-Caveat Lector- I was wondering what was taking Dave so long! At long last, Part 2 of his "Conspiracy Theory" article, and an excellent one at that:
Greetings from the Center for an Informed America (http://davesweb.cnchost.com/). Please forward this newsletter widely. If this was forwarded to you and you would like to receive future mailings, e-mail (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) a request to be added to this mailing list. NEWSLETTER #28 January 23, 2003 Special 'Conspiracy Theory' Edition, Part II Sorry for the delay in getting this newsletter posted and circulated. Shortly after sending out the previous one, my Internet privileges were apparently suspended. I guess I must have been a very bad boy. The problem has not yet been entirely corrected, but I do seem to have limited access at this time. Prior to having my Internet service rudely interrupted, I received a number of new subscription requests -- attributable in large part, I presume, to the fact that Bev Conover of Online Journal (http://www.onlinejournal.com) re-posted Newsletter #27. Welcome aboard to all new readers, and a huge "thank you" to Bev. (While we're on the subject of new subscribers, I have noticed that some people include unnecessary personal information with their subscription requests, such as last names, home addresses, and telephone numbers. I would strongly caution all of you not to do that. Keep in mind that not all 'dissident' websites are what they appear to be, and not all mailing lists are operated for your benefit. It is already far too easy for Big Brother to gather information about you; don't make it any easier.) I also received a considerable amount of positive feedback from regular readers, so let me take this opportunity to say thanks to Donald, Jan, Brock, Barrie, Harriet, David, Andrew, T, Stephen M., Stephen S., Craig, Wythe, John, Dan, Leslie, Mike, Lisa, Mick, Jim, and (another) Andrew. Some of you, by the way, need to tone down the lavish praise just a bit. It's not that it isn't appreciated, mind you. It's just that I am growing increasingly concerned that I may soon need to remodel my home. None of the rooms seem to accommodate my head anymore. Thanks are also due this week to the anonymous respondent who wrote to inform me that I inadvertently listed the date of Pearl Harbor as December of 1942, when that attack in fact occurred in December of 1941. I'm a little surprised, by the way, that no one else caught that. Thanks also to reader Dave for pointing out that there is "one other important criterion" that a good theory must meet: "the theory should be predictive." That is, strangely enough, one of the things that I intend to discuss later in this rant. Dave was a little ahead of the curve on that one. I suppose thanks are also due to those of you who sent me what are some of the most ludicrously disinformational 'news' stories that I have ever read. A little comic relief is always appreciated. Unfortunately, I didn't get the impression that these stories were sent as a joke. The stories in question claimed that Chinese, Russian and/or Cuban troops are massed on America's southern border, eagerly awaiting the onset of the Iraq war, so that they can then march on in and effortlessly take over the country while our forces are busy elsewhere. Do you people (and you know who you are) really believe such rubbish? Are you really that easily fooled by the most preposterous of lies? It is possible, I suppose. In the Bush Era, no lie appears to be too outlandish to be believed. On a more somber note, the Center for an Informed America must say good-bye to one of its most ardent fans and supporters. Mel A. of Santa Monica, California passed away just after the start of the new year following a brief bout with cancer. Rest in peace, Mel. Your input will be missed. But I'm still not going to let you off the hook for once comparing my writing style to that of Christopher Hitchens. Now ... where was I? If I remember correctly, I was discussing the historical models for the September 11 attacks -- a discussion which tended to lend credence to theories that the attacks, unless they represented a major deviation from established patterns, were either self-inflicted, or provoked and assisted. Of course, any number of 'lefty' opinion-shapers have claimed that this time was different -- that the old rules do not apply in this case, and that the U.S. was in fact unconscionably attacked, justifying - in fact, necessitating - a military response directed at the 'evil-doers.' But have we targeted the real 'evil-doers,' or have we targeted patsies? What does the evidence indicate? Which theories best account for the known evidence? That depends, alas, on what is considered 'known evidence.' So let's start with what is perhaps the only incontrovertible evidence in the case: our own observations, as witnesses, of what played out that day on live television. Tens of millions of people across the country witnessed what happened, and had the images of that day seared into their memory. But what we want to focus on here is what we didn't see happen that day, because