Cyrena,

I did read every one of Fisk’s articles last summer, and not a one failed to include “hezbollah started it by KIDNAPPING Israelis”.

Cyrena, the neocon support of Israeli expansion makes sense when you consider that the neocons ARE Israelis.

#93850 by atheo on 8/10 at 7:56 pm
What US interest could have been served in the invasion of a nation ruled by a US installed puppet regime and the subsequent destruction of it’s infrastructure?

Atheo,
I was actually aware that Hezbollah and Israel have never been at peace, but again, the reasons have been pretty obvious. Israel has never been “at peace” with ANYBODY in the neighborhood. As for the kidnapping story, I never read that in anything from Fisk. I read it in the BBC, and a few other foreign news feeds, but nothing from Fisk, at least at the time. And, like I mentioned, the details varied, and none was particularly straight forward, and certainly didn’t allude to the fact that the IDF were strolling though a market there.

As for the neo-cons and the US interests, that’s another one of those multiple identity interpretations. No, the U.S. (as in “we the people”) would have no responsibility for the actions of the Israelis in their wars of aggression.
MY thought was that the neo-cons in the WH and the Pentagon, and the State Department have overwhelmingly SUPPORTED Israel in these actions of aggression against it’s neighbors. Dick Bush has consistently spoken out about how anxious they are to dispose of the likes of Hezbollah just like they’ve been trying to exterminate Hamas. And, they’ve certainly made no secret of that. These are the same folks that prevented the U.N. from implementing a ceasefire, claiming that “Israel had a right to defend itself”. W. has publicly stated that on numerous occasions. And, the same ones also provided many of the bombs that Israel used in the carpet-bombing, which was part of that same offensive.

So NO, I’m not saying that WE have any responsibility for Israel’s behavior, but I sure as hell believe that the neo-cons do. If they helped, then they do. Now maybe this is more like the neo-cons simply serving their “client”, since there always seems to be some discussion on whether it’s Israel that’s ruling us, or the neo-cons running the show in Israel. My guess has been that it was a joint operation, or at least that Israel had some support from the neo-cons in launching it. But again, I mean only the Cabal, and so that isn’t the same as “American” interests in terms of what I was suggesting. I’ve never been able to think of any way at all, in which the American public at large, or any of our foreign or domestic policies have anything at all to gain from a relationship with Israel. Quite the opposite it would seem.

But….still we have it, as it has been constructed in the past several years, and they’ve just topped it off with another several billion dollar GIFT of even more “military aid”. So in that respect, the neocons are supporting Israel as they have done for what seems now, like an eternity.

Still, you make a good point. What US interest could possibly be served by the destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure, especially when the neocons already controlled the “official” government. Only thing I can think is that Hezbollah is as scary to Dick Bush as Hamas and Iran are. They’re afraid of the influence of any of those groups in the region, simply because they DO have influence, and as we see now, that puppet government is falling apart, just like Maliki’s, and Fatah isn’t looking all that strong either, no matter how much the US and Israel try to prop them up, and they continue to starve Hamas out. (Another dastardly dirty tactic of collective punishment where the Cabal has been at the forefront.) Israel couldn’t have gotten away with holding up all of the Palestinian revenues after Hamas won the elections, without the help of the Cabal and the heavy hand they’ve played at the UN. And it’s the same thing in dealing with Hezbollah. The shrub keeps linking them to Iran, and cheney’s chomping at the bit to hit Iran.

So, they may not be directly responsible for Israel’s actions, but they sure have encouraged and supported their terror campaigns. Or, so it seems to me.

Cyrena,

You seem to have a pretty good take on it. Charles Barton’s propaganda just doesn’t square with the reality that an invasion of that magnitude requires months of planning and preparation at a minimum.

A couple of points though.

1)Hezbollah and Israel never were in a state of peace. Israel has conducted many raids into Lebanon since it’s partial withdrawal and holds in excess of a thousand Lebanese hostages. Lebanon claims Sheba farms and thus considers Israel to be in occupation of Lebanese territory. Israel also has conducted ongoing overflights and bombings. Thus, even if the soldiers had been taken inside Israel, it would have still been capture not kidnap. Yet propagandists like Fisk managed to use that word and then some in every article.

2)The neocons are in large part Israeli citizens or they have family or assets there. Also, they have command conduits from Israel such as the Office of Special Plans and such. So to lay responsibility on the US for Israels actions is questionable analysis. What US interest could have been served in the invasion of a nation ruled by a US installed puppet regime and the subsequent destruction of it’s infrastructure?

#93823 by atheo on 8/10 at 6:00 pm

Atheo,

This turns out to be one of those times when “semantics” does play into things. The differences between “snatched”, “captured” or “kidnapped”.

“Kidnapped” would imply that the soldiers has been taken from their OWN state/territory, and secreted away to Lebanon. “CAPTURED” would describe exactly what you describe here. They were strolling though Lebanon, IN Lebanon, where they obviously had no business. My own term, which was “snatched” was a result of the MSM version of the stories that I was reading at the time, and I did notice a bunch of discrepancies, from media to media.

I also wondered, (to myself) if the soldiers might not have ALREADY BEEN on the Lebanese side of that border, seeing as how it would be virtually (or next to) IMPOSSIBLE, for a handful of Hizbollah “militants” to go over there and flippin’ GET them, considering that Israel heavily controls any possible way for the “militants” to sneak in.

So, this actually makes a lot more sense.

