Muslims 'Still in Denial' About 9/11, Pew Survey Finds

[sabra]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/22/world/europe/22cnd-pew.html

Muslims 'Still in Denial' About 9/11, Pew Survey Finds

PARIS, June 22 — Non-Muslim Westerners and Muslims around the world have widely different views of world events, and each group tends to view the other as violent, intolerant, and lacking in respect for women, a new international survey of more than 14,000 people in 13 nations indicates.

In what the survey, part of the Pew Global Attitudes Project for 2006, called one of its most striking findings, majorities in Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan and Turkey — Muslim countries with fairly strong ties to America — said, for example, that they did not believe that Arabs carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. The findings, illustrating the chasm in beliefs, follow another year of violence and tension centered around that divide. In the past 12 months, there have been terrorist bombings in London, riots in France by unemployed youths, many of them Muslim, a global uproar over Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, and no letup to the war in Iraq.

This led majorities in the United States and in countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East to describe relations between Muslims and people in Western countries as generally bad, Pew found.

Over all, Muslims in the survey worldwide, including the large Islamic populations in Britain, France, Germany and Spain, broadly blamed the West, while Westerners tended to blame Muslims for the bad relations. Muslims in the Middle East and Asia depicted Westerners as immoral and selfish, while Westerners saw Muslims as fanatical.

[marmar]

1. "Still in Denial" - sort of editorializing, aren't they?

Isn't this supposed to be a news story?

[Tempest]

15. What do you expect from the NY Times?

It no longer hides the fact that it's a mouthpiece for the administration.

[endarkenment]

2. Americans - still in denial about 9-11

The majority of americans continue to believe lead-headed coincidence theories about how the bush cabal had no connection whatsoever to 9-11, and that it was merely a coincidence that this event was crucial to their plans to invade Iraq and establish military control over the middle east.

[Master Mahon]

3. Just who is in denial here????

According to this then I must be muslim because I do not believe that Arabs carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States

[Bacchus39]

6. no, you're just fooling yourself

people of any faith can do that.

[Scorpio2000]

36. Following the party line- think outside the Mosque

"I do not believe that Arabs carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States"

How about the attack on the WTC in 1993? Zionist mossad agents? Bush? Aliens from outer space?

[heliarc]

40. Please [adjusting tinfoil hat]

There's plenty of motive to suggest that the WTC job was demolition (insurance recoupment see Frontline's "Sacred Ground" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sacred/designs/stakeholders.html ), and there's some of motive to suggest that the WTC job was a "Pearl Harbor" that the administration "let" happen to justify war.

There is also plenty of information on the Florida flight school that Atta attended to assume that the intelligence agencies weren't as lost as they claim. (Rudi Dekkers is thought to have connections to US intelligence, and so is a lot of the apparatus in that aviation heavy area of florida.)

UFO's? Aliens? The arguments are stronger than that. Larry Silverstein made billions off his lease of the WTC buildings after they were made into rubble. And Osama Bin Ladin's family made millions off of their association with the Carlyle Group... I don't know why its so crazy to think that somewhere in there someone was in cahoots.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

43. Mhmm...

[heliarc]

67. Nuts, huh?

Well, we all just want to know more. I think that there's been a lot of misdirection in the way that investigations or lack thereof have proceeded. I'd love to know more. I mean, Ron Suskind who is anything but nuts just had the balls to write that the US Military bombed Al Jazeera in Kabul. They have changed POW classification in a semantic exercise to enemy combatant. I know that we can all agree that its not just a semantic exercise.

So they're bombing journalists, and torturing prisoners. And they're clearly lying to us about the war. Is it really crazy to look at the evidence out there on 9/11 and not believe the official rhetoric?

[TheWatcher]

90. Is it really crazy to look at the evidence out there on 9/11......

not believe the official rhetoric?"

No, but it makes a lot of people like him feel more comfortable to have the audacious farce that is "The Official Story" to hold on to.

Those of us who choose to question the party line on things would do well to examine how many people still cling to the "magic Bullet Theory" 43 years later, and find a way to accept that we will probably never get to the truth of what happened on 9/11.

Is there a cover-up?

Of course.

Although there are days I wonder why they even bother.

Most simply don't want to know.

And so, atrocities that events like 9/11 enable continue, unabated and unchecked.

But hey, at least we don't have to feel bad about it, and we can live in comfort, knowing that all the truth is in the Official Story, and there is no need to dig further.

Gosh, I feel better already.

Is American Idol on?

[baldguy]

82. 9/11 was not a "Pearl Harbor".

More like a "Reichstag Fire"

[Joanne98]

92. Don't forget the shorting of the airline stocks..........

[Rich Hunt]

41. you forgot one suspect

The same fascists who knocked down the Oklahoma City federal building.

I guess that never happened, that far right terrorists were never a problem, that lynching and church bombings and arsons never happened, etc. etc.

[treestar]

46. Notice there was no move to undo the Bill of Rights

over the terrible threat posed by right wing type terrorists.

Oh, wait, Clinton was president then.

[ShortnFiery]

52. Saudi Arabia is still PROTECTED but they are the ones who

were responsible (15 of the 19 hijackers) for the attacks of 9/11.

I'm so sick of these right wing warmongering bastards. Not even the sleepy American Sheeple choose to pay attention to the propaganda spewing corporate media or RW Freaks in our Congress anymore.

The backlash cometh ... and it's from the American People for the DISASTER Newt's bogus "Contract with America" has TRASHED our Country. You only love right wingers if you enjoy "the rich getting richer while BOTH the middle and lower classes are getting poorer." Sick minded corporate freaks and war profiteers are RUNNING THIS COUNTRY. Buck up for a long cold winter that will NOT end in the near future, if ever. :cry: :puke:

[Stella_Artois]

100. Really ?

USS Cole ? (before Bush became president)

US Embassy attacks ? (when Clinton was President)

Bali Bombings ? (not a direct attack on the US)

Madrid Bombings (same)

i could go on...