some of the most compelling evidence lies, strangely enough, in what no one saw happen that day. No one, for example, saw any defensive measures taken during the entire time that the lengthy spectacle played out. None whatsoever. No one saw any jets scrambled to intercept any of the hijacked aircraft, though their locations and flight-paths were known and there was more than ample time for a military response. No one saw any jets scrambled to secure the airspace over Washington, though some of the hijacked flights were known to be headed that way, and interceptors were sitting on the tarmac just minutes away from likely targets. And strangely enough, no one saw or heard any demands by television talking-heads for the military to respond in some capacity, or any questioning of why no response had yet materialized. Not after the first WTC tower was hit. Not after the second WTC tower was hit. Not during the agonizingly long interval before the Pentagon was hit. Not even after the Pentagon was hit. We were all assigned the task of sitting back in fear and watching helplessly as the attack continued and the death toll mounted, encouraged to feel powerless not only as individuals, but as a nation -- as if we had no choice but to participate only as passive spectators, watching dumfounded as the carnage unfolded. But clearly we are not powerless as a nation. Obviously we have procedures on the books that are to be followed in the event of national emergencies, and we have thousands of qualified personnel in the military and in various federal agencies that are thoroughly trained to fill various roles when given orders to do so. And just as clearly, we all saw that those procedures were not followed that day. We did not see the headquarters of the world's most feared and powerful military machine attacked in broad daylight with at least an hour's warning. That was not the plot of the reality show that we all watched that day. We couldn't possibly have been watching that, because that would have been a much different show -- one that would have ended quickly with a massive Air Force response, and that would have been recorded in the history books as a failed, and very ill-advised, attempt to attack the mighty U.S. What we saw instead was a country under attack that didn't seem to have any means of defending itself at all, other than hoping that the hijackers would eventually run out of planes. Once the show began, the curtain wasn't going to drop until the final act had played out. Something else that no one saw that day was the president being whisked away by the Secret Service at the first sign that a national emergency was developing. Granted, the president did have important business to attend to that day. However, you would think that the events of that morning would have merited the cancellation of Bush's scheduled 'education summit meeting' with Florida schoolchildren. Consider, if you will, that as Sir George sat there calmly listening to the children's reading lesson, both World Trade Center towers were already in flames, hundreds of Americans were already dead, and thousands more were in imminent danger. In addition, at least two jumbo-sized, manned cruise missiles were still in the air. This was obviously a highly unusual situation. There was no longer any question as to whether the country was being attacked, unless one assumed that two passenger planes had, quite coincidentally, accidentally smashed into the towers. And it didn't require any calls to Miss Cleo to figure out that the remaining hijacked flights were very likely destined for similar outcomes. What was taking place was obviously a very ambitious, coordinated, multi-pronged attack. And if this all came as a complete surprise, which we are assured it did, then no one could have known what the full extent of the plan was. No one could have known, for example, if there were any additional flights that had been hijacked, including any in the vicinity of where the president and his entourage were stationed. No one could have known if there were, in addition to the hijackings, plans to coordinate any activities on the ground, such as bombings or assassination attempts, or even a chemical or biological attack. No one knew whether any specific individuals were targeted. And certainly no one knew what threats the President of the United States might be facing. And yet, remarkably enough, it never occurred to the president's staff or his Secret Service escorts that it might be a good idea to protect such a highly visible and, on that day, highly vulnerable target. It was as if everyone in the president's circle knew that he was in no danger, despite being at an unprotected location that had been publicized in advance and that was very near a major airport. It was as if, in other words, the White House already knew the script that this bit of guerilla theater would be following. Interestingly enough, extreme security precautions were eventually taken. That is why one of the memories of that day that most Americans have is of the president being shuttled around to various secure air bases, while