About Al Qaeda

[Parinaz_M]

September 11th, 2001


On the morning of September 11, 2001, immediately after terrorists struck the Twin Towers, it looked as though the buildings might remain standing. While the plane crashes had taken huge chunks out of both towers, the overall structure seemed to be intact, at least to the observers on the ground and the millions of Americans watching the catastrophe on television. But within an hour, World Trade Center 2 had collapsed, followed by World Trade Center 1 only 40 minutes later.

In the weeks after the attacks, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers (SEI/ASCE) assembled a team of scientists and engineers to investigate exactly how the buildings collapsed.

Based on video, eyewitness accounts and debris analysis, the team formed a likely hypothesis of what happened, which they made public in April 2002. In August 2002, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency in the U.S. Commerce Department, announced it would launch its own two-year, $16 million study of the collapse.

The following is a summary of the FEMA evaluation teams' findings, which were largely along the same lines as the numerous media evaluations in the weeks after the attacks. You can read the entire report at the FEMA Web site.

When the planes hit the two towers, the collisions damaged each building in two major ways:

In each case, the force of the speeding plane knocked out a number of vertical columns around the building perimeter, damaged large sections of floor, sent furniture and plane wreckage flying through the offices and presumably damaged support columns in each building's core. Most likely, the initial impact also destroyed the sprinkler system on those floors.

The evaluation team estimates that the first plane -- a 395,000-pound (180,000-kg) Boeing 767-200ER going about 470 miles per hour (756 kph) -- fractured as many as 36 perimeter support columns over a four-story area of WTC 1's north face. The connected floors partially collapsed, and the central core suffered undefined damage. The second plane, a Boeing 767-200ER flying at about 590 miles per hour (950 kph), inflicted similar damage on WTC 2. The collision fractured as many as 32 perimeter columns over a five-story area, collapsing sections of connected floor and damaging the central core.


In each attack, the crash ignited the plane's' fuel supply, causing a massive fireball -- an expanding area of burning gas. While the ignited fuel didn't really explode, the fireball did spread fire down the side of the building, throughout the nearby floors and down interior shafts to lower floors.

The investigators hypothesized that nearly all of the jet fuel was consumed in the initial fireball and first few minutes of the building fire, but it ignited enough office equipment, paper and building materials to keep the fire raging until the collapse.

Amazingly, the initial damage to the support structure was not enough to topple the building. The report, as well as a number of prominent engineers, have claimed that the majority of skyscrapers on the planet would have collapsed within seconds of such a collision. But the collisions did divert the entire vertical load of the buildings to the remaining columns, significantly increasing the structure's stress level.

Without any additional loads on the support structure, the report claims, the towers could have stayed up indefinitely. But the extreme heat of the fire, which might have been in excess of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,090 C) at some points, exerted tremendous stress on the perimeter columns, the core columns, and the floor trusses in between them.

The main factor was really the size of the fire -- the total area it covered. Building fires typically start with a small fire -- say a burning cigarette on a stack of papers -- which gradually spreads through a larger area. In that situation, the fire is most intense where it has the most fuel (stuff that can burn), and it significantly weakens the support structure only at those most intense points.

If a fire starts in the northwest corner of a skyscraper floor, by the time the fire reaches the southeast corner, the starting fire at the starting point will have burned through most of the fuel, and the fire will not be as intense. The result is the fire doesn't put maximum strain on the total support structure all at once. It strains different parts of the support structure in turn, over time.

In the case of the World Trade Center, the burning jet fuel spread the fire across several floors in a matter of seconds. This massive fire put exceptional strain on the structure at nearly all points on those floors.

Additionally, the report suggests that the force of the collision removed much of the fire-resistant material sprayed on the steel, making the structure more susceptible to heat damage.

The heat expanded, twisted and buckled the steel support structure, gradually reducing the building's stability. Any number of things could have happened during this period.

For example, connections between vertical columns and floor trusses probably broke, dropping sections of floor on lower levels and breaking connections between the core and the perimeter wall, possibly causing columns along the perimeter to buckle outward. Every broken connection or buckled length of steel added to the force acting on connected steel segments, until the entire structure was weakened to the point that it couldn't hold the upper section of the building.

When this happened, the top part of each building collapsed onto the lower part of the building. Essentially, this was like dropping a 20-story building on top of another building. Before the crash, this upper structure exerted a constant downward force -- its weight -- on the superstructure below.

Obviously, the lower superstructure was strong enough to support this weight. But when the columns collapsed, the upper part of the building started moving -- the downward force of gravity accelerated it. The momentum of an object -- the quantity of its motion -- is equal to its mass multiplied by its velocity. So when you increase the velocity of an object with a set mass, you increase its momentum. This increases the total force that the object can exert on another object.

To understand how this works, think of a hammer. Resting in your hand, it doesn't hurt you at all. But if you drop it on your foot, it can do some damage. Similarly, if you swing the hammer forward, you can apply enough force to drive nails into a wall.

When the upper structure of each tower fell down, its velocity -- and therefore its momentum -- increased sharply. This greater momentum resulted in an impact force that exceeded the structural integrity of the columns immediately underneath the destroyed area. Those support columns gave way, and the whole mass fell on the floors even farther down. In this way, the force of the falling building structure broke apart the superstructure underneath, crushing the building from the top, one floor at a time.

