James Risen: "9/11 was a fluke"

The "No Elephants" sign is funny and appropriate, but it seems, at the least, premature, without a full investigation, to come to the conclusion that 9/11 was "a failure of imagination"- when 70% of the families' questions were ignored and haven't been addressed by the MSM responsibly- unlike drunk driving celebs and missing white women- and more info has come out since, including info on what's being withheld:

Complete 9/11 Timeline
http://www.historycommons.org/project.jsp?project=911_project

Especially when this is the guy who broke the story on the NSA warrantless wiretapping

Video at the link:

NYT writer: History will view 9/11 as 'a fluke' by Nick Juliano - RawStory.com
Published: Tuesday December 16, 2008
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/NYT_writer_History_will_view_911_1216.html

New York Times scribe James Risen has been at the forefront of uncovering President Bush's most cavalier redefinitions of executive power.

Bush likes to tout the fact that there has not been another domestic terror attack since Sept. 11, 2001, as justification for his extreme and perhaps illegal policies, like the warrantless eavesdropping on Americans that Risen and Times colleague Eric Lichtblau first revealed.

Risen scoffed at this excuse, comparing it to a joke about a man who puts a "No Elephants" sign in his backyard and credits it with keeping the creatures away.

"I think the basic storyline is going to be in the long run that 9/11 was a fluke," Risen said in an interview with the American News Project. "They got lucky. We weren't really ready or prepared to deal with an operation like that; it was really a failure of imagination."

Risen said he was skeptical that Bush would pursue a war with Iraq -- another decision the president credits with avoiding another attack -- if he knew in 2003 everything that is known today.

"I think today if Bush was being honest, you kind of forced him to be truly honest and say, 'OK if you knew there was no weapons of mass destruction, if you knew there was no connection to al Qaeda, and if you knew that this war would cost as much as it has in lives and money, and if you knew how damaging this war would be to your presidency, would you still invade Iraq?'" Risen posited. "I just cannot believe he really would have done it."

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Failure of Imagination is hogwash...

A Failure of Imagination...


Do these people deserve to know how and why their loved ones were murdered? Do we deserve to know how and why 9/11 happened?

The failure of imagination is Risen's

or perhaps this is just some Mockingbird re-framing we're witnessing.

Mr. Risen, what security precautions were taken at the Genoa G8 summit in July of 2001 and why?

Mr. Risen, what security precautions were taken at the Florida resort where Mr. Bush spent the night of September 10, 2001 and why?

Mr. Risen, why had Florida Governor Jeb Bush put the entire state of Florida in a state of emergency just days before September 11, 2001?

Mr. Risen, what did Mr. Bush do immediately after being informed that the U.S. was under attack shortly after 9 am and thirty minutes before the Pentagon was "attacked"?

Mr. Risen, did you sleep through your eighth grade science class?

A fluke is a fish, Mr. Risen, not an adequate explanation or description for a significant historical event.

I hope I get the chance to speak to Mr. Risen in person some time, that should be quite entertaining.

The truth shall set us free. Love is the only way forward.

Speaking with him in person

I hope you do too, LeftWright. Great stuff.

I'm curious about the security precautions at the Florida resort

What were they?

"The Terror Timeline" by Paul Thompson

and the Center for Cooperative Research, page 353: President Bush had just spent the night at Colony Beach and Tennis Resort on Longboat Key, Florida. Surface-to-air missiles have been placed on the roof of the resort (it is not known if this was typical of presidential security before 9/11, or if this was related to increased terror warnings). [SARASOTA HERALD-TRIBUNE, 9/10/02].

I consider this book a must have for any researcher or student of 9/11.

The details of that morning should be recreated in a play or a cartoon, as they are so bizarre as to be almost unbelievable, but then so is the entire day (it was designed to be a mythic psyop after all).

I hope that you and yours are well.

The truth shall set us free. Love is the only way forward.

Here's an entry...

From HC that talks about the Secret Service, and stinger missiles.

