1. It is now well established that investigation into terrorist plots that pointed very clearly to the WTC attack were deliberately suppressed prior to the investigation (one of the principal whistlebolowers about this obstruction, FBI Agent Colleen Rowley is on Time magazine's "person of the year" cover ... not an honor accorded to a quack with unsubstantiated allegations.) And she is far from the only field agent to claim that top brass firmly called them off of investigations that were pointing very directly to the coming disaster.
   
   Perhaps the most compelling testimony in this regard is that of David Schippers, who was approached by several FBI operatives who absolutely knew of the coming attack and were hopping mad because they were being silenced by superiors in Washington. Now David Schippers is not some liberal activist out to get the Bush administration ... to the contrary he is a highly conservative staunch republican and was actually the top prosecuting lawyer in the Clinton impeachment! His involvement stems from running up against the same complaint from FBI agents during the Clinton administration, saying that Clinton "shut them up" and didn't even want to know the names of Al-Quaeda operatives when they were positively identified. So when, under a Republican administration, he started hearing the same things from Chicago and Minnesota FBI agents (and other agents he has not named because they are not under whistleblower protection) regarding suppressed intelligence about 9/11, he quickly called up Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense and his political compatriot -- RUMSFELD WOULD NOT EVEN TALK TO HIM! Our Secretary of defense, with whom Schippers had been on good terms and personally connected within Republican ranks, passed him off to assistants who gave feeble excuses why they weren't interested in his information ... finally promising that Rumsfeld woud call him "the next day" ... but it never happened. He was stonewalled. After this rude awakening, Schippers lamented, "I'll tell you something. This is one of the things that, to me, it is almost inconceivable, inconceivable that with the knowledge they had that they would turn their back ... there never would have been an attack on the Trade Towers. But, I don't know, as a human being, as a former prosecutor, as a lawyer and a guy who represents police and agents all over the United States, it is inconceivable to me that those bureaucrats in Washington would turn their back on the obvious for their own purposes." Here is a link to one of David Schipper's interviews where he outlines his experiences: Alex Jones interview with David Schippers.
   
2. It has never been explained why the most fundamental automatic procedures for dealing with an "off flight plan" airplane were not followed on 9/11. In the aftermath of the tragedy, Condoleeza Rice offered the foolish explanation that "we had never thought of such a thing happening, it took everybody by surprise, nobody knew what to do." Anybody remember that? It was COMPLETELY untrue ... and it is not even close to reasonable that a woman in her position as National Security Adviser would not have known that the scenario was WELL prepared for, had been thought out in great detail in numerous strategic planning sessions, and there were well-established and PUBLICLY PUBLISHED standard operating procedures (see www.faa.gov} for such an occurrence. These procedures involved first attempting radio contact with the straying craft, then if not possible to IMMEDIATELY scramble interceptor jets to escort the craft, followed by a check list of actions to be taken to attempt communication and to force the craft out of the air if it did not respond. These procedures were not only well established on paper, they had actually been put into effect before with straying craft (including a corporate Lear jet a few years ago), and went smoothly, exactly as planned. There are military pilots standing by 24 hours a day for exactly this purpose, and according to S.O.P., aircraft are to be scrambled and IN THE AIR within fifteen minutes of an airplane's unexplained departure from flight plan. This does NOT require authorization from top brass or the White House, it is an AUTOMATIC procedure (which in fact can only be STOPPED by orders from the highest command levels.) Yet it was an hour and a half AFTER the craft were known to be hijacked before any military craft left the ground. You would expect a critical failure like this to be the subject of immediate and intensive investigation, wouldn't you? But no, it has NEVER been addressed by the administration or the "investigation committee" Bush reluctantly empowered under pressure, after having stated STRONGLY that there would be NO investigation into what happened, as it would "distract" the government from important retaliatory actions. Friends, anyone who doesn't smell a rat in that scenario has lost their olfactory organs!

• On February 27, 1933, the German Parliament (Reichstag) - a national symbol of German pride - was burned down. A Dutch Communist named Marinus van der Lubbe was found at the scene and charged with arson (and later executed).
  
