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   Read the story and see the video discussion by the authors about why creeping consolidation is crushing American livelihoods.
 A forensic tool renowned for exonerating the innocent may actually be putting them in prison.
 Crises can force even the most dysfunctional governments to changeand Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou aims to prove it.
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March 27, 2006
By: MOUSSAOUI SPEAKS....The latest from the Moussaoui trial:
Well, that testimony certainly explains why his attorneys thought he'd be wise to stay off the stand, doesn't it? —Kevin Drum 8:13 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (86)Comments
Moussaoui probably thinks this is his best chance to get a death sentence -- and become a martyr in the eyes of his fellow terrorists. Posted by: bt on March 27, 2006 at 8:19 PM | PERMALINKYes, now they can kill you for saying you wanted to commit a crime, but didn't. I don't know; these two guys are clearly nutcases, but do they have anything in common with the Saudi and Yemenite bastards who actually did the bad stuff? It just doesn't seem to wash, somehow. Posted by: Kenji on March 27, 2006 at 8:22 PM | PERMALINKI'm surprised I haven't seen more skepticism regarding this "confession". The fact that Moussaoui says something -- even something incriminating -- doesn't mean it's true. Maybe he wants to be executed; maybe he wants to lead speculation away from other follow-on attackers; maybe he just wants headlines. I'd put "fundamental honesty" well down the list of likely motivations. Posted by: Shelby on March 27, 2006 at 8:30 PM | PERMALINKHe does sound like a nutjob. Our local DA loves to go for the worst possible penalty in high profile cases. (He said, echoing the example of 10,000 other DAs.) It's an occupational hazard of the job. Posted by: Jeffrey Davis on March 27, 2006 at 8:30 PM | PERMALINKIt seems obvious to me that the guy has a serious death/martyr complex. He obviously went against the wishes of his lawyers and is daring the court to impose the death penalty. Screw him by giving him life in some out of the way hole. Posted by: natural cynic on March 27, 2006 at 8:31 PM | PERMALINKYes, this bastard ought to be sent to rot for life. Death penalty is too convenient for him. Once he committed to a suicide mission, he has already died anyway. Why make him a martyr at our expense? Posted by: bt on March 27, 2006 at 8:44 PM | PERMALINKThere's no doubt in my mind that this guy was al Qaeda. But I don't believe a thing he says, especially his claim that Richard Reid was supposed to fly a plane with him. It doesn't add up. I think it more likely that the guy is a wannabe, recruited for the cause but found unreliable, and he figures if he's going down, it might as well be in a blaze of glory (at least, glory to those who think like him). He wants to be a martyr, and I don't think he should be obliged. I think there's a misunderstanding here. I think Moussaoui is still aiming to beat the death rap -- though by representing himself, he may have the proverbial fool for a client. In federal capital cases, a conviction on conspiracy is enough to ice him. Moussaoui is arguing that he's a Qaeda big cheese -- but he wasn't involved in the 9/11 plot, but rather a different one that never came off. He recently denied being the 20th hijacker and admitted lying when he signed that confession. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on March 27, 2006 at 8:53 PM | PERMALINKHonestly I don't belive him; he's nutso. He wants martyrdom at any cost. But since the guy wants to die, wouldn't it be more punishing for us to keep him alive? Posted by: Jon Karak on March 27, 2006 at 8:55 PM | PERMALINKJoe: I really don't think he wants martyrdom. I think he wants to rub it in everybody's face that he was part of *a* conspiracy, but not *the* conspiracy that resulted in 9/11. It's more like playing a game of chicken to piss everybody off because he won't meet the technical criterion of being involved in *that particular* conspiracy. Of course, the jury could just get completely disgusted with the guy and convict him anyway ... Bob Posted by: rmck1 on March 27, 2006 at 8:58 PM | PERMALINKI've got an idea. Let's take this Mousaii- whatever the hell his name is - out to the end of a long ocean pier, and tie him to a chair. Then, let's sail one of our carrier battle groups up close, let him see the underside of the flight deck! Hell, let's have one of the escort subs surface right next to him on the pier! And then, then . . . . Alright, so you don't fight a couple of religious nutjobs with a carrier battle group. How about the Army, the Marines and a couple of hundred billion dollars? Oh, my bad. I forgot. This isn't some joke, this is what we are actually doing. Posted by: hank on March 27, 2006 at 9:12 PM | PERMALINKWho was in the White House that day? Chimpy was down in FL, but where was Cheney? Posted by: Hedley Lamarr on March 27, 2006 at 9:20 PM | PERMALINKHellll-ooooo! 100 virgins waiting for him! That'd drive any red-blooded man craaaay-zeeee. D Posted by: Dano on March 27, 2006 at 9:24 PM | PERMALINKThis guy provides the perfect example of when the death penalty is not truly a "punishment". Make him watch the Bravo Network 24/7 and force feed him pork rinds and kool aid. Posted by: Ten in Tenn on March 27, 2006 at 9:25 PM | PERMALINKThat does not gel with what I've read about him in books like Perfect Soldier, which I tend to give more credibility too. However, I do grant it's quite possible he still believed he would be involved. Posted by: Chris O. on March 27, 2006 at 9:27 PM | PERMALINKSo if Shoe Boy Richard Reid was supposed to be Moussaoui's cohort in a fifth 9/11 attack, how come he was still in (iirc) England in September,instead of over here with pal Zack? What's more interesting is he was in FBI custody knowing of 9/11 before the event a month before the event. If he had been sleep deprived, stress positioned and talked the 'smoking gun' might not have went off. Its a strong argument for 'torture'. He wants martyrdom at any cost. But since the guy wants to die, wouldn't it be more punishing for us to keep him alive? Posted by: Jon Karak on March 27, 2006 at 8:55 PM | PERMALINK He might be pretending to be a martyr just so we leave him alive which is what he really wants. More madness, courtesy of the U.S. government. If they get the death penalty, it will be the first time in history the government has executed someone for not telling anyone his friends are going to commit a crime. Is there deterrent value in killing someone who has done his best to kill himself for the cause of Allah? Obviously not. Instead, the government is trying to give the man exactly what he wants and make him a celebrity martyr in the Muslim world. So why are they doing it? Same reasons all Bush initiatives are taken. P.R. value. Political advantage. And despite the teachings of Jesus, conservatives are also very much into getting revenge, which they term justice. From base to foolish. All in a days work for