The only other question though, (which is another one of those “larger” questions) is that it had been my own understanding, just from general reading since that attack last year, that the Terrible Twins (the US-Israel) had planned that attack on Lebanon, at least a year before.

So, do you think it’s possible that Israel SENT those soldiers into Lebanon, with this anticipated response from Hezbollah, to try to build cover for the attack that was already planned as a collective punishment for the entire state, because they obviously wanted to put pressure on the people of Lebanon, to denounce and vilify Hezbollah. Or so that’s how I’ve read it, and that seems to be a common enough interpretation.

But, here again, it seems really stupid, and of course it backfired on them. WHY would the population of Southern Lebanon turn against the only socio-political entity that was making their lives semi-bearable, and providing for whatever protection they needed from the wiles of Israel? I mean, REALLY! Hezbollah has been a major political party in Lebanon for years, provides services to the population, and is obviously wasn’t going away. But of course Israel (now joined by the Dangerous Duo over here) has been trying to wipe them out for just as long.

So, they decide on…what? It would appear to be a huge dose of collective punishment in the form of a destroyed infrastructure, (airport, bridges, communications facilities, water reservoirs, roads, highways, and anything on them) that might also prompt another civil war, which Israel seems to enjoy. (or at least Dick Bush thinks it’s a great strategy for conquering other sovereign nation states.

So, I said all of that to say that I wonder if they did this intentionally with the soldiers, not realizing what a prize it would be for Hezbollah to accomplish some more negotiations to get their own people back.

Either way, Israel screwed themselves up on that deal…probably an influence of this twinship with the neocons.  Just seems to be one of those things. Anybody in the Middle East who allows themselves to be “American-Backed” these days, has just run into all sorts of popularity problems among the citizens of their respective states/territories.

But, for now, Israel still has all of its nukes for protection, and “self-defense”, even though nobody else living in the general vicinity is so dangerously armed.

Anyway, thanks for bringing up that distinction between kidnapped/captured and WHERE it occurred. THAT’S what makes it a capture instead of a kidnap. And, Lebanon could certainly see it as an “act of war”, for these two soldiers to be where they were. But, since they don’t have the same capacity to do war as Israel does war, then it was reasonable enough to expect to use them as negotiating tools. That’s what happens in wars. Seems like Israel would figure that out, and stop attacking everybody.

Once again the Zionist controlled government and media have deceived us. The two Israeli soldiers were not kidnapped - they were captured - inside Lebanon!

The Israelis provoked the whole thing in order to spin a lie and excuse their genocidal aggression against Lebanon. Only a fool would go along with such crimes.

CIA-affiliated newspaper USA Today reported that 83 percent of the American people think the Israeli aggression against Lebanon is justified. But the American people do not know what is going on in Lebanon and have been lied to about the incident that supposedly started the whole crisis.

The two Israeli soldiers whose capture sparked the Israeli attack on Lebanon were caught in Lebanon in the village of Aitaa al-Chaab after they had infiltrated through the border. The Israelis provoked an incident in order to agress Lebanon. It is typical Zionist behavior.

This is how the incident was reported early in the day on July 12 by the German news agency (DPA), UPI Arabia, AP, and AFP from France:

Beirut (dpa) - The Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah movement announced Wednesday that its guerrillas have captured two Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon.

“Implementing our promise to release the Arab prisoners in Israeli jails, our strugglers have captured at 9:05 am (0605 GMT) two Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon,” a statement by Hezbollah said.

“The two soldiers have already been moved to a safe place,” it added.

Lebanese police said that the two soldiers were captured as they “infiltrated” into the town of Aitaa al-Chaab inside the Lebanese border.

Israeli aircraft were active in the air over southern Lebanon, police said, with jets bombing roads leading to the market town of Nabatiyeh, 60 kilometres south of Beirut.

Lebanese security sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that the planes were bombarding roads which might be used by Hezbollah guerrillas.

“Tension is very high in the area ... We are expecting escalation by the Israelis,” the sources said.

There was no immediate confirmation of the Hezbollah claims from any official Israeli source. An Israeli army spokeswoman however said there was “concern” over the fate of the two soldiers.

Israeli reports also say four people were wounded by projectiles fired from Lebanon - one lightly wounded, one moderately wounded, and two suffering from shock.

In Beirut’s southern suburbs, Hezbollah followers were on the streets celebrating the news of the two soldiers’ capture, chanting “God is great ... our prisoners will be out soon.”

There are still three Lebanese prisoners held in Israeli jails, among them the longest held Lebanese prisoner Samir Kantar, who was captured in 1979 after killing an Israeli scientist and his daughter during an attack on a northern Israeli coastal area.

Kantar’s brother Bassam told dpa “we are now counting on Hezbollah to strike a deal to relase my brother and other prisoners.”

dpa wh jab ch

The Associated Press reported it as well:

Associated Press
Hezbollah Captures 2 Israeli Soldiers
By JOSEPH PANOSSIAN , 07.12.2006, 05:41 AM

The militant group Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers during clashes Wednesday across the border in southern Lebanon, prompting a swift reaction from Israel, which sent ground forces into its neighbor to look for them.

The forces were trying to keep the soldiers’ captors from moving them deeper into Lebanon, Israeli government officials said on condition of anonymity.

The Israeli military would not confirm the report.

Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called an emergency Cabinet meeting and said Lebanese guerrillas would pay a “heavy price” for Wednesday’s attacks.

“These are difficult days for the state of Israel and its citizens,” Olmert said. “There are people ... who are trying to test our resolve. They will fail and they will pay a heavy price for their actions.”

