regulating the group mind ...

Guns and Butter

Wednesday, March 21st, 2007

"Why the Facts of 9/11 Must Be Suppressed: Understanding the Ruling Group Mind Behind the War Without End"

With Dr. John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Guelph, Ontario in a presentation at the International Citizens Inquiry Into 9/11 on May 30, 2004 in Toronto. McMurtry was one of the first academics to analyze 9/11 and the 9/11 wars. In response to the extreme pressure of forcing reality to conform to manufactured delusions, the group and its members become increasingly submerged within a pre-conscious field of hysteria, denials and projections. Their program is being played out in Iraq against heroic resistance, while elsewhere in the empire the "regulating group mind" demands complicity with its fundamental assumption - that 9/11 was an attack from the outside.

Listen: http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=19290
.

.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0302/S00218.htm

.

what went wrong ...

From:

The C.I.A. and the failure of American intelligence.
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2001-10-08
Posted 2001-10-01

" After more than two weeks of around-the-clock investigation into the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the American intelligence community remains confused, divided, and unsure about how the terrorists operated, how many there were, and what they might do next. It was that lack of solid information, government officials told me, that was the key factor behind the Bush Administration's decision last week not to issue a promised white paper listing the evidence linking Osama bin Laden's organization to the attacks.

There is consensus within the government on two issues: the terrorist attacks were brilliantly planned and executed, and the intelligence community was in no way prepared to stop them. One bureaucratic victim, the officials said, may be George Tenet, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, whose resignation is considered a necessity by many in the Administration. "The system is after Tenet," one senior officer told me. "It wants to get rid of him."

The investigators are now split into at least two factions. One, centered in the F.B.I., believes that the terrorists may not have been "a cohesive group," as one involved official put it, before they started training and working together on this operation. "These guys look like a pickup basketball team," he said. "A bunch of guys who got together." The F.B.I. is still trying to sort out the identities and backgrounds of the hijackers. The fact is, the official acknowledged, "we don't know much about them."

These investigators suspect that the suicide teams were simply lucky. "In your wildest dreams, do you think they thought they'd be able to pull off four hijackings?" the official asked. "Just taking out one jet and getting it into the ground would have been a success. These are not supermen." He explained that the most important advantage the hijackers had, aside from the element of surprise, was history: in the past, most hijackings had ended up safely on the ground at a Third World airport, so pilots had been trained to coöperate.

Another view, centered in the Pentagon and the C.I.A., credits the hijackers with years of advance planning and practice, and a deliberate after-the-fact disinformation campaign. "These guys were below everybody's radar—they're professionals," an official said. "There's no more than five or six in a cell. Three men will know the plan; three won't know. They've been 'sleeping' out there for years and years." One military planner told me that many of his colleagues believe that the terrorists "went to ground and pulled phone lines" well before September 11th—that is, concealed traces of their activities. It is widely believed that the terrorists had a support team, and the fact that the F.B.I. has been unable to track down fellow-conspirators who were left behind in the United States is seen as further evidence of careful planning. "Look," one person familiar with the investigation said. "If it were as simple and straightforward as a lucky one-off oddball operation, then the seeds of confusion would not have been sown as they were."

Many of the investigators believe that some of the initial clues that were uncovered about the terrorists' identities and preparations, such as flight manuals, were meant to be found. A former high-level intelligence official told me, "Whatever trail was left was left deliberately—for the F.B.I. to chase."

In interviews over the past two weeks, a number of intelligence officials have raised questions about Osama bin Laden's capabilities. "This guy sits in a cave in Afghanistan and he's running this operation?" one C.I.A. official asked. "It's so huge. He couldn't have done it alone." A senior military officer told me that because of the visas and other documentation needed to infiltrate team members into the United States a major foreign intelligence service might also have been involved. "To get somebody to fly an airplane—to kill himself," the official added, further suggests that "somebody paid his family a hell of a lot of money."

"These people are not necessarily all from bin Laden," a Justice Department official told me. "We're still running a lot of stuff out," he said, adding that the F.B.I. has been inundated with leads. On September 23rd, Secretary of State Colin Powell told a television interviewer that "we will put before the world, the American people, a persuasive case" showing that bin Laden was responsible for the attacks. But the widely anticipated white paper could not be published, the Justice Department official said, for lack of hard facts. "There was not enough to make a sale."