Bushco. Posted by: James of DC on March 27, 2006 at 9:39 PM | PERMALINKthey get the death penalty, it will be the first time in history the government has executed someone for not telling anyone his friends are going to commit a crime. Posted by: James of DC on March 27, 2006 at 9:39 PM | PERMALINK Well, when the crime is mass murder in the thousands. Perhaps thats a good thing. Plus I think they should kill him. Then say to the Muslim world 'Fuck you' and invade Iran. The working theory with Moussouai all along, even with the FBI, and apparently confirmed by some of our detainees, that he was sent here by Al Qaeda, but they cut him loose when they decided he was certifiably apeshit crazy and couldn't be trusted. Al Qaeda continued to send him money just because he was a loose cannon and they weren't sure what he would do if he didn't think he was training for an important mission. Everyone knows this but the government wants to kill him because they can't catch anyone who was actually involved in the 9/11 plot and have fucked everything else up. The whole idea that they want to execute someone for refusing to incriminate himself is just preposterous. Posted by: Freder Frederson on March 27, 2006 at 9:49 PM | PERMALINKI think there's a misunderstanding here. I think Moussaoui is still aiming to beat the death rap -- though by representing himself, he may have the proverbial fool for a client. In federal capital cases, a conviction on conspiracy is enough to ice him. Moussaoui is arguing that he's a Qaeda big cheese -- but he wasn't involved in the 9/11 plot, but rather a different one that never came off. He recently denied being the 20th hijacker and admitted lying when he signed that confession. No, according, at least, to the article, his statement on the stand is essentially recanting his story when he plead guilty that he had had no involvement in the 9/11 plot. From the article: Questioned by defense lawyer Gerald Zerkin for less than 30 minutes, Moussaoui was asked: "Were you scheduled to be a pilot in the operation that was to be run on Sept. 11, 2001?'' He replied: "Yes. I was supposed to pilot a plane to hit the White House. I only knew about the two planes of the World Trade Center in addition to my own plane.'' He's not saying he was in a different plot. Under specific questioning by his own attorney, he stated that he was scheduled to be a pilot in the 9/11 attacks. Posted by: cmdicely on March 27, 2006 at 9:50 PM | PERMALINKMr. Moussaoui said there were times when a Muslim can lie without being immoral: to reconcile Muslims, to answer "yes" when a wife asks, "Am I beautiful?" and to carry out jihad. So let's see. Was he lying when he said he was part of the conspiracy? Or when he said that it's OK to lie "to carry out jihad" -- presumably by misleading your enemy? Posted by: JS on March 27, 2006 at 9:52 PM | PERMALINKThen say to the Muslim world 'Fuck you' and invade Iran. Oh yeah, as we used to say in grade school, us and whose Army? We certainly can't use ours. George and Don broke it. Posted by: Freder Frederson on March 27, 2006 at 9:52 PM | PERMALINKcmdicely: Then why did he deny that he was the 20th hijacker and say he lied when he signed that confession? Isn't his whole defense that he knew *of* the 9/11 plot but had no role in it? Not saying you're wrong, just this is my current understanding of the facts. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on March 27, 2006 at 9:57 PM | PERMALINKwow, so many assholes invading this site. zach would say anything to escape the conditions of his incarceration. solitary confinement for how many years? was his cell bombarded by state-sanctioned lights on all the time? no night? no day? no quiet? hear me, zac is just another fall guy in a long history of fall guys. never forget this salient fact, i am an early aopa number. none of these guys were capable of flying a little cessna 172. stepped into the flight deck of a 757/767? think about managing those aircraft with the training zac was given[and all the others]. please, zac has been mentally destroyed by years in solitary confinement. he is an amoeba. anything you want to hear, he will tell you. and to all you assholes on this site that refuse to recognize that, to put it kindly, grow up. get smart.
Anyone who has flown over Washington knows that the White House would be a very impractical target for an inexperienced pilot. It sits at practically the lowest spot in Washington DC and is surrounded by taller buildings and the Washington Monument is directly to the south cutting off that route of attack, which would otherwise be the clearest. The capitol is a much easier and clearer target. A big building on a hill with a clear line of approach. Posted by: Freder Frederson on March 27, 2006 at 10:06 PM | PERMALINKI've followed this case since 9/11, and Freder Frederson seems closest to being right about Moussaoui's history and motivations. ...he was sent here by Al Qaeda, but they cut him loose when they decided he was certifiably apeshit crazy and couldn't be trusted. Al Qaeda continued to send him money just because he was a loose cannon and they weren't sure what he would do if he didn't think he was training for an important mission." If you also bear in mind that this already crazy guy (who couldn't even be trusted by AQ) has been in solitary confinement since 9/11, I think you get a better picture of a guy who, by now, might say just about anything, for reasons that don't have anything to do with "normal" thinking. His stories have steadily made less sense with each month gone by. It's not like he's a good guy or anything, just that his earlier stories are probably closer to the truth than what he's saying now. Posted by: erica on March 27, 2006 at 10:12 PM | PERMALINKAlso, he knows the secret location of the Batcave and has himself been a frequent abductee of aliens. Posted by: Alexander Wolfe on March 27, 2006 at 10:14 PM | PERMALINKIf he had been sleep deprived, stress positioned and talked the 'smoking gun' might not have went off. So what should be the policy precisely? Torture every moslem arrested for any purpose? Or all moslems at regular intervals? Or all guys with shaved heads? Or something else? And why the quotes around 'torture'? Posted by: JS on March 27, 2006 at 10:19 PM | PERMALINKThen why did he deny that he was the 20th hijacker and say he lied when he signed that confession? I don't know why he said what he did about that, though it was that it was a joke based on the fact that "everyone" was calling him that, not that it was a lie. He said specifically, in response to direct questioning, that he was involved in the 9/11 plot and that he scheduled to be one of the pilots. He clearly was not trying to create the impression (unless by reverse psychology) that he was involved in a plot, but not the 9/11 plot. Isn't his whole defense that he knew *of* the 9/11 plot but had no role in it? My understanding up until his testimony was that that was approximately the strategy involved; his testimony today contradicts much of what has gone before. My 2 cents, not to be added to: the man was taking