Schneier on Security

Nick P • October 3, 2014 3:18 PM

@ Schatzi

Thanks for that link! It’s awesome. I didn’t know about the 9/11 Consensus panel. I told 9/11 truth movement repeatedly in the past that they need to present simplified, concrete, indisputable evidence for lay people to mentally process. Then, build theories from that evidence. Otherwise, doubt and infighting destroys any progress on their goals.

I posted here under my old hacker alias a number of claims for 9/11 truth movement. I mixed very strong and controversial ones. The goal was to see how more thoughtful than average audience would approach it. The scientific result would be to accept or debate the strong claims, while rejecting the weak ones. What actually happened was almost everyone on the blog instead discussed why people are prone to conspiratorial thinking, why they don’t need to evaluate claims, why I might be deluded, and so on. If that’s how smart people react to criminal allegations, then how are people in general going to detect or punish well-executed crimes with strong coverups?

My mental recollections of why I decided 9/11 was a U.S. operation

Anyway, being an operator myself & studying U.S. covert ops for years, I immediately saw all the signs of covert operation of some sort. Here’s just a few things burned into my mind from back then:

1. They ignored many warnings.
2. Certain stakeholders began creating financial instruments that would pay off millions to billions if very specific disaster happened in a narrow window (incl 9/11). This was around a month before.
3. All kinds of disaster preparations and supplies started happening in areas later affected by 9/11.
4. NORAD authorized a record amount of war games that included basically every interceptor we had on hot standby, all to happen at once. If an attack happened during this time, our air defenses would be paralyzed. There’s not a precedent for this if I recall.

[rest isn’t necessarily in temporal order]

1. Attacks happen. Buildings visibly unaffected with fire burning in impact section. My personal experience (and firefighters’ testimony) was dark orange fires with black smoke indicate weak fire. Not a “raging inferno” melting struts, etc. Buildings remain standing.

2. People being interviewed describe bombs going off. Visibly injured by them. Firefighters mentioned this too and it helped motivate their evacuation.

3. A bunch of fires start burning ultra bright with white smoke and molten flows. Within seconds of this, the buildings fall at near free fall speed, every floor moves toward the ground simultaneously, and large pyroclastic clouds flow through the city. It looks like every implosion I’ve ever seen & has no traits of a building collapse. It also doesn’t pancake like designed: every floor moves as if there’s no core at all.

4. World Trade Center 7 falls the same way. FBI seizes every bit of camera footage they can.

5. NORAD fails to intercept other two planes despite successfully handling wayward planes in the past. Interceptors fly toward Canada and Atlantic for a period of time. Then, turn around and fail to intercept. What’s happening?

6. Pilot is directly lined up with Pentagon. Knows where joint chiefs & significant capabilities are. Hitting it from top could kill thousands of people & black out some capabilities. It would be the easiest run ever.

7. Pilot instead pulls an “ace” maneuver that most 757 pilots can’t do in simulation. He nearly wrecks the plane several times to hit a specific target. That target is the emptiest part of the Pentagon with a bomb-reinforced wall. A terrorist aiming to do max damage with a straight shot to it instead risked his mission repeatedly doing a highly improbable maneuver to hit the weakest part of the Pentagon. Unfortunately, the office auditing the Pentagon’s spending (and many of its records) were destroyed. No significant capabilities were affected and casualty list was tiny. Result: terrorist did no significant damage & benefited any corruption in Pentagon. Some terrorist… Data recorder is seized & made secret.

8. Flight 93 goes down. FBI initially indicates no evidence anyone made it into cockpit. Local reporting on crash site contradicts their story along with cell records. Data recorder is seized and kept secret.

9. FBI almost immediately has evidence it’s Osama bin Laden along with the list of hijackers. Also claims they were careful and maintained great OPSEC. Their speed at gathering this evidence is remarkable. So is the fact that one piece of evidence was a hijackers passport that survived impact and that the lead hijacker left an orgy of evidence at the airport. Nobody does the latter unless they want it to be found.

10. Osama bin laden releases a statement saying he had nothing to do with 9/11. Claims he’s in Afghanistan and not allowed to do operations. Thought the attack was unusual in its motivations. FBI later confirms they have no evidence tying him to 9/11. Implies all “evidence” given to public was fabricated.

11. A press release says FBI agents sued the U.S. government claiming they were watching the hijackers, knew they were up to something, attempted to arrest them, and were ordered to stand down by Washington. They also had CIA people in the operation who efforts hurt the operation more than helped it. The operation was called Able Danger.

12. Bush and Cheney refused an independent investigation. Reports of evidence destruction start to mount. A group nobody has ever heard of starts destroying the steel of the tower en masse in violation of federal law. The official account, by NIST and FEMA, is based on a study of a random sample of that steel that was selected by those destroying it.

13. Victims families, independent investigators, conspiracy sites, and petitions force them to take action. They create 9/11 Commission.

14. One politician quits saying they were basically being ordered to present a certain story, had no access to internal evidence, and so on.

15. Commission wants all data on Operation Able Danger. Government destroys most of its records, then gives a select few to Congress. Those select few “prove” they were innocent. Such a methodology might have proven Enron innocent as well. Destruction of evidence is a felony and usually a sign of guilt.

16. 9/11 Report glosses over, ignores or deceives on key details. These include financial bets on disaster, people given warnings, people reporting explosions, war games paralyzing air defense, and so on. Hence, report was either disinformation or seriously compromised by others’ disinformation.

