellular phones.

Others of the calls were placed via personal cell phones in spite of the ban, and it is to these that we now turn. In July 2004, American Airlines and Qualcomm jointly announced the development of a new technology that allowed passengers on a test flight “to place and receive calls as if they were on the ground.” [2] But what types of calls from the air were possible in 2001? Altitude seems to be the key. Canadian Economist and 9-11 revisionist Michel Chossudovsky explained “according to industry experts, beyond a certain altitude which is usually reached within a few minutes after takeoff, cell phone calls are no longer possible.” [3] This zone of reliability seems to have been about 8,000 feet, with normal cruising altitude around 30,000 feet, and thus, he concludes, “given the wireless technology available on September 11 2001, these cell calls could not have been placed from high altitude.” [4] Wireless Review explained: “Alexa Graf, AT&T spokesperson, said systems are not designed for calls from high altitudes, suggesting it was almost a fluke that the calls reached their destinations.” [5]

By this analysis, one caller from Flight 175 and at least one from Flight 93 made cell calls from around cruising altitude that should have been impossible. Oddly, these are also the only two callers to achieve multiple calls, all others only getting out one call each as far as I’ve seen. The pivotal Todd Beamer cell call is in the unsure middle ground, with altitude unclear and changing over the course of nearly fifteen minutes with no apparent change in reception. He talked to an anonymous Verizon operator, giving an excellent account of the heroism aboard Flight 93, providing a key element of the official story in a call that is somewhat questionable.

And for what it’s worth, Flight 93 somehow wound up yielding ten times the calls per person ratio of flight 11, with more calls than from the other three flights combined. 93 yielded ten reported calls and seven callers out of only 33 non-terrorist passengers, in a plane that can seat 182. There is no reason to doubt the government’s ability to fake these few phone calls in any number of ways, nor their ability to place them in such a way that they bear all the marks of a genuine call from one of the hijacked flights, cell phone or Airfone. But on the other hand, multiple loved ones were totally convinced - if these were faked they were faked well. There are four possibilities that these calls and transmissions represent:

- a) Audio record real, hijackers present and in charge, and flew their planes into those buildings. Shadow 9/11 is bunk.
- b) Calls real, hijackers on board in a traditional hijacking scenario, with the well-known, widely warned attack then “hijacked” via remote control, leaving the obvious presumption that the Arabs did it.
- c) Calls fake, passengers but presumably no hijackers on board, as in Scenario 12-D. All communications would be cut so the outside world didn’t find out what was really going on inside the plane, and the audio we’ve been presented is entirely faked. In this case, any hijacking attack, as mentioned in warnings, would have been pre-emptively hijacked.
- d) Calls fake, no one on board the attack planes at all. The flights were drones every one, and who knows what happened with the passengers.
- e) Any permutation or combination of these – ex: Flight 93 may have been a real hijacking, traditional or suicide, with the other three planes being drones tacked on to the existing attack, using it as cover while amplifying its traumatic nature. If 93 were a genuine hijacking, it may have even been fitted with a special prototype system like Qualcomm’s to send cell calls as if from the ground to thickly document the real terrorist presence there. The plane was then presumably shot down on Dick Cheney’s orders as it headed to Washington, and was then presumed part of the otherwise faked attack.

And remember, the very integrity of the “new American Century” is at stake here. In scenario d) above, the final fate of the passengers on the attack planes is raised, and indeed there are many convoluted theories out there to explain this. For example, the four flights may have been told of a hijacking threat, crossed radar paths with duplicate drone aircraft, as in Northwoods, as they moved to land at a safe airport. The “rescued” passengers would have been off-loaded, then loaded onto flight 93 and shot down. But Shadow 9/11’s simplest explanation is that they were simply kept on their respective planes, killing two birds with one stone and keeping the evidence consistent.

Thus I can only cite questions about cell phone calls, raise the possibility of faked calls from remote locations, note the telling slant of the audio record toward one flight (93), and finally note that if one call from 9-11 is fake, and consistent with the other calls, then clearly all are fakes. But I can’t prove anything. This is not my field, and the audio record remains the weak point of Shadow 9/11. I’ll leave it to the reader whether to dismiss the whole theory for this flaw or overlook the flaw for the sake of the big picture.

