I Was A Professional 9/11 Truther (And I Gave It Up)

originally posted by: audubon
a reply to: fractal5

Thanks (!) for providing that History Commons resource, which only has a mere 72 pages and around 10,000 different entries to choose from...

I did eventually find this, on page 31, but since it appears to contradict you, I'm not clear why you're adducing it.

Could you clarify your position, please?

8:15 a.m. September 11, 2001: President Bush Prolongs Briefing about Planned School VisitEdit event

Sandy Kress, President Bush’s unpaid education adviser, meets with Bush in his hotel on Longboat Key, Florida, to brief him on their planned 9 a.m. visit to the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in nearby Sarasota. With them are Secretary of Education Rod Paige, Bush’s senior adviser Karl Rove, and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card. Kress goes over some key points for the talk Bush is due to give to the press after reading with the students at the school. However, Kress will later recall that the “president is a very punctual person,” and “I’ve never known him to be late.” Yet, “we finished the briefing on that fateful day, and we continued to talk for another ten minutes about people and politics in Texas. The time to leave came and passed.” Kress adds, “That struck me as unusual.”

[KESSLER, 2004, PP. 136-137; DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 9/10/2006] According to the official schedule, the president is supposed to leave the resort at 8:30 a.m. for the drive to the school. [ST. PETERSBURG TIMES, 7/4/2004] Yet, according to one account, he will not leave until as late as 8:39 (see (8:35 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [WASHINGTON TIMES, 10/7/2002]

I'm not sure what went on with that link because when I loaded the page there were two pages with a total of 120 events listed in chronological order, so it was easy to word search for the limo ride to the school. The following page (page 32) references what I was referring to which is that George Bush was in the limo when according to his words he learned of the first plane going into the first tower on TV. ("the TV was obviously on").

Among the only people to record the first plane hitting the first tower were an Israeli group there to "record the event" in their words. Interesting how their camera was pointed at the World Trade Center to record the event. It would appear the people there to record the event like Bush's CCTV source (going by Bush's own words) had foreknowledge.

The following source is an additional source suggesting Bush was in his limo at the time the first plane struck the first building cited by the the timeline website you linked me to:
web.archive.org...://www.longboatobserver.com/showarticle.asp?ai=1874

At 8:50 a.m. the man stood on the Sarasota bayfront waiting to watch the presidential motorcade pass. A dilapidated van passed him with two men of Middle Eastern descent “screaming out the windows, ‘Down with Bush’ and raising their fists in the air.”

The same site at www.historycommons.org... indicates Bush arrived at the school from 8:55AM to 9:00 AM. So, he arrived on time. There are a number of accounts of Bush commenting on what happened upon arriving at the school.

He goes into the school, Karl Rove and I and some others were standing there and informed him of this. And, which, he being a former pilot, had kind of the same reaction, going, was it bad weather? And I said no, apparently not.

Dan Bartlett, White House Communications Director

So we are still in the position where Bush said he saw the first plane flying into the first building on TV and his official reaction was that it was a "terrible pilot" who may have had a heart attack. But no, the only people broadcasting that would have had to be people expecting it to happen. You can't be expected to mistake the medium of your news source for where you learned about the 9/11 attacks if you were an adult on 9/11. And Bush said, "I saw an airplane hit the tower"... "the TV was obviously on" in reference to his first learning of the incident in watching a plane going into the building. But oops, the TVs didn't show that until Bush was not watching it any more. It doesn't seem reasonable to me that people who learned of 9/11 attacks on TV when actually it was word of mouth or vice versa.

originally posted by: fractal5
I'm not sure what went on with that link because when I loaded the page there were two pages with a total of 120 events listed in chronological order, so it was easy to word search for the limo ride to the school. The following page (page 32) references what I was referring to which is that George Bush was in the limo when according to his words he learned of the first plane going into the first tower on TV. ("the TV was obviously on").

Among the only people to record the first plane hitting the first tower were an Israeli group there to "record the event" in their words. Interesting how their camera was pointed at the World Trade Center to record the event. It would appear the people there to record the event like Bush's CCTV source (going by Bush's own words) had foreknowledge.

You haven't even read your own source, have you just culled it from a list of links on another site?