Just who is behind all this ?

The CIA ?

[ovidsen]

121. Round up the usual suspects

There's a common thread to all of these attacks. And the subway bombings in London, too.

And it's not the CIA. And they're probably not Christians.

[CJCRANE]

131. Except Clinton was trying to stop terrorism.

The hijackers, funds and planning for 9/11 came from countries and sources which Bushco call "allies". None of these countries or sources suffered repercussions from 9/11, in fact they benefitted. Revenge for 9/11 was taken out on Iraq which had nothing to do with 9/11.

Grouping all terrorist acts as though they're all done by the same group is inaccurate.

[htuttle]

4. Well, maybe Colin Powell should have released that 'proof' he promised us

Given the opportunistic way that Bush took advantage of the attacks, it's not surprising that a lot of people are still skeptical. It's only natural in the absence of actual proof.

[Pastiche423]

33. Yeah, what happened to that white paper?

It's been almost five years and he still hasn't completed it?

[Terran1212]

5. They'd believe it better if it was not exploited

For war and profit so much. That gets some people thinking.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

12. exactly

well put. What reason have we given them to believe otherwise, it worked in some people's interest so well. They're not idiots.

[Eugene]

7. Here's the Pew report without the NYT spin

http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=253

(with thanks to DUer igil for the link)

The report a mixed bag with some hopeful signs like growing concerns
about extremism and the belief in democracy among Muslims.

[Yupster]

108. interesting - thanks for link

I'm surprised that opinions of Muslim-Western relations are worse in Europe than they are in the US.

I don't have access to Mid East media, but I wonder what does Al Jazeera say about 9-11? Is it mentioned at all? Is it seen as an unknown crime? or a plot of the Jews.

[BeyondGeography]

8. DU still in denial about 9/11

at least those who think Arabs didn't do it and the plane that hit the Pentagon was actually a missile.

[m0nkeyneck]

11. is innocent until proven guilty a lost principle?

or is that just crazy talk?

missile.. not all OCT skeptics believe that; but without investigation or evidence who's to say..

[BeyondGeography]

14. It's hard to try people who have been completely disintegrated

And, as for those who believe the missile theory, they first need to tell us where these people are:

http://www.legacy.com/NYTimes/sept11.asp?Memorial=AA77

[frylock]

16. they're in aruba, sipping mai tais..

Quite frankly, I don't know WTF went down on that day (and I've read 6 different books on the subject), but the "where are the passengers" argument is the lamest fucking red herring of them all. If, and that's a big IF, there was govt. involvment with the events of 911, do think it would be beyond reason to suspect that those people were taken to an undisclosed location and, oh, I don't know, FUCKING KILLED?!

[BeyondGeography]

18. Yeah, that's it

Cheney checks in on them every now and then. There are, after all, only so many undisclosed locations to go around.

Sheeesh.

[frylock]

21. sheesh, indeed..

read "The Big Wedding", then get back to me with your OV ramblings.

[BeyondGeography]

27. The same guys who bungled Iraq

managed to pull the wool over the whole world's eyes on 9/11. Or maybe the outcome in Iraq is something they devoutly desired as well.

Where it all falls apart for you and your ilk is on the issue of competency. We agree, I'm sure, that the Bush Administration is the biggest bunch of fools to hit Washington in the history of this country. Evil, yes, but profoundly inept when it comes to anything more than a political campaign. Yet, for all of that, they conspired in the space of 9 months to engineer a plot of unprecedented complexity, complete with double agents (that would put the Clinton Administration in on the deal as well, wouldn't it?), fake plane crashes, stashed bodies and all sorts of other goodies.

Enjoy constant re-readings of The Big Wedding. I'll stick with people like Richard Clarke who actually know what they're talking about.

[m0nkeyneck]

29. bungled Iraq?

are you assuming their objectives are transparent?

"that would put the Clinton Administration in on the deal as well, wouldn't it?"
if true wouldn't you want to know?

if using historical facts as a baseline then false flag terrorism has more probability of truth than 19 lucky ass arabs highjacking 4 jumbo jets w/ boxcutters and flying them into the most secure buildings on the planet..

[The Straight Story]

118. It was not bush - but DEMS that engineered the entire 9/11 thing

They wanted to make bush look bad cause they were pissed he won. Hillary was a part of it all.

Hell - I can make the data fit that theory. Then I will write a book about it. And have a lot of people believing it because it makes sense....

[frylock]

30. guess what? most of the world doesn't believe the OV!

Tell me what you know about Huffman Aviation and their ties to CIA drug smuggling. Why did the FBI lie about the time period that Atta was in Venice?

[m0nkeyneck]

34. exactly.. skepticism of OCT is considered..

'crazy talk' only in the US

we all know how brilliant we americans are eh.. what time is american idol on?

[heliarc]

37. Now we're talking

Venice, Florida is a hotbed for all sorts of black covert operations... What was that report about something like 50 Bell helicopters being "stolen" from a Police Dept. in the area... Who wants to bet that the "stolen" choppers didn't get their VIN numbers scratched off and a new shiny black paint job.

Come on. Atta would have had to choose Langley as a training facility to get closer to the CIA.

[Yupster]

110. I think it all ties into

Clinton running drugs from Columbia through Mena, Arkansas while governor and why Vince Foster was killed so he wouldn't spill the beans on it.

[CJCRANE]

44. The same guys who gave arms to Iran

to fund the Contra guerrillas, did a backroom deal with Iran to keep the hostages until after the 1980 election, who funded the Afghan Mujahiddeen (which later became the Taliban and al-Qaeda), who did billion-dollar business deals with the bin Ladens, Saudis and UAE...

Don't give me the incompetence theory, competence doesn't come into it. The incompetence theory should be applied to the MSM who turn a blind eye.

[Yupster]

111. So Jimmy Carter's in on it too?

This is bigger than I thought.