To put it another way, the potential energy of the building mass, the energy of position it had due to its height and the pull of gravity, was converted into kinetic energy, or energy of motion (the report puts the total potential energy for WTC 1 at 4*10^11 joules). This is the same basic principle that professional demolition blasters use to bring down unoccupied buildings.

WTC 2, the second tower hit, actually collapsed before WTC 1. This was most likely due to two different factors. First, WTC 2 probably suffered greater immediate damage -- the second plane to hit was going faster than the first. Secondly, the plane that hit WTC 2 crashed lower on the building than the plane that hit WTC 1. Consequently, the strained support columns in WTC 2 had a greater load pressing down on them than the strained columns in WTC 1, so it would make sense that they reached the buckling point more quickly.

While the towers' support structure ultimately couldn't withstand the raging fire, it was strong enough to save thousands of people's lives. Around 99 percent of the people below the impact in each tower were able to evacuate before the buildings collapsed. If the towers hadn't been built with redundant structural stability, the death toll would have easily been in the tens of thousands.

[abadani69]

THAT'S SAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[Parinaz_M]

The Aftermath


In the months following the attacks, the United States, and the world, had a lot of work to do. While most of us were doing a lot of emotional work, to make sense of what had happened, the more than 1,500 firemen, search and rescue teams, ironworkers, engineers, heavy equipment operators and other workers at ground zero were doing the very tangible physical work of cleaning up the World Trade Center wreckage.

The ground zero effort began as a search-and-rescue operation, with workers removing debris carefully, looking for voids where there might be survivors. In the first hours, resuce workers mainly employed bucket brigades, which allowed them to remove debris carefully and systematically. This was important not only for the safety of any survivors, but also for the workers themselves. The wreckage was a precarious mess of twisted steel, concrete and debris, which could shift at any time.

The crew also brought in heavy equipment, including excavators and cranes. Setting up the massive cranes was a real challenge, because the ground underneath wasn't entirely stable. When the towers and surrounding buildings collapsed, the falling steel punctured huge holes in the WTC plaza, filling large sections of the basement with debris.

The rescue workers weren't just sifting through a pile of wreckage above ground; they were working on top of a pit filled with debris. Engineers had to find and secure stable ground for their 300-ton and 800-ton cranes.

Additionally, the ground zero crew had to address the underground bathtub's stability. The force of the collapse destroyed much of the underground support structure that held the bathtub walls in place, risking a massive underground collapse.

To maintain the basement's relative stability, the clean-up engineers had to reconfigure the tieback system that originally held the walls in place until they could construct a permanent support structure. This involved drilling into the ground and running new tieback cables between the walls and surrounding bedrock.

The clean-up effort was slow going -- the crew had to proceed carefully, and they had to move a lot of debris, truckload by truckload, to a Staten Island landfill. When the clean-up was finished, in May 2002, the workers had moved 108,000 truckloads of debris -- around 1.8 million tons of

[Rasputin]

A reflection offered at a service on the fifth anniversary of September 11th at Ohio Wesleyan University.

Five years ago on this day, 19 angry and ideologically motivated men took on a task which resulted in the death of almost 3,000 innocent people, injury of over 5,000 more, and the destruction of several landmark buildings in New York City and the District of Columbia. This was the deadliest attack America has ever experienced since its birth.

As we look back to that horrible event and those painful days, we still wonder what that event has meant to us and the rest of the world up to now, and what its effects will be on future events. September 11 can be analyzed from various angels and through different lenses. Surely, this event has amounted to a lot more than what we thought it would be at the time, and day by day it gains meanings and significance far beyond our imagination. It has certainly turned our sense of certainty into an extraordinary sense of uncertainty, and likewise, our security into insecurity.

As tragic as this event has been, it would be more tragic if in our attempt to contain its effects we lost the sight of its causes, or worse, to use that event for partisan political gains and narrow ideological agendas -- be it at home or abroad. Yet, a closer look at what happened and how we reacted to it reveals much more about our inability to grapple with forces and realities that led to those chaotic events, than our ability to use overwhelming military power. September 11 has certainly changed the world, but more so ourselves.

While this event revealed the brutality of an enemy whom we did not know much about, it also revealed something about ourselves which we did not know about:

Who would have thought

that the loss of 3,000 lives in New York City would have brought so much sympathy for the victims’ families and the United States, even from those who still do not wish us well?

that the anger of a CIA recruit in the war against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan would have turned against his master and unleash one of the most vicious campaigns against the American presence in the Middle East?

that Osama Bin Laden and his colleagues would succeed to tap into the reservoir of Anti-Americanism in the region and recruit hundreds and thousands of young men who willingly accept to blow themselves up in order to inflict damage on their enemies?

Who would have imagined

that the deadly attack on the Twin Towers would have lead the United States to topple a government in Afghanistan whose deputies’ years back were our guests for improving economic relations and establishing a new oil and gas pipeline through their country?

that the U.S. Administration would have been diverted from search for Al-Qaeda leaders to pursuing an ambitious project for redefining the Middle East according to a plan designed several years prior to September 11?

Who would have thought

that some among us would invent evidence, fabricate intelligence, distort history, deceive our own people, and manipulate other nations in order to topple a dictator whose adventurism posed no immediate danger to our country or our allies?

that we would forget the lessons of our previous imperial adventures and put our young men and women in the position of occupying other countries again?

that a terrorist attack would lead us to declare an open-ended war on terror as a defining paradigm for the new century?