Sources:
For the call chart, I referenced The Terror Timeline (2004) by Paul thompson and the Center for Cooperative Research. I thank them for their excellent work.
[1] Vialls, Joe. “‘We Have a Bomb on Board’ Messages Faked.” September 19, 2002. Accessed Nov. 16 2005 at: http://the7thfire.com/Politics%20and%20History/Faked-Flt93-messages.htm
[2], [4] Qualcomm. Press release. American Airlines and QUALCOMM Complete Test Flight to Evaluate In-Cabin Mobile Phone Use. July 15, 2004. Accessed January 9, 2005 at: http://www.qualcomm.com/press/releases/2004/040715_aa_testflight.html
[3] Chussudovsky, Michel. “Holes in the report, the 9/11 Cell Phone Calls.” Global Research. Aug 10, 2004. Accessed Nov 20 2005 at: http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/print.php?storyid=723&PHPSESSID=ce62971b5a6eba2e58aa8c0098173a38
[5] Harter, Betsy. “Final Contact” Wireless Review. November 1, 2001. Accessed January 9, 2005 at: http://wirelessreview.com/ar/wireless_final_contact/

BOJINKA VIII: OPERATION BRZEZINSKI

Adam Larson
Caustic Logic/They Let It Happen
Written late 2005
Posted 1/20/07

As he was asked repeatedly in his Q and A session, "Bust and Boom" author Matthew Brzezinski is indeed the nephew of Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Polish-born former National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter. A cold and calculating thinker who has been described as the Democrats’ Henry Kissinger, the elder Brzezinski has tried his hand at non-fiction, writing many books, including his 1997 The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geo-Strategic Imperatives. In this book he noted, among other things, the strategic role of securing Afghanistan (as well as Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and - surprise - Poland) in relation to the American empire to hedge in Russia or any other rival to control of the “Grand Chessboard” of Eurasia.

Zbig’s own earlier role in Afghanistan was pivotal, encouraging and provoking the Soviet invasion of December 1979 that triggered the Jihad where bin Laden and the other future al Qaeda leaders met and learned the tools of the terror trade. This was a conscious plan of Brzezinski’s to give the USSR “its Vietnam War” to “make the Soviets bleed for as much, as long as possible” but with no American deaths. [1] President Carter agreed, approved funding, and sent Zbig to Islamabad in January 1980 to show support for Pakistan’s resistance against the Soviet occupation. He took a little side-trip to the Afghan border to rally the international coalition of radical Islamists; dressed in a parka at the Khyber Pass, Zbig told them “your fight will prevail because your cause is right and God is on your side.” [2]

Whatever works at the time works, including dirty tricks like creating terrorist networks; but Zbig continued to boast of this as “an excellent idea” even as late as an early 1998 interview in which he asked his interviewer “what is more important in world history, the Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet Empire? Some agitated Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?” [2] At the time it may have seemed a toss-up, but later that year two US embassies blew up in Africa and bin Laden declared holy war on the US – his crusade started taking on its eventually convincing global dimensions as a replacement for the Soviet threat.

Zbig’s son Ian Brzezinski is now helping the Pentagon keep Central Europe “liberated” from Russian domination as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Affairs, appointed shortly after 9/11, in November 2001. Ian is at virtually every Pentagon meeting where European diplomats are present, usually seated right next to the top U.S. official. A longtime NATO insider, he spearheaded the effort to shape its expansion into Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. All seven “North Atlantic” states were approved for membership in March 2004, followed by Brzezinski’s capstone article “An Alliance Transforming.” [4] His advising record and his catalog of writings indicates that Ukraine, once the second most powerful Soviet Republic, is the final prize in this campaign, a play right out his dad’s 1997 book!

Ian's brother Mark Brzezinski has also helped in this process, as a possible Secretary of State if John Kerry had won in 2004, and otherwise devoted to the “Democratic transformations” wracking the former Soviet Space in the early years of this “new American Century” - notably the dioxin-induced Orange Revolution that turned Ukraine, of all places, upside down.

