Has it really been 16 years?

a reply to: enlightenedservant

I brought up the muslim bit to allude to the fact that the actual culprit had literally zero possible relation to the 9/11 bombers. He wasn't even Muslim, let alone an Al Queda operative operating out of Iraq like we claimed. To be honest, I think you are reading too far into the situation. Just like the rest of Bush jr's military adventures, him and the supervillian, Dick Cheney, just capitalized on a bad situation and raw American nerves.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

How am I reading too much into anything? I wasn't referring to or even responding to a post about 9/11, Muslims, Cheney, Iraq, or anything that you mentioned. Someone made a post about the Patriot Act and I responded to that by noting that the anthrax attacks "coincidentally" helped with its passage. That was the essence of my original post & I stand by that because the anthrax letters definitely had an effect on it.

I literally haven't said who was responsible for the anthrax attacks, who wasn't responsible for them, what motivations may or may not have existed, etc. In fact, in my last post I even literally said:

I'm not saying the anthrax was weaponized or that the official culprit didn't do it. I just find it highly suspicious... blah blah blah

I prefer to approach every terrorist incident & political mystery like I would approach a crime. I try to determine who has the motive to commit the crime & who would benefit the most from it (which aren't always the same things). Like I stated in my last post, I'm aware of the official story. But that doesn't mean that I have to believe it or believe that it tells the full story.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

I dunno you seem to be insinuating that there is some sort of coverup in regards to the Anthrax case that resulted in the Patriot Act. I think it was just Bush capitalizing on the situation at hand to push poor legislation. It's good to approach the situation like a crime, but we can't just automatically assume guilt just because they have an apparent motive. If this were a coverup, it would make more sense for them to have found an Iraqi national guilty instead of a 50-some white lab researcher who was QUITE sociopathic and even had a psychiatrist alert authorities on him because he talked about drugging a girl he was spying on during a session with literally no emotion.

At the end of the day, Occam's Razor is my best go to tool. What is more likely? That a sociopath researcher snapped and used drugs he could easily procure from the lab he worked at to attack political enemies of his, that it was a concerted effort by Al Qeda and/or Iraq, or it was a coverup by the Bush Administration to warrant the passing of the Patriot Act? Keep in mind, the way I remember the PA going down is that it didn't have much backlash at all because both sides were super hot about 9/11 already. I can't really see what the need is to manufacture and frame this guy in order to pass such a bill.

One more thing with how the Anthrax scare ended. The news talked quite extensively about the attacks while they were occurring. Having no qualms blaming Iraq or Al Qeada, but as the case dragged on public interest waned. The arrest of Bruce Ivins occurred to little media attention. If this were a coverup, Bush wouldn't have even needed to end the investigation because no one even cared about it by the time the FBI made an arrest. He could have just let it fall by the way side and no one would be the wiser until much much later.

a reply to: Krazysh0t


Recall that many elements of the Patriot Act, roving wiretaps and a few other provisions, were rejected by Congress in April 2001 as being unconstitutional.

Sprinkle a bit o' anthrax through the mail of Congress, and voila, it passes, in the dead of night, with very few members having even bothered to read it.

AQ or TPTB?

Occam knows the answer.

a reply to: Salander

Unless you can produce some evidence of this narrative, then Occam's Razor doesn't apply to it. The idea with the least amount of assumptions is likely the correct one. You are making a lot of assumptions not backed up by any physical evidence. It could sound likely, but then again you didn't explain why Bush would want to frame a white guy and not an Iraqi or Muslim. If you recall, the Patriot Act was targeted towards non-Americans. The guy who was eventually charged is an American.

yeah, we were arguing about it the other day. no one could believe that happened that long ago

The biggest shame of the last 16 years is that the spirit that was found in America on Sept 12, 2011 has been completely wiped out.

Yes, it's seen when needed during disasters like Harvey and Irma, but Americans have been at each others' throats on almost every issue since about 2008.

Unfortunately, it's probably going to take another 9/11 style incident to bring back faith in each other that Americans ocassionally have, but have seldom seen in the last few years.