Who would have guessed

that our war on terror would produce secret jails, rendition programs, coercive psychological procedures, enhanced interrogation techniques, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Haditha, Mahmudiya, and thousands of American, Iraqi, Lebanese, and Afghani corpses?

that those who wished to replace the fight against communism with a “clash of civilization” would succeed in pulling America against Muslims and setting in motion a “civil war” within Islam?

that we would allow some to wrap themselves with flag and sell their dogmatic ideas to us in a security platter?

that our anti-terror measures would turn into a witch hunt against Muslim Americans and turn them into a besieged minority?

that we would forget the lessons of civil rights movement and begin to limit the rights for which our parents had fought hard?

Yet, all these scenarios have happened, no matter how we interpret them. As Americans, we are wounded and now have wounded others. We are terrorized from within and without. We are attacked by those who do not like our policies, are not intimidated by our military might, and remain impartial to our economic power. We are confronting militant Muslim groups who are using every mistake we have made in our relationship with the Muslim world, and every misgiving they have had about our politics to settle scores with us.

Yet, we are also under an ideological attack by those who wish to replace reason with weapon, tear with fear, and negotiation with domination. We have beefed up our borders but lost the sense of our own social order. We have forgotten our liberal values of distributive justice and have chosen to deal with the rest of the world through retributive justice. Nations are either with us or against us.

Despite our differences in religion, ethnicity, and nationality, we share with others values of human rights and dignity. These values are not alien concepts to our faith, be it Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and so on. All these religions ask their followers to live out their faith by seeking justice and preserving human lives and dignity. Human rights are universal values which are secured through dialogue, education, and communication rather than war, invasion, and imposition of one’s will upon others. We live in a world which should be safe for all of us, and not just for some of us. We gain a sense of safety if we promote mutual understanding and respect, rather than domination and conformity.

The death of innocent Americans is to be honored and their murderers should be brought to justice. But, our approach for finding the perpetrators should be formulated according to our democratic values, not to those which violate them. If we choose to fight extremism by extremism, as it seems we have been doing at times, we have rewarded our enemy by giving up the very values we wish them to adopt. As we work with other nations, religious groups, and people, we have to seek justice for all and not for ourselves alone.

Let’s remember the victims of September 11 and all other Americans who have fought for human dignity, democracy, and civil rights. As Americans, they all are to be remembered with the same respect and vigilance that we cherish in our own lives today.

[Rasputin]

Let's assume the up-coming negotiations over Iran's nuclear energy program totally breaks down and nothing is agreed to and everybody goes home angry and fed up. Or, as they say in Texas, "All bets are off."

And so Condi and Rummy are given orders by Cheney to get the ball rolling on Operation Iran Secularization.

Accusations that Iran is behind attacks against Americans in Iraq escalate, but this time backed up with "solid evidence": such as photographs, capture of "spies", video confessions, and communication intercepts.

A Murdoch owned newspaper reports that a platoon of American GI's taking it easy in peaceful northern Iraq, are captured and being held by Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Iran denies it. Kurds suspect Israeli agents are behind the deception.

A daring rescue mission by the Marines manages to bring back one of the platoon members. He gives graphic information about the inhumane torture he had endured over past 48 hours, including having one of his eyes gauged out.

The next day an "Iranian" pilot defects and lands in Baghdad, and it turns out the pilot is accompanied by a high ranking Revolutionary Guard general, and when surrounded by reporters and American Marines, the general declares: "Iran has purchased four nuclear warheads from the Ukraine. And they are fitting them onto their missiles."

Headlines the next day on all Murdoch newspapers: "Another Holocaust!", followed the next day with: "Israel and D.C. to be nuked by Iran!"

While the war drums start to beat louder and louder a report comes in that an Iranian missile has just sunk an unarmed merchant ship in the Persian Gulf and all hands on board are reported to have gone down with the vessel. News leaks that it was a hospital ship, and two hundred female nurses and thirty doctors were among the drowned.

Standing amidst grieving family members waiting to receive the flag draped coffins of their loved ones Bush declares Iran's sinking of the hospital ship an act of war and orders an immediate attack on Iran's naval forces in the Persian Gulf.

Iran denies sinking the ship and provides proof in the form of radar reports showing that Iran had not fired any missile or torpedo. The denial is drowned out as corporate media goes into full scale war frenzy. Ignored by the media is evidence that an Israeli submarine was seen in the vicinity.

America launches an attack on all Iranian naval targets and within 72 hours sinks the entire Iranian navy, and half of the missile batteries hidden along the Iranian coastline. During the next 48 hours Iran's entire air force is destroyed and the following 48 hours all Revolutionary Guard buildings, barracks, and factories get leveled.

Bush declares the entire Iranian airspace a no fly zone. All ports are blockaded. Preparations begin for occupation of Khuzestan province and control of Iran's oil and gas industry. America continues to attack anything military related in Iran but avoids oil and gas installations.

And how has Iran responded since the initial attack?

Within the first six hours Iran has cut off all oil shipments out of Iraq. Bombed and disrupted oil outflows from all pipelines heading west from the Caspian Sea, and used short range missiles to stop all oil shipments from Kuwait, plus activated sleeper mines all across the Persian Gulf and the Straights of Hormuz.