Copyright 2006 Associated Press.

#93715 by Charles Barton on 8/10 at 9:50 am

Charles,

I especially get the part about the Interanational Law. Which, opens quite a can of nasty worms about Israel, you might be willing to admit.

How long has it been now, since Israel has basically given the finger to ALL international law. and has repeatedly violated any and all parts of it. I’m thinking just shy of 60 years, but I’d be willing to cut the first 20 off of the sentence, and just blame them for 40 years of unthinkable atrocities.

After so long, (and I’ve witnessed some of these times personally)they pretty much just all start to run together, and so the last “incident” somehow just doesn’t seem any more justifiable than any of the other attacks that Israel has perpetrated against ALL of it’s neighbors, at some point in the 60 year history.

I always thought this last “incident” started with Hezbollah snatching two Israeli soldiers...didn’t know about the other stuff. Matter of fact, this is the VERY first I’ve heard of that.

But, it doesn’t change anything. Israel will never be secure from her neighbors, (even though you can’t possibly even call them a real threat, because Israel’s the only one with any real weapons...those rockets simply don’t count next to nukes.)because Israel will always be an aggressor, and the people that she’s been harrassing are gonna fight back. It’s human nature. It’s the way societies work.

I’m a really firm believer in the effectiveness of the rule of law, and international law specfically in respect to these sorts of conflicts. But ya know, if the laws are totally disregarded, and rogue states like Israel simply do whatever the hell they want, then this will go on forever. Because, what more do those who have been oppressed by Israel for so long, really have to lose?

It’s awful about the death of the rule of law, and the fact that some little tiny bully rouge state, can perpetuate this much misery, for this many people, for so many years, and do it with impunity.

Anyway, thanks for the info on whatever it was, when I thought it was the kidnapping of the two soldiers. And, I KNOW why Hezbollah did that...same reason they do anything like that. They want those 10,000 men, women and children currently held in Israeli prsions...to be released. And, it’s a tactic that has worked for them in the past.

Standard technique in asymetrical warfare, and that’s the type of warfare that always comes into play when groups are fighting for independance and self-determination, and the rule of law.

#93428 by Charles Barton on 8/09 at 8:28 am

Charles,

Thanks as well, for your own comments. I read the article to which you directed me, on the claims that the bombs that were carpeted upon Lebanon in that particular offensive attack against Lebanon, (summer 2006) were NOT in anyway “radioactive” or had any such uranium or other poisonous things attached to them. That had been one of the questions I was posing in the earlier post. WHICH attack, and WHICH bombs. There have been so many.

So, it would appear that Robert Fisk made a claim that wasn’t so, and that he has yet to apologize for getting that wrong. Those bombs were NOT nuclear in nature. Rather, the bombs dropped during that offensive, were just regular old bombs, fashioned from standard and time-honored bomb recipes, and accusations of anything other than that are unwarranted. So, I definitely stand “now informed” on that.

Meantime though, the landscape of Lebanon WAS in fact carpeted by bombletts that exploded then, and continue to explode now. So, the continuing effects of that offensive, and equivalent to civilians living amongst land mines, (if they survived the ones that have already exploded). So, that was (and generally is, I must admit) my own fundamental point. My own agenda is and pretty much does stay focused on the human consequences of wars.

So, as a result, I have read a few of Fisk’s books, along with countless other authors on the general subject of the miseries of the people of the Middle East. That said, I should also add that in my research, one of my most respected advisors DID tell me to “be careful” with Fisk. So obviously, these earlier journalistic errors that you’ve noted, have been observed by other serious scholars. So, I have kept that caution in mind. But then, we really should always do that, because intellectual and academic integrity demand it.

Meantime, while I’m not a routine reader of the Independent, (which I believe is the publication for which Fisk has done most of the work that is routinely criticized) I’ve found some of his books to be very excellently researched and bibliographed. The bibliography in “Pity the Nation” was extremely helpful to me in some of my own research.

So, that takes me back to the basics I guess. We have to read and analyze everything, and somehow still extract some wisdom from it all. (even the stuff that isn’t actually readable in the text, and maybe even from the stuff that actually PROVES to be unfounded or untrue, such as the thing about the bombs being radioactive/nuke-tinged.)

#93222 by Charles Barton on 8/08 at 5:12 pm

Charles,

You make a good point about the variety of wacky things that do come along on these posts. It’s frustrating sometimes, because it seems to make sense to stay with the basic thread of the article. But, as human nature and technology would have it, there are always the inevitable “links” to things are simply are not connected. And, it somehow always involves Israel or Jews. And, it gets old, but we blow it off. (or at least I do.)

However, in all seriousness, there are those commentors among us, who actually do stay on topic, (more or less) and we don’t subscribe to these so far totally unproven, (and in some cases - discounted) stories of the 9-11 conspiracy. For the most part, we agree only that there WAS a conspiracy within a conspiracy. Aside from that, we don’t know any more than the feds have been willing to let us know, and that still leaves billions of unanswered questions.

So, a lot of this crazy stuff, we really blow off. Matter of fact, I didn’t bother reading about the Lavon Affair, so I thank you for filling us in on that. I see that it has no relevance to anything - at least not on this particular article. Matter of fact, this article doesn’t even mention the Lavon Affair, nor does it say anything about any uranium bombs that Israel allegedly dropped on Lebanon. Now if in fact Mr. Fisk has alleged such a thing, I’ve not heard or read it, and he certainly doesn’t address it here.

