BrainDrain,

Nice back-handed complement. I’ve made it clear that I’ve let the Protocols go. When I first entered this thread, I was fishing. The world of conspiracy theorists is turgid and opaque- many present information to prepare people for the next stage- such as an introduction to the Protocols. Thus, before I took on the arguments more directly and reasonably, I wanted to find out Shaw’s underlying assumptions. As Shaw hasn’t answered my more direct questions in the previous post, I still don’t really know. It’s refreshing to see that the arguments here are more nuanced, but I can take them on just as easily.

(As an aside, I’ve always enjoyed the irony of accusing Arabs of anti-Semitism, I think I fell for that one myself.) Regarding sensitivity to criticism, it is worth noting that any questioning of the rate of immigration to Australia has generated a knee-jerk reaction, the immediate cry of “racism.”

Regarding Able Danger, (yes I know, I’m being lazy, just taking something from the top of the link, but hey, I’m just getting started):

Pentagon lawyers forbade the DOD from forwarding possible information naming 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta from contacting the FBI, partly in fear of the fallout from Waco. In scholarly debate, the “Vietnam Syndrome” is presented as reason why, since 1975, the US was hesitant to commit large numbers of troops to an arena if its interests weren’t perceived to be directly threatened- witness the brittleness of its resolve in Somalia, and its refusal to allow its pilots below 15 000 feet in Kosovo. One could argue that a similar syndrome effected a half-hearted approach to terrorist investigations. In particular, there existed extreme sensitivity over DOD intelligence and CIA activity within the US, with the spectre of the Hoover days looming large in the memory.

Here is the Pentagon explanation of why Able Danger didn’t appear in the 9/11 Commission report. http://www.9-11pdp.org/press/2005-08-12_pr.pdf. To paraphrase, no documentary evidence could be provided to support the claims, and the intelligence agent could not provide the context for how a link to Atta could have been made.

cont...

Even Congressman Curt Weldon, who raised awareness of the issue, has admitted that he is not certain whether Atta’s name was on the link analysis document he had provided to then Deputy NSA Steve Hadley. Weldon’s perception of the size of the 2.5 terabytes of data on Able Danger which was destroyed is exaggerated. Nevertheless, he has made a big deal about being able to uncover more information in 2 weeks with 2 staffers than the 9/11 Commission did with 80 staffers and $15 million.

However, investigations of this matter, and intelligence work in general, require sifting through an enormous amount of information. Just because one piece of information, (or many in relation to the 9/11 Commission) has been overlooked or omitted, it does not automatically constitute evidence of a cover-up. It is generally something much more mundane- a failure to meet a standard of proof. Turf wars also played a huge part in the failure to connect information which in hindsight would have been crucial in stopping the 9/11 attacks. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security was an explicit recognition of that fact.

Regarding missing video:

Here’s some footage of flight 77 hitting the Pentagon. http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/05/16/pentagon.video/index.html. If you want to argue that it was a missile which hit the Pentagon, (I know you haven’t said it but I’m covering bases,) here is some footage of what happens to an aeroplane when it hits an immovable object, (and anyway, it’s just really cool.) http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5992186.

Regarding plans for military action in Afghanistan, Richard Clarke recounts in “Against All Enemies” how he had been involved in the drafting of war-plans against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, an effort initiated by the Clinton Administration. (We can discuss Pakistani Intel soon.) It was these plans which formed the basis of the Afghan invasion in October 2003. He also shows that the new Bush Administration, informed by a Realist conception of International Relations which focussed on states, simply did not lend enough urgency to the issue of terrorism before 9/11. This misdirection of energy is reinforced in Woodward’s “Plan of Attack.”

'dozer,

Sorry that you felt it was a backhanded compliment it truly wasn't intended to be. Just a clear explanation of why i used (Mr?) in case you misread me and why i dropped it.
Your intelligence is obvious but being unfamiliar with your style i was not aware that you were 'fishing' (and that does seem a tad 'sneeky' to me ; ) ) but we are different and that is ok.

As for 9/11 conspiracy's it is as you say: The amount of information available and needed to be trawled through is nigh on mindboggling (and some just plain and provably false) and i prefer my mind as unboggled as possible. Plus the agenda's of various people with information out there (including some who 'fish' : ) or harbour malicious intent under sheep's (doves) clothing) confuse the investigative process further for the likes of me. I do not believe necessarily that the agenda's do not also include neocons and government agencies either protecting their own arses or stabbing other agencies in the back to divert suspicion knocking on their doors.

America seems to have enough conspiracy embedded within it's own government (CIA vs FBI vs NSA etc) to render all foreign enemies superfluous to requirements in my opinion.

By all means reveal more - i and others will read with interest but I won't choose this as a 'fight' - fair enough?

