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Point H-2: The Claim that ‘Able Danger’ Failed to Identify Mohamed Atta’s Probable Presence in the US in January 2000

Consensus 9/11

Introduction

Able Danger was the code name for a high-level intelligence operation co-founded by Generals Hugh Shelton and Peter Schoomaker, Commanders in Chief of the Defense Department’s Special Operations Command (SOCOM).

Telling the story about Able Danger takes time, but it is important, because its work strongly indicated that the man identified as “Mohamed Atta” had been in the United States in January-February 2000, about 18 months before the 9/11 attacks, whereas the official story said he arrived in June, 2000.

Furthermore, the official story claimed that US intelligence didn’t know he was in the country before 9/11, whereas an important part of US intelligence knew he had been there since Jan-Feb, 2000. (For the reason why we speak of “the man identified as ‘Mohamed Atta,’” see the footnote. [1])

However, the Able Danger evidence was consistently ignored by government officials; the 9/11 Commission failed to mention the evidence; and the Defense Department’s Inspector General covered it up. [2] Louis Freeh, the former director of the FBI, called the 9/11 Commission’s claim that it was not historically significant “astounding.”

Background

Here are the details of this story:

Tasked with collecting open-source Internet data on worldwide al-Qaeda networks and terrorist financing, this massive “data- mining” operation employing 80 people began in late 1999.

It used a link-mapping strategy to download and analyze data from thousands of websites. The terrorist network data were then presented visually on wall charts.

The Able Danger leadership team included:

  • Navy Captain Scott Phillpott (the head of Able Danger)
  • US Army Lt. Col. Anthony E. Shaffer (on loan from the Defense Intelligence Agency)
  • Erik Kleinsmith (Army Major and the Chief of Intelligence of the Land Information Warfare Activity)
  • James D. Smith (a civilian defense contractor from Orion Scientific Systems)
  • Dr. Eileen Preisser (Dual PhD, analytical lead, from the Land Information Warfare Activity)

By January-February 2000, the team had discovered the surprising probability of al-Qaeda members within a terrorist cell in Brooklyn. [3]

In mid-2000, Lt. Col. Shaffer was asked by Captain Phillpott to open communications between the head of Able Danger and the FBI in order to collaboratively take down the cell in Brooklyn. However, SOCOM attorneys rejected this effort three times, leaving the FBI unaware of information that suggested the man identified as Atta was inside the U.S. in early 2000. [4]

Soon after 9/11, when photos of the suspected terrorists were released, Phillpott, Shaffer, Preisser, and Smith were shocked to recognize alleged lead hijacker Mohamed Atta and two other alleged hijackers from an Able Danger chart.

Two weeks later, Dr. Preisser, along with three Republican Congressmen – Curt Weldon, Chris Shays, and Dan Burton – showed the “Atta chart” to Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley in the White House, who said he would show it to President Bush. [5]

In October 2003, Lt. Col. Shaffer contacted 9/11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow, while both were in Afghanistan, to report that Able Danger had identified Atta over a year before the attacks.

In March 2004, Shaffer’s Defense Intelligence Agency security clearance was suspended, preventing him from further accessing the documents. [6]

In June 2005, Congressman Curt Weldon (Vice Chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees) told about Able Danger in an interview with the Norristown Times Herald, [7] and in a subsequent speech on the floor of the House he called for an investigation. [8]

Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, the co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission, which had not mentioned Able Danger in its July 2004 final report, stated in August 2005 that Able Danger was not “historically significant.” [9]

One day before a 2005 U.S. Senate Hearing on the matter, key Able Danger witnesses Shaffer, Phillpott and Smith were placed under a gag order by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. [10]

At the same Senate Hearing, Able Danger team member Erik Kleinsmith testified that he was ordered, under Army oversight regulations, to destroy all 2.5 terabytes of the Able Danger material, which he did in May or June of 2000. [11]

In October 2005, Congressman Weldon called for “a full independent investigation by the Inspector General [IG] of the Pentagon.” [12] The IG investigation reported that the five Able Danger witness “recollections were not accurate.” [13]

The Official Account

  1. As The 9/11 Commission Report informed us, Mohamed Atta was the “tactical leader of the 9/11 plot.” [14] He first arrived in the United States on a tourist visa, June 3, 2000. [15] The 9/11 Commission also said that “American intelligence agencies were unaware of Mr. Atta until the day of the attacks.” [16]
  2. In August 2005, a year after the 9/11 Commission had closed, Commissioners Kean and Hamilton explained to the media why Able Danger had not been included in The 9/11 Commission Report:
    1. They had been informed about Able Danger in 2003, but were “never told that it had identified Mr. Atta and the others as threats.” [17] Although the project leader Captain Phillpott was interviewed by the Commission about Atta in July 2004, his “knowledge and credibility” were not “sufficiently reliable” to warrant further investigation of Able Danger, so they concluded that the project was not “historically significant.” [18]
    2. When the Commission asked the Pentagon for all its documents relating to Able Danger, “none of the documents turned over to the Commission mention Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers.” [19]

    According to an Associated Press story reported in mid-September 2005:

    “The commission’s former chairman, Thomas Kean, said there was no evidence anyone in the government knew about Atta before Sept. 11, 2001. … Kean said the recollections of the intelligence officers cannot be verified by any document.”“ ‘Bluntly, it just didn’t happen and that’s the conclusion of all 10 of us,’ said a former commissioner, former Senator Slade Gorton.” [20]

  3. Although several of Able Danger’s officers and intelligence analysts had been scheduled to testify at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee September 21, 2005, the Defense Department said that open testimony “would not be appropriate [because of] security concerns.” [21]
  4. In a September 2006 investigative report, the DOD Office of the Inspector General (IG) wrote:“We concluded that prior to September 11, 2001, Able Danger team members did not identify Mohammed [sic] Atta or any other 9/11 hijacker. While we interviewed four witnesses who claimed to have seen a chart depicting Mohammed Atta and possibly other terrorists or ‘cells’ involved in 9/11, we determined that their recollections were not accurate.” [22]

The Best Evidence

I. Regarding Mohamed Atta’s Date of Arrival in the United States:

  1. Three senior staff from the Able Danger project gave written testimony to a September 2005 Senate Hearing that Mohamed Atta was identified as a potential member of a terrorist cell in New York in January-February 2000, four months earlier than the June 2000 date stated by the official account. A fourth member of the project, Mr. Kleinsmith, was asked during the same Hearing:“Are you in a position to evaluate the credibility of Captain Philpott [sic], Colonel Shaffer, Mr. Westphal, Ms. Preisser, or Mr. J.D. Smith, when they say they saw Mohammed [sic] Atta on the chart?”Mr. Kleinsmith: “Yes, sir. I believe them implicitly from the time that I had worked with all of them.” [23]
  2. After 9/11, civilian sightings of Atta during the spring of 2000 were reported in the news:
    • Johnelle Bryant of the US Department of Agriculture, talking to Brian Ross of ABC News “in defiance of direct orders from the USDA’s Washington headquarters,” said that Atta came into her office “sometime between the end of April and the middle of May 2000,” asking for a loan to buy a small airplane (which she refused to give). Bryant reported that when she wrote down his name, she spelled it A-T-T-A-H, leading him to say: “No, A-T-T-A, as in Atta boy!” [24]
    • In April 2000 and into the summer, Atta was, according to the head of security and a reference librarian, seen repeatedly using the computers in the Portland Maine Public Library. [25]
    • A federal investigator reported to Associated Press on condition of anonymity that Atta and another hijacker rented rooms in Brooklyn and the Bronx in the spring of 2000. A senior Justice Department official reported that Atta’s trail in Brooklyn began with a parking ticket issued to a rental car he was driving. [26]

