Question for LIHOPers

[durutti]

If the Bushies knew that the hijackers were going to fly a plane into the Pentagon, then why was Rumsfeld there when it happened?

[Maple]

1. Was he

killed?

[ProudGerman]

2. There are varying degrees of LIHOPers

There are those who think the junta knew everything in advance. Then there are those like me, who suppose the junta knew something was gonna happen, but had no clue it was gonna be as big as it turned out to be.

In my mind, there is just no way they didn't know something was gonna happen and weren't preparing to exploit it. But I do believe they were caught off gaurd by the size of the attack for a bit, then were pleased it was so big.

[durutti]

4. I Tend to Agree n/t

[Bridget Burke]

19. They took steps to protect themselves...

Cheney & Bush* on long vacations, Ashcroft OFF commercial airliners. Then there's the refusal to release full accounts of the security briefings.

They knew something was up & didn't try to stop it. The event turned out worse than expected & they exploited it to the hilt. They're still exploiting it.

[absyntheNsugar]

24. I agree more with your assesment

I think they knew Saudis would fly jets into buildings, and most likely the WTC...but I think they had no idea about the Pentagon...and most likely shot down Todd Beamers flight over Penn once they were wise to it...

[Maple]

3. Did you ever see the plane btw?

Or even bits of the plane?

[DCDemo]

5. I was in NYC that day...long story, but my coworkers in DC saw it

Many were on their way to work, at different stages-of-getting-to-work on I-395, Columbia Pike, Rte 1, Rte 110, etc.....and a plane crashed into the Pentagon, believe you me.

Feel free to PM me if you'd like to further discuss..might be able to have one or two of them respond to an email.

Our office is in Arlington, VA, Rosslyn specifically, and the plane apparently pretty much flew right over my building, taking the last major turn towards the Pentagon.

On edit: clarification

[DemoTex]

6. Where then is the crew of that flight?

Where is Michelle Heidenburger, lead flight attendant on that flight. Her husband (a captain for the same airline for which I was a captain, and a good friend of mine) still has trouble facing the day. His wife is gone. Slain by a box-cutter wielding cut-throat assassin, well before the impact at the Pentagon. Oh? Didn't happen? Then tell me where the fuck is Michelle? The rest of the crew?

The fucking plane hit the fucking Pentagon, after a very precise 270-degree, highspeed, overhead approach. Get your paranoid lives together people. Some of us are connected directly to the crews of 9/11. It happened. Get a life.

[DCDemo]

7. Really sorry to hear that

A really nice coworker's sister was on that plane too...

[DemoTex]

8. DC Demo, that's the problem with some fringe-nuts on DU.

They don't think that there was a B-757 impact at the Pentagon. Oh, they are tough nuts to crack. I know. You know. So forget their little paranoias.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. I think they knew

that planes were going to crash into buildings. I suppose they assumed something on the order of the small plane that crashed into the Empire State Building in the 1940s, damaging a couple of floors but not causing any structural damage. It would have stood to reason if a standard sized passenger plane caused about the same damage to the much larger WTC.

A couple of crashes of that scale would have seemed to them to be an adequate reason to make the rubble bounce in Afghanistan.

They were probably as surprised as anyone when the buildings collapsed, but after getting over their shock, they probably smiled and said, "Even better."

[markbark]

18. Whilst not as big as a 757

a B-25 is not a small plane.

I suppose they assumed something on the order of the small plane that crashed into the Empire State Building in the 1940s, damaging a couple of floors but not causing any structural damage

Killed 14 people (3 in the plane and 11 in the building) and made a big honkin hole in the 79th floor.

http://history1900s.about.com/library/misc/blempirecrash.htm

--MAB

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

22. That was not a small plane, that was a B-29 that crashed into

the Empire State Building.

Definately not a small plane.


But, yeah, I think they thought it would be on the order of that magnatude. Acceptable losses... 4-500 or so. They had no way of knowing the towers would come down with all the firemen and workers still in them.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

11. Maybe Rumsfeld only has limited usefulness...

Look at the way they undercut him all the time.

[meg]

12. Good question - answer from a MIHOP person

Everything was going according to plan until al-qaeda double crossed them by sending a plane into the Pentagon instead of the capitol building where it was meant to kill off congress. The second plane was meant to do damage to congress as well.

Notice that panic did not set in until the plane hit the Pentagon. THEN, the remaining airborne plane was shot down. No scrambles of aircraft to help, no panic until the plane hit the Pentagon.

Also, I don't think that the MIHOP planners cared if Rummy got it.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

13. you are insane

if you think that even a small number of individuals in the military/intelligence arena would conspire to allow two planes to collide into the towers. Do you know the level of treason that entails, and what kind of violation it is of every warrior-class ethic that has existed in recorded history? No way, get your head out of your ass and understand that there are people out there who want us, and our way of life, to cease forevermore. Don't get me wrong, Im a Leftie, but your ridiculous assertions of a conspiracy to THAT LEVEL is completely unfounded, and only serves to discredit relevant discussion of America's shortcomings.