The Administration justified the delay by telling the press that most of the information was classified and could not yet be released. Last week, however, a senior C.I.A. official confirmed that the intelligence community had not yet developed a significant amount of solid information about the terrorists' operations, financing, and planning. "One day, we'll know, but at the moment we don't know," the official said.

"To me," he added, "the scariest thing is that these guys"—the terrorists—"got the first one free. They knew that the standard operating procedure in an aircraft hijacking was to play for time. And they knew for sure that after this the security on airplanes was going to go way up. So whatever they've planned for the next round they had in place already."

The concern about a second attack was repeated by others involved in the investigation. Some in the F.B.I. now suspect that the terrorists are following a war plan devised by the convicted conspirator Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, who is believed to have been the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Yousef was involved in plans that called for, among other things, the releasing of poisons in the air and the bombing of the tunnels between New York City and New Jersey. The government's concern about the potential threat from hazardous-waste haulers was heightened by the Yousef case.

"Do they go chem/bio in one, two, or three years?" one senior general asked rhetorically. "We must now make a difficult transition from reliance on law enforcement to the preëmptive. That part is hard. Can we recruit enough good people?" In recent years, he said, "we've been hiring kids out of college who are computer geeks." He continued, "This is about going back to deep, hard dirty work, with tough people going down dark alleys with good instincts." "

Full article at:
- http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/011008fa_FACT?011008fa_FACT
.

YouTube Censors 9-11 "Smoking Gun"

I first saw this "newsclip" here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1471985581749234824&q=9%2F11#04m37s

When I wanted to play it a second time:
"We're sorry, but this video may not be available. "
_

3/4/2007 10:14:24 AM
Overthrow Staff

Internet -- Google's You Tube service is refusing to rank a top ten video that 9-11 skeptics describe as a "smoking gun", after repeatedly taking the video down off of their free video service website.

The video, a clip from BBC television's coverage of the World Trade Center attacks, has a BBC announcer declaring and showing the collapse of World Trade Center Tower 7 twenty three minutes before its actual collapse.

9-11 critics believe the video shows that the attack was pre-planned by British and American elites. Given that a large segment of the elite in Britain and America are Jewish, Google appears to consider the video "hate" material.

9-11 skeptic websites say that the video was deleted by YouTube dozens of times before Google decided to simply remove its ranking, keeping it out of You Tube's top ten list.

The video is available (short version) here:
- http://www.overthrow.com/lsn/news.asp?articleID=10225
... and full version here:
- http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/88.html

I can accept that BBC may not have been - even that BBC was NOT - "part of the conspiracy" - not knowingly, not intentionally.

I do not see the BBC broadcast as pointing to BBC "complicity"

Fact is that someone, for whatever reason, *informed* BBC (across the Atlantic) that the "Salomon Brothers Building" (WTC7) *had collapsed* when in fact it had not
- not yet.

Whoever gave that information to BBC KNEW that the building would come down
(maybe wanted to finish a "day's work" prior to 5pm - a "clockwatcher" ?)
- maybe just had a brain cramp, confused over "transatlantic time zones"
(happens every day, does it not ?)

People on the scene knew the building would come down - before it came down - and I would say some of them knew WHEN WTC7 was "scheduled" to come down.

BBC simply did what BBC would do or would have done anyway, with or without any "special" knowledge - the "on scene" reporter (nor the camera operator) not even aware which building was which as all 47 stories of "Salomon Brothers Building" is clearly visible in the distant background.

People continue to ask how the charges could have been set in these buildings to bring them down, and we have repeatedly pointed to the closures of areas in each of these buildings in weeks prior to September 11, 2001, the power cut off so that computers in other areas were not functioning - businesses paying rent in those buildings temporarily "out of service" - adding that opportunity to the residues found in the remains of the steel which should have stood regardless of fire, it is easy to conclude not only that charges were set to bring those buildings down, but when the charges were set, how, and who set them.

We know that numerous criminal cases involving high-level officials and transnational corporate actions were ended with the destruction of WTC7 because the case files were contained in that building, and that should be a powerful argument against ever again having so much "oversight" concentrated in one small area.

Added to the demise of those prosecutions, the destruction of the "liabilities" which were the Twin Towers themselves (asbestos in need of removal, corroding exterior aluminum panels, declining occupancy), the financial motives for destruction of those three buildings and their contents is enourmous.

We know WHO had the motive, we know what the motives were, we know WHO had the opportunity, and we know WHO had the means.