In this particular piece, he’s referring to the carpet bombing of Lebanon last summer. I don’t know if this is what you’re thinking of, but he doesn’t mention anything about “uranium” in this piece. So, maybe that was during one of Israel’s OTHER attacks on Lebanon…seeing as how there have been so many in the past few decades.

But as for the one last summer, (which is what Fisk is referring to here) those were just plain old CLUSTER BOMBS, (probably supplied by the Bush administration) to literally carpet bomb the entire area, and that’s what they did. They may not contain any uranium, but they have the same effect as any other mine explosion, if a man, woman or child should happen to be around. And, there are tens of thousands of them dotting the landscape.

So, for at least THIS piece, Mr. Fisk hasn’t said anything that isn’t true.

I won’t answer for the commentators, but I don’t see anything that would cause his credibility to be “blown” in this particular article.

Cyrena,

The notion that the Saudi’s wish ill for Iran is yet another lie. An attack on Iran, by any party,would be a potentialy devastating event for Saudi Arabia.
I have already presented quotes and documents that the neocons do target Sadi Arabia. I don’t know what more to say.

#93024 by atheo on 8/07 at 8:31 pm
• Perle contracted Rand Corporation analyst Laurent Muraweic on July 10, 2002. Rand’s briefing declared Saudi Arabia an “enemy of the United States” and advocated that the US invade the country, seize its oil fields and confiscate its financial assets unless the Saudis “stop supporting the anti-Western terror network.”

Atheo,
None of this stuff is new. Richard Perle and the Rand Corporation are notorious in their neo-con criminal behavior, and the US Corp of Engineers BUILT the Saudi Kingdom into what it is today. IOW, the Saudi kingdom would still just be sitting on all of that oil instead of sharing all of the enormous profits with the Bush family and The Carlyle Group. Dick Cheney is attached to the Saudi government at the hip. Richard Perle and every single other signatory of the PNAC is a bona fide criminal, and so we know all of that. It has nothing to do with the price of tea in China, or the global rise of terrorism. We can thank the neo-cons for that, (global terrorism has risen by 700% since the Iraq invasion…(mother jones: The Iraq Effect)
=======================

• As to the flight manifests, there were manifests released that were not only short of Arabic names but short on the numerical totals. Read up on it, there are various books that cover this in detail, both sides of the argument. It appears that you have been exposed to only one.

Here again, it’s clearly not a matter of limited “exposure” on my part. I actually DO read everything. As for the flight manifests, I’ve done post departure reconciliation on more flight manifests than I could count. It was my job, for over 25 years. So, I know what the original manifests looked like, and the discrepancy on numerical totals is routine, until the flight paperwork has been processed and reconciled. It is, and has ALWAYS been, crucial to the operation of any flight. They have to know what the numbers are, (baggage weight, passenger weight, fuel weight, and lots of other things that the average person has no need to concern themselves with. So, your information on the flight manifests is not only misinformed, but winds up being a lie, even though you may not intend it as such. You’re just taking the words or writings of someone else, and unless you’d like to post a copy of the manifests for me, I’m gonna have to stick with that part of it being a lie, because I know better.

What we KNOW, is that it has ALWAYS been the neo-con plan to take over the entire region, and Iraq, Iran, and Syria were all on the list to be blasted by this administration. They came INTO the government with that plan already worked out. Have you ever read that document? The Clean Break and all? Maybe you should. You can google it. The Plan for a New American Century, pretty much lays it all out. And, Donald Rumsfeld told us –even before the 9-11 operation- that we needed another “Pearl Harbor”. And, a few days or weeks later, we got 9-11. He TOO, is a signatory to the PNAC. In 1997, this same group did their best to convince Clinton to attack Iraq. None of this was ever intended to affect their very close relationship with the Saudis. So, your affixation with the Saudis as being “war mongered upon” is a myth.

The Saudis were NOT among the countries on the neo-con list, because, as I said before, they are joined at the hip with the Saudis. (or, at least they were until this ill-fated adventure in Iraq managed to piss off even them, which is why they’re now selling them all of these weapons). You haven’t seen them offer to sell Iran any weapons, have you?

Cyrena,

Iv’e been following these two for years. Scheer has written various articles that could be described as demonising the Iranian leadership, at a time when war on Iran is being actively promoted. Fisk wrote almost daily about how Hezbolah “started it” during last summer’s Israeli invasion. An invasion that required months, if not a full year, of advance planning and deployment. Fisk knew better.

You write:

“nobody is calling for war against the Saudi government”

but you are unaware of the fact that the neocons DO call for regime change in Saudi Arabia:

“I think we’re going to be obliged to fight a regional war, whether we want to or not,” says Michael Ledeen, a former U.S. national-security official and a key strategist among the ascendant flock of neoconservative hawks, many of whom have taken up perches inside the U.S. government. Asserting that the war against Iraq can’t be contained, Ledeen says that the very logic of the global war on terrorism will drive the United States to confront an expanding network of enemies in the region. “As soon as we land in Iraq, we’re going to face the whole terrorist network,” he says, including the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and a collection of militant splinter groups backed by nations-Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia-that he calls “the terror masters.”
“It may turn out to be a war to remake the world,” says Ledeen.

Smear and Defame:  Former Defense Policy board Chairman Richard Perle spearheaded an intense smear campaign against Saudi Arabia at the Pentagon, laying the foundations for future U.S. military action.

