Does LIHOP include inviting them over?

[k-robjoe]

"Put yourself in the position of an al-Qaeda planner.(...)As an al-Qaeda planner, you are also aware that the US has a $30 billion intelligence budget that shows on the public side of secrecy. If the mythical hijackers needed to learn the basics of flying, using flight simulators and Cessnas- tools which would be available just about anywhere in the world - what kind of indescribably cretinous moron would decide:

"We must do our basic training in Florida(!) Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan Egypt or Saudi Arabia will never do! We will stand out too much! We musn't use one of our training camps. In Florida we will be inconspicuous. Especially if we ask specifically if we might learn how to fly without learning to take off or land. Then we will never be detected by the intelligence services!" Is this nuts or what??? Why not learn to fly before going to the US ? Why make it so obvious? Why not walk around with a big sign, saying "Investigate and arrest me!" ?"

Indeed : Why would they go about it this way unless they had assurances that they would not be touched?

[k-robjoe]

1. Another question about LIHOP

Considering that both flight 11 and flight 175 flew almost straight over a nuclear power plant.
How could the people letting it happen take such a risk?
( If we assume that they controlled the planes, remotely, then they didn´t leave this decission to the wims of some suicide hijacker. )

Same thing with the Pentagon. If the plane had hit it straight on, the whole top brass at the Pentagon would have been killed (and Rumsfeld). How could the people letting it happen take such a risk? ( Again. If we assume that they controlled the plane remotely, then they didn´t leave this to the wims of some Hani Hanjour, or whoever. )

[DenverDem]

2. It's MIHOP, people.

How was NORAD stood down so conveniently?

These people are treasonous, anti-American criminals.

[ixion]

3. there are loads of questions about the 'official' story that don't

make sense. Way too many for it to be plausable. There are questions about how the Bush cabal behaved. There are questions about why defense plans were not scrambled sooner. There are questions about the planes themselves. There are questions about the physics (or suspension thereof) that would cause the buildings to collapse in the (controlled) manner they did. There are anomalies the size of Texas that have been ignored or pooh-poohed.

Which is why MIHOP makes sense, because it explains these events in a manner which proceeds from logic and science rather than fairy tales.

[Tim Howells]

4. More than LIHOP

All good points - plus look at the way in which the hijackers
got their visas to live in the US, and then came and went
as they pleased. Look at the source of the anthrax
attacks (Fort Detrick, MD) etc etc. This was an inside
job all the way. I wrote an article summarizing some
of this evidence that can be read at:

http://physics911.org/net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=18

Tim Howells

[frylock]

5. thanks for your research, and welcome..

:hi:

[LARED]

6. Hummm

Are there flying schools open to the public in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt or Saudi Arabia?

I don't know. It might be worthwhile finding out.

Also I you plan on hijacking American aircraft, it might make sense to learn how our aviation system work.

[Abe Linkman]

7. Hummmmmm

"Also I you plan on hijacking American aircraft, it might make sense to learn how our aviation system work."

You mean like every other hijacker in history has done? Right.

It might make sense to deal with reality and not try to make excuses or spin away into the universal ether.

[LARED]

9. Hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

You mean like every other hijacker in history has done? Right.

I'm not sure what that has to do with well-- anything, but the last hijacking in America was in 1991 and there has been only one fatal hijacking in America since at least 1970. So I'm not sure what history you are referring to.

If you are planning to hijack a plane in America it is pretty sensible to train in America. Where anybody with the cash can go to flying school.

Face facts Abe, the 'hijackers taking flying lessons in America is something out of the ordinary speculation' is only another on the long list of meaningless red herrings throw out by the CT crowd to avoid facing the reality of 9/11.

[Abe Linkman]

10. Lared: You tried to narrow the issue. Why?

What other hijackers have "trained" in America? Give us your evidence of that? Where did you get the idea that hijackers have ever thought it would be a good idea to train in America? Unless they were Patsies. In fact, logic would suggest they'd AVOID training in America...unless they were being set up.

