Hilton Head Island International Baccalaureate Elementary School officials have supplied yet another example of blind mindless application of policies. They has suspended a student for having a broken pencil sharpener.
The boy — a fourth-grader had no criminal intent and merely brought a broke sharpener to school. Officials in South Carolina treated the exposed razor as a weapon.
For the full story, click here.
Jill,
I did go through the link that you provided. It is pretty hard to accept some of what he stated. For example, who would be faking the cell phone calls that he claims to debunk? There is a lot of information there so I may need to re-read it again. I sure hope what he is saying is untrue, because if it is true we have an immense problem here. I am not one to buy into an alleged crime plot of this magnitude without some serious proof. Just pointing to inconsistencies is not enough. At least not yet.
But I will say this Raff.
Advanced knowledge they did have. We know the President was handed a briefing in July that said “Bin Laden determined to attack inside US” and in that briefing hijacking US Airlines was suggested as a possible method. He also had other information, like that produced by an FBI agent about Atta and others “training to fly commerical jets”, yet this information was squashed and the agent relocated.
So was there advanced knowledge? Absolutely.
We know that. Was there more advanced knowledge than what we know about? Who knows. But that there was advanced knowledge is clear. They knew he was going to attack and they knew it could likely involve commercial jets.
The only real question is whether it was incompetence or passive complicity. Or as ObamaSama suggested, a little bit of both.
And thats a question that we will likely never be able to answer unless someone confesses.
But that there was negligence in responding to the threats is not in doubt, considering the Presidents response to this information from the intelligence community was to go on vacation.
rafflaw
1, September 14, 2008 at 7:44 am
CMM and Bob Esq. and Obama Sama,
The Bush/Cheney regime wanted an excuse like 9/11 in order to initiate their Iraq and Middle East plans. I am not sold yet on the fact that they had advance knowledge and let it happen. But, I am willing to be sold on that thought if the facts are available
Well someone else will have to sell you then Raff, since I as I stated, I’m not selling anything.
All I said was I didn’t know what happened and I think its naive to conclude someone does know what happened based on the 911 commission report.
I think there are questions, and questions is all I have.
And the children are supposed to respect these idiot adults?
rafflaw,
I put this link in early on this topic. It’s written by David Griffin. I don’t know what I think about him. He does footnote what he said but I haven’t looked them up. Some of his argument seems credible and other parts of it just don’t.
As to the 9/11 report not being accurate. I believe the co-chairs felf it was inaccurate after the clear evidence about waterboarding KSM (and others) was released. I believe they were upset they did not have access to the “interrogation” tapes as they should have by law.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20722.htm
CMM and Bob Esq. and Obama Sama,
The Bush/Cheney regime wanted an excuse like 9/11 in order to initiate their Iraq and Middle East plans. I am not sold yet on the fact that they had advance knowledge and let it happen. But, I am willing to be sold on that thought if the facts are available.
Incompetence does not rule out conspiracy nor does conspiracy rule out incompetence. They can be and often are complimentary failures.
I see a lot of both in the Bush-Halliburton-Exxon-Blackwater administration.
Ex. Conspiracy – Cheney’s Secret Energy Task Force, Halliburton fleeing prosecution by moving HQ to Dubai, mercenary armies, no-bid contracts, etc.
Ex. Incompetence – Alberto Gonzales, “intelligence failures”, the war without exit strategy, Katrina, etc.
Ex. Both Simultaneously – waterboarding, rendition, obvious propaganda, destruction of e-mails, etc.
The Bush Co. Family of Companies needs to be punished – real substantial financial pain (possibly dissolution) and long term incarceration – for the crimes related to their “conspiratorial incompetence”. Anything less and America will be a bad international joke.
Doubt that? Then try on these words: international standing, dishonesty, lack of scruples, illegal war, damaged reputation, lack of moral authority, crimes by officials going unpunished, unconstitutional.
Now try on this phrase, “Mr. Ambassador, the American representatives are here to see you.”
Leaves a bad taste in your mouth, doesn’t it?
The average response won’t be “I wonder what our American friends want or can do for us today?”. It will be “Holy crap! Hide the silverware!”
That’s not tin-foil. That’s paying attention.
Career diplomats have a tough job.
I suppose it was just incompetence. After all, thats not a hard sell with this crowd.
But I would like to see someone other than the government investigate all these and other questions about what happened before, during and after.
I see Bob. Well its funny that they didn’t see the need to hustle the President onto Air Force one, considering enemy attacks were occuring and being reported in multiple locations.
