Countdown: The Nexus of Politics and Terror Now Confirmed
By Heather Friday Aug 21, 2009 7:00am
It looks like Tom Ridge's lastest revelations in his book have given Keith a chance to say he was correct when he did his series on the Nexus of Politics and Terror. John Dean weighs in on the criminality of what Ridge has admitted to in his book. He thinks Ridge gave himself some wiggle room since he said he only believed the terrorist threat level was being manipulated for political reasons, and did not say he knew it to be a fact.
It's so nice to see all the dirty f@%#king hippies were right about this, huh? It will be interesting to watch the Villagers try to explain why they didn't report on something as plain as the noses on their faces back when this was going on. Other than Keith, I don't recall any of them speaking out about it other than to repeat the government propaganda. I'd also like someone to ask Tom Ridge why he didn't resign when he first knew this was happening.
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I can't believe how many are surprised by this. I mean, COME ON, how much more obvious could they have BEEN! Every time Bush wasn't getting his way from the minute he made any demand, we got an elevated terror alert, congress members got anthrax in their mail, or they got a new phony Bin Laden tape or video, in which he got younger by the DAY and Bush started giggling over the possibility of a Mushroom Cloud.
Besides, people should have known from day one that someone who got their kicks blowing up animals, even if he stuck to just frogs, though I'm not so sure of that considering the kidnap, torture and murder program, was capable of any atrocity and would have no conscience whatsoever about lying. Lying is the LEAST of what Bush did.
Anyone who ever believed a word of anything he said was naive and living in a cave WITH Bin Laden.
When the name George Bush was first MENTIONED as a candidate I said,"NO! If Bush gets elected we'll be at war in Iraq within a year." And then he stole the election with the help of his daddy's money and his daddy's friends on the Supreme Court.
So here we are and everyone is so surprised by every revelation. And now they are all taking turns, now that the "statute of limitations" is up, making their egotistical brags about the wonderful harm they've done while pursuing the boogie men when all the time all they had to do was look into their own mirrors.
Big whoop, Nostradamus, we all suspected this.
We're just surprised that ridge has written a book expressing his own suspicion, and gladful for the confirmation.
I know I did. But my lips were sealed in the duct tape I bought just in case.
Duct tape is silver...
http://www.oldamericancentury.org/DISSENT_TER...
These persons in charge of agencies or speak for them , have a change of heart when they wish to sell their book..
Just what type of profit do they make selling yesterday's news and have a president which is pulling all stops out to protect Bush and company..
- Major diplomatic crisis.
- Domestic terrorist attack in six months.
- War within a year.
If you count the kook who crashed a truck into the California Capitol Building during the summer of 2001, I'm batting 1.000.
it?
Do you really think The republicans care what they say now... Obama and the democrats will not lift a finger to prosecute Bush and his mob's crimes..
but one reason they weren't exposed for what they are is the theat of loss of life. How many mysteriosly died because of being a possible threat? Will we ever know?
..and I'm still sick over that. I stated and posted that w would ruin the economy in 1999. My guts just about exploded last year.
To get back on topic rather than dwell on our prescience, w wasn't even that good at hiding it. I can't understand why they haven't appointed someone to investigate and prosecute ALL of the crimes we think they committed as well as the crimes we KNOW they committed! Politicians have to stop treating us like idiots and f-ing do their jobs. We pushed on the Public Option and now, there's no longer any question, it will be in the bill. I can't understand why we can't push war crimes trials until it hurts. Someone is going to say, first things first, we need to get health insurance reform lous..taken care of first. But its oh so hard to say we should have a special prosecutor. I mean, people must turn to stone when those words began to be uttered.
run out on all the crimes. Then they'll say that as there is nothing they can do about any of it, best to just forget it and move on.
More like band-aid treatment for cancer if you ask me. No, less than that, because they're not even applying a band-aid.
They are all scared that someone will find out about their own dirty deals.Our government has been taken over by criminals. The republicans are just like M-13, or any of the gangs that want to kill.
republicanism is a mental illness!
was confirmed for me just a few days after 9/11.
"Anyone who ever believed a word of anything he said was naive...."