  
• Historians do not agree whether the Nazis intentionally set the Reichstag fire in order to create a national crisis, or whether they simply were opportunistic, although there is significant evidence of Nazi participation. In either case, the event was used as justification for a sharp curtailment of constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties. Chancellor Hitler invoked Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, permitting the suspension of civil liberties in time of national emergency. His "Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and State" abrogated several constitutional protections, including freedom of the press and the right to public assembly, the right to privacy of postal and electronic communications, protection against unlawful searches and seizures and others. A supplemental decree created the SA (Storm Troops) and SS (Special Security) Federal police agencies (Homeland Security?)
  
  
• In the ensuing months the Nazis repeatedly used the tactic of creating a "law and order" crisis so that they could provide solutions which further eroded civil liberties and entrenched their power. Individual leaders of the German states were systematically replaced by Nazi bureaucrats and it was eventually declared that the states' rights to individual self-determination guaranteed by the German constitution were "no longer needed."
  
  
• Shortly thereafter, the Reichstag under Hitler's direction passed the "Law for Terminating the Suffering of People and Nation," also known as the Enabling Law, essentially granting Adolph Hitler dictatorial power.

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The parallels are ominous, and the clear message of the German experience is that a democracy can be destroyed by creating a law-and-order crisis and offering as a 'solution' the abdication of civil liberties and state's rights to a powerful but unaccountable central authority.

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Does the comparision end there? The ultimate goal of destroying democracy of Hitler's Germany was the complete and total annihilation of a group of people. This Final Solution could not be have been accomplished in a demorcracy.

What is the purpose of destroying the demorcracy we know of today. Is it global power? To what end? Is there a hidden agenda? If there is, then what is it? An elimination of a group of people? Genocide? What is the comparision now? Questions, questions . . . so many questions .

Sabra

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eventually eliminate and subjugate a group of people

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I just don't see the logic, why would they aid an attack on the pentagone or the white house on THEMSELVES by ignoring procedures. If it were just the WTC, it would be a different story.

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Should we assume the attack was left to take its course in order to give themselves justification for many other retiliating actions they would not have otherwise been able to take?

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Or was this attack such a startling surprise, in its timing not so much in its self, that they were caught off guard and unprepared? After all how many seconds before the plane went off the radar and the time of impact?

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So many scenarios, meanwhile, Saddam's head is wished on a platter by many Iraqis waiting for a chance to get rid of him.

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Yes, the Saddam issue is a terrible one, and something must certainly be done about him. However, if the events here described show that the gang in power is deliberately lying and manipulating events for their own purposes - which I believe they do - then I don't think these are the people we want to launch an immediate attack against Iraq without a lot more questions being asked and answered first!

Love,
Greg

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Well, a dire crisis that creates widespread fear and panic being used as an excuse to quickly grab war powers and push through legislation expanding executive power and secrecy and bypassing civil rights (that would not have had a snowball's chance in hell of passing BEFORE 9/11) is way too close a parallel to Hitler's power grab in 1933 to ignore.

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I was attempting to show that in my view Greg's comparison is flawed. Greg pointed out two governments from two different time periods: Nazi Germany's government in the 1930's and the United States government of the present.

When one is speaking or referring to the ideologies of the Nazi's, one cannot help but think of the atrocities they committed which was primarily aimed at seeking out and eliminating the Jewish population. Not putting them in reservations. Not putting them into prisons. Not kicking them out of the country, but rather a complete and total systematic annihilation till they were extinct.

Of course I have heard of Wounded Knee. There were many, many Native American Indians and tribes that suffered under the hands of the U.S. government. I don't even like the phrase " Indian reservation" because to me it is a constant reminder of how the American Indians were treated. And who can forget what the African Americans have experienced in this country.

My attempt was not at all to overshadow other atrocities or to say that the holocaust was the greatest atrocity of all time. What about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge Regime in Cambodia, the Rwandan Massacres . . .

Twentieth Century Atlas - Top Ranked Atrocities

Greg is right in thinking when he said:

"In fairness to Sabra, I think that what he was really asking about was present or potential targets of genocide by the current "gang" that is in power."

That is what I am asking, but on the same scale and brutality of the Nazi's, only because a parallel is being made between them and our current government.

Sabra

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I went to the site(s) you linked which you say is proof the Government knew we were going to be attacked, knew how we were going to be attacked and stood by and let it happen.

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You also attempted to prove the government has the means to take control of Boeing 757 and 767 commercial airliners from the manual control of the pilots and fly them by remote control where ever they wish.

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As proof, you offer an interview of David Shippers by Alex Jones. First Greg, conspiracies aren't proven by one person, no matter who that person is.