II. Regarding the reasons given in the Kean-Hamilton 2005 statement for not including Able Danger in The 9/11 Commission Report:

  1. The 9/11 Commission staff members were briefed twice by Able Danger project members:
    • The first briefing was by Colonel Anthony Shaffer on October 23, 2003. Although he was no longer with the Able Danger project, he was given clearance to meet with 9/11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow and some Commission staff members who were visiting Bagram Air Force Base, Afghanistan, where Shaffer was stationed.In an hour-long meeting, Shaffer told Commission staff about the Able Danger project and how it had identified Atta in early 2000. In 2005, answering the Kean-Hamilton claim that he had not mentioned Atta to the Commission, Shaffer insisted that he had named Atta, saying: “I kept my talking points (from the meeting). And I’m confident about what I said.” [27]
    • The second briefing was by Navy Captain Scott Phillpott (who had held four US Naval commands) on July 13, 2004. Phillpott, the leader of Able Danger, was interviewed by Commission staff member Dieter Snell. [28] Although Phillpott’s statement clearly reinforced Shaffer’s October 2003 statement, The 9/11 Commission Report had included neither, because as mentioned above, the Report said that Captain Phillpott’s “knowledge and credibility” were not “sufficiently reliable” to warrant further investigation of Able Danger. [29]
  2. Kean and Hamilton also rejected Able Danger’s Atta claim on grounds that the Pentagon records contained no documentary evidence. They thus disregarded the consistent briefings and testimony from four members of the project’s senior management team. A clue to why may be provided by Anthony Shaffer’s report (backed up by Curt Weldon; see IV-a below) that when Christopher Kojm, Deputy Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, was asked by Congressman Curt Weldon’s chief of staff why the Commission had not included Able Danger in its report, Kojm replied, “It did not fit with the story we wanted to tell.” [30]
  3. With regard to the Commission’s claim that Able Danger was not historically significant, former FBI Director Louis Freeh said that “[t]he Able Danger intelligence, if confirmed, is undoubtedly the most relevant fact of the entire post-9/11 inquiry,” calling the Commission’s claim “astounding.” [31]

III. Regarding the Pentagon concern that “it is simply not possible to discuss Able Danger in any great detail in an open public forum” such as the Senate Judiciary Committee:

  • Phillpott, Shaffer and Smith had already made their written submissions when testifying before the September 21, 2005, Senate Hearing on Able Danger.
  • Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said he was surprised by the Pentagon’s decision because “so much of this is already in the public domain,” [32] and “[t]hat looks to me like it may be obstruction of the committee’s activities.” [33]

IV. Regarding the Inspector-General’s 2006 conclusion that the Able Danger team’s recollection of an Atta chart was not accurate:

  1. In late June 2005, Congressman Curt Weldon, during an address to the House, had presented an enlarged version of the chart that he had received from Dr. Eileen Preisser and had then given to Stephen Hadley in the White House. Pointing out Mohamed Atta’s name in the center of the chart, Weldon had asked: “Why is there no mention, Mr. Speaker, of a recommendation in September of 2000 to take out Mohammed [sic] Atta’s cell which would have detained three of the terrorists who struck us? We have to ask the question, why have these issues not been brought forth before this day? I had my Chief of Staff call the 9/11 Commission staff and ask the question: Why did you not mention Able Danger in your report? The Deputy Chief of Staff [Christopher Kojm] said, well, we looked at it, but we did not want to go down that direction.So the question, Mr. Speaker, is why did they not want to go down that direction? Where will that lead us? Who made the decision to tell our military not to pursue Mohamed Atta?” [34]
  2. In late August, 2005, three members of the Able Danger team had gone public, confirming the Atta chart: Defense intelligence analyst Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, [35] project leader Scott Phillpott, [36] and defense contractor James D. Smith, saying he was “absolutely positive that Atta was on our chart.” [37] Important testimony from Smith came in a Hearing of the House Arms Services Committee on February 15, 2006. Explaining that he had used Arab intermediaries in Los Angeles to buy a photograph of Atta, Smith added that it was one of some 40 photos of al-Qaeda members on a chart that he had given to Pentagon officials in 2000. [38] Smith also said: “I have recollection of a visual chart that identified associations of known terrorist Omar Abdul-Rahman within the New York City geographic area. … Mohamed Atta’s picture … was on the chart. … The particular Atta chart is no longer available, as it was destroyed in an office move that I had in 2004. [Smith later, explaining to the Pentagon’s Inspector General how his Atta chart was destroyed, said: [I]t had been up there so long I had quite a lot of tape up there because it had been rolled up. In the process the tape was tearing the chart. … It shredded itself as I was trying to pull it off the wall carefully … so I just threw it away.” [39] During questioning by Weldon, the following exchange had occurred: “Weldon: Mr. Smith? I have direct recollection of the chart because I had a copy up until 2004. … At the time, after 9/11 when the pictures were released in newspapers and I did the compare on the chart, when I saw [Atta’s] picture there, I was extremely elated and, to anyone that would listen to me, I showed them the chart that was in my possession. Weldon: How sure are you that it was Mohammed Atta’s name and picture [on the chart]? Smith: I’m absolutely certain. I used to look at it every morning …Weldon: And was that the chart you think that was given to me that I gave to the White House?Smith: Yes, sir. It was.

    Weldon: And you’re aware that when I gave that chart to the White House, Dan Burton, the chairman of the Government Ops Committee, was with me and stated to the New York Times, that he actually showed the chart to Steve Hadley and explained the linkages?

    Smith: Yes, sir.” [40]

  3. Confirming the public statements released in August, 2005, by Phillpott, Shaffer, and Smith, two more people reported having seen a chart with Atta’s name on it when the Pentagon interviewed 80 Able Danger employees in early September 2005. Dr. Eileen Preisser and a Mr. (probably Christopher) Westphal brought the number of people who had seen the chart up to five, four of whom remembered Atta’s picture. [41]
  4. A purported image of one of Able Danger’s charts, shown below, is available online, [42] supporting the existence of the charts and what they looked like:Able Danger sample chart
  5. Regarding the Pentagon Inspector General’s 2006 90-page summary claiming that the team’s recollections were not accurate, Dr. David Ray Griffin has provided a detailed analysis, showing its lack of transcripts, circular reasoning, and prejudicial treatment of witnesses. [43]
  6. In an unusual departure from government and military investigation procedures, the Inspector General’s 2006 report refers only to the positions of its witnesses, and does not identify them by name, thus offering witness protection through anonymity, although it was not a criminal investigation. [44]In Congressman Weldon’s words, “The report trashes the reputations of military officers who had the courage to step forward and put their necks on the line to describe important work they were doing to track al-Qaeda prior to 9/11. … I am appalled that the DOD IG would expect the American people to actually consider this a full and thorough investigation.” [45]

Summary and Conclusion

The official 9/11 account is discredited by the evidence below:

  1. The 9/11 Commission Report described Mohamed Atta as the “tactical leader of the 9/11 plot.”
  2. According to the official story, Mohamed Atta entered the US in June of 2000, but in fact he had come months earlier (January-February, 2000).
  3. According to the official story US intelligence didn’t know he was in the country before 9/11, whereas a major research agency co-founded by two Commanders in Chief of the Defense Department’s Special Operations Command (SOCOM) produced evidence showing that the man being called Mohamed Atta was probably in the United States from January 2000 onward.
  4. This evidence was blocked from the FBI on three occasions.
  5. The Commission was notified of the Atta evidence in October 2003 and July 2004, yet failed to include the evidence in its July 2004 Report, and later described it as having no “historical significance.”
  6. The five witnesses to the evidence were later claimed to have been unreliable or deficient in memory.
  7. The official story may imply not just incompetence but deliberate cover-up, with serious implications.