(not unless i see you fishing again! ; ) then, who knows?)

Iraq on the other hand...
(1,000,000,000 is still a gross UNDERrepresentation of a billion (by a factor of some 10^^8) to me and 'a billion' is far too close to 'a million' to be anything like descriptive enough of the true issue. Care to differ?)

BrainDrain said: "Ev, When you actually post information rather than personal criticism and abuse you actually sound remarkably intelligent! : )"

I've been posting on this forum for nearly a year now, and I have gone to great lengths to 'keep a civil tongue in my head'. I don't recall abusing anybody, nor attempting to do so. Please show me/tell me what you consider to be abuse. Presumably you are referring to this post in the thread on multiculturalism: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5153#62152
When I read back over my comments, I can't find any abuse there. I didn't even 'shout' (use capitals) at you.

If you would like to reply to this post, please do so on the appropriate thread, thanks.

Chris Shaw:

Someone once came up to me at a party, and asked me (as kind of a tongue-in-cheek 'ice-breaker') something like 'So, what do think about a/the global conspiracy theory?'. I answered simply 'People conspire to make money'.

Often negelected in this topic is that almost everyone who invests their money in banks/financial institutions has little idea about how it sloshes around the globe or what it ultimately gets invested in. Of course there are 'ethical investment' funds for people who are more concerned about this.

While it's easy to criticise 'world leaders' and powerful mega-rich individuals, it is often also 'little people' who are also only interested in how much their shares are gaining/losing.

Ev,

Since you made the comment here (and because my post limit to the other thread is currently over-stretched) I will make an assumption (valid or otherwise) that this is the 'appropriate' thread to post my reply.

I'm unsure if you read my initial response to you and others on the thread? http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5153#62231

You year long efforts to avoid abuse in your posts are a credit to your sense of fair play.

Personal criticism: 'How conceited and patronising..' (I am, implied) Your personal opinion, perhaps shared by others; my intention (perhaps poorly expressed) was to inform Obviuosly that he was not as clever as he thinks he is and to instill in him an appreciation of the fact that most Olo'ers express opinions based upon far more experience (and i believe, intelligence) than he currently has been able to accumulate (he recently seems to have read at least one book, or website?) and he would've been wise to not dismiss as improperly formulated their opinions and arguments. I concede that, given some of the posts i have read of his and others here, I'm modifying that opinion (slightly up in his case and rapidly down in terms of the overall level of intelligence of a (hopefully small number) few posters).

I now also concede that your comment: 'smug and condescending remarks' describe your own opinion of my words and not of me in toto, and so i was being hasty and perhaps mistaken to take the first three words as personal abuse.

'Who the hell do you think you are?' Shows that (given your confessed efforts to keep a civil tongue in your head for so long) i must have annoyed you immensely with my comments addressed to someone other than yourself? Combined with the overall tone of the first five lines of your rant at my work, and seeing nothing that showed you, in any way, considered what initiated my 'attack' (as you seemed to have felt) on Obviously had any positive value at all, I chose to take your response as personally abusive.

(cont.)

BrainDrain

Regarding the (Mr?) some posters were making a point of the fact that they hadn’t heard of me. I interpreted the (Mr?) in that light and continued the game. My apologies. I still maintain that the themes, language structure and tone of Shaw’s article and comments justified at the very least a good crack to see if he was a closet Protocol reader. I hope he’s still following the thread.

Another thing about cover-ups. Evidence of a cover up isn’t evidence of complicity. Again, the mundane is more likely- ineptitude.

Moving on to Iraq, neo-cons and WMD, and responding to much that has been said on this thread. (Probably should have done this first but I’ve gone over this so many times it’s getting a little boring. The Protocols was something new to try.)

Ev’s quoting of Sun Tzu regarding the cost of war, and the danger of “stupid haste” and protracted war is well and good. But every military leader in the US has read this too, not to mention Clauswitz, Caesar and Thucidides. It was this line of thinking, by such moderates as Colin Powell when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in 1991, which stopped the US from going all the way to Baghdad. (Surely if they’d wanted Iraq’s oil, Saddam had provided them with the perfect pretext when he invaded Kuwait?) It was a reluctance to exceed its UN mandate to liberate Kuwait which prevented the US from preventing the massacre of Kurds and Shiia Arabs when they responded to GHWB’s call to rise up against Saddam. Powell again gave this advice to GWB in 2003- “you break it, you bought it.”

The Neo-Conservatives, on the other hand, disagreed strongly with such an approach. Former liberals and Marxists, they combined the Realist school of thought, with its focus on power politics, with Idealism- particularly the Democratic peace theory. (The mistake they is to underestimate the effectiveness of such a policy, the process of Democratisation being historically violent and destabilising. However, this is not to say that such an ideology is a bad thing.)

Cont...