How did they know where they were at was safe?
If attacks were occuring its reasonable to conclude that security may be also comprimised so therefore anything on “the schedule” should have been abandoned.
How did they know it was ok for the President to sit there while Americans were jumping off of skyscrapers?
Cro Magnum Man
“but why wasn’t he hustled away by the secret service as is standard protocol under such circumstances?”
Without getting into commentary on the man with the bit lower lip and rolling eyes reading along with children during a crisis, as only a B movie would portray, the fact is that when the President is away, the White House Military Office controls the movement of the President–since it’s in charge of all the communications and transportation such as Air Force One.
Sorry, don’t want to over post but I have to agree with Bob that using the term Conspiracy theory is just a cop out.
The neocons use this term endlessly to discredit anyone questioning the official story.
Well, on Thursday, the White House just questioned their OWN offical story, so mocking any of us for questioning it with talk of tin foil hats is just ridiculous.
activecatalyst
“I missed the part where you were going to point out something in the 9/11 Commission Report is untrue.”
Had you read what I quoted from you, you would have picked up on me responding to your comment about an “unsupported assumption that the Commission was a mouthpiece for Bush.”
Per the 911 Commission report being ‘true,’ as discussed above, I’m afraid you’ll have to redefine the term if only to get beyond the first chapter.
Finally, please refrain from using the term ‘conspiracy theory.’
‘Conspiracy’ is an inchoate (incomplete) crime that does not merge with the underlying offense. Since I am not ‘theorizing’ about an inchoate crime, as opposed to analyzing a completed crime and the explanation proffered therefor, your use of the term “conspiracy theory” connotatively suggests you have no intention of engaging in intellectually honest debate.
Regards,
Bob
To be honest though, I doubt we’ll ever know.
Its just impossible to prove passive involvement unless one of those on the inside, comes forward.
And even then the public is so stupid, that they still don’t get it.
Scott McClellan, the guy who sat there lying to us day in and day out saying “Nuh uh” about everything finally comes out and confesses, and the public listens to guys like the erectile disfunctional Bob Dole, who calls him a peice of crap.
People don’t get it because from what I can tell, people don’t want to get it.
Dick Cheney, the guy the Secret Service DID hustle away when the attacks occured.
Hustled him away to an “Undisclosed location” where he apparently “directed operations” while the President they just stuck in front of the cameras.
😐
It all seems quite odd.
rafflaw
1, September 13, 2008 at 11:29 pm
CMM,
I think you are correct in asking questions about the 9/11 commission. I say follow the money. Who has made money on the events stemming from the attacks on 9/11? Who has made money on attacking Iraq?
Who are Haliburton and or Dick Cheney, Alex.
Hell I’m still waiting for a believable answer on why Bush when told the United States was UNDER ATTACK, just sat there reading books with school kids.
That he was incompetent is fine, but why wasn’t he hustled away by the secret service as is standard protocol under such circumstances?
The White House answer back in 03 was the Secret Service felt he was safer there because the attacks were occuring elsewhere.
😐
Ok…. well how did the Secret Service know there wasn’t going to be one there too?
CMM,
I think you are correct in asking questions about the 9/11 commission. I say follow the money. Who has made money on the events stemming from the attacks on 9/11? Who has made money on attacking Iraq? Who has made money on the so-called Homeland Security? Bush and Cheney’s corporate friends have been making money by the billions due to the events put into play since 9/11. That alone would make me question some of the results of the investigation.
activecatalyst:
“You haven’t pointed to anything in the 9/11 Commission Report is untrue, and how you know it’s untrue.
You say you don’t trust it, and that’s fine.
What I said is that I have no evidence that anything in the report is untrue. I might have added: “And neither do you.””
Allow me….
“Truth is the agreement between knowledge and its object” – Kant.
· Uno absurdo dato, infinita sequuntur. — ‘One absurdity begin allowed, an infinity follow’
Let’s examine the ‘truth’ contained in Chapter 1; wherein the commission spends all of two pages discussing the actual hijacking events.
Hell, let’s just focus a few little ditties regarding AAL 11 as discussed in Chapter 1 of the report:
· How did Atta know to fly seven minutes on a north westerly (310 deg) course out of his way to Tower 1 towards a gap in the primary radar and only thence turn off his transponder and why did he continue on said course all the way up to Schenectady before heading towards target? You think it was an accident that the tape made by ATC’s on duty that day was destroyed and disposed of in four separate garbage cans?