One of Hillary Clinton's early election speeches asked Americans to "bring back the Spirit of September 12, 2001".

Unfortunately, it was completely lost in the ridiculousness from both sides of the entire election.

It could have been a tremendously unifiying rallying call to America, but was lost in the babble.

a reply to: Krazysh0t


No, the theory that is based entirely on assumptions is the official theory.

I question those assumptions and therefore am not persuaded to support the theory. It cannot be proved, by you or by those who advanced it 16 years ago this week.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

I dunno you seem to be insinuating that there is some sort of coverup in regards to the Anthrax case that resulted in the Patriot Act.

Not necessarily a govt coverup. I just suspect that the anthrax letters that went to the 2 Senators' offices were sent by someone different than either of the official suspects for the other cases. Kind of like if one novice "script kiddie" hacker was attacking a lot of random targets, it would be easy for a pro hacker to use that as an opening to attack specific targets and make it look like the novice did those attacks too. Far more people benefited from the Patriot Act than just the Bush Administration.

I think it was just Bush capitalizing on the situation at hand to push poor legislation. It's good to approach the situation like a crime, but we can't just automatically assume guilt just because they have an apparent motive.

Tsk tsk, are you sure that it's me who's making the assumptions? I never said that it was the Bush administration that has my suspicions. In fact, I won't go into my serious theory, but I actually have a list of others who I think would've benefited the most from the Patriot Act, 9/11, and the War on Terror. And Bin Laden, Hatfill, and Ivins aren't on that list (though Hatfill, Ivins, or whoever could've taken money to do it).

At the end of the day, Occam's Razor is my best go to tool. What is more likely? That a sociopath researcher snapped and used drugs he could easily procure from the lab he worked at to attack political enemies of his, that it was a concerted effort by Al Qeda and/or Iraq, or it was a coverup by the Bush Administration to warrant the passing of the Patriot Act?

Option 4, the sociopathic researcher(s) may have been responsible for some attacks, but Ivins was used as the fall guy for the anthrax attacks that had political repercussions. No offense, but you're the only one out of the 2 of us who keeps saying that it could only be the Bush administration involved in any "cover up". And I see no reason to believe Al Qaeda or Iraq did it because they wouldn't benefit from sending anthrax to the offices of 2 Democratic Senators while Congress was split 50 to 50 and important votes were coming up. I already said that I don't believe the official stories, so why assume that I believe the official media narratives of the time that claimed Saddam may have been involved?

Keep in mind, the way I remember the PA going down is that it didn't have much backlash at all because both sides were super hot about 9/11 already. I can't really see what the need is to manufacture and frame this guy in order to pass such a bill.

Wrong timeline. Wait, that sounds like a mandela effect lol. I mean, you're looking at the timeline wrong. The anthrax attacks happened early in Oct of 2001. The Patriot Act passed Congress on Oct 25th of 2001 and was signed into law on Oct 26th of 2001. The 1st researcher dude, Steven Hatfill (a scientist who worked in the government's biodefense labs at Fort Detrick, Md), wasn't even named a "person of interest" until August of 2002 (HERE), which was at least a week after the FBI raided his house. So you're right that they didn't need to frame anyone in order to pass the bill because the Patriot Act was already the law for 8 months by then. If anything, a conviction at that time would've been more of the "closure" that the public needed for the case since the attacks had already stopped and the last anthrax victim died in November of 2001.

But here's the catch: Hatfill, the guy that was originally suspected of doing it, was never convicted of anything. Instead, he actually won a multimillion dollar lawsuit against the govt over it on June 27th of 2008. A month later, Bruce E. Ivins commits "suicide" on July 29th of 2008. And on Feb. 19, 2010, a full year and a half after his death, the official anthrax investigation ended and declared the dead Ivins to be the only culprit.

Yeah, that's not suspicious at all lol. By the time they declared Ivins the guy, there was no need to claim Al Qaeda, Saddam, or anyone else like that did it because Iraq had already been invaded and occupied by then & the War on Terror was in its 9th year. Think about it: Almost 7 years passed between the actual anthrax attacks & when Ivins died, yet he was never charged with anything. He wasn't even officially considered the prime suspect until the investigation ended in the 2nd year of the Obama administration.

