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OpEd News: Why We Need a New 9/11 Commission

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petgoat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-07-07 03:07 PM
Original message
OpEd News: Why We Need a New 9/11 Commission
February 7, 2007

Why We Need a New 9/11 Commission

By A. C. Mills

9/11 is unquestionably the most important event in American history since December 7, 1941, when Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor. The magnitude of its impact on America and the world cannot be overstated. The terrible acts of 9/11 and the events leading up to them deserve a thorough and unimpeachable investigation to learn the facts. And if some rogue elements within the U.S. government were complicit in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11, it is critical that these elements be exposed and removed from power. A new commission is clearly called for because the investigation and report by the 9/11 Commission were badly flawed, as will be discussed below.

The most important tools of any criminal investigators are the accounts of the eyewitnesses and first responders. The first thing the police do at an accident scene is to gather all witness accounts and within a week the insurance companies are also telephoning the witnesses to take their testimony. Many New York City firemen who were eyewitnesses are calling the Commission's report a cover-up, and victims' family organizations are saying the same thing.

If it had been a comprehensive and thorough scientific investigation it would have looked like the investigation that followed the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. Although there may remain minor questions concerning some of the peripheral conclusions, the report on the Columbia accident on the whole stands without major dispute within the scientific community. Contrast this with the 9/11 Commission report, which sidestepped critical questions, and the FEMA 9/11 report and its major inconsistencies.

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=opedne_andrew_m_070207_why_we_need_a_new_9_2f.htm
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greyl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-07-07 03:18 PM
Response to Original message
1. Starts off well, but turns into CT bullshit, destroying its credibility.
Thanks for nothing, A.C.
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petgoat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 12:06 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. Care to be specific? Conflicts of interest are CT bullshit? nt
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greyl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 02:53 AM
Response to Reply #2
3. Controlled Demolition, to mention one.
Edited on Thu Feb-08-07 03:03 AM by greyl
I'm not going to argue with someone here who thinks space beams are a plausible cause of the collapse.
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petgoat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 12:40 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. Wow, in just 24 words you completely mischaracterize both me
Edited on Thu Feb-08-07 12:41 PM by petgoat
and Mr. Mills.

Mills doesn't say anything about controlled demolition.

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greyl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 01:14 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. Bullshit.
"the nearly free-fall collapse of WTC 7 "

"the nearly free-fall collapse of World Trade Center Towers One and Two."

furthermore:

"Available photographs of the crash scene at the Pentagon reveal no evidence of parts that could be associated with the remains of a Boeing 757 airplane."
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petgoat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 01:38 PM
Response to Reply #5
9. Oh I see, in your mind the speed of collapse implies controlled demolition.
Then I suppose the 9/11 Commission, which cites a ten-second collapse time for the
towers, is advocating CD bullshit. Reportedly NIST validates the ten-second time too.

So you dispute the 6.5 second collapse time for WTC7?

Furthermore, you focus on a parenthetical remark about Pentagon debris as if it were a
central tenet of the text. That's further mischaracterization.


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greyl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 01:41 PM
Response to Reply #9
10. "Starts off well". nt
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HamdenRice Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 01:54 PM
Response to Reply #9
11. Why even take the bait?
Anyone who goes to the link will see that it was a mischaracterization of the article.

But look where this thread is now heading -- the seven millionth discussion of free fall speeds, when the oped article is mostly about the structure and function of the 9/11 Commission.

There's a method in the madness.
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petgoat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 01:57 PM
Response to Reply #11
12. Because my view of greyl as a thoughtful but somewhat naive and
Edited on Thu Feb-08-07 01:58 PM by petgoat
ill-informed poster is in flux, and I want to nail down my new view
that puts him solidly in the Mervin Ferd camp.

Also because I'm a chat addict, and thanks for rubbing my face in it.
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HamdenRice Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 02:13 PM
Response to Reply #12
13. Interesting take on it
I'll try to disaggregate them in my mind a bit more.
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John Q. Citizen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 02:22 PM
Response to Reply #12
15. Whoa! Brutally honest there petgoat! n/t
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greyl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 02:17 PM
Response to Reply #11
14. Produce evidence to support your mischaracterization of my post,
like I produced evidence to support the fact that the article sadly dips into CT territory.
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John Q. Citizen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 02:23 PM
Response to Reply #14
16. Read your post again, greyl. It's right there in the text. n/t
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greyl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 02:29 PM
Response to Reply #16
17. This is in the text of the article in the OP:
"the nearly free-fall collapse of WTC 7 "

"the nearly free-fall collapse of World Trade Center Towers One and Two."