During the next 48 hours Iran succeeds in cutting American supply lines from Kuwait, shoots down three aircrafts landing or leaving Baghdad airport with shoulder fired missiles, and rains down missiles onto the Green Zone forcing it to be evacuated.

American causality rates in Iraq reach 300 dead soldiers a day and keep increasing. The American Embassy in Kabul is totally flattened with a massive barrage of anti-tank missiles. Nobody survives the attack.

Using fast speed boats equipped with missiles and torpedoes Revolutionary Guard commando units sink twenty cargo carry vessels and warn that any oil tankers heading for the Straights of Hormuz would be sunk. All shipment of oil out of the Persian Gulf comes to a halt.

In less than a week the supply of oil to the world market drops by 30% to 40%. Gasoline prices double as governments scramble to implement rationing. Speed limits are introduced as blackouts become common. Governments in Europe, Japan, and China order industries to open only three days a week. Price of oil passes $250 per barrel.

Operation Iran Secularization escalates as Iran refuses to surrender unconditionally and America continues to bomb Iran, taking out its dams, power stations, water treatment plants, industrial estates, communication systems, and any military targets still left standing. No oil or gas installations are bombed.

Iranian-Americans living in the United States are rounded up and placed in detention camps, recently built by Halliburton. China and Russia begin to send large shipments of armaments to Iran, including their most sophisticated weapons.

Three weeks after the start of Operation Iran Secularization, with much of Iran devastated, a nuclear power plant in the United States experiences a massive "accident" and four million Americans are exposed to deadly radioactive emissions. In response all nuclear power plants in the United States are shut down and all radioactive material is secured. The next day the Pentagon orders no weaponry with depleted uranium be used in Iran. Massive energy shortages cripple the American economy. The Dow Jones crashes below 4,000 and the dollar loses half its value. Gold reaches above $2,000 an once.

Three months after the start of Operation Iran Secularization the Chinese discretely inform the Pentagon that nuclear tipped missiles have been deployed in Iran. The Bush Administration is forced to resign and the 2008 Presidential elections are moved forward to 2007. The transition administration declares an unconditional ceasefire and begins to withdraw all its forces out of the Middle East, including Iraq.

On the surface America may have been defeated but in reality the objective had been achieved, the destruction of Iran and Iraq, and halting their rise to power in the Middle East.

[abadani69]

ميان دمكراتها با جمهوريخواهان در آمريكا بر سر سوءاستفاده جرج بوش رييس جمهوري اين كشور از واقعه تروريستي ۱۱سپتامبر جدالي روي داده است.

حملات تروريستي ۱۱سپتامبر به بوش اين امكان را داد تا محبوبيت بشدت پايين خود را نزد آمريكاييها بهبود بخشد هر چند كه اين روند با اقدامات فزون خواهانه او در عراق ، سريعا به نقطه پيش از اين حملات بازگشت.

سناتور دمكرات "ادوارد كندي" از ماساچوست روز سه شنبه گفت:" رئيس جمهور بايد خجالت بكشد و از روز عزاي ملي كه بايد براي اتحاد مردم و يادآوري قربانيان استفاده شود، براي حمايت از جنگ عراق كه به گفته خود او هيچ رابطهاي با ۱۱سپتامبر نداشته استفاده نكند".

كاخ سفيد نيز روز سهشنبه با دمكراتها بر سر اين كه آيا بوش سعي داشت در سخنراني خود به مناسبت پنجمين سالگرد واقعه ۱۱سپتامبر اشتباه جنگ عراق را توجيه كند، به مجادله پرداخت.

توني اسنو سخنگوي رياست جمهوري آمريكا گفت در حالي كه سه يا چهار جمله از سخنراني بوش كه ۱۷دقيقه ادامه داشت ممكن است به نظر بحث برانگيز باشد ولي بوش سعي كرد تا سخنراني او غيرحزبي باشد.

اسنو تصريح كرد كه بوش مسئله مورد توجه عراق را توضيح ميداد و قصد نداشت كنگره را مقصر بداند يا به دنبال درگيري با دمكراتها باشد.

به گزارش شبكه خبري سي ان ان، هري ريد رهبر دمكراتها در سناي آمريكا روز سه شنبه گفت :" با مردم آمريكا بهتر از اين بايد برخورد كرد".

وي كه از روش بوش انتقاد ميكرد گفت كه بايد به مردم آمريكا فرصتي ديگر بدهند تا اتحاد و حس ميهن پرستي خود را كه پنج سال پيش سراسر آمريكا را گرفته بود دوباره بدست بياورند.

بوش در سخنراني خود گفت كه هنوز دشمن در فكر كشتار آمريكاييها و احتمالا دستيابي به سلاحهاي كشتار جمعي است.

وي افزود:" اگر ما با اين دشمنان همين حالا جنگ نكنيم فرزندان خود را در برابر خاورميانه اي كه توسط تروريستها و ديكتاتورهاي تندرو و جوياي تسليحات هسته اي اداره ميشوند قرار ميدهيم."
بوش در سخنراني خود دو دقيقه از ۱۷دقيقه را به قربانيان واقعه اختصاص داد ولي بقيه اين سخنراني را صرف دفاع و توجبه سياستهايش كرد كه بشدت از طرف مردم آمريكا رد شده است.