Ian’s and Mark’s sister Mika Brzezinski had worked as a reporter and host for CBS News for a few years until 2000, when she went over to MSNBC for a bit. Her return to CBS in early September 2001 was rewarded with the post of top New York correspondent. She was already reporting from the WTC before the second plane hit, and continued throughout the weeks after, anchoring millions of viewers to the latest from Ground Zero from the first moments of shock and awe through the early and raw phase of the “War on Terror” mentality. [5] Thus her timely return allowed her to have no small role in shaping the “widely perceived” part of what her father had four years earlier called the “direct external threat” that would allow “imperial mobilization.” [6] She later vied for an anchor slot on the back of such notable reportage, but lost the bid to Katie Kouric.

And then there’s nephew Matthew’s article that claims to expose the roots of al Qaeda’s sinister plan that led to all this. Some, like Matt, explain that the name Bojinka is a Serbo-Croatian slang word for “loud bang.” Some sources interpret it as meaning “chaos in the sky” or something to that effect. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the suspected financier of both this plan and September 11, explained in a 2003 interview that Bojinka is simply a nonsense word he picked up in the international bazaar that was the Afghan Jihad. [7]

Maybe this is coincidence, but I think it also sounds a little like “Brzezinski” (pronounced Brr-jhin-skee). If I let my imagination run for a minute, and I will, I can visualize “Bojinka” starting out as a nonsense nickname Osama gave Zbigniew when they met in Pakistan in 1980. They were both in country at the same rough time and for the same reason. As we’ve seen, Brzezinski visited the bustling Khyber Pass on a side-trip from his mission to Pakistan in January. Meanwhile, the Soviet invasion had made Osama “furious,” as he later recalled, and he was far from alone. As one of many sons from the Saudi Kingdom’s second richest family, he was the top export they had at the time. He first arrived at Peshawar, near the Khyber Pass, within weeks of the invasion - January. [8]

He and Brzezinski were both there to boost the funding and the morale of the frontline troops and to show the unity of purpose in the anti-Soviet alliance: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the U.K., and the U.S. Thus as the top representatives of their respective allied nations, it would in fact be a bit odd if the two men hadn’t met. It is a hard name to pronounce. “Ah, here he is now, our American friend Mr. Buruz… zuzzuz.. Mr. Baarrjjuzzz… Mr. Bojinka!” (big hearty laughs all around, it evolves among the Muj into a little frontline joke, one thing leads to another…) Both men would, and have, denied such meetings; bin Laden claims he never knew he was serving America’s interests at all. But it’s an intriguing thought, and vaguely possible. Weird things abound, I’ve found, around this weird name.

Sources:
[1], [2] CNN. Cold War Experience. Episode 20. Soldiers of God. Accessed November 9, 2005 at: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/20/script.html
[3] Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998 Posted at globalresearch.ca 15 October 2001http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html
[4] U.S. Foreign Policy Agenda. Volume 9, Number 2. June 2004. (CIAO Date 9/04 - ?) Accessed November 10, 2005 at: http://www.ciaonet.org/olj/fpa/fpa_jun04/
[5] Mika Brzezinski profile. CBS News. Copyright 2002. Accessed November 9, 2005 at: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/28/broadcasts/main527208.shtml
[6] Brzezinski, Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives. New York. Basic Books. 1997. Pages 210-211
[7] 9/11 Commission Final Report. p 488-489
[8] Frontline: “A Biography of Osama Bin Laden.” PBS. 2001. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/bio.html

Terrorland II: THE DUTCHMEN COME TO TOWN

Huffman Aviation’s owner Ruddi Dekkers is relentlessly portrayed by Hopsicker as a greedy, overweight, boorish pervert. He was reportedly indicted on financial charges (fraud and money laundering) in the Netherlands, and while in Florida was sued for sexual harassment (he settled out of court but then failed to pay up). An airport employee noted that Dekkers’ sudden appearance was suspicious, that he “had no aviation background as far as anyone can tell. And he evidently had no use for, nor knowledge of, FAA rules and regs.” [1] 9/11 hijackers Mohammed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi received their commercial pilots licenses after training at his school. Not a good track record.