Perle contracted Rand Corporation analyst Laurent Muraweic on July 10, 2002. Rand’s briefing declared Saudi Arabia an “enemy of the United States” and advocated that the US invade the country, seize its oil fields and confiscate its financial assets unless the Saudis “stop supporting the anti-Western terror network.”

As to the flight manifests, there were manifests released that were not only short of Arabic names but short on the numerical totals. Read up on it, there are various books that cover this in detail, both sides of the argument. It appears that you have been exposed to only one.

Cyrena, Scheer’s very notion that the Saudis should not be sold weopons IS fearmongering as is Fisk’s constant suggestion (given with no evidence) that Syria is behind all the violence in Lebanon. Follow his stories and pay attention. These guys are slick, they drop the propaganda in after gaining your confidence that they are opposed to the Bush position.

#92785 by atheo on 8/07 at 7:39 am
• Let’s examine your theory in paragraph 3, if the planes were hijacked by alCIAda, why should Fisk and Scheer get away with utilising that for their anti-Saudi war mongering?
Atheo, herein lies the first problem with your argument, (which is the real foundation of your beef…that Fish and Scheer are somehow perpetrating anti-Saudi war mongering, and as of yet, I’ve never seen or heard either one of them, do anything of the sort. So, we could end the conversation there. Nobody, (including me) is suggesting that we go to war against the Saudi government or it’s people. So, that’s where you’ve got this huge obsession. You seem to believe that these people are out to bash the Saudis, (and it’s not like they couldn’t use a lot of bashin)g, but nobody is calling for war against the Saudi government, or even the “subjects” in that Arab kingdom.
So, for the record, (just so we don’t go through this again) we are talking about AL-QAEDA, as it is represented and “birthed” by the likes of OUTLAWED Saudis, like Osama bin Laden, and Zawahiri, (an EGYPTIAN) who merged his own jihadist ambitions with bin Laden’s, since Osama was the one with the money. Now, in order for you to “comprehend” this, it requires that you lose this “obsession” that Fisk, Scheer, or anybody else, is “after” the Saudis in general.
• The fact that after the government issued the names of the hijackers, new flight manifests were released by the airlines in no way diminishes the fact that their original manifests contained none of those names.

Atheo, on this. You simply DON’T KNOW what was on the original flight manifests, so you should stop saying this. In an earlier post, you claimed that there was no “DNA evidence” to prove the existence of Arab highjackers, and that was of course just a stupid thing to say. (highjackers have different DNA than non-hijackers?) Then, in the same or another post, you claimed that there were NO ARABIC names on any of the flight manifests. You don’t know that either. And, if there were NO Arabic names on ANY of those flight manifests, (specifically because of the cities where all of these flights originated) THAT would be “suspicious” enough. (I’ve monitored these things for a very long time my friend.) So, here again, you don’t know. And, that’s OK, because most of us don’t.

• Common sense should tell us all that an operation of 9/11’s magnitude would be planned with some thought out strategic objective. Military operations involve discipline, coordination, and purpose. I have yet to hear a coherent explanation as to the official 9/11 theory in this regard. How were “alqueda” prevail, what success were they to achieve? This is why the NLF, or any other liberation movement never attacked the U.S.
I recommended to you a while back Atheo, that you might read the actual report, created by the Commission, which provides their explanation of it. I will not claim it to be complete or coherent in all respects, because it isn’t. It has a cover-up built into it, and it doesn’t explain how the towers just fell in their tracks, but common sense and science prove that to be a lie. (the airplanes themselves, did not cause that kind of damage). HOWEVER, I recommended it to you, so you would at least know what that story is, (as well as the background on al-Qaeda) so that you would at least have something to work with. Instead, you chase bits and pieces of things on the Internet, without verifying the same information from additional sources.
So, read the report Atheo, and then we can talk. Until then, I’m tired of hearing about your gripes on Fisk and Scheer. They are two people, and I still haven’t heard them doing any Saudi bashing.

And, to your last statement about all of the coordination needed for such an operation….that too, is an ambiguous notion, because cheney and his secret staff could have pulled it off quite easily. To be continued.

Cyrena,

Have we all fallen into the “prove a negative” trap? I thought in America it was guilt that had to be proven not inocence. I don’t present theories, just the facts. Theory (and a debunked one at that) is what Scheer and Fisk peddle.

Let’s examine your theory in paragraph 3, if the planes were hijacked by alCIAda, why should Fisk and Scheer get away with utilising that for their anti-Saudi war mongering?

The fact that after the government issued the names of the hijackers, new flight manifests were released by the airlines in no way diminishes the fact that their original manifests contained none of those names.

Common sense should tell us all that an operation of 9/11’s magnitude would be planned with some thought out strategic objective. Military operations involve discipline, coordination, and purpose. I have yet to hear a coherent explanation as to the official 9/11 theory in this regard. How were “alqueda” to prevail, what success were they to achieve? This is why the NLF, or any other liberation movement never attacked the U.S.

We also know that there was a false evidence trail that implicated Arabs.
+++++++++++++++++++

Atheo, I think you miss my point, but it’s OK. To sum it up, YES, we know there was a trail of false evidence to implicate Arabs.

The problem lies in the fact that neither you or anybody else, can PROVE that it was NOT Arabs, or other radical Muslims from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yeman, Sudan, Kuwait, and the list goes on. So at this point, your “theories” don’t hold any more water than the Official Conspiracy that the 9-11 Commission has published as the official explanation for it all.