بوش كه شديدا نگران نتيجه انتخابات مياندوره اي كنگره است و فكر مي كند كه ممكن است حزب او اكثريت را دركنگره از دست بدهد گفت كه مخالفان سياسي او كه صحبت از خروج از عراق ميكنند با اين كار پيروزي را به تروريستها ميدهند.

او امنيت مردم آمريكا را در گرو پيروزي در بغداد اعلام كرد.

دمكراتها از طرف ديگر از مخالفت مردم نسبت به جنگ عراق استفاده كرده و صحبت از اكثريت جديد در كنگره ميكنند.

[abadani69]

[Rasputin]

Bullhorn moment

On the fifth anniversary of the terrible events on 9/11/2001, the airwaves are filled with coverage of ceremonies and memorials honoring those who perished as a result of these horrific and heinous attacks as well as speeches by our leaders and countless analysis by the so called experts using this day to instill fear in the heart of the masses and promote their idea of "War on Terror" as a way to keep us safe from another attack.

Those who dare to question the effectiveness of this policy are immediately discredited and the fact that we have not experienced a similar attack on American soil in the past 5 years is used to justify the adoption of that strategy. So the question we must ask ourselves is this: Are we really safer as a result of assuming that hostile posture?

Standing on the smoldering ruins of the downed towers amid the cheering rescue workers on 14 September 2001, Mr. Bush grabbing a bullhorn told the crowd, "I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked down these buildings will hear all of us soon."

What has been praised by many of his supporters as the "bullhorn moment" may had risen into a brilliant piece of historical stagecraft if we had actually gone after the people responsible and stayed the course on bringing Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda extremists to justice for the carnage they caused.

But what followed those words which resounded with a shocked and grieving nation and frightened the world, soon turned out to be nothing but an orchestrated setup for a far grander design scripted years before by a small group of people known as the neo-cons in what they called "The Project for the New American Century" (PNAC). Formed in 1997 many of PNAC members were appointed to key positions within Mr. Bush's administration after the 2000 elections.

In September 2000, the PNAC issued a 90-page report entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses" (RAD) in which they outline an aggressive military plan for U.S. world domination during the coming century. This document has essentially served as blueprint for many of the present actions of this administration which has already begun to produce some unforeseen and undesirable results both in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Some like Lewis Libby have already fallen from grace in the Abramoff scandal, but many continue to hold key positions in the White House, Defense, and State Departments, among them Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Elliot Abrams. William Kristol, writer for the conservative magazine the Weekly Standard, is chairman of this group. Congress-bypassed, recess-appointed Mr. John Bolton was selected as US ambassador to the United Nations with the specific task of steamrolling through and removing all international hurdles at prosecuting the very goals of the RAD and PNAC.

He has already proven himself a valuable asset by paralyzing the UN into disarray and inaction during Israel's 4-week long destruction of every standing civilian structure in Lebanon followed by his stellar success pushing the Security Council to pass an illegal resolution demanding that Iran stop a legal activity under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) presumably to demonize yet another sovereign nation and prepare the ground for the next operational phase of their sinister plan which is bringing about regime change via brute military force to a country that poses no threat to the United States.

What is truly scary about this loony group is that none of them have served a single day in military uniform yet love playing war by pulling the levers of power without having any idea or concern for the consequences of their actions. They have proven again and again that such nuisances as reality or situation on the ground do not play any roll in their decision making process and they could not care less that continuation of these insane plans will only lead to further destabilization in the region, more hatred of the U.S., far more extremism, erosion of human rights and civil liberties, and eventual disruption of the balance of power between all the nations of the world which certainly does not make this writer feel any safer. Comment

No doubt, historians will describe that "bullhorn moment" as the point when our government began to exploit a terrible attack for preconceived wars of aggression against countries like Iraq, Syria, and Iran which had nothing to do with the murderous acts of 9/11/2001.

Daniel M Pourkesali is a member of the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran. This article was originally published in CampaignIran.org.

[Rasputin]

Boston Air Traffic Controller Says 9/11 An Inside Job
Knew people in FAA on day of hijackings who said intercept procedures should have been enacted as normal

Prison Planet | December 14, 2006
Paul Joseph Watson

A former Boston Center air traffic controller has gone public on his assertion that 9/11 was an inside job and that Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon tracked three of the four flights from the point of their hijacking to hitting their targets. In an astounding telephone interview, Robin Hordon claims air traffic controllers have been ignored or silenced to protect the true perpetrators of 9/11.

A recording of the phone conversation was posted on Google video late yesterday by the Pilots For 9/11 Truth organization.

After having acquired a background in aviation, Hordon underwent rigorous FAA training to become an air traffic controller and was posted to Boston Center where he worked for eleven years. He did not work at Boston Center when 9/11 occurred but still knows people that did who concur with his conclusions. In comparing the stand down of air defense on 9/11 and what should have occurred according to standard operating procedure, he quickly concluded on the very afternoon of the attacks that they could represent nothing other than an inside job.

