Hijacking drill was scheduled for 9/11

NORAD had scheduled an aircraft hijacking drill for the morning of 9/11. But don’t worry, it was just a “coincidence” according to the 9/11 Commission. Whew! I thought it might of been evidence of a conspiracy for a moment!

9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes

As Major Kevin Nasypany, the facility's mission-crew commander, drove up the hill to work on the morning of 9/11, he was dressed in his flight suit and prepared for battle. Not a real one. The Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), where Nasypany had been stationed since 1994, is the regional headquarters for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the Cold War–era military organization charged with protecting North American airspace. As he poured his first coffee on that sunny September morning, the odds that he would have to defend against Russian "Bear Bombers," one of NORAD's traditional simulated missions, were slim. Rather, Nasypany (pronounced Nah-sip-a-nee), an amiable commander with a thick mini-mustache and a hockey player's build, was headed in early to get ready for the NORAD-wide training exercise he'd helped design. The battle commander, Colonel Bob Marr, had promised to bring in fritters.

For the NEADS crew, 9/11 was not a story of four hijacked airplanes, but one of a heated chase after more than a dozen potential hijackings—some real, some phantom—that emerged from the turbulence of misinformation that spiked in the first 100 minutes of the attack and continued well into the afternoon and evening.

08:37:52
BOSTON CENTER: Hi. Boston Center T.M.U. [Traffic Management Unit], we have a problem here. We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York, and we need you guys to, we need someone to scramble some F-16s or something up there, help us out.
POWELL: Is this real-world or exercise?
BOSTON CENTER: No, this is not an exercise, not a test.

Powell's question—"Is this real-world or exercise?"—is heard nearly verbatim over and over on the tapes as troops funnel onto the ops floor and are briefed about the hijacking. Powell, like almost everyone in the room, first assumes the phone call is from the simulations team on hand to send "inputs"—simulated scenarios—into play for the day's training exercise.

8:37:56
WATSON: What?
DOOLEY: Whoa!
WATSON: What was that?
ROUNTREE: Is that real-world?
DOOLEY: Real-world hijack.
WATSON: Cool!

"When they told me there was a hijack, my first reaction was 'Somebody started the exercise early,'" Nasypany later told me. The day's exercise was designed to run a range of scenarios, including a "traditional" simulated hijack in which politically motivated perpetrators commandeer an aircraft, land on a Cuba-like island, and seek asylum. "I actually said out loud, 'The hijack's not supposed to be for another hour,'" Nasypany recalled. (The fact that there was an exercise planned for the same day as the attack factors into several conspiracy theories, though the 9/11 commission dismisses this as coincidence. After plodding through dozens of hours of recordings, so do I.)

09:04:50
—Is this explosion part of that that we're lookin' at now on TV?
—Yes.
—Jesus …
—And there's a possible second hijack also
—a United Airlines …
—Two planes?…
—Get the f*ck out …
—I think this is a damn input, to be honest.

The last line—"I think this is a damn input"—is a reference to the exercise, meaning a simulations input. It's either gallows humor or wishful thinking. From the tape, it's hard to tell.

– Vanity Fair (08/01/06)

Note that the article just mentions one simulated hijacking (was that the only simulated hijack for 9/11?) and that at about 8:38am, Major Kevin Nasypany mentions the hijack drill wasn’t supposed to start for “another hour” which of course would be 9:38am, the time the Pentagon would be hit.

The article also mentions the military were chasing “phantom” Flight 11:

The call that sets off the latest alarm ("Another hijack! It's headed towards Washington!") comes from Boston and is wholly confounding: according to Scoggins, the Boston manager, American 11, the plane they believed was the first one to hit the World Trade Center, is actually still flying—still hijacked—and now heading straight for D.C. Whatever hit the first tower, it wasn't American 11.

The chase is on for what will turn out to be a phantom plane.

9:21:50
NASYPANY: O.K. American Airlines is still airborne—11, the first guy. He's heading towards Washington. O.K., I think we need to scramble Langley right now. And I'm—I'm gonna take the fighters from Otis and try to chase this guy down if I can find him.

