Monday, July 11, 2005
Who Knows About The London Drill?
(Updated on 7/11 at 11:30 AM)
I'm proud of the fact that I link to a number of blogs and Websites that many consider speculative or tin-foilish.
There are a few Websites that I also check out, now and then, but I don't link to because they throw around the word "Nazi" too much, combine politics with U.F.O. reports or more than cross the line that separates anti-Zionism from anti-semitism.
The video clip that I am linking to in this post (Watch This!) originated on the BBC, yet it has been ignored by the mainstream media and the mainstream bloggers.
But not everyone has ignored it; Alex Jones (who appeared in Richard Linklater's animated film, "Waking Life") of Prison Planet has been covering this story, and Al Jazeera, too: "London Underground Bombing 'Exercises' Took Place at Same Time as Real Attack" & "Confusion over London bomb drill."
I met Alex Jones during the RNC protests in NYC last summer, and although I think he can sometimes go a little bit over-the-top I do admire the man for having the guts to question what others are too afraid to. I highly recommend his article co-written with Paul Joseph Watson linked to in the preceding paragraph, and here it is, again.
Linking to these sites and posting the video clip does not mean that I am positing a "conspiracy theory" about government complicity in the events of 9/11 or 7/7. I just firmly believe that all avenues should be explored no matter how scary they may be or how disreputable they may have been in the past.
Booman of The Booman Tribune posted a diary about "speculation" the other day, but rather than link to the one at B.T., I'd rather link to the one at Daily Kos which shows you how afraid many on the left are to even consider the very worst kinds of scenarios that can be formulated: "Reality and Non-Reality".
Heh. If this turns out to be my last post. It's been fun!!!!
(hat tip to rush22 for having the guts to diary this at Daily Kos)
UPDATE
On March 23, 2003, Mindy Kleinberg spoke at the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, which was investigating the 9/11 attacks. Kleinberg's husband, Alan, worked in the north tower of the World Trade Center for Cantor Fitzgerald and was killed on September 11th. As it says at the bottom of the transcript of her statement (cache link):
"Mindy Kleinberg is a founding member of September 11th Advocates, a family advocacy group that spearheaded the grassroots effort for the establishment of the independent commission on September 11th."
Mindy Kleinberg's testimony didn't get much airtime in the media, but she raised many questions surrounding the events of 9/11 that have yet to be answered to this day. In particular, Kleinberg mentioned one of the "war games" scheduled for that fateful morning (there were as many as four that were due to take place across the country) in relation to the still unexplained collapse of N.O.R.A.D.:
"Prior to 9/11, FAA and Department of Defense Manuals gave clear, comprehensive instructions on how to handle everything from minor emergencies to full blown hijackings."
"These "protocols" were in place and were practiced regularly for a good reason--with heavily trafficked air space; airliners without radio and transponder contact are collisions and/or calamities waiting to happen."
"Those protocols dictate that in the event of an emergency, the FAA is to notify NORAD. Once that notification takes place, it is then the responsibility of NORAD to scramble fighter-jets to intercept the errant plane(s). It is a matter of routine procedure for fighter-jets to "intercept" commercial airliners in order to regain contact with the pilot."
"If that weren't protection enough, on September 11th, NEADS (or the North East Air Defense System dept of NORAD) was several days into a semiannual exercise known as "Vigilant Guardian". This meant that our North East Air Defense system was fully staffed. In short, key officers were manning the operation battle center, "fighter jets were cocked, loaded, and carrying extra gas on board.""
"Lucky for the terrorists none of this mattered on the morning of September 11th."
"Let me illustrate using just flight 11 as an example."
"American Airline Flight 11 departed from Boston Logan Airport at 7:45 a.m. The last routine communication between ground control and the plane occurred at 8:13 a.m. Between 8:13 and 8:20 a.m. Flight 11 became unresponsive to ground control. Additionally, radar indicated that the plane had deviated from its assigned path of flight. Soon thereafter, transponder contact was lost - (although planes can still be seen on radar - even without their transponders)."
"Two Flight 11 airline attendants had separately called American Airlines reporting a hijacking, the presence of weapons, and the infliction of injuries on passengers and crew. At this point, it would seem abundantly clear that Flight 11 was an emergency."
"Yet, according to NORAD's official timeline, NORAD was not contacted until 20 minutes later at 8:40 a.m. Tragically the fighter jets were not deployed until 8:52 a.m. -- a full 32 minutes after the loss of contact with flight 11."
"Why was there a delay in the FAA notifying NORAD? Why was there a delay in NORAD scrambling fighter jets? How is this possible when NEADS was fully staffed with planes at the ready and monitoring our Northeast airspace?"
"Flight's 175, 77 and 93 all had this same repeat pattern of delays in notification and delays in scrambling fighter jets. Delays that are unimaginable considering a plane had, by this time, already hit the WTC."
"Even more baffling for us is the fact that the fighter jets were not scrambled from the closest air force bases. For example, for the flight that hit the Pentagon, the jets were scrambled from Langley Air Force in Hampton, Virginia rather than Andrews Air Force Base right outside D.C. As a result, Washington skies remained wholly unprotected on the morning of September 11th. At 9:41 a.m. one hour and 11 minutes after the first plane was hijack confirmed by NORAD, Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. The fighter jets were still miles away. Why?"
"So the hijackers luck had continued. On September 11th both the FAA and NORAD deviated from standard emergency operating procedures .Who were the people that delayed the notification? Have they been questioned? In addition, the interceptor planes or fighter jets did not fly at their maximum speed."
"Had the belatedly scrambled fighter jets flown at their maximum speed of engagement, MACH-12, they would have reached NYC and the Pentagon within moments of their deployment, intercepted the hijacked airliners before they could have hit their targets, and undoubtedly saved lives."
Too many Americans are afraid to ask questions. So are too many journalists and bloggers.
For some unexplained reason, there have been no major investigations on the hundreds of sidestories in the mainstream media since a few months after the attacks. Aside from stories that some might say are "conspiracy theories", there are many other things that the press can look at, but choose not to.
Why?
Mindy Kleinberg deserves answers to her questions. So does the world.
Afterword
You might be wondering why I left a cache link for the offical 9/11 Commission Website. That's because when I looked for the link to Kleinberg's testimony earlier this morning I was unable to reach the site, and thought that it might have been pulled down, even though it was "frozen on September 20, 2004 at 12:00 AM, EDT."
What really made this seem strange was the date that the Website had last been cached by Google. I took a screen grab; check it out:
As you can see, Google cached it at 1:45 GMT on July 7th.
A few hours later, I was able to reach the official site, again, so there's nothing to really look at in this Afterword, keep moving.
Check out Mixter for a great article about the host for the Website that the first claim for the London bombings originated on : "London Attack Claim posted on website hosted by Houston-based ISP".
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