Face the truth and the holes in your conspiracy theory. The "Wacky Cave
Man & Cavemen Did It" Conspiracy supporters are beginning to act a little defensive...to avoid facing the reality that their position is becoming more and more untenable.

[LARED]

11. Abe

This is not complicated. We already know the 9/11 hijackers were trained in America. I said it make sense that they trained in America.

In fact, logic would suggest they'd AVOID training in America...unless they were being set up.

Dazzle me with your logic on this one. You must have something other than endlessly repeating the Wacky Cave Man didn't do it.

[Abe Linkman]

12. "Lared" - No it isn't complicated. Just read the original message.

The original message on this thread is all any reasonable person needs to read to understand why "real" hijackers would choose to get training other than in the United States. The "Wacky Cavemen" Conspiracy theory you endlessly defend is really starting to look sillier and sillier. That must be why you are desperate to try and spin a story about "why" the alleged Cavemen would choose to get flight training in Florida.

You want us to believe that the "Cavemen" weren't set up by the CIA; but they WERE set up by Osama? Or, is it your position that they willingly sacrificed their lives? If so, do you have any evidence to back that up? Their alleged night life alone disqualifies them from being labeled as religious fanatics. Do you want us to believe that the Cavemen WERE or WERE NOT religious fanatics? Which is it?

[Bolo Boffin]

18. Abe - wrong again.

The original message on this thread is all any reasonable person needs to read to understand why "real" hijackers would choose to get training other than in the United States.

Reasonable people understand that most of the hijackers were allowed into the country on student visas in order to learn to fly.

They were coming into the country to learn to fly. That got them the student visas. That got them access to the country. It's really simple for reasonable people to understand.

On the night life of the fanatics, check out what Juan Cole had to say when examining the "doomsday" document. The information's out there.

[Abe Linkman]

19. "boloboffin" - evading the issues & ducking the "debate"

What happened to you? Tired of seeing your speculation called for what it is? C'mon, I was enjoying your feeble attempt to debate. Remember, bolo? YOU assert a position, and then you support it with evidence. Your failure to make your case speaks volumes about the futility of trying to "sell" something that doesn't even make sense.

So far, you're batting zero. (except for your great skill in pointing out the obvious)

[Bolo Boffin]

25. Abe Linkman, the 9/11 Information Minister?

Is it or is it not true that most of the hijackers entered the country on student visas, in order to learn to fly?

Your evasion of this obvious fact is what the careful reader hears a-talking. Keep up your Saeed al-Sahaf act: it's cute.

Furthermore, isn't it weird that Abe calls himself Linkman, and yet Dulce gives all the links in the relationship? How unusual.

[DulceDecorum]

28. Destructive distraction

from the facts.

Trying to get everyone to focus on personalities again Boloboffin?
So sad.

Who gave those people visas that they were not qualified to receive?
Who allowed them to train on secure US military bases?
And HOW is it, that several of them are STILL ALIVE after allegedly crashing planes into three buildings and a field?

Boloboffin, you said:
"Is it or is it not true that most of the hijackers entered the country on student visas, in order to learn to fly?"

Why do you assume that Abe can answer this question?
Was he there when the visas were being given out?
Were you there too?

All we knows is what we reads in the paper.
And we know most of THAT is false.

[KYDEM]

30. check post # 23 about visas from Commission testimony

n/t

[Bolo Boffin]

31. And that contradicts what I'm saying how?

k-robjoe's point was this: why'd they come over here to learn to fly?

My point was this: it was the student visas that got them into the country.

After that, all I've seen is the same old evasive manuvuers that we've come to know and love so well from Abe/Dulce.

[k-robjoe]

32. point

>k-robjoe's point was this: why'd they come over here to learn to fly?

...unless they were being protected.

I´m arguing that they were being protected. ( see post 26 )

[DulceDecorum]

33. It was NOT

the student visas that got them into the country.
It was the CIA.

Boloboffin,
I have provided several links supporting my position.
How is that "being evasive?"

Furthermore,
what evidence do we have that they ever learned to fly in the first place?

Many of the so-called hijackers are STILL ALIVE
and,
according to the FAA,
ALL the planes SURVIVED September 11.