solemn newscasters claimed with a straight face that Air Force 1 was a known target. But all of that occurred after the attacks had run their course. During virtually the entire time that the attacks were in progress, Bush was sitting in a Florida elementary school, failing to address the crisis and failing to address the American people -- a fact that was almost entirely ignored by the media at the time, and which has been largely forgotten. In retrospect, I guess it must not have happened at all. As any real American can tell you, the media in this country is hopelessly 'liberal.' As such, they would eagerly latch onto any misstep by Herr Bush like a pack of rabid pit bulls. And since that hasn't happened, then we can only conclude that Bush hasn't taken any missteps. Just as no one saw the president's entourage perform the job that they are supposed to perform, no one saw the president himself perform the duties that his oath of office compels him to perform -- specifically, serving as the commander-in-chief of U.S. armed forces. It was the president's duty, and a requirement of the office he holds, to immediately take charge of the situation and ensure that defensive actions were being taken. No one saw Bush make any attempt to do so. And no one has seen any questions raised, in Washington circles or in the established media, as to why no one saw him take such actions. As some researchers have pointed out, Bush was guilty of, at the very least, gross incompetence and dereliction of his sworn duties. And that is, it should be emphasized, the most charitable interpretation of what happened. There is little question that Bush's actions, whether due to incompetence or willful inaction, were impeachable offenses. And yet, not only has there been no mention of the "I" word, but Bush has been nearly universally hailed as some kind of heroic figure. It's not as if, I guess, he was caught doing something really serious -- like providing Ken Starr with masturbatory fantasies. Another thing that no one saw happen on September 11 was the World Trade Center towers toppling in a way that was consistent with the damage that was inflicted upon them. This was particularly true in the case of the south WTC tower. As we all did see, the south tower was not hit as 'cleanly' as the north tower. Rather than smashing into the face of the structure, the aircraft that allegedly caused the implosion of the south tower clipped a corner of the building (for those who have forgotten what the impact looked like, here is a reminder: http://serendipity.magnet.ch/wot/impact2.htm). The significance of this is twofold: first, the enormous fireball created by the instantaneous ignition of the jet's payload of fuel was ejected out the side of the building adjacent to the point of impact; and second, the structural damage to the tower was almost entirely confined to one corner of the building. This raises some rather troubling questions about the official story of the tower's collapse. For if the jet fuel was largely ejected from the building, as photos and video footage clearly show, then how is it possible that the ensuing fire attained the extreme temperatures required to weaken the massive amount of steel in the building to such an extent that the entire structure spontaneously collapsed? And, perhaps more importantly, how is it possible that the structural framework of the building failed in a perfectly symmetrical fashion, creating the mythical "pancake" effect that is supposed to explain the implosion of the building? Logic, common sense, and a few laws of an apparently obscure science known as "physics" dictate that, if the tower was to collapse at all, it should have toppled over at the point of impact. The still-intact portion of the building above the point of attack should have begun tilting towards the point of structural weakness. Once this process began, gravity and momentum would have done the rest, stretching and tearing the steel on the opposing side of the structure, until an enormous chunk of the tower broke off and came tumbling down, or until the entire tower was destabilized and pulled over, creating a quartermile-long path of devastation across lower Manhattan. But we didn't see anything like that take place. What we saw was the entire tower self-destruct and come crumbling down in a remarkably uniform fashion, with all of the debris falling neatly within the footprint of what once had been. And that is, I have to say, the kind of thing that just doesn't seem right. Another thing that we didn't see that day was repeatedly aired footage of the collapse of WTC #7, a building that attained the dubious distinction of being the only steel-framed high-rise building in history to ever suffer a complete collapse due to fire alone. That seems a little odd to me as well. According to The History Channel, WTC #7 happened to house the World Trade Center complex's crisis management center. Staff there were monitoring the unfolding tragedy in the two towers -- until, that is, they received a call of unknown origin advising them to evacuate the building. One can only wonder what