[CJCRANE]

125. Um no not Carter...it was a ploy *against* Carter..nt

[Zynx]

61. Exactly. These guys are bumbling idiots.

This government has proven time and time again that it is incompetent and somehow they pulled off the greatest conspiracy in modern history?

[Yupster]

109. I would think that if Bush really was behind it

he wouldn't have killed a bunch of bond traders that were his biggest donors in NYC.

Why not dress up some guys like Arabs and blow up a Democratic Party conference?

Why not have an Arab dressed guy cut off Ted Kennedy's head on TV.

If he wanted to create a war, he could have done it a ot simpler than 9-11.

It's all silly though. You can never disprove a conspiracy. Every piece of evidence just shows it's even deeper than you thought before. Every photo's been doctored. Every event is timed suspiciously. Even if the leader of the conspiracy theory changes his mind all it proves is that they got to him too.

In fact every time a Democratic leader speaks out against whatever silly theory is being put up today, there will be sure to be a post to the effect of "I wonder what Bush has on him?"

In the end the conspiracy theorists will believe for the rest of their lives. It somehow becomes a need to believe. I'm no psychiatrist so I don't know why.

[The Straight Story]

119. Not to mention - why wouldn't bush have made himself look better?

Why sit there reading and then fly off? He could have looked in charge, stopped several other 'planes' (missles, ufos, modified planes, no planes at all but ghost images projected, etc) not to mention he probably would have targeted cities like San Francisco.

Had he engineered it there would have been a plane heading towards the school and he would have stayed in it until all the kids were safely away, grabbed a shoulder fire missle, and blasted that plane himself in a great photo op.

bush and crew - the gang that couldn't shoot straight. I think x files went off the air way too soon for some people :)

[CJCRANE]

126. You can easily disprove a conspiracy

by having an objective open investigation.

All of your conjecture doesn't stack up. A smaller attack would never have triggered a war. Condi Rice herself said that they were "tired of swatting at flies" and that only a "catastrophic event" would provide the political will to rebuild the military and use military force in a pre-emptive manner.

[m0nkeyneck]

25. lol.. exactly

[m0nkeyneck]

24. so only the highjackers were 'disintegrated'

the rest of the passenger supposedly were identified.

I personally believe that there are way too many coincidences and discrepancies for the official conspiracy theory to be plausible.. imo wtc7, molten iron, and symmetrical collapses are smoking guns; can I prove it? No, but I’m not trying to. It’s my opinion; i will continue to discuss and if more information emerges that proves otherwise then so be it…

missile theory, although I personally don’t buy it, I’m curious:

Why do you think the location of the people on that flight would explain what hit(or didn't hit) the pentagon?

[BeyondGeography]

28. It's like this

If you can't come up with an explanation about where those people are, you just might have to acknowledge that they died in a plane that hit the Pentagon.

One of our fellow DU'ers thinks they were killed and stashed in an undisclosed location. Which gets back to the original point: Muslims aren't the only ones having a hard time coming to terms with what happended on 9/11.

[m0nkeyneck]

31. well..

i choose to remain open minded and focus on what we do know, not what we don't.

i'll also continue to be skeptical of people that habitually lie..

[frylock]

32. if you're referring to me, i clearly stated..

that I don't know what happened. Yes, they more than likely died in a plane that hit the Pentagon. The question remains, how does a pilot whose skills were allegedly so limited behind the yolk that he couldn't even rate a Cessna manage to pull a Top-Gun maneuver in order to strike the Pentagon. Perhaps he was a better pilot than we've been led to believe?

[heliarc]

38. [Adjusting tin foil hat...]

The best suggestion I've read that it was a missile was espoused on 3/13/1962 by Lyman Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when he offered "Operation Northwoods" as a possible course of action for the Kennedy administration in Cuba.

The memo offered the "pretexts which would provide the justification for US military intervention in Cuba." Among the sordid scenarios involved sabotage and the intent to incite riots and stage terrorist acts, but most notably is a detailed plan to:

"create an incident which will demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civil airliner enroute from the United States to Jamaica ... The destination would be chosen only to cause the flight plan route to cross Cuba. The passengers could be a group of college students off on a holiday or any grouping of persons with a common interest to support chartering a non-scheduled flight. a. An aircraft at Eglin AFB would be painted and numbered as an exact duplicate for a civil registered aircraft belonging to a CIA proprietary organization in the Miami Area. At a designated time the duplicate would be substituted for the actual civil aircraft and would be loaded with the selected passengers, all boarded under carefully prepared aliases. The actual registered aircraft would be converted to a drone."

The memo goes on to describe a scenario where the drone is flown and destroyed by remote control and the jet with agents is flown to an "auxillary field at Eglin" where the passengers would be evacuated. The drone would transmit a prerecorded MayDay when on course with the original flight plan and detonate... providing an "attack" on our citizens and a clear justification for war.

But I don't know why you'd need that for the planes that hit WTC 7 and brought it down... oh wait... WTC7 came down by itself even though it was a block and a half away from WTC 1 and 2 towers... leaving Silverstein to collect billions in Insurance money while destroying the offices of the SEC which would have been the one to investigate hundreds of put options on United Airlines stock... Makes you wonder why nothing got investigated. Even when Silverstein admits to telling someone over the Radio waves that day to "Pull" the building... Hmmm.

[BeyondGeography]

45. Sorry to disappoint you

WTC 7 was home to Citibank's stock and bond trading offices. Because a power outage would shut down their computers and interrupt billions of dollars worth of business, the building was equipped with diesel generators on every floor. These diesel generators were fed with fuel via a network of pipes which ran inside all of the exterior walls, and the pipes were full of high-pressure diesel fuel at all times so that the generators could turn on instantly,

Debris from the falling North and South Towers struck and damaged the exterior walls of WTC 7, and in doing so broke some of the fuel pipes, which began to spray diesel fuel at high pressure. The diesel fuel ignited, and the entire tower became essentially a burning fuel dump.