17. Government reports released in 2005 and 2006. The reports confirm many specific claims that back the demolition hypothesis, while also ignoring a demolition hypothesis. The government had previously said these claims were false or fabricated. They cited their internal investigations. These are the internal investigations and they say the opposite. Deception of this nature is usually a sign of guilt.

18. Independent analysis of the materials find thermite. Recently, University of Coppenhagen found a nano-engineered superthermite in a sample claiming to be the core. I considered a possible hoax. However, the only reference to such a thing came from 2000 in a document about a new superthermite for US military covert operations, including demolition. It has similar properties. Did a hoaxer get a classified blend/process, produce it with nanofabrication equipment, and then simulate a realistic use of a fake/real core sample? Or was it a real sample of a core brought down by covert demolition? Occam’s razor suggest the latter in light of other data.

19. Recent FEMA report claims a strange effect on WTC core samples: razor sharp holes punched through the steel with sulfidation. Common with demolitions. They instead try to wildly speculate on how a regular fire could’ve done it.

20. Pilots for 9/11 Truth claim that declassified data records totally contradict flight path, elevation, & even hijacking claims by government. Indicate the planes may have never even crashed.

21. A number of engineers, business people, military, pilots, and spooks review the evidence. The number that rejects official theory in favor of one that’s quite criminal in nature only grows every year.

22. Some people in U.S. government admit they had everything they needed to stop 9/11 without need of new laws or capabilities. They simply failed on every level, some simultaneously.

23. Key politicians opposing the rushed Patriot Act were hit with anthrax. It was the same strain as that developed at Fort Detrick for U.S. biological warfare. All opposition to the bill ended. After that limited set of attacks, the attackers never used anthrax again. The result of the attacks only benefited military, law enforcement, and intelligence field. The attacks didn’t benefit, not are typical of, Middle Eastern terrorists.

Given alone the foreknowledge, financial bets, and destruction of evidence, the strongest hypothesis is that 9/11 was a false flag operation done by a combination of private and public sector personnel. They then fabricated as much as they could to push a certain story, get tons of money, enact pre-made foreign policy in Middle East, pass pre-written laws that stripped our rights, and turn the country into a surveillance state with police state powers. It was a coup and it worked.

Nick P • October 3, 2014 11:59 PM

@ Anura

I disagree that motives, etc are a problem. Doing an investigation that way is a common mistake. The proper place to start is the scene of the crime. The physical evidence, eye witnesses, and any data from reliable source (eg black box, video cameras). Once basic facts are picked up, hypotheses are formed and tested. The investigation goes further, identifying suspects & potential motives. At that point, you worry about that stuff. Most of what’s in the Consensus site & my own timeline are from the initial data collection. Much concrete data disproving the official story & implying things like demolition means I have to consider it. The What is, empirically, more important that the Who or Why. And can lead to that.

I’ll try to address your points on damage, skill, number of people, etc anway. I’m addressing them because I’m experienced enough & thought on it enough to assess that. Other readers might be curious on those points as well.

One potential situation that’s similar is Pearl Harbor. The U.S. did plenty of things to provoke Japan into attacking in self-defense. Before they did, there were still warnings from many highly reliable sources. On top of this, their code for war with U.S. was intercepted & we knew attack was on the way. Everyone should’ve been on alert. Nobody at Pearl Harbor notified. They get smashed to pieces with huge losses. America immediately enacts the policy that military wants: war with Japan (among others) & huge military expendatures. Most of this was under a tight group under FDR’s control. Deaths were close to 3,000 with over 1,000 wounded. Sure it was just all a series of dozens of accidental intelligence, policy, and communications failures. 😉

Far as 9/11, they wanted sweeping changes in military policy and civil rights. Their own documents, like infamous PNAC document, showed they felt our survival as a country depended on massive military and intelligence expansion with plenty of intervention in the Middle East. Had many specific policy recommendations. It said this would be an uphill battle & slow process to make happen “unless a catalyzing event were to occur like a new Pearl Harbor.” That’s what Bush always called 9/11. And after it happened, many of the policies in that document became Bush’s policies. And the expansions they thought were necessary to protect 300+ million people occurred. At a cost of only 3,000 people. Military strategists think of it as a numbers game & those are good numbers.

Of course, it’s not the first time they’ve planned a false flag against Americans. They were willing to hijack airliners, destroy ships, bomb Miami, fake news reports, fake funerals, plant evidence, etc to make people think Castro was attacking us. America would be outraged and demand action against the Cuban attackers. The military would have the war they believed was necessary. Rather than a rebuke, the document has the signature of the Chairman of Joint Chiefs: the commander of the commanders of the military. Top brass was all for staging terrorism to get the war going. JFK personally rejected it and so we didn’t loose lives from black ops here + war over there. SECDEF MacNamara claimed later he wouldn’t accept it. So, only two guys up top standing between military covert operators and innocent Americans. What if they decided differently?

