gaaboard.com

Getting a lot of coverage unsurprisingly. The Firemen's Story on Channel 4 and 9/11: Day that Changed the World on ITV/RTE have been the pick of the programmes I've seen.

Images are still compelling and shocking a decade later.

Today the Homeland Security Secretary released this quote:

"We are moving toward an intelligence and risk-based approach to how we screen," Napolitano said at an event sponsored by Politico.

"I think one of the first things you will see over time is the ability to keep your shoes on. One of the last things you will [see] is the reduction or limitation on liquids."

The policies are based on demonstrated threats, current intelligence and the science of how much explosive material it takes to bring down an aircraft.

Re Building Ground Zero is on Discovery Channel all week at 8pm.
Excellent show.

Quote from: laoislad on September 06, 2011, 11:11:04 PM
Re Building Ground Zero is on Discovery Channel all week at 8pm.
Excellent show.

Watched some earlier. Will catch the rest later in week.

Quote from: Puckoon on September 06, 2011, 11:03:24 PM
Today the Homeland Security Secretary released this quote:

"We are moving toward an intelligence and risk-based approach to how we screen," Napolitano said at an event sponsored by Politico.

"I think one of the first things you will see over time is the ability to keep your shoes on. One of the last things you will [see] is the reduction or limitation on liquids."

The policies are based on demonstrated threats, current intelligence and the science of how much explosive material it takes to bring down an aircraft.

About bloody time. Sounds like they've been talking to the Israelis who know how to keep planes safe without building a colossal system of security theatre that does nothing to keep anyone safe and just creates the illusion of security.

9th of November?  What happened? 

In all seriousness, yanks did it themselves - look at how they have benefited since.   Cnuts

Quote from: 4father on September 07, 2011, 02:18:47 AM
9th of November?  What happened? 

In all seriousness, yanks did it themselves - look at how they have benefited since.   Cnuts

I thought you brits had a special relationship with the yanks.

Quote from: 4father on September 07, 2011, 02:18:47 AM
9th of November?  What happened? 

In all seriousness, yanks did it themselves - look at how they have benefited since.   Cnuts

you seem like a nice chap

The Yanks are pure hypocrites and their Coaliton of the Killing cronies are but pawns.  The only nation to be sanctioned for terrorism and what has happened since that awful day?  Pure evil terrorism perpetrated by them.  The yanks were spending approx $350 BILLION a year on arms a few years ago and I would imagine it is more now.  That would feed the world.  Instead of cohersing the terrorised people of Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the other nations which fell victim to US terrorism, they have just kept on killing for greed.

We Irish should stop being so fcukin gullable.  The US is a rogue nation.

Quote from: Aerlik on September 07, 2011, 06:49:52 AM
The Yanks are pure hypocrites and their Coaliton of the Killing cronies are but pawns.  The only nation to be sanctioned for terrorism and what has happened since that awful day?  Pure evil terrorism perpetrated by them.  The yanks were spending approx $350 BILLION a year on arms a few years ago and I would imagine it is more now.  That would feed the world.  Instead of cohersing the terrorised people of Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the other nations which fell victim to US terrorism, they have just kept on killing for greed.

We Irish should stop being so fcukin gullable.  The US is a rogue nation.

Expect a knock on your door from the CIA.

Tenth anniversary of Holy Cross protest also.

The Onion's take -

Responsible Cable News Outlets To Devote Sensible Amount Of Airtime To 10th Anniversary Of 9/11


NEW YORK—Promising to cover the event responsibly and with the kind of delicate restraint it deserves, the nation's cable news outlets announced Monday that while they would be devoting some airtime to the 10th anniversary of 9/11, they "certainly wouldn't be going overboard with it."


The major networks confirmed their coverage would "of course" be tasteful and brief.

According to the news providers, they only intend to devote 15 minutes of coverage to the anniversary, tops, saying it is their obligation as professional journalists to do justice to the victims' memories as opposed to using the occasion for their own ratings gain.

In addition, network representatives admitted it would be lazy news reporting to use the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks as an excuse to fill up hundreds of hours of programming with repetitive video packages and anchors repeatedly asking their guests, "How did 9/11 change America?"

"We're planning to send one reporter to Ground Zero, have him tape a couple of two-minute segments, nothing too crazy, and that should pretty much do it," said CNN's senior vice president of programming Katherine Green, adding that the 24-hour news channel would not be making 9/11 the focus of every single program on the network because, according to Green, "What more is there to say, really?" "We'll also briefly check in with Anderson Cooper at the Pentagon, and that will be the only time we hear from him during the entirety of our coverage."

"Then our plan is to do what other American cable news providers presumably will be doing," she added. "We'll go back to reporting that never panders to viewers, but instead challenges them and forces them to step outside their own bubble by making them aware of all the truly newsworthy events happening in the world."

Along with Green, representatives from MSNBC, CNBC, HLN, and Fox News immediately ruled out doing an entire week of pre-anniversary coverage, calling it a waste of time, resources, and potentially exploitative to family members who lost a loved one on 9/11.

The networks also said they would not be designing an "America Remembers" graphic to be constantly plastered across the bottom third of the television screen; wouldn't even think about conducting "trite, unoriginal, and what basically amounts to filler" man-on-the-street interviews that ask citizens where they were on 9/11; and, calling it "sensationalism just for the sake of sensationalism," wouldn't repeatedly show archived footage of airplanes colliding into the Twin Towers and New Yorkers running away from the collapsed buildings.

Sources at Fox News confirmed that at no time during their coverage would they use the anniversary as an excuse to paint the Obama administration as weak on terrorism.

"I would imagine some might think that because it's the 10th anniversary, we would latch on to the whole '10th' aspect and blow it completely out of proportion," MSNBC national news director Derrick Lipton said. "But we're smarter than that. Our viewers are smarter than that. If anything, we'll maybe cut back to Ground Zero when Presidents Obama and Bush leave the memorial service. And then maybe we'll have Tom Brokaw on to talk about what it was like covering the event 10 years ago. If we do that, we'll probably do commercial bumpers where we show images of the two beams of blue light shining up into the night sky, footage of Bush with his bullhorn saying, "Well, I can hear you," and maybe something that represents the human side of the tragedy, like people tacking up pictures of their loved ones. That's it. But then I suppose we could also have [former mayor Rudy] Giuliani on because, well, I don't know why. He won't say anything he hasn't said before, but it just feels like we should have him on, especially if Fox has him on. We could probably fill a bunch of time with the whole anthrax thing that came afterward, maybe do an entire terrorism retrospective that would look big and flashy but add no new information whatsoever, and just rerun that over and over and over again. Maybe throw in some of that mosque stuff. And then, oh, this would be perfect, we do profiles on the families who lost their loved ones on the Pennsylvania plane. We'll act as if we're shining a light on something that's been ignored, but really it hasn't been ignored, because over the past 10 years there have been 4,000 similar segments done about the circumstances surrounding that flight."

"But that's not what we're all about," he added. "We're better than that."

Apart from the rugby I think I will try and be as far away from TV's and Internets for as much as possible on the day. I might even switch my phone off in case I get those "what were you doing 10 years ago today?" messages.

I might creep online to check NFL scores though.

It's not that I don't feel for those who died on the day or those who suffered in the 10 years since because of it, it's just I don't want the sensationalist media overkill surrounding the event to tell me how to feel about it.

It's also the National Day of Catalunya so herself may want to be out celebrating that.

There have been an awful lot of shows on about the terrible events of 9/11 but not one of them has asked or answered a very important set of questions. Who were the people on those planes? What was their history? Why did they do what they did? What were they hoping to achieve?  I think 10 years is long enough for people to be mature enough to ask these questions and try and understand what makes people murder 1000's of innocent people. Its is not just as simple as the brainless bush line of "they hate our freedom".

Interesting show on the killing of Bin Laden on channel 4. If you can believe the Yanks, they state that they were only 50% sure Bin Laden was there before heading in.

I once dismissed Bush's "they hate our freedom" line as propaganda as well.  But there is actually a bit of truth in it, it's just that the brain-dead wannabe redneck who said it didn't really get it.  It was one of two occasions in a day when a stopped clock was right.

In the western world women have the freedom to pursue careers, have sex with whoever they want, marry whoever they want, play a bit of sport, and expose a bit of skin now and then. People have the freedom to choose whatever religious belief system they want (at least those who haven't been successfully indoctrinated from an early enough age, but that's another matter) and are not obliged to follow laws of the state that are dictated by religious doctrine. It's not illegal to be born as a homosexual and it's certainly not punishable by death as it is in Iran. The people can determine what is right and wrong without having religious texts enforced as the law of the land. That kind of thing drives Islamic fundamentalists crazy, and it is one of the things that motivates them to hate the west.  Sure there's genuine grievances, like propping up corrupt Middle-Eastern dictatorships (which are thankfully starting to crumble now) but the cultural hostility makes it all the more personal.

I'm no fan of America's military industrial complex, its corrupt political system, or its half-baked foreign policy that is too quick to use brute force at times.  But I wouldn't allow that to blind me to the very real threat posed by this poisonous religiously-fueled hatred of western civilisation and its values.  Make no mistake, Islamic fundamentalism in the nuclear age is something that has to be kept an eye on.  We've come a long way from the days of bows, arrows and swords when you needed the resources of an entire state to cause large scale loss of life.  in 2001 it only took 17 boys with stanley knives to kill thousands.  It wouldn't take a lot of people to get their hands on a nuclear weapon or at least make a dirty bomb out of it.

The vigilance can't end.

We've come a long way from the days of bows, arrows and swords. Now it only takes one lunatic with a set of nuclear codes to wipe out humanity. 

The vigilance can't end.

Quote from: mylestheslasher on September 07, 2011, 11:01:37 PM
There have been an awful lot of shows on about the terrible events of 9/11 but not one of them has asked or answered a very important set of questions. Who were the people on those planes? What was their history? Why did they do what they did? What were they hoping to achieve?  I think 10 years is long enough for people to be mature enough to ask these questions and try and understand what makes people murder 1000's of innocent people. Its is not just as simple as the brainless bush line of "they hate our freedom".

Or how two of the largest steel structures in the world at the time can crumble like a house of cards within minutes of impact? Now I'm no engineer but something never added up quite right about that day. But I guess we'll never know the truth.

Quote from: Eamonnca1 on September 08, 2011, 01:11:39 AM
I once dismissed Bush's "they hate our freedom" line as propaganda as well.  But there is actually a bit of truth in it, it's just that the brain-dead wannabe redneck who said it didn't really get it.  It was one of two occasions in a day when a stopped clock was right.

In the western world women have the freedom to pursue careers, have sex with whoever they want, marry whoever they want, play a bit of sport, and expose a bit of skin now and then. People have the freedom to choose whatever religious belief system they want (at least those who haven't been successfully indoctrinated from an early enough age, but that's another matter) and are not obliged to follow laws of the state that are dictated by religious doctrine. It's not illegal to be born as a homosexual and it's certainly not punishable by death as it is in Iran. The people can determine what is right and wrong without having religious texts enforced as the law of the land. That kind of thing drives Islamic fundamentalists crazy, and it is one of the things that motivates them to hate the west.  Sure there's genuine grievances, like propping up corrupt Middle-Eastern dictatorships (which are thankfully starting to crumble now) but the cultural hostility makes it all the more personal.

I'm no fan of America's military industrial complex, its corrupt political system, or its half-baked foreign policy that is too quick to use brute force at times.  But I wouldn't allow that to blind me to the very real threat posed by this poisonous religiously-fueled hatred of western civilisation and its values.  Make no mistake, Islamic fundamentalism in the nuclear age is something that has to be kept an eye on.  We've come a long way from the days of bows, arrows and swords when you needed the resources of an entire state to cause large scale loss of life.  in 2001 it only took 17 boys with stanley knives to kill thousands.  It wouldn't take a lot of people to get their hands on a nuclear weapon or at least make a dirty bomb out of it.

The vigilance can't end.

Eamonn

You look like you could do with learning more about homosexuality in the Middle East 

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/05/the-kingdom-in-the-closet/5774/

And religious fundamentalism is also very American

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c5lDszsw68&NR=1

Quote from: ONeill on September 07, 2011, 12:15:43 PM
The Onion's take -

Responsible Cable News Outlets To Devote Sensible Amount Of Airtime To 10th Anniversary Of 9/11


NEW YORK—Promising to cover the event responsibly and with the kind of delicate restraint it deserves, the nation's cable news outlets announced Monday that while they would be devoting some airtime to the 10th anniversary of 9/11, they "certainly wouldn't be going overboard with it."


The major networks confirmed their coverage would "of course" be tasteful and brief.

According to the news providers, they only intend to devote 15 minutes of coverage to the anniversary, tops, saying it is their obligation as professional journalists to do justice to the victims' memories as opposed to using the occasion for their own ratings gain.

In addition, network representatives admitted it would be lazy news reporting to use the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks as an excuse to fill up hundreds of hours of programming with repetitive video packages and anchors repeatedly asking their guests, "How did 9/11 change America?"

"We're planning to send one reporter to Ground Zero, have him tape a couple of two-minute segments, nothing too crazy, and that should pretty much do it," said CNN's senior vice president of programming Katherine Green, adding that the 24-hour news channel would not be making 9/11 the focus of every single program on the network because, according to Green, "What more is there to say, really?" "We'll also briefly check in with Anderson Cooper at the Pentagon, and that will be the only time we hear from him during the entirety of our coverage."

"Then our plan is to do what other American cable news providers presumably will be doing," she added. "We'll go back to reporting that never panders to viewers, but instead challenges them and forces them to step outside their own bubble by making them aware of all the truly newsworthy events happening in the world."

Along with Green, representatives from MSNBC, CNBC, HLN, and Fox News immediately ruled out doing an entire week of pre-anniversary coverage, calling it a waste of time, resources, and potentially exploitative to family members who lost a loved one on 9/11.

The networks also said they would not be designing an "America Remembers" graphic to be constantly plastered across the bottom third of the television screen; wouldn't even think about conducting "trite, unoriginal, and what basically amounts to filler" man-on-the-street interviews that ask citizens where they were on 9/11; and, calling it "sensationalism just for the sake of sensationalism," wouldn't repeatedly show archived footage of airplanes colliding into the Twin Towers and New Yorkers running away from the collapsed buildings.

Sources at Fox News confirmed that at no time during their coverage would they use the anniversary as an excuse to paint the Obama administration as weak on terrorism.