And don't forget the plane crash drill scheduled for 9/11 by the NRO and General Richard Myers admitting to at least four war games going on that day!

See also:

• NORAD’s 9/11 hijack drill

• Rumsfeld/Myers confirm four war games on 9/11

• NORAD takes 9/11 timeline off website

• NRO’s 9/11 plane crash drill

Military Exercises Facilitate Pentagon Attack?

(Reprinted with permission by author. Originally published here. Colored text mine.)

Did Military Exercises Facilitate the 9/11 Pentagon Attack?

By Matthew Everett
July 2006

Since 9/11, numerous authors and researchers have drawn attention to training exercises being conducted or prepared for by the U.S. military and other government agencies at the time of the September 11 attacks. With names like Vigilant Guardian, Global Guardian, Timely Alert II, and Tripod, the question has arisen as to what connection these drills might have had with real-world events that morning.[1]

Attention has also been drawn to exercises held prior to 9/11, often bearing an uncanny resemblance to the actual attacks. For example, soon after 9/11 the New Yorker reported: "During the last several years, the government regularly planned for and simulated terrorist attacks, including scenarios that involved multiple-plane hijackings."[2] USA Today reported: "In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conducted exercises simulating … hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties. One of the imagined targets was the World Trade Center."[3]

As I will show in this essay, exercises also took place that bore a chilling resemblance to the attack on the Pentagon. I will look at evidence suggesting that the Pentagon actually scheduled another such training exercise for the morning of 9/11. I will end by briefly examining the possible implications of these exercises and considering whether they might have helped facilitate the attack on the Pentagon.

PRE-9/11 EXERCISES BASED AROUND A PLANE CRASHING INTO THE PENTAGON

After 9/11, members of the Bush administration claimed that no one had previously envisioned the kinds of attacks that occurred that day. For example, Condoleezza Rice said: "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile."[4] However, these claims were totally untrue. Besides the exercise involving the simulated crashing of a plane into the WTC, there were at least three separate exercises in the 12 months prior to 9/11 based around a plane hitting the Pentagon.

The first of these occurred in late October 2000. In the Office of the Secretary of Defense's conference room, military planners held the Pentagon Mass Casualty Exercise, which was based around a passenger aircraft crashing into the Pentagon, with 341 victims. The exercise was first described in a military newspaper in a report that the British Daily Mirror later said, "reads like an account of what actually happened" on 9/11.[5]

The next such exercise occurred in May 2001. As U.S. Medicine later reported, the Department of Defense's response to the 9/11 attacks "was aided by the fact that department medical personnel had carried out a simulation exercise in May in which a hijacked 757 airliner crashed into the Pentagon."[6] The DiLorenzo Tricare Health Clinic and the Air Force Flight Medicine Clinic, both located within the Pentagon, participated. Doctors James Geiling and John Baxter later said this exercise prepared them well to respond to the Pentagon attack on 9/11.[7]

Presumably referring to the two exercises described above, Lieutenant Colonel John Felicio, the deputy commander for administration of the DiLorenzo Tricare Health Clinic, said: "The saving grace to our efforts [on 9/11] was the two MASCAL exercises we previously had conducted with the clinic leadership and staff. You know it was kind of eerie. The scenario we had for these MASCALS was very similar to what actually happened. Our scenario for both MASCALS was a plane flying into the Pentagon courtyard."[8]

The third exercise occurred in August 2001, just one month before 9/11. This was another mass casualty exercise held at the Pentagon, involving an evacuation of the building. According to General Lance Lord, Air Force Space Command commander, "the scenario for that exercise included a plane hitting the building."[9]

WAS AN AIRCRAFT-INTO-PENTAGON EXERCISE SCHEDULED FOR 9/11?