On that note, a 9/11 operation would be a small clique. The PNAC document featured Rumsfield’s name. Dick Cheney is the main guy that ran all of it. He’s long time Washington, military, and private contracting vet. The guy could easily run his own black programs split between many entities & previously supported us dominating the world with military might. Paul Wolfowitz has always been his right hand man. Zackheim was comptroller & could cook books for them. The NORAD head would be involved (eg air defenses disabled). Bush would go along with it willingly, grudgingly, or for sake of his family. The irony is that the force that allegedly attacked us was equipped by his father’s CIA (Sadam too). Tying up loose ends? 😉

Another Bush helped insure the WTC for billions in event of disaster and did security for the building, where he weakened security. Usually a bad situation in the making. Most government or military people involved would be given orders that are different, seemingly justifiable, maybe typical Washington BS, etc They’d not see the big picture. Cheney and his few partners had a chance to influence every single party to this while giving them disinformation. His strategy would be to make it look like they were all involved in typical incompetence that added up to tragic results. They’d suspect that he was covering up murder, but they’d sleep at night “knowing” it was more likely that he was covering incompetence. And they were in the same boat. They’d do it too.

The actual operation would require boots on the ground. They’d need planners, operators, and fall guys. The Saudis and Pakastanis apparently produced the fall guys for us. For planners, operators, and secrecy you must realize something: there are a large number of people who would plan or execute the murder of 3,000 Americans for the greater good of 300+ million. I’d considered it myself in response to certain biological threats (eg bird flu). The covert ops community continuously does deniable missions, including false flags by their own admission. How many confessions do you have today? Zero? Or just a few about stuff that’s barely important? Our of hundreds to thousands of classified missions? Exactly.

These people aren’t like average military or techies like Snowden. They are intensly profiled for ability to follow orders, keep secrets, and maintain loyalty. Cheney would just pick the best of that category, explain the importance of this “sacrifice” to them, make them feel elite of elites, reward them well for participation, and optionally kill them off afterward with accidents or risky missions. The whole operation, assuming we’re just talking demolition & terrorist handling, could be done by one team plus Cheney’s main henchmen for govt side. That’s less than twenty people that have critical knowledge*.

• See where concentration of power and secrecy get us? Under twenty to potentially subvert whole U.S. government. That bothered me more than 9/11.

Throw in a few in New York, some in other agencies, and so on you have potentially under 50 people. Plus maybe CDI for the planning, although that could’ve been for a potential & legit demolition they never did. Not they anyway. So, this operation can be plenty small, the head money-mover of the Pentagon can fund it, and the Pentagon + WTC7 hits unfortunately destroyed a lot of records across the board. I could’ve done this operation with total deniability and a mere millions as described. So, I’m sure they could’ve done it with seasoned operators, internal supporters, plenty yes men, hundreds of billions, and the ability to deny Congress/courts information.

“That they knew an attack was coming and deliberately let it happen demands further evidence that can’t be explained away by incompetence.”

Exactly. That plus the forensic evidence adds up to undeniable implications. From there, the theories only get darker. And I hope I’ve shown that the Who and Why are about as solid as the What. As solid as black ops investigations get anyway.

Nick P • October 4, 2014 2:27 PM

@ SmokingHot

Note: This post took so much time and energy to write it might be my last on the topic. More details and debates can be found elsewhere. I’ve written about all I’d write on the few points worth making. Need to redirect my energy to other things.

“I am not sure there of the entire scenario you are thinking up, but I do not see any real meaty motive there. ”

There wasn’t a real, meaty motive for the vast majority of military actions the U.S. has been involved in. If there’s money or foreign influence, they’ll kill for it. An example is Guatemala. The country was being economically raped by our companies like United Fruit. The newly elected leader seized that stolen land, gave the jobs/money over to locals, and offered to sell the product at market prices. Makes sense. United Fruit leveraged political power (maybe bribes) to push Washington to do something about that threat to U.S. economic interests (how they see it). So, U.S. sends the CIA in to launch a covert war on that government, overthrow it, and replace it with a dictator that gives our companies’ what they want. In exchange, we support his people in their dominance of Guatemala, including teaching him terror/torture techniques to suppress the local population. United Fruit gets their land and cheap produce back. All that was necessary to motivate such horrors.

Note: The British were impressed by Guatemala. They took note when Iran took back their oil fields from BP. Asked CIA to come repeat their strategy in Iran (Operation Ajax), run from U.S. embassy. Clinton, Obama, and CIA (recently) admited we eliminated their democracy as “an act of U.S. foreign policy.” Now does the embassy takeover make sense? 😉 Can’t find my summary by CIA analyst, but this guy seems accurate even if also a showman.

General Butler, a double Medal of Honor winner, reports in War is a Racket (free here) that the reason he led wars were always different from what public were told. It was usually for money, often for a specific company or companies. The military, he said, was essentially a giant mob that pushes our economic and foreign policy interests on the world. His book was his confession along with proposed solutions. Govt similarly lied about the USS Maine to start Spanish-American war. Luisitania was vessel giving covert military support to Europe because American people didn’t want to be involved in WW1. It was [legitimately] destroyed, the U.S. govt lied saying a ship of innocent civilians was blown up, America was outraged, and we were in WW1.

We (and others) dominated Vietnam for decades in covert actions, fueled civil wars to weaken local defense, and so on. Eventually, Johnson administration staged aspects of Gulf of Tonkin event to give a pretext for a war in self-defense, formally invaded them, even used chemical warfare (Agent Orange) on them, suffered great losses from insurgent warfare, and withdrew after no success. Pentagon Papers later confirmed all the above, showing it was lies and imperialism. Nothing worth the loss of money and human life on either side except to secretive people in military/government/business.