"On September 11th I'm one of the few people who really within quite a few hours of the whole event taking place just simply knew that it was an inside job, and it wasn't because of the visuals, the collapses, whatever....I knew that it was an inside job I think within about four or five o'clock that afternoon and the reason that I knew is because when those aircraft did collide and then we got the news and information on where the aircraft were and where they went....if they knew where the aircraft were and were talking to them at a certain time then normal protocol is to get fighter jet aircraft up assist," said Hordon.



Hordon said that from personal experience he knew the system was always ready to immediately scramble intercepting fighters and that any reversal of that procedure would have been unprecedented and abnormal. He had also personally handled both real hijacking situations in his airspace and other emergency procedures.

"I know people who work there who confirmed to me that the FAA was not asleep and the controllers could do the job, they followed their own protocols," he stated.

Hordon said that the only way the airliners could have avoided being intercepted was if a massive electrical and communications failure had occurred which it didn't on that day, adding that there was "no way" the hijacked airliners could have reached their targets otherwise.

He highlighted the fact that only an emergency handling of aircraft protocol change on that day could have interrupted standard operating procedure and hijacking protocol. Hordon said it was unbelievable how far American Airlines Flight 11 was allowed to go off course without the appropriate action being taken on behalf of flight controllers.


"What you do is you don't wait for the judge, jury and executioner to prove it's an emergency, if things start to go wrong you have the authority to simply say I am going to treat this craft as if it is an emergency, because if everybody's wrong then fifteen minutes later no big thing."

Hordon emphasized that the debate has deliberately been channeled by NORAD and the government to focus on reactions to hijackings, when the real issue is the emergency condition of the aircraft well before a hijacking is even confirmed.

He went on to explain how as soon as the hijacking of Flight 11 was confirmed at around 8:24am, the entire system, from every FAA center coast to coast, to the Pentagon, to the President were informed and knew of the hijacking.

"The system now had to make some phone calls and call up Rummy's Pentagon and Rummy's Pentagon is the one that would then make the decision."

"Well, Rummy's Pentagon on American 11 didn't answer the phone, neither 175, didn't answer the phone and they didn't answer the phone until they were absolutely embarrassed into answering the phone somewhere along the flight of United 93 and American 77 - first formal contact was at this particular time," said Hordon.

"That is all distractionary, that is all designed to keep people off the focus - the real focus is what the air traffic controller did immediately upon seeing that American 11 was in trouble and what we do as air traffic controllers is we get eyes and ears on this flight."

Hordon underscored the fact that after the confirmed hijacking of Flight 11, the entire FAA system would have been on full alert and obsessively watching the skies for any unusual activity, and that such activity as the hijacking of Flight 77 would have been immediately reported to supervisors instantaneously, as well as being continually tracked.

"If the air traffic controller were going by emergency procedures which he is trained to do, he would have reached out directly to ADC (NORAD) and say what do you see?" said Hordon.

This highlights the absurdity of Dulles controllers mistaking Flight 77 for a fighter jet as it approached Washington as was reported, and the plane's over 40 minute uninterrupted journey to the Pentagon after a hijack was confirmed.

Hordon debunked the recent Vanity Fair piece that whitewashed NORAD's response as a consequence of confusion and the supposition that NORAD needs exact flight coordinates to enact any kind of response, and that the planes were supposedly invisible to radar and couldn't be tracked properly.

"It's very clear now through testimony and documents given to us by the federal government that indeed....the Boston Center actually tracked American 11 as a primary target after it lost its radar, after it lost its transponder, all the way to World Trade Center," he said.

"Further information indicates later the NORAD radars had it tracked....the bottom line of the story is that all of those aircraft were always tracked all the time by the FAA air traffic control centers," said Hordon, pointing out that information showing air traffic controllers tried insistently to alert military command structures is being locked down because it points to finger of responsibility to Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon, who were also tracking all the aircraft from the point of hijacking to the impact on their targets.

This is the reason why, as Hordon stated, that we don't have complete access to flight data recorders and FAA tapes, which in the case of a conversation between six New York Air Route Traffic Control Center controllers was ordered to be shredded , because if studies of that evidence were undertaken it would become very clear as to who was really behind the attack.

"What they did is they cherry picked transmissions, communications and statements made all on these four flights that were able to paint and write a story that the public would look at and so ooh wow, this really happened - but it wasn't factual, it was a story and it tell not tell anything other than what the high perps wanted the public to hear - they cherry picked this information," said Hordon.

Hordon ended by saying that only with the testimony from the dozens of flight controllers who have been silenced or ignored would the true story about who carried out 9/11 begin to emerge.

[Rasputin]

WASHINGTON - Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confirmed his notoriety as al-Qaida's most ambitious operational planner when, according to military transcripts, he confessed to planning and supporting 31 terrorist attacks, topped by 9/11, that killed thousands of innocent victims since the early 1990s.


The gruesome attacks range from the suicide hijackings of Sept. 11, 2001 — which killed nearly 3,000 — to a 2002 shooting on an island off Kuwait that killed a U.S. Marine.

Many plots, including a previously undisclosed plan to kill several former U.S. presidents, were never carried out or were foiled by international counterterror authorities.

"I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z," Mohammed said in a statement read Saturday during a Combatant Status Review Tribunal at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mohammed's confession was read by a member of the U.S. military who is serving as his personal representative.

The Pentagon released a 26-page transcript of the closed-door proceedings on Wednesday night. Some material was omitted, and it wasn't possible to immediately confirm details. Some elements of it refer to locations for which the United States and other nations have issued terrorism warnings based on what they deemed credible threats from 1993 to the present.