"I would imagine some might think that because it's the 10th anniversary, we would latch on to the whole '10th' aspect and blow it completely out of proportion," MSNBC national news director Derrick Lipton said. "But we're smarter than that. Our viewers are smarter than that. If anything, we'll maybe cut back to Ground Zero when Presidents Obama and Bush leave the memorial service. And then maybe we'll have Tom Brokaw on to talk about what it was like covering the event 10 years ago. If we do that, we'll probably do commercial bumpers where we show images of the two beams of blue light shining up into the night sky, footage of Bush with his bullhorn saying, "Well, I can hear you," and maybe something that represents the human side of the tragedy, like people tacking up pictures of their loved ones. That's it. But then I suppose we could also have [former mayor Rudy] Giuliani on because, well, I don't know why. He won't say anything he hasn't said before, but it just feels like we should have him on, especially if Fox has him on. We could probably fill a bunch of time with the whole anthrax thing that came afterward, maybe do an entire terrorism retrospective that would look big and flashy but add no new information whatsoever, and just rerun that over and over and over again. Maybe throw in some of that mosque stuff. And then, oh, this would be perfect, we do profiles on the families who lost their loved ones on the Pennsylvania plane. We'll act as if we're shining a light on something that's been ignored, but really it hasn't been ignored, because over the past 10 years there have been 4,000 similar segments done about the circumstances surrounding that flight."

"But that's not what we're all about," he added. "We're better than that."

I was over there at the time. The TV coverage understandably started off behind the reality (e.g. you could see the people jumping long before the presenters realised it) but then it went on a horrible tear jerking tangent for days. They tried to outdo each other with, for example, the kids no one came to pick up after school stories. The networks were competing with each on the tragedy.

Initially in the first few hours there were a few critics of the Bush regime but that was quickly suppressed and all balance disappeared.

Quote from: Eamonnca1 on September 08, 2011, 01:11:39 AM
I once dismissed Bush's "they hate our freedom" line as propaganda as well.  But there is actually a bit of truth in it, it's just that the brain-dead wannabe redneck who said it didn't really get it.  It was one of two occasions in a day when a stopped clock was right.

In the western world women have the freedom to pursue careers, have sex with whoever they want, marry whoever they want, play a bit of sport, and expose a bit of skin now and then. People have the freedom to choose whatever religious belief system they want (at least those who haven't been successfully indoctrinated from an early enough age, but that's another matter) and are not obliged to follow laws of the state that are dictated by religious doctrine. It's not illegal to be born as a homosexual and it's certainly not punishable by death as it is in Iran. The people can determine what is right and wrong without having religious texts enforced as the law of the land. That kind of thing drives Islamic fundamentalists crazy, and it is one of the things that motivates them to hate the west.  Sure there's genuine grievances, like propping up corrupt Middle-Eastern dictatorships (which are thankfully starting to crumble now) but the cultural hostility makes it all the more personal.

I'm no fan of America's military industrial complex, its corrupt political system, or its half-baked foreign policy that is too quick to use brute force at times.  But I wouldn't allow that to blind me to the very real threat posed by this poisonous religiously-fueled hatred of western civilisation and its values.  Make no mistake, Islamic fundamentalism in the nuclear age is something that has to be kept an eye on.  We've come a long way from the days of bows, arrows and swords when you needed the resources of an entire state to cause large scale loss of life.  in 2001 it only took 17 boys with stanley knives to kill thousands.  It wouldn't take a lot of people to get their hands on a nuclear weapon or at least make a dirty bomb out of it.

The vigilance can't end.

Come on Eamonn. Someone grows up in Saudi, 1000's of miles away from the US and decides "I hate their freedom" and dedicates their lives to killing US civilians. First of all there are plenty of democratic countries a lot closer to Saudi than the USA, the whole of Europe for example. Why is it that Ireland is not at high risk of attack? If they hate "freedom" so much why not attack small unprotected countries in Europe. After all, they have a lot less security and imo are a lot more democratic than the USA. These guys had a hatred of the USA alright but maybe we need to understand why instead of accepting the simplistic Bush theory.

Quote from: boojangles on September 08, 2011, 12:03:09 PM

Quote from: mylestheslasher on September 07, 2011, 11:01:37 PM
There have been an awful lot of shows on about the terrible events of 9/11 but not one of them has asked or answered a very important set of questions. Who were the people on those planes? What was their history? Why did they do what they did? What were they hoping to achieve?  I think 10 years is long enough for people to be mature enough to ask these questions and try and understand what makes people murder 1000's of innocent people. Its is not just as simple as the brainless bush line of "they hate our freedom".

Or how two of the largest steel structures in the world at the time can crumble like a house of cards within minutes of impact? Now I'm no engineer but something never added up quite right about that day. But I guess we'll never know the truth.

There has been explanations on why/how they fell.  I am all for the conspiracy theories and would love to know the answer to alot of the questions but I doubt that anyone has a baldies regarding what should happen when two huge passenger planes crashe into two skyscrapers at around 1368 foot in height, unless they can replicate the event to prove what actually happened is any different than what did happen.

RE: Eamonnca1

I would disagree. The only freedom we have in the West that they don't have, is to be wilfully ignorant of the world around us. They have a much starker view point of the world, from the shadowy underside of the world we live in of neon signs, coca-cola and fast cars. While we can consume and not care about where it all really comes from and who benefits or suffers.

In the middle east they aren't able to block out what they can see. The hypocrisy of those who want to export democracy who propped up dictators and Israel. I would say the majority of those in the middle-east could care less about what the sarah-jane smiths of the world get up to at the weekend, what they wear or who they sleep with. (while yes they have some barbaric traditions in some regions and I would oppose Sharia law vehemently in any European country but so do many muslims living here too) What  galls them more is that they live closer to the word of god and yet they are being exploited and manipulated by the leaders of a *decadent society(*as they see it, not completely untrue from my point of view either). 

The clash of civilisation is not a question of liberal vs fundamentalism, but rather capitalisms (at its highest stage ;-P  ) desire for resources butting up against a non-progressive society which has the resources. The middle east is more than likely a victim of its own lack of "progress" much the way the Africans were when the Europeans came looking for free labour. The middle east countries are realising the bounty beneath their feet all too late and it's no longer theirs. The society which may allow them to benefit from it is unlikely to develop when they are ruled by dictators armed and put in place by the west.

September 11th was a wakeup call that we can no longer be wilfully ignorant of the world around us and the effect we have on it. If the USA was such a benign presence in the world that the Bush administration at the time would have liked us to think, there would have been no need to go war after the attacks. They would have had plenty of allies and a simple change of tack in helping countries develop their own resources would have been enough. However Washingtons long time foreign policy of resource grabbing that has to continue had buried them so deep into controlling the middle east that war was the only option.

Quote from: Eamonnca1 on September 08, 2011, 01:11:39 AM
I once dismissed Bush's "they hate our freedom" line as propaganda as well.  But there is actually a bit of truth in it, it's just that the brain-dead wannabe redneck who said it didn't really get it.  It was one of two occasions in a day when a stopped clock was right.

In the western world women have the freedom to pursue careers, have sex with whoever they want, marry whoever they want, play a bit of sport, and expose a bit of skin now and then. People have the freedom to choose whatever religious belief system they want (at least those who haven't been successfully indoctrinated from an early enough age, but that's another matter) and are not obliged to follow laws of the state that are dictated by religious doctrine. It's not illegal to be born as a homosexual and it's certainly not punishable by death as it is in Iran. The people can determine what is right and wrong without having religious texts enforced as the law of the land. That kind of thing drives Islamic fundamentalists crazy, and it is one of the things that motivates them to hate the west.  Sure there's genuine grievances, like propping up corrupt Middle-Eastern dictatorships (which are thankfully starting to crumble now) but the cultural hostility makes it all the more personal.

I'm no fan of America's military industrial complex, its corrupt political system, or its half-baked foreign policy that is too quick to use brute force at times.  But I wouldn't allow that to blind me to the very real threat posed by this poisonous religiously-fueled hatred of western civilisation and its values.  Make no mistake, Islamic fundamentalism in the nuclear age is something that has to be kept an eye on.  We've come a long way from the days of bows, arrows and swords when you needed the resources of an entire state to cause large scale loss of life.  in 2001 it only took 17 boys with stanley knives to kill thousands.  It wouldn't take a lot of people to get their hands on a nuclear weapon or at least make a dirty bomb out of it.

The vigilance can't end.

+ 1000 Eamonn. Long live our freedom to choose warts and all.

Quote from: muppet on September 08, 2011, 12:44:53 PM

Quote from: ONeill on September 07, 2011, 12:15:43 PM
The Onion's take -

Responsible Cable News Outlets To Devote Sensible Amount Of Airtime To 10th Anniversary Of 9/11


NEW YORK—Promising to cover the event responsibly and with the kind of delicate restraint it deserves, the nation's cable news outlets announced Monday that while they would be devoting some airtime to the 10th anniversary of 9/11, they "certainly wouldn't be going overboard with it."


The major networks confirmed their coverage would "of course" be tasteful and brief.

According to the news providers, they only intend to devote 15 minutes of coverage to the anniversary, tops, saying it is their obligation as professional journalists to do justice to the victims' memories as opposed to using the occasion for their own ratings gain.

In addition, network representatives admitted it would be lazy news reporting to use the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks as an excuse to fill up hundreds of hours of programming with repetitive video packages and anchors repeatedly asking their guests, "How did 9/11 change America?"

"We're planning to send one reporter to Ground Zero, have him tape a couple of two-minute segments, nothing too crazy, and that should pretty much do it," said CNN's senior vice president of programming Katherine Green, adding that the 24-hour news channel would not be making 9/11 the focus of every single program on the network because, according to Green, "What more is there to say, really?" "We'll also briefly check in with Anderson Cooper at the Pentagon, and that will be the only time we hear from him during the entirety of our coverage."

"Then our plan is to do what other American cable news providers presumably will be doing," she added. "We'll go back to reporting that never panders to viewers, but instead challenges them and forces them to step outside their own bubble by making them aware of all the truly newsworthy events happening in the world."

Along with Green, representatives from MSNBC, CNBC, HLN, and Fox News immediately ruled out doing an entire week of pre-anniversary coverage, calling it a waste of time, resources, and potentially exploitative to family members who lost a loved one on 9/11.

The networks also said they would not be designing an "America Remembers" graphic to be constantly plastered across the bottom third of the television screen; wouldn't even think about conducting "trite, unoriginal, and what basically amounts to filler" man-on-the-street interviews that ask citizens where they were on 9/11; and, calling it "sensationalism just for the sake of sensationalism," wouldn't repeatedly show archived footage of airplanes colliding into the Twin Towers and New Yorkers running away from the collapsed buildings.

Sources at Fox News confirmed that at no time during their coverage would they use the anniversary as an excuse to paint the Obama administration as weak on terrorism.

"I would imagine some might think that because it's the 10th anniversary, we would latch on to the whole '10th' aspect and blow it completely out of proportion," MSNBC national news director Derrick Lipton said. "But we're smarter than that. Our viewers are smarter than that. If anything, we'll maybe cut back to Ground Zero when Presidents Obama and Bush leave the memorial service. And then maybe we'll have Tom Brokaw on to talk about what it was like covering the event 10 years ago. If we do that, we'll probably do commercial bumpers where we show images of the two beams of blue light shining up into the night sky, footage of Bush with his bullhorn saying, "Well, I can hear you," and maybe something that represents the human side of the tragedy, like people tacking up pictures of their loved ones. That's it. But then I suppose we could also have [former mayor Rudy] Giuliani on because, well, I don't know why. He won't say anything he hasn't said before, but it just feels like we should have him on, especially if Fox has him on. We could probably fill a bunch of time with the whole anthrax thing that came afterward, maybe do an entire terrorism retrospective that would look big and flashy but add no new information whatsoever, and just rerun that over and over and over again. Maybe throw in some of that mosque stuff. And then, oh, this would be perfect, we do profiles on the families who lost their loved ones on the Pennsylvania plane. We'll act as if we're shining a light on something that's been ignored, but really it hasn't been ignored, because over the past 10 years there have been 4,000 similar segments done about the circumstances surrounding that flight."

"But that's not what we're all about," he added. "We're better than that."

I was over there at the time. The TV coverage understandably started off behind the reality (e.g. you could see the people jumping long before the presenters realised it) but then it went on a horrible tear jerking tangent for days. They tried to outdo each other with, for example, the kids no one came to pick up after school stories. The networks were competing with each on the tragedy.

Initially in the first few hours there were a few critics of the Bush regime but that was quickly suppressed and all balance disappeared.

I was there at the time too. I was heartbroken for the kids who's parents didnt come home and all the other victims. As a  father of 3 small girls myself I often think of the little girl from Cork and her Mother who were killed on the 2nd plane that hit the towers.

I've plenty of relatives who worked hard and did well in the states including some who were cops and firemen. As far as I'm concerned it was an attack on our western way of life and all we stand for.

In fact had I not accidentally changed flight times a few days before hand Myself, my wife, one of my daughters and my parents would have been on a Newark to SF flight on the 11th as we headed to a family wedding. Not sure it would have been the one that the passengers took down nor do I want to know for sure but it certainly still leaves me with a "there for the grace of God go I" shudder down my spine a decade later.

The war on terror has been more damaging to the US than Vietnam .
Look at where it is today. Downgraded by S&P . Can't even guarantee social welfare to its people.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCRIuq56Pss


http://www.lyrics007.com/J-live%20Lyrics/Satisfied%20Lyrics.html

I know a older guy that lost twelve close peeps on 9-1-1
While you kickin' up punchlines and puns
Man f**k that shit, this is serious biz
By the time Bush is done, you won't know what time it is
If it's war time or jail time, time for promises
And time to figure out where the enemy is
The same devils that you used to love to hate
They got you so gassed and shook now, you scared to debate
The same ones that traded books for guns
Smuggled drugs for funds
And had fun lettin' off forty-one
But now it's all about NYPD caps
And Pentagon bumper stickers
But yo, you still a nigga
It ain't right them cops and them firemen died
The shit is real tragic, but it damn sure ain't magic
It won't make the brutality disappear
It won't pull equality from behind your ear
It won't make a difference in a two-party country
If the president cheats, to win another four years
Now don't get me wrong, there's no place I'd rather be
The grass ain't greener on the other genocide
But tell Huey Freeman don't forget to cut the lawn
And uproot the weeds
Cuz I'm not satisfied

Quote from: 4father on September 07, 2011, 02:18:47 AM
9th of November?  What happened? 

In all seriousness, yanks did it themselves - look at how they have benefited since.   Cnuts

Exactly.

Those who still think that Saudi terrorists are responsbile for 9/11, you need your head examined.

Quote from: BennyCake on September 08, 2011, 06:07:54 PM

Quote from: 4father on September 07, 2011, 02:18:47 AM
9th of November?  What happened? 

In all seriousness, yanks did it themselves - look at how they have benefited since.   Cnuts

Exactly.

Those who still think that Saudi terrorists are responsbile for 9/11, you need your head examined.

If you say so.  ::)

0.82

Quote from: Eamonnca1 on September 07, 2011, 12:39:58 AM

Quote from: Puckoon on September 06, 2011, 11:03:24 PM
Today the Homeland Security Secretary released this quote:

"We are moving toward an intelligence and risk-based approach to how we screen," Napolitano said at an event sponsored by Politico.

