9/11 Debunker Fact Challenge

[PhantomWolf]

In my 9/11 Truther Fact Challenge (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=95185) there were claims that we treat the evidence on both sides with a double standard, so I want to squish that with a list of facts from the Debunker's side. It has the same rules as the Truther's challenge. For instance a fact would be that Atta was on Flight 11, we know this because of the Passanager manifests and witness testimony, it is not a fact that he was flying the plane when it crashed into the towers. While very likely, this is only speculation based on the evidence. So roll up with your facts please. (Gravy, try and keep the list to under three pages. ;))

For all of you that believe 9/11 was an Al Qaeda job, I want you to list all of the actual facts you have. The facts you give must be as follows:

1) Not be speculation, interpretation, questions, guesses or just things that don't make sense about the CT version(s).
2) Be accepted as correct by the vast majority of those that accept that it was Al Qaeda (ie, all but one or two people.)
3) Be verifiable that it is indeed correct.
4) Not be the date on which the attacks occured.

[Good Lt]

Al-Qaeda admitted to carrying out the attacks.

http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Jan/14-610042.html

There's audiotape (2006) of Bin Laden admitting such.

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1938283,00.html

And videotape (2004).

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/79C6AF22-98FB-4A1C-B21F-2BC36E87F61F.htm

And videotape captured by US forces in Afghanistan in 2001.

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/12/13/tape.transcript/

And 9-11 did NOT happen on 9-11-01. It didn't happen at all - TV fakery.

:)

[Gravy]

I've collected many facts at my website, which is linked in my signature.

[PhantomWolf]

yeah but I said you had to keep it to under three pages Gravy. ;)

[Gravy]

yeah but I said you had to keep it to under three pages Gravy. ;)Can I use Arial .0001 point?

[JimBenArm]

Can I use Arial .0001 point?
Show-off!

[T.A.M.]

Can I use Arial .0001 point?

No, but you can use pages that are 8.5 Feet by 11 Feet in dimension.

TAM;)

[Reality Believer]

.....
And 9-11 did NOT happen on 9-11-01. It didn't happen at all - TV fakery.
:)
I got you covered on that link:
gxRvExqN7_E

[Good Lt]

I got you covered on that link:
gxRvExqN7_E
Whoa.

Dude.

I've got to go do some thinking now.

[OldTigerCub]

Ummmm.....a few drinks before setting the date on his new camcorder back in 1999....and some creative video editing....:p

[Tippit]

For all of you that believe 9/11 was an Al Qaeda job, I want you to list all of the actual facts you have. The facts you give must be as follows:



What if it was an Al Qaeda "job", but Al Qaeda is a creature and asset of western intelligence?

Osama Bin Laden organized the Maktab al-Khadamat, which among other mujahideen groups were financed by the Pakistani ISI. The ISI in turn was financed by the Central Intelligence Agency during its proxy war with the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Then you have the interesting ties between the Bin Laden family (Salem Bin Laden) and George W. Bush's Arbusto Energy, the former shared stake in the Carlyle group, a US defense contractor, held between George Bush Sr. and the Saudi Binladin Group, and finally George Bush Sr.'s illustrious career and position as director of the CIA in the late seventies.

So what if 9/11 happened exactly according to the official story, but "Al Qaeda" means something entirely other than what you think it means, namely, an organic group of terrorists who purportedly represent millions of muslims who hate us because of our freedoms?

[tomwaits]

So what if monkeys flew out of my butt and caused 9/11? What if the tooth fairy had made WTC7 fall? What if Bush was actually a reptilian humanoid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_icke#Reptilian_humanoids)? What if all these "what if" questions are retarded, and just the product of paranoid fantasy?

[Gravy]

So what if 9/11 happened exactly according to the official story, but "Al Qaeda" means something entirely other than what you think it means, namely, an organic group of terrorists who purportedly represent millions of muslims who hate us because of our freedoms?

Hmm. What if Sei whales ate my movie posters? Tippit, if you're interested in disabusing yourself from your fantasies I strongly recommend that you read:

1) The 9/11 Commission report and its associated staff monographs.

2) The Looming Tower: al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright

3) Perfect Soldiers: The Hijackers: Who They Were, Why They Did It by Terry McDermott

4) Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden by Steve Coll

These are highly-readable, riveting, exceptionally well-researched accounts.