Dekkers had purchased his aviation school in May 1999 on the back of a loan from an American sponsor, Wallace J. Hilliard. [2] Wally Hilliard was a Naples native whom Hopsicker describes as a “70-year old… multi-millionaire businessman and self-styled Mormon Bishop” who apparently moves in elite circles, including having bailed out Jerry Fallwell to the tune of $1 million. [3] A local paper confirmed that though Hilliard financed Dekkers' purchase of Huffman, Dekkers was the sole stockholder. [4]

According to the same local newspaper (the Venice Gondolier), Dekkers ambitions ran into starting a commuter airline called Florida Air. “Florida Air was in service for about two months in 2001, then was grounded for financial reasons,” the paper stated. [5] Dekkers’ business partner in Florida Air, Richard Boehlke later told a reporter that Dekkers “was an oxymoron the day I met him…. I can’t believe anyone handed him millions of dollars to run a business he had no experience in.” But people in high places also threw him endorsement; according to an ad from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris used the airline: the ad reportedly read “as one of Florida's top politicians, Katherine Harris doesn't have much time to do a lot of personal traveling. So she appreciates the convenience that Florida Air offers.” [6]

The other “Magic Dutch Boy,” Arne Kruithof, while quieter, is also highly interesting. It was at Kruithof's school, Florida Flight Training Center, that Ziad Jarrah, suspected pilot of flight 93, earned his wings at the same time his cohorts trained next door at Huffman. Hopsicker maintains that this may have been no coincidence; Kruithof is also Vice-President of Aviation Aspirations, a company he apparently runs with a German man named Pascal Schreier. Aviation Aspirations provides both financial assistance and a “Mentor Program” to help aspiring young flight students around the world. Hopsicker maintains that Schreier operated out of and primarily recruited students in Hamburg, from which all three suspected 9/11 hijackers that trained in Venice came. The company's motto: “Better training because we care.” Hopsicker wondered “Could 'mentor' be just a cute way to say 'handler?’” [7] According to The 9/11 Commission’s Final Report, Ziad Jarrah, unlike Atta and Alshehhi, had his training at Kruithof’s FFTC arranged in advance, while still in Hamburg. [8]

Hopsicker noted some curious services Dekkers and Kruithof allegedly provided to the government. A Venice “airport executive” told Hopsicker that a shady outfit called Britannia Aviation, working out of a hangar at Huffman, had been granted a “green light” from the DEA, a five year contract to run a maintenance facility at the Lynchburg, VA airport. Hopsicker maintained “nothing was known about the company… Britannia Aviation is a company with virtually no assets, employees, or corporate history…the company did not even possess the necessary FAA license to perform aircraft maintenance services for which it had been contracted.” In fact, financial statements prove Britannia to be “a ‘company’ worth less than $750.” Yet the local Venice Police Department “had been warned to leave them alone." [9]

Hopsicker’s argument, fleshed out further in his excellent works, indicates that Dekkers’ instant aviation company was serving a DEA-connected dummy company that had worked with a CIA-connected dummy company known to traffic drugs, while he simultaneously oversaw the training two of the 9/11 hijackers. This ‘Magic Dutch Boy’ gets more magic all the time, and when we consider his neighbor Kruithof's role as well, it seems Hopsicker was indeed witness to either a major, poorly concealed seam of the 9/11 attacks, or at least some played-out drama resembling such.

[1], [9], [10] Ahmed, Nafeez. “The War on Freedom.” 2002. Page 101.
[2], [4], [5] Mudge, Bob. “Huffman Aviation sold.” The Venice Gondolier January 25, 2003. Accessed October 30, 2004 at: http://www.venicegondolier.com/NewsArchive3/012503/tp1vn9.htm
[3] Hopsicker, Daniel. “9/11: The Evangelical Christian Connection.” Mad Cow Morning News.
April 8, 2004. Accessed October 27 2004 at: http://www.madcowprod.com/mc412004.html
[6], [7] Hopsicker, Daniel. “’Magic Dutch Boy’ escapes fiery plane crash: 9-11 cleanup crew at work?” Mad Cow Morning News. July 4 2002. Accessed October 26, 2004 at: http://www.madcowprod.com/mc242004.html
[8] 9/11 cimmission. Final Report. First Edition. Page 224