Second, if anything, Shippers blows the theory all to hell that Iraq isn't involved with terrorist activities aimed at the US. In fact, Shippers claims Iraq was directly involved in the Oklahoma City bombing acting in concert with McVeigh and further states Iraq is again up to something in the same area. He also said 3500 to 5000 Iraqi Republican Guards are in the US and living in the area and that there is communications between them and Iraq.

Is that enough proof for you and the others who say show us the proof Iraq has been involved in terrorist activities against the US or has plans to use terrorists against the US before we go in and disarm Saddam? If not, Shippers also asserts the Iraqi's were involved in the downing of TWA flight 800 and the bombing of the WTC. Is that now enough for you to agree the US should go in and remove Saddam?

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Again, no "proof" of anything claimed, but Schippers is a highly credible authority, a top level prosecutor thoroughly trained in investigative techniques and long-term professional relationships with many FBI agents, andas a conservative republican and prosecutor in the Clinto impeachment certainly no enemy of the Bush administration (at least until his inquiries on this issue were stonewalled). His statements about high-level obstruction of investigations pointing to the 9/11 attack certainly deserve to be considered substantive evidence, especially when combine with similar reports from other credible sources like Agent Colleen Rowley and others.

As for his statements linking Iraq to terrorism ... huh? I've never said Saddam isn't linked to terrorism, and I don't think I've heard anyone else here say that. Considering what we know of him I think it would be astounding if he weren't linked to terrorism, whther through Al Quaida or otherwise. That still doesn't mean that the only valid response to him is immediate preemptive attack, but that's really a different subject entirely that has nothing to do with Schippers' and others testimony that investigations which could have prevented 9/11 were systematically blocked.

I think Connie did an excellent job of supplying the FAA regulations and other relevant information, thanks Connie.

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You are trying very hard Greg to get the idea across that President Bush is a conspirator bent on setting up an absolute tyranny in the United States. You mention people high in the US government, but no names. There isn't anyone higher in the Government than the President Greg and no conspiracy of the scope you're alleging could succeed without the President being in on it or leading it. Why don't you stop the insinuations and just say what you mean plainly that George Bush was aware of the pending attack, could have stopped it but wanted it to happen as a prelude to seizing power and turning the United States into a dictatorship? When you do that Greg, I'll tell you what I think.

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I'm sorry, jwhop, I didn't realize it sounded like I was "insinuating" -- I'll correct that: Yes, I believe that President Bush is a conspirator bent on setting up a tyranny in the U.S. I don't know for sure whether he was aware of the coming attack in all its particulars, but I do definitely believe that he could have stopped at the very least the attacks after the first tower, but chose to let it happen to create a crisis as a prelude to and excuse for siezing power. Was that clear enough?

The only reason I have frequently used phrases like "people high in the government" is to avoid the impression that I think Bush is the mastermind or instigator of this. I think his father and his father's cronies, along with a lot of other powerful figures "high in government" and in the CIA and the corporate/military/industrial complex, are more likely the major decisionmakers, and that GW as president is simply the current clique member best empowered to implement the agenda on an "official" level at this time.

Once again, I emphasize that this is my judgement of the way it is, based on a lot of evidence and reasoning ... and the purpose of this thread is to look at that evidence and reasoning as a group, to see whether it is compelling to others too (or if it can be shot down, if that's the case. )

Love,
Greg

• On September 13th, Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard B. Myers stated to the Senate Armed Service Committee, "When it became clear what the threat was, we did scramble fighter aircraft, AWACS, radar aircraft and tanker aircraft to begin to establish orbits in case other aircraft showed up in the FAA system that were Hijacked." Myer was then asked "Was that order you just described given before or after the Pentagon [the last of the three targets] was struck? Do you know?" Admitting that he did know, Myers replied "That order, to the best of my knowledge, was after the Pentagon was struck." [Source: Report of the Senate Armed Services Committee, 13 September 2001.]
  
• NORAD spokesman Maj. Mike Snyder corroborated Myers' testimony. Reporting on an interview with Snyder on September 15th, the Boston Globe reported that "The command did not immediately scramble any fighters even though it was alerted to a hijacking 10 minutes before the first plane... slammed into the first World Trade Center tower... The spokesman said that the fighters remained on the ground until after the Pentagon was hit. The failure to act was particularly surprising since Snyder had also admitted that 'fighters routinely intercept aircraft.'"
  