Anyone who still believes that not one, but two, of the best designed, engineered and constructed buildings ever built could literally turn to dust in minutes after being 'struck' by aircraft, puny in comparative size, is willing to believe anything they're told by the Powers that Be.
All of these ongoing 'revelations' about no WMD, torture, assassination by contractor, bogus terror alerts, eavesdropping on citizens, etc., etc., etc., offer hope that someone will eventually come forward to tell us how 9/11 really happened.
That event is the 'glue' has been holding this whole criminal nexus together.
..to fly planes and then they hijacked them and flew them into buildings. w got intelligence and did nothing. w was stupid and that's all.
Study more science and less alex jones. alex jones wants to sell you things like books and dvd's not necessarily the truth.
The only conspiracy I need to believe in is one of human stupidity. They ignored the threat because it would play into their own political agenda.
They knew it was coming, and even had their excuse down pat: "I don't think anyone knew ..."
Every time something bad happened, that was the Bush Admin line: "I don't think anyone knew ..."
- that terrorists would use planes as missiles
- that Hurricane Katrina would flood New Orleans
- that Hamas would beat Fatah in elections
And we're still being treated to "I didn't know." It all happened in a vacuum, apparently.
I don't read/listen to Alex Jones let alone study his site.
I have, however, studied quite a lot of scientific information over these past years.
I'm not disputing that nefarious people flew planes into the WTC buildings, I'l merely saying that for anyone to still believe that the towers crumbled to dust (including bldg #7) because of the planes is naive. Just as anyone who ever thought that OBL conjured up and executed this plan without,
shall we say, 'inside assistance', or anyone who still believes that the recent financial collapse occurred without 'inside assistance' is not actually observing, questioning or reasoning is also.
However, you are entitled to your opinion. I just state mine for consideration.
Hear hear!
This whole Bush administration is Orwellian playbook come real. We all have our head in the sand really. We don't want to admit it to ourselves.
These forces did not go away and if we don't take the time to really understand what happened we are simply going to let them try again.
Each term it gets a little worse and now we are seeing corporate organized 'townhallers' acting much like the brownshirts of Germany.
If they make the Dems look terrible and can find a good face to sell they will get another term and start a war with someone who's ass we can't kick.
Not that I like the Dems, I like certain people, but this whole thing is blowing up and it's going to be some kind of schism.
when I think of 9/11, I think Reichstag fire. Especially since the Nazis seem to be on everyone's mind today - well, at least the tips of their tongues. Cause fear and panic, tell big lies and repeat, control the minions and start illegal wars, manipulate economies, whatever you like.
It's been done before - I don't find it to beyond belief
that the Bush Crime Family et al have just been following the tried and true method. And, we fell for it - I feel much safer.
okay....no one seems to want to answer my question here:
Now, we all have seen implosions of buildings on tape...and we all know that it takes time..(definitely more than just a couple of hours)to wire those buildings up.
So, if they 'decided' to pull it later in the afternoon on 9/11...WHEN did they wire it up to pull it??????
just asking.
Bush brother was head of security at the twin Towers till the week before the attack. O'neal who took over the job died on 9/11.
That was Marvin, right? Neil was the dude associated with the Savings and Loan thing...right?
with no explanation...Marvin Bush was the one who was the head of security at WTC until former CIA agent John O'Neill took over..his first day was 9/11 and he was killed...
Neil Bush was the dude who was in the Savings and Loans mess in the 1980s.
honest, people, when I went to check out if I had any replies to my 'reply' it really WASN'T there....
or perhaps I need better glasses!!!!!!!
THERMITE
Absolutely Machiavellian (read "The Prince"?) machinations by terrorists with insider connections, without any doubt. WTC-7 was THE ONLY steel-frame building to ever collapse into its own foot-print without being struck by a commercial aircraft loaded with jet fuel. The ONLY other two steel-frame buildings in HISTORY to collapse within their own foot-prints due to fire, ALSO happened THAT DAY.
