31 January 2010 with View Comments
The operations, approved by President Obama and begun six weeks ago, involve several dozen troops from the U.S. military’s clandestine Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), whose main mission is tracking and killing suspected terrorists. The American advisers do not take part in raids in Yemen, but help plan missions, develop tactics and provide weapons and munitions. Highly sensitive intelligence is being shared with the Yemeni forces, including electronic and video surveillance, as well as three-dimensional terrain maps and detailed analysis of the al-Qaeda network.
As part of the operations, Obama approved a Dec. 24 strike against a compound where a U.S. citizen, Anwar al-Aulaqi, was thought to be meeting with other regional al-Qaeda leaders. Although he was not the focus of the strike and was not killed, he has since been added to a shortlist of U.S. citizens specifically targeted for killing or capture by the JSOC, military officials said. The officials, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the operations.
Washington Post – January 27th 2010 (emphasis added)
Apparently, we are in an age where not only is it not frowned upon to freely roam and kill alien citizens on alien territory without having declared war on other countries, it also does not seem to provoke outrage if government – by which right? by whose decision? due to what evidence? due to which laws? – plots to kill its own citizens – and gets it done.
10 January 2010 with View Comments
When you think something is the right thing to do, or the right thing to argue and stand up for, you sometimes join an organization or participate in some joint effort to further a cause. One of these causes for me is Libertarianism.
I strongly believe the world would be a much better place if people had a lot more liberties.
People who join you in an effort to further such a cause hopefully share your beliefs.
They may as well have other beliefs, which you adamently oppose but nonetheless see associated with the organization whose basic cause you would like to see furthered.
It’s been very upsetting for me to see a fellow Libertarian (?) – someone I neither know personally nor have met before – advocating various claims by 9/11 conspiracy theorists or 9/11 critics in a magazine article.
The reason this has been upsetting for me is that I strive to think as rationally and follow the scientific method and think logically as much as I can. Coincidentally, I have read up on the issue of 9/11 conspiracy theories over christmas, well before I read about the article. I have found the conspiracy theories – after much rational deliberation and considering the facts proven by the scientific method – to be totally wanting.
After careful consideration, there exist, in my view, no facts indicating any kind of conspiracy whatsoever and there are no rational arguments to be made for those conspiracies – and thereby against the facts which the public knows about 9/11 – which hold up under rational scrutiny and under adherence to the scientific method. There are no “facts” or arguments that can form a rational case for scepticism concerning 9/11.
I believe humans often think irrationally – sometimes understandably so, sometimes not. And they do seem to fall for conspiracy theories every so often.
But what I will never understand is why an author who supposedly spent “thousands of hours” on a subject still holds irrational beliefs contrary to all kinds of evidence.
I also believe that everyone has the right to hold his own views and express them. So Oliver Janich is absolutely free to state his own opinion, of course.
As am I. These are the major reasons I believe the conspiracy theories and purported “facts” about 9/11 (as stated in the Focus Money article “Terroranschläge vom 11. September 2001: Wir glauben euch nicht!“) are utterly irrational, to say the least:
1. The most basic premise the conspiracy theorists fail to understand is that the burden of proof is on them. They are the ones who try to dispute the facts and try to make one believe in a different explanation for the events, so they must prove that current wisdom is incorrect. Even if you buy into their “it’s a conspiracy, so how can you prove anything without being a conspirator” argument, they could still start with any minor detail that proves the facts and the official explanation for 9/11 to be wrong and work it from there. People cannot just make stuff up and expect other people to believe their premises and dispute their ridiculous claims. It’s the other way round – start disputing the facts.
2. Conspiracy theorists often play on people’s worries about governments playing tricks on them and other emotions. Playing on one’s emotions is a clever tactic, but doesn’t make their points any more believable, if considered rationally.
3. Conspiracy theorists assert that it is ‘impossible’ to hit the Pentagon with a Boeing in such a maneuvre. A Dutch TV show took a similarly inexperienced pilot and put him in a simulator and he accomplished it three times in a row. It may be difficult, but not as difficult as the conspiracy theorists assert.
They also assert that a missile hit the Pentagon, as aircraft debris is supposedly missing. The debris is not missing, it’s here and here and here. Passenger’s DNA was found all over those parts of the Pentagon, which were hit. Lamp poles were struck down by the plane as it approached the Pentagon.
And to the supposedly “many many security cameras” watching the Pentagon: please show on any satellite image where there should have been a camera whose footage has not been released yet! There is none. Conspiracy theorists all over the world tried and couldn’t find one. The only one showing the impact actually shows a plane – though the resolution is not good.
4. Flight 93 – Why was Flight 93 not intercepted? Because NORAD had no specific targets to go after, and was waiting on the FAA to name them, not being able to do so themselves. Shut-down order or not, no fighter planes were even close. Add to that the fact that communication between NORAD and the FAA was by no means easy or as fast as today, and the “mystery” of why Flight 93 was not intercepted unravels. And by the way, they didn’t have “about an hour” to intercept planes, as the author states in his article. It was – at the most – nine minutes, which NORAD had to possibly intercept Flight 11, which then crashed into the WTC.
Also, there is no evidence whatsoever that Flight 93 was shot down. Flight-data-recorder for Flight 93 indicates nothing whatsoever that the flight could have been shot down by a missile. Faking FDR data is not only immensely difficult but has not been proven to have happened in this case, despite many a conspiracy theorist looking into it.
Also, there is no “missing debris” – what do you think this and this is?
5. I am fairly fed up by baseless accusations by now and will stop here. Read all about WTC 1 and 2 and 7 on the links given. All accusations by conspiracy theorists have been disproven. One just has to actually go read about it instead of staying in a state of disbelief.
I didn’t think I would have to ever write about something as obvious as this – and I feel sorry that I have to -, but apparently some people hold some really irrationally beliefs about 9/11. Do not count me amongst them.
