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Wednesday, May 17, 2006 |
JudicialWatch: "Judicial Watch originally filed a Freedom of Information Act request on December 15, 2004, seeking all records pertaining to September 11, 2001 camera recordings of the Pentagon attack from the Sheraton National Hotel, the Nexcomm/Citgo gas station, Pentagon security cameras and the Virginia Department of Transportation.
'We fought hard to obtain this video because we felt that it was very important to complete the public record with respect to the terrorist attacks of September 11,' said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
'Finally, we hope that this video will put to rest the conspiracy theories involving American Airlines Flight 77.'"
I have read the book 9/11 The Big Lie by Thierry Meyssan, which concludes: "only a missile of the United States armed forces transmitting a friendly code could enter the Pentagon's airspace without provoking a counter-missile barrage". I had also read the official study about the Bijlmer crash (which involved a bigger cargo plane) and after comparison could only conclude that the conspiracy theory of a missile hitting the Pentagon was not credible. The arguments in Meyssan's book did not hold.
However, when I now see the blurry images just made available, I have a problem (see picture, the white blur at the right, right in the middle). What I can faintly see is not an airplane, but resembles qua size and form rather a perfectly oblong missile (a big one in any case - how big do they come?).
So what am I now to believe? These images don't prove anything.
However, it is a fact that there was no serious threat prevention or adequate response to real intelligence that pointed to an imminent attack.
AlterNet: "Now, in an exclusive interview, Miller reveals how the attack on the Cole spurred her reporting on Al Qaida and led her, in July 2001, to a still-anonymous top-level White House source, who shared top-secret NSA signals intelligence (SIGINT) concerning an even bigger impending Al Qaida attack, perhaps to be visited on the continental United States.
Ultimately, Miller never wrote that story either. But two months later - on Sept. 11 - Miller and her editor at the Times, Stephen Engelberg, both remembered and regretted the story they didn't do."
Even in the Washington DC area, no military aircraft scrambled from Andrews AFB.
11:37:51 PM 
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A new report has been published: Hurricane Halliburton : Conflict, Climate Change and Catastrophe.
"It documents: how the company management in Iraq and Kuwait has cheated taxpayers out of millions of dollars through bribery and waste;
how the company has increased its profits in Iraq by employing sweatshop Asian labor and refusing to pay injury claims;
how senior management used worker's pensions to pay for management benefits, despite the fact that the soaring stock price has made the top managers tens of millions of dollars."
12:26:04 PM
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The hysteria in Holland about the case Hirsi 'Ali' is making waves abroad. The Wall Street Journal, always ready to add a racist touch, is writing about the Dutch disease.
Even the NPR has lost all objectivity: "A controversial Dutch lawmaker who has been told to leave the Netherlands may soon reside in the United States, according to reports. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born member of the Dutch Parliament and a vocal critic of conservative Islam, resigned her post after the immigration minister withdrew her citizenship."
Hirsi 'Ali' was not told to leave; she had decided to leave the country months ago before this affair. The minister did not withdraw her citizenship, she only observed that Hirsi's passport was invalid, because Hirsi had provided a wrong name, a wrong date of birth; moreover, morally, she had no right to a refugee status as she was living in Kenya in prosperous circumstances. And she is not a critic of 'conservative Islam', she fights Islam tout court. Those are the facts.
The hysteria reaches fever-pitch with someone writing about 'The stoning of Ayaan Hirsi Ali' and 'lynch mobs'.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not persecuted by the Dutch media or politics, she is by radical Islam, but not the tolerant Islam. We have a free press and as a controversial MP she is getting flak. But she will probably get a proper passport soon. It was her personal decision to leave the Netherlands and she is being protected by the government from threats. If she lost her apartment, the government is ready to give her a new one.
That there is an increasing intolerance in the Netherlands is a fact. But Hirsi herself was an MP for a party with an intolerant agenda, she supported the hard immigration rules and the deportation of her fellow-immigrants, she supported the illegal war against Iraq. Now that she runs into a personal problem she is asking for clemency for her and the other 26,000 illegal immigrants. She has to a large extent contributed to the climate of intolerance here. The result was the murder of Theo van Gogh. Never have I heard her talk about the need to support the people in Somalia financially or otherwise. She has only been generalising about Islam, calling it 'a backward religion'.
Did she achieve something here? No, she antagonised people and groups, she made the situation worse. If you see that your actions or speech are having an adverse effect, you change tactics. She didn't, because the controversy gave her coverage, fame and wealth. Several times she changed ideological camps, she reneged her own family and upbringing, jumped from Labour to the conservative VVD, now she is giving up the liberal principles of the VVD (conservatives, but still pro-gay) for a neocon fundamentalist Bush think tank. This all smells of manipulative and careerist behaviour.
What can we expect as the result of all this? The left wants a softening of immigration rules and a general pardon for the 26,000 illegal immigrants on the list for deportation. The right is squirming to only make one exception for Hirsi 'Ali', which would breach equality and set a precedent for favouritism.
I fear that Hirsi Ali has again managed to give this country a further swing to the right. She will get exceptional treatment, while others who need a legalisation much more than she does, will be refused. Hirsi 'Ali' is a woman of means. This is not a tragedy for her, it may be hurting her feelings of honour, but it is a boost for her neocon career.
Hirsi may have some good ideas, but her behaviour is wreaking havoc. Irrationality and misfiring political correctness are ruining the dialogue. The only one who profits from all this commotion is Hirsi 'Ali', who will soon be able to cash in on her new book. She has never been a real boon for political improvement nationally or internationally. Her choice of the AEI proves she feels no need for tolerance or dialogue.
11:55:53 AM
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