Al Qaeda a myth says Russian

[nino_savatte]

erm... 'Zwicker describes himself as “an atheist Christian humanist”'

Dictionary def of an atheist: "One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods."

I think we need to bear in mind that the US is the birthplace of postmodernism; here is a typically American postmodernist concept: the Xtian humanist. What next? Caring conservatism? Oh, we've already had that one!

 

[Lock&Light]

"His hero is Bertrand Russell."

We once had a family dog which we called 'Russell' in honour of Bertrand Russell. Does that make me 'somebody'?

 

[fela fan]

But he's just one moderately talanted and informed individual, amongst hundreds of millions in the world who don't have views like his. I don't really see the argument.

And hundreds of millions who do have his views.

My point was that editor referred to him as a 'nobody'. Based on my understanding of editor's intended meaning, it meant he wasn't qualified to talk about the subject. A quick perusal of editor's link refuted that.

I furthermore pointed out that it is not right to call people a 'nobody', and that just coz folk have no CV (which this man did anyway), doesn't mean they don't hold valid opinions and viewpoints.

Hopefully you can understand my post better now.

 

[Lock&Light]

Based on my understanding of editor's intended meaning, it meant he wasn't qualified to talk about the subject.

It is clear to me that the editor was saying that this man is NO MORE qualified to discuss the subject than anyone else. So he was questioning the use of quotes from this man as if he had any kind of authority.

 

[editor]

It is clear to me that the editor was saying that this man is NO MORE qualified to discuss the subject than anyone else. So he was questioning the use of quotes from this man as if he had any kind of authority.

Exactly. He's entitled to his opinion, but I fail to see why it's deemed so important that a fucking enormous slab of his words were posted up here.

It would be like me "transcribing" the words of some random, equally unqualified bloke in the pub and parading them up here.

 

[Raisin D'etre]

Is your opinion that Zwicker is no more qualified to talk about 911 than a man in the pub? I disagree. If I want to know about the media I go to someone who has experience in the field, rather than said man in the pub. Zwicker has sufficient expertise in the subject matter, it is within his field of expertise and he has spent many years critiqueing it, his views are in agreement with other commentators and 911 skeptics and he has spent a sufficient amount of time investigating 911. If said man in pub can satisfy all the above criteria then I would be confident quoting him too.

 

[fela fan]

If said man in pub can satisfy all the above criteria then I would be confident quoting him too.

I think that belongs in the football threads raisin.

 

[editor]

Is your opinion that Zwicker is no more qualified to talk about 911 than a man in the pub? I disagree. If I want to know about the media I go to someone who has experience in the field, rather than said man in the pub.

These bulletin boards aren't about quoting the wafflings of, frankly, unexceptional people.

If they wish to express their opinion, they're more than welcome to post here.

I see nothing to be gained from posters regurgitating huge, one-way swathes of comments from people who appear to have no particular relevant, or outstanding qualifications or insights into the subject under discussion.

After all, these are discussion boards, not "slap up a page full of text from some random bloke no-one's heard of" boards. A forum run like that would be a very, very, very dull place indeed.

 

[editor]

Here's some text about the man your chum Zwicker you might want to read:

It's deeply ironic that Barrie Zwicker, upon being compared to a Holocaust denier, defends himself by saying he's "just asking questions". After all, this is the same argument David Irving makes whenever he's confronted about his theories on the the Nazi extermination of six million Jews.

No one, of course, would say Zwicker doesn't have a right to "raise questions" about 9/11. But like the typical Holocuast denier, Zwicker has exhibited shocking intellectual dishonesty while promoting his theories about what happened on that horrible day. Several internet pundits - most notably the gifted Bill Herbert, whose work can be read at http://mckinneysucks.blogspot.com - have pointed out the holes, fallacies and blatant lies in the work of Zwicker and other 9/11 conspiracy theorists. For example, Michelle Landsberg unquestioningly repeats Zwicker's staggering allegation that fighter jets were not scrambled until two hours after the 9/11 airliners were hijacked. NORAD's official records show that fighter planes had taken to the air in a matter of minutes - as anyone who watched the news on the morning of September 11 will recall.

