why wakeupcall is wrong, im right, and article from yesterday

[brad]

first an article from yesterday supporting the position that bin ladens got special treatment from whitehouse. (which in turn supports the 911 'conspiracy theory' position that 'something' was going on)

http://www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=971322003

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20030902-094941-3712r.htm

now for an anatomy of the debate yesterday. but first just let me establish the 'real' joe trento.

http://www.publicedcenter.org/stories/trento/
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?0761525629
------------------
Joseph Trento has been an investigative reporter since 1968, when he joined the staff of the legendary journalist Jack Anderson. He is the author of Widows, the bestseller about the KGB's crippling of American intelligence, and Prescription for Disaster, an investigation into the Challenger explosion. He has worked for CNN's investigative unit; consulted for 60 Minutes, Nightline, Prime Time Live, and others; and appeared on numerous national shows, such as Meet the Press, CBS Morning News, Good Morning America, and NPR. Currently, Mr. Trento is president of the Public Education Center, a nonprofit national security news service. He lives in Virginia.
---------------------------

ok with that done, let us proceed to the debate.

a) i open. http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=331586&page=0&view=co llapsed&sb=5&o=7&fpart=1

b) wakeup call ridicules post and says he laughs at it. laughs at unnamed sources and says the named source is crazy. wakeup provides no evidence.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=331804&page=0&view=co llapsed&sb=5&o=7&vc=1

c) i provide a link naming some fbi sources. wakeup ignores these.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=331818&page=0&view=co llapsed&sb=5&o=7&vc=1

d) wakeup attacks a greg palast interview by claiming joe trento is a hollywood weirdo. as i posted in this thread wakeup is incorrect, but in any case he provides no links.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=331814&page=0&view=co llapsed&sb=5&o=7&vc=1

e) wakeup still mistakenly characterizes one of the group in palasts interview and uses this to claim bbc is unreliable. note wakeup is dead wrong , he must have wrong joe trento, but we'll never know he doesnt provide link why he thinks (incorrectly) joe trento is hollywood guy.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=331838&page=0&view=co llapsed&sb=5&o=7&vc=1

f) wakeup gives up the fight by claiming im insane for asking him why he thinks greg palast and bbc is unreliable news source.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=332016&page=0&view=co llapsed&sb=5&o=7&vc=1

----

in summary, wakeups whole argument hinged on the erronerous fact that joe trento is a hollywood producer, when in fact he is an acclaimed writer about the cia and other stuff. in any case, he was only one of a number of people in the bbc greg palast interview.

in summary, wakeup cannot marshall even one iota of evidence that the links i posted are untrue. and btw, im not claimning 100% truth, i just think they need to be looked into.

and as the beginning of this post shows, there is something to allthis, as the whitehouse permitted bin ladens to fly out of country when airplanes still grounded. (btw, this story came out almost right after 911, but was ridiculed as 'conspiracy theory', i guess it takes two years for writers to get their editors to stop laughing and realize its true.)

[Cyrus]

and Wake up CALL as the prick.

There's no conspiracy there, man. Move on.

[brad]

r u saying the washington times article from yesterday was untrue, or that it is meaningless?

you realize the administration lied about it (if you dont think its untrue).

why would they lie if it didnt matter?

[Six_of_One]

That is what governments do...they tell lies.

I know I'm entering this argument late, but I'm curious -- in what way does the government allowing 140 Saudis to leave the country shortly after 9/11 imply that there was foreknowledge of the terrorist attacks? Certainly rich Saudis with the right connections would consider it in their best interests to leave the country at a time like that, Bin Laden family members more than anyone. Money talks...I'm not saying its right, by the way, but I don't see what it has to do with any possible conspiracy.

[Cyrus]

"r u saying the washington times article from yesterday was untrue, or that it is meaningless?"

Ah, the Washington Times. I usually exhaust my salt intake with the Moon rag. But I will not say their article's untrue, I will say it's meaningless.

"you realize the administration lied about it (if you dont think its untrue). why would they lie if it didnt matter?"

Oh, for a bunch of legit reasons. To avoid the obvious political embarassment, even though there was nothing to hide really. But try explaining that to a shell-shocked press (and a very nervous public).

Understand that the bin Ladins are an extremely wealthy family and a very, very large one. They also have their Washington connections, for business reasons (and not to promote Holy Islam). One black sheep in the family does not the family ostracise from the golf club. And contrary to feverish speculations, bin Laden's family was not in the know, unfortunately -- since the U.S. would then have surely found out about the planned 9/11 attack.