All we have is a bunch of downed buildings in New York,
a small crater in Pennsylvania,
and a rebuilt Wedge at the Pentagon.

We also have a war pResident,
an undisclosed number of US dead,
a lot of wounded US soldiers being mistreated,
and a shocking and awful number of assassinated civilians spanning the globe.

Without the CIA and their visas,
we might not have ANY of this.

[Abe Linkman]

34. "boloboffin" - The 9-11 "Debater" Who Can't Make His Case

Is it or is not true that you are unable to present your side of the 9-11 argument? You described people here (who don't support the Official Version Conspiracy Theory) as your debate opponents; so I'll ask you again to present your "case". So far, all you've done is mention some random claims that don't add up to anything.

What's your case, "boloboffin"? Tell us "your" 9-11 conspiracy theory/argument/case & if you want to debate an idea or theory; bring it on.

The Official Version C.T. is bogus and nearly everyone who has studied the facts at all, knows it.

[DulceDecorum]

22. Yeah, right.

Newsnight said there was a long history of "shadowy" American connections with Saudi Arabia, not least the two presidents Bush’s "business dealings" with the bin Ladens and another more insidious link revealed by the former head of the American visa section in Jeddah.

The official said he had been concerned about visas issued to large numbers of "unqualified" men "with no family links or any links with America or Saudi Arabia", only to find out later that it "WAS NOT VISA FRAUD" but part of a scheme in which young men "RECRUITED BY OSAMA BIN LADEN" were being sent for "TERRORIST TRAINING BY THE CIA" after which they were sent on to Afghanistan.

In a reiteration of a now well-known claim by one of George W Bush’s former business partners, the BBC said he made his first million 20 years ago on the back of a company financed by Osama’s elder brother, Salem. But it added the more disturbing assertion that both presidents Bush had lucrative stakes along with the bin Ladens in Carlyle Corporation, a small private company which has gone on to become one of America's biggest defence contractors. The bin Ladens sold their stake in Carlyle soon after September 11, it said.
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/probestop-i.htm

As for that Juan Cole,
aka Mr. Maven-a-Bupkes,
what does he have to say about the FACTS?

His take on Mohammed Atta
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Atta
would indicate that Mr. Maven-a-Bupkes has been spending an inordinate amount of time perusing a certain assassination manual put out by a certain well-known organization.
Or he is familiar with the teachings of Old Man of the Mountain and his involvement in the history of hashish.
http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_history_hashish.shtml

In any case, it is widely believed that the document was planted and his analysis is therefore totally irrelevant.

[TrogL]

8. Florida is known for its flight schools

There are big ads in all the flight magazines.

Inviting them over gets into MIHOP territory.

Training them in Florida would also get them used to working in US airspace. The rules are theoretically the same the world over but you'd be dealing with a domestic ATC who would have less tendency to do things differently. A few years ago there was a controvery in Canada because some Quebec ATC's were using French.

[k-robjoe]

13. big picture

Look at the big picture, how they came in, how they behaved, training at military facilities, the investigations of Daniel Hopsicker into those flightschools, how investigation of them was sabotaged by FBI Headquarter, how people who met them are now being told not to speak with anyone, etc.

[DulceDecorum]

15. Friend or servant?

Date: 28 August 2000
It is alleged that
since Lt.Gen. Mahmood Ahmed's visit to Washington
after Clinton's visit to Pakistan in March
to meet George Tenet, Director, CIA,
Gen. Musharraf. suspects him of trying to ingratiate himself with the Americans behind his back.
http://www.subcontinent.com/sapra/regional/regional20000828a.html