I can see Zwicker's response already: "why should we believe that? These records could easily have been faked." It's the conspiro-freak's standard response when confronted with contrary evidence. Barrie Zwicker is a charlatan and a fraud, blinded by pathological hatred for the United States, and the Toronto Star should be ashamed of itself for giving credence to his ridiculous, paranoid fantasies.

A final point: in his May 14 letter, Zwicker compares the Reichstag fire to the 9/11 attacks, and the Bush administration to the Nazis. Of course, in the early years, the real Nazis were not wealthy members of the establishment, but a militant, disaffected rabble, blinded by pure hatred for the Jews, who called for the violent smashing of the existing order.

Kind of like the radical "activists", on the far left and far right, who eat up Zwicker's theories like candy.
http://www.damianpenny.com/archived/000021.html

I really can't be arsed to go over these done-to-death 'theories' all over again.

 

[fela fan]

But who's this damian? Have we got a CV?

 

[editor]

But who's this damian? Have we got a CV?

You've just nicely illustrated my point, thank you.

 

[almeria]

Without wanting to join in this argument, and in the interests of getting back on top(ic), I think AQ is clearly a myth, for the following reasons.

Nobody had jiheard of it before 9/11.

It’s the perfect 1984-style shadowy enemy that the US needs to justfy its freedom-destroying Patriot Acts and oil-grabbing war economy. (I include the UK and the West in this plot, it’s just that its more convenient for the US to be the gun-totin’ bully-boys.)

Without getting into a 9/11 row, that event was the latest in a series of Hollywood-type, Bruce Willis-avenging-lone-nutter-in-a-cave scenarios so beloved of US governments – remember Abu Nidal, the first WTC bombings, the Oklahoma City blast – all originally laid at the door of mysterious Arab terrorist organisations, and subsequently discovered to be home-grown CIA-run scams? However it worked, the point is 9/11 did work, swaying enough public opinion among the Homer Simpsons to legitimise taking control of the ME, which is what the Bush cabal has admitted it has wanted to do for years.

The whole notion of “international terrorism” is rubbish. Terrorism is just extreme opposition to one state, cf. IRA, ETA, Red Brigades, Baader-Meinhof, even Ilich Ramirez the Jackal. Why would any terrorists be interested in attacking a foreign power, however much they might hate our freedoms? That’s what national secret services are for – assassinations, destabilisations, exploding cigars and so on. The idea of a “rogue state” or secret cells of organised terrorism is a load of total bollocks, as anyone with a brain can work out in about five seconds.

In any case, if the aim of AQ is to destroy Western societies because they “hate our freedoms,” and our governments then dismantle said freedoms, aren’t they merely surrender-monkeying to the terrorist threat? In other words, Bush and Blair are aiding and abetting the aims of the international terrorist networks, and thus should be strung up as traitors first thing tomorrow? I mean, are they with us or against us?

 

[fubert]

i disagree almeria.

al-qaeda were identified as carrying out us embassy bombings in 1998 in africa. the clinton administration responded with missile strikes into afghanistan iirc

 

[Pickman's model]

given the total fucking shambles the various us intelligence services have been in for fuck knows how long, what makes you think you can trust what they say about anything, such as their identification of aq as the bombers of the african embassies?

given that aq have made a habit of not claiming their attacks....

 

[Pickman's model]

i disagree almeria.

al-qaeda were identified as carrying out us embassy bombings in 1998 in africa. the clinton administration responded with missile strikes into afghanistan iirc

yeh, big bits of rubble into little bits of rubble, and destroying pill factories in sudan, a fucking horrendous crime (as chomsky, i think, demonstrates).

 

[fubert]

given the total fucking shambles the various us intelligence services have been in for fuck knows how long, what makes you think you can trust what they say about anything, such as their identification of aq as the bombers of the african embassies?

given that aq have made a habit of not claiming their attacks....

i don't the relevance of your point. the thread's about whether or not al-qaeda exist or not. i was merely pointing out that the were identified/invented by whatever agency pre-911.