We know that the WHO possessing the *motive* is the same WHO in possession of both the *opportunity* AND the *means*

The same WHO is capable of forestalling any investigation.

Now, the "news" from BBC:
_______


Part of the conspiracy?

* Richard Porter
* 27 Feb 07, 05:12 PM


" The 9/11 conspiracy theories are pretty well known by now. The BBC addressed them earlier this month with a documentary, The Conspiracy Files, shown within the UK.

Until now, I don't think we've been accused of being part of the conspiracy. But now some websites are using news footage from BBC World on September 11th 2001 to suggest we were actively participating in some sort of attempt to manipulate the audience. As a result, we're now getting lots of emails asking us to clarify our position. So here goes:

1. We're not part of a conspiracy. Nobody told us what to say or do on September 11th. We didn't get told in advance that buildings were going to fall down. We didn't receive press releases or scripts in advance of events happening.

2. In the chaos and confusion of the day, I'm quite sure we said things which turned out to be untrue or inaccurate - but at the time were based on the best information we had. We did what we always did - sourced our reports, used qualifying words like "apparently" or "it's reported" or "we're hearing" and constantly tried to check and double check the information we were receiving.

3. Our reporter Jane Standley was in New York on the day of the attacks, and like everyone who was there, has the events seared on her mind. I've spoken to her today and unsurprisingly, she doesn't remember minute-by-minute what she said or did - like everybody else that day she was trying to make sense of what she was seeing; what she was being told; and what was being told to her by colleagues in London who were monitoring feeds and wires services.

4. We no longer have the original tapes of our 9/11 coverage (for reasons of cock-up, not conspiracy). So if someone has got a recording of our output, I'd love to get hold of it. We do have the tapes for our sister channel News 24, but they don't help clear up the issue one way or another.

5. If we reported the building had collapsed before it had done so, it would have been an error - no more than that. As one of the comments on You Tube says today "so the guy in the studio didn't quite know what was going on? Woah, that totally proves conspiracy... " "

Richard Porter is head of news, BBC World

- http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/02/part_of_the_conspiracy.html
.

Two more segments about the collapse:

CNN
- http://youtube.com/watch?v=N1LetB0z8_o

BBC 24
- http://youtube.com/watch?v=7lWQ5cJ5XYY
.

evidence planted to direct blame ...

"It is obvious that this "evidence" was planted by individuals wishing to direct the blame towards Osama Bin Laden. How is it possible that Arab students who had never flown an airplane could take a simulator course and then fly jumbo jets with the skill and precision of "top-gun" pilots? It is not possible and the fact is, the true identities of the 9-11 hijackers remains a mystery. In the days following the disclosure of the "hijackers" names and faces, no less than 7 of the Arab individuals named came forward to protest their obvious innocence."
- http://abcnews.go.com/Sections/WNT/
Dead link - a "news" story which no longer exists online.

next

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States

The muscle hijackers 'picked by bin Ladin':

Satam al Suqami, Wail and Waleed al Shehri (two brothers) Both Alive, Abdul Aziz al Omari Alive, Fayez Banihammad (from the UAE), Ahmed al Ghamdi, Hamza al Ghamdi, Mohand al Shehri Alive, Saeed al Ghamdi Alive, Ahmad al Haznawi, Ahmed al Nami Alive, Majed Moqed, and Salem al Hazmi Alive (the brother of Nawaf al Hazmi).

How can the 9/11 Commission be taken seriously when they refer to alive 'hijackers'?
- http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/hijackers.html
_

9/11 Airport Surveillance Video Discrepancies

The story that the hijackers used box-cutters and plastic knives in the attack on the World Trade Center is a functional fictoid. In this case, the function was diversion. This fictoid serves to divert public attentions from the responsibility, and legal liability, of the government and airlines to prevent major weapons- such as guns, bombs, chemical sprays and hunting knives from being carried aboard airplanes. If such illegal devices had been smuggled aboard the planes, the liability could amount to billions of dollars. If, on the other hand, it could be disseminated that the hijackers had only used plastic knives, such as those provided by the airlines for meals, or box cutters, which were allowed on planes, neither the airlines, the screeners at the airport, or the FAA, which regulates the safety of airports, could be held legally responsible.
- http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/nether_fictoid9.htm

A lingering question is why the passenger loads on the four planes hijacked in U.S. skies are being described by industry officials as "very, very low.'' ... Through July, airlines in the United States reported flights on average were 71 percent capacity this year. [CNN 9/20/2001]
- http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/19/hijacked.planes/