Jet fuel burns, in absolutely optimum conditions (plenty of extra OXYGEN) at 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. Steel girders begin to melt at 2,650 degrees Fahrenheit. If you consider the amount of jet fuel (BTUs of ENERGY) available versus the MASS of the inter-connected steel beams exposed to that FIRE, events on 9/11 defy the "official" account. Besides which, steel is an EXCELLENT conductor of HEAT, which would have transmitted MOST of the HEAT from the fires towards the cooler steel girders. The Twin Towers were DESIGNED to withstand the crash of one or more Boeing 727s, which carry a similar fuel load as the Boeing 757s that struck on 9/11.
For over 4 weeks after 9/11, thermal satellite photographs taken of Ground Zero showed that there were pools of molten steel in the substructure of all three buildings in excess of 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. And UNLIKE the Oklahoma City bombing, Ground Zero was NEVER investigated as either a crime scene OR as NTSB aircraft crashes. Instead, the steel girders were taken off-site, and then quickly shipped off to China to be recycled -- no remaining evidence permitted. The first attack on the Twin Towers WAS prosecuted as a horrific CRIME, with the perpetrators now in PRISON.
The World Trade Center represented NOT ONLY the epicenter of international finance in NYC, but also as the NYC Emergency Response Headquarters (in WTC-7). As such, they were normally quite well guarded 24/7/365. Yet, the placement and wiring of THERMITE explosive charges sufficient to bring down two 110 story steel buildings and one 40 story building into their own foot-prints would have had to take up to 14 days BEFORE 9/11. Nearly 3,000 counts of premeditated murder on USA soil remain un-investigated. AFAIK, murder still does NOT HAVE a statute of limitations. While I cannot say who was responsible for 9/11, I can vouch for who was responsible for the Cover-Up of 9/11 after the fact.
And I do agree with you that the ECONOMIC MELTDOWN of September 2008 was hardly an "accident", but a contrived event designed to PILLAGE the US Treasury: 800 Billion USD for TARP, plus another estimated 13 Trillion USD from the Federal Reserve System, a private for-profit Central Bank that hardly bothers to answer to the US Government, let alone the US Taxpayers.
Just saying ...
to happen. That cannot be denied. Responsibility can be shared.
If it was who was fired, who dropped the ball and who was blamed?
So far, no one. 2 beat cops with no resources and one squad car could solve this case. But the fog around it is so thick.
Who paid for it? Who made the put options against Boeing which were 11x the day average? Just follow the money. Who insured it just 6 weeks before the attack? Just follow the money...
Who profited from the war that came form it? Just follow the money...
ask yourself...what have the terrorists gained??
Then, what have Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, banksters, Congress-critters gained??
"We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq." -- Benjamin Netanyahu, April 16, 2008
After 9/11 we never broke off diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia...even though it was said that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis.
And we have all seen the huggy kissy tapes and still photos of Bush and Prince Bandar (?)...
And those "Bush is God" people are going to try to tell me that the Saudis or any other country wouldn't break off diplomatic relations with any country that attacked THEM????
Even though no Arab names appear on the flight manifests.
I too agree .... I am really amazed (but not surprised) at those who are so...'SURPRISED' at any of these revelations. Some of them might have spoken up like Olbermann...but as he said he was called all sorts of stuff (and did anyone listen anyway?) ..At least he stuck to his guns and kept trying to get across to everyone what was really up.
I'll bet a certain relative of mine who lives in the DC area is all 'aghast' at the revelations. Don't know why she should be. After all, like the previous poster says, the "statute of limitations" is up on all this stuff, so why should any one worry. Nothing's going to happen to her 'R(p)resident Bush'. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that she's calling Ridge a liar to boot.
To me Ridge is no better than Colin Powell...awwww...poor Colin, lied to..used...(blech)..He could have resigned before that dog and pony show at the UN if he was sooooo upset....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0MAXmi81FQ
Oh, the criminality of it all!
Obama is waiting for Presidents Grassley, Baucus and Conrad to tell him there will be NO investigation.
Obama's covered on this. The statute of limitations ran out. Not even worth a mention from our president.
Is there a statute of limitations on terrorist activities?
The statute of limitations were on using a federal agency for political gain. They're all off the hook on this. No need to investigate.
... means YOU BROKE THE LAW.