"I think one of the first things you will see over time is the ability to keep your shoes on. One of the last things you will [see] is the reduction or limitation on liquids."

The policies are based on demonstrated threats, current intelligence and the science of how much explosive material it takes to bring down an aircraft.

About bloody time. Sounds like they've been talking to the Israelis who know how to keep planes safe without building a colossal system of security theatre that does nothing to keep anyone safe and just creates the illusion of security.

Have you ever flown out of Israel? Security is pretty colossal! But at the least the security chicks are usually decent looking, which makes you a bit embarrassed when they go through 2 weeks worth or dirty underwear.

Where was everyone on this day?

I was at school. My friend who was at home sick that day texted me and said 'A plan has hit the twin towers in New York'. I had no idea what the Twin Towers were.

Quote from: Hashtag on September 09, 2011, 08:09:47 AM
Where was everyone on this day?

I was at school. My friend who was at home sick that day texted me and said 'A plan has hit the twin towers in New York'. I had no idea what the Twin Towers were.

I would have been more baffled about the plan that hit them.

Quote from: Cold tea on September 09, 2011, 08:30:31 AM

Quote from: Hashtag on September 09, 2011, 08:09:47 AM
Where was everyone on this day?

I was at school. My friend who was at home sick that day texted me and said 'A plan has hit the twin towers in New York'. I had no idea what the Twin Towers were.

I would have been more baffled about the plan that hit them.

;D
maybe one of hannibal's plans ;D

Quote from: Cold tea on September 09, 2011, 08:30:31 AM

Quote from: Hashtag on September 09, 2011, 08:09:47 AM
Where was everyone on this day?

I was at school. My friend who was at home sick that day texted me and said 'A plan has hit the twin towers in New York'. I had no idea what the Twin Towers were.

I would have been more baffled about the plan that hit them.

Your while craic.  ::)

Quote from: Hashtag on September 09, 2011, 10:24:10 AM

Quote from: Cold tea on September 09, 2011, 08:30:31 AM

Quote from: Hashtag on September 09, 2011, 08:09:47 AM
Where was everyone on this day?

I was at school. My friend who was at home sick that day texted me and said 'A plan has hit the twin towers in New York'. I had no idea what the Twin Towers were.

I would have been more baffled about the plan that hit them.

Your while craic.  ::)

You're wile craic yourself.

Naw seriously, i think you are. Will you be my....
(http://cdn.8ball.co.uk/tshirts/friendladiestee_2_115025_black_m.jpg)

Quote from: nrico2006 on September 08, 2011, 01:53:08 PM

Quote from: boojangles on September 08, 2011, 12:03:09 PM

Quote from: mylestheslasher on September 07, 2011, 11:01:37 PM
There have been an awful lot of shows on about the terrible events of 9/11 but not one of them has asked or answered a very important set of questions. Who were the people on those planes? What was their history? Why did they do what they did? What were they hoping to achieve?  I think 10 years is long enough for people to be mature enough to ask these questions and try and understand what makes people murder 1000's of innocent people. Its is not just as simple as the brainless bush line of "they hate our freedom".

Or how two of the largest steel structures in the world at the time can crumble like a house of cards within minutes of impact? Now I'm no engineer but something never added up quite right about that day. But I guess we'll never know the truth.

There has been explanations on why/how they fell.   I am all for the conspiracy theories and would love to know the answer to alot of the questions but I doubt that anyone has a baldies regarding what should happen when two huge passenger planes crashe into two skyscrapers at around 1368 foot in height, unless they can replicate the event to prove what actually happened is any different than what did happen.

Where was the complete forensic report? Did I miss that? What about the numerous witnesses reporting the sound of explosives inside the Towers.

Quote from: boojangles on September 09, 2011, 11:37:23 AM

Quote from: nrico2006 on September 08, 2011, 01:53:08 PM

Quote from: boojangles on September 08, 2011, 12:03:09 PM

Quote from: mylestheslasher on September 07, 2011, 11:01:37 PM
There have been an awful lot of shows on about the terrible events of 9/11 but not one of them has asked or answered a very important set of questions. Who were the people on those planes? What was their history? Why did they do what they did? What were they hoping to achieve?  I think 10 years is long enough for people to be mature enough to ask these questions and try and understand what makes people murder 1000's of innocent people. Its is not just as simple as the brainless bush line of "they hate our freedom".

Or how two of the largest steel structures in the world at the time can crumble like a house of cards within minutes of impact? Now I'm no engineer but something never added up quite right about that day. But I guess we'll never know the truth.

There has been explanations on why/how they fell.   I am all for the conspiracy theories and would love to know the answer to alot of the questions but I doubt that anyone has a baldies regarding what should happen when two huge passenger planes crashe into two skyscrapers at around 1368 foot in height, unless they can replicate the event to prove what actually happened is any different than what did happen.

Where was the complete forensic report? Did I miss that? What about the numerous witnesses reporting the sound of explosives inside the Towers.

Jaysus, Boojangles there has been loads of debate on this. For every theory on it been staged there has been numerous dismissals of this. Read an article on the theories that dismissed every angle they had in quite a simple manner. Its all out there, have a read.

Quote from: boojangles on September 09, 2011, 11:37:23 AM

Quote from: nrico2006 on September 08, 2011, 01:53:08 PM

Quote from: boojangles on September 08, 2011, 12:03:09 PM

Quote from: mylestheslasher on September 07, 2011, 11:01:37 PM
There have been an awful lot of shows on about the terrible events of 9/11 but not one of them has asked or answered a very important set of questions. Who were the people on those planes? What was their history? Why did they do what they did? What were they hoping to achieve?  I think 10 years is long enough for people to be mature enough to ask these questions and try and understand what makes people murder 1000's of innocent people. Its is not just as simple as the brainless bush line of "they hate our freedom".

Or how two of the largest steel structures in the world at the time can crumble like a house of cards within minutes of impact? Now I'm no engineer but something never added up quite right about that day. But I guess we'll never know the truth.

There has been explanations on why/how they fell.   I am all for the conspiracy theories and would love to know the answer to alot of the questions but I doubt that anyone has a baldies regarding what should happen when two huge passenger planes crashe into two skyscrapers at around 1368 foot in height, unless they can replicate the event to prove what actually happened is any different than what did happen.

Where was the complete forensic report? Did I miss that? What about the numerous witnesses reporting the sound of explosives inside the Towers.

I haver read lots of reports countering the conspiracy theories.  There is a part of me that thinks that some of the conspiracy theories could have some credibility, but in relation to the towers falling how does the average joe distinguish the large sounds that would have been going on within the Twin Towers from that of explosives, especially considering the fact that there was a large inferno which was being fuelled which I would imagine would produce noises similar to explosions.

Quote from: nrico2006 on September 09, 2011, 12:02:26 PM

Quote from: boojangles on September 09, 2011, 11:37:23 AM

Quote from: nrico2006 on September 08, 2011, 01:53:08 PM

Quote from: boojangles on September 08, 2011, 12:03:09 PM

Quote from: mylestheslasher on September 07, 2011, 11:01:37 PM
There have been an awful lot of shows on about the terrible events of 9/11 but not one of them has asked or answered a very important set of questions. Who were the people on those planes? What was their history? Why did they do what they did? What were they hoping to achieve?  I think 10 years is long enough for people to be mature enough to ask these questions and try and understand what makes people murder 1000's of innocent people. Its is not just as simple as the brainless bush line of "they hate our freedom".

Or how two of the largest steel structures in the world at the time can crumble like a house of cards within minutes of impact? Now I'm no engineer but something never added up quite right about that day. But I guess we'll never know the truth.

There has been explanations on why/how they fell.   I am all for the conspiracy theories and would love to know the answer to alot of the questions but I doubt that anyone has a baldies regarding what should happen when two huge passenger planes crashe into two skyscrapers at around 1368 foot in height, unless they can replicate the event to prove what actually happened is any different than what did happen.

Where was the complete forensic report? Did I miss that? What about the numerous witnesses reporting the sound of explosives inside the Towers.

I haver read lots of reports countering the conspiracy theories.  There is a part of me that thinks that some of the conspiracy theories could have some credibility, but in relation to the towers falling how does the average joe distinguish the large sounds that would have been going on within the Twin Towers from that of explosives, especially considering the fact that there was a large inferno which was being fuelled which I would imagine would produce noises similar to explosions.

Well this is it, is anyone really surprised that a building would collapse after being almost cut in half by a commercial airliner slamming into it laden with aviation fuel? Really? Stand on a coke can and poke the side of it and see what happens.

Quote from: Bingo on September 09, 2011, 11:45:23 AM

Quote from: boojangles on September 09, 2011, 11:37:23 AM

Quote from: nrico2006 on September 08, 2011, 01:53:08 PM

Quote from: boojangles on September 08, 2011, 12:03:09 PM

Quote from: mylestheslasher on September 07, 2011, 11:01:37 PM
There have been an awful lot of shows on about the terrible events of 9/11 but not one of them has asked or answered a very important set of questions. Who were the people on those planes? What was their history? Why did they do what they did? What were they hoping to achieve?  I think 10 years is long enough for people to be mature enough to ask these questions and try and understand what makes people murder 1000's of innocent people. Its is not just as simple as the brainless bush line of "they hate our freedom".

Or how two of the largest steel structures in the world at the time can crumble like a house of cards within minutes of impact? Now I'm no engineer but something never added up quite right about that day. But I guess we'll never know the truth.

There has been explanations on why/how they fell.   I am all for the conspiracy theories and would love to know the answer to alot of the questions but I doubt that anyone has a baldies regarding what should happen when two huge passenger planes crashe into two skyscrapers at around 1368 foot in height, unless they can replicate the event to prove what actually happened is any different than what did happen.

Where was the complete forensic report? Did I miss that? What about the numerous witnesses reporting the sound of explosives inside the Towers.

Jaysus, Boojangles there has been loads of debate on this. For every theory on it been staged there has been numerous dismissals of this. Read an article on the theories that dismissed every angle they had in quite a simple manner. Its all out there, have a read.

I have read many arguments and counter- arguments which either way have not left me convinced of what actually happened.
Why the secrecy? Why destroy so much evidence? Why keep statements of witnesses secret?

Quote from: boojangles on September 09, 2011, 12:36:35 PM

Quote from: Bingo on September 09, 2011, 11:45:23 AM

Quote from: boojangles on September 09, 2011, 11:37:23 AM

Quote from: nrico2006 on September 08, 2011, 01:53:08 PM

Quote from: boojangles on September 08, 2011, 12:03:09 PM

Quote from: mylestheslasher on September 07, 2011, 11:01:37 PM
There have been an awful lot of shows on about the terrible events of 9/11 but not one of them has asked or answered a very important set of questions. Who were the people on those planes? What was their history? Why did they do what they did? What were they hoping to achieve?  I think 10 years is long enough for people to be mature enough to ask these questions and try and understand what makes people murder 1000's of innocent people. Its is not just as simple as the brainless bush line of "they hate our freedom".

Or how two of the largest steel structures in the world at the time can crumble like a house of cards within minutes of impact? Now I'm no engineer but something never added up quite right about that day. But I guess we'll never know the truth.

There has been explanations on why/how they fell.   I am all for the conspiracy theories and would love to know the answer to alot of the questions but I doubt that anyone has a baldies regarding what should happen when two huge passenger planes crashe into two skyscrapers at around 1368 foot in height, unless they can replicate the event to prove what actually happened is any different than what did happen.

Where was the complete forensic report? Did I miss that? What about the numerous witnesses reporting the sound of explosives inside the Towers.

Jaysus, Boojangles there has been loads of debate on this. For every theory on it been staged there has been numerous dismissals of this. Read an article on the theories that dismissed every angle they had in quite a simple manner. Its all out there, have a read.

I have read many arguments and counter- arguments which either way have not left me convinced of what actually happened.
Why the secrecy? Why destroy so much evidence? Why keep statements of witnesses secret?

Have they?

The best one I heard was a passport belonging to one of the "hijackers" was found on the street below the WTC.  The black boxes of the planes, made of indestructible material, were never found, but a paper passport happened to survive.  Yes, that sounds plausible  ::)

http://www.911myths.com/html/passport_recovered.html (http://www.911myths.com/html/passport_recovered.html)

Here is some discussion on the passport theory. I good website as well if you like that stuff.

Quote from: boojangles on September 09, 2011, 11:37:23 AM

Quote from: nrico2006 on September 08, 2011, 01:53:08 PM

Quote from: boojangles on September 08, 2011, 12:03:09 PM

Quote from: mylestheslasher on September 07, 2011, 11:01:37 PM
There have been an awful lot of shows on about the terrible events of 9/11 but not one of them has asked or answered a very important set of questions. Who were the people on those planes? What was their history? Why did they do what they did? What were they hoping to achieve?  I think 10 years is long enough for people to be mature enough to ask these questions and try and understand what makes people murder 1000's of innocent people. Its is not just as simple as the brainless bush line of "they hate our freedom".

Or how two of the largest steel structures in the world at the time can crumble like a house of cards within minutes of impact? Now I'm no engineer but something never added up quite right about that day. But I guess we'll never know the truth.

There has been explanations on why/how they fell.   I am all for the conspiracy theories and would love to know the answer to alot of the questions but I doubt that anyone has a baldies regarding what should happen when two huge passenger planes crashe into two skyscrapers at around 1368 foot in height, unless they can replicate the event to prove what actually happened is any different than what did happen.

Where was the complete forensic report? Did I miss that? What about the numerous witnesses reporting the sound of explosives inside the Towers.

there was a conspiracy, the Muslim terrorists conspired to blow the fcuk out of the twin towers and the pentagon, if any arsehole thinks the yanks did it to themselves they are nut jobs.

Quote from: stew on September 09, 2011, 04:47:22 PM

Quote from: boojangles on September 09, 2011, 11:37:23 AM

Quote from: nrico2006 on September 08, 2011, 01:53:08 PM

Quote from: boojangles on September 08, 2011, 12:03:09 PM

Quote from: mylestheslasher on September 07, 2011, 11:01:37 PM
There have been an awful lot of shows on about the terrible events of 9/11 but not one of them has asked or answered a very important set of questions. Who were the people on those planes? What was their history? Why did they do what they did? What were they hoping to achieve?  I think 10 years is long enough for people to be mature enough to ask these questions and try and understand what makes people murder 1000's of innocent people. Its is not just as simple as the brainless bush line of "they hate our freedom".

Or how two of the largest steel structures in the world at the time can crumble like a house of cards within minutes of impact? Now I'm no engineer but something never added up quite right about that day. But I guess we'll never know the truth.

There has been explanations on why/how they fell.   I am all for the conspiracy theories and would love to know the answer to alot of the questions but I doubt that anyone has a baldies regarding what should happen when two huge passenger planes crashe into two skyscrapers at around 1368 foot in height, unless they can replicate the event to prove what actually happened is any different than what did happen.