"Available photographs of the crash scene at the Pentagon reveal no evidence of parts that could be associated with the remains of a Boeing 757 airplane."

Despite the denials unaccompanied by an argument, those are CT statements which insinuate controlled demolition and no 757 hitting the pentagon.
There's no fucking way that a new investigation will begin based on that shit.
No way.

With heavy editing, the article would have been fine.
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John Q. Citizen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 02:42 PM
Response to Reply #17
19. Please supply the proof that disputes the OP. Thanks. Photos, showing the debris
that could be normally associated with a crash of a 757 airplane, evidence of the velocity of the collapses, and any other relevant material you wish to submit are all exceptable.


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greyl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 02:49 PM
Response to Reply #19
20. No. nt
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John Q. Citizen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 02:58 PM
Response to Reply #20
21. Alrighty then. n/t
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greyl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 03:02 PM
Response to Reply #21
22. Thank you for so readily justifying my assertion that the OpEd turned into CT bullshit.
Working together, we can make a difference. :hug:
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John Q. Citizen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 03:04 PM
Response to Reply #22
23. Your assertian is poppycock, IMHO.
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greyl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 03:13 PM
Response to Reply #23
24. Argh, that hurts.
Btw, don't you think HR can handle his own rebuttals? He couldn't do any worse than you have, could he?
Oh right, I forgot: You proved him wrong.
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John Q. Citizen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 03:16 PM
Response to Reply #24
25. The truth hurts. n/t
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greyl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 03:24 PM
Response to Reply #25
26. Take 2 aspirin. nt
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HamdenRice Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 01:18 PM
Response to Original message
6. Great article, Petgoat!
The summary of Philip Zelikow's conflicts of interest is the best I've seen so far.

Needless to say it has been completely mischaracterized by a poster in this thread.
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greyl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 01:26 PM
Response to Reply #6
7. If it's needless to say...
Why don't you support your accusation that I mischaracterized it?
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petgoat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 01:28 PM
Response to Reply #6
8. Thank reprehensor. I just carried the water from 911blogger
I posted the piece in Editorials.

Immediately greyl characterized it as a CT piece and the Opednews site went down
so people couldn't check it for themselves.
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Daveparts Donating Member (854 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 02:34 PM
Response to Original message
18. The Twilight Zone Tower






You know America is such a funny place, land of the free home of the brave. Freest of the free but there are some topics that are strictly verboten! I can call the President a war criminal and a murderer and most people will just nod saying “Well, you’re entitled to your opinion.” But if you begin to present evidence to that affect, with apologies to Rod Serling you’ve just crossed over into the Twilight Zone. You are a conspiracy theorist and in America a conspiracy theorist is only one step above child abuser, scab or a racist.

Now understand at a murder investigation the police use detectives and technicians to gather evidence and formulate a theory as to who might have committed the crime. Then they take their theory to our court systems the judge or jury decides by the weight of evidence whose theory they accept as most likely being true. Now the police detectives look for a motive, and for who would be capable of the crime and for who doesn’t have a good alibi or whose stories don’t ring true. But now you’re no investigator heck you don’t even have a badge! But as Bart Simpson once asked “Do you have to get all A’s to be a policeman?” No, you’re a conspiracy theorist, your just looking for who might have had motive or the ability to commit the crime and who doesn’t have a good alibi and when their stories don’t ring true, see the difference?

It seems that every time I try to research some aspect of 9/11 I end up somewhere else.
I was trying to find out about the tapes of interviews with the New York tower air traffic controllers I was just being curious I wasn’t out looking for a conspiracy.