The total passenger seating capacity of the four 9/11 airliners was 762 people. There are 229 passengers and crew members on the four death lists issued by CNN (although this figure varies). The total number of passengers on the four airliners was only 26 percent of capacity.
Several major news organizations wrongly identified at least four pilots of Middle Eastern descent as likely hijackers. Two of the wrongly suspected pilots had Arabic names similar to those of two dead hijackers. A pilot living next door to one of them became a third wrong suspect. A pilot with the same last name became the fourth wrong suspect -- even though he'd been dead for a year. [Wall Street Journal]
- http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/9-11_pilots.html

The BBC reported a transcript of a phone call made by Flight Attendant Madeline Amy Sweeney to Boston air traffic controls in which she gave the seat numbers occupied by the hijackers, and these seat numbers did not correspond with those of the men claimed by the FBI to be responsible for the hijacking:
The FBI has named five hijackers on board Flight 11, whereas Ms Sweeney spotted only four. Also, the seat numbers she gave were different from those registered in the hijackers' names. [BBC News] Friday, 21 September, 2001, 12:24 GMT 13:24 UK
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1556096.stm

CNN reported that the men who hijacked the aircraft used phony IDs containing the names of real people living in Arab nations in the middle east.
The Saudi Airlines pilot, Saeed Al-Ghamdi, 25, and Abdulaziz Al-Omari, an engineer from Riyadh, are furious that the hijackers' "personal details" - including name, place, date of birth and occupation - matched their own. [Telegraph] By David Harrison 2:03am BST 23/09/2001
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/23/widen23.xml

The FBI says there is no evidence to link the above men to the 9/11 hijackings.
In September 2002, [FBI Director Robert Mueller] told CNN twice that there is "no legal proof to prove the identities of the suicidal hijackers." [Insight] June 11, 2003
- http://www.prisonplanet.com/fbi_denies_mix_up_of_911_terrorists.htm

So, one fact is apparent. If those who hijacked the 9/11 airplanes were using stolen identities, then we don't know who they were or who they worked for. We can't. It's impossible.
A Saudi embassy official said it was difficult to know for certain whether the hijackers used bogus names. "You cannot throw a stone in Saudi Arabia without hitting an Al Ghamdi," he said, referring to the alleged last name of three of the hijackers. [Chicago Tribune] Jeff Zeleny and John Diamond, Washington Bureau Tribune staff reporters John Crewdson, David Heinzman, Mike Dorning and Stephen J Hedges in Washington, Cam Simpson in New York and Noreen Ahmed Sep 19, 2001; pg. 1
- http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0109190363sep19.story?coll=chi-news-hed

Now, people who are intending to commit suicide normally don't worry about whether anyone knows their real name, and it is here that some other odd aspects of this case take on a new meaning.

We are told that the group that planned and carried out the 9/11 attacks were highly trained (possibly by the CIA) experts, with knowledge of how to steal identities and forge fake IDs, yet at the same time we are being told that these men were incapable of correctly filling in US visa applications.

We are also being told that they spent the night before the attack getting drunk in bars, making noise, screaming insults at the "infidels", and doing everything they could to attract attention to themselves. They used the credit cards issued in their stolen names, allowed their driver's licenses with the stolen names to be photocopied, and used public library computers to send emails back and forth using their stolen names signed to unencrypted messages about their plans to steal aircraft and crash them into buildings, then decorated their apartments with absurdly obvious props such as a crop dusting manual to the point where the whole affair reads like a low budget "B" detective movie from the 1930s.

In short, these men did everything they could to make sure everyone knew who they were, or more to the point, who they were pretending to be.

Because the IDs used by the hijackers were phony, we cannot know who they really were or who they really worked for. But what is apparent is that those who planned the hijackings and the 9/11 attacks went out of their way to leave plenty of clues pointing to citizens of middle eastern Arab nations.
Many of the investigators believe that some of the initial clues that were uncovered about the terrorists' identities and preparations, such as flight manuals, were meant to be found. A former high-level intelligence official told me, "Whatever trail was left was left deliberately—for the F.B.I. to chase." [The New Yorker] by Seymour M. Hersh
Issue of 2001-10-08 Posted 2001-10-01
- http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/011008fa_FACT?011008fa_FACT

We don't know who planned 9/11 attacks.

But we do know who they wanted us to think they were.
- http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/hijackers.html
.

magic video, a passport, e-mail, shelf full of manuals ...

