Suing the Saudis The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has decided to
join a $7 billion lawsuit that was
filed last week by bond brokerage firm
Cantor Fitzgerald, which
lost 658 of its employees--two thirds of the firm--in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, which was three years ago today. It looks like they may be gearing up to use
RICO:
"[The lawsuit said] Saudi Arabia engaged in a pattern of racketeering as it participated directly or indirectly in al Qaida's work through its "alter-ego" charities and relief organisations, which it funded and controlled." Al Qaida
is named as a co-defendant, and four Saudis are mentioned by name: the interior minister, the defense minister, the governor of Riyadh, and the British ambassador, all members of the Saudi royal family.
posted by Asparagirl
on Sep 11, 2004 -
27 comments
a letter to Thomas Kean, Chair of the 9/11 Commission from Sibel Edmonds:
Unfortunately, I find your report seriously flawed in its failure to address serious intelligence issues that I am aware of, which have been confirmed, and which as a witness to the commission, I made you aware of. Thus, I must assume that other serious issues that I am not aware of were in the same manner omitted from your report. These omissions cast doubt on the validity of your report and therefore on its conclusions and recommendations. Considering what is at stake, our national security, we are entitled to demand answers to unanswered questions, and to ask for clarification of issues that were ignored and/or omitted from the report. A solid letter detailing many disturbing things reported to the Commission, yet not in the report.
More on Edmonds
here.
posted by amberglow
on Aug 2, 2004 -
19 comments
DOJ Asked FBI Translator To Change Pre 9-11 Intercepts ---
FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, was offered a substantial raise and a full time job in order to not go public that she had been asked by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to retranslate and adjust the translations of [terrorist] subject intercepts that had been received before September 11, 2001 by the FBI and CIA.
"My translations of the pre 9-11 intercepts included [terrorist] money laundering, detailed and date specific information enough to alert the American people, and other issues dating back to 1999 which I won't go into right now."
Incredibly, Edmonds said "The senate Judiciary Committee, and the 911 Commission have heard me testify for lengthy periods of time time (3 hours) about very specific plots, dates, airplanes used as weopons, and specific idividuals and activities."
Is this true?
and OMFG
posted by amberglow
on Mar 24, 2004 -
41 comments
Half an hour, two years ago.
[If the link won't work for you, copy it and open it with Quicktime. High bandwidth required.]
posted by Asparagirl
on Sep 11, 2003 -
26 comments
Almost two years later and they're still finding remains from the World Trade Center. Hopefully one more family gets a call they've been waiting for/dreading that their loved one is found.
posted by MediaMan
on Sep 9, 2003 -
6 comments
«Clearly, one of the most critical questions of the twenty-first century concerns why the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were not prevented. As I outline below, there are numerous aspects regarding the official stories about September 11th which do not fit with known facts, which contradict each other, which defy common sense, and which indicate a pattern of misinformation and coverup. The reports coming out of Washington do very little to alleviate these concerns.»
22 questions to chose from and decide which ones are nightmares of a conspiracy theorist and which ones must be answered.
posted by acrobat
on Sep 4, 2003 -
70 comments
Plans For Iraq Attack Began On 9/11 "CBS News has learned that barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq — even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks." Rumsfeld: "Go massive ... Sweep it all up. Things related and not."
posted by owillis
on Sep 5, 2002 -
61 comments
Xymphora blog has very interesting 9/11 details The links here suggest that the govt had more information than was initially released, and that only through piecing together various reports (here) do we get a fuller picture which seems at odds with what we had previously been told. Important: this is not a conspiracy theory but rather what seems a clarification.
posted by Postroad
on Jul 23, 2002 -
25 comments
An excellent piece of media analysis by Michael Wolff in New York Magazine looking at the current summer-movie-plot version of Al Qaeda being artfully constructed by the NY Times ...
