Reinvestigating 9/11

[baboon2004]

Why didn't they plan to implicate Hezbollah, already infamous for attacking American interests outside of the Middle East and organizationally stronger and larger in 2001? Then they could've invaded the Bekaa valley to destroy them, toppled Assad and occupied Syria thereby taking control of Lebanon, propping up a puppet Christian/Druze coalition with Ariel Sharon and the IDF. On the border of Iraq they could have supplied Kurds and Shi'ites with arms to slowly subvert the Ba'athists and prepared themselves for an attack on Iran to wipe out the traces of Hezbollah and neutralize the Iranian WMD programme, which they would have by then collected evidence on. And all this would've started with the backing and support of the UN and NATO, in all probability.

That would've been a plan worth destroying the World Trade Center, Pentagon and White House for.

Maybe they left the USB with the blueprint in a coffee shop.

 

[Mr. Tea]

The biggest hole in any variety of Bush-done-it 9/11 conspiracy theory, I think, is this: if it was some manner of 'inside job' then who and what was Osama bin Laden? Was he an American stooge all along, and if so how is that squared with his involvement in terrorist attacks against targets in Africa in '90s? Was he instructed and paid to commit those too (while Cinton was in power) just to add credibility to his supposed culpability for the big one a few years later? And if that were the case, why did the CIA, Pentagon or whoever was running show allow almost ten years to pass, by which time Bush was no longer in power, to announce that bin Laden had been 'killed'?

Because if he wasn't behind the attacks but also wasn't working for the US government, why should he take 'credit' for these atrocities? Imagine what would have happened if he'd gone on TV and said to the American people "Nothing to do with me, pal - ask the CIA about that one".

And as Craner points out, it's fallacious to ascribe omniscience or omnipotence to America's intelligence agencies and military hierarchy. I remember shortly after 9/11 a very damning report came out, highlighting in particular the fact that communications between the CIA and FBI, the two pillars of the American intelligence service, were so poor as to be virtually nonexistent. In that kind of culture of apathetic overconfidence I don't think it's so implausible that a "bunch of Arab students" could pull off a pretty spectacular stunt if they were sufficiently organised and determined.

 

[lanugo]

Well, yes and yes. As soon as the CIA looked at the passenger lists of the hijacked jet planes, case officers recognized names. They knew about some of these guys, had been monitoring them; the revelation of this largely wrecked the reputation of the CIA in the States. They also got intelligence from the Saudis and Germans pretty quickly. George Tenet then overcompensated for their total failure to protect US interests by exaggerating Iraqi WMD evidence to suit Bush Administrations war plans. And so on.

Fine, so case officers recognised some of the names on the passenger lists - - "Ah, yeah, I know him, that's the guy with al-Qaida connections who's been taking flight lessons in Florida for the last couple of months - who'd've guessed..." - - but where exactly comes the Afghanistan connection into play? Most of the hi-jackers were Saudis and, as far as I know, none of them were trained in Afghanistan but in Pakistan.

In the run-up to the Afghanistan war the Taliban even offered the US authorities that if there was any evidence of al-Qaida presence in their country they would eliminate those dependances themselves. Of course, the US government refused and rather started an invasion. If I understand aright, up to the present day not a single al-Qaida fighter or base has been discovered on Afghan soil.

And was the evil turbaned terror overlord really ever hiding in those Tora Bora caves? There are reports that in summer 2001 he was treated in a, I believe, Islamabad hospital for kidney problems and met up with the local CIA liaison. Surely, it shouldn't have been difficult to trace him from there? Or why didn't the CIA work some of their interrogation magic on the bin Laden family members instead of breaking the nation-wide grounding order imposed after 9/11 to fly them out of the US?

Why didn't they plan to implicate Hezbollah, already infamous for attacking American interests outside of the Middle East and organizationally stronger and larger in 2001? Then they could've invaded the Bekaa valley to destroy them, toppled Assad and occupied Syria thereby taking control of Lebanon, propping up a puppet Christian/Druze coalition with Ariel Sharon and the IDF. On the border of Iraq they could have supplied Kurds and Shi'ites with arms to slowly subvert the Ba'athists and prepared themselves for an attack on Iran to wipe out the traces of Hezbollah and neutralize the Iranian WMD programme, which they would have by then collected evidence on. And all this would've started with the backing and support of the UN and NATO, in all probability.

