Fabled Enemies Part VI

This section seems largely concerned with warnings. We get the mention of the Filipino government warning about Ramzi Yousef's plan to crash planes into buildings; what goes unmentioned is that this happened six years prior to 9-11, and that in fact that Yousef's main plot was to blow the airplanes up over the Pacific.

Bermas confuses the Phoenix Memo with the 8/6/01 PDB about Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US. The Phoenix Memo was an alert from an FBI agent about Arabs taking flight lessons in the US. It is indeed tragic that this was not followed up on, but it is easy to see the warnings we should have been paying attention to with hindsight. What we don't see or hear about is all the other warnings that turned out to be meaningless.

Dennis Kookcinich comes on to talk about the PDB; he mentions that it noted a plot by Osama Bin Laden to hijack an aircraft. What Frodo fails to mention is that the plot was to use the hijacked plane and its passengers for ransom to win the release of prisoners.

"We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a [redacted] service in 1998 saying that bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to secure the release of 'Blind Sheikh' Omar Abdel Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists," the memo says in part.

Peter Jennings reports on a USA Today article on a drill run that included a plane into the World Trade Center. The article is here. Note in particular that the drills took place two years prior to 9-11 (i.e., during the Clinton Administration), and that the scenario was different from 9-11:

The exercises differed from the Sept. 11 attacks in one important respect: The planes in the simulation were coming from a foreign country.

Until Sept. 11, NORAD was expected to defend the United States and Canada from aircraft based elsewhere. After the attacks, that responsibility broadened to include flights that originated in the two countries.

But there were exceptions in the early drills, including one operation, planned in July 2001 and conducted later, that involved planes from airports in Utah and Washington state that were "hijacked." Those planes were escorted by U.S. and Canadian aircraft to airfields in British Columbia and Alaska.

NORAD officials have acknowledged that "scriptwriters" for the drills included the idea of hijacked aircraft being used as weapons.

"Threats of killing hostages or crashing were left to the scriptwriters to invoke creativity and broaden the required response," Maj. Gen. Craig McKinley, a NORAD official, told the 9/11 commission. No exercise matched the specific events of Sept. 11, NORAD said.

"We have planned and executed numerous scenarios over the years to include aircraft originating from foreign airports penetrating our sovereign airspace," Gen. Ralph Eberhart, NORAD commander, told USA TODAY. "Regrettably, the tragic events of 9/11 were never anticipated or exercised."

Jason goes to another drill, called Amalgam Virgo. As described by Bermas, Amalgam Virgo included a hijacker taking control of a commercial aircraft and slamming it into the Capitol. This does not appear to be correct:

Amalgam Virgo is a joint-service, cruise-missile defense exercise at Tyndall AFB.

Fast, low-flying cruise missiles are hard to detect. To practice their part in defending the U.S. from these missiles, members of the 513th Air Control Group deployed to Florida for the "Amalgam Virgo" cruise missile defense exercise. The multi-service exercise tested the defense and response capabilities to a cruise missile attack on Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., June 1-4, 2001.

No discussion of a hijacked plane there.

Fabled Enemies, Part 5

Joe Biden, who will probably be our next vice president, gets truth-squadded by Luke Rudkowski. Luke is relying on that one, un-sourced article in the Times of India, that claims Mahmoud Ahmed financed the hijackers. Biden uses the occasion to remember some tough talking he laid on Ahmed.

Jason does a review of what "we have just learned":

Hijackers had ties to US military installations (false).
Israel and Pakistan have classified roles in 9-11 (almost certainly false in the case of the former).

Then Bermas does a sideline into the comic book version of the 9-11 Commission Report. I don't know why he added that part; perhaps to imply that the original report was of comic book quality? We hear that NORAD lied to the 9-11 Commission (this is true, unfortunately), but we don't hear what they lied about. They lied and claimed that they knew about the hijacking of Flight 93 well before they actually did know about it. Of course, this doesn't fit in with the kooky conspiracy theories in any way, shape or form, but it's an admitted lie so the fruitcakes can't let go of it.