flight lessons in the summer of 2001. He told the instructor he wanted to learn how to pilot a jumbo jet, but didn't care about learning how to land. It flies in the face of reasonableness to argue that he wasn't somehow involved with the 9/11 plot. It's just too implausible. The basic question here is, should he die for something he intended to do, was willing to do, but didn't do (either because he was caught, or because he was judged too unreliable and cut out of the plan)? On the being-involved-in-a-conspiracy-to-commit-murder charge, it seems pretty legit, morally. As I think Dahlia Lithwick explained in Slate, it's only a quirk of federal (as opposed to state) conspiracy law that has forced the Feds to argue that he had to have done something that actually contributed to the murder, rather than just something peripheral to a plot which resulted in murder. The only questions relate to tactics and to the public meaning given to the trial. First, isn't it more effective to put him in prison forever than to kill him? The answer seems to be yes. There are people who want to be Oswald; nobody wants to be Sirhan. Second, it would be better for the government not to press its case too hard and get into territory where they might lose. The point here should be that the system of justice works; when we capture terrorists, they are convicted and put away permanently. We don't need to undo the American system of justice to combat terrorism. It works just fine. Posted by: brooksfoe on March 27, 2006 at 10:23 PM | PERMALINKIf Moussaoui's testimony is true, they went with four planes instead of five because the fifth plane was staffed by handjobs that didn't have the combined brain power to knock over a paper boy. Normally I am against the death penalty but I do think the death penalty should be available for people who truly, truly deserve it. For example when the Oklahoma City bomber got the death penalty, I didn't shed a tear. By my standards a 9/11 bomber or would be bomber is in the truly, truly deserving catagory. In this case, however, I think the death penalty is too damn good for this bastard. If I was the prosecutor I would probably drop the death penalty phase, and go with life in prison without parole. Let the son of a female dog rot in a hole someplace and die a pathetic, lonely death 50 years from now. Posted by: Ron Byers on March 27, 2006 at 10:43 PM | PERMALINKOh good lord. For anyone who wants to go off about how we should have tortured Moussaoui, how about considering that maybe first we should take the radical step of having some competence down at the FBI so that the search warrants some people were screaming to get of his things are approved speedily? Of course, these are probably the same people who don't believe in search warrants anymore. Posted by: Chris O. on March 27, 2006 at 10:45 PM | PERMALINKBut there's no more connection between Mousse and the actual terrorists than between the janitor and the police in the station. There's nothing corroborating that he did anything aside from actually supporting other known terrorist organizations... Really, most of these cases in the last fifty years have had really skimpy evidence. How we'd sentence him to death - how would he get a fair trial anywhere in the US is beyond me. Yay, why should we believe him at all? He wants to be a terrorist. He'll say anything to be known as one. Posted by: Crissa on March 27, 2006 at 10:54 PM | PERMALINKIf Moussaoui's testimony is true, they went with four planes instead of five because the fifth plane was staffed by handjobs that didn't have the combined brain power to knock over a paper boy. Posted by: Dr. Squid on March 27, 2006 at 10:24 PM | PERMALINK So the 5th team of 2 European Muslims was the Reject Squad? And Chris has a good point. We need faster, special case, pre-signed warrants for the FBI. On torture, anyone still feel bad about Guantanomo?
brooksfoe: First, isn't it more effective to put him in prison forever than to kill him? If he gets life without parole, criminal behaviorists could study him to learn what we can about the mindset as Dr. Robert Hare did by interviewing prisoners to understand sociopaths. Posted by: Apollo 13 on March 27, 2006 at 10:58 PM | PERMALINKJUst think, If bush and Chebey couldd have gotten to Moussaoui first, then there would have been a direct connection to Iraq and that would have supported his invasion, In my mind , this bush will be remmebered in the same breath as Millard Fillmore
Oh, yeah, torture him. Anything he knew, our government already knew. That Osama wanted to hit the US, probably the WTC, and was thinking of using planes. Maybe this would've 'iced' it, but honestly, they had the evidence already. We've gone over that. Posted by: Crissa on March 27, 2006 at 11:01 PM | PERMALINKAlso, he knows the secret location of the Batcave and has himself been a frequent abductee of aliens. But if he tells us the location, whom will we find there? Osama or Ol' Cheney? Posted by: ogmb on March 27, 2006 at 11:05 PM | PERMALINKi don't understand it. do you work at being ignorant? i shall say it again, you cannot fly these aircraft with the training[lack of] that these clowns purportedly received. once again, not a one of them could fly a little cessna. have you ever considered the knowledge requirements of flying a commercial airliner? i have to tell you, it isn't a casual discipline and none of the schools that these clowns purportedly attended are qualified/equipped to train anyone to fly a loaded 737/757/767. it is really a fact that unless you have real time in such aircraft, you are not qualified to fly them. in addition to real flight time, you need simulator time. none of these jokers had any of this exposure. ponder on that. these clowns were really unable to fly these aircraft. what is startling after all these years that no pilots want to go on the record and tell you that. are they scared? i think so. Posted by: albertchampion on March 27, 2006 at 11:26 PM | PERMALINKalbertchampion: What's your point, Albert? That trained pilots flew suicide missions on commercial airliners? Like what -- you think that's any more *plausible*? Occam's Razor, baby. The bane of all conspiracy theories. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on March 27, 2006 at 11:42 PM | PERMALINKunless you have real time in such aircraft, you are not qualified to fly them. Yeah - if you don't have enough experience flying one of those things, you're at risk of, you know, crashing one into a skyscraper. They didn't need to be QUALIFIED, albert. They just needed to be able to successfully smash one into a building. Was there a risk that they'd fail to fly the plane right and crash into a field? Sure - and for all we know, that's what happened to one out of the 4. Give it up. It happened the way it seems to have happened. Posted by: brooksfoe on March 27, 2006 at 11:54 PM | PERMALINKI don't believe that guy ! He is known as loose cannon. Now he got a chance on the stand so he wants to make himself famous. Also the guy mentioned Reid as his accomplice. Reid ? Come on. Posted by: Bon on March 27, 2006 at 11:59 PM | PERMALINKOh jeez, just give him life and stick him somewhere where he can't make any noise. Frankly, the guy seems like too much of a numbnuts to have been involved in any plot (would you want that guy involved in an attack you'd spent years and millions planning?). Maybe he was supposed to be part of another hijack on 9/11, maybe another plot afterwards. Maybe he's just someone who wants to be a jihadist and just hasn't been successful. But the truth isn't going to come out in this one, mostly because the people that know it are either kinda nutty (like Moussaoui) or they're just not going to tell you the truth, no matter what. If there's enough evidence, just jail him. Execution is just giving him what he wants. also, mca - If you need to prove that you have a large, manly penis, lock yourself in a bathroom and tell yourself how huge and veiny your member is till you finally believe it. You fucking jackass. Posted by: phleabo on March 28, 2006 at 12:01 AM | PERMALINKhave to tell you, you have never flown an airplane if you believe the state's story. have you ever placed yourself into the left seat in a modern airliner? i think that you haven't. you really can't fly it unless you have spent lots of time flying it. oh, i know, you want to believe the fiction. we have your license plate number. we recognize your cocksucking allegiance to the state. i shall say it again. i am an early aopa member. been flying for years. none of these clowns were able to fly any commercial aircraft. oh, i understand that you want it to be the case that the bushit state wasn't the culprit that day. but the bushit was the culprit. Posted by: albertchampion on March 28, 2006 at 12:08 AM | PERMALINKThe feds should just give Moussaoui life w/o parole - then stick him in the general population of the prison. Need I say more? The man was a problematic defendant from Day One, as questions about his mental competence arose almost immediately, and was a real concern to Judge Brinkema. Both KSM and Binalshibh have "exonerated" Moussaoui from any formal direct-action of their doing or planning, and his own claims and counter-claims throughout this "trial" have placed his credibility clearly at risk. Other than attend a flight school, what else has he done that can be tangibly or circumstantially tied to "9-11"? The Richard Reid connection? Get Reid into court and have him confirm it. This case probably will be thrown out on appeal, whatever the jury decides, as Brinkema nearly stopped the trial last week due to prosecutorial misconduct, setting aside Moussaoui's own antics throughout the proceedings. Moussaoui is getting his 15min of fame, maybe some martyrdom points, but he's basically a sad-arsed POS who aspired to "greater things", and (fortunately) fell well short. While perhaps not in the same class as the woeful Iyman Faris and his blowtorching of the Brooklyn Bridge, far too much was made of this guy by the Feds, and what you see now is the result. Posted by: barrisj on March 28, 2006 at 12:18 AM | PERMALINKlet's continue. i should love to throw any of these anti-conspiracists into the flight deck of these boeings. and say to them, fly 'em. if you had the training that they had, you couldn't do it. you would be lost. no bushit wants to hear that. but that is reality. flying a modern airliner is not like driving a car. none of these clowns were equipped to fly a 757,767. oh, i understand that you bushits want to think otherwise, but you ain't able to think. you are so partisan that you cannot accept reality. you think that it happened that way that cnn told you that it happened. boy are you stupid. i am astonished that there is anyone still out there that accepts the bushit sty. oh, well, still proof of monstrous brain damage throughout the culture. The jury in N. Virginia would have probably voted guilty if the prosecution had rested its case in the first sentence of its presentation. If Moussaoui and Reid are cut of the same cloth as the 9/11 team, then albertchampion may have a point. Posted by: JS on March 28, 2006 at 1:14 AM | PERMALINKthen albertchampion may have a point. Posted by: JS on March 28, 2006 at 1:14 AM | PERMALINK Apparently its quite easily to fly a plane. Its hard to land it, take it of or handle emergencies. Go ask a pilot. Posted by: McA on March 28, 2006 at 1:24 AM | PERMALINKOccam's Razor, baby. The bane of all conspiracy theories. And cover for all conspiracies. If Moussaoui and Reid are cut of the same cloth as the 9/11 team, then albertchampion may have a point. Indeed. Posted by: Boronx on March 28, 2006 at 1:34 AM | PERMALINKMcA, I don't think albertchampion has a point. What I was trying to say was this: if the 9/11 hijackers were fools like Reid and Moussaoui, then they couldn't have pulled it off. Ergo, they weren't. Moussaoui and Reid look more like decoys to me. Posted by: JS on March 28, 2006 at 1:40 AM | PERMALINKwhy do you folks keep getting it wrong? it is not easy to fly a 737, 757, 767. it is not like getting into a car. and driving off. most importantly, for these ignorants, flying into the targets in nyc, was a virtual impossibility. McA didn't understand it somehow. it is not easy to fly these planes. you have to know lots of shit to do it.they are much more difficult than the little cessna that hamjour was it, couldn't fly. none of them could fly. that is fact that should cause you to stop and ponder the usg's fictions concerning that day. the mystery for me is why it is that you fascist bastids go to such lengths to sustain the bushits. are you all homosexuals? ernstroehmists? i think so. yeah, go ask a pilot. ask him/her to tell you about flying these boeings without lots of training. cannot be done my friend. you folks who think that flying these airliners can be done by tyros are idiots. less than idiots. Posted by: albertchampion on March 28, 2006 at 1:46 AM | PERMALINKmost of you are brain dead. let's think on it for a moment. you are a terrorist. running a terrorist cell. with unlimited funds. why the fuck would you do it the way that it has been described. think on it now. portland, me to boston, ma so as to impact a skyscraper in manhattan. what is wrong with this scenario? everything. just ponder upon that sequence. what ever would cause you to think that you could float your hijacking long enough to reach manhattan? more to the point, why would you avoid strategic targets so as to strike the wtc towers? consider, why did an attack on indian point nuclear plant not happen? after all, two of these planes flew right over it. and why not fly a few more miles south, taking out the exxon petrochemical complex in linden, nj? consider, real strategic damage could have been done. why wasn't it? everything that the state has told you about that day is such bullshit. you know it. we all know it. the towers didn't collapse because of these notional aircraft strikes. they went down just as wtc 7 went down. controlled demolition. everything you think you know about that day, you don't know. and i am astonished that there are still trolls out there trying to tell us otherwise.. worse, that there are individuals who believe these trolls. Posted by: albertchampion on March 28, 2006 at 2:13 AM | PERMALINKAnd, no Jews died in the WTC either . . . Posted by: Don P. on March 28, 2006 at 2:27 AM | PERMALINKworse, that there are individuals who believe these trolls. Posted by: albertchampion on March 28, 2006 at 2:13 AM | PERMALINK