I'm fairly unimpressed with this little geostrategic fantasy. While overrating Hezbollah's pertinence to the larger Middle East/Central Asia situation you seem to grossly underestimate Iraq's and Iran's military capabilities. Irrespective of the level of US support, a fomented insurgence on the border of Iraq would have been crushed by the Ba'athists. Furthermore, an attack - do you mean full-out war? - on Iran, by far the strongest military power in the region, presupposes a strong foothold in the contiguous countries for logistical and strategic reasons. With the US erecting a militarised embassy building in Baghdad that's so large it's visible from space and numerous military bases being set up in Afghanistan a quick glance on the map should tell you that what we're witnessing a classic case of encirclement.

These assumptions are like the myth of CIA omniscience, but when it's not subcontracting work to P2-style Consortiums, the CIA is just a corporation staffed by professionals who seek and sell raw intelligence right or wrong.

Not omniscient, but far more powerful than they want you to know. You are accusing me of belittling the hi-jackers' sophistication when you are constantly playing down the capability of the most richly-resourced, technologically advanced intelligence service(s) in the world yourself.

 

[e/y]

Reagan National Airport is about 2.5-3 miles away from the Pentagon. when I flew into DC in 2000, we flew over downtown DC prior to landing. also, unless I imagined them, when I worked in DC you could still see planes flying to and from the airport over Crystal City, VA (also not far from the Pentagon, iirc) and near Georgetown - this is post 9/11. to describe the airspace around the Pentagon as a strict no fly zone is incorrect.

 

[crackerjack]

[*]9/11 commission members publicly speaking out about considering to press "obstruction of justice" charges against NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) for withholding information on the exact reasons of the non-appearance of interception jets after contact was lost with the hi-jacked planes (the interception of airliners is a pretty regular occurrence, happening up to 150 times annually, but not on 9/11)
[*]etc. pp.[/LIST]

That's not what it says here:

It's worth lingering over Griffin's response to illustrate a typical reaction among conspiracy theorists to refutation. One of the bedrocks of the conspiracy theory is that U.S. military planes should have been easily able to intercept any of the four hijacked airplanes on 9/11 to prevent the attack. The Popular Mechanics article notes that only one NORAD interception of a civilian airplane over North America had occurred in the decade before 9/11, of golfer Payne Stewart's Learjet, and that it took one hour and 19 minutes to intercept before it ultimately crashed. Based on initial reports that misread the official crash report, conspiracists had previously cited the Stewart case as evidence that it normally only took NORAD 19 minutes to intercept civilian aircraft.

Anyway, that's just one small point. There are others: if you've got the time, I recommend this.
http://www.slate.com/id/2302831/

 

[craner]

Fine, so case officers recognised some of the names on the passenger lists - - "Ah, yeah, I know him, that's the guy with al-Qaida connections who's been taking flight lessons in Florida for the last couple of months - who'd've guessed..." - - but where exactly comes the Afghanistan connection into play? Most of the hi-jackers were Saudis and, as far as I know, none of them were trained in Afghanistan but in Pakistan.

In the run-up to the Afghanistan war the Taliban even offered the US authorities that if there was any evidence of al-Qaida presence in their country they would eliminate those dependances themselves. Of course, the US government refused and rather started an invasion. If I understand aright, up to the present day not a single al-Qaida fighter or base has been discovered on Afghan soil.

And was the evil turbaned terror overlord really ever hiding in those Tora Bora caves? There are reports that in summer 2001 he was treated in a, I believe, Islamabad hospital for kidney problems and met up with the local CIA liaison. Surely, it shouldn't have been difficult to trace him from there?

So, to sum up, al-Qaeda never were in Afghanistan, at all, but in Pakistan -- in Pakistan, and in cahoots with CIA handlers. There's quite a lot of evidence to the contrary, but I'm intrigued to read the evidence behind your theory. Could you post it, please?

Or why didn't the CIA work some of their interrogation magic on the bin Laden family members instead of breaking the nation-wide grounding order imposed after 9/11 to fly them out of the US?

Possibly because these family members have nothing to do with bin Laden of al-Qaeda -- unlike some members of the al-Saud clan, I must add.

With the US erecting a militarised embassy building in Baghdad that's so large it's visible from space and numerous military bases being set up in Afghanistan a quick glance on the map should tell you that what we're witnessing a classic case of encirclement.