We can see that Pentagon training exercises prior to 9/11 routinely involved the simulated crashing of an aircraft into the building. But might another such exercise have been scheduled for the morning of 9/11? There are various pieces of evidence indicating this may have been the case. Although the existence of such an exercise has never been stated explicitly, this might be because the exercise was declared classified. In fact, supposedly due to the national emergency declared by President Bush in response to the 9/11 attacks, then Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz issued a memo to senior DoD officials in October 2001, requesting a particularly high level of secrecy. He urged that "Defense Department employees, as well as persons in other organizations that support DoD, exercise great caution in discussing information related to DoD work, regardless of their duties. Do not conduct any work-related conversations in common areas, public places, while commuting, or over unsecured electronic circuits. Classified information may be discussed only in authorized spaces and with persons having a specific need to know and the proper security clearance. Unclassified information may likewise require protection because it can often be compiled to reveal sensitive conclusions. Much of the information we use to conduct DoD's operations must be withheld from public release because of its sensitivity. If in doubt, do not release or discuss official information except with other DoD personnel."[10]

Despite the secrecy, the combination of evidence I summarize below suggests a training exercise on 9/11, based around an aircraft crashing into the Pentagon:

i) Captain Charles Leidig, Jr. had assumed duties as the deputy for command center operations in the J3 Directorate of the Joint Staff just two months before 9/11. In August 2001, he qualified to stand watch as the deputy director for operations in the National Military Command Center (NMCC), which is located within the Pentagon. The day before 9/11, Brigadier General W. Montague Winfield, the deputy director for operations in the NMCC, requested that Leidig stand a portion of his duty on September 11. Thus, between 8:30 a.m. and roughly 10:30 a.m. that day (i.e. for almost the entire duration of the attacks) a stand-in officer was in charge of convening a Significant Event Conference (subsequently upgraded to an Air Threat Conference) in response to the attacks.[11] No further explanation has been given as to why or how this situation arose. But might the reason (or at least the excuse given) have been that Leidig needed to gain experience as deputy director for operations by assuming this role during a training exercise?

ii) The accounts of some Pentagon medical staff suggest they were preparing for a MASCAL (mass casualty) exercise the morning of September 11. For example, Sergeant Matthew Rosenberg, a medic at the Pentagon's DiLorenzo Tricare Health Clinic, recounts: "We had virtually completed our MASCAL plan. … Believe it or not, the day prior to the incident, I was just on the phone with the FBI, and we were talking 'so who has command should this happen, who has the medical jurisdiction, who does this, who does that,' and we talked about it and talked about it, and he helped me out a lot. And then the next day, during the incident, I actually found him. He was out there on the incident that day."[12] According to Major Lorie A. Brown, chief nurse of the DiLorenzo Tricare Health Clinic, the morning of 9/11, "We actually had our MASCAL equipment out of the storage areas because we were doing an inventory. So there were many pieces that just fell into place and worked so well on that day. It was just fortuitous. It was just amazing that way that things kind of happened the way they did."[13]

As I have described above, three previous Pentagon exercises incorporated a simulated plane crashing into the place. And early in the morning of 9/11, Matthew Rosenberg was reportedly "down on Corridor 8" of the Pentagon, "grateful for an uninterrupted hour in which he could study a new medical emergency disaster plan based on the unlikely scenario of an airplane crashing into the place."[14] Might he have been studying in preparation for an exercise taking place later that day?

iii) At least two army bases near the Pentagon were conducting training the morning of 9/11 based around terrorist attacks or plane crashes. At Fort Belvoir, about 12 miles south of the Pentagon, they were running a "garrison control exercise," which aimed "to test the security at the base in case of a terrorist attack."[15] At the Education Center at Fort Myer, an army base 1.5 miles northwest of the Pentagon, firefighters were attending what has been described as an "aircraft crash refresher class" and a "week-long class on air field fire fighting."[16]