In other words, pipes running throughout the building, filled with diesel fuel at high pressure, and a very large tank of diesel fuel in the basement, caused WTC 7 to become a raging inferno that firemen could not extinguish. The intense heat, fueled by all that diesel, caused WTC 7 to collapse for the same reason the Twin Towers collapsed: structural steel weakens at sustained high temperatures.

Then again, Dick Cheney was spotted by several witnesses (now mysteriously dead) running around the building earlier in the day with a butane lighter.

[m0nkeyneck]

50. nope

even IF it was a 'raging inferno' that doesn't even begin to explain the symmetrical collapse. The temperatures required to explain your theory aren't possible w/ fires fueled by diesel..

this is what the FEMA report has to say about it:
“The specifics of the fires in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain unknown at this time. Although the total diesel fuel on the premises contained massive potential energy, the best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence. Further research, investigation, and analyses are needed to resolve this issue”

raging inferno?




also, how did the magic fire do this?

[BeyondGeography]

57. Yeah, I know, there was no fire

The building was pre-wired for a pull-down on the evening of 9/10. Cheney had the CIA call in the little green men, and the insurance-hungry Larry Silverstein gave them the keys.

By buying into any and every possible competing 9/11 scenario, you, Frylock and a growing number of fantasists (you have some company on the extreme right) have effectively conferred godlike powers onto a bumbling government (and that includes the CIA) that can't find its way out of a wet paper bag even when you hand it a knife. It should reassure you that the only thing these guys are good at is stealing money for their friends. But, no, you apparently have the utmost respect for them; you are, in fact, in awe of their skills and ability.

By the way, our own NYC government is so inept that they placed their command-and-control center for running the city in the event of a terror attack in WTC7, which is why there was so much fuel in the building.

[m0nkeyneck]

58. the laws of physics don't have a political affiliation

"The building was pre-wired for a pull-down on the evening of 9/10. Cheney had the CIA call in the little green men, and the insurance-hungry Larry Silverstein gave them the keys."
don't believe i said that but thx for assuming that is what i believe..

never let facts get in the way of a good assumption.. these guys don't:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka/volume23.htm
http://www.st911.org/

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."
Mahatma Gandhi

[heliarc]

63. inept inept inept

Its funny that you fault us for our insistence that we don't know anything. You seem to know everything, but at the base of it all the only thing that you have faith in is that the US government is inept.

I point you to large scale operations that have been proven conspiracies, like the overthrow of democratically elected President Salvador Allende, which involved very complex economic mechanations... they bought off a whole union of Truckers who to this day deny the story, but there's practically a line item in DOD and CIA budgets which pay them off. They provided weaponry, and air support. Naval logistical support, you name it, the US government was there and a lot of it has to do with stock that Nixon and others in his cabinet had in ITT and Coca Cola.

Proven. No little green men, except the men in green who threw my parents' friends into the ocean off of helicopters and fired 40+ bullets into singer Victor Jara.

Ineptitude is hardly something to have faith in when history tells us otherwise.

And if you are to contend that the CIA was bumbling when it deposed the Taliban with GPS guided airstrikes in the desert using only 100 or so agents on the ground a mercenary Northern Alliance and small Special Operations teams, than you are sorrowfully mistaken. Dick Cheney is no less bumbling in his conquest of the offices of government under Ford, and more recently in his orchestration of a War that makes his friends and I daresay his employers at Halliburton rich beyond measure.

For some of us to suggest that its hard to believe the official story is not as ridiculous as you might assert. People said Chileans were crazy for years before Clinton's CIA declassified the official story about Chile. The cold calculation of the policies in 1973 is only one of the excellent arguments against your faith in ineptitude.

[BeyondGeography]

71. The greatest hits of the CIA

I have that album, too. You forgot to include, "The case for WMD in Iraq is a slam dunk." And operatives spreading money all over Iraq that wound up being used to kill our own soldiers.

Like I said, you're in awe of these fellows. Too bad for you.

[heliarc]

79. You're confused

The recent Frontline makes a convincing case that Cheney was at fault for cornering Tenet politically and forcing him to make the "slam dunk" statement in the presence of a staff that had convinced themselves that faulty intelligence was true, or perhaps they all too shrewdly wanted it to be true in order to further their own agendas. There's nothing inept in this. If you really think that Scheuer, Bernsten, Drumheller, Schroen and Pillar are anything but capable men you are really foolish. They were sidestepped by a growing intelligence effort in the DOD. One that was specifically created to discredit the CIA and force them to concur with Dick Cheney's clear intent to go to war with Iraq regardless of the facts and perhaps to create a new theater for Halliburton

It's funny that your analysis is a lot like those comedies we see where Nazis are shows as bumbling fools bumping into each other... Hogan's heroes and Life is Beautiful. The reality is always more likely a combination of happenstance and shrewd planning. But in this case I can't concur with you that the people in our White house are as bumbling as you think they are. Bush is certainly young, inexperienced, and yes in most cases foolish, but he is not the one who exercises the greatest brunt of power in the White House in my opinion. I think that his opinions are mostly guided by Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Poke fun all you like. You are funny, but I think you miss the real gravity of the CIA's "greatest hits" as you like to call their often murderous works across the globe. The reality is that their actions have caused whole governments to fall and they are a lot more capable than you make them out to be. Even if their actions are often misguided and for sale to the highest bidder.

[BeyondGeography]

80. OK, let me get this straight

Cheney, who minimized the role of Al Qaeda from the moment he stepped intro the VP's office, was secretly working with the CIA, which was using Al Qaeda operatives as double agents, to stage 9/11. Of course, he benfitted from the spade work that was already done by the Clinton Administration to get this operation moving. After all, if Atta was a double agent from the moment he stepped into the pilot's seat at Huffman Aviation, this had to be done with the help of Clinton's CIA.

Miracle of miracles, the Prince of Darkness was able to pull all this off within 9 months of taking office, and the final steps were taken when he was fly fishing up in Wyoming on vacation. And I'm the one who is confused.