Here is what it says about Bush learning of 9/11 via TV:

8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001: First WTC Attack Recorded on Video, but Not Broadcast Until Evening

Two French documentary filmmakers are filming a documentary on New York City firefighters about ten blocks from the WTC. One of them hears a roar, looks up, and captures a distant image of the first WTC crash. They continue shooting footage nonstop for many hours, and their footage is first shown that evening on CNN. [NEW YORK TIMES, 1/12/2002] President Bush later claims that he sees the first attack live on television, but this is technically impossible, as there was no live news footage of the attack. [WALL STREET JOURNAL, 3/22/2004]

originally posted by: fractal5

originally posted by: RKWWWW

originally posted by: fractal5

originally posted by: RKWWWW

originally posted by: audubon
a reply to: fractal5

I'm lost. How does Bush's obviously-faulty recollection prove foreknowledge?

I mean, he definitely didn't see the first plane hit WTC, so he's confabulated that memory. But he's not alone in that, many people have false memories of WTC (and of other big events, come to that).

But even if he had seen the first plane hit, so what?

The "logic" goes like this: Bush is dumb enough to blurt out a supposed national secret, but yet not dumb enough that any other explanation is possible. Yeah. Really. And then after that brilliant conclusion is reached you continue with the Mother-Of-All extrapolations.

Okay LOL, sure, nobody knows what happened on 9/11. We all forgot. OMG LOL. Yeah if if it were not for the video tapes nobody would know what happened on 9/11 because we'd all have false memories. Oh you are rich. His statement would make perfect sense to someone ELSE who watched the event unfold. Perfect sense. But he wasn't in a position to have done that. The problem with this is that it makes perfect sense as an intentional lie by a stupid person. Everyone who deals with liars on a regular basis can sniff them out. Why can't you?

There is no extrapolation here. There is a lie. And it is mixed in with a serious problem of truth that he was in his limo watching the first plane going into the first building. The only reasonable way they would have gotten a camera on that is in a covert ops. How else? You explain since you know so much about what happened LOL. You explain.

Here is your mother-of-all extrapolations logic:
1. We know Bush didn't do 9/11
2. Therefore he mis-spoke when he admitted it.

Oh sure they all just mis-spoke when they admitted it. So many politicians mis-speak a lot its problem we have isn't it? But not lies that isn't a problem... those sweet innocent people oh dear. Now here is my train of logic

1. We remember when we learned of 9/11
2. George Bush remembers when he learned of 9/11
3. It was when he was in the Limo that he found out what he signed off to.

I'm going to go with the probabilities on this that actually people do remember learning of 9/11 that were adults at the time. But apparently that is beyond reason for you?

Excuse me, did I mention something about false memories in my post? No? Then let's not waste each other's time talking about something I didn't say. We can also rule out talking about my extrapolations from Bush's statement, because I haven't made any extrapolations from the his statement. I'm not making any claims as to what he meant. You are, remember?

When you heard Bush's statement and concluded it was proof of foreknowledge, what was your competing hypothesis(s) and how did you rule them out?

I never bought into the "competing hypothesis" as a science. There are always infinite possibilities, and I select the one that is the most reasonable as the truth. But you're welcome to tell me how competing hypothesis is going to lead me to the correct answers in this specific case. Okay studies are supposed to be proving the negative of their original hypothesis, but the number of bunk studies shows that studies of studies would probably show doing so does not produce any more quality results than simply working with the original hypothesis.

There is an extrapolation that since Bush saw the first plane going into the first building, then he was involved in a black ops project, because that is the most simple explanation by a wide margin of why that event would have occurred. In fact, I can't imagine any other explanation as to why Bush would have seen the first plane going into the first tower on TV while, as the timeline reported by the Washington Post suggested, occurred in his limo before entering the school building.

How does one making that extrapolation determine it as fact that Bush saw the plane going into the first building?

a reply to: RKWWWW

I feel like we're going in a bit of a circle here, but George Bush said about three months after 9/11

I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in and I saw an airplane hit the tower... you know the TV was obviously on.

Source: www.youtube.com...

So, this quote establishes the TV as George Bush's medium of news as opposed to learning from a co-worker. So here is the extrapolation: (1) In this quote, George Bush claims he learned of the attack from the TV, not from associates. (2) People who are adults on 9/11 know where they heard the news from and it is reasonable to say one wouldn't forget the news medium they learned of the event (TV vs word of mouth). (3) George Bush was reading "My Pet Goat" while the 2nd plane hit the second tower, which was the first time a plane hitting a tower was shown on the news and therefore (4) George Bush did could not see any planes going into any buildings until later in the day unless (5) His words are correct about having seen a plane going into a building before entering the classroom and he correctly recalls the medium of how he learned the news. (6) His words being correct regarding learning of the event on TV require a camera being fixated on the World Trade Center at the time the first plane hit and then being broadcast to his limo outside the classroom while he was waiting to go in. (7). He would only be watching the first plane hit if he were involved in the attack relatively directly.