Max Cleland's resignation from the 9-11 Commission is brought up; again unmentioned is that Cleland resigned because he wanted the commission to look into the pre-Iraq War intelligence, which was well outside the commission's mandate. Also ignored is that Cleland was later nominated to the Ex-Im Bank by President Bush. Cleland is on Wolf Blitzer talking about the deal the administration cut to allow only certain members (one Republican and one Democrat) to review classified information. This strikes me as a reasonable compromise between national security and the right of the people to know.

Cynthia McNinney gets trotted out to say her usual convoluted stuff:

"So how can you start with a document that you know is false, and and take that to the American people, as a document by which Congress' accomplishment should be measured?"

Dennis Kookcinich's articles of impeachment are mentioned. Bermas notes that it took Kucinich hours to read the articles into the congressional record; listening to his slow, halting delivery it's easy to see that he could turn The Cat In the Hat into a tedious stemwinder.

Coming up next: Warnings and War Games.

Fabled Enemies Part III: Dancing Jews

Alex Jones had mentioned a few months ago that this was the first film he'd been involved with that went into the Israeli connection. We get the story of the lady who phoned the police about the five dancing Jews outside her apartment. We get Michael Rivero, of What Really Happened talking about them. We get the supposed van full of explosives stopped outside of Manhattan, and the Israeli art students mystery.

(Note: The dancing Jews existed. I don't mention this much, but a client of mine who's Jewish and fanatically pro-Israel was the first person I talked to on 9-11 and his immediate comment to me was, "Now you know what Israel goes through every day." So I can imagine some Israelis reacting in an inappropriately celebratory manner, knowing that America had discovered what terrorism was all about.

The van full of explosives on the GWB did not. I don't know the truth or falsity of the Israeli art students story. If we catch Israelis spying in the US, I'm 100% in favor of arresting and imprisoning them.)

We're told that the Israelis routinely spy on the United States; this seems to be true from everything I've heard. The question is whether it's really sinister or just an example of the (justified) paranoia of that tiny country. I don't approve of their actions, but I understand them, and I would be the first to say that Jonathan Pollard should not be released.

Jason assumes that the Israelis had a prior knowledge of 9-11. He notes that one of the dancing Jews said that their purpose was to document the attacks; as somebody noted in the last post on this, the news cameras of CNN, Fox, ABC, NBC and CBS were also there to document the attacks; this does not mean that the news media knew beforehand.

This is another "Merry Pason" confession. The conspiracy theorists all seem to think that evil people are compelled to blurt out their guilt on TV.

We get something about a van exploding on King Street between 6th and 7th; this is the first I've heard of that. Then there's a discussion of an Israeli company that does the billing for most US phone calls. Carl Cameron points out that this means that they could track people; all very true, but you'd need a starting point.

Overall, Jason puts a lot of dots in this section, but does little connecting.

Fabled Enemies, Part I

Since Jason has always been cordial with me, I decided I would take on his newest film. It is one of the oddball ironies of our position vis-a-vis the "Truthers" that our attention gives credibility to some of these projects. I'll take on the film ten minutes at a time, provided I don't lose interest:



General comments: After Dylan's nasal twang and Sofia's ice goddess voice, Bermas' narration is something of a relief. I do think he's a little too matter-of-fact in tone, but that may change at some point in the film. There are many places where there is annoying repetitive noise in the background, such as right at the very beginning, when we see the Naudet Brothers footage. I checked the high-quality Google video and found the same problem. It's incredibly annoying.

Points argued:

1. The networks were too eager to nominate Osama Bin Laden as the mastermind of the attacks. Of course, it's like back in the 1980s when a bomb went off in London, of course the IRA was going to be the first suspect on everybody's list.

2. The FBI doesn't want Osama for 9-11. This nonsense continues. Bermas claims that Rex Tomb said this; we don't know that. We know that Ed Haas says that Rex Tomb said this, but we also know that the FBI is furnishing evidence to the military tribunals currently getting underway of KSM, Ramzi Bin-al-Shibh, and others involved in the planning.

3. Many of the hijackers were trained within US military bases. Simply a case of similar names. Note that as usual, the sources are mainstream media reports from the first days after the attacks.