Cheney is a powerful insider player, but he has been caught in numerous lies about Iraq that a more serious country would have called him on a long time ago. He is, in short, highly fallible. He came to the job wanting to go to war with Iraq, steal their oil, and looking to build a missile defense system. The public record suggests he had no clue about the capabilities that Al Qaeda had to attack us and that intra-governmental communications on the issue of terrorism were weak. Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld and Cheney were all cold warriors who sniffed at Sandy Berger when he said Al Qadea would be their greatest threat. Richard Clarke ran into a stone wall whenever he mentioned the need to focus on Al Qaeda. Do you think he would have had a clue at some point that the people he was meeting with in 2001 were secretly planning a massive terrorist attack on the side? As Clarke says, (and he was in the room before, during and after 9/11) people who believe that our government was capable of orchestrating such an elaborate scheme have grossly overestimated the competence of their government.

[heliarc]

84. I'm with you

on everything you said except for your interpretation of my arguments on the CIA. You really should see the most recent Frontline "The Dark Side" which includes interviews with your beloved Clarke about the decisions leading up to the most current Iraq war/stanoff. The point of the most recent Frontline is that Cheney is NOT aligned with the CIA. The point I'm trying to make is that if he had any knowledge of even the possibility of attack on 9/11 he would have minimized the role of Al Qaeda because he and his cronies at Halliburton stood to gain from an all out conflict in the Gulf. An attack on our soil would have been the perfect justification for such a conflict. FBI agents, CIA and Clarke all have been frustrated by Bush/Cheney's lack of attention to the possible threats. I'm merely suggesting that they were deliberately ignoring the threat to make it's completion in the form of a terrorist attack the justification for a war that would benefit their business interests (Munitions, War Machines, High Tech, and War Contracting in general).

Now I don't pretend to know anything that anyone else doesn't. I have no idea whether or not Atta et al were double agents or not. But I don't see why its so crazy to imagine that they didn't become part of a covert recruitment procedure. It is very possible that they were not vetted well, but that is simply not supported by the existing evidence which says that lower level agents had reported their activities at many points along the way. This both suggests that there are competent people watching and either incompetent people watching the watchers, or something more sinister like apparent disregard and incompetence that is actually knowledge that there is more going on.

I'm willing to accept that mistakes are made along the way, and oversight occurs, and that incompetence occurs, but I am not willing to use that as the final explanation for all of this when so little has been credibly explained.

[BeyondGeography]

91. Fair enough

I am, in fact, dying to see that episode of Frontline. I've got three different PBS stations here and none of them have re-run it yet. I had to do a dinner the other night so I missed it.

No doubt Cheney was looking for any pretext he could lay his hands on to maneuver things to his and to his cronies benefit in the ME, and there is much yet to be told of the extent to which he has run this government. I don't think the record will ever change much on the facts surrounding the attacks of 9/11, however. Fiendishly intelligent though he is, Cheney is a macho creep who never dreamt that a bunch of hotheaded cave dwellers would one day kick his country's ass.

[heliarc]

97. Frontline is available streaming online

The Darkside became available online at 5PM EST yesterday. Streaming isn't always great from PBS, but they seem to have improved their server and I had no problems. My Instant replay had a hiccup and didn't record so I had to do the same thing. Its quite good. Thank you for speaking to the issues and taking my discussion seriously. I appreciate that.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/

[BeyondGeography]

104. Much appreciated

[Yupster]

113. One of those 100 CIA men on the gound

in Afghanistan wrote a book about the Afghan war.

It's called "Jawbreaker," and it's a great read.

[BeyondGeography]

114. I'll check that out; thanks

[silvermachine]

68. Don't forget...

...Bigfoot waving that copy of the Voynich Manuscript around!

[Bushwick Bill]

70. This is great.

We don't have to pay for expensive controlled demolition anymore because we can just load buildings with a lot of kerosense and light it.
http://www.wtc7.net/videos.html

[heliarc]

73. My favorite part of these videos

is how you can see the lower floors in fact most of the floors of the building start descent at exactly the same moment. The probability of that happening without controlled demolition is astronomical at best... What part of this is unbelievable to people.

[Yupster]

112. It's pointless

You can never disprove a conspiracy.

The fact that the building had pipes in it just shows the longtime the conspiracy was in the works.

I'm sure there's a Bush family connection with one of the contractors who first designed that building in 1954, and I'm sure a relative of that contractor died in an accident years later, no doubt because she was going to uncover the whole sordid scheme.

[m0nkeyneck]

48. take a look @ adjacent buildings.. minor damage

[INDIA]

89. Here's a question I just thought of that you can't answer

If 9-11 was indeed a plot to change Amreican foreign policy, then why wouldn't the government connect the "imaginary" terrorists to Saddam and Iraq? All this just so they can attack Afghanistan? Not likely.

They have tried again and again to connect the attacks with Saddam for further justification of the invasion, and have failed miserably further damaging their favoribility ratings etc.

If they invented these fake terrorists, why not make them Iraqis? Even one or two Iraqi terrorists in the planes could have helped Bush immensely, but they were mostly from a country that is a close ally of ours, Saudi Arabia. No sense at all, not to mention the video, (not audio) of Bin Laden and Zawahiri taking credit fot the attacks.

[frylock]

23. some people have no prob with the fact that there was no..

criminal investigation. Well, there was, but the investigators were called off so they could pursue leads in the anthrax mailings, and we all know that the perps involved with that were brought to justice... oh wait, they weren't.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

13. eh. there are a lot of inconsistencies.

throw the baby out with the bathwater much?

[BeyondGeography]

17. Fantasize much?

These people would like to hear about your "inconsistencies":

http://www.legacy.com/NYTimes/sept11.asp?Memorial=AA77

Richard Clarke says those who think our government pulled the wool over our eyes on 9/11 grossly overestimate their competence. I agree with him.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

19. believe what you want.

and a list of dead people doesn't exactly sway me from my opinion on the matter, though that little "why do you hate dead americans" facile retort you got there is pretty pathetic.