So, the U.S. military and intelligence types consistently show they’re willing to deceive the American people, stage events, launch covert wars, etc for little to no reason. The payoff is always negative for soldiers and taxpayers, but positive for a tiny few that get something out of it. (Just like Butler said decades ago.) This is consistent all the way back to around 1900. Might go further back if I had studied such things. (Well, the Native American genocide…) I just cited the cases where there’s credible, public-domain evidence and the U.S. government admitted some of it. There’s plenty more…

So, the question is did they covertly cause 9/11 as a pretext to enact domestic and foreign plans they already had? The “best evidence” as consensus panel has is that they knew it was coming, people made money off apparent foreknowledge, the buildings had explosives in them, evidence was destroyed, alternate evidence was fabricated, independent investigations were blocked, people who did worst got promoted, nobody was fired or imprisoned, and the event was used as leverage for all sorts of previously unjustifiable acts. These details, along with pervasive denials & revisions, indicate top individuals in government participated in this and are covering it up.

From there, I have to look at motive. Compared to past U.S. atrocities, there were an acceptable (to them) amount of casualties with minimal effect on our military capabilities. The payoff would be hundreds of billions in extra budget, specific people involved get rich (did btw), their foreign policies (including wars) would occur, their domestic policies (ditch Constitution) could occur, and less liability due to Congressional oversight and criminal prosecutions. That many of these were admittedly publicly as their agenda, seen as necessary to our survival, and all happened after 9/11 shows they’d have plenty of motive. They had more motive than any military heads since WW2. That they’ve cited terrorists and 9/11 to justify any BS waste of money, expansion of police power, reduction of civil rights, etc shows they’re opportunists in practice who see it as a pretext.

Clive’s evolving views on it are a nice change from his older comments. 😉 His theory, if I’m reading it right, is consistent with mine: they worked through third parties to develop, encourage, and execute the terrorist attack. I’ll expand that to say they did a covert operation over here to run simulateously with the Middle Eastern operation they were influencing. The domestic operation guarantees results in specific ways. The foreign operation is what the people will see, is kept in check by partners, and will leave a paper trail pointing a bullseye at an organization that all parties won’t mind gone. It’s the kind of thing the U.S., esp CIA, has done in many other countries by their own admission, often with success.

Now, I’ll address some specific points your were curious about.

re Saudis (Clive beat me to that)

The 9/11 Commission Report mentioned a critical piece of evidence. At one point, a terrorist was being questioned by Arab Americans posing as Saudi’s. They believed AQ was terrified of their Saudi opponents & it might make an effective technique. Instead, the terrorist is relieved, thanks them for showing up, says he’s connected, starts giving off phone numbers for confirmation, etc. Confused, they give it to the CIA and they start checking numbers. Royalty, intelligence types… many powerful and influential people in Saudi Arabia. Further investigation indicates the terrorists operated with major financial support from Saudi Arabian organizations. Aka, powerful Saudi’s funded 9/11. The specifics are in 28 secret pages of a report that remain classified.

So, we went into Saudi Arabia and smashed those organizations, right? No, instead Bush I see walking hand-in-hand with Saudi leader, cutting them good deals & training their security forces. I was also annoyed by all the “Saudi is our friend” ads on the local radios at the time. Propaganda… Our country then invades Afghanastan without getting bin Laden, smashes the AQ patsies, authorizes a lucrative oil pipeline long demanded, & lets the country degrade into our biggest source of opium. Then, they forge WMD evidence about Sadaam Hussein, smash his country, find no WMD’s of course, leave the region unstable, and Exxon+China get huge oil support deals. We remain in both countries to influence the region, as per foreign policy I mentioned earlier.

It would seem if it was really about terrorism that things might have gone the other way around. The Saudi’s that, according to the official story, financed the murder of 3,000+ Americans would be punished by military action. Instead, they get extra-special deals by U.S. Govt and Pentagon that most others don’t, while two other countries are hit (one totally unrelated). While we’re talking about motives, can you explain that while maintaining our goal was eliminating those supporting terrorism? 😉

re people that follow orders

You’re confusing intelligence and ideology. The best example is religion. People of all types of intelligence believe irrational or improbable things on faith, sometimes making huge sacrifices for it. Church of Scientology, for instance, pulled off a huge operation against the U.S. with epic numbers of both targets and covert agents. Many smart, connected, and financially successful people that also believe Hubbard’s science fiction is true. In the military and intelligence fields, you likewise have intelligent and capable people who ideologically believe what they’re doing is necessary. Much of the information they see (eg classified files) is also controlled by those over them, further shaping their worldview. Funny thing is that many of them feel that they know (and shape) the real world more than those on outside when they’re actually deceived and used by a few on the inside. Poor, deluded souls.

Fun example of a successful operator here. His story didn’t end so well. That he is one of the few recent one’s I have details on show that the majority in the field (hundreds to thousands) are more reliable, yeah?

re FBI agent claim

“This is a well known aspect of the case. As far as I have heard, there was no intentional screw ups, but typical secrecy and lack of information sharing. Disconnects between foreign intelligence and local intelligence and the boundaries set up between the two. CIA and FBI infighting seems to be a thing.”