According to Major Don Arias, NORAD's public affairs officer, "it's common practice, when we have exercises, to get as much bang for the buck as we can. So sometimes we'll have different organizations participating in the same exercise for different reasons."[17] Might the antiterrorist exercise at Fort Belvoir have been scheduled as part of a larger exercise at the nearby Pentagon, and might the "aircraft crash refresher class" at Fort Myer have been scheduled as part of an exercise involving an aircraft crashing into the Pentagon? After all, the Fort Myer Fire Department is responsible for operating the fire station at the Pentagon heliport, just 150 feet from where the building was hit on 9/11.[18]

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF TRAINING EXERCISES

What is the significance of these training exercises? Is it just coincidence that at least three exercises were held in the year before 9/11, based around the scenario of a plane crashing into the Pentagon? If another aircraft-into-Pentagon exercise was scheduled for 9/11, is this just another even bigger coincidence?

Several writers have suggested a more sinister role played by training exercises that mirror real-world events. They believe such exercises happening at the same time, or prior to an attack, can indicate that a criminal group within the government and military are responsible. According to author Webster Tarpley: "Staff exercises or command exercises are perfect for a rogue network which is forced to conduct its operations using the same communications and computer systems used by other officers who are not necessarily party to the illegal operation, coup or provocation as it may be. A putschist officer [i.e. a rogue officer] may be working at a console next to another officer who is not in on the coup, and who might indeed oppose it if he knew about it. The putschist's behavior is suspicious: what the hell is he doing? The loyal officer looks over and asks the putschist about it. The putschist cites a staff maneuver for which he is preparing. The loyal officer concludes that the putschist's activities are part of an officially sanctioned drill, and his suspicions are allayed. The putschist may even explain that participation in the staff exercise requires a special security clearance which the loyal officer does not have. The conversation ends, and the putschist can go on with his treasonous work."[19]

Paul Joseph Watson and Alex Jones have elaborated: "The exercise fulfils several different goals. It acts as a cover for the small compartmentalized government terrorists to carry out their operation without the larger security services becoming aware of what they're doing, and, more importantly, if they get caught during the attack or after with any incriminating evidence they can just claim that they were just taking part in the exercise."[20]

Clearly, the plane crash drills at the Pentagon, and the possibility of another such drill having been scheduled for 9/11, raise serious concerns. Considering their similarity to the actual attack, the question of whether they fulfilled the kind of malicious and duplicitous purpose described above needs looking into. Yet the 9/11 Commission Report makes no mention of the three pre-9/11 Pentagon exercises, and fails to consider the possibility of a similar exercise occurring on September 11. This is additional proof that, five years after the event, we are yet to have a proper investigation into the attacks of 9/11.