As to the route, I thought the easiest way to navigate with a jet plane was by heading for the beacon of the next city. And that's just off flight simulator. The Moussaoui trial screams out that 9-11 was preventable. If we would have had a competent president that reacted to the August 6, 2001 PDB in some sort of meaningful way, and asked a few questions. Hell, one question, and that senseless act could have been prevented. Instead, he went jogging and cleared brush on his faux ranch. Pathetic...and pathetically incompetent. Posted by: Stephen Kriz on March 28, 2006 at 6:00 AM | PERMALINKAlbert, I'm in training for my PPL. I thought that most of the training on the big jets was ONLY through simulation because you can't afford to take them out for a spin in reality. Heck, if they're charging me $100+ for an hour in a Cessna, how much do you think they'd charge for a 747? Posted by: tzs on March 28, 2006 at 7:51 AM | PERMALINKalbertchampion: > let's continue. Oh let's. I just had my first cuppa coffee, so the idea of challenging > i should love to throw any of these anti-conspiracists into Well, I've never been on the flight deck of a commercial jet -- but To keep the plane level and make little turns, it really wasn't all > if you had the training that they had, Navigating by sight along a coastline? Not necessarily. > no bushit wants to hear that. but that is reality. People sympathetic to argumentative sanity aren't "bushits." First > flying a modern airliner is not like driving a car. Controlling any already flying airplane (as opposed to landing > none of these clowns were equipped to fly a 757,767. oh, i understand Once again, misdirected ad-hom attacks (hardly any Forgive us if we simply find that harder to believe > you are so partisan that you cannot accept reality. I'm partisan anti-Bush, bro. > you think that it happened that way Why don't *you* tell us what happened > boy are you stupid. More sharp rhetorical tactics from a guy who's got > i am astonished that there is anyone still out there Uh-huh. Boronx: > "Occam's Razor, baby. The bane of all conspiracy theories." > And cover for all conspiracies. That's the dumbest thing I've ever seen you say. As opposed to Not to mention more, umm, church attendance. albertchampion: > why do you folks keep getting it wrong? Ahhh ... more browbeating. Because we're not as smart as you? :) > it is not easy to fly a 737, 757, 767. Stick 'n' pedals. Roll, pitch and yaw. Don't > it is not like getting into a car. and driving off. No, it's more like holding the wheel for sombody going through his > most importantly, for these ignorants, flying into The two most prominent landmarks in the skyline? > McA didn't understand it somehow. it is not easy to fly these You keep repeating this. It sounds like the professional jealousy > none of them could fly. that is fact that should cause you It's hardly a "fact." Nobody said they could fly, in the sense of > the mystery for me is why it is that you fascist It's no mystery to me at all why you need to call us > are you all homosexuals? ernstroehmists? We fuck little boys in public restrooms :) > i think so. You'd like to, I'm sure. > yeah, go ask a pilot. ask him/her to tell you You keep conflating the "flying" they did with actually, you > cannot be done my friend. you folks who think that flying these You keep saying the same things over and over and over and over ... > most of you are brain dead. Uh-huh. > let's think on it for a moment. Hang on. I'll go cop my favorite hallucinogen :) > you are a terrorist. running a terrorist cell. with unlimited funds. Okay. > why the fuck would you do it the way that it has been described. Because it was doable. > think on it now. portland, me to boston, They were going for symbolic value. Omar Rahman said that he'd > just ponder upon that sequence. what ever would cause you to think Saudi muscle and boxcutters. > more to the point, why would you avoid strategic targets For, umm, the reasons you said. Because these > and why not fly a few more miles south, taking out Symbolic value. Perhaps they were more interested in taking > consider, real strategic damage could have been done. why wasn't it? To finish a job. Kinda like GW Bush in Iraq :) > everything that the state has told you Assertions aren't arguments. > we all know it. Who's "we," Paleface? :) > the towers didn't collapse because of these notional aircraft strikes. "Notional"? > they went down just as wtc 7 went down. controlled demolition. By whom? For what ends? > everything you think you know about that day, you don't know. And you know ... how? > and i am astonished that there are still Why don't you just quit beating around the > worse, that there are individuals who believe these trolls. How many people do you think believe your "alternate theory"? Bob Posted by: rmck1 on March 28, 2006 at 8:29 AM | PERMALINKthe August 6, 2001 PDB in some sort of meaningful way, and asked a few questions. Hell, one question, and that senseless act could have been prevented. Posted by: Stephen Kriz on March 28, 2006 at 6:00 AM | PERMALINK So a premptive invasion of Afghanistan would be a good thing? Hey, at least he asked questions on Iraq. "Are we sure there's no WMD?" Answer was no and war!!!!! In World War II ordinarily the Japanese didn't use real pilots to fly into ships. They had partly (specially) trained Kamikaze pilots. All they knew how to do was take off follow a heading toward the American fleet and aim the aircraft at a ship. Real pilots were too valuable to waste on such foolishness. There were some real pilots who flew their stricken aircraft into ships and other planes during WWII but they came from all countries including the US and England. Sometimes people get carried away. Sometimes they get mad. Sometimes they rush to the defense of another. But by and large there was no program to waste real pilots on kamikaze type attacks. It would have been a stupid waste of resources. Folks need to stop daydreaming. There was no need for real pilots to be among the hijackers on 9/11. There didn't have to be. Just idiots who knew how to steer a plane toward a building. They didn't have to know any more than that. If you know how to set an autopilot modern airliners pretty much fly themselves. Posted by: Ron Byers on March 28, 2006 at 9:02 AM | PERMALINKI suppose the real question is this: 1. Suicide is proscribed (haram) in Islam. Seems that's the psychological key here. If Z.M. thinks lying to get the death penalty is not technically suicide, I could see him doing it. As it stands, the evidence has always pointed to him being part of another set of terror attacks which surely would have been as bad as 9/11 but which were never carried out. Posted by: WatchfulBabbler on March 28, 2006 at 9:50 AM | PERMALINKHe is CRAZY