So, we’re back to that, even though I’m not sure that you’re even interested in knowing who or what was involved, just so that the “Arab” highjacker theory is denounced, along with anyone who even references it. But, you still don’t have proof that it WASN’T Arabs. Common sense tells ME, that the likelihood of it being a group of Middle Eastern extremists (assisted by Cheney) is just as great as it being an operation of U.S. or Israeli drones overtaking 4 commercial airlines and disappearing them, also assisted by cheney.

One of my first questions, (and this brings us back to all of the reasons for questioning the “official” version to begin with) was…WHY did they do this, if in fact it was Islamic Extremists, or whomever it was that the official story held responsible. WHY would they attack a bunch of innocent strangers/civilians, in another nation, who hadn’t done a damn thing to any of them. Sound naïve? I didn’t think so, and I wanted to know. And, I didn’t believe that it was because they wanted to turn the whole world into an Islamic Kingdom. I also didn’t think they were out to kill “all infidels” or U.S. infidels in particular. There had to be something more to it.

So, I’ve spent the past 5 years reading up on the kind of FACTS that one needs to first understand, and have used that on-going acquisition of knowledge to combine with other things that I know from both personal experience and common sense, to try and put it together. In doing that, we cannot AVOID the obvious, which is that 9-11 was NOT the first time that we have been attacked by pissed-off Middle Eastern extremists, who are overwhelmingly opposed to the U.S. hegemony in that part of the globe. It was preceded by the attacks on the U.S. Embassy’s in Tanzania and Kenya, as well as the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, in Yemen, less than a year before. Since then, wimpy officials and other genuinely patriotic officials, have come forward to say that the entire system was blinking red here at home, and our newly appointed security officials (at least at the time) pretty much blew it all off. (that would be Ms. Rice).

Scams and false flag operations such as 9-11, don’t necessarily have to be one or the other. Anytime you look for one result in an investigation, or if you’re only investigating to disprove one element of an entire plot, you cut yourself off at the knees from the start. Because, you simply dismiss anything might not fit with the result that you’re already planning to get.

Since the event of 9-11, there has been a dearth of information made available on the internet, and that’s a good thing. But, we have to read that information just as critically as we read anything else.

And, unfortunately, we get good information with bad information, such as your bad information about flight manifests. And, like putting anything else together, we don’t know how important it is, or if it even belongs in the puzzle, until we can find a place that it actually “fits”.

noncredo,

I should guess that you are well aware of the Lavon affair. I’m sorry, even though the post was addressed to you, I had the broader readership in mind while I finished it.

As Mr. Fisk knows, his candid reports about Israel’s war crime in Lebanon fall mainly on deaf (and dumb) ears here in America because they do not reach mainstream America. This fact is probably also true in England. Americans know little about the cluster bombs Israel deliberately and needlessly dropped into Lebanon and worse yet, they care even less about it. There was no military reason for Israel to fire the cluster bombs into Lebanon - a cease fire that Israel had already agreed upon was in the process of being implemented and the Israelis knew it. The only reason the Israelis did it was alevolence. Israel keeps managing to prove (to anyone who has the eyes and brains to see clearly) that the majority of Israelis are, as Nahman Syrkin wrote in 1898: “...an incurably bad people, a people… wanting to enslave the world...destroying all that is stable, the troublemaker incarnate.... the Jewish people is the curse of humanity.”
As Mr. Fisk also knows, the vast majority of Americans have been conditioned to not concern themselves with such information. Why? Because from a moral point of view America resembles Israel - it is a moral flophouse. Hunter S. Thompson once characterized America as “a nation of 220 million used-car salesmen with no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world.”
Any “news” information that the American people may inadvertently receive that isn’t “good for the Jews”(such as Mr Fisk’s report) creates what American psychologist’s refer to as “consonant dissonance” in the vast majority of their minds. This dissonance is caused because they have been conditioned by Israel’s public relations representative in the United States - America’s mass media - to love and to venerate Israel. So to relieve themselves of the dissonance in their minds created by news information that is uncomplimentary to Israel or to Jews in general, the vast majority of the public dismiss and reject the discord causing information.
Modern mass media is a powerful propaganda and mind control technique but it doesn’t seem to bother the American public much and they do not care if their mass media (like their government) is also managed by the a few hundred Jews. Why? The only reason I can come up with is because the American public has fallen madly in love with the Jews and so they trust them completely and everlastingly. “Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail.  Without it, nothing can succeed,” said Abraham Lincoln.
Of course, America’s perspicacious politicians are well aware of this fact and so they represent their constituency correctly by loving Israel in a like manner, and by blamelessly accepting money from AIPAC and other wealthy Jews to pass any bills that will help Israel even more.  Such bills as those increasing Israeli military aid thus providing Israel with newer and more harmful cluster bombs which Israel can then use to commit more crimes against humanity in the Middle East and killing anyone who gets in their way (like the 4 UN observers in 2006 and the 31 US sailors on the USS Liberty in 1967). Israel can do all of this with immunity because as everyone also knows, Israeli owned America also in turn controls the policies of UN (which always seen to favor Israel nowadays). And the UN is theoretically (but not in reality) the only authority that can (supposedly) do anything about it.  Have a steel door installed soon too Mr. Fisk because as Voltaire once said, “It is difficult to free (madly in love) fools from chains they(‘ve come to) revere.”

Non credo,

I think that the perpetrators correctly anticipated that racism would allow them to attack any non-western nation as a response to 9/11. Since their ultimate target IS Saudi Arabia and the gulf states, they optimised their choice for patsy/fantasy nationalities. For historical background, I would suggest googling Lavon affair.