Mohammed, known as KSM among government officials, was last seen haggard after his capture in March 2003, when he was photographed in a dingy white T-shirt with an over-stretched neck. He disappeared for more than three years into a secret detention system run by the CIA.

In his first public statements since his capture, his radical ideology and self-confidence came through. He expressed regret for taking the lives of children and said Islam doesn't give a "green light" to killing.

Yet he finds room for exceptions. "The language of the war is victims," he said.

He also said he "consider George Washington as hero. Muslims many of them are considering Osama bin Laden. He is doing same thing. He is just fighting. He needs his independence."

In laying out his role in 31 attacks, his words drew al-Qaida closer to plots of the early 1990s than the group has previously been linked, including the 1993 World Trade Center truck bombing in which six people died.

Six people with links to global terror networks were convicted in federal court and sentenced to life in prison for that attack.

Mohammed made clear that al-Qaida wanted to down a second trans-Atlantic aircraft during would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid's operation.

And he confessed to the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in a section of the statement that was excised from the public document, The Associated Press has learned. Pearl was abducted in January 2002 in Pakistan while researching a story on Islamic militancy. Mohammed has long been a suspect in the slaying, which was captured on video.

President Bush announced that Mohammed and 13 other alleged terror operatives had been moved from secret CIA prisons to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay last year. They are considered the 14 most significant captures since 9/11.

The military began the hearings last Friday to determine whether the 14 should be declared "enemy combatants" who can be held indefinitely and prosecuted by military tribunals.

If the 14 are declared enemy combatants, as expected, the military would then draft and file charges against them. The detainees would be tried under the new military commissions law signed by Bush in October.

The military barred reporters or other independent observers from the sessions for the 14 operatives and is limiting the information it provides about them, arguing that it wants to prevent the disclosure of sensitive information.

Legal experts have criticized the U.S. decision, and The Associated Press filed a letter of protest, arguing that it would be "an unconstitutional mistake to close the proceedings in their entirety."

The transcripts refer to a claim by Mohammed that he was tortured by the CIA, although he said he was not under duress at Guantanamo when he confessed to his role in the attacks. The CIA has said its interrogation practices are legal, and it does not use torture.

Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, questioned the legality of the closed-door sessions and whether the confession was actually the result of torture.

"We won't know that unless there is an independent hearing," he said. "We need to know if this purported confession would be enough to convict him at a fair trial or would it have to be suppressed as the fruit of torture?"

In listing the 28 attacks he planned and another three he supported, Mohammed said he tried to kill international leaders including Pope John Paul II, President Clinton and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

He said he planned the 2002 bombing of a Kenya beach resort frequented by Israelis and the failed missile attack on an Israeli passenger jet after it took off from Mombasa, Kenya.

He also said he was responsible for the bombing of a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia. In 2002, 202 were killed when two nightclubs there were bombed.

Other plots he said he was responsible for included planned attacks against the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Empire State Building and New York Stock Exchange in New York City, the Panama Canal, and Big Ben and Heathrow Airport in London — none of which happened.

The Pentagon also released transcripts of the hearings of Abu Faraj al-Libi and Ramzi Binalshibh. Both refused to attended the hearings, although al-Libi submitted a statement claiming that the hearings are unfair and that he will not attend unless it is corrected.

"The detainee is in a lose-lose situation," he said.

Al-Libi, whose name means he is a Libyan, reportedly masterminded two bombings 11 days apart in Pakistan in December 2003 that targeted Musharraf for his support of the U.S.-led war on terror.

Binalshibh, a Yemeni, is suspected of helping Mohammed with the 9/11 attack plan on New York City and Washington and is also linked to a foiled plot to crash aircraft into London's Heathrow Airport. His hearing was conducted in his absence.

[Rasputin]

Al-Qaida suspect 'confesses' to killing Pearl

[Rasputin]

7 Spanish tourists die in Yemen carbomb attack

[Rasputin]

A third suspected suicide bomber has blown himself up following a police chase in a Casablanca slum.

Two other suspects died earlier after police surrounded their house. One was shot dead. The other detonated the belt he was wearing.

Police say bombers have started wearing their belts at all times so they won't be caught alive.

Last month, security forces claim to have foiled a plot to blow up foreign ships and hotels in Casablanca.

More than 40 suspects were arrested, mainly in the city's poor slums, after the man thought to be their leader blew himself up in a cafe.

Morroco has been on alert since 2003 when 13 suicide bombers killed themselves and 32 other people in central Casablanca to punish the country for supporting Washington in its "war on terror".

Officials say they belonged to a home-grown terrorist network with links to al Qaeda.

[Rasputin]

CASABLANCA, Morocco (AP) – Police surrounded a building in Morocco’s largest city where four terrorism suspects were holed up Tuesday, forcing three of the men to flee and blow themselves up with explosives. The fourth was shot by police as he was apparently preparing to detonate his bomb.

A police officer was killed in the operation and a young child was injured, officials said.

The explosions in Casablanca, weeks after the bombing of an Internet cafe in the city, promised to further rattle the North African kingdom whose first high–profile brush with Islamic terrorism came in five suicide bombings in the city in May 2003.

