Passengers battled WTC hijack - widow (Flight 175)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/171807p-149753c.html

The widow of a Gulf War veteran aboard doomed United Airline Flight 175 revealed for the first time yesterday that passengers tried to stop hijackers from crashing the plane into one of the Trade Center towers.

"I might have to hang up quickly, we're going to try to do something about this," Brian Sweeney reportedly said in a cell phone call to his mother.

"Okay," Louise Sweeney said. "Do what you have to do."

The account was related yesterday to the Daily News by Sweeney's widow, Julie, and has never before appeared in print.

[stepnw1f]

1. Maybe it wasn't put into print..

But I heard it before.

[tom_paine]

2. It's a shame he didn't succeed

[dave29]

3. Thank God Hussein is gone

and this will never happen again

yay Bush

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

9. That's right! Most of the hijackers were from Iraq, Osama's

family lives in Iraq, Osama's from Iraq...

Wait... I'm sorry, that's Saudi Arabia...

HEY! Did we just attack the wrong country????

[cmf]

4. Interesting, wonder why she never came out with it before.

This is also interesting:

"He could literally kill somebody with a twist of the neck. We could see him trying to do something about it."

Was he a SEAL or something? What types of people in the Navy learn actual hand-to-hand combat?

[ronnykmarshall]

5. Didn't want to be a media ho'

like a certain woman that wants to copywright a two word phrase.

[donco6]

6. Let's Troll?

Let's Bowl?
Let's Poll?
Let's Drool?

It would actually mean something to me, but for her self-serving antics.

[ronnykmarshall]

7. How much you wanna bet ...

she'll be trotted out at the GOP convention?

[donco6]

11. Absolutely No Doubt

With the ubiquitous phrase in tow.

[Timefortruth]

14. Not likely, she campaigned for Robert Torricelli

before he dropped out. By then she was appalled by what she knew Chimp had done, or not done.

[ronnykmarshall]

28. Really?

Where did you hear this?

What a turn around.

[AP]

8. It was a trade mark, not a copyright, and it was a perfectly

legitimate thing to do.

If she didn't do it, she'd have a harder time preventing a lot of scam artists from rasing money pretending they had a connection to her.

[ronnykmarshall]

10. Ok, trademark.

Sorry but I have a huge issue with Mrs. Beamer and her actions. She was on EVERY talk show 24/7 following the attacks. I have much more respect for the other family memebers that didn't become a self appointed spokes persons like Mrs. Beamer did.

[Timefortruth]

13. Why shouldn't she get any profits that stem from her husband's death?

Better her than some stranger to them. Who knows, Chimp would be using it as a campaign slogan by now if she hadn't taken action.

[Robb]

23. He already is

I'm putting together a list of how many times * used "Let's Roll" in a speech. I'm up in the forties so far. :eyes:

[Malva Zebrina]

12. It is really unfortunate

but Bush has cheapened this whole thing to the point where I doubt anything further that comes out from anyone who has not spoken out "until now". This is only coming out now? It does not smell right.

[zonmoy]

31. To me

the whole 9-11 thing never smelled right. But that is just the opinion of an admitted conspiracy theorist.

[CaptainClark23]

15. Without any solid reason, as yet...

I say something stinks about this. The timing.

I hope I'm wrong. I don't believe I am though.

[mot78]

16. This dispells MIHOP at least

MIHOP people: How do you support your theory with black box tapes of the planes and accounts from loved ones on the phones with their husbands?

[spotbird]

17. I'm a LIHOPer myself

but to defend the MIHOPers these facts are unrelated to whether9/11 was caused to happen or not.

How the passengers reacted just has nothing to with who knew what when.

[TomNickell]

18. Nothing will dissuade 'MIHOP people'.

Their belief system is beyond reason and fact.

Generally, it is better not to encourage them. This thread will soon be filled with references to very strange and wonderful machines and theories.

