Mostly. But totally disenfranchised from Saudi Arabia and totally not trained or funded by them in any way?
Hmm. Maybe.
Ima go and look them up. Military folks any of them?
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Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi had experience fighting in Bosnia, at least. Wikipedia is as good a starting point as any to look them up:
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Ugh. Believe it or not Iâm enjoying this conversation but I need to bounce.
I see the comment count is healthy here so Iâll drop back in later.
@Mausium (Iâm not in total disagreement with you and was hoping to have some fun hammering out our stances.)
*bows
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Hey!
Alex only peddles conspiracy reality!
*bows again and leaves the room this time
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I enjoy Jones for pure entertainment value. His Coast to Coast style gimmick is much more fun than Glenn Beckâs appropriation, and I have a better suspension of disbelief.
Plus, the ads are great!
Nothing like the Diamond Gusset jeans advertised with an extended crotchpanel (so you can fit your biiiiiiig genitals in.) Or the survivalist seedpouch that will last until the monsantopocalypse (but packaged so poorly that it will only remain viable for a few years.)
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The IFLS crowdâs cargo cult is unrelated to peoplesâ reactions to Moon Hoaxers, Icke-ers and Truthers.
True story: I once had an opportunity to hang with a bunch of guys who Alex Jones contends are a part of an elite, occult organization that secretly rules the world out of a heavily guarded retreat. (Not gonna mention them by name but Iâm sure you can look it up.)
Now I find it hard to respect the man, because his documentary completely omitted any mention of how awesome the bar service was.
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Itâs not enough to oppose seemingly ignorant conspiracy shite with trite dismissal, you have to use rational thought and keep your mind open, otherwise you fall into the trap of ignoring real evidence in favour of waving a flag for your ideological preference.
Which seems to be what most people are actually concerned with. Flocking.
All this is what the truthers are known for doing. They oppose any evidence or reasoning with polite dismissal. They refuse to keep an open mind. They wave their flag for their ideological preference. And theyâre a prime example of flocking.
Not believing in the truthersâ holographic airplanes and implosion conspiracies and thermite fantasies, does NOT mean a lack of skepticism regarding the government.
There were plenty of warning that aircraft were becoming weapons for terrorists. Air France Flight 8969, where the hijackers were going to fly the plane into the Eiffel Tower or blow it up over Paris with a maximum fuel load. The âBojinka plotâ in 1995, to dive it at the CIA headquarters. The July 2001 G8 summit in Genoa, where anti-aircraft missile batteries were installed following a report that terrorists would try to crash a plane to kill world leaders.
And of course:
âBin Ladin Public Profile May Presage Attackâ (5/3/01)
âBin Ladinâs Networksâ Plans Advancingâ (5/26/01)
âBin Ladin Attacks May Be Imminentâ (6/23/01)
âBin Ladin and Associates Making Near-Term Threatsâ (6/25/01)
âBin Ladin Planning High-Profile Attacksâ (6/30/01)
âPlanning for Bin Ladin Attacks Continues, Despite Delaysâ (7/02/01)
- subject lines of Richard Clarke emails to Bush Administration prior to 9/11/01
âYou know, Dick Clarke. Dick Clarke, who was the head of the counterterrorism program in the run-up to 9/11. He obviously missed it.â
- Dick Cheney, on Richard Clarke
âBin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.â
- Presidential Daily Brief, August 6, 2001
âAll right, youâve covered your ass now.â
- George W. Bush, to the CIA briefer who warned him about an imminent bin Laden strike, August 6, 2001
Bill Clinton getting a BJ was declared to be of vital national importance by the Republicans. They did everything but demand that he get re-blown on the Senate floor. ("We must know exactly what happened!!!) Everything had to be done in public and under oath, and every word published.
Not so with 9/11, when they investigated what warnings the President received.