[BeyondGeography]

20. Who said that?

What's pathetic is the refusal to face obvious facts. Five of those who died were under the age of 12. Why don't you call their parents up and tell them what you think they don't know about their kids' deaths?

[frylock]

22. you've limited out on red herring..

someone call the DFG.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

59. you have a nice little O'Reillian approach to argument.

it's actually entertaining. i don't know if you're being serious.

[heliarc]

39. Whoever said it was our government?

Dick Cheney and compadres are enemies of the CIA, and virtually have their own private army and intelligence services in all of the Carlyle group holdings.

In July of 2001 Le Figaro prints that the CIA met with Osama Bin Laden... Great... guess what, Le Figaro is owned by Carlyle. Carlyle is run by Carlucci, and Majors, and a few of the Saudi Princes and has NOTHING to do with the US government. It has everything to do with making money and spending it on war and intelligence toys. You think that the contract mercenaries of the world don't have a contractor? Sometimes its the CIA, but more often than not Carlyle has the big money.

Cheney wants to emasculate the CIA because for all of its evils, it told the truth about Yellowcake. Cheney's got the DOD now, and he has all his business pals... business pals who deal in war.

I don't know that anyone suggests that Cheney is at all an agent of the government. He's hijacked it for his business motives.

[devilgrrl]

51. You mean those Saudis that did it... the Saudis, Saudi Arabia????

You know the friends of the Bush family.... Saudis... those Arab Saudi Arabians...

[Zynx]

62. So all 25 million Saudis are good friends of the Bush Family?

We're talking about statistically insignificant numbers of dissidents who are engaging in terrorist acts. While some of them have contacts with rogue elements within the Saudi Government, they are very much opposed to the Saudi Royal Family.

[devilgrrl]

83. I keep forgetting what upstanding citizens Saudis are...

how silly of me. :sarcasm:

[Zynx]

60. Thank you.

I was going to say the same thing. The Pentagon cruise missile theory is nonsense. The WTC demolition theories are pure nonsense. The WTC cruise missile theories invent their own spheres of reality. I could go on, but there really is no point.

[Joanne98]

93. That's probably because there were no wings in the hole......

And lest you forget, there was NO airplane recovered. It disapeared.

[Zynx]

105. Of course there was no airplane intact.

It hit the Pentagon at over 500 mph with a weak aluminum shell that burns. Regardless, various pieces of the plane were recovered despite what you said.

There's also another issue. We can see how the explosion took place from the still shots of the security camera and they show a very slow, black smoke, explosion that is characteristic of fuel exploding, not high explosives.

[heliarc]

116. You guys are both sorta mistaken

There were some pieces of fuselage recovered that were recorded by photograph, but the pieces were small and not very congruent with a plane the size of a 757... There was a single turbojet engine found at the scene as well (or at least reported and photographed), which does not match the Pratt and Whitney engines found on a 757. Officials from the Manufacturers -- Rolls Royce-- said that it was not a part from any engine that the company makes.


The other weird thing about the flight is that it made a hairpin turn going the same 530mph that you mentioned earlier. This is thought to have been what lead the FAA to believe that this was a military plane and not the hijacked plane when they saw its course on radar... because as Russ Wittenburg --a commercial and Air Force pilot has said-- " could not possibly have flown at those speeds which they said it did without going into a high speed stall. The airplane won't go that fast when you start pulling those high G maneuvers. That plane would have fallen out of the sky..."

[leesa]

9. I'm with them...I think the US was behind 9-11 too. Who benefited?

FBI just confirmed last week they still have no hard evidence linking OBL...didn't stop us from blowing up tens of thousands of Afghans to get that pipeline right of way, did it?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

42. You're with them?

Uh... most of them believe that the jews were behind 9/11 - not the US.

[Zynx]

66. Exactly.

However, some DUers buy into the Mossad theories as well. There are some twisted people on this site that sound like the classic rightwing nuts.

[heliarc]

69. Funny

There are also a lot of people on DU who can't reason when given a lot of cold hard facts.

I'm not saying anyone is right about their threories yet, but I don't know why its so hard for DUer's to believe that 9/11 wasn't way more complex than Osama coming up with a dastardly deed. He benefits from the attack too. None of what I'm saying about the current administration's complicity gets him off the hook. In fact he was a beneficiary of the Afghanistan War during which he was an ally of a lot of the crazies now a part of the Bush administration.

I'm sick of this cold cool protected democrat nonsense; this inability of party hacks to look at the world and see the real dangers. Genocide is happening around the world and somehow its too hard for you guys to believe that complicity is a complex that involves more than just some scary looking Dictator who's "crazy." It involves diplomats and munitions dealers, and mercenaries and straight up business interests. The brutality in the world isn't limited to "the rest of the world" There are reports coming out of Pakistan that seem to suggest that Taliban fighters who willingly surrendered by crossing the borders were crowded into trucks and during the night Pakistani fighters fired on the trucks from outside killing as many as possible. Whether you like the Taliban or not, its genocide, and to suggest that the US didn't know about this and/or encourage it is balderdash. You just have to talk to one of those "right-wing nuts" that you are so fond of talking about and comparing your democratic friends with to know that they are blood-thirsty and they have fear in their eyes.

Those of us who see history for what it is aren't as fearful as that. I'm the child of refugees from the Chilean experiment. Plenty of blood on the hands of the US there. And its proven. I should say that your denials and those of others in this thread sound a lot like the Rich upper-class bigots in Chile who still say that Pinochet never tortured anyone, or worse that if he did it was worth it.

[CJCRANE]

127. Where?

I haven't seen any speculation on DU about Mossad in connection with 9/11. Some of it is about Bushco links with Saudi Arabian interests, which is pretty much the opposite.

[Zynx]

64. US shipbuilders benefitted from Pearl Harbor.

Did they do it?

[submerged99]

10. Americans in denial about Al Quaida-Iraq-911 connection

How did the NYtime headline their articles about a majority of U.S citizens believing that Iraq played a role in 9-11?