[Minstrel Boy]

20. What do you think MIHOP means?

For me, it simply means elements within the US government did more than nothing. And to me, the evidence is clear that they did.

Of course there were hijackers. I simply doubt most knew in whose service they actually belonged.

[worldgonekrazy]

25. Have you seen the movie "Arlington Road"?

If not, you should, because I believe it was exactly such a scenario that occured on 9/11. The movie is a reference to the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing, having come out before 9/11, but could have just as easily theorized on the latter.

[zonmoy]

32. I figure

they were most likely members of the christian right or zionist extremists. both are most likely puppets of the bush cabal.

[CaptainClark23]

22. black boxes?

I wasn't aware any black boxes had been recovered. Please provide more info!

Never having seen actual transcripts or first-hand interviews, let alone affidavits of testimony, I can only view the cell-call accounts with the same degree of objectivity as I view the other aspects of 9.11.

Given the degree of obfuscation and contradictory explanations inherent in other aspects of the 9.11 Official Story, I think I have a reason to be suspicious of this "new info" as well. Even if certain calls were made and their content reported accurately and truthfully, it would not be unheard of for additional calls which support the Official Story to be fabricated for popular consumption, thus becomming part of the public conciousness and accepted without question or substantiation.

Specifically, there are some aspects of Barbara Olson's two calls that I feel are not entirelly consistent with the overall narrative.

For something like this, sorry, I can't just accept what I am shown at face value. I do not trust the storytellers enough for that. Do you?

[DemoTex]

19. As an ALPA accident investigator, I shy away from MIHOP threads.

That is, MIHOP from a remote-control conspiracy point-of-view. However, as an astute political animal, LIHOP makes sense. The regime's negative response to the investigation lends credibility to LIHOP. Further stone-walling might make a MIHOPer out of me (of the non-remote-control variety).

[worldgonekrazy]

26. Just a question

I don't believe the remote controlled planes theory myself, but I was watching a program on the history channel the other day that made me wonder.

The program was on the history of spy planes, and I don't know if you've heard of "Global Hawk" or not, but it is a relatively new unmanned aircraft that can be flown via remote control. Apparently it is fully functioning, it even has some limited weaponry that can be used with the remote control.

Given that such technology exists, could it be used on a passenger aircraft?

I just ask because I think we might be missing something when we don't even consider the possiblity. I would use the Wellstone plane crash as an example. Everything about the crash is perfectly consistent with an EMP attack to disable the plane, and such technology is available (albeit it is still in the experimental phase).

[Voltaire99]

21. Larry David did some hilarious material Sunday night...

...on this tiresome piety about 9/11. The sooner America finds a new narrative - gets over sentimentalizing and wringing action-movie symbolism out of this tragedy - the better.

Put another way: if you think "Let's roll!" is a philosophy, then I've got a low-fat McDonald's salad to sell you.

[lucky777]

24. This is likely bullshit

I'd like to see -- in one place -- a chronological list of every phone call, every black box transcript, every chart of the airplanes' paths. Until we have a complete composite picture, there is no way to get any sense of the whole. These little tidbits without supporting evidence are really useless.

[mobuto]

29. Huh?

What do you mean "sense of the whole?"

Presumably that's what the 9/11 Commission is paid to do - provide the definitive accounting of what happened.

[CaptainClark23]

33. "Presumably"

Yeah, thats kinda what I think too.

So Mobuto, whats your confidence factor as to a "definitive accounting" coming out of the Kean Commission?

I got tell ya, mine isn't too high.

[mobuto]

34. Of the facts of the attacks?

I'd say the odds are extremely high that the Kean Commission will provide the definitive accounting of the facts surrounding the attacks. Now will they adequately probe the intelligence failures that allowed the attacks to happen in the first place? My guess is probably not. But that's a separate issue.

[CaptainClark23]

36. You've got more optimism than I

I tend to think the opposite. The focus will be intelligence failures attributed to a systemic and institutional failure rather than any individual culpability.