4. Colonel Stephen Butler, of the Defense Language Institute, said Bush knew in advance of the attacks.

Butler's a clear case of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Here's the text of his letter:

It's about time conservative idiots like Steve Kelly and Rod Musgrove got a dose of reality. Of course President Bush knew about the impending attacks on America. He did nothing to warn the American people because he needed this war on terrorism. His daddy had Saddam and he needed Osama.

His presidency was going nowhere. He wasn't elected by the American people, but placed into the Oval Office by the conservative supreme court. The economy was sliding into the usual Republican pits and he needed something on which to hang his presidency.

For them to accuse Democrats of being "sleazy" is laughable. Isn't it ironic that Kelly begins his inane babble with a reference to Monica Lewinsky? How many people died because of Monica Lewinsky? And for Musgrove to call the assertions "contemptible" is another joke. Funny how he manages to make disparaging remarks about President Clinton, as well.

Face it people, Bill Clinton was a great president. This guy is a joke. What is sleazy and contemptible is the President of the United States not telling the American people what he knows for political gain. The Democrats asking pertinent questions is their duty as public servants.

Steve Butler

Note the lack of evidence presented in the letter. Bermas claims Butler is an authority because one or more of the hijackers purportedly attended his school, and yet Butler fails to mention that fact.

5. A woman named Diane Albritten (ph) called the CIA on some of her hijacker neighbors living at 502 Orrin Street. This appears to be true:

Fed up with the parking problem, and suspicious of activities at the house, the neighbor across the street at 503 Orrin St., John E. Albritton, called federal authorities, according to his wife. She says they observed a van parked outside the home at all hours of the day and night. A Middle-Eastern man appeared to be monitoring a scanner or radio inside the van, she says.

But reading the article it's pretty clear that the neighbors suspected drug-dealing and that there were too many people living in the house, not exactly the kind of thing that the CIA investigates.

6. J. Michael Springmann claims he was told to issue visas to unqualified applicants. Bermas overlays Mohamed Atta's passport on the screen, but of course Springmann is talking about 1986-1987, more than a decade before Atta came to the United States. Springmann rattles on about some Sudanese guy; of course, none of the hijackers were from the Sudan. Springmann managed to imply that the guys he was pushed to let in were CIA assets, like "the guys I let in a couple years previously." Of course it was not a couple of years previously, it was well over a decade previously.

7. Springmann gets into deeper waters with his claim that he had met some people who told him that the CIA was working with Osama Bin Laden. This claim has been repeated endlessly, mostly by people who have not looked into Osama's activities in the 1980s.

8. Bermas claims "It is now known that Osama Bin Laden was a CIA asset, under the codename, Tim Osman."

9. Cynthia McKinney comes on to talk about how the US government paid the Bin Laden family $300 million to construct "the camps". McKinney claims that these camps were located in Afghanistan. I will have to look further into this claim; it's a new one on me.

Screw Fabled Enemies

Jason Bermas, Korey Rowe and Alex Jones are collaborating on this film. Here's a clip:



Jennings is, of course, just plain wrong about the time. The Office of Emergency Management was not evacuated until 9:30. If a bomb had exploded in WTC 7 shortly after 9:00, why is Jennings the only person who describes it. There were many people in WTC-7 after 9:00, as described by the firefighters and EMS people like John Peruggia.

What he describes as an explosion is simply the collapse of the North Tower. The Terror Timeline gets this one right:

Among them are Barry Jennings, a City Housing Authority worker, and Mike Hess, New York’s chief lawyer who is also a longtime friend of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. The two had gone up to the 23rd floor headquarters of the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management some time before 10 a.m., but found it empty. (It was evacuated at 9:30 a.m.; see (9:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001.) They headed downstairs but became trapped around the sixth floor by smoke and debris that filled the staircase as a result of the North Tower collapsing at 10:28 a.m.

Note the editing; there are several places where the film clearly jumps. Note as well that Bermas claims they were "trapped there for the rest of the afternoon". Obviously this is incorrect; the Terror Timeline notes they were rescued between 12:10 and 12:15 PM; had they been trapped there all afternoon they would have died when the building collapsed.

Jason says he hopes to have the movie ready by September 1. Of course if you go to the website, it says "Coming in June", so they've already missed one deadline.