Put another way, is someone going to say 'I saw a plane going into a building on TV' when in fact they didn't and in fact what happened was 'the TV told me a plane went into a building' or some other explanation even further off. Personally I'm having a difficult time grasping how someone would recall seeing a commercial airline flying into a building on TV before going into a classroom, but then that never happened until much later. The saying is that a picture speaks 1,000 words, so a video would speak 2,000 words, and apparently I'm to believe Bush imagined 2,000 words that never were spoken before entering the classroom on 9/11, or were spoken later in a different way that would obviously have nothing to do with terrible piloting skills.

a reply to: fractal5

The wild card in this whole business is that George W Bush is a legendary nincompoop and human being. So he misremembered what he saw and when he saw it. What does this prove?

Major Billy Hutchison was a fighter pilot involved in the response to 9/11 who imagined a whole story that he had intercepted Flight United 93 and actually walked out on the 9/11 Commission when they proved to him that it had never happened. Does this prove that the Commission was covering up the truth of Major Hutchison's heroic endeavours?

a reply to: audubon

The Day of Misrememberance and Misreportings. Right.



Odd. Most people can tell what exactly they were doing that day, even non-Muricans. That's a coincident worth more scrunity, wouldn't you say so?
Now back to your link:

Yet the commission established that none of this happened. Once we subpoenaed the relevant tapes and other records, the story fell apart. Contrary to the testimony of retired Gen. Larry Arnold...

The relevant tapes are lost, GIANT KILLER. There's another hint.
Anyway, where was I... ah, Arnold. That's your witness?

None of the military men were placed under oath.

9/11 LIVE: THE NORAD TAPES

"Is this real world or exercise?"

originally posted by: audubon
a reply to: fractal5

The wild card in this whole business is that George W Bush is a legendary nincompoop and human being. So he misremembered what he saw and when he saw it. What does this prove?

I suppose if you are correct it would prove that nobody knows anything about any event except for what happened on video, and eye witness testimony should be discarded as irrelevant for every trial. No? If "the leader of the free world" believes he learned of 9/11 on TV when he saw a plane crashing into a building but actually made that up in his head and it never happened then nothing anyone says can be taken seriously.

Since people's testimonies are that unreliable, we don't even know if Osama Bin Ladin was involved. Maybe he just imagined he was involved and here and imagined it just like George Bush imagined he was watching TV as the first plane flew into the first building. If people's words are totally unreliable and worthless, then surely so are Osama Bin Ladin's words when he claimed involvement. So, anyone could have done it and it will remain a total mystery as people are incapable of stringing together a meaningful sentence that can't be entirely written off as imagination.

I think you are right because I asked someone about it and they said they saw the fist plane going into the first building on TV as it happened. Never mind that made no logical sense as to why there would be a news story showing the WTC building with nothing happening there yet before the first attack. But the problem is that me thinking you are wrong would also require Osama Bin Ladin's testimony to be equally worthless and imaginary.

This still leaves us with the means, the motive, and the opportunities which would all point to Silverstein being the opportunity and the means. That still leaves a war on terror as the motive.

a reply to: fractal5

I suppose if you are correct it would prove that nobody knows anything about any event except for what happened on video, and eye witness testimony should be discarded as irrelevant for every trial. No?

No!

originally posted by: audubon
a reply to: fractal5

I suppose if you are correct it would prove that nobody knows anything about any event except for what happened on video, and eye witness testimony should be discarded as irrelevant for every trial. No?

No!

Oh okay, so when people say "I saw X on TV" we should take it to mean they probably didn't mean they saw X and they didn't see it on TV, BUT, "I saw X on TV" is reliable testimony for court. Got it. Okay so then George Bush's words are suggesting he was involved in 9/11 unless they are total nonsense as our previous posts are clear about.

a reply to: fractal5

We all have some fabricated memories, either completely invented or embellished. It's completely natural. Memory works more like the internet than a camera. Rather than 'flashbulb' memories (although they do exist) our brains tend to rely on networks of related thoughts to create a coherent whole. If one of those connections is messed around with, it can contaminate the entire picture of a real event.

Personal example (skip the next three pars if you aren't interested): I am old enough to remember the very end of the Vietnam War, and have a vivid memory of watching footage of soldiers advancing through dense jungle, on the TV News. This is tied in with a vivid memory of being scared s#itless by the 'moaning minnie' WWII air-raid sirens heard at the end of the closing credits of the sitcom Dad's Army, which I remember watching on TV at around the same time. Both those war-related TV memories are clearly located in a particular place, our family home before my sibling was born, and we moved from there when I was three years old, so I am sure of the time-frame.

