Many of us remembered the 15th anniversary of 9-11 yesterday in reflection. However, Miracle Mattress store spent the weekend closing its doors and fielding irate messages from people who saw its “Twin Tower sale” days before the anniversary. The unbelievably tasteless commercial is below.
I had driven by the Pentagon seconds before the plane hit next near the road that I took everyday to work. Many of us knew people in these planes and on the ground, particularly in my area of Northern Virginia. The wounds are still fresh in this area.
It is hard to imagine what these people were thinking in the commercial that proclaimed “What better way to remember 9/11 than with a Twin Tower sale?” I could think of a great number of things, actually.
The commercial ends with two employees falling backwards onto two piles of mattresses with an American flag in between them. The female employee then gasps in horror, then turns to the camera and says: “We’ll never forget.”
Miracle Mattress owner, Mike Bonanno, insists that the video was made without his knowledge.
By the way, even Coca-Cola and Walmart have had to apologize for 9-11 displays.
I think the Canadian is troubled more than usual seeing his hero, Hillary, collapsing literally and figuratively right before our eyes.
Heaven help me, I found it amusing–in a tasteless way, of course.
Big deal – everyone tries to exploit 9/11 – look at the politicians running around or standing in the heat while more boring speeches are made all the time forgetting the workers and first responders that have died or have ongoing health issues for their work at the WTC and nobody seems to care about the health of the workers – pander pander all you politicians
issac,
Nice baseless claim. I will have to remember that in the future.
Chances are, better than 50/50 that these are Trump supporters. Trump would go for this sort of stuff. However, it’s not as outrageous as his own stuff. If you really want to experience tasteless, watch Trump. No body beats the King.
Here are the two levels of IsaacB Political Analysis:
1. Basic Level of Analysis: Trump and his supporters are stupid, and racist, and fascist!
2. Enhanced Level of Analysis: Trump and his supporters are really, really stupid, and racist, and fascist!
While this has all the appearance of a simple ad hominem type of attack, it isn’t because uh, er, eh, OH! Because IsaacB is sooo smart!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
I was also uncertain about their Father’s Day commercial with Lizzie Borden.
LOL!
“By the way, even Coca-Cola and Walmart have had to apologize for 9-11 displays.”
I find the well planned Walmart/Coca Cola ad more offensive then the third rate mattress company. And the provided excuse laden link does not come close to constituting an apology. Why does this blog seem to always seek excuses for corporate malfeasance.
The first rule of comedy is it should be funny. This violates the first rule and makes the tastelessness stand out even more.
Nine eleven is kind of like twelve seven. Except the end of the WWII attack by the Japs on us resulted in the A bomb being dropped on two Jap cities. Thus far we have punished no nation for Nine eleven. “December 7th, 1941, is a day which will live in Infamy!” Who said that?
Not news.
And certainly not legal news.
As Darrin said, low quality Beavis/Butthead comedy, barely offensive except for those triggered due to some involvement in the event.
A lot of feh.
From a comedy perspective this was very low quality, the insult notwithstanding.
I have to believe Mr. Bonanno who claimed to not have been involved in the commercial’s production. The better entertainment to be had as a result of this advert would be to watch the employees getting sacked.
Darren, the woman in the commercial is Mrs. Bonanno.
…or Ms. Bonnano, daughter or cousin or in-law or …
I am not that offended by the commercial and certainly do not feel the company should be shutting its doors.
Well, the commercial is a little tasteless, but it is also morbidly funny. I guess it depends on your sense of humor. I kinda like it black sometimes.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
What xenonman wrote.
As long as the intelligence community remains beyond the purview of any serious accountability, this type of incompetence will continue indefinitely!