You'll find many more resources to help you learn about al Qaeda's history and ideology here (http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/linkstoterrorism%2Calqaedainfo).

Take a few months, get informed, and let us know what you think. We'll be here. Fair enough?

Edit: ha! Just saw tomwaits' post. ;)

[eromitlab]

I got you covered on that link:
gxRvExqN7_E
That CGI is as bad as Xavier: Renegade Angel. Or Passions.

[PhantomWolf]

What if it was an Al Qaeda "job", but Al Qaeda is a creature and asset of western intelligence?

Osama Bin Laden organized the Maktab al-Khadamat, which among other mujahideen groups were financed by the Pakistani ISI. The ISI in turn was financed by the Central Intelligence Agency during its proxy war with the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Incorrect. Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK), or in English, The Office of Order, was created and organised by Dr. Abdullah Azzam, also one of the founders of Hamas. Bin Laden was a member of the MAK, and certainly high in the ranks (as were Azzam's sons,) but he was mostly responsible for helping to acquire funding for it. THAT FUNDING DID NOT COME FROM THE ISI. I wrote that in caps because it needs to be beaten into people. The MAK got its funding via Saudi Charities which were funnelling private and Saudi Governmental money to Afghanistan and directly from the GID, Saudi Intelligence (who throughout the Afghanistan war declared Bin Laden as "their man"). It also set up charities elsewhere in the world to get money, including in the US where Muslim groups were donating it. MAK never received any money from the CIA, this has been confirmed by the CIA, the ISI and Bin Laden himself, all well BEFORE 9/11. MAK did keep in close contact with the ISI, but not to receive money, but rather to work on the logistics of the war. The ISI was far more interested in funding the Pashtun rebel commanders such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (who received the lion's share of ISI help) who were actually out fighting and killing Soviet soldiers, not a bunch of Arabs who already had their own funding and were just bringing in money, supplies and Arab kids dreaming of glory. Think about it, why would the ISI give money destined for the mujahidin to a group whose purpose was to recruit and raise money for the mujahidin. Giving them already raised money defeats the whole purpose of the exercise.

Later on, towards the end of the Afghanistan conflict, Bin Laden beat a challenge by Azzam's sons and took over MAK to merge it into his Al Qaeda group (yes Al Qaeda existed prior to the MAK being added to it, it was one of the main reasons for the Azzam/Bin Laden split a year earlier, the other being that while Azzam wanted to concentrate on the installation of a Islamic Government in Afghanistan, Bin Laden wanted to start overthrowing other Secular and Marxist Governments around the Arab and Islamic World) after Azzam's death in a car bombing in 1989, a year after Bin Laden had left the MAK. Though there are a lot of suspects, the main two are Hekmaytar and the ISI (who where at the time trying to eliminate anyone who posed a challenge to leadership in the new Afghanistan and Azzam was putting his support behind Hekmatyar's main rival Ahmed Shah Massoud), and also Israel, since Azzam was one of the main leadership of Hamas. Bin Laden was not at the time into terror attacks and has repeatedly denied any involvement in Azzam's death.

A final note on the CIA funding of the ISI, while they did give the ISI millions, if not billions of dollars, an amount matched and even surpassed during the later years, by the GID, they repeatedly pointed out that once the money and weapons were in ISI hands they had no control over them, something that repeatedly frustrated both the CIA (who felt that some of the people they would like to have backed weren't getting a fair deal) and later the State Department (who backed Mossoud and knew for a fact he wasn't getting a fair deal.) This was quite apparent in the ISI's funnelling off supplies and moneys to train and equip Kashmiri rebels rather then Afghan fighters, and was really displayed when funding was finally cut and the CIA ordered the ISI to destroy any weapons that hadn't been sent over the border to Afghanistan. After months of fruitless demands they gave up.) So even had the ISI actually funded MAK, which they didn't, a) the CIA didn't have any say in the matter, and B) it wasn't Bin Laden's organisation anyway.

I'll repeat Gravy's post above and recommend that you get hold of and read Steve Coll's Ghost Wars (http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wars-Afghanistan-Invasion-September/dp/1594200076), you might learn a few things, including exactly how incompetent the US Government has been since at least Carter's administration and likely far longer. He certainly doesn't hold back any punches when it comes to making them look like a bunch of inept fools who were more interested in their own status and looking good than they were in actually doing the jobs they were supposed to be doing.

