SteveBruce wrote:
[quote]

Which similar incidents from history are you thinking about?

[quote]
All of them Steve.
Cuban missile crisis.....jingoism of the first and second world wars....Holy crusades.
Like I said, I'm studying the history of the last 2,500 years Persian Empire just now.








As I see it, Bin Laden and his followers see the attack as a success in itself as they struck a blow against what they see as an imperial oppressor. They blame the US for all manner of things.
For funding and training him, or was that the russians?

So we have Bin Laden and his followers who have a motive, the evidence suggested that they did it, they admitted it, in fact revelled in what they achieved, and called for further attacks. This would lead me to believe that it was Bin Laden rather than the US government.
Your source for that is western media though?

What would the US government or bankers (who despite making so much money out of war seem to be struggling in recent weeks) gain from what actually happened after the attacks?Gazillion dollar question there!

Let's keep in focus that the response to 9/11 was the "war on terror", the invasion of Afghanistan and the tightening of some internal laws. How does the US government logically gain anything of significance from this that would have justified butchering thousands of it's citizens?
That was one of my unasked questions.
If you follow the possibility, however unlikely, that 9/11 was "an inside job", then why?

The invasion of Iraq is a separate thing entirely and related to the perceived threat of WMD, which may be more worthy of scrutiny of what the US and UK governments really did know. If there was a conspiracy on 9/11 and it's aim was to topple Saddam, then why didn't they pin the blame on Iraq instead of Bin Laden who has no links with Iraq?
Another good point.
I know the majority of Americans would struggle to put a pin on the map of every named state in the US and the rest wouldn't know Iraq from Istanbul, having had to explain where the UK was before myself.
What absolutely guts me, is that there is and always has been a WOMD within our sights, which would be that 94% of the Heroin infecting MY country, causing death, crime and misery is made over there under the watchful eye of all governments.

mule wrote:

Cuban missile crisis.....jingoism of the first and second world wars....Holy crusades.
Like I said, I'm studying the history of the last 2,500 years Persian Empire just now.

Not sure if I see the inference here in relation to the events of 9/11. Are you talking about governments building up and demonising enemies and manipulating public opinion to get what they want?

I have a fairly dispassionate view on the Cuban Missile Crisis given the fact I didn't live through it and from looking at it now, it's hard to see that there was a realistic chance of nuclear war. Some people view it as a US success as Khrushchev had to back down and give up on putting nuclear weapons on Cuba. Others feel that Khrushchev insured the survival of a communist Cuba by having a gambit, that he would never have go to war for, in an area of the globe that it recognised as America's sphere of influence.

I agree that there was jingoism in WWI and WWII. Some of the posters in the US depicting the Japanese as bucktooth, bespectacled apes are very offensive.

Governments will always look for public support for their actions, perhaps it should be the other way around, but whether anything would get done if that was the case is debatable. The easiest way to get public support for war is to demonise and dehumanise the enemy and make it into a moral issue where they are on the side of right.

Have governments engineered or taken advantage of events to pursue their perceived national interests? Well there are events like Hitler's crackdown after the Reichstag fire and Japan's invasion of Manchuria after the bomb at Mukden.

The most recent possible example might be the events in South Ossetia where it is not clear who started the shooting. Did Russia act in the face of Georgian aggression against ethnic Russians or did Russia engineer the events to effectively cede the territory?

The thing that these events have in common is, if they were engineered, then there were clear benefits for the parties that used events to their own ends. I don't see that with 9/11.


For funding and training him, or was that the russians?

The US took a pragmatic, though sometimes morally dubious, view during the Cold War that my enemy's enemy is my friend. Hence they funded various regimes and supported groups against Communist countries. Yes they gave weapons to the Mujahideen groups to fight the Soviet forces.

Why was Bin Laden, a Saudi fighting in Afghanistan? Well he seems to want Muslim rule in the Middle East and the brand of Islam he believes in to be imposed and followed within Muslim states. Was he a friend of the US and the West? He was probably using the US as much as they were using him at the time.

After the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan, then that cause was finished and it was the US that were the ones in the Middle East where Bin Laden didn't want them. It was the US that was protecting his native Saudi Arabia and it was the US that was helping preserve Israel.


Your source for that is western media though?

I thought most of Bin Laden's videos and tapes came via Al Jazeera, that isn't typically pro-West.

This is fatwa that Bin Laden allegedly co-signed in 1998 which would suggest that there was a motive.

[T]he ruling to kill the Americans and their allies - civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Makka) from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, 'and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,' and 'fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah'.