records from the crisis center might have revealed about the collapse of the towers, had WTC #7 and everything in it not been destroyed. Our memories of what happened that day are filled with emotionally-charged images of burning buildings and falling bodies. But we need to detach ourselves from the deliberately inflamed emotions and remember back to what we didn't see happen that day, for what we didn't see is far more significant than the smoke and mirrors that we did see. We didn't see an Air Force response. We didn't see a presidential response. We didn't see a Secret Service response. We didn't see a response from NORAD, or from the Department of Defense, or from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or from the Secretary of Defense. We didn't see an appropriate response from anyone of any authority in Washington. We also didn't see, and never will see, any footage of a plane crashing into the Pentagon, despite the fact that the building and the surrounding area are protected by the best video surveillance system that taxpayer money can buy. Of those who responded to the last newsletter, reader Mike noted that there is a name for anti-conspiracy theorists: "coincidence theorists." Fair enough. Let's consider then, very briefly, just a few of the odd coincidences surrounding the events of September 11. Most readers are probably familiar with the Carlyle Group, through which George H.W. Bush had (has?) financial ties to the bin Laden family. Some readers are probably also aware that George W. Bush had business dealings with Salem bin Laden, brother of Osama, dating back to the days when Bush was posing as a Texas oilman (Salem, by the way, met with an untimely end when his plane Wellstoned ... oops, I meant to say crashed, in the state of Texas). I'm guessing though that some readers are not yet familiar with a business entity formerly known as Securacom, and now known as Stratesec, Inc. And that is really a shame, because the Securacom/Stratesec story is a fascinating one indeed. Billing itself as "a single-source provider of comprehensive technology-based security solutions for medium and large commercial and government facilities in the United States and abroad," the company is based in a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. -- in an area that I like to call "Spookville." The company's clients have included the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Air Force, the Department of Justice, and Los Alamos National Laboratories. Also on the company's client list were - and this is where the story gets interesting - the World Trade Center, United Airlines, and the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority -- operator of Dulles International Airport. The company first began doing work at the Trade Center in 1993, following the first 'terrorist' attack on the building complex. In 1996, Securacom apparently received an exclusive contract to provide security at the Center. The year before, it had received a contract from the Metro Airport Authority. In the late 1990s, the WTC and the MWAA were two of Securacom's top three clients. But that's not the most interesting aspect of this story. It gets better. Beginning in 1993, when Securacom first began doing work for the WTC, none other than Marvin Bush - brother of George, Jeb and Neil - was sitting on the board of directors and was a significant shareholder in the company. Also sitting on that board was Mishal Yousef Saud al-Sabah, and a man named Wirt D. Walker III, who served as chairman. "Walker" is, of course, the name of one of the families that spawned the Bush clan, as evidenced by the "Dubya" in both George, Sr. and George, Jr.'s names. And "al-Sabah" is, as we all know, the name of the Kuwaiti royal family. During the years 1993 to 1999 - while Securacom was doing contract work for the WTC, United Airlines and the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority, and while Bush, Walker and al-Sabah were sitting on the board - a large and sometimes controlling interest in the company was held by KuwAm. And what is KuwAm, you ask? It is a Washington, D.C.-based, Kuwaiti/American investment group whose board of directors has included - you guessed it - Marvin Bush, Wirt Walker, and Mishal Yousef Saud al-Sabah. Let's briefly recap the coincidences, shall we? The Bush family coincidentally has close business ties to the family that supplied the mastermind of the terrorist attacks. The Bush family also coincidentally had ties to the company that provided security for the principal target of the attacks, the World Trade Center (this company would, of course, have been afforded unprecedented and unquestioned access to the buildings). And the Bush family coincidentally had similar ties to United Airlines, which supplied two of the hijacked flights, and Dulles International Airport, which supplied a third. The prime suspect, the weapons, the primary target ... I guess the question that comes to my mind is then: is there any aspect of the September 11 story that is not coincidentally covered with the fingerprints of some member of the Bush family? Speaking