• Vice-President Dick Cheney confirmed the same statement on September 16th to NBC News correspondent Tim Russert, reporting that "The first hijacking was confirmed at 8:20, the Pentagon was struck at 9:40, and yet it seems we were not able to scramble fighter jets in time to protect the Pentagon..." Cheney further suggested to Russert that it was the President who made the decision to allow planes to scramble after the Pentagon crash. [Source: NBC "Meet the Press," 16 September, 2001.]
  
• Shortly thereafter, however, the official story changed, and it was claimed that fighter jets had in fact been scrambled from Otis Air Force Base in Cape Cod around the time the first tower was struck. According to the New York Press, December 12, 2001 "Within days the story changed and it turned out that two F-15 fighters had in fact been scrambled from Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod, MA. Whether this took place before or after the first tower was struck is not clear. In any case it was too late to make a difference."
  
• Even if the "revised official story" is true, it could not explain why the fighters were "too late" to intercept the second flight that attacked the WTC 18 minutes later. The already-airborne F-15's, flying at their rated speed of 1,850 MPH would have taken at most 12 minutes to reach New York from Otis, yet according to CNN News 16 September 2001 "When the second tower was hit the fighters were still 70 miles from Manhattan." Guess they stopped for coffee on the way And of course it doesn't even BEGIN to explain why no jets were scrambled in time to intercept the third plane headed directly toward the center of the US Government in Washington DC, with nearly an hour's advance warning AFTER the hijacked craft were KNOWN to be on suicide missions to crash into major American facilities!

-transferred and held people in conditions that may amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and that violate other minimum standards relating to detention;

-refused to grant people in its custody access to legal counsel, despite ongoing interrogations which may lead to prosecutions

-refused to grant people in its custody access to the courts to challenge the lawfulness of their detention;

-refused to disclose full information about the circumstances of many of the arrests, including whether they occurred in Afghanistan, Pakistan, or elsewhere;

-undermined human rights protections in cases of people taken into custody outside Afghanistan and transferred to Guantánamo Bay. For example, six Algerian nationals were seized in Bosnia-Herzegovina and transferred to Camp X-Ray, in apparent violation of Bosnian and international law;

-undermined the presumption of innocence through a pattern of public commentary on the presumed guilt of the Guantánamo detainees;

-threatened to apply a second-class justice system by selecting foreign nationals for trial before military commissions - executive bodies lacking clear independence from the executive and with the power to hand down death sentences, and without the right of appeal to an independent and impartial court;

-raised the prospect of indefinite detention without charge or trial, or continued detention after acquittal by military commission, or repatriation that may threaten the principle of non-refoulement

-failed to show that it conducted an impartial and thorough investigation into allegations of human rights violations against Afghan villagers detained by US soldiers in Afghanistan."

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President Bush doesn't have dictatorial power and he has not suspended any constitutional gurantees.

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If you and so many other people can openly criticize your goverment without any fear of being investigated or prosecuted... well, you are definitely not living in a police state Terri!

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To be brutally frank, I [do] have fears of being investigated and prosecuted for anti-government statements ... and I personally know folks who HAVE been harmed and their websites shut down for taking anti-government positions. Again, it could be much worse than it is, and thank God that the traditions of liberty and free speech here are so deeply ingrained that the Federal powers can't yet be TOO bold in persecuting dissenters for fear of mass protests and uprisings. But it is VERY clear that the government is very strongly seeking additional powers that will give it the right to secretly detain and punish individuals based on the Justice Department saying that they are terrorist, without the need for "evidence" or public trials or judicial oversight or any other constitutional protections. As the government's ability to secretly deal with terrorist suspects continues to grow, the realistic fears of folks who oppose and speak out against the government's policies quite naturally will continue to grow. But at least at this stage, I and many others believe that the risk of taking a public stand on these issues is less important than getting the word out about this very dangerous trend. If and when the time comes that we allow fear to shut us up, then our goose really will be cooked!

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We're so selective when we talk about our privacies, but most of us surf Internet daily, we buy stuff there with our credit cards, we exchange our personal thoughts... isn't Internet a form of constant surveillance, without a police state? Kind of the Big Brother??

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Hitler's Germany is a sad historic fact that should never happen again. And thank God I don't see it happening in America or anywhere else in the world.