It is cheap and facile to argue that the Miracle Mattress 9/11 commercial is offensive. Most of the purported anger and charges of “tasteless” reflect the reality that most Americans have not come to grips with the meaning of 9/11. The commercial is a stark reminder to Americans that they have failed to question their own Government about its role in aiding and abetting the Islamic terrorists and shutting down all inquiries into the true nature of the 9/11 crimes. Because Americans continue to behave as though they are in a trance regarding the reality of 9/11 and the U.S. Government’s role in advancing Islamic terrorism in America, it is only natural that businesses would begin to trivialize the day — September 11 — much as businesses have trivialized Memorial Day. Most of the anger and fury over this commercial is a reflection of hypocrisy and shame for their own failures to truly remember the 9/11 victims by demanding justice and the truth — from their own U.S Government.
None of those in the U.S. Government who enabled the 9/11 massacre to occur have been punished or brought to justice. Indeed, most of the key operatives have been promoted or are otherwise leading lives of luxury. Instead of attacking this dumb commercial, people should be waking up and demanding the truth from their lying Government. But they lack the courage and integrity to do so. Much easier, cheaper, and safer to attack a commercial that reminds them of their own failure to act and to speak out.
So let’s take a look down memory lane, to assess all the warnings that the US Government received, but chose to totally ignore, because they really WANTED the massacre to occur, so that the US Government would have the pretext to embark on a multi-billion dollar war that was designed to help advance Islamoterrorism even more. Please note that everything I say is sourced. This is NOT “conspiracy theory.” This is PUBLIC information the the public has never acted on.
General Warnings
1. In late 2000, British investigators teamed up with their counterparts in the Cayman Islands and began a year long probe of three Afghan men who had entered the Cayman Islands illegally. [Miami Herald, 9/20/01, Los Angeles Times, 9/20/01] In June 2001, the Afghan men were overheard discussing hijacking attacks in New York City, and were promptly taken into custody. This information was forwarded to US intelligence [Fox News, 5/17/02]. In late August 2001, shortly before the attacks, an anonymous letter to a Cayman radio station alleged these same men were al-Qaeda agents “organizing a major terrorist act against the US via an airline or airlines.” [Miami Herald, 9/20/01, Los Angeles Times, 9/20/01, MSNBC, 9/23/01]
2. In late July 2001, Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil learned that Osama bin Laden was planning a “huge attack” on targets inside America. The attack was imminent, and would kill thousands, he learned from the leader of the rebel Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which was closely allied with al-Qaeda at the time. Muttawakil sent an emissary to pass this information on to the US Consul General, and another US official, “possibly from the intelligence services.” Sources confirmed that this message was received, but supposedly not taken very seriously, because of “warning fatigue” arising from too many terror warnings. [Independent, 9/7/02, Reuters, 9/7/02]
3. Also in late July 2001, the US was given a “concrete warning” from Argentina’s Jewish community. “An attack of major proportions” was planned against either the US, Argentina, or France. The information came from an unidentified intelligence agency. [Forward, 5/31/02]
4. An undercover agent from Morocco successfully penetrated al-Qaeda. He learned that bin Laden was “very disappointed” that the 1993 bombing had not toppled the World Trade Center, and was planning “large scale operations in New York in the summer or fall of 2001.” He provided this information to the US in August 2001. [Agence France Presse, 11/22/01, International Herald Tribune, 5/21/02, London Times, 6/12/02]
5. Hosni Mubarak, then President of Egypt, maintained that in the beginning of September 2001 Egyptian intelligence warned American officials that al-Qaeda was in the advanced stages of executing a significant operation against an American target, probably within the US. [AP, 12/7/01, New York Times, 6/4/02] He learned this information from an agent working inside al-Qaeda. [ABC News, 6/4/02]
Many warnings specifically mentioned a threat coming from the air:
1. In 1999, British intelligence gave a secret report to the US embassy. The report stated that al-Qaeda had plans to use “commercial aircraft” in “unconventional ways,”“possibly as flying bombs.” [Sunday Times, 6/9/02] On July 16, 2001, British intelligence passed a message to the US that al-Qaeda was in “the final stages” of preparing a terrorist attack in Western countries. [London Times, 6/14/02] In early August, the British gave another warning, telling the US to expect multiple airline hijackings from al-Qaeda. This warning was included in Bush’s briefing on August 6, 2001. [Sunday Herald, 5/19/02]
2. In June 2001, German intelligence warned the US, Britain, and Israel that Middle Eastern terrorists were planning to hijack commercial aircraft and use them as weapons to attack “American and Israeli symbols which stand out.” Within the American intelligence community, “the warnings were taken seriously and surveillance intensified” but “there was disagreement on how such terrorist attacks could be prevented.” This warning came from Echelon, a spy satellite network that is partly based in Germany. [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 9/11/01, Washington Post, 9/14/01]
3. In late July 2001, Egyptian intelligence received a report from an undercover agent in Afghanistan that “20 al-Qaeda members had slipped into the US and four of them had received flight training on Cessnas.” To the Egyptians, pilots of small planes didn’t sound terribly alarming, but they passed on the message to the CIA anyway, fully expecting Washington to request information. “The request never came.” [CBS, 10/9/02] Given that there were 19 hijackers and four pilots (who trained on Cessnas) in the 9/11 plot, one might think this would now be a big news item. But in fact, the information has only appeared as an aside in a CBS “60 Minutes” show about a different topic.
4. In late summer 2001, Jordan intelligence intercepted a message stating that a major attack was being planned inside the US and that aircraft would be used. The code name of the operation was Big Wedding, which did in fact turn out to be the codename of the 9/11 plot. The message was passed to US intelligence through several channels. [International Herald Tribune, 5/21/02, Christian Science Monitor, 5/23/02]
5. Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly stated that he ordered his intelligence agencies to alert the US in the summer of 2001 that suicide pilots were training for attacks on US targets. [Fox News, 5/17/02] The head of Russian intelligence also stated, “We had clearly warned them” on several occasions, but they “did not pay the necessary attention.” [Agence France-Presse, 9/16/01] The Russian newspaper Izvestia claimed that Russian intelligence agents knew the participants in the attacks, and: “More than that, Moscow warned Washington about preparation for these actions a couple of weeks before they happened.” [Izvestia, 9/12/02]
6. Five days before 9/11, the priest Jean-Marie Benjamin was told by a Muslim at an Italian wedding of a plot to attack the US and Britain using hijacked airplanes as weapons. He wasn’t told time or place specifics. He immediately passed what he knew on to a judge and several politicians in Italy. Presumably this Muslim confided in him because Benjamin has done considerable charity work in Muslim countries and is considered “one of the West’s most knowledgeable experts on the Muslim world.” [Zenit, 9/16/01] Benjamin has not revealed who told him this information, but it could have come from a member of the al-Qaeda cell in Milan, Italy. This cell supplied forged documents for other al-Qaeda operations, and wiretaps show members of the cell were aware of the 9/11 plot. [Los Angeles Times, 5/29/02, Guardian, 5/30/02, Boston Globe, 8/4/02] For instance, in August 2000, one terrorist in Milan was recorded saying to another: “I’m studying airplanes. I hope, God willing, that I can bring you a window or a piece of an airplane the next time we see each other.” The comment was followed by laughter [Washington Post, 5/31/02]. In another case in January 2001, a terrorist asked if certain forged documents were for “the brothers going to the United States,” and was angrily rebuked by another who told him not to talk about that “very, very secret” plan. [Los Angeles Times, 5/29/02] In March 2001, the Italian government gave the US a warning based on these wiretaps. [Fox News, 5/17/02]
Israel gave the US several specific warnings of the 9/11 attacks.