[brad]

how do u think hijackers got into country? they couldnt pass the vetting process for a visa, they got a special dispensation, because money talks.

without an investigation, why do u think things will change?

or do u think thats cool, just keep em comin. sweep everyting under the rug as keep business as usual?

[brad]

anyway wakeupall riducled the webpage saying such ideas as political cronyism and money played any contributing factor in 911.

he said webpage he linked to was equivalent to h.g. wells war of the worlds, pure fantasy.

well i took a few links and said hey, theres something there, maybe not a giant conspiracy but theres something to it. at the very least politics and money impeded the fbi investigations which could have prevented 911. i doubt anyone can argue with that.

that was my position, not that the total other end of the spectrum (cia behind 911) was true.

[Six_of_One]

[ QUOTE ]

well i took a few links and said hey, theres something there, maybe not a giant conspiracy but theres something to it. at the very least politics and money impeded the fbi investigations which could have prevented 911. i doubt anyone can argue with that.

that was my position, not that the total other end of the spectrum (cia behind 911) was true.

[/ QUOTE ]

I certainly agree that politics and money impeded FBI or other government action which could possibly have prevented or altered the 9/11 attacks. And no, I don't think it should just be business as usual...I think it will be, though. There are too many people in positions of power who have a vested interest in preventing the kind of investigation you are talking about for it ever to happen.

For the record, I don't believe the CIA was behind 9/11. I think that often, simple greed and incompetence can explain things better than some hidden force pulling the strings behind the scenes.

[brad]

'I certainly agree that politics and money impeded FBI or other government action which could possibly have prevented or altered the 9/11 attacks.'

well thats basically what webpage said. the one wakeupcall posted as a ridicule and said look at how dumb this is.

[MMMMMM]

"at the very least politics and money impeded the fbi investigations which could have prevented 911. i doubt anyone can argue with that.

Might have prevented it, but probably not though. Just knowing that sometime in the next 6 months, say, some hijackings were planned to take place in a potentially catastrophic attack is very vague information. What could we have done, shut down all air travel for 6 months? The information would probably have had to be far more specific than that.

Perhaps, though, there is one other thing we could have done, had we been allowed to (according to Michael Savage):

(excerpt)

Stop The Left From Causing another 9/11 (interview)

"We could have stopped it before 9/11 had we not allowed political correctness to grip the minds of law enforcement. We could have rounded up all those suspicious people who shouldn’t be here. We could have stopped them from getting on borders. We could have prevented them from boarding airplanes.

The 19 hijackers were actually noted by the airline when they first got on the plane in Maine. This is a very interesting story. The airline security actually noted that they were flying first class, they had no luggage, and they looked like foreign nationals.

They wanted to detain them. The reason that they could not is that liberal, sick lawyers had sued the airlines prior to that occasion for "racial profiling," and the airlines lost the lawsuit. So the airlines weren’t able to use their own best judgment. That’s a microcosm of why we were hit on 9/11."[/i] (end excerpt)

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/1/31/140229.shtml

Well maybe or maybe not. But I'll bet that more profiling, and the actually enforcement of immigration laws, would help significantly in reducing the potential for terrorist attacks in this country.

[brad]

'Might have prevented it, but probably not though.'

well the fbi was prevented from investigating certain individuals based on 'political connections'.

visas were issued to saudi's over the objection of the embassy official in charge of granting them.

etc.

seems pretty specific to me.

basically the fbi came out and said we were not allowed to investigate (or to continue investigating) these guys.

[brad]

interesting though how we americans are going to have to be tracked and traced and searched and checkpointed but the borders stay wide open and read the paper CA is saying lets give mexicans (illegals) drivers licenses.

ok. sure.

[MMMMMM]

"interesting though how we americans are going to have to be tracked and traced and searched and checkpointed"

how so?

[John Cole]

"liberal, sick lawyers"

Ya know, for some people that phrase is triply redundant.

M, I'm beginning to become concerned for you. You may have reached bottom by citing Michael Savage.

John

[brad]

well here in WA they randomly searched cars 4 a while.

look up national i.d. card, (h.l. security)

right now they have plans, not really implemented yet.

i could post a lot about it. (talking bout u cant fly if bad credit

[MMMMMM]

I don't see why you and Cyrus seem to attach such importance to who is being quoted rather than merely discussing the idea. If for instance Saddam Hussein ever had anything worthwhile and relevant to say (even if it was buried in a lot of other garbage) I would not hesitate to cite it if it seemed relevant. Here Savage relates that airport security was prevented from detaining the suspicious passengers due to politically correct policy stemming from a lawsuit. I thought that was pretty relevant. Maybe that lawsuit or policy decision actually did more to prevent us from thwarting 9/11 than anything the FBI might have done or not done.