That’s not what the agents said per the early stories I got. A joint team of FBI and CIA people were on top of them plenty. Had an amazing amount of data. FBI agents believed they were about to attack. They wanted to take them down, using existing evidence for prosecution. They were ordered to stand down. 9/11 resulted. They had what they needed and were told not to use it. That’s not a failure of intelligence sharing: that’s being denied the ability to act on existing intelligence and stop an immediate threat that’s moving on their plans. So, the intelligence failure explanation is clearly a government lie if the agents are telling the truth. The task for independent investigation would be to identify if the agent’s claims where true. If so, where the order came from and why. (eg incompetence or something else)

That they destroyed most of the records before investigations should be treated as a sign of guilt. Maybe charge them all with that and cut them a plea deal in exchange for corroborated information. Like they do everyone else.

re FBI stance on OBL

“I would like to see the “FBI’s” stance there.”

His wanted poster didn’t mention 9/11. He said he didn’t do it shortly after the attacks. In seeking to reject or accept that, I looked at his history. Virtually every attack was against a military or embassy target, with AQ taking credit plenty of times. So far, WTC and him denying credit are unusual. The government was working very hard to avoid giving any solid evidence to anyone, including Taliban pre-invasion. Additionally, there were numerous reports (example) that Bush/Cheney Admin. rejected Taliban offers to turn over bin Laden to us if we gave them evidence of his guilt & ended the bombing. It wasn’t the first time we rejected an offer to take bin Laden, either.

So, AQ operatives or leadership might have been involved. So far, though, they have shown nothing tying OBL to it, blocked opportunities to provide such evidence, and maybe blocked an opportunity to get him. This behavior is more consistent with him being a covert partner of theirs (one assertion) or a fall guy for the world to focus on instead of the real perps. I’m leaning toward the latter as evidence supports that most.

re people standing to get rich

9/11 Consensus link I gave you has some information you seek. This page addresses insider trading that happened where people made very specific bets about disaster in a narrow time window. Essentially, you’d have to know people were about to hijack the planes of that specific company. Investigations showed people in the company worked (working?) for the CIA previously. So, a CIA connected company seems to know about a terrorist plot that CIA agents are tracking (see above), bet millions on the details of the plot, and their bet pays off thanks to… pure luck. Please…

WTC owners. WTC was a landmark and believed to be nearly indestructable. This was evidenced by surviving fire much more severe than 9/11 fires & a bombing. Yet, the operation was a financial mess. That Silverstein would even take it over for prices quoted is an odd decision. He did take out a policy for $3.5 billion in August. Buildings are hit in September. Two weeks later, he’s suing for $7 billion claiming he should get paid twice because technically there’s two events. WSJ reports that his battle is mostly over with the cap just over $4 billion, he’s still battling aviation industry trying to get their insurance to pay, and now he’s sitting on $6-10 billion liability.

So, he might have been tricked into thinking he’d profit off another smaller attack which turned out to be way worse than he was told. Or he’s an innocent victim in it. Personally, I go back and forth on him because he acts like an aggressive opportunist thinking only of money, but also had legal obligations that would justify the insurance policy. (who knows…)

Dick Cheney. He has political and financial rewards tied to this. He’s been one of the strongest promoters of covert and overt military dominance of the globe. Short version: he’s a power mad, pyschopath in a position of great power, money, and secrecy. He’s also a supporter of huge defense budgets and spending, which the pre-9/11 trends worked against. He also had financial ties to Haliburton, even being its (CEO?) at one point. Haliburton got plenty of contracts, including no bid’s, after 9/11. Both he and them made plenty of money. His policies and spending goals were met. He couldn’t be doing better after 9/11.

Rumsfield is more motivated by power and ideology than money. He’s definitely got money as his Foundation shows and has held positions in think tanks and defense contractors. He likely makes his money from insider trading on defense stock as many in Congress do. 😉 Post 9/11, he advocated hitting as much as possible, using it as an opportunity to reshape world like post-WW2, pretexting Iraq, info operations that might affect U.S. citizens, torture, and so on. His record indicate his moral philosophy is the end justifies the means. He co-authored the PNAC document that pushes for all post-9/11 activities they did. So, it’s clear he wanted what 9/11 provided & had the potential to participate (esp propaganda). The other military people involved would have similar mindsets as Pentagon culture encourages that.

Dov Zakheim. He was a PNAC signatory, meaning he agreed with ideologies of other two. He was also a defense contractor and handpicked by Bush. So, he’s in the clique at least. His job was to control and fix the Pentagon’s accounting records. Ideal position to cook the books, too. Actually, that’s a legit part of his job if you consider SAP’s & USAP’s, our black programs. The results of his stay indicate he might have been leaning toward the direction of sneaky stuff. So far, no evidence of his direct involvement. Yet, he ideologically, politically, and financially stood to benefit if it occurred.

Defense industry. They made a killing. Get it? Yeah, it’s not funny…

Oil industry. They made huge profits with some of the largest CEO and shareholder payouts. Some of this was profiteering with Katrina as a patsy. Some of this was Middle Eastern activities where War on Terror cleared out their obstacles. They had contributed majorly to the campaigns of the President and many Congressmen, as usual.

Congress. A combination of campaign contributions by defense/oil/banking industries, votes from its million plus workforce, and votes/contributions by those that supported the military expansion. Whether they like it or not, they have motivation to get on the bandwagon. And a steady stream of “they’ll kill us all unless…” propaganda helped.

Major media organizations. They’re morally neutral. Anything that brings in attention for their ad revenue. They like using BS to incite fights because conflict and emotion draws attention more. Their participation in [mostly] censoring inconvenient facts would keep their privilged relationship to government, still give citizens plenty of stuff to fight over, and maintain high profits for they and their customers (advertisers). So, no matter what, they win so long as they appear to be informing citizens and the situation is messed up enough for people to talk about.