 

[Pickman's model]

i don't the relevance of your point. the thread's about whether or not al-qaeda exist or not. i was merely pointing out that the were identified/invented by whatever agency pre-911.

and i was merely pointing out that you can't believe a fucking thing that yankee intelligence says.

or don't you recall the presentation colin powell made to the security council?

 

[fela fan]

given the total fucking shambles the various us intelligence services have been in for fuck knows how long, what makes you think you can trust what they say about anything, such as their identification of aq as the bombers of the african embassies?

given that aq have made a habit of not claiming their attacks....

I don't see how you can claim how the US intelligence services have been in a shambles.

It thought the very nature of such organisations was to keep their activities secret from us, the general public. So how could we know they were being shambolic or doing their job properly? When you thrown in the concept of double agents, then the ability of any man or woman on the street to know how successful their intelligence surely becomes impossible.

For example we know for a fact that there were plenty of warnings prior to the events of 911, and we know that the attacks happened nevertheless.

Was that a failing of intelligence, or just how intelligence and their masters wanted it to happen?

 

[fela fan]

and i was merely pointing out that you can't believe a fucking thing that yankee intelligence says.

So how can you claim they have been a shambles in recent times then?

 

[fela fan]

In any case, if the aim of AQ is to destroy Western societies because they “hate our freedoms,” and our governments then dismantle said freedoms, aren’t they merely surrender-monkeying to the terrorist threat? In other words, Bush and Blair are aiding and abetting the aims of the international terrorist networks, and thus should be strung up as traitors first thing tomorrow? I mean, are they with us or against us?

A most pertinent point almeria.

It has seemed all along from 911 onwards that everything this Al Q group wanted, our governments have happily supplied.

Fucking weird, unless you take the view that Al Q are effectively 'employees' of US intelligence and their masters.

And if they are, then what we've been told about Al Q is a myth.

 

[Pickman's model]

So how can you claim they have been a shambles in recent times then?

you don't watch the news, do you?

 

[fela fan]

In fact, the more i dwell on it, it is an excellent point!

 

[fela fan]

you don't watch the news, do you?

What??? No i don't, but i cannot work out what you mean by that question.

Surely you're not going to tell me that if the tv news tells us US intelligence is a shambles, then it is a shambles??

I'm confused man.

 

[fubert]

I don't see how you can claim how the US intelligence services have been in a shambles.

us intelligence seem to manipulate information to suit their own ends.

it's on record as part of the official 911 investigation that they knew something was being planned by al-qaeda and they didn't act on it.... then there's their information regarding iraq and non-existant wmds.

 

[Raisin D'etre]

Yes, and that whacks the "incompetence" argument favoured by those who believe the official story of 911 firmly on the head.

 

[editor]

Yes, and that whacks the "incompetence" argument favoured by those who believe the official story of 911 firmly on the head.

Really? So every single element of the US intelligence services can only be 100% super-efficient or 100% totally incompetent with no shades inbetween?

 

[Raisin D'etre]

No, that wasnt what I said and certainly not what I believe!

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Nobody had jiheard of it before 9/11.

Yes they had - go back about, er, fifteen pages or so, when this was still a sensible discussion.

 

[fubert]

Yes, and that whacks the "incompetence" argument favoured by those who believe the official story of 911 firmly on the head.

well not quite. but you can take the approach that the cia or ncsa told the president about the plan, and he sat down with his mates and went, "so, what can we get out of it if we let this happen ? that oil pipeline through afghanistan from the caspian we want ? secure the worlds second biggest supply of oil and reconstruction contracts for you lot ? the right to suppress civil liberities maybe ?"

 

[editor]

well not quite. but you can take the approach that the cia or ncsa told the president about the plan, and he sat down with his mates and went, "so, what can we get out of it if we let this happen ? that oil pipeline through afghanistan from the caspian we want ? secure the worlds second biggest supply of oil and reconstruction contracts for you lot ? the right to suppress civil liberities maybe ?"

Wouldn't it have just been easier to plonk a shed load of WMDs in Iraq (easily done), let the inspectors find them and bingo! Instant justification for a war without the need to blow up New York and slaughter thousands of their civilians (and risk political suicide - and near civil war - if the Biggest Secret In Modern History ever got out)?