---

NOTES

[1] For a comprehensive list of 9/11-related training exercises, including those taking place on September 11 itself, see the "Military Exercises Up to 9/11" page of Paul Thompson's Complete 911 Timeline: (Link)
[2] "September 11, 2001." The New Yorker, September 24, 2001. (Link)
[3] Steven Komarow and Tom Squitieri, "NORAD had drills of jets as weapons." USA Today, April 18, 2004. (Link)
[4] "National Security Advisor Holds Press Briefing." Office of the Press Secretary, May 16, 2002. (Link)
[5] Dennis Ryan, "Contingency Planning: Pentagon MASCAL Exercise Simulates Scenarios in Preparing for Emergencies." MDW News Service, November 3, 2000. (Link); Andy Lines, "Pentagon Chiefs Planned for Jet Attack." Daily Mirror, May 24, 2002. (Link)
[6] "Crisis Response Puts Agencies On Path To Better Coordination." U.S. Medicine, January 2002. (Link)
[7] Matt Mientka, "Pentagon Medics Trained For Strike." U.S. Medicine, October 2001. (Link)
[8] Soldiers to the Rescue: The Medical Response to the Pentagon Attack. Washington, D.C.: Office of Medical History, September 2004, p. 18. (Link)
[9] Gen. Lance Lord, "A year ago, a lifetime ago." The Beam, September 13, 2002. (Link)
[10] Paul Wolfowitz, Memorandum for Secretaries of the Military Departments, et al., "Operations Security Throughout the Department of Defense." Department of Defense, October 18, 2001. (Link)
[11] "Statement of Capt. Charles J. Leidig, Jr. Commandant of Midshipmen United States Naval Academy Before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States." June 17, 2004. (Link); National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Twelfth Public Hearing, June 17, 2004. (Link)
[12] Soldiers to the Rescue: The Medical Response to the Pentagon Attack, p. 39.
[13] Ibid., p. 7.
[14] David Maraniss, "September 11, 2001: Steve Miller Ate a Scone, Sheila Moody Did Paperwork, Edmund Glazer Boarded a Plane: Portrait of a Day That Began in Routine and Ended in Ashes." Washington Post, September 16, 2001. (Link)
[15] Chuck Hagee, "An Engineer's Expertise Joins a Firefighter's Nightmare." The Connection Newspapers, September 5, 2002. (Link)
[16] Alan Wallace, "A Fire Fighter's Story." First Due News, April 17, 2003. (Link); Spc. Jennifer Lilly and Chris Walz, "Local heroes: FMMC fire department reflects on attacks." Pentagram, November 2, 2001. (Link); Michael J. Ward, "Attack on the Pentagon: The initial fire & EMS response." JEMS, April 2002. (Link)
[17] Quoted in Michael C. Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil. Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers, 2004, p. 367.
[18] "After-Action Report on the Response to the September 11 Terrorist Attack on the Pentagon." Arlington County, July 2002, p. A-20. (Link); Stephen Murphy, "ARFF Crews Respond to the Front Line at Pentagon." NFPA Journal, November 1, 2001. (Link)
[19] Webster Griffin Tarpley, 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA. Joshua Tree: Progressive Press, 2005, pp. 204-205.
[20] Paul Joseph Watson and Alex Jones, "London Underground Bombing 'Exercises' Took Place at Same Time as Real Attack: Culpability cover scenario echoes 9/11 wargames." Prison Planet, July 13, 2005. (Link)

See also:

• Did Flight 77 really crash into the Pentagon?

911review.org has been hacked!

Update 09/19/06: killtown.911review.org is up and running!

Update: Now my mirror site is coming up "could not be found"!

It’s been down for 2 days now. If you go to my killtown.911review.org mirror link, it sends you to a site called “Expired Domain” and says this domain name has expired. I emailed Brad at Team8Plus.org who runs 911review.org who said the domain shouldn’t be expired and he thinks it’s been hacked. Hopefully we’ll have it back up and running very soon.

Bush admits to explosives in WTC?

Did President Bush just admit that explosives were used in the WTC, or is this just another one of his many many infamous Bushisms?

Press Conference of the President
The Rose Garden

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
September 15, 2006

11:15 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:

~

The bill I have proposed will ensure that suspected terrorists will receive full and fair trials, without revealing to them our nation's sensitive intelligence secrets. As soon as Congress acts on this bill, the man our intelligence agencies believe helped orchestrate the 9/11 attacks can face justice.

The bill would also provide clear rules for our personnel involved in detaining and questioning captured terrorists. The information that the Central Intelligence Agency has obtained by questioning men like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has provided valuable information and has helped disrupt terrorist plots, including strikes within the United States.

For example, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed described the design of planned attacks of buildings inside the U.S. and how operatives were directed to carry them out. That is valuable information for those of us who have the responsibility to protect the American people. He told us the operatives had been instructed to ensure that the explosives went off at a high -- a point that was high enough to prevent people trapped above from escaping.

~

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060915-2.html

(Reprint)

See also:

• Bush at Booker

Challenge to all Skeptics on this 5 year anniversary of 9/11

I issue a challenge to all Skeptics* on this 5 year anniversary of 9/11. Since the 9/11 truth movement keeps growing, it is only a matter of time until the mainstream media and politicians will start calling for a new 9/11 investigation. We in the 9/11 truth movement are confident that the evidence will prove that 9/11 was an inside job and I'm sure you Skeptics are confident that the evidence will prove there was no inside job.

