Umm.. Do you see a Conspiracy?

[Paul McKenna]

Another 9/11 hijacker found alive and well

[Thomas Paul]

That article is two years old.

[Paul McKenna]

Good catch! I never noticed that. But still the question remains, if this article is true then is it fair to question the identity of those accused? And how come this never made it into mainstream news here?

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Paul McKenna:
Good catch! I never noticed that. But still the question remains, if this article is true then is it fair to question the identity of those accused? And how come this never made it into mainstream news here?

It did make it into the mainstream news. I found several references to it in several online US newspapers.
The article is true but it doesn't change anything. Waleed Al Shehri and his brother Wail Al Shehri did hijack American Airlines flight 11 and crash it into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Apparently, the Waleed Al Shehri found in Morocco was a different person who came into the USA around the same time as the other Waleed Al Shehri and his brother. The FBI had released the wrong picture and information from the visa.
I don't think anyone should be particularly surprised that the information released within a few days after 9/11 (the article is 12 days after 9/11) might not be 100% accurate.
Of course, those who want to find conspiracies can always do so. But you would think that if the FBI wanted to frame some Arab that they wouldn't frame one that was still alive and able to protest his innocence.
[ October 21, 2003: Message edited by: Thomas Paul ]

[Jim Yingst]

Indeed, I remember hearing aboout this at the time; it did get some coverage here. Though not a lot, as I recall.
The BBC article is dated September 23, 2001. Oddly, the FBI web site shows a press release dated September 27, 2001, which links to the exact same picture shown on the BBC site. Major US news sites like ABC news and CNN have links (with little or no date info) leading to pages showing the suspected hijackers, again with the same picture of Waleed Al Shehri. [ABC] [CNN] (follow "suspects" link). If the photo is indeed the wrong photo, released in error, shouldn't there be some sort of update or retraction somewhere clarifying this? I.e. from the FBI &/or the US news sites still showing the old story? Or maybe the image is now considered correct, but the Waleed Al Shehri the BBC is talking about is the one who doesn't look like the image shown. Then shouldn't there be some refutation of the BBC story somewhere? Seems like one side or the other would have some decent followup here.
[ October 21, 2003: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]

[Axel Janssen]

Jim and Thomas are right. In summer there were 2 or 3 authors who made it up to the top 10 of german bestselling books, servicing the public with such crap. One of them were ex minister of R&D back in the 70ties. :roll:
It was really fun to watch those enlightening autors dodging around when being attacked regarding the seriousness of their investigations at some of our better talk shows.
Conclusion was that their books were 50% based on "internet research" and 50% on marketing considerations.
[ October 21, 2003: Message edited by: Axel Janssen ]

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
Indeed, I remember hearing aboout this at the time; it did get some coverage here. Though not a lot, as I recall.
The BBC article is dated September 23, 2001. Oddly, the FBI web site shows a press release dated September 27, 2003, which links to the exact same picture shown on the BBC site.

I think you mean September 27, 2001 as the date of the FBI press release. It was a difference of four days.

[Jim Yingst]