"Authorities also received a "tip" about a suspicious white car left behind at Boston's Logan Airport. An Arabic-language flight training manual was found inside the car.

How fortunate for investigators that the hijackers "forgot" to take their Koran and Arab flight manuals with them! Within a few days, [14 September] all "19 hijackers" were "identified" and their faces were plastered all over our television screens.

Then, like a script from a corny "B" spy movie, the official story gets even more ridiculous. The passport of the supposed "ringleader" Mohammed Atta, somehow managed to survive the explosion, inferno, and smoldering collapse to be oh-so-conveniently "found" just a few blocks away from the World Trade Center!"

Uncle Sam's lucky finds

Anne Karpf
Tuesday March 19, 2002
The Guardian

"On Sunday night the United States prepared for fresh strikes against new pockets of al-Qaida and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. At almost exactly the same time, American intelligence revealed that they had uncovered an increase in money being transferred between groups of al-Qaida fighters. According to my reckoning, this is the 14th handy thing that American intelligence has discovered since September 11. Think back over the past six months and it becomes ineluctable: never in the history of modern warfare has so much been found so opportunely.

It started the day after the attacks on the twin towers, with the discovery of a flight manual in Arabic and a copy of the Koran in a car hired by Mohammed Atta and abandoned at Boston airport. In the immediate shocked aftermath of the attacks, these findings were somehow reassuring: American intelligence was on the case, the perpetrators were no longer faceless.

In less than a week came another find, two blocks away from the twin towers, in the shape of Atta's passport. We had all seen the blizzard of paper rain down from the towers, but the idea that Atta's passport had escaped from that inferno unsinged would have tested the credulity of the staunchest supporter of the FBI's crackdown on terrorism.

Yet we were still in the infancy of coincidence. On September 24 the belongings of alleged terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui threw up a cropdusting manual, while four days later came Atta's suicide note, the one with the counsel to shine your shoes before you meet your maker - a piece of advice which seemed suspiciously Norman Rockwellesque. It was here, too, that the stuff about 72 virgins awaiting him in heaven first started to circulate.

In December the laughing, boasting video of Osama bin Laden was unearthed in a house in Jalalabad. The new year saw no let-up in this serendipitous trove - January turned up an email sent by "shoe bomber" Richard Reid from a Paris cybercafe (and found on its hard disk) shortly before boarding the Paris-Miami flight in which he claimed responsibility in advance for downing the plane. (Luckily or carelessly, depending on your perspective, Reid had pocketed a business card from the cybercafe.)

And then, last Friday, Major General Frank Hagenbeck revealed that Americans had found a whole shelf of field manuals on undertaking terrorist activity, to put beside the instruction manual on how to use light automatic weapons left in a training camp in January.

Apart from the fact that the al-Qaida network seem to have a catastrophic way with lost property, isn't it strange that these most demonised and potent of terrorists seem unable to operate any weapons without a manual? Dad's Army is nothing - this bunch sounds as if they wouldn't be able to programme the video. And if the quality of their manuals is anything like those most of us have come across, they will still be wrestling with them long after the guarantee has run out.

Of course you could interpret these discoveries differently. You could detect in them the clear hand of American propaganda. This isn't, of course, to claim a dirty tricks department somewhere in the heart of Washington. That would have you immediately accused of peddling conspiracy theories, though I'm coming to think that conspiracy theories have had a bad press. What are they, after all, but "joined-up government" by another name?

All these discoveries can't obscure four things that American intelligence agencies have notably failed to find. First, even with a bloated expenditure exceeding Russia's total defence budget, they never managed to find out about September 11 before the event. Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones's new book, Cloak and Dagger: A History of American Secret Intelligence (Yale), shows how, almost since their 19th-century inception, American intelligence bureaux have invented or exaggerated a succession of menaces to defend their spiralling budgets and demonstrate their own usefulness while failing to tackle effectively other, more substantial threats.

Second, despite a reward of $2.5m offered at the end of January, the FBI still hasn't discovered those responsible for last year's anthrax attacks.

Third, American intelligence, tragically, didn't find Daniel Pearl, the US journalist kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan.

Fourth - and most spectacular - despite having highly sophisticated satellite tracking equipment, and offering a reward of $25m for information leading directly to his apprehension or conviction, they still haven't found Bin Laden.