Investors. The War on Terror was largely financed with debt. The bankers, who also pay Congress, love to give loans to the taxpayer. The interest is almost guaranteed to keep rolling in. Plus, any people in government or private sector seeing this coming could invest in companies that benefit from wars. This could enrich them plenty. I know it did the banks but I didn’t check the numbers on stocks so who knows.

Criminals. The war in Afghanistan was the best thing to ever happen for drug dealers. Previously, the Taliban had the stuff under control. Now, it’s a $5 billion market according to one claim. The CIA’s checkered history in this area and others certainly doesn’t help us save face. Recently, Russia has complained that U.S. is protecting the poppy fields and is delaying destroying the opium labs they tell us about. Might be incompetence, might be same deals and profits from the past. Either way, pot and heroin dealers are making a lot of money thanks to our occupation.

Soldiers & contractors in the warzone. Some had great financial benefits. Many are killed, maimed, or suffer PTSD. So, barely beneficial or major loss for most, windfall for a few. Benefit to work & risk ratio way worse than many above.

Taxpayers. Hundreds of billions in debt with more coming due to veteran’s future expenses. Also an opportunity cost where that money might have substantially benefited them in healthcare, education, infrastructure, R&D, and so on. Efforts are major loss for taxpayers and their decendents who will pay for events. (intergenerational tyranny)

So, plenty of motive, opportunity, and payoff. Only question is was the relationship between the three causal or fool’s luck. Consensus says the only luck they had was that people didn’t look harder at the causes. And people continue to pay the price with their money and liberty today. And the one-sided games continue.

Nick P • October 6, 2014 12:01 AM

@ SmokingHot

You used a lot of words to say very little about what was discussed. For the sake of others, I’m going to condense it down into what it seems like you said.

1. What those in power at the time wanted could’ve been done without 9/11. They said otherwise in their own writings, esp PNAC Rebuilding America’s Defenses. Said it wouldn’t likely happen without a “new Pearl Harbor.”
2. We and Israel were suffering terrorism at the time. Implying we were going through something similar in effect to Israel’s experience or 9/11. My recollection is people were shocked & 9/11 was first time terrorism had a real effect on their minds. It was nothing like Israel’s situation lol.
3. Certain low magnitude terrorist attacks, including one by a Christian local, didn’t cause sweeping effects. So, a scary attack by Muslim terrorist killing thousands of people and hitting our war headquarters wouldn’t have much power either. Not quite same thing.
4. Ignore all strongest points on 9/11.

5. Ignore all examples I posted citing a consistent US policy of imperalism, covert warfare, and deceit of its people supporting those going back almost 100 years.

6. You ignore the point about Scientology’s Snow White operation because it shows (a) massive infiltration & subversion of US government by ideologically crazy agents is possible; (b) many intelligent people will go along with such crazy stuff just because people they trusted asked them to; (c) they can get away with it with little to no evidence left. 9/11’s core team, by comparison, needed less than 1% of the personnel and hit under 10% of targeted agencies.

7. You cite Iran-Contra and Watergate, two isolated examples that have nothing to do with the trends I referenced.

8. You build an argument that the covert, evil stuff is only isolated cases. You leverage the red herrings you introduced as evidence of this argument. You supported your faux position by ignoring the trend and leveraging the red herrings. Playing games?

9. You bring up angels and UFO’s. You must really want this topic dismissed by a huge chunk of readers.

10. You demand a specific kind of evidence that exceeds the burden of proof in many criminal investigations of serious felonies. You ignore the fact that lying to Congress, lying to courts, and destruction of evidence in criminal investigations are all crimes themselves. My original report indicated they did each of these things and provably per their own people or materials. Further evidence isn’t necessary to put them in prison or plea them for more evidence.

11. You reference the Snowden leak that proved that the NSA did far more than most conspiracy nuts claimed they did. People reading this might forget that hundreds of thousands of people knew about that and only a few came forward. Four people out of hundreds of thousands. A criminal action like the 9/11 operation with 20-50, handpicked people might have 0 leakers at that rate.

So, your overall approach is to ignore strong evidence relating to the event in question and the trends for the government, while bringing in red herrings that distract from such evidence or turn an audience away. I have no idea why you’re doing this. I do know it can only take us away from whatever truth is there. So, I’d prefer any conversation to stick with… what actually happened that day or in U.S. military/intelligence history. Meanwhile, you seem to have an agenda that might be personal or professional so I’m moving on.

Nick P • October 6, 2014 8:53 PM

@ Wael

“Maybe you need to relax a little after this effort :)”

Thanks. 🙂 Probably do. Of course, still got personal battles to beat and high security schemes to build. Plus, DARPA’s newest R&D program might independently discover the invention I just made recently. It requires no modifications to most hardware, is cheap to add on other hardware, has zero to little performance impact, will work with some legacy systems, and stops all forms of low-level code injection. I’m really considering patenting it to ensure they don’t do it first and take it off the market. It’s also compatible with lawful intercept or NSL’s if necessary. (In US, that’s necessary…)

How’s that sound? Is that the shit or what? :O

Nick P • October 6, 2014 10:25 PM

@ Wael

The word was used plenty that day according to numerous sources. None are quite suspicious. That they would’ve spent plenty of time preparing for the actual, covert demolition I agree with. I just doubt that’s what Silverstein was talking about. I also doubt he would even know about it. If we assume he’s involved, telling him the specifics is unnecessary (“need to know”) and makes him a liability. He wouldn’t have known what they were doing. Even the company allegedly reducing the security of the building doesn’t need to know what’s going to happen.