[Bucky]

14. Thank you

perfectly said. I hate to feed the trolls, but their nattering does get too loud and annoying sometimes.

[meg]

15. Yes, thanks for the name calling

Now the original poster did ask the question. It does add a lot to the discussion and it isn't loud and nattering at all. Or maybe you can't hear yourself because of where your head is?

[el_gato]

20. answer some real questions instead of your phoney ones

if all you can do is call people names and set up phoney questions to know down how about answering some real ones.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

21. Okay. Fine. So how do you explain two things?

1. the lack of response from the USAF?
and
2. the lack of response from the US Secret Service?

The second one is the most damming one. There have NEVER anywhere been 4 simultaneous hijackings anywhere. With the WTC already collapsing, the Pentagon hit, and if you will remember, about a dozen planes unacounted for over nearly an hour, and the POTUS being very close to an international airport...

why would the Secret Service allow him to sit there and finish a SCHEDULED appearence with grade school children? Clearly they knew there was no threat, because no action was taken.

So how did they know there was no threat?

[marzipanni]

26. Well, a Pearl Harbor-like incident would rally the country

behind what they wanted to pursue. That's what they said in PNAC. A new ethic to go along with one of their other ethics, which puts corporations and $$$$$$$$ before all other concerns.

[Nlighten1]

28. You have some reading to do my friend

[el_gato]

16. just some questions off the top of my head

1. why did condi et al get up in front of the world back on may 5th of 2002 and state that they never could have fathomed the idea that planes could be used as weapons when they knew damn good and well that was an issue, especially given the fact that they were using anti-aircraft artillery at the G8 meeting in Genoa that previous July?

2. Why weren't the airforce jets scrambled?

3. How in the hell did bush see the first plane fly into the WTC that morning before he went into the classroom? Any available footage of the first plane was not found until the next day but he stated clearly that he watched it hit the first tower before he went into the classroom. How?

4. The finding of the passport in the rubble immediately after the collapse of the WTC's seems way too convenient to me? That fire was supposedly hot enough to melt the steel that was used in the construction of the WTC but a paper passport survived the whole ordeal.
Makes no sense to me.


I have alot of questions about this whlole affair do any of you have legitimate explanations? And these are just a few, not to mention cipro, ashcroft and the hard drive search warrant refusal, etc. etc.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

17. And yes, there was a "paper blizzard"

after the impacts, and papers from inside the buildings were found far away, but Muhammad Atta's passport would have been on him and therefore inside the plane, barring the unlikely event of him tossing it out the window before impact. In other words, it would have been engulfed in a fire burning at thousands of degrees.

Somehow I don't think that Saudi Arabia or Egypt issue asbestos passports.

[bobbieinok]

23. The one element that really made me start to question the

whole story

...is that they had the 'partriot' act ready to go immediately.

They were ready for something to happen to scare the US and congress into passing this with very little time to read it and consider its implications.

This level of readiness is not the action of an honest, aboveboard crew.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

25. And never forget the anicent dictum... Who benefits from an

action?

In this case, the only beneficiary is * who went from being a joke who was not elected to a wartime heroic figure over the graves of a few thousand disposable humans.

[Nlighten1]

29. "Cui bono?"

In latin that means "to who's advantage?"

[leftofthedial]

27. that's just how cunning they are

Actually, Rummie was never in any danger. he was a mile away on the opposite side of the building in one of the most secure bunkers on earth at the time.

[DoYouEverWonder]

30. Rummie didn't even switch gears

when he heard about the two planes hitting the WTC. He was in a meeting with Wolfowitz and some others and they all just continued on with their regularly scheduled meeting when they heard the news. They did the same exact thing W did. They ignored the entire event until the Pentagon was hit.

This is the part that proves LIHOP in my book. None of them reacted appropriately, and none of them lifted a finger to respond to a national state of emergency until it was impossible to ignore it any longer. You would think that the people in charge of National Security would have gone into battle mode the instant they found out that at least 3-4 planes had been hijacked and at the least would have gone into high gear when the first hijacked plane hit the first tower. At that moment, anyone who knew that there were 3 more planes in the air, also knew there were 3 more targets.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

31. I agree with that entirely. This was an unprecedented event

and our leaders just sat around like there was nothing wrong.

And they knew about it within minutes of the last hijacking.

In addition to that, there were several other planes, I have seen varying numbers from 1 to 10, that did not respond to radio calls for up to two hours after the events, so for all anyone knew, those planes had been hijacked too. Most of them were cargo planes, either on the ground, or not monitoring the hailing frequencies.

So, if 4 planes were hijacked, their plan was to continue with business as usual?

And if, as the FAA believed for a while, there were more planes hijacked, don't you think they would at least take precautions?

[proud patriot]

32. If he was at his Desk , why wasn't Standard Operating Proceedure Followed

If he was there as he states why did he not
scramble Jets when he was notified ?

I'm afraid this question only raises more questions for me .