So to prevent any more precious time and energy being wasted trying to prove their side and debunk the others, I challenge all Skeptics to put their money where their mouths are and call for a new truly independent 9/11 investigation.

You'll have nothing to lose (except a few pennies in tax dollars if you're a U.S. citizen) and everything to gain because if you are so sure 9/11 was not an inside job, then a true independent investigation will prove you guys correct and you'll get to laugh at all of us "nutty" 9/11 conspiracy theorists for being wrong this whole time. If the new investigation proves an inside job, then you should be grateful that the real perpetrators were caught who murdered those 3,000+ innocent people on 9/11. Isn't that worth it?

So if you are a person who believes the official 9/11 story and you operate a website or forum, announce on your site that you will support a truly independent 9/11 investigation to once and for all get to the bottom of this alleged conspiracy and stop wasting all this time and energy trying to prove each other wrong.

We owe it to all the victims of 9/11 and to their family and friends to solve this matter once and for all.

Call for a new truly independent 9/11 investigation now!

*Those who are skeptical that 9/11 was an inside job. Also known as "OCTs" (Official Conspiracy Theorists), or those who believe the U.S. government's official 9/11 story that 19+ Arabs conspired together to commit the Sept. 11th attacks.

Errors, Ad Hominem Attacks...and X-Files

Here is an amusing little blogpost criticism I just stumbled on about my Flight 93 plume photo evidence being featured in a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article the other month. Usually I'd respond with counter arguments, but with this blogpost, I am just going to point out all the errors and ad hominem attacks and uh, well you'll see what the X-Files reference is about afterward.

When the Tinfoil Hats Attack

Ad hominem attack #1: "Tinfoil Hats"

There was a story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette yesterday that I found disturbing. It was about a group of bloggers who believe the whole 9/11 attack on America was a hoax from top to bottom. Their so-called leader is a guy who calls himself Killtown and has a blog by the same name.

Error #1: "Their so-called leader"

(I am not a leader in any movement.)


As we have seen from the faked Dan Rather memos and the faked Reuters news photographs, it is smart to be suspicious and on guard against news stories from biased people with an agenda. It is quite another thing, however, to be a paranoid-schizophrenic like "Killtown."

Ad hominem attack #2: "paranoid-schizophrenic"

Error #2: "a paranoid-schizophrenic like 'Killtown.'"

(I'm not a paranoid-schizophrenic -- at least not that I'm aware of. ;-)


Should I be concerned that this Leftist nutcase believes Bush and company blew up the Twin Towers and blamed it on Islamic extremists?

Ad hominem attack #3: "nutcase"

Error #3: "that this Leftist nutcase"

(I'm not a leftist, or a nutcase. I'm a Libertarian and a seedcase.)

Should I care that he thinks Flight 93 was shot down by airforce jets?

Error #4: "he thinks Flight 93 was shot down"

(I don't think Flight 93 was shot down because I don't think it crashed anywhere at all.)

Or that Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon never really existed (it too was a planned explosion by the Bush conspiracists, in this case a missile)?

Error #5: "in this case a missile"

(I've never said it was a missile that really hit the Pentagon, but just that a missile is one possibility.)


No, there have always been multitudes of squirrel-farm refugees. You see them on street corners, giving speeches from soap boxes, warning of impending doom. One faction of these citizens of Kookville believes the earth is flat. Another thinks the moon landings were staged on a Hollywood movie set. Don't get me started on the JFK assassination conspiracists, one of my pet peeves. And, while we're at it, Lincoln's assassination was set up by his own government, RFK's assassination was also done by government conspirators who then shoved a smoking gun into the hands of innocent bystander Sirhan. Who really killed Martin Luther King? The guvmint, of course, just like they did Jimmy Hoffa.

Ad hominem attack #4: "squirrel-farm refugees"


In fact, people like Killtown (whose name should be Kill-Logic) believe that every major event of history, for the past 150 years or more, has been staged.

Error #6: "that every major event of history... has been staged"

(No, I don't believe every major event in the last 150 years was staged.)