of which ... I was recently invited, by a website that I've never heard of, to submit a missive on the topic of "Did Bush Know?" This question is, in a sense, rather silly, in that it assumes that George W. Bush is actually running the show, or is at least an important member of his own administration. Had I the time and the inclination to address the question of "Did Bush Know?," I guess the first question that I would have is: which Bush exactly is it that we are talking about? Is it the Bush that has deep financial ties to the bin Laden family and the Saudi royal family? Is it the Bush that sat on the board of the corporate entity that supplied 'security' to the World Trade Center, the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority and United Airlines, and that had deep financial ties to the Kuwaiti royal family? Is it the Bush that inexplicably declared a state of emergency in the state of Florida just four days before the September 11 attacks, setting the stage for the possible imposition of martial law? Or is it the Bush who is currently posing as the president? Here's another question that I have: at what point does the fraudulence of the "War on Terror" become so blatant, and the complicity of the media in selling Washington's lies so glaringly apparent, that the huddled masses of America will awake to the fact that there is a completely different reality out there than the one we are being sold? Consider that even while Team Bush has been doing business with its Saudi and Kuwaiti partners, it has long been plotting to launch a completely unprovoked assault upon neighboring Iraq -- all, of course, in the name of 'fighting terror.' Now the last time I checked, Saudi Arabia was the country that spawned the alleged mastermind of the attacks and 15 of his 19 henchmen, and also supplied most of the funding for the ethereal Al Qaeda organization. And both the Saudi and Kuwaiti royal families are fond of advocating the brand of militant Islamism that allegedly inspired the attacks. Iraq, on the other hand, has the rather unique distinction of being the only country on the Arabian peninsula to host a secular government. And there is absolutely no paper or money trail linking Iraq to the events of September 11, or to any other purported acts of terrorism. And yet here we are massing troops and stockpiling weapons in the very countries that supply the foot-soldiers, the funding, and the ideology to so-called 'terrorist' groups, so that we can brutally attack a country that has not attacked, nor threatened to attack, any Western targets, and that has no connection to Islamic 'terrorism'. And all the while, the media collectively pretend not to see anything wrong with that picture. And it matters not, by the way, what Iraq does to appease Washington's warmongers. The following quote from Rumsfeld appeared in an article on the front page of the January 16 edition of the L.A. Times: "The fact that the inspectors have not yet come up with evidence of Iraq's [weapons of mass destruction] program could be evidence in and of itself of Iraq's noncompliance." Yes, my friends, in this post-September 11 world we live in, a complete lack of evidence now constitutes evidence. And if there is evidence? Well ... that would also obviously be "evidence in and of itself." It makes perfect sense to me. No evidence = evidence. They are one and the same. The Times, by the way, let Rumsfeld's post-Orwellian proclamation go completely unchallenged. Just as it, and all other U.S. media outlets, never bother to challenge the constant statements from Washington mouthpieces proclaiming that the burden is on Saddam to prove that he doesn't possess weapons of mass destruction. It's always "Saddam," by the way, that the burden of proof is said to be on. The nation of Iraq is nearly always personified as the evil Saddam Hussein. It's just him we're going to war with, you see. Not the hundreds of thousands of rank and file Iraqis who are soon to be slaughtered. As long as we now seem to have smoothly segued into a discussion of the looming Iraq bloodbath, I guess I should mention that I just heard on the news that, once the attack begins, the U.S. will move quickly to secure Iraq's oil fields. If we don't, you see, that evil and dastardly Saddam will begin torching the country's wells and dumping vast amounts of crude oil into the ocean. Being the good guys in this fable, we of course will make preventing an environmental disaster our number one priority -- a policy which will only incidentally also serve to justify the establishment of military control over a sizable chunk of the world's oil reserves. But wait, you say ... the Iraqis did torch wells and dump oil into the ocean the last time around. And perhaps they did. It always seemed to me though, quite frankly, that the 'oil in the Gulf' trick was more likely due to the massive and largely indiscriminate bombing of the country with virtually every type of explosive and incendiary device known to man. And that scenario whereby America allegedly came riding to the rescue - with Andy Kaufman's performance of the theme song