To me, it just seems way more likely that the official story is just to provide closure for yet another Bush Era snafu. They could've named any dead suspect as the culprit and it would've had the same effect.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

Well you'll have to write a thread now because you've peaked my curiosity.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

The problem is that I have no proof of my suspicions whatsoever. And the more I learn, the more convinced I am that there were way more players involved in each event than what's officially noted. I've noticed that in order to successfully lobby for global wars, many different groups & industries have to believe they will benefit from that war. I mean people like these, but not limited to them:

1. Prince Bandar aka "Bandar Bush" (the notorious backer of global Wahhabi groups whose wife made payments to the wife of a known enabler of the 9/11 hijackers & whose unlisted number was in a hijacker's phone);

2. Jack Abramoff, the extremely powerful lobbyist whose casino boat was a meeting point for the hijacker Atta a week or so before the 9/11 attacks;

3. The Mossad agents who kept tabs on some of the hijackers in the US without alerting the US authorities;

4. The backers of the "Northern Alliance" & their leader Ahmad Massoud in Afghanistan, since the NA was the Taliban's primary enemy yet it was losing & Massoud was assassinated a few days before 9/11;

5. Powerbrokers in the global opiate trade, since in July of 2000 the Taliban's leader Mullah Mohammed Omar outlawed opium production in Taliban controlled areas, dropping production from 3,276 tons to only 185 tons in just one year (HERE). Ironically, a lot of the Western narratives at the time centered on how bad this was for the poor, struggling Afghan farmers, like this;

6. The organizations that lobbied for the passage of the bills "H.R. 2975" & "S. 1510", since those bills were hurriedly added to the Patriot Act after the anthrax attacks happened;

7. Whoever would gain the most power from the new financial laws and surveillance powers passed after 9/11, including but not limited to the Patriot Act & the NYPD's expanded powers;

8. The Wahhabis & Zionists that would gain the most from the destruction of secular Muslim govts, Libya & Iran;

9. The sponsors and co-writers of "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" & the PNAC, whose goals were greatly realized with the implementation of the "War on Terror";

10. The defense contractors, energy industry titans, and MIC insiders who stood to gain the most from the skyrocketing Defense Dept budget after 9/11, which roughly doubled from 2002 to 2008.

Now, I'm not saying that all or even most of these were involved in 9/11 or the anthrax attacks. But it's clear that the ones with no ties to the actual hijackers still benefited immensely from the series of reforms, wars, and military occupations that history will call the "War on Terror". I wouldn't even be surprised if the vast majority of the individuals affiliated with this list were simply brought onboard afterwards as a form of "coalition building".

However, my suspicions are that there was a highly classified plan to reshape the Muslim world, smite Israel's most powerful enemies, obliterate then reclaim the hearts & minds of Russia's MidEast allies, reclaim the MidEast's energy supplies (which was European "property" after WW1 & WW2), reignite the global opium trade, and drastically boost defense spending & development. The enhanced policing reforms were likely an added bonus to shore up domestic support while giving a pretext to crush domestic opposition.

I don't doubt for a second that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had a plan, got permission from Osama to implement that plan, and then got 20-30 mercs & enablers to implement that plan on 9/11. But I don't think that would've been enough to get the job done and I'm doubting that he was the main architect of that plan. I'm thinking his camp got the plan from Prince Bandar's camp while Bandar's camp was an intermediary for some of the other powerbrokers from my previous list. So while the 20-30 mercs & enablers were in the US, the other groups were doing their part on the sidelines to make sure the plan went through. The affiliates of the other actors probably didn't even known the full scope of the plan or were misled about the actual situation.

If my semi-crackpot theory were true, then how easy would it be for anyone affiliated in this plan to slip a couple hundred thousand USD to some obscure researchers to send out some tainted letters? There have always been professionals and people w/good standings in society that have secretly been affiliates with or paid protection money to the Mob, Mafia, Camorra, Yakuza, cartels, etc (or hired them to take care of some "business").