It doesn't seem to be working out very well, though, does it. I mean, on a cost-benefit analysis, including the destruction of the WTC, how pleased would you say the P2-style Consortium are with the result of all of this effort? Maybe they should have stuck to their 1991 plans to invade Libya, Syria, Yemen and Somalia instead.

It's hilarious, of course, that you have taken my little geopolitical fantasy so seriously; why are you conspiracy theorists always tone-deaf, I wonder?

Not omniscient, but far more powerful than they want you to know. You are accusing me of belittling the hi-jackers' sophistication when you are constantly playing down the capability of the most richly-resourced, technologically advanced intelligence service(s) in the world yourself.

Well, maybe I do play down their reach and capability, but not without good reason. Even the best field agents and officers cannot avoid creating chaos and catastrophe; just ask Bob Baer. Having said that, I generally and genuinely do believe that CIA agents are extraordinary people.

 

[lanugo]

So, to sum up, al-Qaeda never were in Afghanistan, at all, but in Pakistan -- in Pakistan, and in cahoots with CIA handlers. There's quite a lot of evidence to the contrary, but I'm intrigued to read the evidence behind your theory. Could you post it, please?

Sure, off the top of my head I can provide two sources:

There's Noam Chomsky on Press TV making a point about the illegality of the Afghanistan war and the lack of evidence regarding a substantial Taliban/al-Qaeda connection:

"The explicit and declared motive of the [Afghanistan] war was to compel the Taliban to turn over to the United States, the people who they accused of having been involved in World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist acts. The Taliban…they requested evidence…and the Bush administration refused to provide any," the 81-year-old senior academic made the remarks on Press TV's program a Simple Question.

"We later discovered one of the reasons why they did not bring evidence: they did not have any."

The political analyst also said that nonexistence of such evidence was confirmed by FBI eight months later.

And then there's the very informative piece "Did 9/11 Justify the War in Afghanistan?" by David Ray Griffin which goes into the Bush administration's refusal to provide evidence of the responsibility of Osama bin Laden for 9/11:

Ten days after the 9/11 attacks, CNN reported:

“The Taliban . . . refus[ed] to hand over bin Laden without proof or evidence that he was involved in last week's attacks on the United States. . . . The Taliban ambassador to Pakistan . . . said Friday that deporting him without proof would amount to an ‘insult to Islam.’"

CNN also made clear that the Taliban’s demand for proof was not made without reason, saying:

“Bin Laden himself has already denied he had anything to do with the attacks, and Taliban officials repeatedly said he could not have been involved in the attacks.”

Bush, however, “said the demands were not open to negotiation or discussion.”11

With this refusal to provide any evidence of bin Laden’s responsibility, the Bush administration made it impossible for the Taliban to turn him over. As Afghan experts quoted by the Washington Post pointed out, the Taliban, in order to turn over a fellow Muslim to an “infidel” Western nation, needed a “face-saving formula.” Milton Bearden, who had been the CIA station chief in Afghanistan in the 1980s, put it this way: While the United States was demanding, “Give up bin Laden,” the Taliban were saying, “Do something to help us give him up.”12 But the Bush administration refused.

After the bombing began in October, moreover, the Taliban tried again, offering to turn bin Laden over to a third country if the United States would stop the bombing and provide evidence of his guilt. But Bush replied: "There's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty." An article in London’s Guardian, which reported this development, was entitled: “Bush Rejects Taliban Offer to Hand Bin Laden Over.”13 So it was the Bush administration, not the Taliban, that was responsible for the fact that bin Laden was not turned over.

In August of 2009, President Obama, who had criticized the US invasion of Iraq as a war of choice, said of the US involvement in Afghanistan: “This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity.”14 But the evidence shows, as we have seen, that it, like the one in Iraq, is a war of choice."

It also mentions that - contrary to what you have been claiming in this thread - war preparations for an invasion in Afghanistan had begun 2 months prior to 9/11:

This conclusion is reinforced by reports indicating that the United States had made the decision to invade Afghanistan two months before the 9/11 attacks. At least part of the background to this decision was the United States’ long-time support for UNOCAL’s proposed pipeline, which would transport oil and natural gas from the Caspian Sea region to the Indian Ocean through Afghanistan and Pakistan.15 This project had been stymied through the 1990s because of the civil war that had been going on in Afghanistan since the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.