Then you have the interesting ties between the Bin Laden family (Salem Bin Laden) and George W. Bush's Arbusto Energy, the former shared stake in the Carlyle group, a US defense contractor, held between George Bush Sr. and the Saudi Binladin Group, and finally George Bush Sr.'s illustrious career and position as director of the CIA in the late seventies.

Of course you realise the size of the Bin Laden Family? Bin Laden's father married 22 times and had at least 55 children. The Bin Laden group is one of the biggest companies in Saudi Arabia and has networks all over the world. Osama has been not only disowned by the family, but disowned by his own country (his citizenship was revoked in 1994.) All you are doing here is blaming the entire family, and huge family at that, because of the actions of one member. If your sibling was to commit a murder, should you be considered guilty as well? Especially if that sibling had been disowned and kicked out of the family years before?

As to George Bush the Elder (saying Sr is incorrect since he is George H. W. Bush, whereas his son is George W. Bush) being director of the CIA, he was director for two year, 1976-77. The CIA didn't become involved in Afghanistan until the rebellion and then Soviet invasion in 1979, two years after Bush had been director, and while true that Bin Laden was in Peshawar from late 1979, the MAK wasn't established until 1984. You are suggesting that Bush the Elder could have seen through time that the Soviets were going to invade Afghanistan, Bin Laden was going to go to Afghanistan and there help his mentor work on a group that would eventually be mixed into another one, all at least 2 years before any of it even started. Perhaps he should try out for Randi's million dollars.

Perhaps you need to start pointing out that Bush the Elder was once the US Ambassador to the UN, and that Osama once tried to help the UN and ISI convince Hekmaytar to accept a peace deal with Mossoud and work together for a united Afghanistan, you'd almost have a better link for your paranoia.

Finally, your links via the Carlyle Group are almost as bad time wise. The Carlyle Group is NOT a defence contractor, they are an investment group and some of the companies they invest in are defence contractors, mainly because they tend to make good profits and thus money for the investors in the group. Second, the deals with the Saudi Government by the company BDM were done before Bush was involved with the Carlyle Group, and finally, what is really suspicious about rich people putting investments into a high profit investment company? Isn't that exactly how they stay rich?

So what if 9/11 happened exactly according to the official story, but "Al Qaeda" means something entirely other than what you think it means, namely, an organic group of terrorists who purportedly represent millions of muslims who hate us because of our freedoms?

And once more to quote myself "Whenever I see anyone say 'They hate us because of our freedoms' I know they don't get it." Al Qaeda didn't attack America because they hate America's freedoms, they attacked America because America has been sticking it's nose into the affairs of the Middle East for the last 30-50 years. They attacked America because it supports Israel in what most Middle East muslins see as a slaughter of the Palestinians. They attacked America because they wanted their infidel soldiers out of the Holy Lands. They attacked America because they figured one of two things would occur, either the US would be drawn into a war on their home turf and they could then beat a second super power into bankruptcy, just like they did the Soviets, or two, that the US would back off and stop supporting those Governments that Al Qaeda really wants to remove and replace with Islamic Brotherhood based ones, thus reuniting the Islamic nation. Either way they figured they'd win cause the US wouldn't be an issue anymore. That is why they attacked America.

[Sabrina]

Fact: The US Intelligence Community was severely hampered by what amounts to infighting of a sort prior to the attacks that caused them to miss warnings that COULD have led to prevention, or at the very least, better preparation for the attacks. Each agency was so jealously guarding its territory that they never acknowledged the possibility that other agencies might have bits and pieces of intelligence that could flesh out their own.

There's a fact for you. ;)

[jhunter1163]

Sabrina:

Isn't it true that pre-9/11, intelligence agencies were prohibited from sharing information with the FBI? I seem to recall seeing that such sharing wasn't permitted until the Patriot Act was enacted.

[PhantomWolf]

While I'm not Sabrina, pre 9/11 (actually pre the Patriot Act) it was illegal for the CIA to share any intelligence with the FBI if it was gathered, or involved interests or people outside the US (which was pretty much all of it.) This meant that if they bugged a phone in Germany, even if the call they were listening to was to a person inside the US, they couldn't inform the FBI. Likewise any Prosecutor or FBI agent that shared information from a Grand Jury with the CIA was lible for jailtime. Add to this that the NSA refused to share anything and military intelligence were not supposed to spy on people inside the US, let alone share any information with Law Enforcement (Military involvement in Law Enforcement is strictly prohibated under the US Consitition) and yes, you have the situation where no one can tell anyone anything. Heck the problem was so bad that different branches of the FBI weren't even telling each other things.