I even suspect that the airplanes were equipped with then-state of the art drone technology to ensure that they flew on target, since most of the public didn't even know what UAVs were at the time. If you look at it strictly from that perspective, they would've been resoundingly successful live fire runs that clearly propelled the drone/UAV industry into the forefront of modern military technology. It's not like govts, militaries & defense contractors are above sacrificing citizens for the advancement of technology. Wasn't that the whole point in using soldiers as "cannon fodder" and using civilians for human experiments? Quite a few people would kill strangers if billions dollars per year were at stake.

I know it's repulsive to think of it like this, but like I said earlier, I look at these things like I would look at a crime. There are only so many coincidences that can happen before they stop being coincidences. Far too many powerful groups felt screwed over by the drop in defense funding under Clinton; the Northern Alliance's losing streak; the spread of secularism & the outright rejection of Wahhabism in Islam ; the dramatic drop in opium availability (don't forget that the West had already fought multiple Opium Wars & Banana Wars); the refusal of the world to take down Saddam, the Iranian Mullahs, Qaddafi, Assad, etc; the loss of energy revenue in the MidEast, etc. But coincidentally, they all profited greatly from the "unforeseeable" murder of thousands of civilians on 9/11 and the series of reforms, wars, and military occupations that would follow. Hmmm...

If we accept that we live in a "war based" economy, why is it so hard to believe that there are powerful people who think we need new wars to continue our prosperity? You would only need a few powerful people to hatch a plot for something like this to happen. Heck, look at Jeffrey Sterling. He was a former CIA operative turned whistleblower who revealed that the US govt had fed faulty nuclear weapons blueprints through secret operatives into Iran, then pointed at those blueprints as "proof" that Iran was trying to build nukes. Condolezza Rice was reportedly astounded at this, not because of the plans, but because she believed that only the highest ranking members of the Clinton & Bush administrations knew about these plans (called "Operation Merlin"). We almost were able to take down Iran, reclaim their oil, and please both Israel & the GCC (for taking down their arch enemy), all because of a plan known to only a few people.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

That's the kind of can of worms I want to see opened up though. Not the hysterical "the planes were holograms!" bull# or the crap about Bush planning the whole thing. I know there are unanswered questions from those days, but the problem is that after years of idiots asking the wrong questions over and over again or arguing over stupid things like the melting point of steal obscures and poisons the well for real investigators. So for that I'm sorry for doubting you before. You seem to have some good theories that I wouldn't mind myself seeing followed up on.

a reply to: Krazysh0t


That's a solid post, I remember Skeptic Overlord made a similar post several years ago when he shut down the forum for a cooling off period and listed many of the same points as ES just did. Everyone focuses on the bogus and woo-ridden conspiracies like holograms, thermite and controlled demolition and there are some actual, honest to goodness conspiracies that no one bothers with since they glamour factor is so low.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

It also doesn't help that exploring some of those avenues of investigation would risk exposing and alienating two of our key allies in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and Israel. It's one scabby band-aid to rip off.

a reply to: Krazysh0t


I think they both need us far more than we need them at this point.

a reply to: Krazysh0t


Since you are interested in real investigators, and I presume real investigations, have you any thoughts about why President Bush would fight against any investigation for a number of years? Why did he fight the investigation requested by The Jersey Girls, that group of women who all lost husbands at WTC?

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Well the problem is that they help to serve as a staging ground for missions in the surrounding countries. I really don't care about our relationships with them and they need to be shaken up, but we should do it correctly so that we don't make things worse. Though our politicians don't know how to do it and would probably do the equivalent of hurling a wrecking ball at a building.

a reply to: Salander
I don't believe Bush is guilty of anything except being a poor leader.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
Well the problem is that they help to serve as a staging ground for missions in the surrounding countries. I really don't care about our relationships with them and they need to be shaken up, but we should do it correctly so that we don't make things worse. Though our politicians don't know how to do it and would probably do the equivalent of hurling a wrecking ball at a building.

I totally agree, but they do need a wake up call of some sort.