Where was the complete forensic report? Did I miss that? What about the numerous witnesses reporting the sound of explosives inside the Towers.

there was a conspiracy, the Muslim terrorists conspired to blow the fcuk out of the twin towers and the pentagon, if any arsehole thinks the yanks did it to themselves they are nut jobs.

For once I agree with Stew  :o  :o I'm off to read more on the conspiries and try and convince myself they are right  ;)

Quote from: stew on September 09, 2011, 04:47:22 PM

Quote from: boojangles on September 09, 2011, 11:37:23 AM

Quote from: nrico2006 on September 08, 2011, 01:53:08 PM

Quote from: boojangles on September 08, 2011, 12:03:09 PM

Quote from: mylestheslasher on September 07, 2011, 11:01:37 PM
There have been an awful lot of shows on about the terrible events of 9/11 but not one of them has asked or answered a very important set of questions. Who were the people on those planes? What was their history? Why did they do what they did? What were they hoping to achieve?  I think 10 years is long enough for people to be mature enough to ask these questions and try and understand what makes people murder 1000's of innocent people. Its is not just as simple as the brainless bush line of "they hate our freedom".

Or how two of the largest steel structures in the world at the time can crumble like a house of cards within minutes of impact? Now I'm no engineer but something never added up quite right about that day. But I guess we'll never know the truth.

There has been explanations on why/how they fell.   I am all for the conspiracy theories and would love to know the answer to alot of the questions but I doubt that anyone has a baldies regarding what should happen when two huge passenger planes crashe into two skyscrapers at around 1368 foot in height, unless they can replicate the event to prove what actually happened is any different than what did happen.

Where was the complete forensic report? Did I miss that? What about the numerous witnesses reporting the sound of explosives inside the Towers.

there was a conspiracy, the Muslim terrorists conspired to blow the fcuk out of the twin towers and the pentagon, if any arsehole thinks the yanks did it to themselves they are nut jobs.

How do you explain the BBC's report on the hijackers being alive and well after 9/11?

Quote from: stew on September 09, 2011, 04:47:22 PM
there was a conspiracy, the Muslim terrorists conspired to blow the fcuk out of the twin towers and the pentagon, if any arsehole thinks the yanks did it to themselves they are nut jobs.

Why because the BBC, NBC etc said so?  Sure would it not be in the interests of the neo-cons to do all this to get oil, money and hegemony?

Sorry about the long article here by Naom Chomsky.  It is good to hear an alternative view while we are subjected to all of these emotional programmes.  So many people lost their lives and their memory is being used for hegemony and oil.

Here's the first part of it:


We are approaching the 10th anniversary of the horrendous atrocities of September 11, 2001, which, it is commonly held, changed the world. On May 1, the presumed mastermind of the crime, Osama bin Laden, was assassinated in Pakistan by a team of elite US commandos, Navy SEALs, after he was captured, unarmed and undefended, in Operation Geronimo.

A number of analysts have observed that although bin Laden was finally killed, he won some major successes in his war against the US. "He repeatedly asserted that the only way to drive the US from the Muslim world and defeat its satraps was by drawing Americans into a series of small but expensive wars that would ultimately bankrupt them," Eric Margolis writes. "'Bleeding the US,' in his words. The United States, first under George W Bush and then Barack Obama, rushed right into bin Laden's trap  ... Grotesquely overblown military outlays and debt addiction ... may be the most pernicious legacy of the man who thought he could defeat the United States" - particularly when the debt is being cynically exploited by the far right, with the collusion of the Democrat establishment, to undermine what remains of social programs, public education, unions, and, in general, remaining barriers to corporate tyranny.

That Washington was bent on fulfilling bin Laden's fervent wishes was evident at once. As discussed in my book 9-11, written shortly after those attacks occurred, anyone with knowledge of the region could recognise "that a massive assault on a Muslim population would be the answer to the prayers of bin Laden and his associates, and would lead the US and its allies into a 'diabolical trap', as the French foreign minister put it".

The senior CIA analyst responsible for tracking Osama bin Laden from 1996, Michael Scheuer, wrote shortly after that "bin Laden has been precise in telling America the reasons he is waging war on us. [He] is out to drastically alter US and Western policies toward the Islamic world", and largely succeeded: "US forces and policies are completing the radicalisation of the Islamic world, something Osama bin Laden has been trying to do with substantial but incomplete success since the early 1990s. As a result, I think it is fair to conclude that the United States of America remains bin Laden's only indispensable ally." And arguably remains so, even after his death.

The first 9/11

Was there an alternative? There is every likelihood that the Jihadi movement, much of it highly critical of bin Laden, could have been split and undermined after 9/11. The "crime against humanity", as it was rightly called, could have been approached as a crime, with an international operation to apprehend the likely suspects. That was recognised at the time, but no such idea was even considered.


Click here for more of Al Jazeera's 9/11 coverage

In 9-11, I quoted Robert Fisk's conclusion that the "horrendous crime" of 9/11 was committed with "wickedness and awesome cruelty", an accurate judgment. It is useful to bear in mind that the crimes could have been even worse. Suppose, for example, that the attack had gone as far as bombing the White House, killing the president, imposing a brutal military dictatorship that killed thousands and tortured tens of thousands while establishing an international terror centre that helped impose similar torture-and-terror states elsewhere and carried out an international assassination campaign; and as an extra fillip, brought in a team of economists - call them "the Kandahar boys" - who quickly drove the economy into one of the worst depressions in its history. That, plainly, would have been a lot worse than 9/11.

Unfortunately, it is not a thought experiment. It happened. The only inaccuracy in this brief account is that the numbers should be multiplied by 25 to yield per capita equivalents, the appropriate measure. I am, of course, referring to what in Latin America is often called "the first 9/11": September 11, 1973, when the US succeeded in its intensive efforts to overthrow the democratic government of Salvador Allende in Chile with a military coup that placed General Pinochet's brutal regime in office. The goal, in the words of the Nixon administration, was to kill the "virus" that might encourage all those "foreigners [who] are out to screw us" to take over their own resources and in other ways to pursue an intolerable policy of independent development. In the background was the conclusion of the National Security Council that, if the US could not control Latin America, it could not expect "to achieve a successful order elsewhere in the world".

The first 9/11, unlike the second, did not change the world. It was "nothing of very great consequence", as Henry Kissinger assured his boss a few days later.

These events of little consequence were not limited to the military coup that destroyed Chilean democracy and set in motion the horror story that followed. The first 9/11 was just one act in a drama which began in 1962, when John F Kennedy shifted the mission of the Latin American military from "hemispheric defense" - an anachronistic holdover from World War II - to "internal security", a concept with a chilling interpretation in US-dominated Latin American circles.

In the recently published Cambridge University History of the Cold War, Latin American scholar John Coatsworth writes that from that time to "the Soviet collapse in 1990, the numbers of political prisoners, torture victims, and executions of non-violent political dissenters in Latin America vastly exceeded those in the Soviet Union and its East European satellites", including many religious martyrs and mass slaughter as well, always supported or initiated in Washington. The last major violent act was the brutal murder of six leading Latin American intellectuals, Jesuit priests, a few days after the Berlin Wall fell. The perpetrators were an elite Salvadorean battalion, which had already left a shocking trail of blood, fresh from renewed training at the JFK School of Special Warfare, acting on direct orders of the high command of the US client state.

The consequences of this hemispheric plague still, of course, reverberate.

From kidnapping and torture to assassination

All of this, and much more like it, is dismissed as of little consequence, and forgotten. Those whose mission is to rule the world enjoy a more comforting picture, articulated well enough in the current issue of the prestigious (and valuable) journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. The lead article discusses "the visionary international order" of the "second half of the twentieth century" marked by "the universalisation of an American vision of commercial prosperity". There is something to that account, but it does not quite convey the perception of those at the wrong end of the guns.

The same is true of the assassination of Osama bin Laden, which brings to an end at least a phase in the "war on terror" re-declared by President George W Bush on the second 9/11. Let us turn to a few thoughts on that event and its significance.

On May 1, 2011, Osama bin Laden was killed in his virtually unprotected compound by a raiding mission of 79 Navy SEALs, who entered Pakistan by helicopter. After many lurid stories were provided by the government and withdrawn, official reports made it increasingly clear that the operation was a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law, beginning with the invasion itself.

There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by 79 commandos facing no opposition - except, they report, from his wife, also unarmed, whom they shot in self-defense when she "lunged" at them, according to the White House.

A plausible reconstruction of the events is provided by veteran Middle East correspondent Yochi Dreazen and colleagues in the Atlantic. Dreazen, formerly the military correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, is senior correspondent for the National Journal Group covering military affairs and national security. According to their investigation, White House planning appears not to have considered the option of capturing bin Laden alive: "The administration had made clear to the military's clandestine Joint Special Operations Command that it wanted bin Laden dead, according to a senior US official with knowledge of the discussions. A high-ranking military officer briefed on the assault said the SEALs knew their mission was not to take him alive."

The authors add: "For many at the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency who had spent nearly a decade hunting bin Laden, killing the militant was a necessary and justified act of vengeance." Furthermore, "capturing bin Laden alive would have also presented the administration with an array of nettlesome legal and political challenges". Better, then, to assassinate him, dumping his body into the sea without the autopsy considered essential after a killing - an act that predictably provoked both anger and skepticism in much of the Muslim world.

As the Atlantic inquiry observes, "The decision to kill bin Laden outright was the clearest illustration to date of a little-noticed aspect of the Obama administration's counterterror policy. The Bush administration captured thousands of suspected militants and sent them to detention camps in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay. The Obama administration, by contrast, has focused on eliminating individual terrorists rather than attempting to take them alive." That is one significant difference between Bush and Obama. The authors quote former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who "told German TV that the US raid was 'quite clearly a violation of international law' and that bin Laden should have been detained and put on trial", contrasting Schmidt with US Attorney General Eric Holder, who "defended the decision to kill bin Laden although he didn't pose an immediate threat to the Navy SEALs, telling a House panel ... that the assault had been 'lawful, legitimate and appropriate in every way'".

The disposal of the body without autopsy was also criticised by allies. The highly regarded British barrister Geoffrey Robertson, who supported the intervention and opposed the execution largely on pragmatic grounds, nevertheless described Obama's claim that "justice was done" as an "absurdity" that should have been obvious to a former professor of constitutional law. Pakistan law "requires a colonial inquest on violent death, and international human rights law insists that the 'right to life' mandates an inquiry whenever violent death occurs from government or police action. The US is therefore under a duty to hold an inquiry that will satisfy the world as to the true circumstances of this killing."

Robertson usefully reminds us that:
"t was not always thus. When the time came to consider the fate of men much more steeped in wickedness than Osama bin Laden - the Nazi leadership - the British government wanted them hanged within six hours of capture. President Truman demurred, citing the conclusion of Justice Robert Jackson that summary execution 'would not sit easily on the American conscience or be remembered by our children with pride ... the only course is to determine the innocence or guilt of the accused after a hearing as dispassionate as the times will permit and upon a record that will leave our reasons and motives clear.'"
Eric Margolis comments that "Washington has never made public the evidence of its claim that Osama bin Laden was behind the 9/11 attacks", presumably one reason why "polls show that fully a third of American respondents believe that the US government and/or Israel were behind 9/11", while in the Muslim world skepticism is much higher. "An open trial in the US or at the Hague would have exposed these claims to the light of day," he continues, a practical reason why Washington should have followed the law.

In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. I stress "suspects". In June 2002, FBI head Robert Mueller, in what the Washington Post described as "among his most detailed public comments on the origins of the attacks", could say only that "investigators believe the idea of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon came from al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan, the actual plotting was done in Germany, and the financing came through the United Arab Emirates from sources in Afghanistan".

What the FBI believed and thought in June 2002 they didn't know eight months earlier, when Washington dismissed tentative offers by the Taliban (how serious, we do not know) to permit a trial of bin Laden if they were presented with evidence. Thus, it is not true, as President Obama claimed in his White House statement after bin Laden's death, that "[w]e quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al-Qaeda".

There has never been any reason to doubt what the FBI believed in mid-2002, but that leaves us far from the proof of guilt required in civilised societies - and whatever the evidence might be, it does not warrant murdering a suspect who could, it seems, have been easily apprehended and brought to trial. Much the same is true of evidence provided since. Thus, the 9/11 Commission provided extensive circumstantial evidence of bin Laden's role in 9/11, based primarily on what it had been told about confessions by prisoners in Guantanamo. It is doubtful that much of that would hold up in an independent court, considering the ways confessions were elicited. But in any event, the conclusions of a congressionally authorised investigation, however convincing one finds them, plainly fall short of a sentence by a credible court, which is what shifts the category of the accused from suspect to convicted.

There is much talk of bin Laden's "confession", but that was a boast, not a confession, with as much credibility as my "confession" that I won the Boston marathon. The boast tells us a lot about his character, but nothing about his responsibility for what he regarded as a great achievement, for which he wanted to take credit.

Again, all of this is, transparently, quite independent of one's judgments about his responsibility, which seemed clear immediately, even before the FBI inquiry, and still does.

Crimes of aggression

It is worth adding that bin Laden's responsibility was recognised in much of the Muslim world, and condemned. One significant example is the distinguished Lebanese cleric Sheikh Fadlallah, greatly respected by Hizbollah and Shia groups generally, outside Lebanon as well. He had some experience with assassinations. He had been targeted for assassination: by a truck bomb outside a mosque, in a CIA-organised operation in 1985. He escaped, but 80 others were killed, mostly women and girls as they left the mosque - one of those innumerable crimes that do not enter the annals of terror because of the fallacy of "wrong agency". Sheikh Fadlallah sharply condemned the 9/11 attacks.

One of the leading specialists on the Jihadi movement, Fawaz Gerges, suggests that the movement might have been split at that time had the US exploited the opportunity instead of mobilising the movement, particularly by the attack on Iraq, a great boon to bin Laden, which led to a sharp increase in terror, as intelligence agencies had anticipated. At the Chilcot hearings investigating the background to the invasion of Iraq, for example, the former head of Britain's domestic intelligence agency MI5 testified that both British and US intelligence were aware that Saddam posed no serious threat, that the invasion was likely to increase terror, and that the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan had radicalised parts of a generation of Muslims who saw the military actions as an "attack on Islam". As is often the case, security was not a high priority for state action.

It might be instructive to ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos had landed at George W Bush's compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic (after proper burial rites, of course). Uncontroversially, he was not a "suspect" but the "decider" who gave the orders to invade Iraq - that is, to commit the "supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole" for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country and its national heritage, and the murderous sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region. Equally uncontroversially, these crimes vastly exceed anything attributed to bin Laden.