Perhaps your concern about me isn't entirely unfounded though--I've been on the Internet too much lately, playing over 300 hours of Internet Poker in the last 5 weeks as well as a fair amount of Blitz Chess and Diablo (and reading online a lot and posting a bit). So that's like 70 hours a week--uh-oh. No wonder I feel on edge. However I do think if anyone has something worthwhile to say it doesn't really matter who they are. Maybe too this is a subtle knee-jerk psychological reaction to Cyrus dismissing out of hand articles I think are meaningingful because he doesn't like: WorldNet Daily, Washington Times, Frontpage Magazine and other sources.

As for the "liberal, sick lawyers" crack--I think he's only about half-right that with that phrase;-)

If I hit rock-bottom with that post that means I was already apparently in a declining trend;-) I'm coming more and more to the conclusion though that truth is often pretty raw and that people who take a lot of flack for insensitive comments are often only expressing facts anyway. I think feel-good falsehoods are usually more pernicious than feel-bad truths. Of course feel-bad falsehoods are even worse. Probably Savage has done that on occasion--I haven't read his book, just a couple articles and looked at his website and listened to him once for about 20 minutes. I don't agree with everything he says but I think he sometimes makes some good points. And I suppose I have lately developed an odd taste for good points crudely expressed, even to the extent of overlooking bad points crudely expressed if my focus happens to be on the good ones.

[MMMMMM]

Anyways, John, apologies for any sensitivities offended--in all of my posts. As much as I don't believe in speech codes or censorship I do believe in sensitivity. However some of my posts are perhaps a bit deliberately insensitive because I so strongly object to what I see as liberal attempts to practically legislate what can be said, and to the whole PC-movement. I think this trend has taken hold far too much in academia and in the workplace. In fact in Euprope they do legislate what can be said--and to me that's far scarier than the most bigoted nasty things anyone could dream up to merely say.

Once you asked what could be wrong with banning that which is deemed offensive. I later thought that my response would be that banning is what is wrong with it. Anyway, as much as I believe in the above, that doesn't stop me from apologizing for having been insensitive where needless. So I do. Also though, it won't completely stop me from sometimes saying things which might on occasion seem insensitive if there is good reason to say them. Hopefully I will have okay judgment in these matters.

[Cyrus]

"...Cyrus dismissing out of hand articles I think are meaningingful because he doesn't like: WorldNet Daily, Washington Times, Frontpage Magazine and other sources."

You forgot MAD magazine. I trust MAD more than any of the above. Ask Jimbo.

[John Cole]

M,

I think by now you should know I abhor politically correct language, but I try to remain sensitive to language usage which offends others. Perhaps it's simply because I've never felt comfortable with some language usage with which others feel comfortable. For example, I've worked a few different jobs, places where the men called the women who worked in the office the "girls." Somehow, calling fifty year old women "girls" never seemed right to me. But that doesn't mean I condemned others who felt comfortable using "girls" or never thought about it. I know this is a very minor example, but my using "women" or simply referring to them by name wasn't based on political correctness but, instead, on my own sense of what seemed appropriate and best for me.

I'm reminded of the old joke: a guy gets a flat tire in front of an insane asylum. While changing the tire, the man drops the four lug nuts down a storm drain. He sits there moaning because he can't change his tire. An inmate who has been watching tells him to take one lug nut off each of the other wheels and use them to secure the wheel.
The tire changer says to the inmate, "Hey, you're pretty smart; what are you doing in there?" The inmate replies, "I'm crazy; I'm not stupid."

No, I don't think you're insensitive--far from it. Savage, on the other hand, drips racism. If he has a valid point, I'll consider it. Timothy McVeigh blew up the federal building; how many of these conservative mouthpieces are advocating stopping and detaining young men with crewcuts?

John

[John Cole]

I do think you've overreacted when you've labelled entire cultures backwards. It detracts from your message that certain cultures do indeed engage in culturally backward practices. I remember one post in which you said that Andy defends, overmuch, specific cultural practices. And I've seen that in action myself, but not from Andy. In one class I heard students refusing to condemn the practice of female genital mutilation for the same reasons you mention. "It's their culture; who are we to condemn it? Those students were given a powerful lesson when one man, a native of Ghana, stood up and condemned his homeland's backwards cultural practice as forcefully as possible. That same culture also produced a man who could stand up and condemn this practice.