You're waiting for the statute of limitations to expire so that you cannot be prosecuted for your crime, not because you did nothing wrong.
..they want to prosecute the torture memo guys, they have until next year to do it and then the SOL runs out for them. That much is certain. However, if they appoint a SpecPros and he only goes after the "little" fish as it looks like will happen, then all we can hope for is the SpecPros ramps up the investigation as the evidence comes forth that cannot be ignored. We know that Abu Gharib can be traced right into rumsfeld's office but he's not behind bars yet. I'm not optimistic and I'll keep the pressure up for a FULL investigation of all parties involved with torture but I'm not optimistic. As a result, during the next Presidential cycle, No Trials, No second term for Obama! Sorry, Mr. President, you don't investigate, you're breaking the law and I will not vote for you twice as a result. One criminal President in the last decade was enough for me.
the SOL to run out. And, many of us believe they did commit crimes. Of course it is the prosecution they are trying to avoid. Some of the crimes they are "suspected" of committing are capital offenses.
I think it depends on how the charge reads. If they're crimes that aided and abetted the "war on terrorism" where people died, there is no statute of limitations on murder, even of furriners.
Additionally, I'm not sure if War Crimes have a SOL.
However, ridge might be safe, because this is an internal matter.
However, any charge they raise would have to have the elements of the crime present, although perhaps in dispute, or it would be considered a malpractice of the law.
We still punish torturers from WW2 I think we will punish this.
When people finnally admit what went on those 8 years then we might see a change.
The doctors who assisted with torture, the lawyers who made it 'legal', each instance of torture and unjust imprisonment, each is a crime and each person in the line from the bottom to the top were culpable.
That is how we treat WW2 criminals and I don't expect any different from these guys. We might be able to get a few corporate CEO's up there too.
Treason and torture and murder are not something you reward.
Using the terror alert system for political reasons and to cause fear is terrorism. Those who ordered it and carried it out are terrorist. Plain and simple.
Those who voted for Bush as a result should be caned.
Just as our security policy has to be in-depth and flexible, any civic notification/advisory capability must be informative and reassuring.
Take, for example, a child who runs to his parents' bedroom because a noise or shadow has scared him. Most parents reassure the child and provide a night light or even check under the bed to affirm that there are no monsters there.
That's what any civil alert system needs to be - not because we're scared little kids, but because we're adults who know better, and scaring ourselves into fits is exactly what the terrorists want.
Ridge is as much a part of the broken apparatus as anyone.
"It's Not My Fault Confessions." That old hippie saying, "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem," rears its head again. I think those who write these books are trying to avoid prosecution, too, by telegraphing that they will turn State's evidence if necessary to avoid their own prosecution.
Let the small(ish) fish turn State's evidence . . . en masse! Prosecutions or not, these crimes have to be acknowledged and prevented from EVER happening again. And the criminals need to go down in history as the treasonists they are. I like to think my grandchildren will read the truth about the Bush Cartel in their history books.
"I think those who write these books are trying to avoid prosecution, too......"
Agreed! Although, I wonder if Paul O'Neill wrote his book after he left the administration because he was trying to make people pay attention to what was going on.... (?) He left EARLY in the Bush Administration.
This guy is the same guy that handed out lifetime achievement awards at an extravagant homeland security department party in an agency that was just a couple years old.
He carefully selects his words and times the release of them after the statute of limitations expired and places them in his for profit book.
Don't lose sight of what a swine Ridge is in all of this. he had evidence of a possible major crime and will only dance around the facts in his self-serving book.
What is the statute of limitations on withholding evidence of a felony?
Answer: the date of his book release minus the date he witnessed the felony + 1
They would have been on top of this if it had not been for the
major error they made in misjudging the people who were right.
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/08/20/...
Thanks for the link ricky. There's an example of not listening to someone because they are right for the wrong reasons.
We'll have to ask Tyler about this one.
answer might be, so I'll plead concern troll and take the false dichotomy on that suggestion. Occam's razor tells me I'd be right.
... and not because I work in an industry where you have to be cool under fire, even when it's the management types who are running about like headless chickens.
Armbinder, you're a putz.