Given this evidence, at best, the 9/11 official account is discredited, and the public is apparently faced with lies and cover-up.

At worst, the man called Mohamed Atta was protected by elements within the Pentagon and allowed to act and travel freely until 9/11.

References for Point H-2

[1]

There is considerable evidence that the man who was calling himself “Mohamed Atta” in the United States prior to 9/11, and who after 9/11 was accused of being one of the (alleged) hijackers, was not the real Mohamed Atta. In the first place, the behavior and attitudes of the two men were reportedly very different:

  • According to the American press, Mohamed Atta drank heavily. After downing five glasses of vodka, wrote Newsweek, Atta shouted an Arabic word that “roughly translates as ‘F—k God.’” Investigative reporter Daniel Hopsicker, who wrote a book about Atta, stated that Atta regularly went to strip clubs, hired prostitutes, drank heavily, and took cocaine. Atta even lived with a stripper for several months and then, after she kicked him out, came back and disemboweled her cat and dismembered its kittens. (Daniel Hopsicker, “The Secret World of Mohamed Atta: An Interview With Atta’s American Girlfriend,” InformationLiberation, August 20, 2006.
  • But according to Professor Dittmar Machule, who was Atta’s thesis supervisor at a technical university in Hamburg in the 1990s, Atta was “very religious,” prayed regularly, and would not shake hands with a woman to whom he had been introduced. As for drinking: “I would put my hand in the fire,” said the professor, that he “will never taste or touch alcohol.” (Professor Dittmar Machule, “Interviewed by Liz Jackson, A Mission to Die For,” Four Corners, October 18, 2001.

Also, the physical appearances of the two men were reportedly very different.

  • The American Atta was often described as having a hard, cruel face, and the standard FBI photo of him bears this out. The face of the Hamburg student was quite different, as photos available on the Internet show. (The photos can be compared at 911Review.
  • Also, his professor described Atta as “very small,” being “one meter sixty-two” in height — which means slightly under 5’4″ – whereas the American Atta has been described as 5’8″ and even 5’10” tall. Professor Machule described Atta as not a “bodyguard type” but “more a girl looking type.” (Professor Dittmar Machule, “Interviewed by Liz Jackson, A Mission to Die For,” Four Corners, October 18, 2001.
[2]
See Section IV under Best Evidence.
[3]
“Lt. Col. Shaffer’s Written Testimony: Able Danger and the 9/11 Attacks,” Armed Services Committee, US House of Representatives, February 15, 2006; see also this “Statement of Anthony A. Shaffer, Lt.Col. … ,” and Atta Reportedly Identified on Pre-9/11 Chart by Able Danger Team Members (historycommons).
[4]
“Lt. Col. Shaffer’s Written Testimony: Able Danger and the 9/11 Attacks,” Armed Services Committee, US House of Representatives, February 15, 2006; see also this “Statement of Anthony A. Shaffer, Lt.Col. … .”
[5]
Representative Curt Weldon (R-Penn.), US House of Representatives,“Congressional Record: June 27, 2005 (House),” and “Lt. Col. Shaffer’s Written Testimony: Able Danger and the 9/11 Attacks,” Armed Services Committee, US House of Representatives, February 15, 2006, and see also this “Statement of Anthony A. Shaffer, Lt.Col. … .”
[6]
Jacob Goodwin, “Inside Able Danger – The Secret Birth, Extraordinary Life and Untimely Death of a U.S. Military Intelligence Program,” Government Security News, circa August 23, 2005.
[7]
Keith Phucas, “Missed chance on way to 9/11,” Times Herald, June 19, 2005.
[8]
US Congressional Record, June 25, 2005, p. H5249.
[9]
“Kean-Hamilton Statement on Able Danger,” August 12, 2005.
[10]
See Senator Joe Biden’s comment during the September 21, 2005, Senate Hearing. See also: Shaun Waterman, “Pentagon gags ‘Able Danger’ team,” UPI Business News, September 20, 2005.
[11]
“Able Danger and Intelligence Information Sharing,” Hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, September 21, 2005.
[12]
Curt Weldon Address to the House: “Able Danger Failure,” US Congressional Record, October 19, 2005, p. H8983.
[13]
US Department of Defense. Office of Inspector General, “Report of Investigation: Alleged Misconduct by Senior DOD Officials Concerning the Able Danger Program and Lieutenant Colonel Anthony A. Shaffer, U.S. Army Reserve,” September 18, 2006.
[14]
The 9/11 Commission Report, July 2004, p. 434.
[15]
Thomas R. Eldridge et al., “9/11 and Terrorist Travel: Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States,” p. 11. See also The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 519, and the Kean-Hamilton statement.
[16]
Philip Shenon, “Second Officer Says 9/11 Leader Was Named Before Attacks,” New York Times, August 23, 2005.
[17]
Philip Shenon and Douglas Jehl, “9/11 Panel Seeks Inquiry on New Atta Report,” New York Times, August 10, 2005.
[18]
“Kean-Hamilton Statement on Able Danger,” August 12, 2005.
[19]
“Kean-Hamilton Statement on Able Danger,” August 12, 2005.
[20]
Devlin Barrett, “Panel Rejects Assertion US Knew of Atta before Sept. 11,” Associated Press, September 15, 2005.
[21]
Philip Shenon, “Pentagon Bars Military Officers and Analysts From Testifying,” New York Times, September 21, 2005.
[22]
US Department of Defense. Office of Inspector General, “Report of Investigation: Alleged Misconduct by Senior DOD Officials Concerning the Able Danger Program and Lieutenant Colonel Anthony A. Shaffer, U.S. Army Reserve,” September 18, 2006.
[23]
“Able Danger and Intelligence Information Sharing,” Hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, September 21, 2005.
[24]
Brian Ross, “Face to Face with a Terrorist: Government Worker Recalls Mohamed Atta Seeking Funds Before Sept. 11,” ABC News, June 6, 2002.
[25]
“The Night before Terror,” Portland Press Herald, October 5, 2001.
[26]
Pat Milton, “Investigator: Hijack leader Atta visited New York before attacks,” Associated Press, December 10, 2001.
[27]
Keith Phucas, “Able Danger Source Goes Public,” The Times Herald, August 17, 2005. Shaffer’s attorney Mark Zaid, testified: “It is Lt Col Shaffer’s specific recollection that he informed those in attendance, which included Defense Department personnel, that Able Danger had identified two of the three successful 9/11 cells to include Atta.” See “Prepared Statement of Mark S. Zaid,” “Able Danger and Intelligence Information Sharing.” Hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, September 21, 2005.
[28]
The 9/11 Commission, “Memorandum for the Record: Interview – Commander Scott Phillpott,” July 13, 2004.
[29]
“Kean-Hamilton Statement on Able Danger,” August 12, 2005.
[30]
Lt. Col. Shaffer’s written testimony to the September 21, 2005 Senate Hearing.
[31]
“An Incomplete Investigation: Why did the 9/11 Commission ignore ‘Able Danger’?” Wall Street Journal, November 17, 2005.
[32]
Philip Shenon, “Pentagon Bars Military Officers and Analysts From Testifying,” New York Times, September 21, 2005.
[33]
David Morgan, “Pentagon blocking September 11 inquiry: Senator,” posted September 23, 2005. Originally published by Reuters, September 21, 2005 (no longer available but picked up by Pravda.
[34]
Curt Weldon, Address to the House, Congressional Record, June 27, 2005, p. H5250.
[35]
Keith Phucas, “Able Danger Source Goes Public,” The Times Herald, August 17, 2005.
[36]
Philip Shenon, “Naval Officer Says Atta’s Identity Known Pre-9/11: Captain is Second Military Man to Say Terrorist Was Named.” New York Times, August 23, 2005, picked up by San Francisco Chronicle.
[37]
“Third Source Backs ‘Able Danger’ Claims About Atta,” FoxNews.com, August 28, 2005. Note that Christopher Kojm’s name is incorrectly reported as Cojm in the news story.
[38]
James Rosen, “Able Danger Hearing Sets Intelligence Officers at Odds,” The News & Observer, February 16, 2006.
[39]
US Department of Defense. Office of Inspector General, “Report of Investigation, Alleged Misconduct by Senior DOD Officials Concerning the Able Danger Program and Lieutenant Colonel Anthony A. Shaffer, U.S. Army Reserve,” September 18, 2006, p. 32.
[40]
Joint Hearing on the Able Danger Program. Subcommittees on Strategic Forces and on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats, and Capabilities, House Armed Services Committee, February 15, 2006.
[41]
Associated Press, “More remember Atta ID’d as terrorist pre-9/11,” September 1, 2005; Thom Shanker, “Terrorist Known Before 9/11, More Say,” New York Times, September 2, 2005.
[42]
Sherman de Brosse, “Able Danger, Mohamed Atta and Ali Mohammed,” November 5, 2010.
[43]
David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé (Interlink, 2008), pp. 187-195.
[44]
US Department of Defense, Office of Inspector General, “Report of Investigation: Alleged Misconduct by Senior DOD Officials Concerning the Able Danger Program and Lieutenant Colonel Anthony A. Shaffer, U.S. Army Reserve,” September 18, 2006, p. 32.
[45]
“Weldon Rejects DOD Report on Able Danger & Harassment of Military Officer,” September 21, 2006.