BOJINKA III: CORDER/GIA/CETRON

Some claim to have predicted the threat of Muslim terrorists with hijacked airliners even before Bojinka was discovered, and here is where we enter the possible cross-over of think tank and real world. First the real world, in the second half of 1994, provided some concerns for air security. These started with Frank Eugene Corder, a 38-year-old unemployed truck driver, Army veteran, and depressions-plagued alcoholic and cocaine user whose estranged wife had just died of cancer. For what it’s worth, one anagrams of his name is “DRUNK GONE CAREFREE.”

Another anagram of Corder’s name, for what it’s worth, is “NRO RENEGADE FUCKER.” The CIA-connected National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) runs the nation’s spy satellites and aircraft reconnaissance. They dabble at least in automated flight and drones, and are closely connected with the Air Force. In yet another inexplicable curiosity, on the seven year anniversary of Corder’s little escapade, the NRO was running a simulation of a small plane-related accident on their own headquarters near both the Pentagon and Dulles Airport, from which American Airlines 77 had just taken off. The drill was reportedly cancelled once the attacks in New York became known. [1]

Late on the night of September 11, Corder apparently decided to say “goodbye, cruel world,” in a big way. He allegedly stole a Cessna airplane from a Maryland airport, drunk as a skunk, and flew out towards Washington D.C. At about 2:00 am on the 12th, his plane finally came into the restricted, supposedly well-defended airspace around the White House. No defenses showed themselves, and the plane crashed into the South Lawn unopposed, taking out part of a porch and an old tree, killing only Corder. President Clinton and his family were staying elsewhere while the executive mansion was being renovated. [2]

And then a few months later, another event on a much larger scale cast the danger from the sky in a more ominous light. On Christmas Eve, an Air France jetliner was hijacked on the ground in Algiers. After killing three passengers, the hijackers were cleared to take off, and flew their missile towards Paris. Investigators later found that the men, part of the al Qaeda-linked Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA), planned to crash the plane into the Eiffel Tower in protest of French control in Algeria. The hijackers were killed during a re-fueling stop in Marseilles and their plot was stopped before it could make the front page with grisly Christmas fireworks over Paris. [3]

But it was not ignored by those whose job it is to scour the news for new ideas and new dangers. In early 2002, ABC News interviewed Marvin Cetron, a “terrorism expert” with military and engineering credentials who had written a report for the Pentagon in 1994. Cetron is a noted “futurist” thinker, President of Forecasting International, and a regular guest on CNN talk shows predicting trends in everything from education to science and engineering to business and global economics. Along with Robert McNamara, (who has also served as World Bank President since his Defense Secretary days), Cetron is a Director at the World Future Society, a Bethesda-based “neutral clearinghouse for ideas about the future,” including “forecasts, recommendations, and alternative scenarios.” The website explains “when people can visualize a better future, then they can begin to create it.” [4]

So what alternative scenario did he help the Pentagon visualize with his 1994 report? Cetron was concerned with the danger of an airborne suicide attack on the Capital, including such a warning in his report. Cetron told ABC:

“We saw Osama bin Laden. We spelled it out and we said the United States was very vulnerable. You could make a left turn at the Washington Monument and take out the White House. And you could make a right turn and take out the Pentagon.” [5]

ABC reported that the Pentagon brass wanted that particular warning deleted from his report. “It's unclassified, everything is available,” Cetron recalled his response. But they told him, as he summed up, “we don't want it released because you can't handle a crisis before it becomes a crisis, and no one is going to believe it anyhow.” Even after he deleted the kamikaze warning, the report was scrapped and not released to the public. [6]

ABC explained that the 1994 report had cited two events “earlier that year” as precedents to ponder: “the crash-landing of a small airplane at the White House by an apparently unstable man” (Corder, September 11-12), and “French authorities’ storming of a hijacked airliner that Algerian terrorists had planned to fly into the Eiffel Tower” Thus he was aware these attack planes could be airliners. But the timeline here is odd; the GIA’s failed attack was on Christmas Eve. Is it normal for Cetron to compose an entire report in less than a week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve?