John

[MMMMMM]

Well I agree that certain terms are preferable, and with your example. If someone makes a point I wish to cite, however, I have no control over anything else they might say.

I also included a link to the entire Savage inteview for two reasons: 1) I thought he made some other points worth considering, and 2) I thought he made some other points which were not so good at all, and I thought the interview gave a broader perspective of him and one which I'm not entirely comfortable with. In the 20 minute radio excerpt of his I caught last winter I heard exactly one thing I was not OK with, but that one thing I was very uncomfortable with. So when I cite someone it doesn't necessarily mean I'm a fan of theirs. One reason I linked the whole interview is because I felt it gave a somewhat broader perspective of the individual I was citing.

Regarding McVeigh: he was more or less an isolated incident. I don't think there is any comparison between McVeigh and the widespread incitement to violent jihad preached and practiced in the Muslim world today. McVeigh was a drop in a swimming pool; the jihad warriors and the clerics who encourage them are a hot tub in a swimming pool. Huge difference in numbers and scope and organization. Also, the ratio of terror attacks is extremely lopsided in keeping with easily profiled data.

[MMMMMM]

Well...I never meant to say that their cultures are entirely backwards and I don't believe I did. When a group has many seriously backwards beliefs and practices instead of just a few, I don't think saying their culture is more backwards overall is wrong. It might be a bit ugly to say it but it's the truth. Maybe it does detract from my message but I think it is true in the overall sense, and further I believe that this is largely what is holding their societies back from achieving growth and relative satisfaction in the modern world. So recognition of this fact is important--both for us, but even more so for them.

Regarding your example, I do condemn such backwards, harmful practices as female genital mutilation wherever they are practiced. Those who are loathe to do so are simply wrong (or too young to know better)--regardless of what background they come from. I don't see why your students should have needed a man from Ghana to speak in order to realize the absurdity and cruelty of this practice (they might not have been bold enough to speak out and say so but I think most of them should have been able to recognize the inherent cruelty and lack of merit, regardless of culture. If some of them couldn't at least recognize this then I would have serious wonderings about them personally, provided they understood what the practice actually entailed and its long-term effects). Actually, I suspect the reason many college students today might be loathe to decry bad practices or silly, harmful beliefs (especially when such are from other cultures) is that I suspect college students today are generally subjected to too much pc-ness, speech code, and multicultural relativistic indoctrination. I just like to look at everything from a bare bones perspective.

[Cyrus]

I'm now opening a huge can of worms.

[brad]

the analagous question is, do u think his death was so clear cut that no investigation was needed?

[John Cole]

Cyrus,

If you remember back to a couple summers ago, three of us argued for Oswald acting alone. I was one; you were another; Vince Lepore was the third. No wonder some were suspicious. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[John Cole]

M,

As is the case in many classes, many students chose not to voice an opinion. But those that did, while not supporting the practice, defended that culture's right to their own practices. I was aghast. Yes, and they did know what FGM entailed. I brought in graphic pictures.

John

[John Cole]

M,

You might enjoy reading Gore Vidal's "The Meaning of Timothy McVeigh." I'm not so sure McVeigh, though, that the thinking that prompted McVeigh's actions is so islolated.

BTW, for your pleasure, Mark, here's what I was alluding to:

e.e. cummings

who knows if the moon's
a balloon,coming out of a keen city
in the sky--filled with pretty people?
(and if you and i should

get into it,if they
should take me and take you into their balloon,
why then
we'd go up higher with all the pretty people

than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away sailing into a keen
city which nobody's ever visited,where

always
it's
Spring)and everyone's
in love and flowers pick themselves

[MMMMMM]

Rather amazing that these same students who defended that culture's "right" to such a barbaric practice probably also would not defend the South's "right" to hold slaves in the last century. I'd bet dollars to sunflower seeds that they would condemn that "cultural practice."

I wonder too how they'd respond to such things as women's votes under Shari'a being worth 1/2 a man's vote (if they are allowed to vote at all), or women not being permitted to drive, or a man's testimony in court being worth the testimony of four women, or a woman claiming rape having to produce four male witnesses to the event or else taking the risk of being charged with adultery for having brought the claim forward. Of course to be convicted of adultery carries terrible penalties.