Do I know for a fact that this is 100% true? No, I don't as I haven't personally seen the primary evidence and I wasn't there. Equally I don't know every history book I've read is true or not.


If you follow the possibility, however unlikely, that 9/11 was "an inside job", then why?

They wanted control of the heroin market? They just didn't like the idea of a country that imposed sharia law? They wanted to show that they could defeat a country that the Soviet Union had failed against? They simply wanted to see if they could do it?

I can't think of a realistic answer, hence I struggle with the conspiracy theories.


What absolutely guts me, is that there is and always has been a WOMD within our sights, which would be that 94% of the Heroin infecting MY country, causing death, crime and misery is made over there under the watchful eye of all governments.

Not sure I would agree that it's done under the watchful eye of all governments as it suggests complicity. Incompetence and inability fair enough, but widescale complicity? I was under the impression that it was the Taliban and Taliban controlled areas that were producing the drugs and selling them in exchange for weapons from Russian gangsters.

One of the UK's policies in Afghanistan was to replace poppy production with wheat. This hasn't been a total success, but there was a suggestion in an article I read a few months back that market forces of wheat prices rising and heroin prices falling was starting to change things. Afghanistan is a large country and it's not easy to simply pacify or impose commercial models on them, as various people have found in the past.

SteveBruce wrote:


Not sure if I see the inference here in relation to the events of 9/11. Are you talking about governments building up and demonising enemies and manipulating public opinion to get what they want?
Got it in one! :)



The easiest way to get public support for war is to demonise and dehumanise the enemy and make it into a moral issue where they are on the side of right.
Yup.

Have governments engineered or taken advantage of events to pursue their perceived national interests? Well there are events like Hitler's crackdown after the Reichstag fire and Japan's invasion of Manchuria after the bomb at Mukden.

The most recent possible example might be the events in South Ossetia where it is not clear who started the shooting. Did Russia act in the face of Georgian aggression against ethnic Russians or did Russia engineer the events to effectively cede the territory?

The thing that these events have in common is, if they were engineered, then there were clear benefits for the parties that used events to their own ends.
There are loads more examples out there, in fact you'd be hard pushed to find a WW situation where some of the political tactics couldn't be questioned.


I don't see that with 9/11.
Time tends to tell.
How will we think about it in ten years time, or 50 years time?




The US took a pragmatic, though sometimes morally dubious, view during the Cold War that my enemy's enemy is my friend. Hence they funded various regimes and supported groups against Communist countries. Yes they gave weapons to the Mujahideen groups to fight the Soviet forces.
You said "gave" there, not 'sold'?

Why was Bin Laden, a Saudi fighting in Afghanistan? Well he seems to want Muslim rule in the Middle East and the brand of Islam he believes in to be imposed and followed within Muslim states. Was he a friend of the US and the West? He was probably using the US as much as they were using him at the time.
Wonder why they tok each other off the Xmas card lists?





I thought most of Bin Laden's videos and tapes came via Al Jazeera, that isn't typically pro-West.
You don't know what to believe.
I mentioned earlier, but I saw footage both pre and post edit of the now deceased Bhutto naming Bin Ladens assassin.
As far as I know, he's been dead for years.

This is fatwa that Bin Laden allegedly co-signed in 1998 which would suggest that there was a motive.

[i][T]he ruling to kill the Americans and their allies - civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it,
But this isn't a view held by the vast majority of muslims.





Do I know for a fact that this is 100% true? No, I don't as I haven't personally seen the primary evidence and I wasn't there. Equally I don't know every history book I've read is true or not.
We're all in the same predicament.


They wanted control of the heroin market? They just didn't like the idea of a country that imposed sharia law? They wanted to show that they could defeat a country that the Soviet Union had failed against? They simply wanted to see if they could do it?

I can't think of a realistic answer, hence I struggle with the conspiracy theories.


I really like that answer and it's where I step off the fence.
I can't think of a good reason either, but to follow one side of reasoning I have to try and find a rational one.





Not sure I would agree that it's done under the watchful eye of all governments as it suggests complicity. Incompetence and inability fair enough, but widescale complicity? I was under the impression that it was the Taliban and Taliban controlled areas that were producing the drugs and selling them in exchange for weapons from Russian gangsters.

One of the UK's policies in Afghanistan was to replace poppy production with wheat. This hasn't been a total success, but there was a suggestion in an article I read a few months back that market forces of wheat prices rising and heroin prices falling was starting to change things. Afghanistan is a large country and it's not easy to simply pacify or impose commercial models on them, as various people have found in the past.