[Sabrina]

Not to my knowledge, jhunter, but I do know straight from intelligence professionals in the community who were members prior to 9/11 that it didn't occur often, due to the reasons I outlined above. Also, as the FBI was more of a domestic intelligence agency and the others were more international, so to speak, so there wasn't a lot of overlap between the agencies. It's different now; there's still a long way to go, but the intel agencies are trying pretty darn hard to make sure they share info as much as possible now.

[jhunter1163]

So it's really not surprising that intel didn't get where it needed to go. In fact, it's kinda surprising we developed as complete a picture as we did, given the restrictions of the time.

[Sabrina]

Ah, I see Phantom beat me to it. :)

[Sabrina]

Not surprising at all, jhunter. What surprises me is when people come across like they believe the entire US intel community knows all, sees all, hears all, etc; half the time I'm amazed we're still the quote-unquote "best" country in the world, given how often stuff leaks or doesn't get to the right people.

[jhunter1163]

Well, when you get your information from "V for Vendetta", I'd imagine it's easy to develop an overinflated sense of what is possible for the US intelligence services. Fortunately, we here at the JREF have people who are more grounded in reality to give us a little better perspective. :)

[PhantomWolf]

Sorry, I'm in the middle of reading Ghost Wars (a really excellent book that I keep meaning to recommend to everyone to read) and Steve Coll deals with this exact issue. It just was insane. During the later part of the Afghanistan War there were two groups involved with developing US policy and determining how funds were to be given, the CIA and the US State Department. The thing is they never talked to each other. State believed that the CIA was being deliberately secrective and was too strongly following the ISI lead in giving finacing and weapons to the Islamists rather then spreading the help around while the CIA felt that State was being over critical, always going behind its back and ignored all the things it was doing other than funding through the ISI.

The major problem was that both were busy out there doing their own things and they weren't allowed to tell the other what they were up too. For about the last 4-5 years of the war, the US was basically running two oppositely opposing policies on Afghanistan, one run by the CIA and one by State because no one was able or willing to talk to anyone else and get it sorted out.

[qarnos]

While I'm not Sabrina...

A likely story.

:D

[PhantomWolf]

A likely story.

:D

heh, if I was, I'd be a darn site cutier

[Zlaya]

Al-Qaeda admitted to carrying out the attacks.

http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Jan/14-610042.html

There's audiotape (2006) of Bin Laden admitting such.

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1938283,00.html

And videotape (2004).

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/79C6AF22-98FB-4A1C-B21F-2BC36E87F61F.htm

And videotape captured by US forces in Afghanistan in 2001.

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/12/13/tape.transcript/

And 9-11 did NOT happen on 9-11-01. It didn't happen at all - TV fakery.

:)

LOL ouch, us troooofers are so stupid for believing a nutty 9/11 conspiracy theory, but you debunkers are brilliant and smart for believing US government that that was indeed OSAMA. Yes that really is osama, and that's his voice, and he's really admitting to 9/11. Remember, Osama, who coincidentally has been a US intelligence asset since the eighties to fight Ruskies in Afganistan and Serbs in Bosnia. Yea, this guy did it. He admitted it on tape!

Look, he even dyed his beard in the latest appearance, to appear hip with the in crowd.

Give me a break.

[PhantomWolf]

LOL ouch, us troooofers are so stupid for believing a nutty 9/11 conspiracy theory, but you debunkers are brilliant and smart for believing US government that that was indeed OSAMA. Yes that really is osama, and that's his voice, and he's really admitting to 9/11. Remember, Osama, who coincidentally has been a US intelligence asset since the eighties to fight Ruskies in Afganistan and Serbs in Bosnia. Yea, this guy did it. He admitted it on tape!

Look, he even dyed his beard in the latest appearance, to appear hip with the in crowd.

Give me a break.

You know sometimes I really don't know whay I bother typing things that Truthers won't read anyway due to it conflicting with their universe.

Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK), or in English, The Office of Order, was created and organised by Dr. Abdullah Azzam, also one of the founders of Hamas. Bin Laden was a member of the MAK, and certainly high in the ranks (as were Azzam's sons,) but he was mostly responsible for helping to acquire funding for it. THAT FUNDING DID NOT COME FROM THE ISI. I wrote that in caps because it needs to be beaten into people. The MAK got its funding via Saudi Charities which were funnelling private and Saudi Governmental money to Afghanistan and directly from the GID, Saudi Intelligence (who throughout the Afghanistan war declared Bin Laden as "their man"). It also set up charities elsewhere in the world to get money, including in the US where Muslim groups were donating it. MAK never received any money from the CIA, this has been confirmed by the CIA, the ISI and Bin Laden himself, all well BEFORE 9/11. MAK did keep in close contact with the ISI, but not to receive money, but rather to work on the logistics of the war. The ISI was far more interested in funding the Pashtun rebel commanders such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (who received the lion's share of ISI help) who were actually out fighting and killing Soviet soldiers, not a bunch of Arabs who already had their own funding and were just bringing in money, supplies and Arab kids dreaming of glory. Think about it, why would the ISI give money destined for the mujahidin to a group whose purpose was to recruit and raise money for the mujahidin. Giving them already raised money defeats the whole purpose of the exercise.

Later on, towards the end of the Afghanistan conflict, Bin Laden beat a challenge by Azzam's sons and took over MAK to merge it into his Al Qaeda group (yes Al Qaeda existed prior to the MAK being added to it, it was one of the main reasons for the Azzam/Bin Laden split a year earlier, the other being that while Azzam wanted to concentrate on the installation of a Islamic Government in Afghanistan, Bin Laden wanted to start overthrowing other Secular and Marxist Governments around the Arab and Islamic World) after Azzam's death in a car bombing in 1989, a year after Bin Laden had left the MAK. Though there are a lot of suspects, the main two are Hekmaytar and the ISI (who where at the time trying to eliminate anyone who posed a challenge to leadership in the new Afghanistan and Azzam was putting his support behind Hekmatyar's main rival Ahmed Shah Massoud), and also Israel, since Azzam was one of the main leadership of Hamas. Bin Laden was not at the time into terror attacks and has repeatedly denied any involvement in Azzam's death.

A final note on the CIA funding of the ISI, while they did give the ISI millions, if not billions of dollars, an amount matched and even surpassed during the later years, by the GID, they repeatedly pointed out that once the money and weapons were in ISI hands they had no control over them, something that repeatedly frustrated both the CIA (who felt that some of the people they would like to have backed weren't getting a fair deal) and later the State Department (who backed Mossoud and knew for a fact he wasn't getting a fair deal.) This was quite apparent in the ISI's funnelling off supplies and moneys to train and equip Kashmiri rebels rather then Afghan fighters, and was really displayed when funding was finally cut and the CIA ordered the ISI to destroy any weapons that hadn't been sent over the border to Afghanistan. After months of fruitless demands they gave up.) So even had the ISI actually funded MAK, which they didn't, a) the CIA didn't have any say in the matter, and B) it wasn't Bin Laden's organisation anyway.

I'll repeat Gravy's post above and recommend that you get hold of and read Steve Coll's Ghost Wars (http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wars-Afghanistan-Invasion-September/dp/1594200076), you might learn a few things, including exactly how incompetent the US Government has been since at least Carter's administration and likely far longer. He certainly doesn't hold back any punches when it comes to making them look like a bunch of inept fools who were more interested in their own status and looking good than they were in actually doing the jobs they were supposed to be doing.

Osama Bin Laden never had anything to do with the CIA, nor they him, heck the CIA didn't have more than a file with his name along with a heap of others in it until 1993. If Bin Laden was the tool of any intelligence agency before he went rogue, it was the GID, Suadi Arabia's Intelligence. Since in 1993 he started denoucing the royal family and started calling for a coup causing them to remove his citizenship, he doesn't work for them anymore either (not that he did in 1993 either he cut ties with them at the latest in 1990/91 when they refused his requests to allow him to attack Iraq.)

As for claiming he was in Bosina, where do you people make this stuff up? Bin Laden's movements are well known. From 1979-1989 he was in Afghanistan. He then returned to Saudi Arabian until 1992 (with a short stinct trying to oust the Marxist South Yemen Government with resulted in them complaining to Saudi Arabia) when he moved to Sudan (actually he was escorted out of Saudi Arabia at the time after being told by the GID the US was trying to assassinate him and he wasn't safe there, something that wasn't true, he was hardly on the US's radar at the time.) He stayed in Sudan until 1996 till he was kicked out of there by the Suadese Government under pressure from Egypt and the US, and then he returmned to Afghanistan remaining there. He was never anywhere near Bosnia. You people wouldn't know a fact if it wore red and slapped you in the face a dozen times.