In the mid-1990s, the US government had supported the Taliban with the hope that its military strength would enable it to unify the country and provide a stable government, which could protect the pipeline. By the late 1990s, however, the Clinton administration had given up on the Taliban.16

When the Bush administration came to power, it decided to give the Taliban one last chance. During a four-day meeting in Berlin in July 2001, representatives of the Bush administration insisted that the Taliban must create a government of “national unity” by sharing power with factions friendly to the United States. The US representatives reportedly said: “Either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs.”17

After the Taliban refused this offer, US officials told a former Pakistani foreign secretary that “military action against Afghanistan would go ahead . . . before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.”18 And, indeed, given the fact that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon occurred when they did, the US military was able to mobilize to begin its attack on Afghanistan by October 7.

It appears, therefore, that the United States invaded Afghanistan for reasons far different from the official rationale, according to which we were there to capture or kill Osama bin Laden.

In Libya, al-Qaeda is still the CIA's weapon of choice. They've made al-Qaeda asset Abdulhakim al-Hasidi the de facto military commander of Tripoli and the rebel forces are pretty much run by the LIFG (Libyan Islamic Fighting Group), a group that merged with al-Qaeda in 2007. More info on Land Destroyer (the best geopolitical blog around these days).

 

[craner]

Could you do a little bit better than Noam Chomsky on Press TV and Another 9/11 Conspiracy Theorist, please? I think, you know, you might have to, to get out of here alive.

It also mentions that - contrary to what you have been claiming in this thread - war preparations for an invasion in Afghanistan had begun 2 months prior to 9/11:

All of this is complete rubbish; dragging the UNECOL pipeline into it is laughable, for one thing. What, they would go to all of this trouble for one pipeline? There are pipelines being dug all over Central Asia, the Caucasus, etc. -- there would be a more subtle method of gaining influence here, surely. Like, I don't know, trying Tbilisi, Kiev, Tashkent, Moscow? A bit of diplomacy, electoral engineering, backroom business, black market transactions?

Have you read -- and this is just one suggestion I could make among many, many others, but I am keeping it simple for you -- Ahmed Rashid? Clinton certainly attempted to coddle the Taliban, rather gruesomely, on behalf of UNECOL and the Argentinian and Saudi companies involved, but that lasted about as long as it took al-Qaeda to bomb Nairobi and Clinton to bomb back some al-Qaeda tents in Afghanistan. This is around the time, by the way, that Mullah Omar was boasting to anybody who was listening -- that is, anyone who was paying attention -- about giving bin Laden sanctuary.

The Bush Administration was not focused on Afghanistan at all, and this is because they were obsessed with Russia, North Korea, China, and building themselves a new arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons (Rumsfeld, as well as trying to restructure the American military, was also preoccupied with redefining what exactly constituted a 'nuclear weapon', as such). Terrorists and Muslims were pretty low-down on their list of priorities -- although, of course, this was obviously an administration wide subterfuge, with everybody playing their allotted part so perfectly.

The Pentagon did not have plans to invade Afghanistan that they could take off the shelf -- the plan they came up with was a combination of Rumsfeld's military philosophy and pure contingency. The contingency being that they didn't have time to organize a large scale military campaign or amass the personnel without severely postponing an assault. So they decided to utilize the Northern Alliance, shower them with money, cover them from the air, and mentor them with CIA and Special Forces support -- which suited Rumsfeld who wanted a light war on the cheap, which is what he got.

 

[craner]

To recap, for my benefit as much as anybody else:

A large P2-style Consortium of intelligence forces, military hardliners, neocon hawks and private industry interests nominally called The Project for the New American Century, an organization so secret they posted a manifesto on a website, hired hundreds of accomplices -- including airport personnel, air traffic controllers, military pilots, soldiers, security guards, firemen, paid "witnesses" and fake terrorists -- to participate in a plot to:

- fly two full passenger jets into WTC 1 and 2, destroying them
- trigger a controlled demolition in WT7, destroying it
- direct a full passenger jet equipped with advanced drone technology into one side of the Pentagon
- fly a full passenger jet into the ground outside Pennsylvania (or did they?)

The purpose being to provide a pretext for the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, with the aim of finally gaining control of the trans-Afghan pipeline and erecting numerous military bases, including a militarized embassy in Iraq, thereby encircling Iran.

Cover for this operation was provided by a media/intelligence hoax called al-Qaeda, with the help of a CIA agent called Osama bin Laden, who was based in Pakistan. Various fighters labelled or linked to an organisation now called al-Qaeda continue to be used in CIA/P2-style operations in Libya.