This felt like a seam to me, so I though about it a minute. At that very time but half a world away, Yousef and Murad were just days away from getting busted for Bojinka on January 6. Within a couple of weeks, interrogators in the Philippines would be extracting from Murad, via torture, something remarkably like Cetron’s double-deleted warning. Was there a mix-up somewhere? And just as Cetron’s Corder/GIA-inspired scenario was cut from the wider report before it too was deleted, Murad’s similar phase two has been largely erased from the wider Bojinka story. This alleged prediction perhaps helped the Pentagon visualize the world they wanted and now have, but Cetron apparently wasn’t allowed to talk about it until after it came true.

Sources:
[1] “Agency planned drill for plane crash last Sept. 11” Associated Press. August 22, 2002. Accessed December 8, 2005 at: http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/cia-simulation.htm
[2] CNN. “Past security incidents at the White House.” February 7, 2001. Accessed May 4, 2003 at: http://www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/stories/02/07/whitehouse.incidents.02/index.html
[3] Gunaratna, Rohan. “Terror from the Sky.” Jane’s Intelligence Review. September 24, 2001. Accessed at: http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jir/jir010924_1_n.shtml
[4] World Future Society. Frequently Asked Questions. 2005. Accessed November 16, 2005 at: http://www.wfs.org/faq.htm
[5] “Early Warnings: Pre Sept. 11 Cautions Went Unheeded.” ABC News. February 18 2002.http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/wnt_missedsignals_1_020218.html
[6] See [5].

TERRORLAND part I

One of the more interesting aspects of the hijackers’ adventures in the US was their fondness for that tangle of airports, Air Force bases, flight training schools, sleepy retirement towns, Cuban exiles, drug smuggling, secret CIA operations and theme parks we call Florida. Florida is widely believed to be less an actual state than a CIA-front company and, recently, private playground of the Bush family; now to its list of exports has been added suicide hijackers. We’ve already seen that three of the hijackers may have trained in Pensacola, and the Bukhari-Alomari circle of Saudi pilots in Vero Beach, but we’ve hardly even touched on Florida’s three most famous terrorist trainees, Ziad Jarrah, Marwan Alshehhi and Mohammed Atta.

Here is where I start to feel like I’ve entered the swoon-headed world of convoluted and slippery conspiracy theories that feel like an octopus wrestling match. I could scarcely believe it when I realized it was again back to Florida; where Bush became President, back to Florida where bush became the new post-9-11 president, back to Florida where, we found out, three of the four pilots had prepared for the act that enabled that transformation.

All of this, the Florida connection with all the defining moments of the Bush presidency, was overseen by the President’s own brother, Governor John Ellis “Jeb” Bush; from brother to terrorist to brother and back again, in a too-tight Gordian knot. The knot tightened on September 10th as President Bush paid a visit to Governor Bush on the eve of the attack. It tightened again the next morning as the Florida-trained hijackers attacked New York and Washington, and yet again around four AM on September 12th; with a speed bordering on pre-cognition, federal authorities in Florida had descended on the flight school in Venice, less than twenty miles from where the President had been less than twenty hours before. They confiscated and relocated computers and “boxes of records” to Washington, personally escorted by Governor Bush, after the sun rose, to his brother’s people in Washington. The attack was nearly a day old when the two brothers presumably met again over these files. [1]

By the next day, investigators looking at actual evidence were following other concrete leads to Florida; the BBC reported that Mohammed Atta’s rental car, left in Boston, led authorities to his own and Marwan Alshehhi’s homes in Coral Springs. [2] The two had been taking simulator lessons near there. Soon the story blew up – it turns out that three of the four suicide pilots had also received their initial flight training at two adjacent flight schools at the Venice airport, both opened shortly before the hijackers arrived in town.