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 2 — Place a phone call to Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban in Kabul, and you begin to understand the complexity of the ties this outlaw nation has with Pakistan. Afghanistan has its own area codes, of course, but the Taliban ministries all start with Pakistani codes. The phones are just the beginning. From the guerrilla war in Kashmir to heroin smuggling to a mutual suspicion of Russia and Iran, these two countries have marched in lock step for half a decade.
<snip>
Pakistan’s tangled history of involvement in Afghanistan has roots that go back centuries, but more recently to the U.S.-backed guerrilla war to oust the Soviet Army from Afghanistan in the 1980s.
That CIA-backed effort flooded Pakistan with weapons and zealous Afghan and Arab fighters. When the Soviet Union left the region in 1989, the CIA pulled out, too. But the zealots remained, and Pakistan’s own intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence bureau or ISI, took over as their sponsors. They helped put the Taliban in power and trained militants fighting to end India’s rule in Kashmir.
<snip>
Days after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, Islamabad dispatched a high-level diplomatic delegation to Kandahar, the Taliban militia’s stronghold in southern Afghanistan. After the talks failed to secure the handover of bin Laden, Pakistan tried another approach — sending a group of its top Islamic leaders to reason with Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban’s deeply religious commander.
The special government planes that flew the delegations low over the rugged and parched Pakistan-Afghan border toward Kandahar were packed with VIPs — but one passenger wielded more power than all the other delegates combined: Gen. Mahmood Ahmed, the head of the ISI.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/636796.asp

Military sources told Reuters that the delegation included Gen Mahmood Ahmed, the head of the country’s intelligence service that is regarded as one of the creators of the Taliban.
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2001/20010918/main1.htm

"Pakistan is sending its intelligence chief to Kabul to persuade supreme Taliban leader to hand over bin Laden to the international community and will extend guarantees that he will have a fair trial," the sources said.
"Failure to do so will result in a horrific blitz including dropping of neutron bombs on selective places inside Afghanistan, Pakistan will warn the Taliban, according to the sources.
The neutron bomb does not emit radioactivity but kills people by sucking oxygen from the impact area and inflicting relatively little damage to buildings.
President General Pervez Musharraf is dispatching Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed, who arrived from the U.S. here last night, to Kabul shortly to deliver the request for bin Laden's surrender and the neutron bomb warning.
http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=26752

01 October 2001
Pakistan’s sinister Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) remains the key to providing accurate information to the US-led alliance in its war against Osama bin Laden and his Taliban hosts in Afghanistan. Known as Pakistan’s ‘secret army’ and ‘invisible government’, its shadowy past is linked to political assassinations and the smuggling of narcotics as well as nuclear and missile components.
The ISI also openly backs the Taliban and fuels the 12-year-old insurgency in northern India’s disputed Kashmir province by ‘sponsoring’ Muslim militant groups and ministering its policy of ‘death by a thousand cuts’ that so effectively drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan and led to their political demise.
<snip>
The ISI chief, Lt Gen Mahmood Ahmed, who was visiting Washington when New York and the Pentagon were attacked, agreed to share desperately needed information about the Taliban with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other US security officials. The CIA has well-established links with the ISI, having trained it in the 1980s to ‘run’ Afghan mujahideen (holy Muslim warriors), Islamic fundamentalists from Pakistan as well as Arab volunteers by providing them with arms and logistic support to evict the Soviet occupation of Kabul.
The ISI is presently the ‘eyes and ears’ of the US-led covert action to seize Bin Laden from the Taliban, since hundreds of its agents and their Pathan ‘assets’ continue to operate across Afghanistan. Its influence with the Taliban can be gauged from the inclusion of Gen Ahmed in the Pakistani military and diplomatic delegation to the militia’s religious capital, Kandhar, in southern Afghanistan in an attempt to defuse the looming military crisis. The Pakistani delegation appealed to the Taliban, albeit in vain, to hand over Bin Laden to the US, which holds him responsible for the 11 September attacks on the World Trade Center and Washington in which nearly 7000 people are feared to have died.
http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/misc/janes01...