So what the hell has Chertoff been up to during his tenure? Let your imagination run wild.
He should at least make a lying statement about how he would never allow any of this to happen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0rGIyCfOsQ
... looks suspiciously like Felix Dzerzhinsky, only with less hair.
Help me on another detail here. Was that Osama tape they are talking about proven to be a fake? Was it the one that was released to our government FIRST instead of on al jazeera or a radical muslim website? Why would Osama send a video to our government when his address is to the American people?
... it's not about sending a message to us.
It's about sending a message to people you've got dancing on a string to begin with.
He was a CIA operative. His father and Bushes father are friends. This whole thing stinks. OBL's tapes have been shown to be at least 'suspicious'. Some show they are not even him.
He's the image of the 'bad guy' and GWBush was the image of the 'good guy' and they played their parts. The guys under the table made billions from the play.
We were the audience.
...people don't resign anymore simply for being duped, manipulated, and then sent to the trash heap when they should have known better. Honor, integrity, self-respect? What are you saying here? "There's a dead-certain book deal in my future." It's 2009, and we don't give two shits for those qualities in a person.
WE knew we were being played, and it was painful to have this fact ignored by the self-important American press. Just a bunch of DFHs howling at the moon...who could know that we were actually correct?
Does anyone really expect them to suddenly have a spiritual epiphany, and become honest and true and only interested in the welfare of the majority of US citizens, and then to extend that caring to the rest of humanity?
All women and children (including those men who are feminized and infantilized) should hereby cringe into the background, while the martial Reichian warrior-father transcends conventions in order to unleash his pure supra-rational masculine energy on the evildoers.
testosterone level high.
True American hero.
And in the workaday world you can be fired for any or no cause in the so called "Right to Work" states."
That hurts in looking for a new job.
Otherwise those engaged in some of the biggest FAUX-ups in history seem to easily land jobs in academia and "think"-tanks, and punditocracy.
No such thing as bad publicity.
you don't have to be in a right to work state. Workers have no rights under our present system. I have got 1st hand experience. Top salesperson 1 month, fired the next month. I still have the plaque.
Shouldn't you see the dentist then?
2:30
I love that joke!
is getting ready to run for higher office, or at least be available as someone's running mate, in 2012. I think that's what this book is about: inoculating himself against Bush's illegal manipulation of Homeland Security (or, as they say in D.C., providing himself with "plausible deniability").
I've thought of running for public office.
I'm a born and bred Texan
Military vet with Top Secret Clearance
With degrees in business, Political Science, and Paralegal Studies,
Former drug abusing, transvestite tendencies, heavy consumer of porn and nudie bars (straight), practitioner of Witchcraft, with a subscription to a Socialist newspaper...
Oh yeah...that'll work.
is applicable to all that follows, you should be fine.
Limbaugh, Giuliani, Vitter, Jindal, and Palin (she reads everything) have broken the ground for you. However, your Mormonism might be troubling in Texas until the polygamy thing dies down.
How's that working out Speaker Pelosi?
Are the Dems this spineless, more interested in their own power, or was there just enough dirt uncovered on the Dems through Patriot Act spying to keep them in check?
and with these revelations as if we didn't already suspect, still no investigations of the Bush administration. funny how we as a country seem to push the rule of law on other countries as a beacon of freedom, liberty and democracy and all that good stuff in a free society yet we can't follow our own.
would you expect psychopaths to bring justice to psychopaths?
http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpa...
It's so nice to see all the dirty f@%#king hippies were right about this, huh?
Funny how often that happens, isn't it?
I still haven't seen any apologies to Michael Moore from all the people who said Fahrenheit 911 was full of shit.
He's been on this since yesterday, posting some great insights about how ANYTHING the Dirty Hippies say is anathema to mainstream media, even when it's accurate.
Some favorite highlights:
(from commenter gator90)
The Maturation Cycle of Bush Administration Scandals
1. Crazy, hysterical, paranoid accusation by wild-eyed, partisan, left-wing loonies.
2. Old news
(from Atrios)
And just so it's clear: using the threat of terrorism to try to achieve political goals is, you know, what terrorists do.