[tomwaits]

LOL ouch, us troooofers are so stupid for believing a nutty 9/11 conspiracy theory, but you debunkers are brilliant and smart for believing US government that that was indeed OSAMA.

Correct. Next!

[PhantomWolf]

Correct. Next!

Not really, it makes the hidden (well not so hidden really) assumption that we only believe in Osama because the US Government tells us too. This is wrong, there is a plethora of evidence gathered by many different countries and released through sources all over the world from the middle east to europe to africa that Bin Laden does indeed exist and is the head of a group called Al Qaeda. It is not just a case of believing what the US Government says at all, but rather what the facts say, something that continues to escape the likes of Zlaya who base their reality on the simple rejecting as false everything the US Government says. It sort of makes me wonder how they deal with Tax rebates, but then I decided that they probably don't pay them anyway.

[Tippit]

Osama Bin Laden never had anything to do with the CIA, nor they him, heck the CIA didn't have more than a file with his name along with a heap of others in it until 1993. If Bin Laden was the tool of any intelligence agency before he went rogue, it was the GID, Suadi Arabia's Intelligence.



How do you know with certainty that Osama Bin Laden did not have any connection to the CIA, who the CIA has files on, and what is in those files? Are you some sort of omniscient being, or a secret agent with the highest clearence?



As for claiming he was in Bosina, where do you people make this stuff up? Bin Laden's movements are well known.



I agree that Bin Laden's movements are well known. This is why the idea that there is or ever was a real manhunt for him is ridiculous and only entertained by the credulous. The CIA needs the perception that its bogeyman is alive and uncaptured. Just ask former CIA executive Buzzy Krongard (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1431539,00.html). Bin Laden is nothing less than the Emmanuel Goldstein of our real-life 1984.



You people wouldn't know a fact if it wore red and slapped you in the face a dozen times.

Or, we consider "facts" promulgated by intelligence agencies and their author propagandists to be dubious, at best.

[T.A.M.]

IS there a single piece of evidence (not circumstantial or hearsay, or anonymous conjecture) that links OBL to the CIA in terms of working for them or under theM? If there is, please bring it forward.

As for his movements being well known, I suspect they are to a degree. By this I mean that intelligence agencies certainly know what area (North Eastern Afghanistan) he is in.

TAM:)

[PhantomWolf]

How do you know with certainty that Osama Bin Laden did not have any connection to the CIA, who the CIA has files on, and what is in those files? Are you some sort of omniscient being, or a secret agent with the highest clearence?

Because their files on the matter have been searched a number of times through several FIA and congressional hearing requests. There is nothing there. Either they have managed the best cover-up on the planet (this by an agency that couldn't even figure out they had a mole in their organisation or who it was for nearly 10 years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldrich_Ames), something the FBI figured out in a matter of months.) or there never was anything there. You really think that an organisation as incompetent as the CIA could really pull off the world's best cover up?

I agree that Bin Laden's movements are well known. This is why the idea that there is or ever was a real manhunt for him is ridiculous and only entertained by the credulous. The CIA needs the perception that its bogeyman is alive and uncaptured. Just ask former CIA executive Buzzy Krongard (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1431539,00.html). Bin Laden is nothing less than the Emmanuel Goldstein of our real-life 1984.

Again you have no idea what you are talking about. Bin Laden wasn't wanted by the US until after he left Sudan and went to Afghanistan in 1996. They knew exactly where he was before that, but until 1998 he never actually directly attacked the US so they had no reason to go after him. (The Justice Department was trying to figure out a case against him for funding terrorist activities, but because it was illegal to tell any other government department, including the Whitehouse, the State Department had pressured Sudan to kick him out before the Justice Department was able to put something together.)