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CNN reported at the end of January 2002 that:

"President Bush personally asked Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle Tuesday to limit the congressional investigation into the events of September 11, congressional and White House sources told CNN...

The request was made at a private meeting with congressional leaders Tuesday morning. Sources said Bush initiated the conversation... He asked that only the House and Senate intelligence committees look into the potential breakdowns among federal agencies that could have allowed the terrorist attacks to occur, rather than a broader inquiry that some lawmakers have proposed, the sources said. Tuesday's discussion followed a rare call to Daschle from Vice President Dick Cheney last Friday to make the same request...

The pretext for the administration's proposals, according to Daschle, is that "resources and personnel" would be taken "away from the war on terrorism," in the event of a wider inquiry that is not limited to the assumption that the administration's inaction was solely a consequence of "breakdowns among federal agencies."

Paradoxically, the Bush administration thus justified blocking a wider inquiry into the intelligence failure that allowed the 11th September attacks to occur, by the need to support the administration's attempts to counter terrorism. In other words, the administration suppressed an inquiry into the greatest terror attack in U.S. history—in the name of fighting terrorism.

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Not only that, but the administration specifically asked that any investigation be limited to "the potential breakdowns among federal agencies that could have allowed the terrorist attacks to occur." In other words, the committee was TOLD IN ADVANCE what causes they were to find for the failures to predict and prevent the attack, namely "breakdowns among federal agencies." And isn't it peculiar that this idea of breakdowns among federal agencies was the primary reason given for the "need" to create the massive Homeland Security department!

Create a crisis, tell the "investigators" what the cause of the failure to prevent the crisis was, and use that cause to justify staggering expansion of Federal power! It beggars the imagination.

Love,
Greg

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Rather, the parallel I was drawing was between the Nazi's method of grabbing power by means of using a fearful and threatening external crisis (the burning of the Reichstag) and then "solving" the crisis by invoking emergency war powers, suspending civil liberties and vastly expanding military action and police powers, and the current administration's use of the WTC attacks to grab power by offering as "solutions" to the terrorist threat the invocation of emergency war powers, suspending civil liberties and vastly expanding military action and police powers.

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In my own personal opinion, extermination of the Jews was never a PRIMARY motive of Hitler's rise to power; it was rather an extraordinarily powerful propaganda tool around which to rally the German nationalist sentiment, which was in the middle of a devastating depression in which many Germans were already predisposed to blaming "rich Jewish bankers and merchants" for their woes.

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Almost verbatim to what you said, Greg. Do you think the editorial staff at the Detroit News is reading our threads?

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Hee, hee Connie ... my delusions of grandeur haven't reached quite to those proportions yet! But it is very gratifying that the mainstream media is beginning to speak out about the truly appalling attack on our constitutional freedoms that is going on under the current regime.

One observation about your surprise that a more "conservative" paper would carry this story: traditionally, conservatives have always been supporters of the strict preservation of constitutional rights (i.e. "conserving" our underlying foundations). That attitude (rightly or not) has often gotten them in hot water with modern progressive thinkers when they have looked to the constitution to support such principles as states' rights, the right to keep and bear arms, and other ideas that are out of favor with liberal thinkers today. But to the extent that conservatives remain true to their actual principles, rather than being swayed by the partisan rhetoric and flag waving emotionalism that seeks to equate "conservative" with "hawkish" or "nationalistic" or blindly supportive of military/big business interests, you would expect conservatives to be among the first to leap to the defense of the constitution when it is so baldly attacked!

Although I would personally call myself a libertarian (which is pretty much what was originally called "liberal" before so many liberals became enamored of huge government expansion to support social programs), I am VERY glad to see that there are conservatives out there who remain true to their principles rather than subscribing to the ballyhoo that tries to convince folks that conservatives are bound to support the administration's military/police expansion and the sacrifice of civil liberties to "national security." That's a phony package-deal indeed! In truth there is nothing "conservative" about this administration at all ... rather than "conserving" traditional American values, it seeks to radically change them, in precisely the ways our founding fathers most feared and tried to guard against!

Bravo to the Detroit News and to all "conservatives" who have the backbone to remain loyal to principles above flag-waving rhetoric!

Love,
Greg

P.S. -- This discussion isn't showing any signs of running out of steam, but the thread has gotten really long and slow to load ... perhaps we should start a "Part II."