Really

Okay. bad wording on my part. I do realize our government is responsible for many deaths ... Vietnam, Iraq, etc ... in questionable wars or "interventions" into other countries political systems. What I meant, but didn't clearly convey in my quouted message, was that I don't believe that they would be behind a plot to kill thousands of Americans and American soil. I also don't believe our government is so adept at coverups that they would be able to pull the wool over our eyes.

Someone else mentioned that the government is responsible because they knew about the attacks and did nothing to foil them. That's a debatable point ... I'm not personally sure how much valid, confirmable intelligence we had on this event, surely we had some. It certainly can be said that our method of intelligence gathering, confirmation of the intelligene and dispersal of such intelligence to law enforcement and other government agencies is lacking and could definitely be improved. So yes maybe there was a lack of action, based not on a want to allow the attacks but rather on an ineffective system, either improperly funded or improperly managed.

-Shawn

Originally posted by bsbray11

Originally posted by SmallMindsBigIdeas
It really amazes me that people would actually consider it a valid argument that our government would assist or openly allow 3,000 people to perish including almost 100 police officers and over 300 fire fighters.

Then you must not be familiar with at least a couple things going on in the Mid-East at this very moment. Or what happened through the 60's and 70's in a little Asian country. Our military makes the biggest part of its business by killing people. If you take offense to the killing of fellow citizens, why not take offense to the killings of others? In the real world, all people are people, and only your personal psychology, reinforced constantly in language, current events, the way history is taught, etc., ever makes you see otherwise. Incidentally, I think this is also what creates wars and violence and ignorance in the first place.

Originally posted by Astygia
SmallMinds, look at it this way.

But what is flat-out obvious and true is that our entire premise for going to war in Iraq was bogus. This is well-documented and all over the news. Netanyahu, the former PM of Israel, even said during an interview that we were "guessing" about Iraq's WMD.

Yet our administration fudged intel reports and relied on whims and personal agendas instead, again something that's all over the place. Bush was already planning Iraq before he was sworn in, again this is something documented. Intel reports warned the hell out of us of an attack on 9/11 involving airplanes, nothing was done. The list of suspicious activity and just plain lies goes on for miles, I won't list 'em all here.

I will agree with that statement ... the Bush administration misled the public in the decision to go to war against Iraq. The true motivation we may never know, we can surmise wether is was valid or not. I agree whole-heartedly that the administration used faulty intelligence, intelligence which they had been told was unconfirmed or worse thought to be false. They cherry-picked the pieces of intelligence they needed, against the advice and will of the intelligence gathering community, to justify the war. Then when things got sour they turned it right back on the intelligence gatherers for providing faulty information, no surprise there. I seem to remember the agenda from the administration was along these lines:

• First it was becuase Saddam was linked to Al-qaeda ... when that was proven to be false intelligence the changed it to:
  
  
• We must go to Iraq because Saddam has weapons of mass destruction (I can't remember how many times that was said over the news) ... most people thought of WMD as a "major" weapon not simply a missile that is on every military aircraft we fly ... most people thought of nuclear sized weapons. The administration knew that and used it for leverage to support the war. After it became apparent that this was a falsehood the story changed to:
  
  
• We're freeing an oppressed people; Saddam is an evil leader who has killed many people unjustly (very true statement - but a very different motivation to invade a country). I do feel the American people were misled on the true intentions of the war and had they been told this last reason was the justification for going to war the support would've been even less.
  

Originally posted by Astygia
So it comes down to two things; either Bush and co., or some intel organization within the administration, or both, took an active role in the attacks, or (most likely imho) the same parties saw it coming and chose to use it to further an agenda, a la Pearl Harbor.

Either way you look at it, the corruption is there. Exactly where it lies, we can only dig and dig to maybe find out.

Given everything above, including a certain level of corruption, I don't believe that that is conclusive proof of the administration taking an active role in the attacks. Did they have intel about the attacks ahead of time? Very possibly, but was it organized and was it believable ... who knows. They will never come and oublicly say .. yes we had intel but our processes for gathering, confirming and reacting to intel are/were too slow to have any effect upon this attack.