But what I didn't realise until fairly recently is that at least part of those memories is false, filled in later. I recall watching both programmes (news footage and sitcom) in colour. But I know that my family got its first colour TV in 1978 and one of the first programmes I saw in colour was The Muppet Show.

I'd never spotted that obvious contradiction until a couple of decades later. I know that the memories of both bits of TV are genuine, because I've always been aware of them. But at some stage, my brain has 'forgotten' that I used to watch TV in black-and-white and has helpfully painted colours into the memories that weren't there to begin with!

So, just on a personal basis, I find it very easy to believe that a slowpoke like W Bush would find his memory of 9/11 completely contaminated within a very short space of time, due to the incredible amount of information that he would have been bombarded with after the attacks, both publicly and secretly.

I don't really care whether he recalls seeing it on TV, in the papers, or sky-written in red smoke by a stunt airplane. The interesting stuff about Bush's memories of 9/11 lies much, much deeper than that.

originally posted by: audubon
a reply to: fractal5

The wild card in this whole business is that George W Bush is a legendary nincompoop and human being. So he misremembered what he saw and when he saw it. What does this prove?

Major Billy Hutchison was a fighter pilot involved in the response to 9/11 who imagined a whole story that he had intercepted Flight United 93 and actually walked out on the 9/11 Commission when they proved to him that it had never happened. Does this prove that the Commission was covering up the truth of Major Hutchison's heroic endeavours?

Or, it could be that Major Hero's story WAS manufactured and that the 911 Commission members already knew that testimony from various military and pentagon individuals was highly suspect. Recall that in August 2004 Senator Mark Dayton said the record was very clear to the Commission that NORAD had lied with a number of details.

a reply to: audubon

Its clear to me now that in fact his memory could have been fabricated. But as you admit, people's words are important and cannot be dismissed. What I have to go on more than anything is what the suspects actually said about the event. If they all accidentally implied they were willing participants of 9/11, then too bad for them because it is none the less evidence and I have to consider it in forming my view of what happened.

maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it... and they made that decision to pull, and we watched the building collapse

Fine he misspoke, so he can spend his life in jail contemplating why its a bad idea to have misspoken and accidentally said it was his decision to pull WTC building 7.

And Bush can can spend his life in jail contemplating why it was a bad idea to have implied he was watching the first plane flying into the first building on a broadcasted channel.

And Cheney can spend his life in jail for contemplating why it was a bad idea to have covered up his shooting down of a passenger airliner.

And Israel can be dissolved because they don't deserve to exist after providing the management of the event. They have a false flag team and they used that team to put explosives in the buildings.

And Saudi Arabia can be dissolved because their country doesn't deserve to exist after funding terrorist activity to the degree they have done.

Just because someone can misquote, doesn't mean I can figure out what is a misquote and what isn't. So I take people's word on things and act accordingly.

9/11 was conceived by Cheney and friends, enabled by Bush and friends, funded by Saudi Arabia, managed and planned by Silverstein and friends, and patsied by Al-Qaeda with Bin Ladin hardly knowing anything about it except to take the credit for what his operatives in the US did on his behalf... hell i'm not sure if he actually participated in any way at all except to take credit.

The FBI admitted it supplied the explosives for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing so I'm not sure why Israel didn't admit they supplied the explosives for the 2001 bombings seeing as how people no problem with the FBI in 1993.

a reply to: fractal5

In the words of the Reagan White House motto: "Trust, but verify."

Anyways, I've had my say on unreliable memories, I'll shut up for the time being.

originally posted by: audubon
a reply to: fractal5

In the words of the Reagan White House motto: "Trust, but verify."

Anyways, I've had my say on unreliable memories, I'll shut up for the time being.

Thank you for the civil conversation. My beginning comments were personally dismissive but not outright insults, so sorry for laughing at what you had to say.

a reply to: fractal5

Hey, no worries. >90% of the time, there is a huuuuuge gulf between what anyone is trying to convey when they post and what the intended recipient takes from it, so I try not to get too hung up if I can help it. Likewise, I apologise if I've seemed caustic at all. It's been pleasant chatting to you.

Donald Rumsfeld was the Secretary of State at the time, and by all accounts the first member of the cabinet to start talking about using the event as a justification to enter Iraq ( which he started discussing within hours of the event).

He was also a former fighter pilot.

You don't need a huge conspiracy if you've got one guy in a key position who is coordinating things (and free to mis-coordinate them "by accident") A huge narcissist who talks about his "place in history". With an antisocial personality full of the kind of neediness that makes you think the guy probably doesn't have very many friends. Makes you feel reminded of all those CIA moles during the cold war who got caught later.