Quite simply there was no manhunt for him because he wasn't wanted until he was already in Afghanistan and protected. From 1998 to 2001 the CIA did run a number of operations to capture or kill him, but all that achieved was to show exactly how incompetent they are. Do yourself a favour, get away from your conspiracy webpages and try reading a real properly researched book. get Steve Coll's Ghost Wars he does an excellent job of putting together what happened from 1979 through to 2001. If you dislike the US Government now, by the time you finish his book you'll think that they are all a pack of morons that shouldn't be in charge of a henhouse, let alone an entire country. The US has been lead by a bunch of incompetent fools who's understanding of the world is about zero for the last 30+ years. Carter, Reagan, Bush the Elder, and Clinton all carry far more responsibility for 9/11 than Bush the Junior, they created the climate that it occurred in, they set it in motion through a series of incompetent and self serving decisions and when it come to actually listening to people on the ground who were trying to warn them, they simply didn't want to know because it was someone else's problem. If you think you have reason to hate them now, go read his book, it'd not only inform you, but give you a real reason to hate them.

Or, we consider "facts" promulgated by intelligence agencies and their author propagandists to be dubious, at best.

Again, read Ghost Wars if it's propaganda it's the worse propaganda I've ever seen. It does nothing for the reputation of the US government; instead it makes them look like a bunch of idiots who couldn't run a barn dance in the middle of Texas. If I were getting an author to do a propaganda piece, that book would be the last thing I'd have wanted out there. Add to that the entire thing is referenced with near enough to 100 pages of notes and to back up what it's saying, and I bet you can't show much he gets wrong. Try it out, you might actually learn something for a change.

[FactCheck]

We have been screwing with them for a long time. It didn't start with Carter.

I don't know how acurate all of this is because I'm too lazy to double check all this stuff but I do know that most of this is true.

1947-48: U.S. backs Palestine partition plan. Israel established. U.S. declines to press Israel to allow expelled Palestinians to return.

1949: CIA backs military coup deposing elected government of Syria.1

1953: CIA helps overthrow the democratically‑elected Mossadeq government in Iran (which had nationalized the British oil company) leading to a quarter‑century of repressive and dictatorial rule by the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi.

1956: U.S. cuts off promised funding for Aswan Dam in Egypt after Egypt receives Eastern bloc arms.

1956: Israel, Britain, and France invade Egypt. U.S. does not support invasion, but the involvement of its NATO allies severely diminishes Washington's reputation in the region.

1958: U.S. troops land in Lebanon to preserve "stability".

early 1960s: U.S. unsuccessfully attempts assassination of Iraqi leader, Abdul Karim Qassim

1963: U.S. supports coup by Iraqi Ba'ath party (soon to be headed by Saddam Hussein) and reportedly gives them names of communists to murder, which they do with vigor.3

1967‑: U.S. blocks any effort in the Security Council to enforce SC Resolution 242, calling for Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in the 1967 war.

1970: Civil war between Jordan and PLO. Israel and U.S. discuss intervening on side of Jordan if Syria backs PLO.

1972: U.S. blocks Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat's efforts to reach a peace agreement with Israel.

1973: Airlifted U.S. military aid enables Israel to turn the tide in war with Syria and Egypt

1973‑75: U.S. supports Kurdish rebels in Iraq. When Iran reaches an agreement with Iraq in 1975 and seals the border, Iraq slaughters Kurds and U.S. denies them refuge. Kissinger secretly explains that "covert action should not be confused with missionary work."4

1975: U.S. vetoes Security Council resolution condemning Israeli attacks on Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

1978‑79: Iranians begin demonstrations against the Shah. U.S. tells Shah it supports him "without reservation" and urges him to act forcefully. Until the last minute, U.S. tries to organize military coup to save the Shah, but to no avail.6

1979‑88: U.S. begins covert aid to Mujahideen in Afghanistan six months before Soviet invasion in Dec. 1979.7 Over the next decade U.S. provides training and more than $3 billion in arms and aid.

1980‑88: Iran‑Iraq war. When Iraq invades Iran, the U.S. opposes any Security Council action to condemn the invasion. U.S. soon removes Iraq from its list of nations supporting terrorism and allows U.S. arms to be transferred to Iraq. At the same time, U.S. lets Israel provide arms to Iran and in 1985 U.S. provides arms directly (though secretly) to Iran. U.S. provides intelligence information to Iraq. Iraq uses chemical weapons in 1984; U.S. restores diplomatic relations with Iraq. 1987 U.S. sends its navy into the Persian Gulf, taking Iraq's side; an overly‑aggressive U.S. ship shoots down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing 290.