September 11, 2015 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Who’s Still Afraid of 9/11 Conspiracy Theories?

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | September 10, 2015

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
—Queen Gertrude, Hamlet.

Whenever someone insists too strongly about something not being true, we tend to suspect that maybe it is. In their denials of involvement in 9/11, do Israel’s apologists “protest too much”?

While it would take a small book to adequately document the Israeli connection to 9/11—as Antiwar.com editor Justin Raimondo attempted to some extent in The Terror Enigma—let us briefly recall some of the more intriguing facts as reported in the mainstream media, involving dancing Israelis, Odigo warnings, and Zim’s timely move.

The story of the five Israelis who were seen celebrating and filming as the Twin Towers burned and collapsed was investigated by Neil Mackay in Scotland’s Sunday Herald. The so-called “dancing Israelis” worked for Urban Moving Systems, later deemed to be a Mossad front by the FBI. Despite failing numerous polygraph tests, the young men were deported to Israel two months later. Back home, several of the men appeared on a TV chat show, in which one of them amazingly said, “Our purpose was to document the event.”

Two employees of Odigo, an Israeli instant messaging service, received messages two hours before the World Trade Center attack on September 11 predicting the attack would happen, Ha’aretz reported.

Zim-American Israeli Shipping Co., part-owned by the Israeli government, moved their North American headquarters from the 16th floor of the WTC to Norfolk, Virginia one week before the 9/11 attacks, incurring a $50,000 fine for breaking its lease, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Despite being in the public domain, none of these relevant facts are mentioned in the 9/11 Commission’s 567-page report.

Moreover, Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, is concerned about the spread of such inconvenient facts to the wider public. “Our worry,” he says, “is when things become infectious…. [then] this stuff can be deeply corrosive to public understanding. You can get where the bacteria can sicken the larger body.”

But was Zelikow speaking here as an American government official or as a pro-Israeli insider?

In the same month that he authored the so-called “Bush Doctrine” of preemptive war, which provided the justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Zelikow made this candid admission: “Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I’ll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990—it’s the threat against Israel.”

Yet, instead of investigating the Israeli connection, Zelikow used the 9/11 Commission to sell the Israeli-inspired Iraq war to the American people.

Zelikow’s “bacteria” quote is cited in a 2008 paper entitled “Conspiracy Theories.” Co-authored by Cass Sunstein, who went on to head President Obama’s White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the main focus of the paper “involves conspiracy theories relating to terrorism, especially theories that arise from and post-date the 9/11 attacks.”

Rather than attempting to debunk such theories, Sunstein and Vermeule claim that those who suspect Israeli involvement in 9/11 suffer from a “crippled epistemology.” This, the authors argue, is due to “a sharply limited number of (relevant) informational sources.” In other words, “they know very few things, and what they know is wrong.”

To counter these suspicions, Sunstein recommends “cognitive infiltration of extremist groups, whereby government agents, or their allies (acting either virtually or in real space, and either openly or anonymously) will undermine the crippled epistemology of those who subscribe to such theories. They do so by planting doubts about the theories and stylized facts that circulate within such groups, thereby introducing beneficial cognitive diversity.”

It could, of course, be argued that Sunstein’s work also suffers from a crippled epistemology—his research relies heavily on pro-Israeli sources, most notably the notorious Islamophobe Daniel Pipes.

Pipes is a bit of an expert on conspiracy theories, having written two books on the subject. “Conspiracism provides a key to understanding the political culture of the Middle East,” Pipes opines in The Hidden Hand: Middle East Fears of Conspiracy. “It helps explain much of what would otherwise seem illogical or implausible, including the region’s record of political extremism and volatility, its culture of violence, and its poor record of modernization.”

Like Sunstein, Pipes is concerned that many in the region suspect Israeli involvement in 9/11. “The implications in the Middle East are quite profound,” Pipes told the LA-based Jewish Journal. “It’s one more brick in the edifice of fear and loathing of Israel and the Jews.”

In the absence of a proper 9/11 investigation, there remains a broad range of opinion about the precise nature of Israeli complicity. In The Terror Enigma, Justin Raimondo tentatively concludes that the Israeli connection to 9/11 amounts to “foreknowledge and passive collaboration with Bin Laden’s jihad.”

It’s hardly surprising then that some of the most obsessive critics of 9/11 “conspiracy theories” have ties to Israel. If Americans ever find out that their “staunchest ally” had anything to do with the mass murder of their fellow citizens on September 11, 2001, the would-be conspiracy debunkers have good reason to be afraid.

A version of this article was first published on April 3, 2010. 

September 10, 2015 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

American False Flags That Started Wars

By Robert Fantina | Blacklisted News | September 9, 2015

KITCHENER, Ontario — As this is being written, Congress is experiencing extensive and dramatic hand-wringing as it decides between doing what is best for the country and the world or doing what is best for the American Israel Political Affairs Committee. This is no easy task for members of Congress, especially Democrats who, on the one hand, want to assure a “victory” for President Barack Obama, but who are also loathe to displease the Israeli lobby. Whether preventing a war factors into their deliberations is not known.

AIPAC and its countless minions in Congress are painting the recent agreement reached between Iran and the P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, plus Germany), as nothing short of the end of Israel.

If this deal preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons is approved, they warn darkly, Iran will secretly develop nuclear weapons. This will mean the destruction of Israel, they say. But if it isn’t approved, Iran will develop such weapons. This, they say, will also mean the destruction of Israel. Feel free to re-read those sentences whenever time allows.

From this point of view, the only alternative is war, with the ostensible purpose of destroying Iran’s nuclear capabilities — capabilities that the Islamic Republic has always said are for peaceful energy purposes. Yet the risk of Iran ever having nuclear weapons is too great. If it did obtain them, then Israel would have a hostile nation to counterbalance its power in the Middle East, and, of course, it doesn’t want that competition. And whatever Israel wants, the U.S. wants. Hence the fear-mongering.

This is a tried-and-true method in the U.S. of getting wars started: Tell lies about some situation that can be construed as a threat to U.S. security (or in this case, Israel’s national security, which seems to be threatened by just about everything), get the populace riled up with jingoistic fervor, watch pompous politicians proclaim their great patriotism on the evening news, and then go bomb some country or other.