[Ellen Forradalom]

26. Lack of respect for women is a near-universal problem

which manifestation varies in different cultural settings.

[dailykoff]

35. Good old NYT, always happy to help catapult the propaganda.

Pretty sad.

[treestar]

47. The media in those countries is likely way worse than ours about

trumpeting only what the government wants people to know. This is interesting to know as it really contradicts the freeper asertion "they all want to kill us."

[Terran1212]

53. If you have LINK TV you can watch their media

MOSAIC (peabody award winner) is a daily show that comes on and takes a few minutes of footage from about a dozen broadcasters in the region, showing us what the region sees.

[INDIA]

49. GUESS WHAT

Arab Terrorists DID carry out 9-11, there was no missile, and there was no intentional demolition of the Twin Towers.

If you believe otherwise, in my opinion, you make Democrats everywhere look bad and you are batshit crazy. There is no proof that there was a conspiracy, only wild and unfounded conspiracy theories. Get a fucking grip and concentrate on the '06 Midterm elections. :rant:

[Bretttido]

54. AMEN!

I've had enough of the conspiracy theories that help to make us look crazier than Rick Santorum. Though I believe many of them are created by right-wingers that want to catch unsuspecting democrats with the hook-line and sinker.

[superconnected]

65. There didn't have to be a conspiracy. All bush had to do was NOTHING.

Which is what he did.

He had the info a month in advance and so did his head of national security.

He had the ability to have the planes shot down at the time.

The amazing coincidences in the 911 reports stem from the same problem- no intervention. Oh and sometimes - restraint from intervention.

Who had the most to gain from doing nothing. ho hmm.

There was only billions at stake. Why believe that monies change of hands could be corrupt somehow. We'll because the people who didn't stop it had the most to gain.

[MGD]

94. To this day, many Americans are still convinced that FDR

allowed the Japanese to get away with Pearl Harbor just so he would have a legitimate cause for war.
That's part of the real problem with the whole 9-11 argument imho actually. Looking back into history, the cause for wars have most always been suspect. Remember the Maine anyone? How about the Tonkin Gulf incident: "I think the North Vietnamese just fired torpedoes at us!!!...ooops my bad." The aforementioned Pearl harbor theory... the Merchants of Death who facilitated WW1. The Rothschilds banking connection to the French and American revolutions and quite possibly the American Civil war too. The Reichstag incident. The Northwoods project. The bay of pigs. That's the problem, there's more of a historical precedent for the conspiracy theory than against it. Personally, I blame the bankers and their fiat money for everything but I don't get too worked up over it anymore.

[treestar]

77. Look bad to who?

I subscribe to MEMHOP (Muslim extremists made it happen on purpose) but because one democrat believes in LIHOP or another in MIHOP does not mean mean every democrat "look bad" just because others do.

That is judging people in groups.

You can't stop people from questioning the official 911 story, the US government has too checkered a past to be believed on its say so alone.

[INDIA]

88. We're fighting for every vote in November.

If these conspiracy theories get more coverage, which I hope they don't, most of them are going to be coming from the left instead of the right. Only about 60% of people vote along party lines, the rest are,for the most part, open to either party.

I don't want to lose a single vote because Average Joe voter hears some crazy theory from someone with a Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker on their car.

DU is pretty far left, let's just accept that and move on. That's why these conspiracy theories get so much credence and support here. Anywhere else in America, at your local bar, town hall meeting, political rally, people are going to think you're effin crazy for even mentioning LIHOP, much less MIHOP. That's why there is not one SINGLE Dem congressmen or Senator who would dare entertain this BS theory. It looks bad, and it hurts us, period.

An election is coming up. Put a smile on your face, get out there, and spread the DLC platform as best you can. Don't be condescending, don't get emotional, and DEFINITELY don't spread your theories on cruise missiles hitting the Pentagon.

[MGD]

95. There was no shortage of RW conspiracy theories

circulating in America during the Clinton years. Those RW nutjobs are still out there too but their right to buy firearms isn't being infringed upon so they're mostly quiet these days.

[INDIA]

115. You mean the ones about Clinton being an adulterer

That Hillary labeled a "vast right wing conspiracy"? Those turned out to be true.

[nolabels]

78. They would make a good cover for the people who actually did do it

It's possible to for many scenarios to be correct at the same time in one form or another. Einstein proved it about Newton theories many times over

[heliarc]

85. No proof there was a conspiracy???

And what praytell do you call blaming it on a guy who lives in caves in Afghanistan? What is that if not a conspiracy theory? Do you have a confusion about what's a conspiracy? Or do you only believe that Muslims can carry conspiracies out?

[Bridget Burke]

128. The alternative to "Conspiracy Theory" is "The Lone Gunman"....

What we saw on 9/11 was definitely the result of a Conspiracy.

But which story will you accept? Yes, it's probable that international terrorists played a part. But their path was made easier when the Bush regime ignored warnings.

[CJCRANE]

124. OK

but why did the hijackers, funding and planning for 9/11 come from countries which are "allies" and business partners to Bushco?

Why did those countries suffer no repercussions, in fact benefitted from 9/11?

And why did Iraq get the blame and the suffering when it had nothing to do with 9/11?

[humbled_opinion]

55. Inevitably This Is Truth...

Many Muslims still live in the regions bordered by the Nile river so in fact many Muslims are still in De Nile......

Couldn't resist lame huh....

[m0nkeyneck]

56. ;-)

[maxsolomon]

72. why does this have to devolve into 9/11 conspiracy every time?

i find it plausable that arabs, al queda arabs, DID perpetrate 9/11. but everyone who tries to discuss that scenario around here gets buried under MIHOP/LIHOP. and for the rcord, i have a lot of sympathy more LIHOP, not MIHOP.

for majorities of muslims to deny arab participation in 9/11, and buy into :tinfoil: conspiracies that absolve their ethnicity of a vague, general responsibility, is, in fact, denial. 'oh, a muslim would never do that'. willful self-delusion.

at the same time, 'westerners' are held collectively responsible (by muslims in general, and OBL specifically) for the actions of the IDF, of apostacy, of corrupting muslim youth. well, i didn't do any of that personally, except my taxes did. except the corrupting muslim youth. modernity did that.

they are delusional, xenophobic, and ignorant, and we are delusional, xenophobic, and ignorant. its not mutually exclusive.

