Are We Boiling Frogs?
Page 15
“To date, the U.S. government has not been
able to determine the origin of the money
used for the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the
question is of little practical significance.”
(9/11 Commission Report - Chapter 5)
All of this information, and a great deal more, is publicly
available. Ultimately only you can decide what you consider
to be 'significant.'
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Chapter 7
Where Did Al The Security Go?
Another major problem the official narrative is the
apparent lack of military response. How four hijacked planes
could lumber around, unmolested by any interceptors, in
absolute contravention of all security procedures, in the
most heavily protected airspace on Earth, for respective
periods of between 47 to 102 minutes is difficult to
understand.
There appear to be only two possible explanations. Either the
largest, most advanced military the world has ever seen, with
a budget greater than the rest of the world's militaries
combined, is completely useless, unable to defend the nation
it serves from even the most rudimentary of threats or, at a
senior level, a strategic plan was in place to sabotage the
military response. Thus enabling the planes to reach their
targets.
Conspiracy theorists have pointed out it was only the
bravery of the passengers on UA Flight 93 that allegedly
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stopped it from reaching its unknown destination. Ending its
meandering journey 1 hour and 45 minutes after the first
hijacking was discovered. Otherwise, the terrorists’ mission
success rate would have presumably been 100%.
The counter argument suggests a third possibility. We might
call this the 'sods law probability.' Namely, whatever can go
wrong invariably does. This is much more in keeping with
the official narrative and far easier for most of us to accept.
The official account, blames everything from crowded radar
screens, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ineptitude,
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)
cock-ups, a complete breakdown of everyone's
comprehension of both the rules of engagement and proper
response protocols, training amnesia, an absent (presumed
missing) chain of command, war games that couldn't have
been scheduled at a worse time and thousands of
experienced highly trained idiots who did well to find their
way work that morning.
I have yet to meet a single conspiracy theorist who doesn't
consider this claim, of an incredible string of coincidental
calamities, anything other than complete tosh.
To accept them, they say, you also have to believe that FAA
air traffic controllers and officials, who undergo years of
intensive professional training, can't read and were both
wholly incapable and utterly oblivious of their
responsibilities; that they were hopelessly unprepared for the
chaos which they presumably never trained or planned for;
that experienced military personnel, including fighter pilots,
didn't have the foggiest idea what to do if they were attacked,
despite being trained to fly the most advanced weaponry on
the planet, and from the ground crews to the Commander in
Chief himself, all lines of communication were
simultaneously knackered.
In one regard the conspiracists, the world's media and
officialdom are in complete agreement. The horror that
unfolded represented one of the worst failings in U.S.
military history. Where they furiously disagree is how and,
more importantly, why it happened.
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So what should have occurred and what evidence is there to
account for the tragic breakdown of defence protocol?
You will not be surprised that establishing even the agreed
official planned response is a source for hot debate.
Thankfully the 9/11 Commission Report Spells it out.[38]
“On 9/11, the defence of U.S. airspace
depended on close interaction between two
federal agencies: the FAA and the North
American Aerospace Defense Command
(NORAD)...........
On 9/11, all the hijacked aircraft were in
NORAD’s North-east Air Defense Sector (also
known as NEADS), which is based in Rome,
New York. That morning NEADS could call
on two alert sites, each with one pair of
ready fighters: Otis Air National Guard Base
in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Langley
Air Force Base in Hampton,Virginia..........
The FAA and NORAD had developed
proto cols for working together in the event of
a hijacking. As they existed on 9/11, the
protocols for the FAA to obtain military
assistance from NORAD required multiple
levels of notification and approval at the
highest levels of government............”
FAA guidance on hijack procedures assumed the aircraft's
crew would notify the controller via radio or by 'squawking' a
transponder code of '7500.' The universal code for a hijack in
progress. Controllers would notify their supervisors, who in
turn would inform management, all the way up the chain of
command to the FAA hijack coordinator in Washington. This
was the director of the FAA Office of Civil Aviation Security.
The 9/11 Commission stated:
“If a hijack was confirmed, procedures
called for the hijack coordinator on duty to
contact the Pentagon’s National Military
Command Center (NMCC) and to ask for a
military escort aircraft to follow the flight,
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report anything unusual, and aid search
and rescue in the event of an emergency.