Then, perhaps most disconcertingly, the overall narrative itself is patently a dumbed-down rehash. It's Cold War stuff. There is the ubiquitous and yet unknown and unknowable enemy. There's the international jihad, which, with only minor adjustments, replaces the international communist conspiracy. There's the sudden purported hegemony of the Muslim world -- a new Soviet-bloc-style ideological monolith. There is the otherworldly dedication of operatives bent on overthrowing the West. There are the cells. There is the myth of superhuman discipline. There is now, even, the developing Kremlinology of the next tier of men who replace Osama. And at the center of the story, of course, is the bomb. Whether in massive retaliatory form or as a dirty-bomb package, it serves the same effect.
(link cribbed from
Altercation)
posted by mantid
on Jul 1, 2002 -
8 comments
INS grants visas to deceased hijackers - on Monday, the folks at Immigration and Naturalization services finally got around to issuing student visas to Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi (who were aboard the two flights that struck the WTC).
posted by tpl1212
on Mar 13, 2002 -
18 comments
"Terror Widows'' An editorial cartoon that ridicules widows of World Trade Center victims as greedy and shallow publicity hounds drew instant outrage last night from the grieving survivors. One widow was shown with a pile of cash in her lap and telling a reporter, 'I keep waiting for Kevin to come home, but I know he never will. Fortunately, the $3.2 million I collected from the Red Cross keeps me warm at night.'
The NYTimes pulled the strip from its Website.
posted by matteo
on Mar 6, 2002 -
52 comments
Why Are So Many Americans Cancelling Their Subscriptions To "The London Review of Books"? This letter from
Paul Genova rings true - and
touché - to this European at least. Ever since the very respectable
LRB published its
issue on the September 11 attacks, American readers(and some notable contributors) have been writing in droves to cancel their subscriptions and connections to the journal.
Mary Beard's article(
op.cit.) aroused most of the fury, though others are arguably just as outrageous. In the pages of this most lively of letter sections - graciously available online - this particular correspondence seems to demonstrate an ever-sharpening divide between American and European intellectuals. Are Paul Genova's and other readers' disgusted reactions justified? Are they specific to the WTC attacks or, more worryingly, representative of a wider separation?
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Feb 15, 2002 -
46 comments
WTC Victims say the government isn't giving them enough money. Some say the government is giving them too much, and any honest libertarian will tell you that the government shouldn't be giving them anything. What do you think?
posted by insomnyuk
on Jan 7, 2002 -
48 comments
Prophets of doom In June 2000, Lynne Palmer, a 69-year-old Las Vegas resident, published her
Astrological Almanac for 2001... On page 95 of the book, buried among advice on the best days to go to the movies and worst days to lend people money, Palmer had written, in an odd combination of the obvious and the prophetic: "Avoid terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001."
posted by raaka
on Dec 31, 2001 -
23 comments
Bin Laden: Yes, I did it "In a previously undisclosed video which has been circulating for 14 days among his supporters, he confesses that "history should be a witness that we are terrorists. Yes, we kill their innocents".
In the footage, shot in the Afghan mountains at the end of October, a smiling bin Laden goes on to say that the World Trade Centre's twin towers were a "legitimate target" and the pilots who hijacked the planes were "blessed by Allah".
The killing of at least 4,537 people was justified, he claims, because they were "not civilians" but were working for the American system." (via
lgf)
Evidence enough? Will this cause any in opposition to reconsider? (it's even from a
British newspaper...)
posted by owillis
on Nov 10, 2001 -
47 comments
"The Tapes" -- plane radio traffic on 9/11. (NYTimes link, registration required.) It would almost be refreshing to read something like this -- hard facts and timelines, actual quotes instead of vague inferences -- were it not for the content of those quotes, which is chilling. Very much worth a read, however.
posted by precipice
on Oct 15, 2001 -
9 comments
Coming soon to an inbox near you,
this link(&
part 2) to a WTC(& Pentagon) conspiracy page. Planes didn't do all the damage, bombs did in order to exploit the "WTC Golden Goose." Any other conspiracy theories floating around yet?
posted by donkeysuck
on Oct 8, 2001 -
15 comments
This didn`t seem too important to many but the last pieces of evidence associating Bin Laden and company to the WTC attacks was released, and is detailed by the Sunday Times. It`s surprising that many people were ready to go to war without this info...