Yes, 2001. Given time zone differences, the difference might even have been just three days. I'm not inclined to castigate either FBI or BBC over the initial error, whatever it was, as those were very hectic days and there was a lot of pressure to get info out ASAP. But what's vexing here is that two years later, I can't find any correction by either FBI+ABC+CNN or BBC. Hasn't there been time enough to figure out what that guy in Morocco really looks like? My feeling is that the BBC version is probably right, and while an initial error by the FBI is understandable here (and note that the press release does have appropriate disclaimers about how it's an ongoing investigation, etc, not definitive info) it seems that by now an update or retraction should have been issued. The fact is I can still go to www.fbi.gov and click on "Counterterrorism", "9/11 hijackers", and "View Photos" to see that same photo, with no evidence that the FBI has ruled him out as a suspect. (Or at least, ruled out that photo.) That doesn't seem to inspire a lot of confidence in the system.
I suppose one possibility is that it really hasn't been possible to validate the ID of the guy in Morocco. Could be there's a guy there who really does look like the guy in the FBI photo, was not actually a hijacker, but is now claiming to be "Waleed Al Shehri" in an attempt to discredit the US. I'm assuming this guy's real name would be something else in this scenario - I can believe that there's more than one guy named Waleed Al Shehri, and I can believe that there's more than one guy who matches the FBI photo - but I can't believe that there's a second guy who coincidentally matches both name and image. One or the other is either a mistake or a lie, by somebody. If it's the guy in Morocco who's an imposter, then it may be that no one has been able to authoritatively prove his origin one way or another. Seems possible. Unfortunately it also seems possible that the FBI made a mistake, and just doesn't want to talk about it now.
Has the Moroccan guy been in the public eye much? I mean, aside from the initial reports of his existence. Does (or did) he go on anti-American talk shows in Europe or something? Or has he quietly faded away just after asserting that he was alive and well? If it's the latter, the imposter theory is more credible, IMO.
[ October 21, 2003: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
Has the Moroccan guy been in the public eye much? I mean, aside from the initial reports of his existence. Does (or did) he go on anti-American talk shows in Europe or something? Or has he quietly faded away just after asserting that we was alive and well? If it's the latter, the imposter theory is more credible, IMO.

I have not been able to find a single thing about the guy after the initial BBC article. It also appears that all the sources I have been able to find were quoting the BBC article. Is it possible that the BBC got it wrong and just never followed up?

[Jim Yingst]

Yeah, that seems possible too at this point. What we need is a good snopes article to clear this up one way or another.

[Richard Hawkes]

If there really was some kind of US led 9/11 conspiracy, it would have probably carried over to the Iraq war and WMD would most certainly have been "found" all over the place.
9/11, War on Terror and the PNAC - conspiracy
[ October 21, 2003: Message edited by: Richard Hawkes ]

[Richard Hawkes]

Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
Yeah, that seems possible too at this point. What we need is a good snopes article to clear this up one way or another.
... but Snopes is funded and run by the NSA and the FBI!! Didn't you hear?! And you won't find that on Snopes, that's why I know its true

[Jeroen Wenting]

Originally posted by Richard Hawkes:
Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
[qb]Yeah, that seems possible too at this point. What we need is a good snopes article to clear this up one way or another.
... but Snopes is funded and run by the NSA and the FBI!! Didn't you hear?! And you won't find that on Snopes, that's why I know its true [/QB]

Nononono.
Snopes is indeed run by the CIA (NOT the FBI) on behalf of the NSA (who are really a front for the Mossad who are the FBI in disguise).
But that's only part of the story.
The rest of the world is run by them as well, and Snopes (and sources like it) are deliberately put up to disseminate information not found elsewhere so people will doubt the truth if and where it pops up outside of CIA control.

[Paul McKenna]

Umm, I found an interesting piece of information of the web. According to this article Bin Landen's family in the US was flown out on a private Saudi jet days after 9/11/01. Oh! and the FBI didn't get a decent chance to interrogate them.

[Richard Hawkes]

Originally posted by Paul McKenna:
Umm, I found an interesting piece of information of the web. According to this article Bin Landen's family in the US was flown out on a private Saudi jet days after 9/11/01. Oh! and the FBI didn't get a decent chance to interrogate them.
You should check out that Snopes link, lots is discussed there. Not nearly so sinister in reality: http://snopes.com/rumors/flight.htm

[Richard Hawkes]

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:
The rest of the world is run by them as well, and Snopes (and sources like it) are deliberately put up to disseminate information not found elsewhere so people will doubt the truth if and where it pops up outside of CIA control.
Actually I run the world from my underground lair. You should thank me for that last job you got. Nice shirt btw, and stop picking your nose!

[Kevin Arnold]

It is good to ask questions sometimes. Keeps them on their toes, ja?
Most of us wouldn't have believed the story about the the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment if Clinton hadn't apologised to the eight remaining survivors.