Is this one reason why the US is talking about an attack on Iraq - a flexing of the military biceps to distract from flabby intelligence? Whatever the case, to find one training manual might be regarded as a stroke of luck. To find a shelf-full looks like desperation. "
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,11209,669961,00.html
.

who flew the planes on September 11 ... ?

"Hours after the 9-11 attacks, authorities began to find clues conveniently left for them to stumble upon. The Boston Globe reported that a copy of the Koran, instructions on how to fly a commercial airplane and a fuel consumption calculator were found in a pair of bags meant for one of the hijacked flights that left from Logan."

Taking a new tack here, I am going to borrow from an "investigative" report authored by: Dr. Albert D. Pastore Phd

Like so much on the Internet, I have no way right now to confirm that "Pastore" is a real person.

What I know is that his 50-page report is available from numerous websites and it contains a wealth of information, along with "analysis" that is controversial - makes a lot of sense, but how much of it will "prove out"

That "proving out" is part of my purpose while we "prove out" much more to do with September 11, 2001

The "clues" quote above is referenced from a BBC News article dated:
Friday, 5 October, 2001, 15:10 GMT 16:10 UK

In future I will quote from Pastore, and include the referenced "news" text (while it still exists*), and comment as I feel necessary, with no further explanation.

The investigation and the evidence

"If the US is to maintain international backing for its war on terrorism, the strength of evidence linking Osama Bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organisation to the attacks is crucial. Much of this evidence is not yet in the public domain. BBC News Online looks at the investigation to date and considers the information that has emerged.

The investigation:

"Within hours of the attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation launched what has become the biggest manhunt and investigation in US history.

More than 4,000 FBI agents are involved, with 3,000 support staff and more than 400 laboratory personnel.

On 14 September, the FBI released the names of the 19 hijackers it believes carried out the attacks. There is some doubt about four of the people named as some of the hijackers may have been travelling on false documents.

Several of those arrested are reported to have had connections to the hijackers or Osama Bin Laden, and some may have been planning other hijackings.

This is a murky area in which unattributed briefings and misinformation must be taken into account.

Click here for pictures and more details on the alleged hijackers.
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1567815.stm

Official FBI briefings have been short on detail, though many US newspapers have carried unverifiable reports sourced to unnamed security or intelligence officials.

Here are some of the important developments in the US investigation:

* More than 1,000 people have been arrested in the US in connection with the 11 September attacks according to the Justice Department - the majority for immigration violations
* US civil liberties groups have criticised the government for failing to release information about the individuals arrested in connection with the events of 11 September
* US investigators were reported to have found a hire car at Boston airport containing a copy of the Koran and an instruction manual on how to fly a plane
* The passport of one of the hijackers was reportedly found in the wreckage of the World Trade Center
* Four men were detained in Texas, alleged to have been carrying thousands of US dollars and knives similar to those used by the hijackers
* Three men were arrested in Detroit, allegedly in possession of airport plans
* Homes and hotels where the attackers are believed to have stayed were raided, and flying schools where they may have trained were searched.

People suspected of having links to Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were detained across the world. Arrests were made in Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Malaysia and Thailand.

* Djamel Beghal, a French Algerian, was extradited to France from the UAE in connection with the alleged plot
* Another French-Algerian, Kamel Daoudi, was arrested in Leicester in the UK and extradited to France
* In Thailand police searched 15 Arab men wanted by the CIA in connection with the attacks
* In Britain, Lotfi Raissi was arrested. He is alleged to have given flight training to four of the hijackers
* Three hijack suspects were tracked back to Hamburg in northern Germany where they are alleged to have attended university
* Belgian police arrested two men, alleged to be Islamic militants, and seized a huge store of chemicals in their Brussels flat
* In Rotterdam Dutch police arrested Islamic militants suspected of some connection to the attacks
* Six Algerians were arrested in Spain on suspicion of links with Bin Laden.

The trail to Bin Laden:

Money transfers: US investigators are reported to have established a direct link between Mohammed Atta, the man they allege led the hijackers, and Bin Laden's al-Qaeda.

They say that they have evidence showing money transfers from an account held in the United Arab Emirates by a leading Bin Laden operative, Mostafa Mohammed Ahmad, and an account in the name of Atta at a bank in Florida. These are said to have taken place on 8 and 9 September 2001. Atta is further alleged to have returned unused funds to the same bank account in the UAE.

Egyptian Islamic Jihad: Atta is also said to be a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the group led by Ayman al-Zawahri - a man believed to be a close associate of Bin Laden and to have a leading role in al-Qaeda.