1. In the second week of August 2001, two high-ranking agents from the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, came to Washington and warned the CIA and FBI that 50 to 200 al-Qaeda terrorists had slipped into the US and were planning an imminent “major assault on the US” aimed at a “large scale target” [Telegraph, 9/16/01, Los Angeles Times, 9/20/01, Ottawa Citizen, 9/17/01 Fox News, 5/17/02]. Near the end of August, France also gave a warning that was an “echo” of Israel’s. [Fox News, 5/17/02]
2. In October 2002, the story broke in Europe and Israel that on August 23, 2001, the Mossad had given the CIA a list of 19 terrorists living in the US. The Mossad had said that the terrorists appeared to be planning to carry out an attack in the near future. It is unknown if these are the same 19 names as the actual hijackers, or if the number is a coincidence. However, the four names on the list that are known are names of the 9/11 hijackers: Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, Marwan Alshehhi, and Mohamed Atta. [Die Zeit, 10/1/02, Der Spiegel, 10/1/02, BBC, 10/2/02, Ha’aretz, 10/3/02] These are also probably the four most important of the hijackers (and two of the pilots). From them, there were many connections to the others. The CIA had already been monitoring three of them overseas the year before, and two, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, were put on a watch list the same day the Mossad gave this warning. [AFP, 9/22/01, Berliner Zeitung, 9/24/01, Observer, 9/30/01, New York Times, 9/21/02]
I agree withe Ralph about everything but this: Israel is behind 9/11 🙂
P, you understand nothing. You are an ultrasubcretin. Always have been always will be. Ignorance can be educated. Crazy can be medicated. But there’s no cure for ultracretinism.
My apologies. I meant no cure for ultrasubcretinism. Ultracretinism is too lofty a level for you.
Ralph,
Good grief. He agrees with you almost 100%. I, too, think there is more to the story, but I do not think Israel is behind it.
No, P does not agree with me in the slightest. He believes that anything that is bad in the world originates with Israel, especially 911. P is an Islamopandering ultrasubcretin. If he had read what I wrote, which I doubt, he would have noted that Israel had warned the U.S. Government, providing the Government with specific information that the U.S. deliberately chose to ignore. And if that were not bad enough, the evidence demonstrates that the U.S. also took deliberate actions to block any opposition to the Islamic terrorists’ plans. Conspicuously absent from the many nations that warned the U.S. Government is Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, both of whom have significant intelligence operations. That’s because partners in crime don’t warn one another about their own plans. They only warn one another about obstacles to their plans.
Ralph, I keep asking, along with thousands of Americans…who benefits from 9/11? The proximate beneficiaries are the neocons, all of whom are rabid pro-Israel Zionists. 9/11 effectively enabled the spread of this virulent war on terror that turned in 15 years the whole globe into 9/11 ruins, and the ME into a heap of destruction.
It so happens that whatever we are doing now, which was described in a paper penned by the Project for the New American century group, was enabled by 9/11…and it so happens, again, that the PFNAC is affiliated with Netanyanhu…and therefore Israel.
SWANSON: The Project for the New American Century, which is a think tank that was around in the ’90s and up through 2005 or ’06and then it disappeared and then came back online in 2009 when the coast was clear and clearly nobody was getting prosecuted for anything. And there were about 17 members of this so-called think tank who were in top positions in the Bush-Cheney administrationadvisor to the president, to the vice president, assistant secretary of defense, and so forth. And a couple of these guys, [Douglas] Feith and [Paul] Wolfowitz, had earlier worked for Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel and put out a paper that advocated the same kind of program that they then put out papers from PNAC advocating, that is, intense nationalism and militarism and going after Middle Eastern states with aggressive wars. And this is what PNAC urged on President Bill Clinton, who agreed with them and made regime change in Iraq one of his goals. http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=5890
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf
It so happens that the hijackers were given visas in spite of the reluctance of the consulate official in Saudi Arabia.
And that many of the so called hijackers were found to be alive and living in other countries.
So happens that Israeli citizens were caught celebrating the tower falling.
It so happens that the Saudi heads were very close allies of the Bush family/administration, and therefore the idea that the Saudi sponsored the hijackers makes little sense at all. What was the end game? What did the house of saud have to gain from 9/11?
What did Pakistan have to gain from 9/11? And what were the links between the Saudi hijackers and the Palestinian intelligence service?