Have I missed anything out?

 

[lanugo]

Quite frankly, I'm not in position to judge whether or not there were or are viable and pragmatic geo-politico-economic alternatives to the UNECOL (sic!) pipeline. I must say, that how you describe the Afghanistan war coming into being as ahaphazard undertaking determined by military doctrine aspects and time pressure sounds really convincing. However, the words of a former Pakistani foreign secretary who said that he knew two months in advance of US plans to invade Afghanistan remains a substantial argument against the scenario you envisaged (there also reports by Marines who had been informed as early as June 2001 that there would be a major mobilisation).

Also, your statement that "the Bush Administration was not focused on Afghanistan at all, and this is because they were obsessed with Russia, North Korea, China" makes you sound a little oblivious to the fundamental interconnectedness of geopolitical matters - how can the US be obsessed with Russia and China and not be interested in Afghanistan? Soft underbelly, Heartland, World-Island and all that.

I see that you edited away your request for more info on Al-Qaeda involvement in Libya. I'll direct you to this superb post on LD, anyway. Please read it, I'd really like to know what you have to say about his take on the ongoing CIA liaison with Al-Qaeda. It's too well documented to be all made up. Here's a teaser:

In Libya, Qaddafi has fought for nearly three decades to crush the extremist militants of Libya's eastern region, centered on the cities of Darnah and the current epicenter of the NATO-backed rebellion, Benghazi. This eastern region is considered, according to West Point's CTC report, as one of the highest concentrations of terrorists in the world. It is also a region the CIA and MI6 have helped fund, arm, and train over the same 30 years.

At one point, Qaddafi had almost entirely extinguished the movement, in particular LIFG, most of whose leadership fled, and ironically sought refuge in London, Langley, and Washington. Qaddafi would attempt to re-approach the West by abandoning his WMD programs and inviting Western intelligence agencies in to help counter the remnants of LIFG and other regional terror organizations. The CIA and MI6 instead, rearmed, reorganized, and redirected these terrorist organizations back at the Qaddafi regime culminating in the February 17, 2011 "Day of Rage" and the subsequent NATO intervention. Indeed, the US, UK, France, Qatar, and other NATO member states are overtly deposing Qaddafi in favor for a regime made up of hardcore terrorists.

 

[Mr. Tea]

fake terrorists

This is the bit that really interests me. How much do you have to pay someone, do you suppose, to allow themselves to be falsely accused of a crime for which they will be tried, convicted and very probably executed? Why has it not occurred to any of the alleged 9/11 attackers, as they sit in jail waiting for their death sentences to be announced, to say "Fuck this for a game of terrorists, I'm going spill the beans"? Unless the CIA has arranged for $72m to be waiting for each of them when they get to heaven...

 

[lanugo]

Your synopsis gets it about right except for two points: Firstly, I never equated the rogue consortium with the PNAC - although Rumsfeld and Cheney are likely to be members of the former as well - and, secondly, I didn't mean to suggest that each and every one of the last decade's geopolitical events is the direct outcome of a strategic master plan - however, it is my persuasion that the main parameters for a major future pan-eurasian US engagement have been purposefully set on 9/11.

Incidentally, in a nice instance of synchronicity I just came across a report indicating that with your insinuation about the absurdity of PNAC complicity and the use of drone technology you might have undeliberately hit the mark:

An investigative committee released a report this week estimating that the US Government has lost as much as $60 billion to waste, fraud and corruption in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade.

The report is the work of the Wartime Contracting Commission, established by Congress in 2008 to investigate funds and contracts in support of US military operation. Rather than advocating a reduction in a ballooning military budget that has nearly doubled since the false flag terrorist incident of 9/11, however, the report makes the case that budget cuts to the Department of Defense will actually increase the wastage and instead argues that massive increases in spending need to be maintained.

Touted as a team of “independent investigators,” the report is being hailed as a serious attempt to get a handle on the budget of the government agency most notorious for waste, fraud and corruption.

What is not being noted is that the commission includes such members as Dov Zakheim, the comptroller of the Pentagon under the first George W. Bush administration when a DOD Inspector General report established that the Pentagon was unable to account for over 2.3 trillion dollars in transactions.

Zakheim was a member of the neocon Project for a New American Century and a signatory to their 2000 document, Rebuiding America’s Defenses, which called for a “new Pearl Harbor” to justify a transformation of the US military.