Maybe naive of me, but if I had the spy planes, the military might of the United Nations and all it's resources, I reckon I could work out where the brightly coloured poppy fields were in a largely desert country and burn the shit out of them overnight.
I wouldn't give a monkey's if some poor farmers starved as a result, as logistically, my actions would be legitimate.

Heroin is a WOMD!
I dare say there's a conspiracy group that would suggest the west makes money from it's production though.

Just a small point on the poppy/drugs thing, Isn't it Opium that we get from them? Isn't opium used in alot of western medicine, pain killers etc?


I also heard another thing about 9/11, about the US Air Forces responce to the planes invading the airspace. Apparentlt the jets were on a training mission and when the call came in about the jet planes, they claim that the reason they didn't get there quicker is because they did not know which target to go for??

Is this complete rubbish or is there some truth behind this?

Anyone clarify? Mule, Brit?

Ryusui_Ryu wrote:
Just a small point on the poppy/drugs thing, Isn't it Opium that we get from them? Isn't opium used in alot of western medicine, pain killers etc?
Yes, Opium is used to make Heroin.
Yes, there are legitimate growers for medical purposes.
As I said though, 94% of the illegal ends up round my way.


I also heard another thing about 9/11, about the US Air Forces responce to the planes invading the airspace. Apparentlt the jets were on a training mission and when the call came in about the jet planes, they claim that the reason they didn't get there quicker is because they did not know which target to go for??

Is this complete rubbish or is there some truth behind this?

Anyone clarify? Mule, Brit?
Not sure what you're refering to here RR.

Sorry I wasn't very clear with it, I am not sure of it myself but the following page seems to be similar to others explaiing what apparently went on...

http://www.oilempire.us/wargames.html

9/11 War Games by the US military & CIA
paralysis of air defenses that ensured the success of the attacks?
who coordinated these efforts?

There has been virtually no media coverage of the issues of the 9/11 war games, the "amazing coincidence" of a "plane into building" exercise being conducted that morning, or the alleged role of Vice President Richard Cheney in overseeing the war games that morning.

mule wrote:



The US took a pragmatic, though sometimes morally dubious, view during the Cold War that my enemy's enemy is my friend. Hence they funded various regimes and supported groups against Communist countries. Yes they gave weapons to the Mujahideen groups to fight the Soviet forces.

You said "gave" there, not 'sold'?

I wasn't meaning to infer anything here other than US arms found their way into Mujahideen hands


I mentioned earlier, but I saw footage both pre and post edit of the now deceased Bhutto naming Bin Ladens assassin.
As far as I know, he's been dead for years.


I suppose we'll never know. Was it just a genuine mistake what Bhutto said? Unfortunately the interviewer didn't pick her up on it. She had mentioned previously that she was ready to help the US find Bin Laden.

This is fatwa that Bin Laden allegedly co-signed in 1998 which would suggest that there was a motive.

[T]he ruling to kill the Americans and their allies - civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it,
But this isn't a view held by the vast majority of muslims.

Totally agree, but I was wanting to show that long before 9/11 Bin Laden had made his thoughts about the West clear.


Maybe naive of me, but if I had the spy planes, the military might of the United Nations and all it's resources, I reckon I could work out where the brightly coloured poppy fields were in a largely desert country and burn the shit out of them overnight.
I wouldn't give a monkey's if some poor farmers starved as a result, as logistically, my actions would be legitimate.

Yeah, I know where you're coming from. I must admit my ignorance as I'm not sure how large the poppy fields actually are and how feasible it would be. I can't see the UN passing an resolutions for actions within a sovereign state unless there is some sort of threat, perceived or otherwise, to the international community. Drug abuse is generally seen as national problem rather than international. It's a whole different discussion, but do you target the reason for the demand or do you target the supply?

SteveBruce wrote:
Drug abuse is generally seen as national problem rather than international. It's a whole different discussion, but do you target the reason for the demand or do you target the supply?
The reason for the demand, is poverty and the cheaper it gets, the worse the poverty is.

I'd target the supply, drive up the price and make it harder/more expensive to obtain.

Maybe we could 'crop dust' with some of those conspiratorial con trails eh?

In time all will be revealed and if these conspiracies are true then the real TERRORISTS! Weather they be of Middle Eastern descent or Western, when the time comes they will face appropriate punishment. I am very sceptical about it all and to be honest i can see from all sides of the rumours that are circulating various media types.