To say that all of this is uncontroversial, as it is, is not to imply that it is not denied. The existence of flat earthers does not change the fact that, uncontroversially, the earth is not flat. Similarly, it is uncontroversial that Stalin and Hitler were responsible for horrendous crimes, though loyalists deny it. All of this should, again, be too obvious for comment, and would be, except in an atmosphere of hysteria so extreme that it blocks rational thought.

Similarly, it is uncontroversial that Bush and associates did commit the "supreme international crime" - the crime of aggression. That crime was defined clearly enough by Justice Robert Jackson, Chief of Counsel for the United States at Nuremberg.  An "aggressor," Jackson proposed to the Tribunal in his opening statement, is a state that is the first to commit such actions as "nvasion of its armed forces, with or without a declaration of war, of the territory of another State ..." No one, even the most extreme supporter of the aggression, denies that Bush and associates did just that.

We might also do well to recall Jackson's eloquent words at Nuremberg on the principle of universality: "If certain acts in violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us."

It is also clear that announced intentions are irrelevant, even if they are truly believed. Internal records reveal that Japanese fascists apparently did believe that, by ravaging China, they were labouring to turn it into an "earthly paradise". And although it may be difficult to imagine, it is conceivable that Bush and company believed they were protecting the world from destruction by Saddam's nuclear weapons. All irrelevant, though ardent loyalists on all sides may try to convince themselves otherwise.

We are left with two choices: either Bush and associates are guilty of the "supreme international crime" including all the evils that follow, or else we declare that the Nuremberg proceedings were a farce and the allies were guilty of judicial murder.

The imperial mentality and 9/11

A few days before the bin Laden assassination, Orlando Bosch died peacefully in Florida, where he resided along with his accomplice Luis Posada Carriles and many other associates in international terrorism. After he was accused of dozens of terrorist crimes by the FBI, Bosch was granted a presidential pardon by Bush I over the objections of the Justice Department, which found the conclusion "inescapable that it would be prejudicial to the public interest for the United States to provide a safe haven for Bosch". The coincidence of these deaths at once calls to mind the Bush II doctrine - "already ... a de facto rule of international relations", according to the noted Harvard international relations specialist Graham Allison - which revokes "the sovereignty of states that provide sanctuary to terrorists".

Allison refers to the pronouncement of Bush II, directed at the Taliban, that "those who harbour terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves". Such states, therefore, have lost their sovereignty and are fit targets for bombing and terror - for example, the state that harbored Bosch and his associate. When Bush issued this new "de facto rule of international relations", no one seemed to notice that he was calling for invasion and destruction of the US and the murder of its criminal presidents.

None of this is problematic, of course, if we reject Justice Jackson's principle of universality, and adopt instead the principle that the US is self-immunised against international law and conventions - as, in fact, the government has frequently made very clear.

It is also worth thinking about the name given to the bin Laden operation: Operation Geronimo. The imperial mentality is so profound that few seem able to perceive that the White House is glorifying bin Laden by calling him "Geronimo" - the Apache Indian chief who led the courageous resistance to the invaders of Apache lands.

The casual choice of the name is reminiscent of the ease with which we name our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Blackhawk ... We might react differently if the Luftwaffe had called its fighter planes "Jew" and "Gypsy".

The examples mentioned would fall under the category of "American exceptionalism", were it not for the fact that easy suppression of one's own crimes is virtually ubiquitous among powerful states, at least those that are not defeated and forced to acknowledge reality.

Perhaps the assassination was perceived by the administration as an "act of vengeance," as Robertson concludes. And perhaps the rejection of the legal option of a trial reflects a difference between the moral culture of 1945 and today, as he suggests. Whatever the motive was, it could hardly have been security. As in the case of the "supreme international crime" in Iraq, the bin Laden assassination is another illustration of the important fact that security is often not a high priority for state action, contrary to received doctrine.

Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor emeritus in the MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. He is the author of numerous bestselling political works, including 9-11: Was There an Alternative? (Seven Stories Press), an updated version of his classic account, just being published this week with a major new essay - from which this post was adapted - considering the 10 years since the 9/11 attacks.
A version of this piece was originally published on TomDispatch.com.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Some of you seem to have missed the part where I openly said that the USA is not perfect. I put Timothy McVeigh, the Tea Party extremist of his day, on the same moral scale as the suicide murderers who hit the twin towers and the Pentagon. But we can't allow that to blind ourselves to the sinister ideology of violent jihadism. I mean, if 9/11 hasn't woken us up to it then nothing will and we'll continue to have self-loathing people in our midst who try to justify these acts of terrorism.

Is it wrong that the USA gives so much one-sided support to Israel despite its cruel treatment of Palestinians? Of course it is. Is it wrong that Christian fundamentalists in America want to teach nonsense to children and ban gay marriage? Of course it is.

But none of that is enough to justify suicide attacks on civilians in the name of Allah.  None of it can justify attacking an embassy just because a newspaper exercised free speech and printed cartoons. None of it can justify setting bombs off on an urban transport system at commute time.

None of it is justified! You hear me? None of it is justified!

Of course none of it was justified however since 9/11 how many innocent people have been murdered by the American military on foreign land & was that justified?

RIP to all those that died on Sept 11th 2001 & to those thousands of innocent victims since then caught up in oil or revenge missions.

There's always a "but what about" isn't there?

Quote from: Eamonnca1 on September 09, 2011, 08:23:34 PM
Some of you seem to have missed the part where I openly said that the USA is not perfect. I put Timothy McVeigh, the Tea Party extremist of his day, on the same moral scale as the suicide murderers who hit the twin towers and the Pentagon. But we can't allow that to blind ourselves to the sinister ideology of violent jihadism. I mean, if 9/11 hasn't woken us up to it then nothing will and we'll continue to have self-loathing people in our midst who try to justify these acts of terrorism.

Is it wrong that the USA gives so much one-sided support to Israel despite its cruel treatment of Palestinians? Of course it is. Is it wrong that Christian fundamentalists in America want to teach nonsense to children and ban gay marriage? Of course it is.

But none of that is enough to justify suicide attacks on civilians in the name of Allah.  None of it can justify attacking an embassy just because a newspaper exercised free speech and printed cartoons. None of it can justify setting bombs off on an urban transport system at commute time.

None of it is justified! You hear me? None of it is justified!

yeah but you miss the point. If the USA stopped its myopic support of Israel then the Jihad stops. If the USA stops propping up dictators then the hatred and terrorism stops.

But we know this wont happen because capitalism needs to have an underclass; it can't continue in its present state if it were to trade fairly for its resources.

I don't think terrorism is justified, no sane person does. But if your investigating a crime you need to find a motive.

There was no hatred of the USA when they helped kick the Soviets out of the middle east. Why was that. No problem with Our Freedom then.

DO you think maybe they realised that they kicked the Soviets out the front door at the same time letting the USA control sneak in the back door.

Quote from: Bingo on September 09, 2011, 04:30:05 PM
http://www.911myths.com/html/passport_recovered.html (http://www.911myths.com/html/passport_recovered.html)

Here is some discussion on the passport theory. I good website as well if you like that stuff.

Here is a bigger question which was never answered to my satisfaction.

http://www.debunking911.com/questions.htm

Quote from: thejuice on September 09, 2011, 09:38:51 PM

yeah but you miss the point. If the USA stopped its myopic support of Israel then the Jihad stops. If the USA stops propping up dictators then the hatred and terrorism stops.

Are you joking or are you serious? You think the fatwa against Salman Rushdie and the hysteria about the Danish cartoons was all about US foreign policy? Give. Me. A. Break. It was about religiously-fuelled hatred of all things western. End of. Children in public schools in Pakistan are taught to hate America before they can even point to the place on a map, this despite the fact that Pakistan is a huge recipient of western aid.  Public schools! That's not event the madrassa indoctrination centers!

QuoteBut we know this wont (sic) happen because capitalism needs to have an underclass; it can't continue in its present state if it were to trade fairly for its resources.

"Workers of the world unite" eh? It's all a conspiracy to keep the working man down.

QuoteI don't think terrorism is justified, no sane person does. But if your (sic) investigating a crime you need to find a motive.

Ah, the old "not justifiable but understandable" defence.

Quote from: thejuice on September 09, 2011, 09:38:51 PM

Quote from: Eamonnca1 on September 09, 2011, 08:23:34 PM
Some of you seem to have missed the part where I openly said that the USA is not perfect. I put Timothy McVeigh, the Tea Party extremist of his day, on the same moral scale as the suicide murderers who hit the twin towers and the Pentagon. But we can't allow that to blind ourselves to the sinister ideology of violent jihadism. I mean, if 9/11 hasn't woken us up to it then nothing will and we'll continue to have self-loathing people in our midst who try to justify these acts of terrorism.

Is it wrong that the USA gives so much one-sided support to Israel despite its cruel treatment of Palestinians? Of course it is. Is it wrong that Christian fundamentalists in America want to teach nonsense to children and ban gay marriage? Of course it is.

But none of that is enough to justify suicide attacks on civilians in the name of Allah.  None of it can justify attacking an embassy just because a newspaper exercised free speech and printed cartoons. None of it can justify setting bombs off on an urban transport system at commute time.

None of it is justified! You hear me? None of it is justified!

yeah but you miss the point. If the USA stopped its myopic support of Israel then the Jihad stops. If the USA stops propping up dictators then the hatred and terrorism stops.

But we know this wont happen because capitalism needs to have an underclass; it can't continue in its present state if it were to trade fairly for its resources.

I don't think terrorism is justified, no sane person does. But if your investigating a crime you need to find a motive.

Are you for real???
Do people like you who actually believe that actually exist?
Jihad is committed to wiping out western civilisation and replacing it with fundemental backward oppressive muslim control.

Quote from: ross matt on September 10, 2011, 12:21:37 AM

Quote from: thejuice on September 09, 2011, 09:38:51 PM

Quote from: Eamonnca1 on September 09, 2011, 08:23:34 PM
Some of you seem to have missed the part where I openly said that the USA is not perfect. I put Timothy McVeigh, the Tea Party extremist of his day, on the same moral scale as the suicide murderers who hit the twin towers and the Pentagon. But we can't allow that to blind ourselves to the sinister ideology of violent jihadism. I mean, if 9/11 hasn't woken us up to it then nothing will and we'll continue to have self-loathing people in our midst who try to justify these acts of terrorism.

Is it wrong that the USA gives so much one-sided support to Israel despite its cruel treatment of Palestinians? Of course it is. Is it wrong that Christian fundamentalists in America want to teach nonsense to children and ban gay marriage? Of course it is.

But none of that is enough to justify suicide attacks on civilians in the name of Allah.  None of it can justify attacking an embassy just because a newspaper exercised free speech and printed cartoons. None of it can justify setting bombs off on an urban transport system at commute time.

None of it is justified! You hear me? None of it is justified!

yeah but you miss the point. If the USA stopped its myopic support of Israel then the Jihad stops. If the USA stops propping up dictators then the hatred and terrorism stops.

But we know this wont happen because capitalism needs to have an underclass; it can't continue in its present state if it were to trade fairly for its resources.

I don't think terrorism is justified, no sane person does. But if your investigating a crime you need to find a motive.

Are you for real???
Do people like you who actually believe that actually exist?
Jihad is committed to wiping out western civilisation and replacing it with fundemental backward oppressive muslim control.

Otherwise known as Sharia law... They've only told us as much but then that's heavily edited US propaganda  ::)
The self loathing and hatred towards all things US is so embedded and blinding here that nothing will ever change their minds!
"There are non so blind as those who will not see"

Quote from: Tyrones own on September 10, 2011, 01:12:03 AM
Otherwise known as Sharia law...

It's actually just known as Sharia. The 'law' on the end is redundant.

Quote from: Eamonnca1 on September 10, 2011, 01:30:02 AM

Quote from: Tyrones own on September 10, 2011, 01:12:03 AM
Otherwise known as Sharia law...

It's actually just known as Sharia. The 'law' on the end is redundant.

Maybe but here in California, any newspaper you or I will lift tomorrow or any news network channel that
either of us will tune in to will label it "Sharia Law" and so that's good enough for me and not at all redundant.
Now if we lived in Iran or the like then.......

Quote from: Eamonnca1 on September 10, 2011, 01:30:02 AM

Quote from: Tyrones own on September 10, 2011, 01:12:03 AM
Otherwise known as Sharia law...

It's actually just known as Sharia. The 'law' on the end is redundant.

Fox News calls it Sharia law. That should be good enough for you.

Quote from: dec on September 10, 2011, 03:49:15 AM

Quote from: Eamonnca1 on September 10, 2011, 01:30:02 AM

Quote from: Tyrones own on September 10, 2011, 01:12:03 AM
Otherwise known as Sharia law...

It's actually just known as Sharia. The 'law' on the end is redundant.

Fox News calls it Sharia law. That should be good enough for you.

Actually Dec I've moved over to MSNBC  ::) :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvgT6FHRUCo&feature=relmfu

http://dailyhuff.blogspot.com/2011/02/ex-muslim-brotherhood-member-warns.html

extremists should all be shot...


fundamentalists imposing their laws on others, no place for that, except when its about gay marriage, or the Governor of Texas' prayer meetings, honor killings, or covering up women, 2 sides of the same coin

Quote from: Eamonnca1 on September 09, 2011, 11:53:39 PM

Quote from: thejuice on September 09, 2011, 09:38:51 PM

yeah but you miss the point. If the USA stopped its myopic support of Israel then the Jihad stops. If the USA stops propping up dictators then the hatred and terrorism stops.

Are you joking or are you serious? You think the fatwa against Salman Rushdie and the hysteria about the Danish cartoons was all about US foreign policy? Give. Me. A. Break. It was about religiously-fuelled hatred of all things western. End of. Children in public schools in Pakistan are taught to hate America before they can even point to the place on a map, this despite the fact that Pakistan is a huge recipient of western aid.  Public schools! That's not event the madrassa indoctrination centers!

QuoteBut we know this wont (sic) happen because capitalism needs to have an underclass; it can't continue in its present state if it were to trade fairly for its resources.

"Workers of the world unite" eh? It's all a conspiracy to keep the working man down.

QuoteI don't think terrorism is justified, no sane person does. But if your (sic) investigating a crime you need to find a motive.

Ah, the old "not justifiable but understandable" defence.

Your first point: I don't doubt that the extremism exists, of course it does. Are we not allowed ask why does it exist though? Just because? If its as simple as they hate the fact that we let our women drive and vote etc and we allow gays to live in peace. Fine I'm open to persuasion. I've read as much as I can on both sides of the argument and if you have some other sources as to the root of extremism. Are the geopolitical aspects a completely non-related issue?

I've read the books on the historic conflicts between Islam and Europe, I've watched documentaries like Iranium and it really disgusts me what I've seen in those. But it seems that the geopolitical aspects, which are acknowledged by western governments as indeed a factor, seem to be left out of the more public discussion .