Honestly, it makes no sense to tell him a covert demolition is happening. The risk of the op runs too high. But conspiracy sites’ advertising, books, and vids sold plenty with such things. So, I leaned toward them making the stuff up because we must remember they have the same selfish motives as the other side.

“If you can afford to part with 10K, then you should patent it. Then you can license your technology to others that can afford it.”

Yeah, that’s the problem. Gotta have a sponsor. Both for the patent and initial development. I’d rather it be done at least by good coders, if not by expert security engineers. I considered trying to get the sponsor to give OpenBSD people a huge donation in response for certain coders (a) developing my solution and (b) ensuring their OS works on it. Or CHERI team as they already converted FreeBSD to a capability-based processor. My conversion would be… so much simpler. And work side-by-side with theirs.

Just don’t got the money by far. Plus, I’m not willing to give ownership over to a VC firm. I have to control the I.P. to keep it on the market despite pressure from numerous parties & ensure the security of critical operations. So, it would have to be a group thinking of it as charity, government funding (haha), or a loan that just made a certain interest rate if the business is successful.

Nick P • October 6, 2014 10:34 PM

@ Adjuvant

Good link. Haven’t vetted it yet but it’s the kind of precursors to a good inside job that I’ve been talking about. If true, it only further cements the theory as giving them every bit of access they need to do the job and preventing their operation from being detected (i.e. bomb sniffing dogs removed). I recall there was a claim that the same Bush also helped get the insurance policy. Not sure if that’s the case but being charged with security for the building, getting a financial stake in the [negative] outcome of that, and reducing security would be a suspicious, dangerous combination.

Nick P • October 7, 2014 2:13 PM

@ Skeptical

Actually, they didn’t per their own report and statements in interviews. I’m only talking about what their actual investigation did and worked with. Most of the steel was rapidly destroyed, with NIST getting only a little of it. Most of their data was based on a simulation-driven process that is quite thorough, but seems to selectively omit or modify critical variables.

@ Clive, Skeptical

Read this link’s section titled “Twin towers WTC1 and WTC3… NIST Final report on collapse 2005.”

Note: I’m not endorsing the site or all it’s claims. It just has a link to NIST final report & criticisms that seem to be valid.

The biggest problem with all those analyses is they ignore all the reports of bombs going off from massive ones near support structures in basement to minor ones throughout building (mainly near core). That witness testimony was sealed, with NYT fighting for a year to get it out. These aren’t sounds of explosions but actual explosions that injured or killed people. Electrical explosions of transformers or oxygen generators explains some of it. Not all though. And certainly not why authorities would hide it or allege explosions were fraud.

So, planes (cept for WTC7) do damage to specific sections, fires didn’t reach higher than 600C degrees per NIST physical analysis, a bunch of explosions go off in all three buildings for over half an hour, all core beams (per vid analysis & NIST report) fail simultaneously in each building, every floor falls simultaneously at near free fall, and massive pyroclastic clouds come out the area during collapse with wreckage smoldering for days to weeks.

NIST was supposed to test for explosive residue (eg combustables in building) such explosives going off just might affect building stability. They didn’t do that test, although managed to reject demolition hypothesis without testing for it. (Very sciency…) That explosions were ignored, denied, and sealed by US govt at different times suggests a cover up. That an implosion with explosives would require a professional firm with intent to reduce collateral damage & extensive access leads to the inside job hypothesis. Terrorists wouldn’t have the capability & they’d try to knock the building sideways to meet their motive of max damage. They sure as hell wouldn’t wait for people to evacuate.

That University of Coppenhagen chemists found thermite in a sample is more interesting. My first thought was hoax until I saw what kind of thermite it was: a superior, non-public blend produced with nanotech for covert operations teams in U.S. military. A person with access to classified files on our “superthermites” and expensive fabrication equipment could have produced this. Then they could have obtained exact type of metal as WTC core, subjected it to immense pressure/heat, planted the thermite in it, and then sent that to the lab for lulz.

Or it’s a real rock from ground zero with residues of what destroyed the core. A nanothermite blend designed for U.S. military’s covert demolition of equipment and structures (per their publication) was found in an structure allegedly demolished by covert operators. Didn’t you reference Occam’s Razor, Clive? 😉

Nick P • October 7, 2014 8:49 PM

@ Clive Robinson

I agree. So, I looked up NIST info again. Their website says this:

“Due to the effectiveness of the spray-applied fire-resistive material (SFRM) or fireproofing, the highest steel column temperatures in WTC 7 only reached an estimated 300 degrees C (570 degrees F), and only on the east side of the building did the steel floor beams exceed 600 degrees C (1,100 degrees F). However, fire-induced buckling of floor beams and damage to connections-that caused buckling of a critical column initiating collapse-occurred at temperatures below approximately 400 degrees C where thermal expansion dominates. Above 600 degrees C (1,100 degrees F), there is significant loss of steel strength and stiffness. In the WTC 7 collapse, the loss of steel strength or stiffness was not as important as the thermal expansion of steel structures caused by heat.”

And the site is powered by ColdFusion. Interesting.