“What’s been going on in Florida?” This is a central question of investigative reporter Daniel Hopsicker, who has unofficially dubbed the state “Terrorland.” Hopsicker has credentials; he’s a former producer of Wall Street Week (PBS), former executive producer, Global Business (NBC), former investigative reporter for NBC News. [3] i.e. – he’s an establishment guy, so I automatically distrust him somewhat. But more recently he’s been the author of such “conspiranoid” books as Barry and the Boys and, more recently, Welcome to Terrorland. Hopsicker also lives in Venice, Florida, where three of the 9-11 pilots (Atta, Alshehhi, and Jarrah) got their initial flight training. He has looked closely at the flight schools at the venice Airport. where he seems to have a lot of connections in the aviation community (but his sources, knowledgeable though they seem, usually remain anonymous).

Hopsicker has a lot to say about the schools in question, their operators, and their allegedly vast (but factually spindly) connections behind the scenes to Saudi and Venezuelan elites. His material is extremely speculative, sometimes drawing together numerous current conspiracy theories with phrases like “might this have something to do with…” Venice-area journalist John Patten also noted Hopsicker’s “almost pure speculation about recent and current events. The dots are there, and admittedly these are some darned peculiar dots, but Hopsicker is unable to connect them,” or at least to demonstrate to the rest of us precisely how he connected them. Sometimes, Patten wrote, Hopsicker's writings are “akin to grasping for straws from another dimension.” But, he noted:

“[T]he other side of that coin is that it is possible that Hopsicker is absolutely right. Just because someone is paranoid doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't something around worth being paranoid about. Mohamed Atta did live here. So did Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah. They did receive flight training here. They did participate in the events of September 11, 2001. Those last four sentences alone should be enough to make the most sensible, well-grounded person more than a little paranoid.” [4]

For starters, and more concretely, there are the Dutch owners of the Venice flight schools themselves. Hopsicker and some of his anonymous sources call these men, Rudi Dekkers and Arne Kruithof, “the Magic Dutch Boys.” One of Hopsicker’s sources pointed out that the Dutch invasion at the Venice airport in mid-1999 was “just about the time the terrorist pilots moved into town and began their lessons,” which apparently actually began a year later, in early July 2000. [5] “Two Dutch boys buying adjacent flight schools which shortly thereafter get 'overrun’ by terrorists is one damn Dutch boy too many,” a “law enforcement source” told Hopsicker. “Its untidy.” [6]

Hopsicker put his big picture as “Mohammed Atta and his terrorist cadre’s flight training in this country was part of a so-far unacknowledged U.S. government intelligence operation which had ultimately tragic consequences for thousands of civilians on September 11.” [7] I'm a little vague on his exact case, but seems to involve Atta at least being a covert CIA assett involved in drug-running operations, though some of this is based on Atta's alleged girlfriend Amanda Keller, who has since declared her testimony was all a lie. Anyway, Hopsicker does not specify why these same assest/whatever then got so out of hand and were not prevented from carrying out their monstrous attack. From the perspective of Shadow 9/11, it seems an obvious possibility that this alleged CIA operation did not go awry, but exactly as planned - it gave plausible credibility to the Patsies' ability to take the blame - if they'd actually meant to be pilots, of course, they'd've studied harder, but close enough. They took leaasons. Hopsicker, perhaps prudently, never makes such a claim outright, focusing on endless speculative detective work which does make fascinating reading.

Sources:
[1] Hopsicker, Daniel. “INS Deporting ‘Magic Dutch Boy’ Rudi Dekkers.” Mad Cow Morning News. December 4, 2002. Accessed October 26, 2004 at:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0212/S00058.htm
[2] “Evidence trails lead to Florida.” BBC News. September 13, 2001. Accessed October 30, 2004 at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1542153.stm
[3], [4] Patten, John. “Death in Venice? Local conspiracy theorist Dan Hopsicker weaves a twisted web of intrigue in the wake of September 11.” Last revised June 6, 2002. Copied October 26, 2004 from: http://www.venfl.com/features/hopsicker.htm
[5] Ahmed, Nafeez. The ar on Freedom. page 101
[6] Hopsicker, Daniel. “Was the CIA running a terrorist flight school?” Online Journal. Oct 19, 2001.
22 March 2004 Accessed December 2, 2004 at: http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/HOP403A.html
[7] See [6]. Page 101