The White House wanted to limit any appearance by the president to just one hour spent with two of the commissioners. Bush II did eventually meet with the Commission, but only under stringent conditions: Bush had to have Dick Cheney at his side, testifying at the same time; testimony was given in private and NOT UNDER OATH; no press coverage was allowed; and no recordings or transcripts were made of what they said.
Do you believe, even for an instant, that there isnât some damning piece of evidence they kept unpublished?
And yetâŚ
The truthers casually dismiss these concerns. Anyone who shares these concerns instead of truther holographic airplane fantasies becomes part of The Conspiracy and gets added to their list of enemies.
Before truther wingnuttery was well-known, a bunch of pilots and engineers signed a petition asking for a better investigation of 9/11. NOT because they believed in holographic airplanes, thermite and implosions, but because they wanted a better investigation of what warnings were ignored.
The truthers of course, misrepresent them as sharing their deluded fantasies. âTrutherâ is a word for those who religiously avoid truth.
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Officially, âThey hate us for our freedom.â
Unofficially: Bin Ladenâs goal was to overthrow the House of Saud so that the ârightâ people could run the holy land. The problem was that he couldnât do this while the House of Saud is propped up by America. Using Saudis was a move to drive a wedge between America and Saudi Arabia.
Also Bin Laden is Saudi. His contacts would be dominated by other Saudis.
And there are cultural differences that made Saudis more likely to be suicide bombers than say, Jordanians or Egyptians. A side-effect of slavery.
Saudi Arabia only abolished slavery in 1967, and visitors reported seeing slave auctions as late as 1981. The case can be made that it hasnât yet ended. And as a replacement, much of the work is done by hired foreigners, often from third world countries. Major accomplishments - engineering and technical work, is done by the hated non-Muslims from western countries.
The point being, in a slave society, work is not honorable and cannot be a source of self-worth.
Without honorable work, and with any accomplishments not overshadowed by western countries, their sense of self-worth comes from being the possessors of the One True Religion. And yet Allah doesnât seem to be delivering on his promises of being exalted above the unbelievers, not when America is the most powerful nation.
But thatâs Saudi Arabia. Go to Egypt or Jordan - without the recent slavery heritage - and youâll find people doing their own work and picking up skilled professions. And a lot less terrorist recruits. A lot less would-be suicide bombers. And so again, Saudis were the better choice for the job.
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I only regret that I have but one like to give.
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Soooo, weâre in total agreement?
In Philadelphia the Meridan building caught fire due to spontaneous combustion of some rags. Most of the outside sheathing remained limiting air intake, but steel beams sagged and were distorted. This building was almost 500 ft tall.
News report.
By February 26 city officials had determined One Meridian Plaza was not in danger of collapse.[11] There was structural damage to horizontal steel beams and floor sections on most of the fire damaged floors. Under extreme fire exposure the beams and girders sagged and twisted and cracks appeared in the concrete floors.
How much further from sagging and twisting before it goes. This was a standard fire, though large, but no added fuel except for what was in the building.
Funny still the conspiracy guys use this fire on their sites to prove a fire would not melt steel. This fire was in 1991 so the reports of sagging and twisted steel were out long before 2001. The building stood damaged for years but was torn down because it could not be fixed.
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See! Further evidence that jet fuel canât melt steel beams. (Paint thinner thoughâŚ)
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9/11 Trilions: Follow the Money
A long-debunked fantasy about 9/11 being an insurance scam. Plus the usual avalanche of related claims in the hope that no-one will take the time to debunk them all.
Meanwhile back in reality, the insurance money fell well short of covering the costs. In fact the insurance value was way below what it should have been. Most of the legal wrangling after the fact was also due to the insurance contracts being incomplete. With too low an insurance value and less-than-solid contracts, literally none of the insurance-based activities seem to point to the actions of people who knew exactly what was going to happen in advance.
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The film also documents insider trading, electronic fraud, missing money and destroyed evidence. I would like to hear your thoughts on those issues.
âFire canât cause steel to bend!â say the people who clearly arenât familiar with 4,000-year-old blacksmithing technology.
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