just like the guy in AFGHANISTAN Posted by: Darwin on March 28, 2006 at 9:52 AM | PERMALINKJust give him life (as in for the REST of his life) and let the prison population hand out the death penalty. Seems like the "I was supposed to hijack a plane with Reid" line wouldn't stand up if Reid didn't have any flying experience. I'm pretty sure he didn't. Anyone know for sure? If you go back and read the reports of the trial, it's easy to see the decline of Moussaoui's mental state--and it wasn't great to start with. Moussaoui may be nutty enough to believe his own story, or may be trying to go down in what he believes is a blaze of glory, but in either case, his story is probably not true. Posted by: erica on March 28, 2006 at 10:41 AM | PERMALINKActually, there are plenty of success stories where Western powers defeated insurgencies. The British are quite good at it. They beat one in Malaysia, and then they beat the IRA in N. Ireland closer to home. The answer in the abstract is yes, we can win. In the current situation, with the current leadership, it's tougher. Posted by: Doctor Jay on March 28, 2006 at 10:48 AM | PERMALINK"Mr. Moussaoui said there were times when a Muslim can lie without being immoral: to reconcile Muslims, to answer "yes" when a wife asks, "Am I beautiful?" and to carry out jihad." What, no 'does my butt look big in this burka' exemption? No wonder divorce is so easy in Muslim societies? Doctor Jay wrote: "Actually, there are plenty of success stories where Western powers defeated insurgencies. The British are quite good at it. They beat one in Malaysia, and then they beat the IRA in N. Ireland closer to home. " In the Northern Ireland case, it involved multiple British governments (including the Tories, whose convention the IRA had bombed but a decade before), and thirty years of violence. And it ended up with the IRA's political wing, Sinn Fein, being the second most powerful party in Northern Ireland, and the former head of the IRA's Army Council, a powerful minister in the Northern Irish devolved government. Plus, the former quartermaster of the IRA's Belfast Brigade, Gerry Adams, is now treated like a celebrity worldwide. Did the British beat the IRA? Or was it the case that the IRA wangled themselves into a position where the deal was too sweet for them to refuse? Certainly the British did not defeat the IRA militarily - only reduce the level of violence to a politically acceptable rate of murder. It's also notable that when the IRA expanded their attacks to economic targets in the British mainland, such as the Baltic Stock Exchange, that the British government responded to offers to talks in earnest. I say the above as someone who lived in Northern Ireland during the height of the troubles and despised the IRA for their hypocrisy and violence. But there's no doubt that in the end they played their political hand stupendously. And let's not have any fantasies that the British ended the IRA's thuggery by military means. Posted by: Urinated State of America on March 28, 2006 at 11:36 AM | PERMALINK
> And cover for all conspiracies. As opposed to As opposed to nothing. I'm pointing out what's obvious. People's tendancy to believe the simplest explanation, while usually spot on, provides convenient cover for the devious. I would also say the theory that the 9/11 attack was a conspiracy of Al Qaeda only is not the simplest. No, it's far simpler to posit that element of Pakistani and Saudi intelligence were at least passively complicit than that the plan escaped their detection. Heck, it almost didn't escape our detection, though we apparantly were determined that it should. Albert Champion is not violating Occam's razor, BTW. He's making a different assumption than you:only a highly trained pilot could do what the hijackers did. Applying Occam's razor to that assumption, we would conclude there was a highly trained pilot among the hijackers. Why does Bush remember seeing footage of the first plane hitting the tower? Jeffrey, Bush doesn't remember seeing footage of the first plane hit the tower. That's a rumor that comes from Bush's famous poor elocution. I can't remember the exact quote, but if you read it closely, he's not saying that he saw the first plane actually hit, but that, when he got out of the classroom, the TV was on and they could then see the video of the plane hitting. It wasn't the first plane, since there's only one known video of that and it wasn't broadcast until quite a bit later, but basically that's what he was saying. Posted by: Rick on March 28, 2006 at 1:04 PM | PERMALINKAs I understand it, what is astonishing about 9/11 is not that they were able to fly the planes to big buildings in large cities. Rather, it is that they were able to (a) successfully hijack 4 out of 4 planes simultaneously, (b) successfully neutralize the pilots and take over while the planes were flying, (c) successfully keep control of the planes for significant periods of time (of course, the passengers could not resonably have anticipated the hijackers' intentions except in the last plane) and (d) plan all of this for a long period of time without being detected even though a large number of people knew of the plan. I don't think it's easy to pull off a hijacking of an airplane. Success in 4 out of 4 is due either to extreme luck or to very competent, well-trained hijackers. (Or both). Flying the planes at the same time they were controlling the crew and passengers adds one more element to the difficulty, but it's not the major element. Posted by: JS on March 28, 2006 at 1:41 PM | PERMALINKThe guy is bonkers. We are embarrasing ourselves by pretending he is important. Really this is the enemy we haven't managed to defeat? They can easily lock him up forever for what he actually did do and if the administration wasn't just trying to score political points with the whole thing they would save a few million dollars and just do that. Heh, and the british didn't 'beat' the IRA, they compromised with them politically until the only people left in the IRA were a few crazies with no popular support. It would be just as true to say the IRA 'beat' the british. Posted by: jefff on March 28, 2006 at 1:46 PM | PERMALINKIf Moussaoui is correct, then think about it, Al Qaeda is a one-trick pony. Al Qaeda had so few resources they were forced to throw Moussaoui and Reid at us? Those guys couldn't run a sidewalk lemonade stand, much less blow one up. I think it's more likely Moussaoui is nuts, and shouldn't be put to death. Posted by: American Citizen on March 28, 2006 at 2:33 PM | PERMALINKBoronx: > """Occam's Razor, baby. The bane of all conspiracy theories.""" > ""And cover for all conspiracies."" > "As opposed to > As opposed to nothing. I'm pointing out what's obvious. People's But as it's virtually tautological, it offers no insight. People > I would also say the theory that the 9/11 attack was a conspiracy Elements of Pakistani rougue Islamist ISI -- perhaps. Elements of > Heck, it almost didn't escape our detection, I'd still call it gross incompetence combined with an > Albert Champion is not violating Occam's