Your second point: I wouldn't agree its a conspiracy. And the Leninist terminology was tongue in cheek. Socialism isn't the answer. Its just how Capitalism works. Success is rewarded and Capitalism needs to grow and it outgrew national boundaries back in the approx 70's and now its works on an almost hemispherical scale. We can't afford the same lifestyle for everyone, not everyone can eat at the top table. If it wasn't for cheap labor in Asia and notably communist China, where would we be?

Your third point: Goes back to the first point. if its as simple as they hate us because of religious ideology and not the inequalities of geopolitics, then fine, if they want a fight over that, I'm totally against them. But I have yet to be convinced that is the root of the problem. Religion gets brought into it by the extremists because it is a powerful motivator and unifies people. It also absolves them in their own minds of any humanity, morality and conscience when they carry out barbarity like we saw 10 years ago. 

But anyway, this ground has been covered before and we wont change the world on a web forum.

But if you want to take the time to do a bit of reading and study that I have done then you might like to read watch the following.

Quotehttp://www.amazon.com/Grand-Chessboard-American-Geostrategic-Imperatives/dp/0465027261

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baeFRcciN1w&list=PL807D61245B994940&index=2

http://vimeo.com/20197444

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNgCyDsvi84

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DZUiGQAACAAJ&dq=amartya+sen+identity+and+violence&hl=en&ei=qRBrTtOhDsmh8QPG8PAb&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA

http://www.amazon.co.uk/No-Logo-Naomi-Klein/dp/000734077X

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Decline-Fall-Europes-Motion-Suicide/dp/1594032068/ref=cm_lmf_tit_17

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Liberal-Fascism-History-Mussolini-Politics/dp/0141039507/ref=cm_lmf_tit_18

http://www.johnpilger.com/videos/palestine-is-still-the-issue

If you'd like to reciprocate some that you have done on the issue I would like to read that too.


But anyway, enjoy your weekend everybody.

Quote from: ross matt on September 10, 2011, 12:21:37 AM

Quote from: thejuice on September 09, 2011, 09:38:51 PM

Quote from: Eamonnca1 on September 09, 2011, 08:23:34 PM
Some of you seem to have missed the part where I openly said that the USA is not perfect. I put Timothy McVeigh, the Tea Party extremist of his day, on the same moral scale as the suicide murderers who hit the twin towers and the Pentagon. But we can't allow that to blind ourselves to the sinister ideology of violent jihadism. I mean, if 9/11 hasn't woken us up to it then nothing will and we'll continue to have self-loathing people in our midst who try to justify these acts of terrorism.

Is it wrong that the USA gives so much one-sided support to Israel despite its cruel treatment of Palestinians? Of course it is. Is it wrong that Christian fundamentalists in America want to teach nonsense to children and ban gay marriage? Of course it is.

But none of that is enough to justify suicide attacks on civilians in the name of Allah.  None of it can justify attacking an embassy just because a newspaper exercised free speech and printed cartoons. None of it can justify setting bombs off on an urban transport system at commute time.

None of it is justified! You hear me? None of it is justified!

yeah but you miss the point. If the USA stopped its myopic support of Israel then the Jihad stops. If the USA stops propping up dictators then the hatred and terrorism stops.

But we know this wont happen because capitalism needs to have an underclass; it can't continue in its present state if it were to trade fairly for its resources.

I don't think terrorism is justified, no sane person does. But if your investigating a crime you need to find a motive.

Are you for real???
Do people like you who actually believe that actually exist?
Jihad is committed to wiping out western civilisation and replacing it with fundemental backward oppressive muslim control.

OK, what I wrote was deliberately over-simplifying. It doesn't stop, it does lose its most effective recruiting tools. Much like when the British changed tack in Ireland rather than fighting toe to toe began looking at the grievances of the people and negotiating.

But yes that snake is out of the basket and will have to be carefully managed now to put it back. And as Eamonnca1 said, the vigilance must not stop. And that is true. The treat of brutal violence still exists. The battle for hearts and minds still needs to be won and we need to be certain that aspects of capitalism and globalsm isn't working against it.

Quote from: Tony Baloney on September 09, 2011, 12:26:13 PM
Well this is it, is anyone really surprised that a building would collapse after being almost cut in half by a commercial airliner slamming into it laden with aviation fuel? Really? Stand on a coke can and poke the side of it and see what happens.

They hijackers chose their flights very carefully. Security on international flights, which had larger aircraft and fuel loads for the longer distances, was much more strict than on internal flights. This is probably why they avoided going for say a 747 or Airbus 340 to London or Paris.

However the USA being so large internal flights included relatively large aircraft, such as the 767s hijacked, with relatively large fuel loads to get from Boston to the West Coast. But these had the advantage of very lax security measures.

The Twin Towers were designed to take a hit from an aircraft, but nothing as large as a 767 or with as much fuel.

Quote from: heganboy on September 10, 2011, 04:48:13 AM
extremists should all be shot...


fundamentalists imposing their laws on others, no place for that, except when its about gay marriage, or the Governor of Texas' prayer meetings, honor killings, or covering up women, 2 sides of the same coin

Prayer meetings like this one HB... the NY times didn't print this one so you probably missed it.
Of course it's only the Crazy Christian right that engage in such threatening behavior  ::) *shakes head*
How f**king sick are you to compare a prayer meeting to an honor killing  :o
Blinkered Liberalism is indeed a mental disorder...of that there is no doubt!

(http://www.gospelmusicbites.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/barack-obama-being-prayed-over.jpg)

An intelligent society does, however, know how to punctuate.

As well as side step the actual point, thinking no one will notice  :-X

Quote
How f**king sick are you to compare a prayer meeting to an honor killing  :o
Blinkered Liberalism is indeed a mental disorder...of that there is no doubt!

yes TO, that was exactly what I was saying in the post, that prayer meetings and honor killings are the same thing. How insightful of you to pick up on that. Can't slip those sneaky ones by you.

I remember the huge outcry over Obama's use of his position to have the prayer meeting above (to which he didn't bring 30,000 in a 70,000 other Christian to a football stadium and claim it was his duty as a Christian to save a nation in crisis)  from representatives of the world's religion, despite his protests that he was doing it as a private citizen and not as the President of the United States.

To be clear- as you missed it, I didn't compare any prayer meeting to anything. I said (with your emphasis)

Quotefundamentalists imposing their laws on others, no place for that, except when its about gay marriage, or the Governor of Texas' prayer meetings, honor killings, or covering up women, 2 sides of the same coin

Forcing your religious beliefs on those who don't agree with them is unacceptable. Have a look at the meaning of the flag you so proudly wave in your avatar. It doesn't matter how you do it, or how right you think you are, President, Governor, Priest, or Rabbi.

Respects today to those who lost loved ones and the scenes even from a distance were disturbing-a prayer and rest in peace-god bless

Watched a show last night on children who lost their parents in 9/11 was terrible viewing. Felt quite emotional watching it. Played on my mind all night.

God Bless the millions who have suffered because of this disgusting act. An act that the US went on and slaughtered many more civilians in the middle east

RIP and God Bless

Watching a memorial service on BBC there where Charles & Camilla turned up for it. There is white pvc garden chairs for everyone to sit on but the only 2 chairs that had cushions (not matching  :o) on them were for guess who .......

Awful massacre that took place and it will never be forgotten unlike this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbC5f2z6PmI&sns=em

Quote from: 4father on September 11, 2011, 04:30:58 PM
Awful massacre that took place and it will never be forgotten unlike this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbC5f2z6PmI&sns=em

yes your right. but your not allowed to go poking through americas skeletons especially today

No matter what your politics, no matter what you think of Americas actions since that day, 2,900+ ordinary people went to work on that Tuesday morning. Someone like your Dad, your best friend or you. They went to work because they had bills to pay, ordinary lives taken away.

They didn't come home.

with all the coverage one video clip really sends shivers down my spine and that is watching people jump from the top floors,unbelievable.

Quote from: Gabriel_Hurl on September 12, 2011, 07:19:56 AM
No matter what your politics, no matter what you think of Americas actions since that day, 2,900+ ordinary people went to work on that Tuesday morning. Someone like your Dad, your best friend or you. They went to work because they had bills to pay, ordinary lives taken away.

They didn't come home.

Best post by far Gabriel. Its the only thing that should have been remembered yesterday.

Exactly...some on here simply can't turn it off!

Quote from: Tyrones own on September 12, 2011, 03:48:39 PM
Exactly...some on here simply can't turn it off!

Indeed.

Very moving video sums up 9/11 best i feel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElzITGC1LCg

Quote from: comethekingdom on September 11, 2011, 03:45:28 PM
Watching a memorial service on BBC there where Charles & Camilla turned up for it. There is white pvc garden chairs for everyone to sit on but the only 2 chairs that had cushions (not matching  :o) on them were for guess who .......

Outrageous! The least they could have done was make them match!

Quote from: ross4life on September 12, 2011, 05:28:08 PM
Very moving video sums up 9/11 best i feel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElzITGC1LCg

Thats heartbreaking stuff

Former New York police officers and firefighters were among 106 people charged over a "massive fraud" worth hundreds of millions of dollars, some in connection with the 11 September attacks.
The accused allegedly collected tens of thousands of dollars a year in social security disability benefits, which are funded by taxpayers.
It is alleged they claimed they were completely incapacitated by serious psychiatric disorders and other ailments.
But, according to court documents, they were in fact living normal lives, one of the accused flew a helicopter, while another played blackjack in Las Vegas.
One of the accused taught and performed mixed martial arts, but was still claiming benefits of typically between $30,000 and $50,000 a year (€22,000-€37,000).
In some instances, the total amount fraudulently obtained was nearly $500,000 (€367,000) per applicant.
Of those indicted in the decades-long scam, 80 were retired New York police officers or firefighters.
"Many participants cynically manufactured claims of mental illness as a result of September 11, dishonouring the first responders who did serve their city at the expense of their own health and safety," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement.
As far back as 1988, the four main defendants - Raymond Lavallee, 83, Thomas Hale, 89, Joseph Esposito, 64, and John Minerva, 61 - conspired to help or make hundreds of applicants falsely claim disabilities in order to collect benefit payments in addition to their public pensions, the indictment and court documents showed.
Prosecutors said the applicants claimed they suffered from a psychiatric condition that prevented them from working, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety or depression.
"This alleged scam further depleted the already limited resources available for battling the real and complex conditions of PTSD and depression," Mr Vance said.
New York Police Commissioner William Bratton said: "The retired members of the NYPD indicted in this case have disgraced all first responders who perished during the search and rescue efforts on September 11, 2001, and those who subsequently died from 9/11 related illness, by exploiting their involvements that tragic day for personal gain."
Mr Hale and Mr Esposito, the latter a retired member of the NYPD, allegedly coached benefit applicants to falsely describe symptoms of depression and anxiety to doctors they had recruited.
They instructed applicants on how to fail memory tests with plausibility, how to dress, and on their demeanour.
For example, almost every claim included phrases such as "I nap on and off during the day" and "I have the TV on to keep me company".

Quote from: orangeman on January 08, 2014, 09:56:57 AM
Former New York police officers and firefighters were among 106 people charged over a "massive fraud" worth hundreds of millions of dollars, some in connection with the 11 September attacks.
The accused allegedly collected tens of thousands of dollars a year in social security disability benefits, which are funded by taxpayers.
It is alleged they claimed they were completely incapacitated by serious psychiatric disorders and other ailments.
But, according to court documents, they were in fact living normal lives, one of the accused flew a helicopter, while another played blackjack in Las Vegas.
One of the accused taught and performed mixed martial arts, but was still claiming benefits of typically between $30,000 and $50,000 a year (€22,000-€37,000).
In some instances, the total amount fraudulently obtained was nearly $500,000 (€367,000) per applicant.
Of those indicted in the decades-long scam, 80 were retired New York police officers or firefighters.
"Many participants cynically manufactured claims of mental illness as a result of September 11, dishonouring the first responders who did serve their city at the expense of their own health and safety," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement.
As far back as 1988, the four main defendants - Raymond Lavallee, 83, Thomas Hale, 89, Joseph Esposito, 64, and John Minerva, 61 - conspired to help or make hundreds of applicants falsely claim disabilities in order to collect benefit payments in addition to their public pensions, the indictment and court documents showed.
Prosecutors said the applicants claimed they suffered from a psychiatric condition that prevented them from working, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety or depression.
"This alleged scam further depleted the already limited resources available for battling the real and complex conditions of PTSD and depression," Mr Vance said.
New York Police Commissioner William Bratton said: "The retired members of the NYPD indicted in this case have disgraced all first responders who perished during the search and rescue efforts on September 11, 2001, and those who subsequently died from 9/11 related illness, by exploiting their involvements that tragic day for personal gain."
Mr Hale and Mr Esposito, the latter a retired member of the NYPD, allegedly coached benefit applicants to falsely describe symptoms of depression and anxiety to doctors they had recruited.
They instructed applicants on how to fail memory tests with plausibility, how to dress, and on their demeanour.
For example, almost every claim included phrases such as "I nap on and off during the day" and "I have the TV on to keep me company".

The article says some people claimed up to half a million, there were 106 of them and the total amount misclaimed was in the hundreds of millions

1/2 * 106 million is 53 million   

A drop in the ocean compared to the 3 trillion (3 million million) spent fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan
How much did Halliburton and Lockheed cream btw ?

Quote from: seafoid on January 08, 2014, 10:12:49 AM

Quote from: orangeman on January 08, 2014, 09:56:57 AM
Former New York police officers and firefighters were among 106 people charged over a "massive fraud" worth hundreds of millions of dollars, some in connection with the 11 September attacks.
The accused allegedly collected tens of thousands of dollars a year in social security disability benefits, which are funded by taxpayers.
It is alleged they claimed they were completely incapacitated by serious psychiatric disorders and other ailments.
But, according to court documents, they were in fact living normal lives, one of the accused flew a helicopter, while another played blackjack in Las Vegas.
One of the accused taught and performed mixed martial arts, but was still claiming benefits of typically between $30,000 and $50,000 a year (€22,000-€37,000).
In some instances, the total amount fraudulently obtained was nearly $500,000 (€367,000) per applicant.
Of those indicted in the decades-long scam, 80 were retired New York police officers or firefighters.
"Many participants cynically manufactured claims of mental illness as a result of September 11, dishonouring the first responders who did serve their city at the expense of their own health and safety," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement.
As far back as 1988, the four main defendants - Raymond Lavallee, 83, Thomas Hale, 89, Joseph Esposito, 64, and John Minerva, 61 - conspired to help or make hundreds of applicants falsely claim disabilities in order to collect benefit payments in addition to their public pensions, the indictment and court documents showed.
Prosecutors said the applicants claimed they suffered from a psychiatric condition that prevented them from working, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety or depression.
"This alleged scam further depleted the already limited resources available for battling the real and complex conditions of PTSD and depression," Mr Vance said.
New York Police Commissioner William Bratton said: "The retired members of the NYPD indicted in this case have disgraced all first responders who perished during the search and rescue efforts on September 11, 2001, and those who subsequently died from 9/11 related illness, by exploiting their involvements that tragic day for personal gain."
Mr Hale and Mr Esposito, the latter a retired member of the NYPD, allegedly coached benefit applicants to falsely describe symptoms of depression and anxiety to doctors they had recruited.
They instructed applicants on how to fail memory tests with plausibility, how to dress, and on their demeanour.
For example, almost every claim included phrases such as "I nap on and off during the day" and "I have the TV on to keep me company".