Washington Post Thursday, May 6, 2004
“Six air traffic controllers provided accounts of their communications with hijacked planes on Sept. 11, 2001, on a tape recording that was later destroyed by Federal Aviation Administration managers, according to a government investigative report issued today.
It is unclear what information was on the tape because no one ever listened to, transcribed or duplicated it, the report by the Department of Transportation inspector general said”
Hours after the hijacked planes flew into the World Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, an FAA manager at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center gathered six controllers who communicated or tracked two of the hijacked planes and recorded in a one-hour interview of their personal accounts of what had occurred, the report stated.
The manager, who is not named in the report, said that his intentions were to provide quick information to federal officials investigating the attack before the air traffic controllers involved took sick leave for the stress of their experiences, as is common practice.
According to the report, a second manager at the New York center promised a union official representing the controllers that he would "get rid of" the tape after controllers used it to provide written statements to federal officials about the events of the day.
Instead, the second manager said he destroyed the tape between December 2001 and January 2002 by crushing the tape with his hands, cutting it into small pieces and depositing the pieces into trash cans around the building, the report said.
Washington Post
Thursday, May 6, 2004

Now if you are the trusting sort you might say he just made a mistake. But now if you’re of a suspicious nature or a low down conspiracy theorist you might ask, why destroy the tape? What reason? Negligence? Do you suppose it went something like this?
“Bill when the first plane hit the tower what were you doing?” Well sir, I had just burnt my lip on my crack pipe so I went down to the bar to get another beer.” “And John is that how you remember it?” “I don’t know sir I was asleep at the time.” Under those conditions I could understand the FAA destroying a tape. But there is absolutely no evidence that the controllers did anything wrong, so why did they destroy this tape?

The official reason,

According to the report, a second manager at the New York center promised a union official representing the controllers that he would "get rid of" the tape after controllers the used it to provide written statements to federal officials about the events of the day. It is unclear what information was on the tape because no one ever listened to, transcribed or duplicated it, the report by the Department of Transportation inspector general said.

Well that makes perfect sense, everyone knows what a close relationship unions and management have. What it tells me a low down conspiracy theorist is the controllers in deed did nothing wrong. So, again why destroy the tape? Officially it was used it to provide written statements to federal officials about the events of the day. Why that answer makes perfect sense except as Colombo would say “Ah just one more thing
didn’t you say?

“It is unclear what information was on the tape because no one ever listened to, transcribed or duplicated it, the report by the Department of Transportation inspector general said”

Pea cue Lar ain’t it? So according to Federal officials, the air controllers that had communications with the high jacker's after the event then gave statements on tape for the purpose of supplying a basis for a written statement. But the tape was never listened to or transcribed but destroyed and then obliterated into irretrievable pieces and the controllers then gave written statements under the auspices of their government employer. Can anyone out there in Internet land give me a reason other than that the taped statements didn’t match the written statements? You see I have a suspicious nature and after all I’m a low down conspiracy theorist.

What does the government say?

"We believe the audiotape in question appears to be consistent with written statements and other materials provided to FBI investigators and would not have added in any significant way to the information contained in what has already been provided to investigators and members of the 9/11 commission," said FAA spokesman Greg Martin.

But how can you be so sure? I guess we’ll just have to take your word for it, besides what else could he say there is no evidence is there?

One controller said she asked to listen to the tape in order to prepare her written account of her experience, but one of the managers denied her request.

I wonder why? Wasn’t that the stated purpose of making the tape in the first place? But then you already know what I think; I’m a low down conspiracy theorist.
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John Q. Citizen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-09-07 12:16 AM
Response to Reply #18
28. I think many people know something is hinky. i notice when I chat with
stranger out and about if I bring it up, most people agree that we've been lied to and most people think our government is hiding participation on some level.


Have you voted yet?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=114063&mesg_id=114063
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Grateful for Hope Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-08-07 04:14 PM
Response to Original message
27. This is an excellent synopsis
of the failings of the 9/11 Commission. Definitely worth a read.
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wildbilln864 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-09-07 10:49 PM
Response to Reply #27
29. yes very good ...
:hi:
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leftstreet Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-10-07 02:00 AM
Response to Original message
30. Excellent link! Thanks for posting
Lots of good stuff there.

From the link:

By late autumn of 2003, it became apparent to the Family Steering Committee that the questioning of the hearings was not tough enough and that the hearings were not identifying specific problems and holding people accountable. Witnesses would contradict their prior testimony and the Commission would fail to ask them why. This happened, for example, when Jane Garvey director of the FAA testified before the Commission. When she first appeared before the Commission, she laid out a timeline that described when the FAA knew the airplanes on 9/11 were confirmed to be hijacked. This is important because none of the protocols in place for hijackings were followed on 9/11 and none of the failures were explained. When she was invited back for a second time, she submitted a new timeline, and the commissioners never pressed for a specific answer as to why Garvey had changed her story.
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