The U.S. again gets to flex its international muscle, the citizenry is, for some bizarre reason, proud of the destruction the country has caused, the weapons manufacturers spend all their time tallying their astronomical profits, and all is once again right in the twisted world of U.S. governance.

A few examples will suffice to show that this means of starting wars has been used repeatedly. The examples discussed herein do not by any means represent an exhaustive list, but only show that lying to the world to make the citizenry believe that the U.S. or its citizens had been threatened in some way, and that war was the only response, is business as usual in the U.S.

The War of 1812 (June 18, 1812 – Feb. 18, 1815)

Less than 40 years after the American Revolution, the still-new U.S. government felt constrained in areas of international trade, despite tremendous growth in such trade in the years leading up to the war. In 1811, Britain issued an Order-in-Council, excluding American salted fish from the West Indian colonies and imposing heavy duties on other U.S. imports. This, the U.S. could not countenance.

Additionally, although the heady concept of Manifest Destiny would not actually be defined for several more years, territorial expansion was always on the minds of the leaders of the fledgling nation. Canada, with its rich abundance of natural resources and wide expanses of land, was coveted.

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The Battle Lake Borgne Hornbrook, War of 1812.

Yet trade and expansion were not foremost on the minds of the populace, at least not sufficiently for them to support a war. But many nations at this time had a policy of impressment, wherein the ships of another country were boarded, and their sailors kidnapped and forced to work for the kidnapping navy. This was something with which the common man and woman could identify. Although this wasn’t a common occurrence, it was exaggerated and combined with the trade issues to introduce the rallying cry of “Free Trade and Sailor’s Rights,” Carl Benn wrote in his 2003 book “Essential Histories: The War of 1812.” However, this wasn’t a simple, spontaneous cry of justice. It seems to have been promoted by annexationists running the government, and was sufficient for the U.S. to start an unsuccessful war against Canada.

Spanish-American War (April 25, 1898 – Aug 12. 1898)

Fast-forward to the end of the 19th century. On Feb. 15, 1898, the battleship Maine exploded in Havana harbor, killing 266 men. According to Hyman George Rickover, in his 1976 book “How the Battleship Maine was Destroyed”:

“Lieutenant Frank F. Fletcher, on duty at the Bureau of Ordnance, wrote in a personal letter to [Lieutenant Albert] Gleaves: ‘The disaster to the Maine is the one topic here now. Everybody is gradually settling down to the belief that the disaster was due to the position of the magazine next to the coal bunkers in where there must have been spontaneous combustion.’”

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Theodore Roosevelt (center front, just left of the flag) and his “Rough Riders,” 1898.

The official inquiry into the disaster, however, concluded that an underwater mine had been the culprit. With the battle cry “Remember the Maine,” the U.S. quickly declared war on Spain.

But this “inquiry” was more than a bit flawed. Two widely-recognized experts in ordnance volunteered their services for the investigation, but were not invited to participate. One of them, Prof. Philip Alger, had greatly displeased Secretary of the Navy, and future president, Theodore Roosevelt, when he commented on the disaster in an interview for the Washington Evening Star a few days after it happened. He said, in part, the following, as reproduced by Rickover:

“As to the question of the cause of the Maine’s explosion, we know that no torpedo that is known to modern warfare, can of itself cause an explosion of the character of that on board the Maine. We know of no instances where the explosion of a torpedo or mine under a ship’s bottom has exploded the magazine within. It has simply torn a great hole in the side or bottom, through which water entered, and in consequence of which the ship sunk. Magazine explosions, on the contrary, produce effects exactly similar to the effects of the explosion on board the Maine. When it comes to seeking the cause of the explosion of the Maine’s magazine, we should naturally look not for the improbable or unusual causes, but those against which we have had to guard in the past.”

But Roosevelt was anxious to establish the U.S. as a world power, especially in terms of its Navy. By accusing Spain of blowing up the ship, he had the perfect excuse to launch the Spanish-American War.

The Vietnam War (major U.S. involvement: 1964 – 1975)

Off the coast of China and northern Vietnam is the Gulf of Tonkin, which was the staging area for the U.S. Seventh Fleet in the early 1960s. On the evening of Aug. 4, 1964, the U.S. destroyers Maddox and the C. Turner Joy were in the gulf, when the Maddox’s instruments indicated that the ship was under attack or had been attacked. Both ships began firing into the darkness, with support from U.S. warplanes. However, they “later decided they had been shooting at ghost images on their radar. … The preponderance of the available evidence indicates there was no attack.”

U.S. Huey helicopter spraying Agent Orange over Vietnam. (Photo by the U.S. Army Operations in Vietnam R.W. Trewyn, Ph.D.)

U.S. Huey helicopter spraying Agent Orange over Vietnam. (Photo by the U.S. Army Operations in Vietnam R.W. Trewyn, Ph.D.)

Yet something needed to be done about Vietnam, with anti-Communist hysteria still rampant in the U.S., and this gave Congress the perfect ploy to escalate the war. This non-incident was presented to the world as an act of aggression against the U.S. Congress quickly passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. By the end of the following year, the number of U.S. soldiers invading Vietnam increased from 23,000 to 184,300. Eleven years later, with over 55,000 U.S. soldiers dead, hundreds of thousands wounded, and, by conservative estimates, 2,000,000 Vietnamese dead, the U.S. fled Vietnam in defeat.

The Gulf War (Aug. 2, 1990 – Feb. 28, 1991)

In order to gain support for the Gulf War of 1990, Congress and President George Bush relied heavily on what is commonly referred to as the Nayirah testimony. In early October 1990, a 15-year-old girl referred to only as “Nayirah,” who claimed to have been a hospital volunteer, testified of seeing babies dumped by Iraqi soldiers from hospital incubators. This, in the eyes of Congress and the president, highlighted the monstrosity of Iraq, and was widely used to gain support for the war.

However, like nearly all of the information the government feeds to the citizenry to start its wars, this testimony was all lies. “Nayirah” was actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the U.S. She later admitted that she had once visited the hospital in question, but only for a few minutes. She did see an infant removed from an incubator, but only very briefly. A group called Citizens for a Free Kuwait had hired one of the world’s foremost public relations firms, Hill and Knowlton, to create the illusion of legitimacy for an invasion. They coached “Nayirah” on what to say and how to say it when she appeared before Congress.

We will do no more than mention the U.S.’s drafting of a letter for Grenada to send to the U.S., requesting military intervention when that small island nation’s government was overthrown in 1983. Nor will we dwell on the weapons of mass destruction that Iraq was said to possess in 2002, which justified in the eyes of U.S. citizens the disastrous 2003 invasion of that nation. But as we look at this ugly record of lies that the U.S. has used to expand its territory, power and/or influence around the world, we must consider that it is once again using the same tactics to march the nation toward war with Iran.

The U.S. for generations was successful in deceiving its citizens, and a good part of the world, that it was a beacon of freedom and peace, despite the fact that it has been at war for most of its bloody existence. That myth began to crack during the Vietnam War, broke into pieces with the Iraq War, and may have been dealt a fatal blow by the U.S.’s support of Israeli atrocities in 2014.

Regardless of the outcome of the congressional vote on the Iran agreement, the U.S. will find itself less able to lie its way into corporate wars in the future. That capacity diminished during the lead-up to the Iraqi invasion, and while no one ever went broke betting on the gullibility and short-term memory of the U.S. citizenry, people are beginning to wake up. When they finally do, much of the carnage in the world will end. That day cannot come soon enough.

September 9, 2015 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , | Leave a comment

Media will misdirect with emotion while 9/11 anniversary events explore actual evidence

By Craig McKee | Truth and Shadows | September 8, 2015

It’s that time of year once again, when the public’s interest in 9/11 propaganda is resuscitated for a few days and the volume of lies is ramped up to meet the demand.