Cyrena,

The Living Saudis match the photos presented as being the hijackers, and no, the list was never amended. The original flight manifests and numbers did not contain the “hijackers”, those manifests were amended.

Recall that the Taliban offered to turn over OBL to a neutral third country for trial in Oct. 2001. One must assume that there was a reason for the US rejection of that offer.

Yes, there is alot that we never will know. But we do know who obstructed justice and destroyed evidence. We also know that there was a false evidence trail that implicated Arabs. Those seeking to utilise the myth of “Arab hijackers” are equally guilty.

#92322 by atheo on 8/05 at 8:55 am

Atheo,

Just a couple of corrections to this part,

• As far as I know, the flight manifests provided by the airlines showed no Arabic names.

Actually, the flight manifests DID have Arabic names, and at least one of the passengers was “profiled” by the agent issuing the boarding pass. It is a standard security procedure that’s been in place for at least 25 years now. There are a number of “qualifiers” that would profile any passenger for an extra close look. She noted (among a few other things) that he didn’t speak English, (or barely) but that by itself isn’t an indication of a possible terrorist. Still, there are other things, and at least one of these guys were tagged appropriately. Two others were actually detained at the security checkpoint, but allowed to continue on. I believe this information is contained in the Report, but it’s been verified elsewhere as well.

• The purported DNA forensics from the pentagon turned up no evidence of hijackers.

I’m glad you said “purported” here for this alleged evidence from the Pentagon, which nobody has seen. No evidence from the Pentagon. No body’s, no photo’s of the airplane crashed into it, no debris, no ANYTHING from the Pentagon, for any of the world to see. So, where do we suppose the Pentagon came up with this “evidence”, that showed -no evidence- even though nothing can prove a negative, even if there WAS such forensic evidence. Do “highjackers” have different DNA from non-hijackers?

• The only “evidence” of Arab hijackers was the list of names given by Federal authorities within hours of the event.

Where do you suppose these names came from, if not the Airline flight manifests? Were they later verified? I know they changed a few. If memory serves me, Ashcroft made the corrections.

• Six of those individuals are proven to be alive. I don’t keep a file of info on this, but check here:

You’re real focused on these six individuals that were initially named as highjackers, that are now still alive. Are any of them named Mohammed? Is there an Ahmed anywhere in the list? Did you know there are hundreds of millions of Arab Muslims, and that they tend to resemble each other in name and physical features, even though one can generally tell the difference between an Arab and a Persian, and a South Asian.?
I guess I said that to say that it’s really hard to place a lot of significance on the fact that 6 allegedly Saudi Arabs are still alive, when there’s nothing that says they shouldn’t be, and there’s no particular reason for us to care, when we don’t have any bodies of the highjackers to compare them to, to affirm that – OK, this one isn’t him. So, maybe whoever is alive, is whomever they say they are, and never claimed to be missing in the first place. Matter of fact, I think you have a much better case by asking the Pentagon for a look at their forensic DNA. But, I doubt that’s going to be a quickly answered request.
Last but not least:

• We really only have the fact that a few people disappeared.

I’d have to argue that as well. Between those four airliners alone, there are over 200 people (passengers and crew) who “disappeared”. They’re still missing, and so are the airplanes. Not a sign of any of them.

So, a further suggestion would be to actually read the Official 9-11 Commission Report, and find out what they CLAIM happened to these people, where they put them, how they extracted purported DNA, and what they did with the airplanes, or pieces of the airplanes. (well, we know what happened to the ones at the WTC – they got pulverized in the planned demolition.) When you discover that there really are no answers to some of these questions, and when you realize that they’ve never provided any evidence from either of the other crashes, (not even a broken wing light) then it will give you a better balance of just how much we don’t know, that neither dick cheney or Donald rumsfeld will ever tell.

Cyrena,

Fisk in particular, has a habit of repetition of myth in his articles. He presents controversial claims as obvious fact and drums it in on a daily basis. An example would be “Hezbolah kidnapped Israel soldiers inside Israel”. The non-western press reported that the CAPTURE took place inside Lebanon as reported by Lebanese authorities, but Fisk’s readers would never be aware of that. Fisk has relied on the “Arab hijackers” of 9/11, I don’t have thoose stories at hand. Recently, Fisk has been implicating Syria in the Lebanese assasinations. He never offers evidence, just dogmatic finger pointing.

non-credo,

As far as I know, the flight manifests provided by the airlines showed no Arabic names. The purported DNA forensics from the pentagon turned up no evidence of hijackers. The only “evidence” of Arab hijackers was the list of names given by Federal authorities within hours of the event. Six of those individuals are proven to be alive. I don’t keep a file of info on this, but check here:

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/fakealqaeda.html

http://www.prisonplanet.com/911.html

Yes, there were some NAMED Saudis that have not turned up alive, but their friends and families don’t believe they were hijackers. We really only have the fact that a few people disappeared. Journalists are not supposed to be credulous. Disappearing a few people is well within the capability of the government “security” apparatus.

Israel’s first lesson in sign language.

Finger pointing:never leave the scene of the crime w/out it. Manipulating blame onto others is an Israeli art form.

#92267 by atheo on 8/04 at 10:17 pm

Ok, atheo,

I’m starting to see where I may have gone off track. Originally, this posting started out with your criticism of Fisk, which “connects”, since this piece on this thread, in the one by Fisk. NOT Scheer.