The article says some people claimed up to half a million, there were 106 of them and the total amount misclaimed was in the hundreds of millions

1/2 * 106 million is 53 million   

A drop in the ocean compared to the 3 trillion (3 million million) spent fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan
How much did Halliburton and Lockheed cream btw ?

What have Halliburton in Iraq got to do with this?

Quote from: orangeman on January 08, 2014, 09:56:57 AM
Former New York police officers and firefighters were among 106 people charged over a "massive fraud" worth hundreds of millions of dollars, some in connection with the 11 September attacks.
The accused allegedly collected tens of thousands of dollars a year in social security disability benefits, which are funded by taxpayers.
It is alleged they claimed they were completely incapacitated by serious psychiatric disorders and other ailments.
But, according to court documents, they were in fact living normal lives, one of the accused flew a helicopter, while another played blackjack in Las Vegas.
One of the accused taught and performed mixed martial arts, but was still claiming benefits of typically between $30,000 and $50,000 a year (€22,000-€37,000).
In some instances, the total amount fraudulently obtained was nearly $500,000 (€367,000) per applicant.
Of those indicted in the decades-long scam, 80 were retired New York police officers or firefighters.
"Many participants cynically manufactured claims of mental illness as a result of September 11, dishonouring the first responders who did serve their city at the expense of their own health and safety," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement.
As far back as 1988, the four main defendants - Raymond Lavallee, 83, Thomas Hale, 89, Joseph Esposito, 64, and John Minerva, 61 - conspired to help or make hundreds of applicants falsely claim disabilities in order to collect benefit payments in addition to their public pensions, the indictment and court documents showed.
Prosecutors said the applicants claimed they suffered from a psychiatric condition that prevented them from working, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety or depression.
"This alleged scam further depleted the already limited resources available for battling the real and complex conditions of PTSD and depression," Mr Vance said.
New York Police Commissioner William Bratton said: "The retired members of the NYPD indicted in this case have disgraced all first responders who perished during the search and rescue efforts on September 11, 2001, and those who subsequently died from 9/11 related illness, by exploiting their involvements that tragic day for personal gain."
Mr Hale and Mr Esposito, the latter a retired member of the NYPD, allegedly coached benefit applicants to falsely describe symptoms of depression and anxiety to doctors they had recruited.
They instructed applicants on how to fail memory tests with plausibility, how to dress, and on their demeanour.
For example, almost every claim included phrases such as "I nap on and off during the day" and "I have the TV on to keep me company".

How could false claims arising out of 911 be part of a decades old scam?

And flying a helicopter, playing blackjack in Las Vegas and performing mixed martial arts is hardly living a 'normal life', is it?

Some people would consider some or even all of these activities nuts and proof of PTSD.

(Not me, I'd love to play blackjack while perfuming martial arts in a helicopter.)

Quote from: muppet on January 09, 2014, 12:50:16 AM

Quote from: orangeman on January 08, 2014, 09:56:57 AM
Former New York police officers and firefighters were among 106 people charged over a "massive fraud" worth hundreds of millions of dollars, some in connection with the 11 September attacks.
The accused allegedly collected tens of thousands of dollars a year in social security disability benefits, which are funded by taxpayers.
It is alleged they claimed they were completely incapacitated by serious psychiatric disorders and other ailments.
But, according to court documents, they were in fact living normal lives, one of the accused flew a helicopter, while another played blackjack in Las Vegas.
One of the accused taught and performed mixed martial arts, but was still claiming benefits of typically between $30,000 and $50,000 a year (€22,000-€37,000).
In some instances, the total amount fraudulently obtained was nearly $500,000 (€367,000) per applicant.
Of those indicted in the decades-long scam, 80 were retired New York police officers or firefighters.
"Many participants cynically manufactured claims of mental illness as a result of September 11, dishonouring the first responders who did serve their city at the expense of their own health and safety," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement.
As far back as 1988, the four main defendants - Raymond Lavallee, 83, Thomas Hale, 89, Joseph Esposito, 64, and John Minerva, 61 - conspired to help or make hundreds of applicants falsely claim disabilities in order to collect benefit payments in addition to their public pensions, the indictment and court documents showed.
Prosecutors said the applicants claimed they suffered from a psychiatric condition that prevented them from working, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety or depression.
"This alleged scam further depleted the already limited resources available for battling the real and complex conditions of PTSD and depression," Mr Vance said.
New York Police Commissioner William Bratton said: "The retired members of the NYPD indicted in this case have disgraced all first responders who perished during the search and rescue efforts on September 11, 2001, and those who subsequently died from 9/11 related illness, by exploiting their involvements that tragic day for personal gain."
Mr Hale and Mr Esposito, the latter a retired member of the NYPD, allegedly coached benefit applicants to falsely describe symptoms of depression and anxiety to doctors they had recruited.
They instructed applicants on how to fail memory tests with plausibility, how to dress, and on their demeanour.
For example, almost every claim included phrases such as "I nap on and off during the day" and "I have the TV on to keep me company".

How could false claims arising out of 911 be part of a decades old scam?

And flying a helicopter, playing blackjack in Las Vegas and performing mixed martial arts is hardly living a 'normal life', is it?

Some people would consider some or even all of these activities nuts and proof of PTSD.

(Not me, I'd love to play blackjack while perfuming martial arts in a helicopter.)

If you had highlighted just the one word instead of the complete first sentence you could have answered your own question!

Quote from: LeoMc on January 09, 2014, 08:51:53 AM

Quote from: muppet on January 09, 2014, 12:50:16 AM

Quote from: orangeman on January 08, 2014, 09:56:57 AM
Former New York police officers and firefighters were among 106 people charged over a "massive fraud" worth hundreds of millions of dollars, some in connection with the 11 September attacks.
The accused allegedly collected tens of thousands of dollars a year in social security disability benefits, which are funded by taxpayers.
It is alleged they claimed they were completely incapacitated by serious psychiatric disorders and other ailments.
But, according to court documents, they were in fact living normal lives, one of the accused flew a helicopter, while another played blackjack in Las Vegas.
One of the accused taught and performed mixed martial arts, but was still claiming benefits of typically between $30,000 and $50,000 a year (€22,000-€37,000).
In some instances, the total amount fraudulently obtained was nearly $500,000 (€367,000) per applicant.
Of those indicted in the decades-long scam, 80 were retired New York police officers or firefighters.
"Many participants cynically manufactured claims of mental illness as a result of September 11, dishonouring the first responders who did serve their city at the expense of their own health and safety," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement.
As far back as 1988, the four main defendants - Raymond Lavallee, 83, Thomas Hale, 89, Joseph Esposito, 64, and John Minerva, 61 - conspired to help or make hundreds of applicants falsely claim disabilities in order to collect benefit payments in addition to their public pensions, the indictment and court documents showed.
Prosecutors said the applicants claimed they suffered from a psychiatric condition that prevented them from working, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety or depression.
"This alleged scam further depleted the already limited resources available for battling the real and complex conditions of PTSD and depression," Mr Vance said.
New York Police Commissioner William Bratton said: "The retired members of the NYPD indicted in this case have disgraced all first responders who perished during the search and rescue efforts on September 11, 2001, and those who subsequently died from 9/11 related illness, by exploiting their involvements that tragic day for personal gain."
Mr Hale and Mr Esposito, the latter a retired member of the NYPD, allegedly coached benefit applicants to falsely describe symptoms of depression and anxiety to doctors they had recruited.
They instructed applicants on how to fail memory tests with plausibility, how to dress, and on their demeanour.
For example, almost every claim included phrases such as "I nap on and off during the day" and "I have the TV on to keep me company".

How could false claims arising out of 911 be part of a decades old scam?

And flying a helicopter, playing blackjack in Las Vegas and performing mixed martial arts is hardly living a 'normal life', is it?

Some people would consider some or even all of these activities nuts and proof of PTSD.

(Not me, I'd love to play blackjack while perfuming martial arts in a helicopter.)

If you had highlighted just the one word instead of the complete first sentence you could have answered your own question!

Ok try this, How could SOME false claims arising out of 911 be part of a decades old scam?

I'm guessing it was a spelling error. "decades old scam"  instead of "decade old scam"

Quote from: J70 on January 08, 2014, 02:02:59 PM

Quote from: seafoid on January 08, 2014, 10:12:49 AM

Quote from: orangeman on January 08, 2014, 09:56:57 AM
Former New York police officers and firefighters were among 106 people charged over a "massive fraud" worth hundreds of millions of dollars, some in connection with the 11 September attacks.
The accused allegedly collected tens of thousands of dollars a year in social security disability benefits, which are funded by taxpayers.
It is alleged they claimed they were completely incapacitated by serious psychiatric disorders and other ailments.
But, according to court documents, they were in fact living normal lives, one of the accused flew a helicopter, while another played blackjack in Las Vegas.
One of the accused taught and performed mixed martial arts, but was still claiming benefits of typically between $30,000 and $50,000 a year (€22,000-€37,000).
In some instances, the total amount fraudulently obtained was nearly $500,000 (€367,000) per applicant.
Of those indicted in the decades-long scam, 80 were retired New York police officers or firefighters.
"Many participants cynically manufactured claims of mental illness as a result of September 11, dishonouring the first responders who did serve their city at the expense of their own health and safety," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement.
As far back as 1988, the four main defendants - Raymond Lavallee, 83, Thomas Hale, 89, Joseph Esposito, 64, and John Minerva, 61 - conspired to help or make hundreds of applicants falsely claim disabilities in order to collect benefit payments in addition to their public pensions, the indictment and court documents showed.
Prosecutors said the applicants claimed they suffered from a psychiatric condition that prevented them from working, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety or depression.
"This alleged scam further depleted the already limited resources available for battling the real and complex conditions of PTSD and depression," Mr Vance said.
New York Police Commissioner William Bratton said: "The retired members of the NYPD indicted in this case have disgraced all first responders who perished during the search and rescue efforts on September 11, 2001, and those who subsequently died from 9/11 related illness, by exploiting their involvements that tragic day for personal gain."
Mr Hale and Mr Esposito, the latter a retired member of the NYPD, allegedly coached benefit applicants to falsely describe symptoms of depression and anxiety to doctors they had recruited.
They instructed applicants on how to fail memory tests with plausibility, how to dress, and on their demeanour.
For example, almost every claim included phrases such as "I nap on and off during the day" and "I have the TV on to keep me company".

The article says some people claimed up to half a million, there were 106 of them and the total amount misclaimed was in the hundreds of millions

1/2 * 106 million is 53 million   

A drop in the ocean compared to the 3 trillion (3 million million) spent fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan
How much did Halliburton and Lockheed cream btw ?

What have Halliburton in Iraq got to do with this?

There has been so much corruption since day one of the Iraq invasion.
Focusing on the cops is easier than on the whole rotten system. By all means punish those who broke the law but there is a much bigger problem. America has been borrowing hundreds of billions for nothing. Ordinary taxpayers take the hit as well as citizens who have their services cut. The whole thing is pure rotten.

Quote from: muppet on January 09, 2014, 10:29:32 AM

Quote from: LeoMc on January 09, 2014, 08:51:53 AM

Quote from: muppet on January 09, 2014, 12:50:16 AM

Quote from: orangeman on January 08, 2014, 09:56:57 AM
Former New York police officers and firefighters were among 106 people charged over a "massive fraud" worth hundreds of millions of dollars, some in connection with the 11 September attacks.
The accused allegedly collected tens of thousands of dollars a year in social security disability benefits, which are funded by taxpayers.
It is alleged they claimed they were completely incapacitated by serious psychiatric disorders and other ailments.
But, according to court documents, they were in fact living normal lives, one of the accused flew a helicopter, while another played blackjack in Las Vegas.
One of the accused taught and performed mixed martial arts, but was still claiming benefits of typically between $30,000 and $50,000 a year (€22,000-€37,000).
In some instances, the total amount fraudulently obtained was nearly $500,000 (€367,000) per applicant.
Of those indicted in the decades-long scam, 80 were retired New York police officers or firefighters.
"Many participants cynically manufactured claims of mental illness as a result of September 11, dishonouring the first responders who did serve their city at the expense of their own health and safety," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement.
As far back as 1988, the four main defendants - Raymond Lavallee, 83, Thomas Hale, 89, Joseph Esposito, 64, and John Minerva, 61 - conspired to help or make hundreds of applicants falsely claim disabilities in order to collect benefit payments in addition to their public pensions, the indictment and court documents showed.
Prosecutors said the applicants claimed they suffered from a psychiatric condition that prevented them from working, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety or depression.
"This alleged scam further depleted the already limited resources available for battling the real and complex conditions of PTSD and depression," Mr Vance said.
New York Police Commissioner William Bratton said: "The retired members of the NYPD indicted in this case have disgraced all first responders who perished during the search and rescue efforts on September 11, 2001, and those who subsequently died from 9/11 related illness, by exploiting their involvements that tragic day for personal gain."
Mr Hale and Mr Esposito, the latter a retired member of the NYPD, allegedly coached benefit applicants to falsely describe symptoms of depression and anxiety to doctors they had recruited.
They instructed applicants on how to fail memory tests with plausibility, how to dress, and on their demeanour.
For example, almost every claim included phrases such as "I nap on and off during the day" and "I have the TV on to keep me company".

How could false claims arising out of 911 be part of a decades old scam?

And flying a helicopter, playing blackjack in Las Vegas and performing mixed martial arts is hardly living a 'normal life', is it?

Some people would consider some or even all of these activities nuts and proof of PTSD.

(Not me, I'd love to play blackjack while perfuming martial arts in a helicopter.)

If you had highlighted just the one word instead of the complete first sentence you could have answered your own question!

Ok try this, How could SOME false claims arising out of 911 be part of a decades old scam?

Maybe the decades old scam has been ongoing for decades?

