Reply #33: If one looks at only a single piece of evidence, perhaps.

[Minstrel Boy]

But there is a vast and growing body of evidence which is not explained by ignorance.

There is, for instance, Sibel Edmonds, who says specific warnings were received which "even an idiot could see", that they were intentionally mistranslated to hide their import, and John Ashcroft tried bribing her to keep quiet about it. If there was only Sibel Edmonds, then I could be persuaded of ignorance or incompetence.

But there's not just Sibel Edmonds.

There's Michael Springman, 22-year State Department veteran, and former head of the visa bureau in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He was repeatedly overruled by high-level State Department officials to issue visas to bin Laden recruits so they could receive training in the United States. Says this continued at least until the summer of 2001. (Notably, 15 of the 9/11 hijackers first entered the US through Jeddah.) Springman protested, and was fired. He says he believes that the victims of 9/11 "may have been sacrificed in order to further wider US geopolitical objectives."
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=104&row=1
http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2002/02/521.shtml
http://radio.cbc.ca/programs/dispatches/audio/020116_springman.rm


There's Robert Wright, FBI special investigator. He claims that FBI agents assigned to intelligence operations actually protect terrorists from investigation and prosecution. That the FBI shut down his probe into terrorist training camps, and he was removed from a money-laundering case that had a direct link to terrorism. Says the FBI "intentionally and repeatedly thwarted his attempts to launch a more comprehensive investigation to identify and neutralize terrorists." He was suspended and ordered to remain silent. Subject of at least three internal FBI investigations. Has written a book that the FBI is not only refusing to allow publication, but is not permitting anyone to even see it.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/printer_2469.shtml
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/37/news-crogan.php

There's Lt. Col. Steve Butler, Vice Chancellor for student affairs, Defense Language Institute in Monterey. In a letter to the editor of a local paper, Butler wrote "Bush knew of the impending attacks on America. He did nothing to warn the American people because he needed this war on terrorism. What is...contemptible is the President of the United States not telling the American people what he knows for political gain." During Butler’s term as chancellor, 9/11 hijacker Saeed Alghamdi was enrolled at the Defense Language Institute. He was disciplined, lost his position and threatened with court martial.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mcherald/3406502.htm
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.06E.butler.bush.htm
http://raleigh.craigslist.org/com/21220698.html

There's Indira Singh, "risk architect" consultant to JP Morgan Chase. She discovered that Ptech, a software company founded by a Saudi financier on the terrorist watch list, had troubling access to sensitive US institutions, which was apparently of no concern to the institutions involved or the FBI. For instance, a "person of interest" from Ptech “had a team in the basement of the FAA for two years” before 9/11. One of Ptech’s projects gained it access to "all information processes and issues that the FAA had with the National Airspace Systems Agency." Her warnings went ignored by institutions and the FBI. Told to keep quiet. Subject to surveillance and threats.
http://www.madcowprod.com/index45.html

There's Colleen Rowley, FBI field agent, Minnesota office. She claimed that FBI head office perversely thwarted the investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui, throwing up unusual roadblocks which prevented exposing the terrorist use of flight schools in the summer of 2001. That Dave Frasca of the Radical Fundamentalism Unit altered her report, rendering it impossible for the FBI to pursue the matter further. After 9/11, Frasca – the senior official who altered Rowley’s report and sat on the Minnesota office's request to investigate flight schools, even though he had received a similar request from the Phoenix office – was promoted and commended.
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020603/memo.html
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MOO208B.html

There's David Schippers, former Chief Investigative Counsel for the US House Judiciary Committee. He claims a number of FBI agents learned, months in advance, the dates and targets of the attacks, as well as the names and funding sources of the hijackers, but were warned off pursuing the investigation by agency headquarters with threat of persecution. Some took the information to Schippers, and he went to John Ashcroft's office with the information six weeks before the attacks, but was rebuffed. Schippers went public with this on September 13, 2001, and is now representing some agents in a suit against the federal government. The story was corroborated by William Norman Grigg in The New American. Grigg interviewed three FBI agents, and they confirmed "that the information provided to Schippers was widely known within the Bureau before September 11th." One of them said some FBI senior field agents knew, "almost precisely, what happened on September 11th." (Info cribbed from David Ray Griffin's "The New Pearl Harbor.")

And this hardly scratches the surface.

There's plenty evidence. And it doesn't suggest ignorance. It suggests premeditated murder.