The manner of Haq's appointment as ISI chief itself provides a clue to his ideological moorings. Post-9/11, Musharraf sent a delegation of Pakistani mullahs headed by Mufti Shamzai to Kandahar to persuade the maverick Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, to hand over Osama bin Laden to the US. The delegation was accompanied by then ISI chief Lt Gen Mahmood Ahmed.
Instead of pressuring Mullah Omar, the delegation congratulated him for his resistance to US pressure. Later, the delegation told Musharraf it had failed in its mission. But a US mole in the delegation spilled the beans, and Washington mounted pressure on Musharraf to replace Lt Gen Ahmed.
It was then that, on October 7, 2001, Musharraf appointed Lt Gen Haq, then corps commander in Peshawar, as the new ISI chief. The aim was to change the ISI's image from being a 'potentially fundamentalist' outfit to a liberal and moderate one. A Pashtun officer who shares Musharraf's westernized world view, Lt Gen Haq was required to weed out the beards, as the Islamic extremists are known inside the agency, and ensure the ISI remained obedient to Gen Musharraf—and didn't oppose Islamabad's shift in its Kashmir and Afghan policies. It's his appointment, sources say, that has helped allay the West's fears about the ISI.
http://www.satribune.com/archives/jan25_31_04/opinion_amirmir.htm

In an extremely risky move, Musharraf last week removed three key generals known for their hard-line Islamist views and pro-Taliban policies. Some called it "a second coup." Reliable sources confirm that one general, Mahmood Ahmed, the secret-services chief, had blocked Musharraf's attempts to meet with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and had been witholding sensitive information.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1015/p7s2-wosc.html

Independent reports from Islamabad and Peshawar suggest that :
bin Laden, who suffers from renal deficiency, has been periodically undergoing dialysis in a Peshawar military hospital with the knowledge and approval of the Inter-Services Intelligence, (ISI) if not of Gen.Pervez Musharraf himself.
http://www.subcontinent.com/sapra/terrorism/terrorism20010702a.html

If the US and other NATO powers really want their counter-offensive to triumph, they have to work for the replacement from power in Islamabad of Musharraf, Lt.Gen.Muzaffar Usmani, his Deputy Chief of the Army Staff, Lt.Gen.Mohammad Aziz, presently a Corps Commander at Lahore, and, possibly, Lt.Gen.Mahmood Ahmed, the ISI Director-General, by moderate officers, who would be genuinely responsive to the concerns of the world community and sincere in their commitment to co-operate in the fight against international Islamic terrorism. For this purpose, the US has to identify officers with no past links with bin Laden and the Taliban. India might be able to help it in this regard.
<snip>
All these organisations have their own separate objectives. The Al Qaeda fights for the overthrow of the Saudi monarchy and for the withdrawal of the US and British troops from Saudi Arabia. The Egyptian groups want Islamic rule in their country. The HUM and the LET want the merger of J & K with Pakistan and, subsequently, the "liberation" of the Muslims in other parts of India. The Sipah-e-Sahaba wants a Sunni State in Pakistan and the declaration of the Shias as non-Muslims. The Uzbek group wants an Islamic State and the Turkistan group wants an Islamic Federation of all Central Asian Republics and Xinjiang. The Uighurs want independence.
http://www.subcontinent.com/sapra/terrorism/terrorism20010914a.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3343621.stm

[DulceDecorum]

14. Remember Gen. Mahmood Ahmed?

Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed, Director of Pakistan's secret service, the ISI, is quite possibly the most taboo suspect of all 9/11 suspects. It was reported in early October 2001 that Mahmood ordered Saeed Sheikh to send $100,000 to hijacker Mohamed Atta. Since then hardly a word has been said about this stunning report, and in fact this once very powerful man appears to have completely disappeared from view.
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/main/mahmoodahmed.html

September 17, 2001 Posted: 10:42 PM EDT (0242 GMT)
Gen. Mahmood Ahmed, chief of Pakistan's intelligence services, and Aziz Khan of the Pakistan Foreign Ministry spent more than an hour with the foreign minister of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, Wakil Ahmed Mutawakel.
They then went to an undisclosed location to meet with Omar.
"Time is short, and you (the Taliban) should solve this problem," Khan told the Taliban foreign minister.
He said all indications were that the origin of attack on the United States came from Afghanistan, and he stressed Pakistan was intent on obeying international law on matters of terrorism.
<snip>
Last week, the Taliban government said if the United States has evidence bin Laden was involved, it should turn over that evidence so the matter could be handled by Afghanistan's judicial system.
The Taliban also said bin Laden could not have been involved in the terror attacks because there is no flight training school in Afghanistan and because the Taliban have cut off bin Laden's communications with the rest of the world.