The NMCC would then seek approval from
the Office of the Secretary of Defense to
provide military assistance. If approval was
given, the orders would be transmitted
down NORAD’s chain of command.
The NMCC would keep the FAA hijack
coordinator up to date and help the FAA
centers coordinate directly with the military.
NORAD would receive tracking information
for the hijacked aircraft either from joint use
radar or from the relevant FAA air traffic
control facility. Every attempt would be
made to have the hijacked aircraft squawk
7500 to help NORAD track it.”
According to the Commission Report these guidelines were
reliant upon an assumption that the pilots would be able to
alert the FAA air traffic controllers (ATCs) by issuing the
'squawk.' Seeing as the hijackers were armed only with box
cutters, it seems odd that none of the aircrew, on any of the
four hijacked aircraft, apparently managed to punch in a
single one of these 'squawks.' Even so, if this wasn't
possible, other procedural safeguards were clearly in place
and the Commissions over empha
sis on the squawk is
strange.
All U.S. commercial flights were required to file a flight path
with a predetermined set of 'fix points' prior to being cleared
for take-off. If any were missed, or the transponder signal
was lost, the ATCs would attempt to contact the pilots. If
unsuccessful, or if the pilots did not respond as required,
they would instigate the alert procedure. No squawk
required.
The impression given by the 9/11 Commission was, without
the squawks, ATCs didn't know the planes were hijacked.
Hence, the terrible confusion. However, conspiracy theorists
are not alone in questioning why the Commission would
consider this to be the case, when pilot issued 'squawks'
were only one part of a multi-faceted emergency procedure if
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hijacking was a possibility.
According to the FAA/Department of Defense order 7610.4J
for ‘special military operations,' which was in place prior to
9/11, the response time for scrambled jets to intercept
wayward flights should have been no more than 10 - 20
minutes from the time of the first FAA alert.[39]
AA Flight 11 disable it's IFF (Identify Friend or Foe) beacon
and was noted to veer wildly off course at 08.20. It struck
the North Tower 26 minutes later at 08.46. So identifying
precisely when the FAA first raised the alert was key to
understanding what went wrong, why and who was primarily
responsible for the horrendous fiasco.
Once the FAA informed the Pentagon’s National Military
Command Center (NMCC), they would inform The Secretary
of Defense office, who would authorise NORAD to start
scrambling jets under 'special military operations'
procedures.
The official narrative offered the following timeline:
08.37: - 16 minutes after AA flight 11 is firmly identified as
suspicious, NORAD is notified of the hijacking.
08.43: - NORAD received notification of the possible Flight
175 hijacking.
08.46: - Two F-15s scrambled from Otis to intercept Flight
11 just as it crashed into the North Tower. While UA Flight
175 was also on route to the WTC buildings, these jets were
placed in a holding pattern, in military airspace off Long
Island, to await further orders.
09.09: - F-16s from the North Dakota Air National Guard
(ANG) went to battle station at Langley, but were not
scrambled.
09.13: - The two F-15s circling Long Island were ordered to
set a course for Manhattan more than 10 minutes after the
second WTC strike.
09.24: - Three ANG F-16s were airborne, having scrambled
from North Dakota. They were ordered to fly north and
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assume a defensive position over Baltimore to protect the
capital.
09.36: - NORAD were advised of AA Flight 77 flight path
towards the Pentagon (potentially). They directed the ANG F-
16's to intercept. However, rather than heading north to
Baltimore as ordered, the jets had flown eastwards towards
the Atlantic and were out of position.
09.37: - With the F-16's still 150 miles away, Flight 77
crashed into the Pentagon. Following the explosion, the three
planes were sent to Reagan National Airport to hold a
position south of the Pentagon.
10.03: - UA Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania. NORAD
didn't know it had been hijacked.
This appeared to present a number of damning conclusions.
Contrary to all procedure, from the point of discovery, the
FAA took more than 20 minutes to raise an alert for Flight
11 and more than 35 minutes to report Flight 77's errant
flight.
The notification for Flight 175 took just 1 minute but
NORAD weren't notified of flight 93's hijacking until after it
crashed. Despite Flights 11 and 175 heading towards New
York, interceptors were scrambled from Otis ANG base
rather than the much closer La Guardia or Langley bases.