The members of the general public who pay any attention to the 14th anniversary will sit in front of their TVs watching mainstream coverage that tells them to “Remember 9/11” but deceives them about what they should remember. One thing the media will never do is encourage viewers to question what they’ve been told about what actually happened and who was really responsible. There may be some mention of the effort to declassify the famous 28 pages that allegedly point to Saudi involvement in 9/11, but only because that does not challenge the idea that America was attacked by external terrorists. It goes without saying that there will be nothing said about U.S. or Israeli involvement in the “attacks.”

What media focus there is will be on courage, loss, heroism, and emotion. There will be no time for thinking at all. There will be no real journalism. Nothing will be challenged or challenging. Nothing will be investigated. It will be “poignant” and “inspiring” and vapid. That is not to say that real tragedy isn’t being commemorated or that genuine heartbreak isn’t being recognized. There were victims: those killed that day; those who worked at Ground Zero who have died of cancer in the years since, and the millions worldwide who have been killed in the bogus war on terror and the real wars that it has instigated and fueled.

All the while, outside of the media’s selective gaze, dedicated truth activists who don’t just think about 9/11 when the media tells them to will be holding conferences, screening films, and commemorating the greatest deception of our time in a variety of ways. Most hold out hope that their family and friends and other ordinary people might take a look at the evidence, even just the basics, even just for a few minutes, and that they might open their minds just a crack. The dream is that people will slowly awaken to the fact that 9/11 was a blatant false flag operation designed to start foreign wars, kick start the police state at home, and generally advance the New World Order agenda.

Most of the people I know have refused to seriously question anything about 9/11. They not only accept the official narrative, but often they stand with the real perpetrators in ridiculing any suggestion that we’ve been lied to for the last 14 years. Yes, some will express doubts about whether we’ve been told the whole truth and offer some friendly encouragement, but then they will go about their business as usual, content to continue seeing the world just as they always have.

So, as we begin year 15, we continue the fight to expose the truth about 9/11 and the horrific injustices it has spawned. Here are some of the events of note going on across North America this week. Undoubtedly there are many more.

Global online conference by Canadian truthers

On Sept. 11 and 12, there will be an online conference coming out of Canada called “9/11 Global Interactive Broadcast to expose lies of the 9/11 Attacks and the War on Terror” that will feature some impressive scholars and researchers. The lineup includes Barrie Zwicker, Graeme MacQueen, James Corbett, Cynthia McKinney, Kevin Ryan, Daniele Ganser, and David Johnson. The moderator will be Bev Collins, the host of the Internet radio show 9/11 Talks. For details about the speaking schedule and to watch a live stream of the event, go to https://rethinkseptember11.wordpress.com/.

9/11 Symposium in New York

On Sept. 12 between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. EST at the West Park Presbyterian Church, located at 165 West 86th Street , there will be a 9/11 Symposium called “Declassify the Truth: 9/11 Transparency on the Rise” that features an impressive list of researchers and some interesting panel discussions. Among those speaking are Wayne Madsen, Lance De Haven Smith, Barbara Honegger, Bob McIlvaine, Frances Schure, Russ Baker, Sander Hicks, and a number of others. Tickets are $25.

AE911Truth billboard across from New York Times

Once again this year, Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth will have a very visible presence in New York City in the month of September. Last year it was a video screen in Times Square and this year it will be a billboard directly opposite the New York Times building. This was the original plan last year but had to be changed when the location became unavailable at the last minute. AE911Truth estimates that the billboard will be seen by 100,000 people a day and 3 million over the course of the month.

Beyond Misinformation booklet available

HELP US BREAK THE CYCLE OF MISINFORMATIONIn time for the 14th anniversary, AE911Truth has also released its 50-page color booklet called Beyond Misinformation.

I was privileged to be one of the contributing writers on this project, which was headed up by Ted Walter (who I think did an incredible job). Every word in the booklet was vetted by an expert panel put together by AE.

I hope to do a full article on the project soon.

For more information or to order, go to http://www.shop.ae911truth.org/Beyond-Misinformation-Booklet-bkltBM.htm.

New film exposes myths

The new 90-minute film Firefighters, Architects & Engineers Expose the Myths of 9/11, a joint presentation of Richard Gage of AE911Truth and Erik Lawyer, the founder of Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, will have its premiere on Sept. 11 in New York City.

The film addresses several of the myths surrounding the destruction of the WTC and the failure of the National Institute of Standards and Technology to comply with the requirements of the national guideline for fire and explosion investigations.

The screening takes place at 7 p.m. EST at the West Park Presbyterian Church, located at 165 West 86th Street. Both Gage and Lawyer will be on hand.

Pentagon gets attention at film fest

SF film fest posterThe 9/11 Truth Film Festival, this year called “9/11: The Myth and the Maintenance,” is taking place again this year at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland and will feature an assortment of films, videos, and speakers. The event, organized by Northern California 9/11 Truth Alliance, runs between 1 p.m. PST and 10 p.m. PST (4 p.m. to 1 a.m. EST) on Sept. 10. Tickets are $15 at the door, and the event can also be live-streamed at http://noliesradio.org/filmfestival in return for a donation.

The Pentagon gets particular attention from the festival with a screening Barbara Honegger’s Beyond the Smoke Curtain and a preview of Ken Jenkins’ unfinished film The Pentagon Plane Puzzle. Jenkins, who is the main organizer of the festival, has made it his mission to push the plane-impact position despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Also taking that puzzling position is David Chandler, who will deliver a talk called: “Going Beyond Speculation: A Scientific Look at the Pentagon Evidence.” I will have a great deal to say about the Jenkins and Chandler presentations in an upcoming post. But I can’t resist a comment on the presumptuousness of the title of Chandler’s talk: “Going Beyond Speculation…” Apparently Chandler is the first researcher in 14 years to look at the evidence; everybody else was just “speculating.”

We’ll see the premiere of Robbie Martin’s film A Very Heavy Agenda as well as an excerpt from the documentary Shadow Ring dealing with false flags. There will also be videos that feature Peter Dale Scott and Cynthia McKinney. Other speakers will include radio host Kevin Barrett, the editor of the new book We Are Not Charlie Hebdo; and Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff of Project Censored.

Other NYC events

AE911Truth will also be outside the National 9/11 Museum handing out their alternative guide to the museum. That will be at the corner of Church and Vesey streets between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. EST.

There will be a ceremony for the reading of the names of 9/11 victims starting at 1 p.m. on Sept. 11 outside St. Paul’s Chapel at the corner of Church and Vesely streets. The victims being honored include those killed on 9/11 and the millions who have died as a result of 9/11. There will also be a candlelight vigil at the 9/11 Memorial Plaza Survivor Tree at Ground Zero starting at 8:30 p.m. EST on Sept. 12.

September 9, 2015 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media | | Leave a comment

US ‘shamefully’ refuse to release Shaker Aamer from Guantanamo despite UK pressure

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Shaker Aamer © Wikipedia
RT | August 20, 2015

American authorities are “shamefully” refusing to release Shaker Aamer, the last British resident detained at Guantanamo Bay, despite calls from Prime Minister David Cameron for the prisoner to be freed, a lawyer has claimed.

Aamer’s legal counsel Ramzi Kassem called on the British government to pressure the White House further after President Barack Obama promised to “prioritize” his case in January.

Kassem also blasted the US government for refusing to allow Aamer access to independent doctors, despite concerns over the neutrality of army medical personnel.

The New York-based lawyer said the physical condition of Aamer, who has been imprisoned without trial for 14 years, “deteriorates with each passing day.”

Kassem filed a 26-page motion at a court in Washington calling for the British resident to be examined by two independent doctors and an army doctor to gauge how Aamer is coping with post-traumatic stress.

