the 9/11 Stand Down
9/11 Timelines: the key to understanding why the Trillion Dollar Air Force did not defend its headquarters
"The power to see to it that regular government operations don't occur is one of the greatest controls over power you can wield in a government."
-- Colonel Fletcher Prouty, Pentagon liaison to CIA
interview with Joseph Spieler, (archived on the CD-ROM available from prouty.org)
Why there was NOT a "stand down" order:
explaining the "failure" of the Trillion Dollar Air Force to defend its headquarters
One of the first anomalies that many people noticed immediately after 9/11 was the inexplicable non-reaction of the military air defense system to the hijackings.
It has been standard operating procedures for decades to immediately intercept off course planes that do not respond to communications from air traffic controllers. When the Air Force "scrambles" a fighter plane to intercept, they usually reach the plane in question in minutes. The Air Force plane will then fly next to the non-responsive plane, and rock their wings -- a way to say "follow me" to a nearby airport (if the plane merely has lost its radio equipment). If the intercepted plane refuses to respond, there is a graduated series of actions the Air Force can use -- firing tracer bullets in front of the plane, even shooting it down if it is a threat. This is analogous to police pulling motorists over for having their lights out - every driver in the US knows that when a police car behind them turns on their siren, they are supposed to pull over, just like every pilot knows that when an Air Force fighter plane pulls beside them, they are supposed to follow their orders, too. If the light bulb has merely burned out, the motorist will get a warning, but the police have a graduated series of responses they can employ if the driver is not merely having a mechanical problem (ie. they have just robbed a bank and are driving with the lights off to avoid being seen).
The airspace over the northeastern US is among the busiest on the planet. It is home to the nation's political, military and financial headquarters, the largest population concentrations, and key strategic facilities. A jumbo jet in this area suddenly changing direction and altitude, and refusing to respond to air traffic controllers would be as dangerous as a truck on a busy rush-hour freeway driving the wrong way at full speed. When planes go off course in this busy environment, instant reactions make the difference between life and death -- which is why NORAD (North American Air Defense) practices these kinds of scenarios, and instantly scrambles fighters when there is any hint of a problem.
For critics of the official story of 9/11, the smokiest of the smoking guns is the "failure" of NORAD to intercept the planes. Even if one ignores the abundant evidence that allied intelligence services in other countries provided warnings that the attacks were about to happen, the information from the "insider trading " just before 9/11 that indicated which airline companies would be used, and other clues that clearly show complete official foreknowledge -- there is still enormous evidence that does not fit the official paradigm of "incompetence responding to a surprise attack."
The "timeline" of 9/11 was the first, and most important indicator of a massive discrepancy with the official story. NORAD's fighter interceptors can travel at supersonic speed, yet even the most basic calculations suggested that they had to fly far below even normal subsonic flight speeds to avoid reaching their destination (New York and Washington) in time. (See the "timeline" information lower on this webpage). Apologists for the Bush regime state that since they were not expecting the 9/11 scenario, and thought that the hijacking would be a "traditional" type hijack, but this avoids the question of why the off-course planes were not intercepted (a procedure that does not require Presidential authorization, unlike the order to shoot down the plane).
Even if one is willing to grant exceptional deference to the Bush / Cheney administration, and pretend that they had no idea 9/11 was about to happen, there is no excuse for this ignorance at 9:03 am, when the second (South) tower was hit. At that point, the entire military's air defense system had no doubt that the hijackings were intentional, multiple attacks, and that additional hijacked planes would be used as weapons. This is the time when "President" Bush was content to continue to read to second graders, instead of assuming his duties as Commander-in-Chief.
When the second tower was struck, Flight 77 was near the Ohio - West Virginia border. Around this time, that plane made an unscheduled 180 degree turn, and stopped communicating with air traffic control -- a big clue that this was also one of the hijacked planes. Nevertheless, no serious efforts were made to intercept this plane between 9:03 am and 9:38 am, when it hit the west side of the Pentagon. Planes were scrambled from an air base in the Norfolk, Virginia area during this time, but inexplicably were sent east over the ocean, instead of northwest toward the Washington area. (The weather that morning was perfectly clear, and there is no innocent explanation for why these interceptor planes were sent over the water, away from DC, instead of toward the National Capitol Area.)
Ultimately, Flight 93 was shot down around 10:06 am near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, although this was kept concealed from the public. It's probable that most citizens would have accepted the "need" to keep this plane from reaching the DC area (assuming that is where it was headed), a loss of life that would have ensured that a worse disaster was prevented. However, acknowledging this action might inspire further questions about 9/11 -- such as why the plane that hit the Pentagon also was not shot down, especially since most of the time it was hijacked it was flying over sparsely populated forest in West Virginia and western Virginia. There are a variety of theories why Flight 93 was probably shot down, but perhaps a key issue is the fact the plane left Newark (NJ) airport almost an hour late, and therefore it had to be stopped since enough havoc had already been created, and an additional attack, another half-hour after the Pentagon crash, would have been even harder to explain as "incompetence." It is possible, too, that the "heroic passengers" story was always part of the script, but that is, of course, speculation.
In the three years since 9/11, many writers have suggested that the Air Force was on "stand down orders" that morning, directed not to "scramble" planes and let the events happen. More recent analysis suggests a different explanation that explains why it appeared there was a stand down.
If 9/11 was indeed an "inside job," either allowed to happen, run by the Bush cabal, or some scenario in-between, relying on "stand down" orders would be incredibly risky for the perpetrators. September Eleven initiated a series of events that have transformed the world, with many trillions of dollars being shifted in response. Would Dick Cheney and his cohorts really assume that the Air Force fighter jocks would obey orders not to intercept planes, even after the World Trade Center towers had been hit? If any of these pilots had the keys to their planes, they might decide to ignore orders and fly their planes and seek to protect the capitol from further havoc.
An analogy that clarifies this logic:
Imagine if a Chief of a City's fire department was seeking to profit from the burning of a building (perhaps by being part of an insurance scam). Would a logical way to ensure the success of the arson be to order the rest of the firefighters not to respond to the distress calls that would come into the fire station? How would the Fire Chief guarantee that the fire fighters would obey the "stand down" orders, especially since they are trained to automatically respond, and would be especially attentive to the screams for help from people trapped in the building.
If the Fire Chief sent in a series of false alarms at the exact same moment that the building was set on fire, it would be more difficult for the fire crews to determine which building was really on fire. And if the City also conducted a "Fire Drill" to evacuate the City's main center for controlling surveillance cameras around the city (that could locate the smoke and determine where the fire is), it would be even more difficult for the honest City employees to be able to respond appropriately.
On 9/11, the multiple "war games" scheduled at the same time as the attacks resulted in numerous false alarms that temporarily confused the air defense system, making it more difficult to respond effectively. One of these "war games" was essentially a "fire drill" type exercise at the National Reconnaissance Office headquarters near Dulles Airport, Virginia, which simulated the emergency response procedures needed if a plane hit their compound while on the landing approach at Dulles. (This exercise ensured the evacuation of most of the people in the NRO at the same time that 9/11 began -- which probably made it more difficult for them to use the spy satellites to track the hijackings.)
Source: http://www.oilempire.us/standdown.html
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