In a statement issued Sunday, bin Laden denied he was behind the attacks.
"The U.S. government has consistently blamed me for being behind every occasion its enemies attack it," according to the statement, read on Al Jazeera, the Arabic television news channel. "I would like to assure the world that I did not plan the recent attacks, which seems to have been planned by people for personal reasons," bin Laden's statement read.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/09/17/afghan.pakistan/

[OudeVanDagen]

16. DulceDecorum

whazzzzup? You gonna get bizzie and give up dat 411 on your "cement theories" or you backin' down ... again?

[DulceDecorum]

20. OudeVanDagen

Hush....research....is being.... done....stick to ....subject/topic/thread flow.... do not disrupt/interupt....
http://www.fact-index.com/b/bo/boomhauer__king_of_the_hill_.html

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DulceDecorum]

27. OudeVanDagen

Allow me to explain how this thing works.

Democratic Underground has several forums.
The forums are arranged according to subject.
You choose the subject that interests you and you visit that Forum.
On the forum you will find several different threads.
Each thread is a conversation where people are talking about one particular topic.
NOW PAY ATTENTION TO THIS PART, OudeVanDagen.

You are welcome to join in the conversation
BUT
please do not try to side-track it.
If you do then you are a disruptor.
If you disrupt,
and most especially if you disrupt poorly,
then you will, OudeVanDagen,
receive a special award from the Democratic Underground.

Mr. OudeVanDagen,
we are NOT discussing cement on this thread.
If you want to discuss cement,
then by all means either open up a new thread
OR
return to the thread where cement was mentioned and post there.
And now Mr. OudeVanDagen
PLEASE HUSH UP
and let people talk about LIHOP and inviting terrorists over into the US.

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DulceDecorum]

35. And disrupting

another thread.
If you have anything CONCRETE to say about terrorist visas, please say it on this thread.

OudeVanDagen, you are (purposely?) disrupting two threads by trying to switch topics.
Since you have now been made aware of this, I am rather hoping hoping that you will cease and desist. In future we might not be able to grant you any benefit since there will be no doubt.

[Bolo Boffin]

17. Jesu, joy of man's desiring...

Put yourself in the position of an al-Qaeda planner

In other words, to try and distract people away from verified facts, let's build an argument based on complete speculation and our powers of mindreading.

We must do our basic training in Florida(!) Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan Egypt or Saudi Arabia will never do!

Pilot training was what got them through border security in the first place. Most of the hijackers were allowed into the country on student visas.

We will stand out too much! We musn't use one of our training camps. In Florida we will be inconspicuous.

Ladies and gentlemen, k-robjoe! He'll be here all week. Try the veal.

Especially if we ask specifically if we might learn how to fly without learning to take off or land. Then we will never be detected by the intelligence services!"

There's only one person who said anything like this, and he was captured as a result. It obviously wasn't SOP for hijackers to request no taking off and landing instruction.

Is this nuts or what???

Your attempt to distract on this issue is nuts, yes.

Why not learn to fly before going to the US ?

Student visas let the hijackers enter the country.

Why make it so obvious? Why not walk around with a big sign, saying "Investigate and arrest me!" ?"

As you can see, they didn't make it obvious. Your point is moot.

Thanks for playing.