The Department of Defense has rejected the request, claiming it is too “difficult.”

Aamer’s last independent assessment took place in October 2013, when Californian psychiatrist Dr. Emily Keram described he had been mentally “destroyed” by interrogators, who allegedly subjected him to sleep deprivation and beatings.

Law professor Kassem expressed dismay at the reluctance of US authorities to release Aamer.

“It is truly shameful that we have to litigate every step of the way despite the prime minister’s demand and the president’s pledge to prioritize Shaker’s case,” he said.

“The UK government must press the White House to make good on its promise. The only thing more shameful are the arguments the US government is making in court to prevent Shaker’s examination.”

Cameron raised the issue with Obama on his official visit to the US earlier this year.

Obama promised to “prioritize” the case in January, but Aamer’s legal team claim nothing has been done to progress his case.

Writing in the Guardian last Friday, Aamer’s UK lawyer Clive Stafford Smith claimed the US military has deliberately ignored Obama’s order in breach of the constitution.

“President Obama, it seems, has personally ordered Aamer’s release, and his subordinates have ignored and thwarted his order,” Smith wrote.

“The contravention of the president’s orders indicates that there is a profound problem with the state of democracy in America.”

Kassem slammed the US government for not taking Aamer’s physical and mental health seriously.

He condemned the United States’ “self-servingly attempts to dismiss Mr. Aamer’s reliably-diagnosed and grave ailments as only ‘minor long-term impairments.’”

Aamer has never been charged with a crime or faced trial since he arrived at the high security prison in Cuba.

In describing his treatment at Guantanamo Bay, Aamer said he was stripped of his pride.

“I was not a human being any more. I meant nothing to them. I lost my dignity, my pride,” he said.

“I had to take off my underwear and hand it to them. I had sleep deprivation for 11 days. That made me crazy. They poured cold water over me. They kept me standing for 20 hours a day. I had to hold my hands and arms out.

“All of the statements I made at Bagram were during the sleep deprivation. I would have said anything. I told them, ‘I will tell you I am Bin Laden if you want me to,’” he said.

Aamer was arrested in 2001 in Afghanistan and subsequently moved to Guantanamo Bay, where in 2007 the US military claimed he was a “close associate” of Osama Bin Laden and a “recruiter, financier, and facilitator” for Al-Qaeda.

The Saudi citizen has always insisted he was only in the country to perform charitable work and said he confessed to being a jihadist while being tortured at the hands of the CIA.

August 20, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, False Flag Terrorism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Video | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hamas members held hostage by Sinai militant group

Ma’an – August 20, 2015

CAIRO – Four Palestinians kidnapped at gunpoint in Egypt’s Sinai late Wednesday are members of Hamas, Egyptian security officials said, and are being held hostage by the Sinai Province militant group.

Egyptian officials told Ma’an that the four Hamas members were taken hostage by the IS-affiliated group as a bargaining chip to force Hamas to release some 50 Salafists currently imprisoned in Gaza.

The members were identified as Abd al-Basit Abd al-Dayim, Abdullah Said Abdullah Abu Jibbeen, Yasir Fathi Misbah Zanoun and Hussein Khamis al-Thabda.

Negotiations have reportedly begun between Hamas and the militant group, with the involvement of both Palestinian and Egyptian mediators.

Initial investigations suggest the Hamas members were taken to the al-Tuma village south of the city of Sheikh Zuweid.

Sources close to the Sinai Province group — which pledged allegiance to IS in November — have said the four kidnapped Hamas members would be killed if Hamas did not comply with the group’s demands.

The group has claimed responsibility for attacks on Egypt’s army which have killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers since 2013.

The attacks are allegedly in response to the bloody repression launched by the authorities under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s control, which has seen at least 1,400 killed and thousands more jailed.

Since last summer’s devastating war between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip, there have been growing signs of internal unrest between Hamas security forces and other militant groups in the strip, with a string of small-scale explosions.

In June, video footage alleged to be from an IS stronghold in Syria showcased a public challenge by the group against Hamas’ power in Gaza, accusing the Gazan leadership of failing to enforce stringent religious law in the strip.

Prior to the threat, Hamas had reportedly been increasingly challenged by Salafist militant groups in Gaza, with some taking credit for rocket fire into Israel.

August 20, 2015 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | , , | Leave a comment

Four Palestinians abducted in Sinai after passing Rafah Crossing

MEMO | August 20, 2015

Four Palestinians were abducted on Wednesday evening in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula just a couple of minutes after passing Rafah Crossing, the Palestinian government in Gaza has reported.

An eyewitness who was on the same bus, said that one or two kilometres after passing the crossing, and just a couple of metres from the Egyptian army checkpoint, a number of masked armed men opened fire on the bus, entered it, called four men by their names and abducted them.

The eyewitness, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that there were 50 Palestinian passengers on the bus and insisted that there were no Egyptian security staff accompanying them.

Normally, Egyptian security staff accompany travellers’ buses from Rafah Crossing to Cairo Airport.

“Although the daily night curfew had started,” the eyewitness said, “the Egyptians insisted that the bus must begin its journey from Rafah to Cairo.”

Normally, Palestinian buses do not travel during the night curfew, which has been imposed on wide swathes of the Sinai Peninsula.

The spokesman of the Palestinian Interior Ministry in Gaza, Iyad al-Buzom, said that: “We are making urgent contacts with the highest levels of Egyptian authorities to follow up on the circumstances of what happened and we urge the Egyptian interior ministry to secure the lives of the kidnapped passengers and free them.”

Meanwhile, Salama Abu-Rbaa, the chief of an Egyptian tribe in Sinai, has accused the Egyptian intelligence services of manipulating the abduction of the Palestinians.

Speaking to a Palestinian news agency, he said that a number of his tribe’s members saw the masked men who abducted the Palestinians exiting an Egyptian armoured vehicle close to the place of the abduction.

He said that he has credible information about the four abductees and their whereabouts, insisting that they are in a military outpost near Al-Arish Sea.

Abu-Rbaa warned of a “demonised” agenda planned by the Egyptian security services, calling for the Palestinians to be careful about such plans.

August 20, 2015 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | , , | Leave a comment

The Buried Canadian State Connection to ISIS

Brandon Martinez of Non-Aligned Media revisits a March 2015 scandal which exposed the direct connection between the pro-Zionist Harper regime in Ottawa and ISIS, and how the mainstream media refused to follow up on it.

August 15, 2015 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

Former Executive Director of CIA Arrested Attempting To Bring Loaded Gun On Airplane

By John Vibes | The Free Thought Project | August 13, 2015

Linthicum, MD — Last Thursday at BWI airport in Maryland, former CIA agent A.B. “Buzzy” Krongard was arrested for trying to carry a gun onto an airplane. According to CBS Baltimore, Krongard had a 9mm handgun loaded with five rounds in his carry-on bag when he was stopped by TSA agents because they saw the gun as his bags passed through the x-ray scanner.

Krongard was immediately arrested on weapons charges, despite his involvement with the government and his notoriety as a well known local businessperson. During his time in the CIA, Krongard was a high-ranking official and was named the executive director of the CIA under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2004. He held the third-highest ranking position in the CIA during that time period.

Oddly, on that same day another man was arrested for attempting to bring a loaded gun on an airplane, this time at Hagerstown Regional (HGR) airport, not far from BWI. So far there has been no indication that these cases are connected.

According to the official TSA policy “Firearms, firearm parts and ammunition—are not permitted in carry-on bags, but can be transported in checked bags if they are unloaded, properly packed and declared to the airline. Firearms must be unloaded, packed in a hard-side case, locked, and packed separately from ammunition. Travelers who bring firearms to the checkpoint are subject to possible criminal charges from law enforcement and civil penalties from TSA of up to $11,000.”