from Mighty Mouse playing in the background - just in time to precisely drop a smart bomb that miraculously cut off the flow of oil? That always seemed a little unlikely to me. What seemed far more likely was that, say, an Iraqi tanker or storage facility was blown open with a bomb or cruise missile, and thereafter drained itself into the Gulf. It also seems entirely likely that more than a few of those oil well fires were caused by the massive aerial bombardment by the U.S. and its allies. That's the funny thing about explosive and incendiary devices: they tend to blow things up and start fires. Go figure. Of those wells that likely were destroyed by retreating Iraqis, a good number of them were wells that were set up by Kuwait specifically as slant-drilling operations to suck the oil out from under sovereign Iraqi territory. They were illegal drilling operations that Iraqi troops no doubt felt entirely justified in destroying, as would the troops of any sovereign nation that was being subjected to economic warfare. But here I have digressed from the point that I started to make, which is that Washington has repeatedly saddled Iraq with the burden of proving a negative, which any first-year student of logic can tell you is an impossibility. Apparently though, there aren't any reporters/newscasters/commentators in the country who have studied logic. The fact that you can't prove a negative is an underlying principle of our system of jurisprudence -- which is one of the primary reasons why the burden of proof is on the accuser to prove that something was done, rather then on the accused to prove that something wasn't done. The Bush administration does not recognize this basic logical, and legal, principle. And neither does the U.S. media, which rather remarkably allows the Bush gang to routinely deny the Iraqi government any means of avoiding being ruthlessly pummeled by U.S. firepower. But let's get back to the September 11 attacks. And let's ask a question that any good investigator should ask when searching for suspects: who benefited from the events of that day? I first posed that question in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, as did other researchers. It was clear before the dust had settled over Manhattan that Washington was destined to be the primary beneficiary of the attacks. And that is, of course, exactly how things have played out. Many 'conspiracy theory' bashers have claimed that the "who benefited?" question is an illegitimate one to ask. If so, then someone really should break the news to police detectives all around the world, who seem to think that asking that question is integral to conducting an investigation of a crime. The fact that someone, or some entity, benefited from a crime certainly does not alone prove guilt. And Washington is certainly ready, willing and able to manipulate outcomes to serve its purposes, regardless of whether the opportunity was manufactured, or just happened to present itself. Nevertheless, the question of "who benefited?" must be taken into consideration, along with other indicators, when attempting to ascertain the truth of what happened on September 11. And the party that gained the most from September 11, without question, was the Bush administration. So if we look at what happened that day in terms of who benefited, the most likely place to look for suspects would be in Washington. If we look at what happened that day in terms of historical precedents, then the most likely place to look for suspects would be in Washington. And if we look at what happened that day in terms of the evidence in the case, only a portion of which was reviewed herein, then the most likely place to look for suspects would still be in Washington. And, finally, if we look at the fact that there were very clear signs that the country was already headed in the direction that we have taken since September 11, the attacks just seem entirely too convenient for the most likely suspects not to be in Washington.. Make no mistake about it, the situation that we currently find ourselves in was coming with or without the specific provocation of September 11. The warning signs were everywhere. You couldn't miss them. All that was required was taking a look at the big picture. I indicated earlier that conspiracy theories can not generally be proven. Comprehensive conspiracy theories can, however, be tested -- just as scientific theories can be tested. This is generally accomplished by employing what is referred to as the 'scientific method' -- observing to see whether predictions drawn from those theories prove to be valid predictions. If the predictions, or hypotheses, prove to be valid, then it can be concluded that the results lend support to the theory. This certainly does not prove the theory, but does support it ... which is about the best that can be hoped for. And so we arrive, at long last, at what initially was the primary purpose of this newsletter ... except that I have, once again, run out of time and space. So once again I will continue this to next week ... 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