razor, BTW. He's making a His assumption is precisely what Occam's Razor rejects for being too And he's doing it because he obviously feels extremely protective Bob Posted by: rmck1 on March 28, 2006 at 3:50 PM | PERMALINKAlbertchampion focuses on the improbability of untrained pilots' ability to successfully crash planes into WTC buildings. Don't forget the attack on the Pentagon, which required a the pilot to execute a 330-degree turn at 530 MPH, descending 7,000 feet in 2 1/2 minutes, to crash what allegedly was a commercial aircraft liner into the ground floor of the Pentagon. "[Flight 77] could not possibly have flown at those speeds which they said it did without going into a high speed stall. The airplane won't go that fast when you start pulling those high G maneuvers. That plane would have fallen out of the sky." -- Russ Wiuttenburg, commercial and Air Force pilot who flew two of the planes used on 9/11. There is no shortage of conflicting evidence that can be uncovered, and no shortage of administration cover up. I don't know if we'll ever find out what really happened, but it likely didn't happen the way we've been told. Posted by: Pyrrho on March 28, 2006 at 4:39 PM | PERMALINKI don't know what it takes to fly a 767, either it takes a highly skilled pilot to fly one or it doesn't Occam's razor has nothing to do with it. What Occam's razor does tell you is that if it doesn't require a highly skilled pilot, there's no reason to assume one. The Saudi government is anti-AQ, but it is also extremely corrupt and is chalk full of IMHO very rich, spoiled and legally untouchable SOBs that sympathize with Al Qaeda. Posted by: Boronx on March 28, 2006 at 5:12 PM | PERMALINKIt is all bullshit...and like the Kennedy assassination, the bottom never will be found. for the record, i have never been a commercial airline pilot. last bird i flew was a light twin. i quit flying it 30 years ago. but i keep up an interest in aviation, especially aircraft accidents. in a very real sense, my vocation is one of a forensic metallurgist[i.e., the study of the causation of failure]. i shall refrain from discussing the anomalies of some other recent aviation catastrophes, they were salient, but much more limited than all of the anomalies of 11/09/01. i shouldn't need to recount them, surely this knowledgeable group of commenters know of them by now. i am more than willing to accept the proposition that arabic men, relatively untrained, were able to hijack four commercial airliners, and fly them into targets. it is a highly improbable scenario. but i guess it could happen. but to believe that it happened as the usg told the sty borders on a citzenry committing an act of faith in believing the official story. i would feel a whole lot more comfortable about the events of that day if the kind of investigations that are required by law had occurred. each one of those airliner collisions with terrain should have been a separate investigation. as you know, the prevaricator of the united states prevented those investigations by executive order. just as an aside, i am aware of only 5 aircraft accidents in the conus which went uninvestigated since the faa/dot became required to make those investigations. the first one that i am aware of was the jfk, jr catastrophe. the next four, were the catastrophes of 11/09/01. all five of these investigations were prevented by presidential order. hmmmmm. it is an illusion that to pilot a modern commercial airliner requires only limited skills and no training: that flying one of those birds is tantamount to driving your car or a bus. if that were the case, as desperate as the airlines are to save money, anyone with only a driver's license should be eligible for such a job. but it must not be the case, because the requirements for crewing such birds are considerably higher than the possession of a driver's license. some day, if you can arrange it, slide yourself into the left or right seat of a 757, 767. one of the most probative aspects of the day would be the controller tapes. i don't have my sectional charts handy, but these airliners were under the control of more than one faa control centers. when the first two hijackings occurred, they were controlled by boston. at some point as they flew south, they entered the zone of new york control. the other two flights were in cleveland control territory, philadelphia control, i think. controller tapes are sort of interesting. the far concerning controller tapes requires that each controller's communications with aircraft, for the entirety of the controller's shift, are recorded. these tapes are then stored for 14 days. if not requested by any party[faa, litigant's attorney] within those 14 days, the tapes are returned to service and over-recorded. i first noted the disposition of controller tapes in the investigation into AS261. neither the faa, ntsb, nor any passenger's litigator subpoenaed the controller tapes within the 14 day time frame. hmmmmm. just as an aside, in that accident, there is no probative explanation for that accident without those tapes - why an aircraft in distress 3 miles off pt mugu nas was going to be vectored back to lax when there was an 11,000 ft runway at the pacific missile test center only seconds away remains an unexplained mystery. having said that, know that the controller tapes from 11/09/01 have not been made public. perhaps all of them went unseized as was the case in as261. perhaps the bushit gov allowed them all to become overwritten. perhaps they were seized by the fbi just as the flight data recorders were seized. just as the fbi seized the photographic records of the collision with the pentagon. they go undiscussed. somehow, however, we learned that a controller supervisor at new york control destroyed the controller tape[s] within hours after the collisions with manhattan terrain. he didn't lose his job. the bushit doj did not indict him for a misprision of a felony. the response to this revelation in the media was almost this, "oh, thank you for sparing us from having to learn how norad refused to interdict/intercept when notified by faa controllers of a hijacking." having said that, assuming that there were real terrorists in the usa who wanted to strike at totem poles rather than strategic targets, why would they conduct such operations so open to being stymied? firstly, why would you include accessing a commercial airliner in your scenario. why would you include a hijacking? these are variables that might shut your mission down at the outset. if i wanted to make a successful strike on nyc, dc i would never attempt the hijacking of a commercial airliner. a thoroughly foolish scheme. if one were a serious terrorist with a bankroll, one would buy or lease a plane. in 2001, 727's, DC-10's were cheap to buy, cheap to lease. acquiring such aircraft, you could find a little used airport, rent a hangar, and establish a dba as a aircraft renovator. under that rubric, you could familiarize your crew with the flight deck. and you could load the aircraft with explosives. on 08/11/01 you could preposition these birds without any difficulty. for