posted by holycola
on Oct 7, 2001 -
21 comments
Avenging the Dead: National Public Radio Commentator Crispin Sartwell makes his case for avenging the dead of last week's attack. What do you think of his words? (Link is Real Audio)
posted by Taken Outtacontext
on Sep 22, 2001 -
4 comments
The Dead Zone all over again? Lucich said the boy approached his teacher on the afternoon of Sept. 10 and casually told her: "Tomorrow, World War III will begin. It will begin in the United States, and the United States will lose."
eerie little story about a 5th grader in Dallas
posted by LeLiLo
on Sep 20, 2001 -
17 comments
The Show Must Go On. Is it appropriate for Broadway shows to be up and running again? True, the Mayor prescribed it as a way to show how unaffected we are by terrorism, yet I couldn't imagine sitting in the audience at The Producers, laughing at "Springtime for Hitler," mocking the foolishness of that regime of hatred when the product of another regime of hatred lays smouldering just a few miles to the south.
posted by adrober
on Sep 20, 2001 -
16 comments
Okay, so I am a little biased against the Democratic Underground. Occasionally I may even laugh at some of their insults of dubya. I am sure this page was placed on their website early in the day of the attack without thinking. Maybe I am being just a little too sensitive about the tragedy, but I really think they should at LEAST change the date of this letter to santa.
posted by Oxydude
on Sep 17, 2001 -
5 comments
A thoughtful and fascinating analysis of the historical backdrop to the current situation.
Why did this happen, what circumstances got us into a de facto state of undeclared war with the Islamic world, and what can we realistically do to prevent those circumstances from ever recurring? --Charlie Stross
posted by rushmc
on Sep 15, 2001 -
15 comments
Is it too soon to see the brighter side? I'm torn. The words of the tragedy have turned from "The horror" to "let's kill the gays" in less than three days. But at the same time, I know there's a brighter side. Crisis brings (generally) the best out of Americans (if not the world). We will rebuild, re-design, re-shape our world. After WWII, America had a huge upsing economically and socially. People remembered to be happy to be alive, had kids, made families, partied like Hugh Hefner, and created one of the most amazing periods in our history. The same will happen again: unimaginable horror, work, then prosperity. But this only happens is
these idiots don't screw it up. Your thoughts?
posted by rev-
on Sep 14, 2001 -
6 comments
The U.S. Embassy in Manila may have been the target of a simultaneous attack. (this is a rumor, NBC has stated that two men were found videotaping the embassy, and they were questioned, released, and then they fled to Thailand. Bomb-making materials were found in their home.)
posted by j.edwards
on Sep 14, 2001 -
3 comments
The Doctor Is In Yes, he may be crazy. Yes, he may be irrelevant. And yes, his numbers might be a little high, but it beats listening to the same dozen folks repeat the same stuff on the networks (Couldn't they all take 2-4 am off for bathroom breaks and showers?).
posted by yerfatma
on Sep 12, 2001 -
7 comments
News from here in Boston, the police have
arrested people (Boston Globe says 3, other local sources say 1) in Coply Square Hotel, and are investigating passengers on an Amtrak train bound for Providence.
Also, word has it that the Pennsylvania Plane was heading for the White House. There's numerous reports of civilians overtaking the plane and crashing it. If this is true, they saved a lot of lives.
posted by christian
on Sep 12, 2001 -
9 comments
Are we sure it's over? I don't mean to play the role of doomsday prophet here, but as happy as I am to be alive (I watched the buildings fall from my office on 23rd St), I feel utterly trapped on Manhattan and completely vulnerable to an attack which would dwarf today's tragedy as much as today dwarfed the previous WTC attack. Anyone want to allay my fears?
posted by Sinner
on Sep 11, 2001 -
27 comments
Paratroopers? Or cruise missiles? What will America's military response be if the Taliban are determined to be liable? The Russians certainly didn't too well with a conventional military attack on Afghanistan.
posted by MattD
on Sep 11, 2001 -
34 comments