[DulceDecorum]

21. About those student visas

Fifteen of the 9/11 hijackers obtained their visas in Saudi Arabia. Michael Springman, the former head of the American visa bureau in Jeddah, has stated that since 1987 the CIA had been illicitly issuing visas to unqualified applicants from the Middle East and bringing them to the US for training in terrorism for the Afghan war in collaboration with Bin Laden (BBC, November 6 2001). It seems this operation continued after the Afghan war for other purposes. It is also reported that five of the hijackers received training at secure US military installations in the 1990s (Newsweek, September 15 2001).
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/comment/0,12956,1036687,00.html

Thus far I have examined only the means by which visitors to the U.S. are screened. But my experience in the State Department convinced me years ago that for U.S. policy makers, means are not always what they seem, and it is ends, not means, that really matter. 9/11 has only strengthened this conviction. I have repeatedly been asked by journalists if I believe that the CIA was "involved" in 9/11. Such questions are sometimes attempts to discredit me as a "conspiracy theorist." I am nothing of the sort, and my answer is simple: when I was Chief of the Non-immigrant Visa Section at the United States Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, I watched dozens, if not hundreds of visa applicants who could provide no legitimate reason for visiting the US, obtain visas without difficulty. Official statements notwithstanding, the CIA was running the consulate, and protests by mere State Department employees were fruitless. In my case, such protests cost me my job.

The 15 hijackers who obtained visas at Jeddah almost certainly received them courtesy of the CIA. It is not likely that they shared their travel plans for September 11, 2001 with their friends and sponsors at Langley. But it is very likely that the visas came along with their services as hired guns in some U.S. covert operation, most probably the war in Afghanistan. The CIA brings raw recruits from all over the world to learn the finer arts of political murder and coups d'etat, before sending them off to the killing fields. The ends, as George Kennan so patiently explained in his famous "Long Telegram," justify the means. Perhaps the Agency is genuinely sorry that these particular operatives went "off message," but after all, as every Director of Central Intelligence has been at pains to explain, there are risks to every worthy enterprise. A logician might say that the CIA was a necessary, but not a determinate cause of 9/11.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/SPR302A.html

Boloboffin says:
In other words, to try and distract people away from verified facts, let's build an argument based on complete speculation and our powers of mindreading.
<snip>
Pilot training was what got them through border security in the first place. Most of the hijackers were allowed into the country on student visas.

Your attempt to distract on this issue is nuts, yes.

[KYDEM]

23. Also about terrorist visas

Here is a portion of Mindy Kleinberg Statement made to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks:

Prior to 9/11, our US intelligence agencies should have stopped the 19 terrorists from entering this country for intelligence reasons, alone. However, their failure to do so in 19 instances does not negate the luck involved for the terrorists when it comes to their visa applications and our Immigration and Naturalization Service, or INS.

With regard to the INS, the terrorists got lucky 15 individual times, because 15 of the 19 hijackers' visas should have been unquestionably denied.

Most of the 19 hijackers were young, unmarried, and un-employed males. They were, in short, the "classic over-stay candidates". A seasoned former Consular officer stated in National Review magazine, "Single, idle young adults with no specific destination in the United States rarely get visas absent compelling circumstances."

Yet these 19 young single, unemployed, "classic overstay candidates still received their visas." I am holding in my hand the applications of the terrorists who killed my husband. All of these forms are incomplete and incorrect.

Some of the terrorists listed their means of support as simply "student" failing to then list the name and address of any school or institution. Others, when asked about their means of support for their stay in the US wrote "myself" and provided no further documentation. Some of the terrorists listed their destination in the US as simply "hotel" or "California" or "New York". One even listed his destination as "no".

Had the INS or State Department followed the law, at least 15 of the hijackers would have been denied visas and would not have been in the United States on September 11th, 2001.

Help us to understand how something as simple as reviewing forms for completeness could have been missed at least 15 times. How many more lucky terrorists gained unfettered access into this country? With no one being held accountable, how do know this still isn't happening?

Here is the site to read her entire statement:
http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/hearing1/witness_kleinberg.htm

[k-robjoe]

26. Moussaoui

About Moussaoui : Moussaoui was arrested by Coleen Rowley and her team. Coleen Rowley and her team were clearly not "in the know" because they did things that they "shouldn´t have". They busted Mousaoui, and then they wanted to follow the lead, and get to the bottom of it. What happened? It was sabotaged from above. ( Same thing with "whistleblower" Wright. )

You write that I distract from the facts.
My theory is that they were being protected, so the facts you´re talking of would be facts that show that they were not being protected?

[Bolo Boffin]

36. Gotcha...

I see how you're using the quote now.