Even after WTC 1 was hit, despite apparently knowing that
Flight 175 had been hijacked, the jets from Otis were still
held in an off shore stacking pattern. No aircraft were
scrambled from Andrews Air Force base to protect the
Pentagon until after it was hit. It was instead defended by
the F-16's from ND ANG that had flown off in the wrong
direction. Though capable of flying at over 1500mph, the
average speed of all the interceptors was less than 450mph.
Other fighters, that should have been available, were all
engaged in 'war games' elsewhere.[40] - [41]
The official line, accepted without question by the world’s
mainstream media, supports the finding. A coincidental
combination of systemic failure, confusion and human error
led to the terrorists achieving a 75% mission success rate.
Apparently, this is reasonable and is the shared perspective
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of the vast majority of us who accept the official story.
Conspiracy theorists say that you need to be either
completely unobservant or a special kind of dip-shit if you
swallow this babbling absurdity. If you simply accept
everything the government tells you, despite the mountain of
contradictory evidence, you have sacrificed all sense of
curiosity in favour of a mindless, unquestioning conformity.
They claim the idea that the FAA, NORAD and military
personnel hadn't trained, practised or rehearsed for precisely
this kind of scenario, and were somehow unprepared, is
evidently false. They add there is clear evidence of a
concerted, high level effort, effectively ensuring the terrorists
had the best possible chance of success. For example, it
seems most senior commanders may have deliberately
neglected their duty or issued orders which ultimately
facilitating the attacks.
The 9/11 Commission expressed an opinion that all of these
failings were unfortunate but no one was really responsible.
The Commission's main finding, in regard to the lack of
military response, was that NORAD (NEADS) had, at best, an
average 9 minutes response time to intercept the flights.
This, they said, was insufficient and largely exonerated the
military command structure and senior commanders.
The Commission intimated that any possible 'blame' for
'failures' lay predominantly with the FAA and it's ATC
management structure. They also decided that much of the
testimony given by military leaders and senior FAA officials,
which didn't support this conclusion, or their event timeline,
was “incorrect.”
The August 1998 edition of a periodical newsletter issued by
Xavius Software, for its ATC users,[42] outlines NORADS
planned response to suspicious flights, It states:
“… .procedures are procedures, and they will
likely find two F-18's on their tail within 10 or
so minutes.”
While this anticipated response assumed the hijacking of
; overseas, not domestic flights, others have reinforced this
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perception. It is extremely unlikely that the FAA would have
so completely abandoned their procedures. A rapid response
was the default position.
Former Boston ATC Robin Hordon said, in 2006:
“On September 11th I'm one of the few
people who really within quite a few hours
of the whole event taking place just simply
knew that it was an inside job…normal
protocol is to get fighter jet aircraft up (to)
assist.”
As an ATC with 11 years’ experience, Hordon had dealt with
many emergencies including two suspected hijackings, for
which he received commendation. Hordon was also a
certified controller for the west-bound departures out of
Boston and was intimately familiar with the control of the AA
Flight 11 and UA Flight 175 flight paths.
“I know people who work there who
confirmed to me that the FAA was not
asleep and the controllers could do the job,
they followed their own protocols.....Military
pilots would have their asses off the ground
faster than you could imagine. I know how
quickly our systems can respond. Why
would you design a system that responds
slowly to an emergency?”
Providing oral evidence to the 12th open hearing of the 9/11
Commission, the acting FAA Deputy Administrator on 9/11,
Monte Belger, testified:
“Prior to 9/11, the procedures for managing
a traditional hijacked aircraft, as I said,
were in place and pretty well tested.... The
most frustrating after-the-fact scenario for
me to understand is to explain is the
communication link on that morning
between the FAA operations center and the
NMCC (National Military Command
Center).... The hijacking net is an open
communication net run by the FAA hijack
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coordinator, who is a senior person from the
FAA security organization, for the purpose of
getting the affected federal agencies
together to hear information at the same
time.... It was my assumption that morning,
as it had been for my 30 years of experience
with the FAA, that the NMCC was on that
net and hearing everything real-time..... I
can tell you I've lived through dozens of
hijackings in my 30-year FAA career, as a
very low entry-level inspector up through to