Prior to taking over the Pentagon’s finances, Zakheim was an executive at System Planning Corporation, a defense contractor which specialized in advanced technologies, including systems for remotely controlling aircraft.

 

[lanugo]

This is the bit that really interests me. How much do you have to pay someone, do you suppose, to allow themselves to be falsely accused of a crime for which they will be tried, convicted and very probably executed? Why has it not occurred to any of the alleged 9/11 attackers, as they sit in jail waiting for their death penalties to be announced, to say "Fuck this for a game of terrorists, I'm going spill the beans"? Unless the CIA has arranged for $72m to be waiting for each of them when they get to heaven...

I suppose that when you're sitting in some black prison in an unknown location somewhere on the globe waiting for your next round of water-boarding you won't be able to knock on the door of your cell and shout: "Warden, get me a NYT reporter, I'm going public with this bullshit!"

 

[craner]

the words of a former Pakistani foreign secretary who said that he knew two months in advance of US plans to invade Afghanistan remains a substantial argument against the scenario you envisaged (there also reports by Marines who had been informed as early as June 2001 that there would be a major mobilisation).

Which foreign secretary? What did he say? What marines? What reports? This is all new to me.

how can the US be obsessed with Russia and China and not be interested in Afghanistan?

Because their main focus of interest was the IBM treaty and spy planes, not a Central Asian gas pipeline. (Maybe "obsessed" was too strong a word, here.)

 

[craner]

I'm also a bit confused, now, about whether Cheney or Rumsfeld are part of the P2-style Consortium or not. If they're not, then how does the whole thing work? It wouldn't be possible to launch two wars behind their backs, surely? Or would it?

 

[baboon2004]

This is the bit that really interests me. How much do you have to pay someone, do you suppose, to allow themselves to be falsely accused of a crime for which they will be tried, convicted and very probably executed? Why has it not occurred to any of the alleged 9/11 attackers, as they sit in jail waiting for their death penalties to be announced, to say "Fuck this for a game of terrorists, I'm going spill the beans"? Unless the CIA has arranged for $72m to be waiting for each of them when they get to heaven...

because they have a sexual fetish for being waterboarded.

also, what if the conspiracy is itself a conspiracy, designed to deflect conspiracy theorists from the real truth?

basically, world politics is far too governed by happenstance and plain and simple fuck-up (read about the Cuban Missile Crisis for a start, and for that matter the CIA's plots to kill Castro) for any huge masterplan to go off without a hitch.

 

[baboon2004]

http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2011/02/cia-coup-college.html

 

[lanugo]

Which foreign secretary? What did he say? What marines? What reports? This is all new to me.

A quick search turned up this BBC article from 18 September, 2001:

A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban even before last week's attacks.

Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.

Regarding Rumsfeld and Cheney:

I'm also a bit confused, now, about whether Cheney or Rumsfeld are part of the P2-style Consortium or not. If they're not, then how does the whole thing work? It wouldn't be possible to launch two wars behind their backs, surely? Or would it?

Firstly, I never equated the rogue consortium with the PNAC - although Rumsfeld and Cheney are likely to be members of the former as well -

The consortium and PNAC are not the same thing. It is, however, very likely that two of the most prominent members of the PNAC, Rumsfeld and Cheney, are also members of the consortium.

http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2011/02/cia-coup-college.html

Could you elaborate, please?

 

[Mr. Tea]

I suppose that when you're sitting in some black prison in an unknown location somewhere on the globe waiting for your next round of water-boarding you won't be able to knock on the door of your cell and shout: "Warden, get me a NYT reporter, I'm going public with this bullshit!"

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was put on trial in 2008 in front of a good crowd of journalists. If he'd wanted to tell the world about his monumental setting-up, he had his chance. Instead he said he recognised no law but shari'a and welcomed his impending martyrdom. He must be the most pro-American fanatic in the world to keep playing his part this well despite knowing that he's almost certainly going to get executed for his troubles.

 

[baboon2004]

Could you elaborate, please?

This guy wants there to be conspiracy at every turn. He probably thinks the CIA backed Northern Soul.

Any decent points he may have are lost because he then makes conspiratorial links where there are none. Real life and real poltiics are incredibly complex and frequently unclear, and this kind of writing neglects that for easy conspiracy. It's adolescent, good vs evil.