[Joe Pluta]

If the public facts about the Tuskegee Experiment are even half true, it rates right up there with the Japanese internment camps as one of the most terrible injustices ever committed by the American government on its own citizens. In fact, it's spitting distance from jumping into the rarefied category of slavery and our dealings with Native Americans.
It certainly ranks up there with the plutonium experiments.
Ugh.
Joe

[Anonymous]

Tuskegee Syphillis Experiment
Ugh!!

[Jim Yingst]

Indeed, the Tuskegee experiments sound considerable worse to me than Japanese interment, in most respects. Though I have no intent of condoning the latter, and there's probably little point in arguing over their relative "merits".

[Joe Pluta]

Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
Though I have no intent of condoning the latter, and there's probably little point in arguing over their relative "merits".

I'm pretty sure it's going to be a personal rating system. I'm guessing that there might be some difference based on the ethnicity of the person doing the rating.
Joe

[Jim Yingst]

I'm pretty sure it's going to be a personal rating system. I'm guessing that there might be some difference based on the ethnicity of the person doing the rating.
Yeah, probably. Though in that repsect I'm neutral; my ethnicity matches the perpetrators, rather than the victims in either case.
The differences that come to mind for me:
Japanese internment was worse because:

it was officially sanctioned by the government and accepted by a majority of citizenry

it involved more victims

The Tuskeegee experiments were worse because:

they led more directly to suffering and death of the victims, demonstrating much more callous disregard of human life on the part of the perpetrators

they went on much longer, in peacetime, well into the civil rights movement when more people should have been questioning the morality of it all

I'm sure there are others that could be listed. It's something of an apples vs. oranges situation. Both are wrong in different ways. But my gut reaction is to label internment as a "gross injustice" while for Tuskeegee the word that springs to mind is "atrocity".
Incidentally, anyone who finds themselves in California traveling along the east side of the Sierras, be sure to check out Manzanar. The site itself isn't much to look at right now, but they're busy refurbishing it as a national historic site. Meanwhile there's a museum in nearby Independence which has a lot of fascinating exibits, including many photos from illegally smuggled cameras documenting day-to-day life. It's actually rather inspiring how many of the internees reacted to their situation. This image of a shrine before Mt. Whitney made quite an impresion on me. Worth a stop at least.
[ October 25, 2003: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]

[frank davis]

What if Spock gives his "Greatest Good for the Greatest Number" rationale?
The collectivists love to give that argument in other contexts, why not apply it here?
Spock would say the experiments caused suffering, but the medical value of those experiements accelerated our knowledge of disease so that more people's lives were saved and more people's sufferings were reduced based on that knowledge.
Regarding the internment, does anyone, to this day, know how many spies or Japanese sympathesizers were in the Japanese-American population? After the devasting surprise attack at Pearl harbor, the entire West coast was completely open to attack/invasion. There were no coastal fortifications. Japanese subs had been spotted surfacing off the coast of major cities. Oh, and we were also at war with another Super Power that had already ruthlessly taken over Europe and appeared unstoppable. In short, those were desparate times, and there was hysteria, and there was some basis for the hysteria. A decision was made that temporarily isolating Japanese-Americans would be better than risking the outcome of the war or the loss of American lives.
I agree with the prior poster who said the internment was an injustice, and my word for the experiments is also similar, and that is horrific.

[Joe Pluta]

Originally posted by herb slocomb:
I agree with the prior poster who said the internment was an injustice, and my word for the experiments is also similar, and that is horrific.

That'd be me, Herb. And I disagree with the "greater good" issue on two fronts with Tuskeegee. The fact that the participants were lied to makes any moral stance invalid. If it's so horrible you have to lie, chances are you shouldn't be doing it. But even if you're able to get past that issue, if you read the article you'll see that everybody involved has determined that the studies basically served no purpose, saved no lives, advanced no science. It was somebody's sick idea of a controlled experiment; the kind of thing that happens when science loses sight of morality.
Joe