manhattan, you could probably use newark or westchester county. for dc, you could probably use bwi, perhaps washington national[i shall never call it reagan national - what a travesty]. no chances for the mission being stymied now. from anyone of these fields, these birds could launch and strike before anyone would notice. within minutes. no chance of a norad intercept. no need to really fly. no need to turn off a transponder and activate alarms. so, you belong to a purported terror organization that has unlimited capital. trained by the us intell services. with backers at the highest levels of saudi arabia. with in-country bin-ladens engaged daily with the us intelligentsia, high society. [all business partners of the bushit family, by the way]. but you don't do it that most certain of ways. why? because there was no real investigation, we don't know much about the aircraft that collided with terrain that day. it is unlikely that any commercial airliner collided with the pentagon. and it is unlikely that any commercial airliner collided with the terrain outside of shanksville, pa and was swallowed up by the ground. perhaps one wide-body collided with a wtc tower. but was it a commercial airliner? we don't know. because the prevaricator prevented an investigation. though you might not know it, critical aircraft parts are serialized and linked to airframes, tail numbers. a real investigation could have collected the parts and linked them to an airframe/tail number. that this wasn't done propels me to conclude that the parts at the wtc site would not match with the purported colliding aircraft. this becomes a real issue when one considers the p&w engine that exited the tower and landed on church street. it was the engine of a 737. officially, no colliders that day were 737's. hmmmmmm. the interesting aspect of 737's is their usage, without tail numbers, by the usg. the usg operates a fleet of decades of 737's without tail numbers. at one time, you could observe these aircraft at mccarran international[las vegas]. you might still be able to. i haven't been to las vegas in some years. anyway, these unmarked 737's were the transports for area 51 and other facilities in the nevada desert. i have gone on too long. but the more i study that day, i continue to conclude that it was the furtherance of the coup that was cemented by the fascist supreme court. oh, in closing, you might want to read a study on mohammed atta that is ignored by the msm. it is entitled WELCOME TO TERRORLAND. isbn: 0970659164. it is the story of ATTA in Venice, FL. an investigation conducted in a NYT backyard[nyt owns the daily paper in that area]. by the way, i know this area very well. the story hopsicker tells is a true sty. read his investigation. think on why this tale has been untold. as bill hicks said once upon a time before his untimely demise: coup, coup, coup.
Zacarias Moussaoui & Richard Reid.... the DUMB & DUMBER of al-Qaeda. He's looking to be a martyr, any way he can. He's got about as much credibility as, um.... what's that guy's name that claimed Iraq had WMDs? Posted by: PBen on March 29, 2006 at 1:19 PM | PERMALINKhref="http://www.creditcardswanted.com/instant-approval-creditcards.html"> href="http://www.creditcardswanted.com/airline-milescards.html"> href="http://www.creditcardswanted.com/business-credit-cards.html"> href="http://www.creditcardswanted.com/gas-credit-cards.html"> href="http://www.creditcardswanted.com/low-insterest-creditcards.html"> href="http://www.creditcardswanted.com/american-express-creditcards.html"> href="http://www.creditcardswanted.com/bank-ofamerica-creditcards.html"> href="http://www.creditcardswanted.com/chase-credit-cards.html"> href="http://www.creditcardswanted.com/citibank-credit-cards.html"> href="http://www.creditcardswanted.com/columbus-credit-cards.html"> href="http://www.creditcardswanted.com/discover-credit-cards.html"> href="http://www.creditcardswanted.com/hsbc-credit-cards.html"> href="http://www.creditcardswanted.com/USbank-credit-cards.html"> href="http://www.creditcardswanted.com/calculator-mortgage.html">calculator Master card Master Cards and Mastercards best offers Chase master card You can search, compare and apply for Low Interest Credit Reports credit Affiliate programs are href="http://www.affiliateprogramswanted.net">web affiliate programs href="http://www.affiliateprogramswanted.com">affiliate program href="http://www.affiliateprogramswanted.com/affiliate-resources.html">affiliate Online travel reservation, travel href="http://www.travelsuper.com">discount hotels New York href="http://www.travelswanted.com/san-francisco-hotels.html">san francisco hotels href="http://www.travelswanted.com/new-york-hotels.html">new york city hotels href="http://www.travelswanted.com/toronto-hotels.html">toronto hotels href="http://www.travelswanted.com/dubai-hotels.html">dubai href="http://www.travelswanted.com/venice-hotels.html">venice hotels href="http://www.travelswanted.com/thailand-hotels.html">thailand hotels href="http://www.travelswanted.com/palm-springs-hotels.html">palm springs hotels href="http://www.travelswanted.com/mexico-hotels.html">mexico href="http://www.travelswanted.com/manhattan-hotels.html">manhattan hotels home security home security Article search Article search News articles News articles Health articles Health articles Science articles Science articles Free articles Free articles Find articles Find articles Business articles Business articles Technology articles Technology articles Psychology articles Psychology articles Nutrition articles Nutrition articles Chemistry articles Chemistry articles Science news articles Science news articles Marketing articles Marketing articles Health and fitness articles Health and fitness articles Fitness articles Fitness articles Education articles Education articles Medical articles Medical articles Sports articles Sports articles Computer articles Computer articles Research articles Research articles Management articles Management articles Article submission submit your articles free Child development articles Child development articles Food articles Food articles Internet marketing articles Internet marketing articles Economics articles Economics articles Business management articles Business management articles New articles New articles Physics articles Physics articles Top news Top news Top gear Top gear Top news story Top news story Top story Top story Top products Top products Top movies Top movies Top search Top search Top shop Top shop Top home based business Top home based business Top sites Top sites Top models Top models Top stuff top stuff Top search engine Top search engine Top news Top news Top news Top news Top gear Top gear Top news story Top news story Top story Top story Top products Top products Top movies Top movies Top search Top search Top shop Top shop Top home based business Top home based business Top sites Top sites Top models Top models Top stuff top stuff Top search engine Top search engine Top news Top news Free news Free news Myspace layouts Myspace layouts 
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