So he only "believed" he was committing a crime? He didn't "know" he was committing a crime? I'm not sure I "believe" that that's much wiggle room under US law.* Go get yourself a DUI and tell the judge you "believed" you were under the limit and see how that works out.
* Unless you're wealthy and well connected of course.
actual proof, or without actually acknowledging that proof exists.
To admit you "believed" you did something that was criminal, and it was, is to admit to being a criminal. Ridge should be in lock-up answering questions about now.
That the weight of the floors above the point of impact was enough that if it moved, no matter how well designed the floors below were, once the upper floors moved in a downward manner there is nothing that could have stopped it!
I do not know if the fuel from the planes put off enough heat to weaken the floor where they hit, but it looks like it was.
My point is when the floors above moved any in a downward direction it would not stop till it had no farther that it could go. Man you are talking about hundreds if not thousands of tons moving it would take as much or more to stop it.
What the hell engineering school did you go to?
Straight down would require that the upper floors fell perfectly straight down on the lower floors. Only a slight tilt to the upper floors as they fell would cause the upper sections to topple and the lower to buckle in the opposite direction. No matter the design that would occur, design might limit it but not prevent it. Any damage from the crashes would not have weaken the supports evenly enough for the upper floors to fall straight onto the lower ones. Controlled demo in purposely built spots prevent greater destruction by preventing the building toppling into others.
(1) The Twin Towers were 110 story steel reinforced structures designed to withstand one or more Boeing 727 impacts. Each floor was comprised primarily of steel rebar and poured concrete. If the steel support beams for any given floor were to have "given way", each floor would fall (as concrete) onto the floor below. For all 109 above-ground floors to have collapsed, one on top of the other pancake fashion, to the lobby, it would have taken 2 to 5 minutes, dependent upon the overload factor designed into the steel structure. Instead, the building collapsed in near free-fall in less than 10 seconds, indicating virtually ZERO resistance of the floor below.
(2) The Twin Towers (and WTC-7 at 40 stories height) collapsed quite evenly down to the ground, a probable impossibility with unevenly distributed jet fuel fires (no jet fuel fire in WTC-7), which should have collapsed at an angle and the building should have toppled over. Instead, the floors fell evenly downward in near free-fall into each buildings' foot-print, as if the floor below had magically moved out of the way of the falling floor above. Such physical behavior resembles nothing else as much as a "Controlled Demolition", which NYFD personnel AND TV reporters & anchors described as such.
(3) When the Twin Towers collapsed in near free-fall, the bulk of each floor's MASS of concrete and steel rebar did not "stack up" 30 floors (or so) high. Instead, a tremendous nearly instantaneous force was applied sufficient to vaporize the concrete and steel rebar onto fine dust, which flowed pyro-plastically into the streets of Lower Manhattan reminiscent of the ash flow from Mt. Saint Helens. A falling concrete floor does not contain enough kinetic energy to vaporize the concrete floor below, let alone to fall in virtual FREE-FALL.
(4) Under absolutely ideal conditions (that is, with plenty of excess OXYGEN, like a blast furnace), jet fuel will only burn at a temperature of 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. A large portion of the jet fuel emanating from the Boeing 757s burned with a dull orange flame and much black smoke (SOOT), indicating a fire of only 600 to 700 degrees Fahrenheit. The steel floor beams and central girders of the Twin Towers were rated at a melting point of 2,650 degrees Fahrenheit. A fully fueled Boeing 757 does not contain enough MASS (total BTUs) to melt the steel floor beams (even at 1,800 degrees), which are very good conductors of heat away from the fire and toward the massive central girders. Each of the Twin Tower fires only burned for about 60 minutes before the start of the collapse. In spite of these facts, thermal satellite photos of Ground Zero indicated pools of molten steel collected in the sub-structure of the Twin Towers (and WTC-7) in excess of 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit three and four WEEKS AFTER 9/11. Such a condition can ONLY EXIST with the use of THERMITE or THERMATE, which is formulated to burn through steel at temperatures of 3,800 to 4,600 degrees Fahrenheit.
The "official" story about the collapse of the Twin Towers and WTC-7 is total bunkem ...
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