Quote from: LeoMc on January 09, 2014, 11:03:33 AM

Quote from: muppet on January 09, 2014, 10:29:32 AM

Quote from: LeoMc on January 09, 2014, 08:51:53 AM

Quote from: muppet on January 09, 2014, 12:50:16 AM

Quote from: orangeman on January 08, 2014, 09:56:57 AM
Former New York police officers and firefighters were among 106 people charged over a "massive fraud" worth hundreds of millions of dollars, some in connection with the 11 September attacks.
The accused allegedly collected tens of thousands of dollars a year in social security disability benefits, which are funded by taxpayers.
It is alleged they claimed they were completely incapacitated by serious psychiatric disorders and other ailments.
But, according to court documents, they were in fact living normal lives, one of the accused flew a helicopter, while another played blackjack in Las Vegas.
One of the accused taught and performed mixed martial arts, but was still claiming benefits of typically between $30,000 and $50,000 a year (€22,000-€37,000).
In some instances, the total amount fraudulently obtained was nearly $500,000 (€367,000) per applicant.
Of those indicted in the decades-long scam, 80 were retired New York police officers or firefighters.
"Many participants cynically manufactured claims of mental illness as a result of September 11, dishonouring the first responders who did serve their city at the expense of their own health and safety," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement.
As far back as 1988, the four main defendants - Raymond Lavallee, 83, Thomas Hale, 89, Joseph Esposito, 64, and John Minerva, 61 - conspired to help or make hundreds of applicants falsely claim disabilities in order to collect benefit payments in addition to their public pensions, the indictment and court documents showed.
Prosecutors said the applicants claimed they suffered from a psychiatric condition that prevented them from working, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety or depression.
"This alleged scam further depleted the already limited resources available for battling the real and complex conditions of PTSD and depression," Mr Vance said.
New York Police Commissioner William Bratton said: "The retired members of the NYPD indicted in this case have disgraced all first responders who perished during the search and rescue efforts on September 11, 2001, and those who subsequently died from 9/11 related illness, by exploiting their involvements that tragic day for personal gain."
Mr Hale and Mr Esposito, the latter a retired member of the NYPD, allegedly coached benefit applicants to falsely describe symptoms of depression and anxiety to doctors they had recruited.
They instructed applicants on how to fail memory tests with plausibility, how to dress, and on their demeanour.
For example, almost every claim included phrases such as "I nap on and off during the day" and "I have the TV on to keep me company".

How could false claims arising out of 911 be part of a decades old scam?

And flying a helicopter, playing blackjack in Las Vegas and performing mixed martial arts is hardly living a 'normal life', is it?

Some people would consider some or even all of these activities nuts and proof of PTSD.

(Not me, I'd love to play blackjack while perfuming martial arts in a helicopter.)

If you had highlighted just the one word instead of the complete first sentence you could have answered your own question!

Ok try this, How could SOME false claims arising out of 911 be part of a decades old scam?

Maybe the decades old scam has been ongoing for decades?

It might be hard to claim PTSD for 911 if you had already retired 'completely incapacitated by serious psychiatric disorders and other ailments' decades earlier.

Quote from: muppet on January 09, 2014, 02:59:14 PM

Quote from: LeoMc on January 09, 2014, 11:03:33 AM

Quote from: muppet on January 09, 2014, 10:29:32 AM

Quote from: LeoMc on January 09, 2014, 08:51:53 AM

Quote from: muppet on January 09, 2014, 12:50:16 AM

Quote from: orangeman on January 08, 2014, 09:56:57 AM
Former New York police officers and firefighters were among 106 people charged over a "massive fraud" worth hundreds of millions of dollars, some in connection with the 11 September attacks.
The accused allegedly collected tens of thousands of dollars a year in social security disability benefits, which are funded by taxpayers.
It is alleged they claimed they were completely incapacitated by serious psychiatric disorders and other ailments.
But, according to court documents, they were in fact living normal lives, one of the accused flew a helicopter, while another played blackjack in Las Vegas.
One of the accused taught and performed mixed martial arts, but was still claiming benefits of typically between $30,000 and $50,000 a year (€22,000-€37,000).
In some instances, the total amount fraudulently obtained was nearly $500,000 (€367,000) per applicant.
Of those indicted in the decades-long scam, 80 were retired New York police officers or firefighters.
"Many participants cynically manufactured claims of mental illness as a result of September 11, dishonouring the first responders who did serve their city at the expense of their own health and safety," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement.
As far back as 1988, the four main defendants - Raymond Lavallee, 83, Thomas Hale, 89, Joseph Esposito, 64, and John Minerva, 61 - conspired to help or make hundreds of applicants falsely claim disabilities in order to collect benefit payments in addition to their public pensions, the indictment and court documents showed.
Prosecutors said the applicants claimed they suffered from a psychiatric condition that prevented them from working, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety or depression.
"This alleged scam further depleted the already limited resources available for battling the real and complex conditions of PTSD and depression," Mr Vance said.
New York Police Commissioner William Bratton said: "The retired members of the NYPD indicted in this case have disgraced all first responders who perished during the search and rescue efforts on September 11, 2001, and those who subsequently died from 9/11 related illness, by exploiting their involvements that tragic day for personal gain."
Mr Hale and Mr Esposito, the latter a retired member of the NYPD, allegedly coached benefit applicants to falsely describe symptoms of depression and anxiety to doctors they had recruited.
They instructed applicants on how to fail memory tests with plausibility, how to dress, and on their demeanour.
For example, almost every claim included phrases such as "I nap on and off during the day" and "I have the TV on to keep me company".

How could false claims arising out of 911 be part of a decades old scam?

And flying a helicopter, playing blackjack in Las Vegas and performing mixed martial arts is hardly living a 'normal life', is it?

Some people would consider some or even all of these activities nuts and proof of PTSD.

(Not me, I'd love to play blackjack while perfuming martial arts in a helicopter.)

If you had highlighted just the one word instead of the complete first sentence you could have answered your own question!

Ok try this, How could SOME false claims arising out of 911 be part of a decades old scam?

Maybe the decades old scam has been ongoing for decades?

It might be hard to claim PTSD for 911 if you had already retired 'completely incapacitated by serious psychiatric disorders and other ailments' decades earlier.

Not all are claiming their illness was as as result of 11/9, some claims are for earlier "trauma" some may be for later "traumas"

QuoteAs far back as 1988, the four main defendants - Raymond Lavallee, 83, Thomas Hale, 89, Joseph Esposito, 64, and John Minerva, 61 - conspired to help or make hundreds of applicants falsely claim disabilities

QuoteMany participants cynically manufactured claims of mental illness as a result of September 11

Quote from: LeoMc on January 09, 2014, 04:12:39 PM

QuoteMany participants cynically manufactured claims of mental illness as a result of September 11

Yes but they weren't part of a decades old scam, were they?

Quote from: muppet on January 09, 2014, 04:14:24 PM

Quote from: LeoMc on January 09, 2014, 04:12:39 PM

QuoteMany participants cynically manufactured claims of mental illness as a result of September 11

Yes but they weren't part of a decades old scam, were they?

They were part of a scam which has been going on for decades, albeit they joined late.
As an anology for you, James Horan, Cillian O'Connor & Andy Moran are part of a decades old wait for Sam. They were not part of it in 1953 but they are now part of that decades long wait for Sam.

Quote from: LeoMc on January 09, 2014, 04:23:27 PM

Quote from: muppet on January 09, 2014, 04:14:24 PM

Quote from: LeoMc on January 09, 2014, 04:12:39 PM

QuoteMany participants cynically manufactured claims of mental illness as a result of September 11

Yes but they weren't part of a decades old scam, were they?

They were part of a scam which has been going on for decades, albeit they joined late.
As an anology for you, James Horan, Cillian O'Connor & Andy Moran are part of a decades old wait for Sam. They were not part of it in 1953 but they are now part of that decades long wait for Sam.

Here is an analogy for you: Can James, Horan, Cillian O'Connor & Andy Moran be charged for their part in the 1953 season if fraud was found to have occurred then?

The article includes 911 for sensational purposes only.

Suing an officer for claiming PTSD for 911 probably wouldn't get very far and would hardly get much public support, probably the opposite. Especially if the only evidence was that he was seen at a table in Vegas, throws some punches or flies a helicopter form time to time.

Better to claim the practice is rife and part of a 'decades old scam' and tie it in with others who probably are guilty. Each case obviously  has to be tried on its own merit but reading that article you would't think so.

Read this ffs: "For example, almost every claim included phrases such as "I nap on and off during the day" and "I have the TV on to keep me company."

And this work of genius succeeded for decades?

Quote from: muppet on January 09, 2014, 04:36:14 PM

Quote from: LeoMc on January 09, 2014, 04:23:27 PM

Quote from: muppet on January 09, 2014, 04:14:24 PM

Quote from: LeoMc on January 09, 2014, 04:12:39 PM

QuoteMany participants cynically manufactured claims of mental illness as a result of September 11

Yes but they weren't part of a decades old scam, were they?

They were part of a scam which has been going on for decades, albeit they joined late.
As an anology for you, James Horan, Cillian O'Connor & Andy Moran are part of a decades old wait for Sam. They were not part of it in 1953 but they are now part of that decades long wait for Sam.

Here is an analogy for you: Can James, Horan, Cillian O'Connor & Andy Moran be charged for their part in the 1953 season if fraud was found to have occurred then?

The article includes 911 for sensational purposes only.

Suing an officer for claiming PTSD for 911 probably wouldn't get very far and would hardly get much public support, probably the opposite. Especially if the only evidence was that he was seen at a table in Vegas, throws some punches or flies a helicopter form time to time.

Better to claim the practice is rife and part of a 'decades old scam' and tie it in with others who probably are guilty. Each case obviously  has to be tried on its own merit but reading that article you would't think so.

Read this ffs: "For example, almost every claim included phrases such as "I nap on and off during the day" and "I have the TV on to keep me company."

And this work of genius succeeded for decades?

The exact same point I was trying to get to. It is why I highlighted the SOME in my very first reply.
I took from your comments/arguments that you were trying to lump them all together.

Quote from: LeoMc on January 09, 2014, 04:59:52 PM

Quote from: muppet on January 09, 2014, 04:36:14 PM

Quote from: LeoMc on January 09, 2014, 04:23:27 PM

Quote from: muppet on January 09, 2014, 04:14:24 PM

Quote from: LeoMc on January 09, 2014, 04:12:39 PM

QuoteMany participants cynically manufactured claims of mental illness as a result of September 11

Yes but they weren't part of a decades old scam, were they?

They were part of a scam which has been going on for decades, albeit they joined late.
As an anology for you, James Horan, Cillian O'Connor & Andy Moran are part of a decades old wait for Sam. They were not part of it in 1953 but they are now part of that decades long wait for Sam.

Here is an analogy for you: Can James, Horan, Cillian O'Connor & Andy Moran be charged for their part in the 1953 season if fraud was found to have occurred then?

The article includes 911 for sensational purposes only.

Suing an officer for claiming PTSD for 911 probably wouldn't get very far and would hardly get much public support, probably the opposite. Especially if the only evidence was that he was seen at a table in Vegas, throws some punches or flies a helicopter form time to time.

Better to claim the practice is rife and part of a 'decades old scam' and tie it in with others who probably are guilty. Each case obviously  has to be tried on its own merit but reading that article you would't think so.

Read this ffs: "For example, almost every claim included phrases such as "I nap on and off during the day" and "I have the TV on to keep me company."

And this work of genius succeeded for decades?

The exact same point I was trying to get to. It is why I highlighted the SOME in my very first reply.
I took from your comments/arguments that you were trying to lump them all together.

FFS then you took the complete opposite of my point.

Quote from: muppet on January 09, 2014, 05:12:22 PM

Quote from: LeoMc on January 09, 2014, 04:59:52 PM

Quote from: muppet on January 09, 2014, 04:36:14 PM

Quote from: LeoMc on January 09, 2014, 04:23:27 PM

Quote from: muppet on January 09, 2014, 04:14:24 PM

Quote from: LeoMc on January 09, 2014, 04:12:39 PM

QuoteMany participants cynically manufactured claims of mental illness as a result of September 11

Yes but they weren't part of a decades old scam, were they?

They were part of a scam which has been going on for decades, albeit they joined late.
As an anology for you, James Horan, Cillian O'Connor & Andy Moran are part of a decades old wait for Sam. They were not part of it in 1953 but they are now part of that decades long wait for Sam.

Here is an analogy for you: Can James, Horan, Cillian O'Connor & Andy Moran be charged for their part in the 1953 season if fraud was found to have occurred then?

The article includes 911 for sensational purposes only.

Suing an officer for claiming PTSD for 911 probably wouldn't get very far and would hardly get much public support, probably the opposite. Especially if the only evidence was that he was seen at a table in Vegas, throws some punches or flies a helicopter form time to time.

Better to claim the practice is rife and part of a 'decades old scam' and tie it in with others who probably are guilty. Each case obviously  has to be tried on its own merit but reading that article you would't think so.

Read this ffs: "For example, almost every claim included phrases such as "I nap on and off during the day" and "I have the TV on to keep me company."

And this work of genius succeeded for decades?

The exact same point I was trying to get to. It is why I highlighted the SOME in my very first reply.
I took from your comments/arguments that you were trying to lump them all together.

FFS then you took the complete opposite of my point.

You had a point?

:P

Quote from: LeoMc on January 09, 2014, 05:21:32 PM

Quote from: muppet on January 09, 2014, 05:12:22 PM

Quote from: LeoMc on January 09, 2014, 04:59:52 PM

Quote from: muppet on January 09, 2014, 04:36:14 PM

Quote from: LeoMc on January 09, 2014, 04:23:27 PM

Quote from: muppet on January 09, 2014, 04:14:24 PM

Quote from: LeoMc on January 09, 2014, 04:12:39 PM

QuoteMany participants cynically manufactured claims of mental illness as a result of September 11

Yes but they weren't part of a decades old scam, were they?

They were part of a scam which has been going on for decades, albeit they joined late.
As an anology for you, James Horan, Cillian O'Connor & Andy Moran are part of a decades old wait for Sam. They were not part of it in 1953 but they are now part of that decades long wait for Sam.

Here is an analogy for you: Can James, Horan, Cillian O'Connor & Andy Moran be charged for their part in the 1953 season if fraud was found to have occurred then?

The article includes 911 for sensational purposes only.

Suing an officer for claiming PTSD for 911 probably wouldn't get very far and would hardly get much public support, probably the opposite. Especially if the only evidence was that he was seen at a table in Vegas, throws some punches or flies a helicopter form time to time.

Better to claim the practice is rife and part of a 'decades old scam' and tie it in with others who probably are guilty. Each case obviously  has to be tried on its own merit but reading that article you would't think so.

Read this ffs: "For example, almost every claim included phrases such as "I nap on and off during the day" and "I have the TV on to keep me company."

And this work of genius succeeded for decades?

The exact same point I was trying to get to. It is why I highlighted the SOME in my very first reply.
I took from your comments/arguments that you were trying to lump them all together.

FFS then you took the complete opposite of my point.

You had a point?

:P

Yea, the goal was on but there is this voice in my head........