How can any reader continue past the 8:41 mark, regarding AAL 11 within Chapter 1, without deeming the story as straining the bounds of credulity and epistemology? How did 21 witnesses to the stabbings and mace spraying move from First Class and Business, i.e. those sections of the plane where they couldn’t breathe, retreat to Coach without incident, memory or suspicion from other passengers in Coach? How is it that both Ong AND Sweeney explained that all the passengers from First and Business were in Coach, and, according to Sweeney, were somehow under the impression “it was a routine medical emergency?” Did a few of the passengers remain up front while holding an asphyxiation vigil over Daniel Lewin’s body?
Did the witnesses to stabbings and mace spraying feel compelled to tell everyone in Coach they merely cut themselves shaving and got soap in their eyes? Or perhaps Flight 11 was chartered by Helen Keller society? (I want to believe; really I do.)
BTW, I have it on good authority that one of Atta’s henchmen showed up in Morocco within a week after the attack. Was it Morocco Mole? Could Atta actually be Secret Squirrel? It would explain a hell of a lot; after all, who else but Secret Squirrel and Morocco Mole could pull off such a cartoon plot?
activecatalyst
1, September 13, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Active involvement by the government in the 9/11 attacks is an extraordinary claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Otherwise they’re just loony conspiracy theories deserving of a tinfoil hat.
No one is making claims. Just asking questions.
Questions you seem to feel are satisfactorily answered by the 911 Commission report, a report created by a committee that was appointed by the Bush Administration.
And why all the neocon buzz words?
Tin Foil hat? Looney conspiracy theories?
These are words employed by the right wing to stifle any real investigations and to dissuade the public from asking questions.
So why use them?
😐
Regardless of what you think, the fact is 911 was the single most beneficial event for the Bush administration in his entire presidency.
Prior to the attacks his approval ratings were dismal, down in the high 30’s and low 40’s. The public did not warm to Bush mostly due to the fact that the Supreme Court decided the election, something that the public did not like. He was in fact, hated. He was the only US President in history to have his motocade pummelled by protesters. They lined the streets of DC. By August 2001 the term “Lame Duck” was being bantered about and Bush was hiding out at his ranch in Crawdad trying to keep a low profile.
Then 911 occurs, and within hours his approval ratings begin to climb. By the end of the second week his approval rating was in the high 80’s and he was suddenly the most well loved well respected man in the world.
And he wasted NO time, using that favor to slip all sorts of new laws in under the radar. He did this in the form of his “Signing Statements” which effectively was Bush sitting at his desk making laws, a right supposedly empowered only in the Congress.
Domestic spying, torture, pre-emptive war… all happened because Bush was untouchable post 911.
Now, years later, as people are seeing what he’s like, the approval ratings have returned to pre 911 status, and even dropped below, but one thing is incontestable.
The single most advantageous event in the Bush presidency, was the terrorists attacks of 911.
So, if this were a criminal investigation, you would have already established motive.
And when the stories start to fall apart you have established suspicion.
I am not saying they had anything to do with it at all, but with both motive and suspicion already determined, no good investigator would call anyone questioning them or even suggesting they were involved, “looney” or “tin foil hat” conspiracy theorists.
Did they have anything to do with it actively? Don’t know. Doubt it, cause it worked.
Passively however, is another question. And passive doesn’t mean incompetent.
It means looking the other way. Ignoring things on purpose thinking America needs a good wake up call to get them to see what a good president and government they have.
Bob, Esq.: “(John Dean, Worse Than Watergate, pgs. 113-115)”
I missed the part where you were going to point out something in the 9/11 Commission Report is untrue.
I’ve already stipulated that it’s incomplete, so I guess I’m not seeing what the debate here is about.
You and CroMM seem to be saying that it’s “obvious” that “everything” in the 9/11 Commission Report is surely untrue because of the way the Commission and the report were created. That’s not good enough.
If you think the 9/11 Commission Report was part of a cover-up of *active* involvement by the government in perpetrating the attacks (*passive* involvement is not news, and not surprising), then that is an extraordinary claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So far I haven’t seen anybody here suggest *any* evidence, much less extraordinary evidence.
If there is any evidence, why isn’t Daily Kos talking about it? HuffPost? Olbermann? Maddow?
The answer is that Daily Kos, HuffPost, Olbermann and Maddow are generally fairly careful to stay away from the tinfoil hat crowd. We all have more fish to fry (such as making sure Obama gets elected), so I think that’s a pretty good idea.