So, before I just had that “lightbulb” momemt, I had already returned to the piece, (to read it again) and became even MORE confused, because Fisk doesn’t say anything at ALL about the Saudi highjacker conspiracy, at least not in anything that I’ve ever heard from him, including this piece.

So, then I had to re-read your post, and realized that we had now moved to it being Scheer that you allege has been perpetrating the Saudi highjacker conspiracy, which happens to be the “Official” conspiracy.

So, knowing that now, I will go back and re-read the piece by Scheer, so that maybe (or maybe not) I can understand your grievances against him.

Cyrena,
My problem with Scheer is his current piece posted right here uses the debunked “Saudi hijackers” as the BASIS for his argument. That’s no different from Bush saying that there are connections between OBL and Saddam Hussein.

Comment#92197 by atheo on 8/04 at 12:38 pm

Atheo,

For the record, I have NEVER believed the official story of 9-11. OK? And, while you may have personally heard or read either Scheer or Fisk, to actually espouse the offical theory as gospel, I never have.

So in short, you have a personal dislike for one or both of these journalists, who have not been willing to take a bunch of unanswered questions, and run with it. Apparently, you don’t even believe that they should ever MENTION the “official conspiracy” as detailed by the Commission. In doing so, it means that they are perpetrating the “myth” of the official story.

And, the bottom line, is that’s just slander. Do you believe that it is incumbent on ALL journalists or academics attempting to understand the reasons for and the significance of the attack, to publicaly denounce the official conspiracy, without having something to back up whatever their own position might be, about an inside job? Or, is this just a critism and job that you have for Scheer and Fisk?

Meantime, read Lawrence Wright’s book, and see what you think.

And by the way, I don’t put any faith in the CIA, period, and I don’t know that the bulletin I mentioned even came from the CIA. But here’s the trick atheo, if you want to find out something, and you know you aren’t getting the right answers, (because they are blatant lies and cover-ups) you have to at least listen to what they ARE telling you. And, you don’t simply disregard the fake information, just because you know it’s fake. You have to use the same information, to get at the truth. There is probably a technical term for this sort of reasoning, but it escapes me at the moment.

Good luck.

#92189 by Tony Wicher on 8/04 at 11:26 am

Tony, Thanks for the compliments, seriously. It’s always an effort, (more so these days) to try to keep the focus on what is real, without stifling or otherwise dismissing important concerns that we all have. And, I’m sorry I missed the impeachment rally on the 4th. I’m actually about 100 miles north of you, (though L.A. is my original home) and because I don’t have continual access to convenient transportation, I have to limit my trips. (well, that’s part of the reason, it’s also sort of a good excuse as well). As it turned out that week, my mother decided that she wanted me to come down for some other event later in the same week, and I was only willing to do one trip, and less willing to hang around down there for an extended period of days in-between .the round trip. If I did that, I couldn’t stay sane, or balanced. (trust me on that).

I will however, be at whatever rally you all can organize in the future though. Just let me know. (I’ll have to see if I can figure out how to use that “private message” system that this forum offers, and then I can check-in with you, without disturbing the other posters.

Meantime, your analogy between the Kennedy assassination/Warren Commission to the 9-11 operation, is right on the mark. We know some stuff, but the larger questions remain unanswered. I think Atheo is expecting more of the old Bernstein/Woodward approach to Watergate, when those two journalists were indeed responsible for exposing Nixon’s crimes. But, they had a “deepthroat” for help, and Nixon’s operation has come to be seen as a childish prank, compared to the unstoppable crimes that the current gang has perpetrated against us for the past 7 years.

For my own part, I’ve never believed what we were hearing (or even seeing) of the 9-11 operations, even from day one. But, at the time, I’d already spent 23 years in the commercial airline industry, and so certain things were impossible to believe from the start. The most obvious example was that those two airliners could not (in a real world) bring down those towers in the manner is which they expect us to believe. Of course many others noted the same thing, and without needing any expertise in airline operations, because buildings like that don’t fall in their tracks, anymore than a bird strike can bring down an airplane. (It can cause some damage, but a collision with a bird, is not going to bring down an airplane. And, those airplanes didn’t bring down those towers.)

That was a controlled demolition, and those things have to be planned well in advance. So, did the highjackers plant the bombs first? Or, did somebody else? I’d say it was somebody else, but we don’t know exactly who, or from whom they got their orders. And, that was before they even came up with this so-called Commission. Same thing with the other two airplanes that we are supposed to believe crashed at the Pentagon, and in that Pennsylvania field respectively.

Unfortunately for me, I’ve witnessed the after-scenes of airplane crashes or other “incidents”, as they are known in the industry lingo, and there are ALWAYS physical signs around, that only a completely blind person could miss. (and, his smeller would have to be inoperative as well.) All of that was conspicuously ABSENT from the 9-11 operations, and the Commission did nothing to address any of those most obvious things.
So yeah, I’m sure Cheney et all set that up, but as of yet, we have no ORGANIZED proof of that. And, unless a 21st Century “deep throat” happens along (and soon) we just may never get it. That is even more likely, considering the Mob’s extraordinary/extra-legal practice of “disappearing” anybody who might have something to offer in the way of information.

And so it is. To be continued.

Evan,

They were incompetent, that’s why the fake evidence doesn’t convince, that’s why most of the world is onto them.
So many people will do anything to believe not what they’ve seen, not the evidence, but the lies of professional liars that know no other mode than lying.
It seems many people, instead of believing clear evidence, would rather believe that 19 Arab boys (a number of whom have been revealed as still alive and well), armed with box cutters, defeated our defenses and demolished most o