[genie_weenie]

76. The WTC were destroyed by the Star Wars Missile Defense

Freakin' Lasers...

Because after they were successfully launched in Jan 1986 (The Challenger was a cover for the huge Saturn Type 55 rocket used to launch the satellite platforms), they have languished in space due to the collapse of Soviet Union and the Bush Admin (AKA Reagan II) needed to test them.

Now the question is was it an accidental firing of the LASERS or a purposeful one???

[heliarc]

86. LOL... That's funny

[genie_weenie]

74. Many Europeans and Americans in denial.

A recent study found that nearly 1/6 of the world's population mainly, BUT not exclusively, of European descent, believe a young jewish man who was crucified in modern day Country Name Deleted will come back and usher in an era of Heaven on Earth.

This belief is unshakable despite no concrete evidence other than a perhaps 4 dubious testimonies about his so called divinity, a history of some of the worst horrors in the history of man having been performed in his name and the fact nearly 2000 years have passed since the Crucifixtion...

More to follow...

[maxsolomon]

75. well said

monotheism is a gift that keeps on giving.

[Rex]

81. The M$M 'still in denial' about the constant Fed tea-bagging.

Still in denial of the 2000 coup, 911, Iraq, the 2004 coup, Katrina, etc. I cringe to think how many more atrocities I will add to that list in the next two years. :(

[mirandapriestly]

87. The truth has been totally blocked out

On all the issues that matter. But what can you expect when the same corporations who profit from war run the media?

[Riverman]

96. Muslims should give up their religion

The Koran calls on all believers to kill the non-believers, as they call the infidels. That's everybody but them. Any practicing Muslim must follow these tenants, or they should renounce such 5th century barbarism for what it is. For fear that I am just picking on the poor "good" Muslims, no, all people should give up their fundamentalistic beliefs - Christians and Jews. Fundamentalist religious beliefs is one of the primary sources of evil in the world today.

[w4rma]

98. There is a right-wing/militant Islam and there is a right-wing/militant

Christianity. There is also a left-wing/peaceful Islam and there is a left-wing/peaceful Christianity. (The same applies Judaism and probably most other religions of the world.)

[JCMach1]

102. Left wing/right wing doesn't quite work when talking Islam

true followers of the book could never be a terrorist...

It's more about politics than religion and always has been...

There are peaceful Wahabis and violent mainstream Sunis... ditto for every other sect...

[w4rma]

106. Oh it works exactly. (nt)

[JCMach1]

101. Here we go again... just when you thought it was safe

not to labeled an Islamo/Fascist...


" Those with Faith, those who are Jews, and the Christians and Sabaeans, all who have Faith in Allah and the Last Day and act rightly, will have their reward with their Lord. They will feel no fear and will know no sorrow." (Surat al-Baqara; 2:62)

[Dark]

99. Any society that castrates women has no business telling us that

were intolerant towards the opposite sex.

[JCMach1]

103. Are you so ignorant of this part of the world that you believe this

is part of Islam...

It's a cultural practice mainly in Egypt and North Africa...

[Dark]

122. READ the article:

"n what the survey, part of the Pew Global Attitudes Project for 2006, called one of its most striking findings, majorities in Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan and Turkey

[Violet_Crumble]

129. READ the title of this thread...

..which is what you were replying to. It clearly says MUSLIMS....

btw, the bit you quote in order to try to justify yr argument wasn't about FGM at all, but about attidutes towards Sept. 11

[Seabiscuit]

107. Maybe both sides are right...

Westerners are, for the most part, "immoral and selfish", not only by Muslim standards, but by global standards.

And Muslims, by Western standards, are certainly "fanatical", and by global standards, more than just the subgroup, Al Quaeda is "fanatical".

[SoCalDem]

117. Immoral/selfish...fanatical.. Both CAN be true at the same time

and probably are.. BUT is that a reason to be killing people?

I understand the anger at foreign policy, but I fail to understand why people would move to a country (France/UK/US, etc) and then want to KILL the people in that country who do not agree with your own ideas.

I can understand someone moving to a place the think they want to be, and then finding out that their way of life is not for you...BUT the sane thing to do would be to move back where people share your beliefs and you "fit in"...not to plan the demise of the people who took you in..

It should be no surprise these days to see that westerners tend to be materialistic and selfish.. I see satellite dishes on mud muts, so the message is out there for all to see.. Why bother to move to a place that does not suit your cultural/religious beliefs?

That's the thing that bugs me the most about the whole issue.

I have lived abroad, and I know that there are places I would NEVER want to live permanently, but I don't see a reason to kill them because they don;t measure up to MY standard.. I would just choose to NOT live there..

I hope there is a special place in Hell reserved to all the wacko politicians around the globe who rev up nationalistic/religious hatred.. THEY are the ones who profit from all the turmoil..

[Odin2005]

120. The old "they were good [insert religion here], so they couldn't of...

done it" routine. Moderate muslims should be standinding up to the shit thats done in thier name, but BushCo has so intentionally inflamed passions in the muslim world that moderates standing up to islamist rhetoric would cause them to end up dead.

[Endangered Specie]

123. Americans still in denial about Indians...

Europeans still in denial about imperialism...
Japanese still in denial about Nanking...
Turks still in denial about Armenia...


oops... sorry I ramble alot, nothing new here is there?

[CJCRANE]

130. Erm.anyone ever heard of a joint venture?

It's possible for 9/11 to have been carried out by arab terrorists who were wittingly or unwittingly aided by factions connected to RW American interests.