(8:45 a.m.-9:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Secret Service Does Not Use Its Stinger Missiles to Protect New York and Washington
In New York, the Secret Service has a Stinger missile secretly stored in the World Trade Center, to be used to protect the president if the city were attacked when he visits it. Presumably it keeps this is in WTC Building 7, where its field office is. [Tech TV, 7/23/2002; Weiss, 2003, pp. 379] Stinger missiles provide short-range air defense against low-altitude airborne targets, such as fix-winged aircraft, helicopters, and cruise missiles. They have a range of between one and eight kilometers. [Federation of American Scientists, 8/9/2000; GlobalSecurity (.org), 4/27/2005] Whether the Secret Service makes any attempt at defending New York from the two attacking planes with its Stinger missile is unknown. The agency is also known to have air surveillance capabilities. These include a system called Tigerwall, which provides “early warning of airborne threats” and “a geographic display of aircraft activity” (see (September 2000 and after)). And according to Barbara Riggs, who is in the Secret Service’s Washington, DC headquarters on this day, the agency is “able to receive real time information about other hijacked aircraft,” through “monitoring radar and activating an open line with the FAA.” [US Department of the Navy, 9/2000, pp. 28 ; PCCW Newsletter, 3/2006; Star-Gazette (Elmira), 6/5/2006] These capabilities would presumably be of use if the Secret Service wanted to defend the World Trade Center. Furthermore, according to the British defense publication Jane’s Land-Based Air Defence, “the American president’s residences in Washington and elsewhere are protected by specialist Stinger teams in case of an aerial attack by terrorist organizations.” [Jane's Land-Based Air Defence, 10/13/2000] Knight Ridder has previously reported “several sources” telling it, “Stinger missiles are in the Secret Service’s arsenal.” [Knight Ridder, 9/12/1994] And according to the London Telegraph, the Secret Service is “believed to have a battery of ground-to-air Stinger missiles” ready to defend the White House. [Daily Telegraph, 9/16/2001] Flight 77 reportedly comes within four miles of the White House before turning toward the Pentagon. [ABC News, 10/24/2001; USA Today, 8/13/2002] Whether the Secret Service makes any attempt at defending the place with its Stinger missiles is unknown. However, the Washington Post will later claim it is an “urban legend that Stinger missiles are mounted on the White House roof.” [Washington Post, 4/4/2002]

Although the above mentions protecting the President's residences, it kind of "debunks" the statement that "it is not known if this was typical of presidential security before 9/11, or if this was related to increased terror warnings."

However, it also debunks the "failure of imagination" meme.


Do these people deserve to know how and why their loved ones were murdered? Do we deserve to know how and why 9/11 happened?

And one more thing, Mr. Risen...

the $15 billion in unprecedented financial transactions that show clear foreknowledge of the "attacks" on 9/11/01, how were they a "fluke"?

I guess I also forgot to mention NORAD's inability to scramble jets and intercept planes for 100 minutes, when their normal response time is under 15 minutes and the FAA calls them to do this about every 2 1/2 days. Was that a fluke, too?

I think I'll have to go out of my way to speak with Mr. Risen, is he on another book tour?

The truth shall set us free. Love is the only way forward.

Risen Had A Book To Sell

He had to remain commercially credible by revealing stuff that would eventually come out

but he could only go so far and have his book published.. The real details about 9/11 are too deeply classified for him to write about even if he knows any.

As well, why do we expect Chomskyite types who are used to being fed CIA tidbits to reveal the Family jewels when this is not what they do?

NY Times journalists are a wholly owned subsidery of the intelligence agencies and dont operate in ways they are not familliar with.

Risen is obviously used to having his work cleared and will not step outside the rules applied to him. Not sure why people expect the truth from these types.

.

They installed anti-aircraft

They installed anti-aircraft missile batteries around the resort in Florida where Bush stayed the night of September 10th.Just like the ones they admit to having at the White house just 2 miles from the Pentagon (what's their effective range again?) where a plane they were tracking from 50 miles out ,30 miles out and 10 miles out (what was that order that stood?) crashed at the perfect angle to do the least amount of damage into a nearly empty wedge that had just been renovated in case of such an attack,killing a bunch of accountants who were tracking down 2.3 trillion dollars that had gone missing.

And announced as unaccounted for the day before.

Talk about changing the subject.

Good comment, waitew, where in LA are you? I lived in Fullerton until 1971, I'm now just north of the Golden Gate bridge.

Cheers!

"...Kamikazes, Kamikazes, Kamikazis, Kamikazis, Kamikazes..."

Somewhere between 2800-4000 kamikaze attacks on US Navy ships in WW2. Between 35-50 Allied vessels sunk by Kamikaze aircraft attacks. Killed about 5000 US sailors, and wounded another 5000.

Defending US Naval assets against Kamikaze-style suicide attack aircraft has been a part of USA Naval Doctrine since WW2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze

But everybody claims "nobody thought of suicide aircraft."

As a former pilot in the Texas Air National Guard,

one would think that Bush would know about Kamikazis, and also know all about intercepting planes at the request of the FAA.

They really aren't very good liars.

Cheers!

Risen's own "failure of imagination"

Risen, about whether Bush would've invaded Iraq, even w/o the BS WMD excuse- "I just cannot believe he really would have done it."

This same mental/character block is why he can't objectively look at the public record on 9/11, just what we know and still don't know, based on official statements, lies, documents and MSM reporting.

Either that, or, as some commenters have noted, he knows better for his career than to ask any real questions, or make any normal observations, about the official 9/11 story.

http://911reports.com
http://arabesque911.blogspot.com/2008/08/911-activists-start-your-own-91...