127. To: mehitable (#58) I have to be running along, but here are a few things that bother me: These 19 hijackers did not act at all like crazed Muslim fanatics before they hijacked the plane, and what the hell were they doing in Portland Maine? What was this whole traveling to Maine and then to Boston for? Why hijack the planes from Boston and hijack them all the way to New York? That's a damn long distance to travel if you're doing a dastardly deed. WHy not hijack them in New York itself. Less flying time and less likelihood of getting caught. ****
I would submit that any hijacker who acted crazed would have been vetted out long before the attack. The fact that they could remain cool, calm and collected was why 911 was successful. The old adage selecting the right person for the job applies here. Please note that Moussaoui didnt make the cut. He was left behind because he was unstable. Many of those disputing the official version of the 9/11 attacks have chosen, oddly enough, to challenge some of the government's most solid evidence and to do so with flimsy evidence of their own. This is the case with you. What you are describing is the typical activity of a terrorist cell.
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The pilots are not described by their flying schools in glowing terms. In fact, one instructor said one of the pilots was so bad he was surprised he could drive a car. Yet I think flying into the WTC - not once, but twice, seems like quite a precision bit of flying. Now, I actually HAVE flown a plane once - takeoff, flew it around, and landed, so I know it doesn't take a genius, but those jets have tons of controls and the least little thing can go wrong. I don't know if it's possible for them to fly like that.
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Ronald D. Bull, a retired United Airlines pilot, in Jupiter, Florida, stated, "It's not that difficult, and certainly not impossible," noting that it's much easier to crash intentionally into a target than to make a controlled landing. "If you're doing a suicide run, like these guys were doing, you'd just keep the nose down and push like the devil," says Capt. Bull, who flew 727s, 747s, 757s, and 767s for many years, internationally and domestically, including into the Washington, D.C., airports. George Williams of Waxhaw, North Carolina, piloted 707s, 727s, DC-10s, and 747s for Northwest Airlines for 38 years. "I don't see any merit to those arguments whatsoever," Capt. Williams told us. "The Pentagon is a pretty big target and I'd say hitting it was a fairly easy thing to do."
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Why not pick an easier target, like the Statue of Liberty - out there in the harbor, nothing around it?
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And what economic value would the destruction of the Statue of Liberty bring to our enemies? This isnt to mention the bonus loss of innocent life. This is a poor analogy.
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Why weren't these planes - all 4 of them - stopped by our air force? What the hell was that about? Even if there is no conspiracy, that is gross - GROSS - incompetence. This could have been a Russian nuclear attack in years past - how long were these guys flying around - an hour or more? I forget exactly. If there is no conspiracy, then there is gross negligence, and I don't think anyone has been fired.
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The hijackers, or the pilots, turned the transponders off, making the planes hard to see. Add to that government incompetence.
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I do have questions about why the buildings went down the way they did. Gigantic structures like that, built to withstand damn near anything, including air strikes from my understanding (the nearby Empire state building WAS struck by a plane in the 40s) so it must have been conceivable that a plane might accidentally strike one of the buildings. And yet, after only a hour, with damage apparently on the top floors, the entire buildings collapsed. And yes - they DO LOOK like controlled demos, whether they are or not. They DO LOOK IT.
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Steel doesn't have to 'melt' as some people claim. The yield strength of steel drops dramatically under heat, and the impact of the airliners would have severely impacted the support columns. When they could no longer support the upper stories and the top started coming down, the dynamic loading caused a very rapid collapse, or 'pancaking,' that would have very nearly approached free-fall rate. No demolition charges were needed to accomplish this.
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And what of Building 7? Why would that collapse when didn't appear so badly damaged and its behind TWO OTHER buildings that were in flames completely and didn't collapse?
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Building 7 was on fire for hours and was weakened and collapsed. No conspiracy here.
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Also, what of the debris that rained down from the towers? I heard one fire fighter say that there were no recognizable things from any of the offices. The biggest identifiable thing he saw was part of a phone keypad. And yet my understanding was that Mohammed Atta's passport was found intact at the scene. That's a bizarre...coincidence.
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I have no clue where youre going here. Ive seen pictures of full-sized pieces of paper raining down from the towers.
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Then when you add in all the other things - how some of these hijackers had apparent CIA backgrounds, how some of them have been seen alive in other countries so their identities were stolen apparently, how Marvin Bush, the president's brother, was in charge of WTC security, how NORAD had some kind of drill on THAT day for just that kind of event, how the stocks seem to reflect some kind of insider trader prior to the events - damn, that is a whole lot of questions that have to be answered. This cannot be ignored.
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This seems to be the part where a KooK glazes over and begins to babble. Ive done enough to support the 911 Commission and the Bush administration. Ill be happy to continue this defense once I return from business.
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The bottom line for me is this: The PNAC group declared in the late 1990s that the US needed a Pearl Harbor event so that we would go to war with Iraq. And 8 months into the Bush admin - we GET THAT EVENT.
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PNAC is code for anti-Semitism. So the Joooos did the deed, eh? When will your kind get in line?
Aaron posted on 2006-09-29 10:54:26 ET Reply Trace