Moroccan authorities responded to those attacks, which left 45 people dead, with the arrest of thousands of alleged Islamic militants – some accused of working with al–Qaida to plot strikes in Morocco and abroad. At least two of those killed Tuesday were suspected of links to those attacks.

The suspects were all allegedly connected to the March 11 bombing of the Internet cafe – an attack that killed the bomber, Abdelfettah Raydi, and four others.

Tuesday’s violence started when police, acting on a tip, surrounded a four–story apartment building in the working–class Hay Farah neighborhood of Casablanca where the suspected terrorists were holed up, officials said.

One of the suspects fled to the roof, where he blew himself up, said a police official on the scene who refused to give his name, saying he was not authorized to do so. Morocco’s official MAP news agency identified that bomber as Mohamed Rachidi.

A second man appeared to be on the verge of detonating explosives, fumbling with his clothes, when a police sniper shot him, officials said. The suspect, who later died of his wounds, was identified by police as Mohamed Mentala. He was carrying nearly nine pounds of explosives, said an Interior Ministry official who also asked not to be named, citing ministry policy.

Mentala and Rachidi had both been sought by police for alleged involvement in the 2003 suicide bombings, the Interior Ministry official said.

The third suspect fled, then blew himself up hours later as police were searching for him, according to another officer at the scene, who also refused to give his name. He was identified as Ayyoub Raydi, the brother of the Internet cafe bomber, the Interior Ministry official said.

The police officer was killed and another seriously injured when Ayyoub Raydi detonated his explosives, the official said. A 7–year–old boy was hospitalized with minor injuries.

In the evening, the fourth suspect detonated his explosives in the middle of a boulevard, said a police official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. The official MAP news agency said the blast injured five people. It gave no details.

Investigations into the March 11 cafe bombing led police to a wider suspected plot to attack the port in Casablanca, as well as police stations and tourist sites in Morocco. The group had amassed dozens of homemade explosives at a Casablanca apartment.

In last month’s blast, Abdelfettah Raydi detonated his charge when the cybercafe’s owner caught him surfing jihadist Web sites. He was killed and four others were injured.

Police have so far arrested 31 suspects in the terrorism probe. Abdelfettah Raydi and many other suspects were among some 2,000 arrested after the 2003 bombings, but were later released from prison under a royal pardon.

Moroccan authorities have said they do not believe Abdelfettah Raydi’s group had links to international terrorist networks.

[Rasputin]

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Bombs killed 30 people in Algeria's capital on Wednesday, attacks claimed by al Qaeda that raised fears the north African oil exporter was slipping back into the intense political violence of the 1990s.

One of the blasts, said by witnesses to be a suicide bomb, ripped part of the facade off the prime minister's headquarters in the centre of Algiers. A second bomb hit Bab Ezzouar on its eastern outs***ts, the official APS news agency said.

The Al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility for the Algiers bombing in an Internet statement and said 45 people had been killed.

The claim could not immediately be verified but the group, formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), has taken responsibility for a number of deadly attacks on security forces and foreigners in Algeria since January.

Newspaper editor Mounir Boudjema said the prime minister's office was hit because it was Algeria's "World Trade Center" -- a prestige target such as the New York buildings hit in 2001.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned what he called the deplorable "terrorist" bombings in Algeria.

Hospital sources put the toll from the two bombings at 30. APS put the toll at 24 dead with 222 wounded.

Leila Aissaoui, 25, stood crying near the government palace.

"I thought explosions in Algiers were over," she said. "I made a big mistake and I can't accept this."

Algeria descended into violence in 1992 after the then military-backed authorities scrapped a parliamentary election which an Islamist political party was set to win. Up to 200,000 people were killed in the ensuing bloodshed.

That violence subsided in recent years following amnesties for insurgents, but rumbles on in mountains east of Algiers.

Residents said Wednesday was the first time since the 1990s that a powerful bomb had hit the centre of the Mediterranean city, where police had stepped up security following a rise in attacks by insurgents in the countryside.

WINDOWS SHATTERED

The blast at the prime minister's headquarters gouged a hole in the multi-story office block, shattering windows and showering rubble on to cars for blocks around.

Algerians said it was the country's first suicide bombing.

Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem, who has been campaigning for May 17 parliamentary elections, told state television the blasts were acts by terrorists.

"They want a media effect and this could have an impact on the economy," he said. "They want to take Algeria back to years of sadness, but the people want peace and security."

Crowds of men and women ran screaming and shouting from the scene in the minutes after the downtown blast, with residents saying they feared attackers were planning a second bomb there.

Medics carried the bloodied and burned victims in their arms and on stretchers from the government palace.

This is a disaster," said lawyer Tahar bin Taleb, 41. "This is international terrorism. It signals great danger ahead for southern Europe and north Africa."

One Algerian analyst, Anis Rahmani, said the blasts appeared to be a reply to stepped-up attacks by the army on Islamist insurgents in the Bejaia region in mountains east of Algiers.

Boudjema, who edits the daily Liberte, said: "Since they joined al Qaeda the rebels are clearly opting for symbolic and noisy targets such as the government palace, which is in a way our World Trade Center."

French President Jacques Chirac, whose country ruled Algeria before independence in 1962, said the blasts were "terrible." Benita Ferrero-Waldner, European Commissioner for External Relations, described the blasts as barbaric.