They weren't being conspicious, though. Only Moussaoui became conspicious after making that daft request of his flight instructor. The others got their student visas, took their classes, and then drifted away.

The "sabotage from above" has yet to be investigated openly. I absolutely agree that it should be.

[paulthompson]

37. Here's a theory why they trained in the US

That could mean MIHOP or not. From my timeline:

September 1987-March 1989: Michael Springmann, the head US consular official in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, later claims that he is "repeatedly told to issue visas to unqualified applicants." He turns them down, but is repeatedly overruled by superiors. Springmann loudly complains about the practice to numerous government offices, but no action is taken. He eventually is fired and the files he has kept on these applicants are destroyed. Springmann speculates that the issuing of visas to radical Islamic fighters continued until 9/11. He says he later learns that recruits from many countries fighting for bin Laden against Russia in Afghanistan were funneled through the Jeddah office to get visas to come to the US. They would then train for the Afghan war in the US. He says the Jeddah consulate was run by the CIA and staffed almost entirely by intelligence agents. Springmann suggests that this visa system may have continued until present day, and that the 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers getting their visas through Jeddah (see May 21, 2002 (C)) could have been a part of it (see also October 21, 2002 and October 23, 2002).

As we have seen, most if not all of the hijackers' visas should have been flatly denied. On a couple of them, the first officials to look at them actually put exclamation marks in their comments, they were so incredulous at how bad the applications were.

The US used radical fundamentalists for it's own purposes, such as tacitly assisting them to go fight in Bosnia and Chechnya. There is the logic the enemy of the enemy is your friend. Very strange people were given US visas even after the Afghan war ended, such as Sheikh Abdul Rahman. Let's say that the US thought the hijackers were "good guys" (in the same way that the Contras were "freedom fighters" and not rebels) and so gave them a free pass. One could take the MIHOP argument and say the US was facilitating the plot or take the incompetence argument and say that al-Qaeda used this channel of mujahedeen training to their own advantage.

The hijackers acted with impunity in the US and training there brought them added risk. For instance, Hani Hanjour was such a bad pilot that a flight school notified the FAA five times in early 2001 that they thought his pilot license must be invalid, and an FAA official even sat next to Hanjour in class to observe his skills. Mohammed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi rented a plane at the Miami international airport, had trouble with it, and just left it on a busy runway and literally walked away without telling anyone anything. It's been pointed out that should have led to a big FAA investigation, fines, and so forth, but did not. Then there was Atta driving without a license, getting tickets and then failing to show up in court, so there was an arrest warrant put out on him. There were many other ample opportunities for their training in the US to have led to trouble for them - read the timeline.

Furthermore, there are lots of other places around the world to train - hundreds of schools in dozens of countries. Moussaoui for instance almost trained in Malaysia but there wasn't a flight school close to the town where he had friends. Ziad Jarrah did get a pilot's license in Germany before his Florida training. There are reports that al-Qaeda did train a number of pilots right in Afghanistan under the guise of them working for the national airline, Ariana. There's nothing you could learn in Florida or Arizona you couldn't learn somewhere else. Florida was preferred by many international pilots for the same reason Hawaii is popular as a convention center locale - good weather, good prices, nearby beaches, etc...

Having some advance men makes sense, but why not have most of the hijackers arrive just a couple of weeks or even days beforehand? It seems stupid not to do that. The pilots were already acclimated to the West from living in Germany for many years.

To me, the logical explanation is that the CIA program of funneling people through Jeddah was still working on 9/11. This would also explain the mainstream reports that some of the hijackers got training at US military bases, and why they seemingly got a free pass on so many things, including their incredibly bad visas. Perhaps they were prospective trainees for US gvmt purposes and either this backfired on the US, or 9/11 was the program they were being secretly trained for. Daniel Hopsicker has done a lot of research into the possibility that the flight schools they used had ties to both the CIA and drug smuggling, and I think that's something that needs more looking into.

[k-robjoe]

38. thanks

So good to have you here!

Here is an article that gives some info on the Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar case :

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MCC309A.html