@ Anura

Yes… the Pentagon hit…

The destruction of records, implosions of 3 buildings, no interceptors, and denials of independent review of the physical evidence were my first clues of a coverup of criminal activity. However, the Pentagon hit was a big red flag for me. Here’s why.

The terrorist has little to no experience flying a 757. His goal is to cause massive damage to our capabilities and loss of life. Supposedly meticulous researchers, he’d know which section key capabilities & Joint Chiefs would be in just reading a children’s book on it. (Also have a web site and such.) The plan would be either to race straight to that spot; come in low, raise up, and ram downward into that spot to avoid any air defenses. According to numerous military officials afterward, hitting the roof or especially the center would led to thousands of deaths with who knows what other damage. That’s the obvious route for the terrorist with little skill, too.

Not what happened at all. The pilot is lined up to do that damage with an easy shot. Instead, the pilot makes a risky, corkscrew turn… nearly crashing multiple times… bounces off the ground, hits lightpoles, and rams a specific wall of the building. Pilots for 9/11 Truth’s 757 pilots start calling bullshit saying it’s not even physically possible and if it was it was too hard for a novice. They show pilots repeatedly failing to pull it off in simulator. So, how could a novice do this maneuver under high instability on his first try? And my question was: what the hell was in that spot worth risking the entire mission for?

So, I reviewed what was there. Nothing. Nothing of value to the terrorists. The area was mostly empty as it was under renovation where they were installing bombproofing into the walls. This bombproofing was intended to resist cars or trucks full of explosives hitting the wall at full speed, followed by a detonation. This was public knowledge. So, the pilot aimed at the toughest, emptiest, and riskiest part of the Pentagon. One official said “If he hit anywhere else, the damage could’ve been catastrophic.”

In review, the pilot was a scared amateur with knowledge of Pentagon and aiming for max loss of life/capabilities. The pilot was lined up to do this. The pilot instead risked the entire mission performing an ace maneuver to hit the emptiest, strongest part of the Pentagon. The result was scary on TV, but had essentially no effect on Pentagon capabilities. It was as if the terrorist wanted to attack the building without causing real damage or killing many people. Definitely not the motive of a terrorist.

Alternative hypothesis: inside job. Should covert ops authorize strike on Pentagon, it would have to succeed with as little effect and damage as possible. The location hit already makes an ideal target under this motivation. The possibility that it wasn’t a plane, the plane was under computer control, or they used an ace pilot from spec ops would make this easier. On top of this, I found that this spot was the location of the records for the audit of the Pentagon’s books. Killing those people and destroying those records could make billions of dollars difficult to account for, plus wiping out evidence of crime. It would be literally ideal for a false flag that solves two purposes: stages an act of terror to move Wolfowitz Doctrine planning forward; removes evidence of dirty bookkeeping or even funding of the op that did it.

I also noticed the same situation with WTC7. It hadn’t been hit by a plane, they largely weren’t commenting on it, it fell the same way, had the command center that all the responses ran through (evidence), and the huge SEC investigation’s evidence as well. There are some fringe benefits to a hit there. So, it seemed the Pentagon hit’s motives and WTC7 were worth looking into if an inside job hypothesis was considered. The Pentagon hit’s properties reeks of an inside job as the amateur pilot used literally ace skill to hit the most unimportant (to terrorists) part of the building.

re remote control

Haven’t seen evidence of its use although it would explain some things. What I will tell you is that Zackheim’s company, SPC, made remote control technology for aircraft and had them on lease. He was handpicked by Bush to be the Pentagon comptroller. He oversaw the dirty books. He was also on PNAC. If it was off-the-books AND taxpayer funded, he would likely have to be involved. He also had both motive and opportunity. If an independent investigation happens, he’s worth questioning under oath.

Note: There used to be a link right to the product I’m describing but they removed it during site reorganization. This might be it. (Can’t remember name.) They also built (or are building) guided sniper bullets. So, the technology for the 9/11 operation was within their capabilities. They also do heavy analysis, planning, engineering, weapons, and “creative solutions” for the Pentagon. It’s why many suspected Zackheim to be their mastermind. Again, though no proof of anyone with most evidence pointing at Cheney, the NORAD head, Giuliani, and the company shorting stocks with great luck.

Nick P • October 8, 2014 11:28 AM

@ Clive Robinson

You’d think engineers would have some responsibility. I’m not sure how much or if he even thought of it. The reason it might have no dawned on him is that, IIRC, Larry Silverstein’s company commissioned WTC7. The others he acquired through lease, but I think WTC7 was straight up his. Now, there’s a difference between paying for a building to be built & designing/implementing that. Not sure what companies did the latter. They might be liable as you pointed out. This would also be a better strategy than going after the airlines’ insurance, which WSJ reported he did recently. Their report said he’s capped at around $4.5 billion, costs are expected to hit $10 bil, and legal action is essentially over far as his insurance company.

“If you or I tried to claim twice for the same asset say in a multi car pile up in all likely hood we would be facing a criminal prosecution…”

Maybe true in UK. In U.S., which has majority of world’s lawsuits, people are rarely punished that way for making a claim. The lawsuit is more typically tossed out before/during trial, the person made to pay court costs, and optionally a steep fine. With court costs & potential fines, the courts here have a financial incentive to let people try arbitrary claims.

@ SmokingHot, Grauhut

Regarding the planes, it’s worthwhile to investigate Pilot’s for 9/11 Truth’s claim that the data recorders contradict the physical evidence. Here’s some videos.