Did Mr. Krongard think that he was above the law after a life in the upper echelons of government? Or was he involved in a deeper plot to justify overreaching TSA searches and overblown budgets?

August 13, 2015 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | , , , | Leave a comment

Fourteen Incredible Facts About 9/11

By Kevin Ryan | Dig Within | August 8, 2015

As the 14th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, it’s important to remind people that we still don’t know what happened that day. What is known about 9/11 is that there are many incredible facts that continue to be ignored by the government and the mainstream media. Here are fourteen.

  1. An outline of what was to become the 9/11 Commission Report was produced before the investigation began. The outline was kept secret from the Commission’s staff and appears to have determined the outcome of the investigation.
  2. The 9/11 Commission claimed sixty-three (63) times in its Report that it could find “no evidence” related to important aspects of the crimes.
  3. One person, Shayna Steiger, issued 12 visas to the alleged hijackers in Saudi Arabia. Steiger issued some of the visas without interviewing the applicants and fought with another employee at the embassy who tried to prevent her lax approach.
  4. Before 9/11, the nation’s leading counter-terrorism expert repeatedly notified his friends in the United Arab Emirates of top-secret U.S. plans to capture Osama bin Laden. These treasonous leaks prevented Bin Laden’s capture on at least two separate occasions.
  5. Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger was caught stealing documents from the National Archives that had been requested by the 9/11 Commission. The Commission had previously been denied access to the documents but the White House reluctantly agreed to turn them over just as Berger was trying to steal them..
  6. The official story of the failed air defenses on 9/11 was changed several times and, in the end, paradoxically exonerated the military by saying that the military had lied many times about its response. The man who was behind several of the changing accounts was a specialist in political warfare (i.e. propaganda).
  7. Military exercises being conducted on the day of 9/11 mimicked the attacks as they were occurring and obstructed the response to the attacks. NORAD commander Ralph Eberhart sponsored those exercises, failed to do his job that day, and later lied to Congress about it (if the 9/11 Commission account is true).
  8. A third skyscraper collapsed late in the afternoon on 9/11. This was WTC 7, a 47-story building that the government’s final report says fell into its own footprint due to office fires. The building’s tenants included U.S. intelligence agencies and a company led in part by Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. Meetings were scheduled there to discuss terrorism and explosives on the morning of 9/11.
  9. News agencies, including BBC and CNN, announced the destruction of WTC 7 long before it happened. One BBC reporter announced the collapse while viewers could see the still-standing building right behind her in the video. Years later, after claiming that it had lost the tapes and then found them again, BBC’s answer to this astonishing report was that everything was just “confusing and chaotic” that day. Of course, one problem with this is that the news agencies predicted the exact building, of the many damaged in the area, that would collapse. Another big problem is that no one could have possibly predicted the collapse of WTC 7 given the unprecedented and unbelievable official account for how that happened.
  10. Construction of the new, 52-story WTC 7 was completed two years before the government knew what happened to the first WTC 7. In fact, when the new building was completed in 2006, the spokesman for the government investigation said, “We’ve had trouble getting a handle on building No. 7.” The construction of the new building, without regard for how the first one was destroyed, indicates that building construction professionals in New York City did not believe it could ever happen again.
  11. Ultimately, building construction codes were not changed as a result of the root causes cited by the National Institute for Standards and Technology for destruction of the World Trade Center (WTC) buildings. This fact shows that the international building construction community does not believe that the WTC buildings were destroyed as stated in the official account.
  12. AMEC, the company that just finished rebuilding the exact spot where Flight 77 was said to hit, was put in charge of cleanup at the WTC and the Pentagon. The man who ran the company, Peter Janson, was a long-time business associate of Donald Rumsfeld.
  13. The response of the U.S. Secret Service to the 9/11 attacks suggests foreknowledge of the events in that the agency failed to protect the president from the obvious danger posed by terrorists.
  14. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission notified the FBI of suspected 9/11 insider trading transactions. That evidence was ignored and the suspects were not even questioned by the FBI or the 9/11 Commission.

There are, of course, many more incredible facts about 9/11 that continue to be ignored by authorities and much of the media. Let’s hope that the next major terrorist attack results in legitimate reporting and unified calls for truth before fourteen years have passed.

August 8, 2015 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Ex-Argentine President’s Trial Begins for Bombing Cover-Up

teleSUR | August 6, 2015

Victims of the 1994 bombing hope the trial will bring truth and justice, after 21 years of no one being held accountable for the crime.

The trial begins Thursday of former Argentine President Carlos Menem and 12 other state officials for alleged cover-up and involvement in a 1994 attack on a Jewish community center that left 85 people dead.

On July 18, 1994 a bomb ripped through the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association in Buenos Aires, the largest Jewish cultural center in the country.

Despite the gravity of the bombing that shook the nation, and the resulting deaths, the investigation was continuously hindered and no one was ever convicted of the crime.

​Menem and the 12 other officials – who include two former prosecutors, a former top intelligence official, former police officers, a Jewish community leader and a mechanic who owned the truck carrying the explosives – are now facing trial for allegedly derailing the investigation.

If convicted, the sentences will range between three and 15 years.

“After 21 years of no justice, deception and defrauding the families [of victims], we hope that the truth will emerge about everyone who plotted to cover up and derail the investigation,” said Olga Degtiar, whose son was killed in the blast.

The trial is expected to last for months, while prosecutors will try to prove why the former president and the other officials may have wanted to bury the investigation.

The case exploded back into the centre of Argentine political life earlier this year when the prosecutor investigating the case was killed just hours before he was due to present a report to Congress where he was set to accuse the Argentine government of being involved in a cover up.

However the accusations were later definitively thrown out by a high level court and the government has said the allegations are politically motivated.

August 7, 2015 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | , | Leave a comment

Lavrov: Russia Being Kept Out of the Loop in MH17 Downing

Sputnik – 05.08.2015

KUALA LUMPUR – Russia is not receiving full information on the technical investigations into the Malaysian Airlines downing over eastern Ukraine, unlike other countries that are participating in them, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday.

“The Russian participants aren’t getting all the information that is disseminated among other participants in the group,” Lavrov told journalists in the Malaysian capital.

In response to whether MH17 was shot down using a Russian missile, Lavrov said it would “be very easy to collect the pieces [of the missile] and analyze them in order to determine where this particular missile was produced and which army is supplied with it.”

The international investigation into the downing of the MH17 flight over eastern Ukraine in 2014 is not independent or comprehensive, Sergei Lavrov said.

“Unfortunately the investigation which was started was not independent, was not comprehensive, and was not truly international. Instead of acting under the authority of the International Civil Aviation organization, which is the rule under the Chicago Convention, Ukraine, Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands signed bilateral agreements between themselves, the substance of which was never made fully known,” Lavrov said in an interview with Singapore’s Channel News Asia.

Lavrov said it was “very strange” that Malaysia was invited to participate in the investigations five months after the actual crash in July 2014.

“It is really very strange that Malaysia was invited to join only in December 2014,” Lavrov said.

Russia’s top diplomat also questioned why the United States and Ukraine have so far not published their information, including satellite images and voice recordings between the air traffic controllers and the pilots.

“The Americans said that they did have images from the satellite, but never submitted them… the same is true for the Ukrainians who were asked to provide record[ings] of air controllers,” Lavrov said.

He said that Russia’s Civil Aviation Authority is involved in the technical investigations of the downed passenger plane, but is not receiving the full picture of the circumstances behind it.

“A representative of the Russian Civil Aviation organization is participating in these procedures [technical investigation], but the information we receive through this representative is not complete, we are being given less than those who have started this investigation,” Lavrov added.

August 5, 2015 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | , , | Leave a comment

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