Links to al-Qaeda: Two other alleged hijackers, Khaled al-Midhar and Nawaq al-Hamzi are said to have been filmed at a meeting in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia with other known al-Qaeda operatives.

An official British document outlining the case against Bin Laden alleges that one of the Saudi-born militant's closest and most senior associates planned the 11 September attacks. This associate, believed to be a senior al-Qaeda leader, is not named.

US officials say that most of the alleged hijackers trained at al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan.

Intercepts: US officials have said that they intercepted communications by Bin Laden in the days before 11 September which indicated that a big operation was imminent.

The comments, on a satellite phone which Bin Laden must have known was being monitored, may have been intended to confuse American intelligence services. The intercepts are alleged to have hinted at an attack against American targets outside the US.

German intelligence monitored a phone call by a man they suspected of having linked to al-Qaeda. He is alleged to have said: "We have hit the targets."

Strength of the evidence:

There is no direct evidence in the public domain linking Osama Bin Laden to the 11 September attacks.

At best the evidence is circumstantial.

Of this, perhaps the strongest leads are the alleged financial transfers between an al-Qaeda operative and the man alleged to have led the hijackers.

Other evidence - the intercepts, Mohammed Atta's link to Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the ties of other hijackers to al-Qaeda - is even less firm.

The evidence is not being judged in a court of law. It only needs to persuade governments around the world to back the US-led war on terrorism and to a lesser extent to carry public opinion.

US and British officials have indicated that they are unable to reveal all the evidence for security reasons.

When asserting that Bin Laden is behind the attacks, US and UK officials lean heavily on what they believe to be Bin Laden's record and his connection to other terrorist attacks.

They are in effect arguing that the attacks are part of a clearly discernable pattern linked to previous attacks - notably the bombings of the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000, and two US embassies in East Africa in August 1998. "
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1581063.stm
.

eleven is the number of reorganization ...

Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but night shineth as the day:
the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.
- Psalms 139:12
~

11 months since I began this journal - 11 - a significant number for various reasons.

How about "Chapter 11, Title 11, United States Code" ... ?

Two buildings once stood in the city of New York - twins, viewed from a distance resembling two numeral ones standing side-by-side.

During these 11 months I have found nothing incriminating about Joe Simone. Found Not Guilty on all charges, his wife in tears beside him, Joe told the press:
"I was always a good cop and did my job well."

I believed he was, and I still do, and Joe is still denied his pension.

FBI agent Lyndley DeVecchio is still receiving his pension.

An article about Joe also mentions his former boss, among others:
- http://www.americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_297.html

The world is still not right.
_

Learned so much through the last 11 months
- far beyond what happened September 11, 2001
... a century and more of history I had not understood as well previously.

Still an American, though what I have learned has caused me to be physically ill more times than I have kept count of ...
... no plans to go anywhere else yet, not a lot of hope things will improve soon.

The 19 so-called hijackers, terrorists (but whose ?), are still not identified by U.S. authorities - not to my knowledge, not to my satisfaction - some of them still alive.

Do I fear another terrorist attack ?

No - at least not in the sense you might think of "terrorist attack" ...
... not the kind of attack one reads about in newspapers.

No, I do not even fear the kind we do not read about in papers ...
... or see on television.

The possibilities are real ...
I know I may walk out one day and not return.

"Local man victim of drive-by shooting" the small headline will read.

Do I know I am being watched ? - no, I do not.

Do I think I am ? - sure I do: I see the signs, was trained in the drill.

I am not high priority - whether I disappear will matter to few ...

... for very different reasons on that day.

You may say I live in a fantasy world - and I will agree with you.

All Americans in the year 2007 are living in a fantasy world
- each one a little different maybe - most of us not behind the curtain.
Am I a skeptic ? - yes, about most things I would say, about most everything.

My reading has provided convincing arguments to counter much of what I was taught in school, most of which was based on convincing arguments
- about history, wars, nations and peoples, resources, motives ...

So I have my choice to believe "experts" on either side, or from both sides.

Truth is, as I see "truth" currently, both experts, and those who are not, can make a good case based on their own experience, and on what they have been taught, from available "knowledge"
... and not be wrong - not totally wrong.

I think that altered truths and rewritten histories are not new devices, but neither was ever so refined as art as in the Twentieth Century.

I think too that there is a price to be paid for defying natural laws.
.