1981, 1986: U.S. holds military maneuvers off the coast of Libya in waters claimed by Libya with the clear purpose of provoking Qaddafi. In 1981, a Libyan plane fires a missile and U.S. shoots down two Libyan planes. In 1986, Libya fires missiles that land far from any target and U.S. attacks Libyan patrol boats, killing 72, and shore installations. When a bomb goes off in a Berlin nightclub, killing three, the U.S. charges that Qaddafi was behind it (possibly true) and conducts major bombing raids in Libya, killing dozens of civilians, including Qaddafi's adopted daughter.8

1982: U.S. gives "green light" to Israeli invasion of Lebanon,9 killing some 17 thousand civilians.10 U.S. chooses not to invoke its laws prohibiting Israeli use of U.S. weapons except in self‑defense. U.S. vetoes several Security Council resolutions condemning the invasion.

1983: U.S. troops sent to Lebanon as part of a multinational peacekeeping force; intervene on one side of a civil war, including bombardment by USS New Jersey. Withdraw after suicide bombing of marine barracks.

1984: U.S.‑backed rebels in Afghanistan fire on civilian airliner.11

1987-92: U.S. arms used by Israel to repress first Palestinian Intifada. U.S. vetoes five Security Council resolution condemning Israeli repression.

1988: Saddam Hussein kills many thousands of his own Kurdish population and uses chemical weapons against them. The U.S. increases its economic ties to Iraq.

1988: U.S. vetoes 3 Security Council resolutions condemning continuing Israeli occupation of and repression in Lebanon.

1990‑91: U.S. rejects any diplomatic settlement of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (for example, rebuffing any attempt to link the two regional occupations, of Kuwait and of Palestine). U.S. leads international coalition in war against Iraq. Civilian infrastructure targeted.12 To promote "stability" U.S. refuses to aid post‑war uprisings by Shi'ites in the south and Kurds in the north, denying the rebels access to captured Iraqi weapons and refusing to prohibit Iraqi helicopter flights.13

1991‑: Devastating economic sanctions are imposed on Iraq. U.S. and Britain block all attempts to lift them. Hundreds of thousands die. Though Security Council had stated that sanctions were to be lifted once Saddam Hussein's programs to develop weapons of mass destruction were ended, Washington makes it known that the sanctions would remain as long as Saddam remains in power. Sanctions in fact strengthen Saddam's position. Asked about the horrendous human consequences of the sanctions, Madeleine Albright (U.S. ambassador to the UN and later Secretary of State) declares that "the price is worth it."14

1991-: U.S. forces permanently based in Saudi Arabia.

1993‑: U.S. launches missile attack on Iraq, claiming self‑defense against an alleged assassination attempt on former president Bush two months earlier.15

1998: U.S. and U.K. bomb Iraq over the issue of weapons inspections, even though Security Council is just then meeting to discuss the matter.

1998: U.S. destroys factory producing half of Sudan's pharmaceutical supply, claiming retaliation for attacks on U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and that factory was involved in chemical warfare. Evidence for the chemical warfare charge widely disputed.16

2000-: Israel uses U.S. arms in attempt to crush Palestinian uprising, killing hundreds of civilians.

http://www.zmag.org/middletimeline.htm

That's why they're trying to kill us.

I knew an Iranian American who said all we have to do is leave them alone so they have no one to blame but themselves for their problems. Sounds logical to me. Right now the arab leaders point at us the way the republican candidates point at mexicans and say "They're the problem!"

[PhantomWolf]

I don't know how acurate all of this is because I'm too lazy to double check all this stuff but I do know that most of this is true.

A few things are what I would certainly term as biased, eg. "U.S. soon removes Iraq from its list of nations supporting terrorism and allows U.S. arms to be transferred to Iraq." and "an overly‑aggressive U.S. ship shoots down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing 290." and "1991-: U.S. forces permanently based in Saudi Arabia."


In reality the US never supplied Iraq with weapons, they did however supply them with satellite data on Iranian positions which greatly helped the Iraqis and lead to them starting to take a lot of ground. The US then turned around and stopped the information because the Iraqis were taking too much ground.

On the shoot down of flight 655 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655), it was certainly a poorly trained, and nervous US warship, but it wasn't an "overly-aggressive" one.

Finally, the US forces have gone from Saudi, they are at a bigger base in Qatar now.

However having said that, when it comes to these things, it is what is generally believed that is the issue, not whether they are correct or not.