They might be confounded because it is another culture's practices against women, not their own culture's practices against women which they would instantly condemn. Also, they might claim to believe in universal human rights but fail to see how cultural relativity cannot morally trump that principle.

[MMMMMM]

And I think I argued that a Soviet plot made more sense than a CIA plot (if there was a conspiracy at all, that is).

[Zeno]

I killed JFK. I did it because I'm a Misanthrope. So there, it is finally settled and yawl can get moving on to more important things - like how to save the world from the impending asteroid meeting. Good Luck.

-Zeno

[brad]

'(if there was a conspiracy at all, that is). '

HSCA concluded there was a conspiracy.

[clovenhoof]

The committee's conclusion was based largely on the evidence of a tape of a police services dictabelt that resulted from an officer who accidentally had his radio mike keyed at the time of the shooting. It had what sounded like at least four and possibly six gunshots, followed by the voice of an officer screaming something that, based on other sources, was known to be said following the shooting. That evidence, if accurate and believable, would conclusively establish a second (and possibly third) gunman, which in turn would almost certainly indicate a conspiracy. (Unless of course there were two or three people who decided, independently, to kill Kennedy at the same time and place. Given that it was Texas, such a possibility isn't as far-fetched as it might have been in, say, New Hampshire.)

That tape surfaced literally at the last minute in the committee's investigation. They had already written a report concluding that while there likely had been a conspiracy in the Martin Luther King assassination, the Warren Commission had essentially gotten the Kennedy assassination right -- Oswald acted alone. The tape understandably caused them to reverse their conclusion.

That tape has been the subject of many articles and books, and I believe the consensus is that the acoustic evidence of four to six shots is underwhelming (and may actually have been conclusively discredited -- it's a while since I read this stuff).

That leaves us with the conclusion that is generally accepted by everybody outside of Oliver Stone and his ilk. Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, acting under orders from aliens from the planet Mongo who abducted and programmed him to kill Kennedy to impress Jodie Foster. Or something like that.

'hoof

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
That leaves us with the conclusion that is generally accepted by everybody outside of Oliver Stone and his ilk. Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, acting under orders from aliens from the planet Mongo who abducted and programmed him to kill Kennedy to impress Jodie Foster. Or something like that.


[/ QUOTE ]

'hoof,

You are stealing my lines. Stop it.

-Zeno

[Cyrus]

Hey, didn't the guy who wrote Le Misanthrope also write Le Malade Imaginaire?

[jokerswild]

Iran-Contra was a conspiracy. Watergate was a conspiracy. Lincoln was killed in a conpiracy. The HSCA's Robert Blakey(a law intructor of Mssr. Alger) is on record indicating that organized crime was most probably involved in the JFK murder. 89% of the American public believe Oswald did not act alone according to polls as recent as 2 years ago by respected national pollsters. That makes ovewr 200 million Americans. Some conspiracies are real, as demontrated best than by none other than Richard Nixon.

Nixon believed that the Kennedys conspired with Chicago organized crime to steal the election in 1960. Most Americans believe that, too.

[jokerswild]

The secret service is now required by law to investigate you. They will rightly determine, in my opinion, that you are stark raging mad.

[MMMMMM]

"Nixon believed that the Kennedys conspired with Chicago organized crime to steal the election in 1960. Most Americans believe that, too."

Interesting, I never heard of this one. Would you care to elaborate a bit?

[brad]

hey dont laugh guy arrested in MN or somewhere for telling 'burning bush' joke (in a bar, drunk, even.)

p.s. i believe its 'stark raving mad'

[brad]

ok M, i think you are on computer too much, dude.

you never heard about jfk mafia chicago vote scamming thing?

i recommend a good movie about sinatra starring ray liotta i forget what its called but its a real good movie. (has jfk through his brother in law lawford talk to frank who talks to 'momo' etc. its a great movie really)

[clovenhoof]

You're kidding, right?

That one isn't even conspiracy theory material. It's just accepted as fact. Back then, election dirty tricks was still a reality in the U.S., and Lyndon Johnson was one of the masters. Some very colourful stories from his biography. Of course, we know that election-rigging is now a think of the past. Especially in Florida. Oh wait....

As to Kennedy's, do an internet search for Peter Lawford, Frank Sinatra, and the Chicago Mob and you'll find any number of accounts of what and how. That's the main theory that links the mob to the Kennedy assassination -- that they considered it to be a major betrayal when Bobby Kennedy, as Attorney General, started going after them after they had played what turned out to be a decisive role in his election.

'hoof