I think the facts surrounding the attacks as presented by the commission will be the equivalent of: "Bad Men flew planes into buildings, buildings fell down."

time will tell, or not.

[Zhade]

35. If you think the 9/11 Commission is going to lay out the whole story...

...well, would you like to buy some prime real estate?

Hell, one of Thomas Kean's business partners is Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law, and he's going to get to the bottom of this? Chris Floyd, a superb journalist, writes:

"But now it seems that Kean might possess some unique insights of his own. Fortune Magazine reports this week that both Kean and Bush share an unusually well-placed business partner: one Khalid bin Mahfouz -- perhaps better known as "Osama bin Laden's bagman" or even "Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law."

Kean, like so many worthies, followed the revolving door out of public service into lucrative sweetheart deals and well-wadded sinecures on corporate boards. One of these, of course, is an oil company--pretty much a requirement for White House work these days. (Or as the sign says on the Oval Office door: "If your rigs ain't rockin', don't come a-knockin'!") Kean is a director of Amerada Hess, an oil giant married up to Saudi Arabia's Delta Oil in a venture to pump black gold in Azerbaijan. (The partnership is incorporated in a secretive offshore "tax haven," natch. You can't expect a worthy like Kean to pay taxes like some grubby wage slave.)

One of Delta's biggest backers is the aforesaid Mahfouz, a Saudi wheeler-dealer who has bankrolled some of most dubious players on the world scene: Abu Nidal, Manuel Noreiga, Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush. Mahfouz was also a front for the bin Laden family, funneling their vast wealth through American cut-outs in a bid to gain power and influence in the United States."

http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd01312003.html

[daleo]

27. Why now?

That's all.

[mobuto]

30. Why anytime?

That's all. I don't get your point.

[daleo]

40. Why are we hearing about this two and a half years on?

That is all I mean. A long time has passed since 911, and you would think that anyone with a cell phone conversation to relate, especially with indications of a "fighting back" incident would have had reporters lined up to hear her story all along. After all, the people on the Pennsylvania flight (I can't recall all the flight numbers right now) were widely celebrated for their courage - it was a bright light in an otherwise bleak narrative. If the same thing happened on one of the WTC flights, that should have been big news.

I am not saying she isn't telling the truth, or that there is some big conspiracy going on. I just wonder why it took this long to hit the news (or alternatively, why it is being re-reported if it had already hit the news). After all, with the presidential election coming up, anything to do with 911 will be intensely parsed by many.

[mobuto]

42. No, she didn't tell the media

Why should she? Not everybody likes to be the object of a media circus. She didn't keep anything from investigators.

After all, with the presidential election coming up, anything to do with 911 will be intensely parsed by many.

How does this help anyone politically?

[daleo]

44. I don't think it does help anyone, politically, myself

Some might think that keeping the focus on 911 is good for Bush, but I don't necessarily agree. By now it may just be linking him with a disaster in the majority of people's minds. The idea of fighting back has its inspirational side, but again, I don't see that it benefits either side over the other.

Nonetheless, a 911 widow is a potent political symbol, and I am sure there will be attempts to take advantage of her story, from a variety of angles.

[RedCloud]

37. Aren't cell phone calls next to impossible?

Wasn't it shown some time ago that you can't complete a cell phone call in a plane going at that speed?

[mobuto]

38. Nope

They actually happen quite frequently, though they're not supposed to.

[CaptainClark23]

39. Here's one of those 'definitive' things.

I have seen good, test and observation-based arguments both for and against this issue of cell phone reliability at highspeeds and altitudes.

I have not seen this definitivly proven either way. Your "Nope" seems pretty definitive. If you have a link to what convinced you personally, please share.

[mobuto]

41. The only proof I need

is that I forgot to turn off my cell phone on a flight and got a call. Oops. Flight attendant didn't notice, though.

[CaptainClark23]

43. Thanks, thats all I needed to know.

I expect the Kean Commission to be similarly convinced when it comes to substantiation of claims.