It's all a massive conspiracy by a "high cabal" who are pulling strings, fomenting assassinations, starting wars, stealing elections, manipulating gas prices and staging tragedies like 9/11. These people don't need a blog, they need a rubber room and a prescription for thorazine. But do I care? Not much, usually.

Ad hominem attack #5: "they need a rubber room and a prescription for thorazine"


However, the news story above is about a lady in Pennsylvania, Val McClatchey, who photographed the smoke cloud from Flight 93 seconds after it dived into the ground in a field near her home. She was sitting on her front porch and heard the whine of jet engines and then a house-rattling boom.

Error #7: "She was sitting on her front porch"

(Val was not sitting on her front porch at the time of the crash. She was sitting on her couch inside her house (apparently he didn't even read the entire article that triggered his blog response!)

She grabbed her digital camera and snapped the smoke cloud rising from the horizon. The FBI says the picture is the closest thing they've got to a photo of the actual crash.

Enter Killtown and his pack of paranoid losers. Killtown posts on his site that the picture is a "total fraud" and wonders if McClatchey photoshopped it herself.

Ad hominem attack #6: "his pack of paranoid losers"

Error #8: "that the picture is a 'total fraud'"

(No, I'm not saying it is a fake. I'm saying it could be a fake, or it could be real that proves an explosion originating from a different location.)

Worse, he admonishes the news media and any other "researcher" to harangue McClatchey to get to "the truth." The truth, of course, is anything that supports Killtown's paranoid delusions and preconceived conspiracy theories.

Ad hominem attack #7: "paranoid delusions"


The FBI inspected the memory card in McClatchey's camera soon after the crash, finding the photo to be genuine. This doesn't stop Killtown. He theorizes:

"If the smoke plume was photo-shopped on there, then that could mean either that the photo was simply a fraud by Val, or it was a fraud by her and the FBI and/or other government agents since she did mention that the FBI did inspect the memory card from her camera."

Of course, there is an alternative explanation, that the photo was genuine. That possibility is not even considered by Killtown, as it doesn't support his parnoid delusions.

Ad hominem attack #8 (plus misspelling ;-): "parnoid delusions"


Then, after slandering McClatchey as a fraud and a conspiracist, Killtown publishes her address, phone number and email so his "researchers" can track her down (he also provides a convenient map to her place of business).

Error #9: "after slandering McClatchey as a fraud"

(I've never accused her a being a fraud. I only bring up evidence that her photo could be a fake and that she would be a prime suspect if the photo is found out to be a fake.)

In the Post-Gazette article, McClatchey expresses fear for her safety because of this. Yes, her information is already published on the web, but as a real estate agent for people who want to buy homes; it is not published as a "fraud and a conspiracist" and made generally available to leftwing kooks and paranoid schizos. Killtown's focus on McClatchey this way could be interpreted as a physical threat.

Ad hominem attack #9: "leftwing kooks and paranoid schizos"


The Post-Gazette quotes McClatchey:

"This Killtown, whoever he may be, I find it very disturbing that this is a 16-page attack on me personally," said Mrs. McClatchey, who opened her real estate company a year and a half ago. "My business is named. That hurts me personally. It's pretty disturbing. My whole life is out there, a map to where I live, a map to my office. It's a safety issue for me. There's some crazy people out there."

I've written to Squirlie Killtown and asked him to take McClatchey's address and phone number off his blog, but he may need a bit more convincing. Do stop in and let this mental case know what you think.

Ad hominem attack #10: "Squirlie Killtown"

Ad hominem attack #11: "this mental case"


I have been combing the web for clues to Killtown's identity, which I will publish here along with his address, phone number and a map to his house (unless he takes down the McClatchey info first). Killtown is apparently a 31 year old member of Democratic Underground, a group of leftwing extremists on a par with the KOS kids, and apparently lives in Washington D.C.

I haven't ID'd Killtown yet, but anyone who opines as much as he does leaves tracks all over the web, on websites, message boards and newsgroups. Somewhere he said too much and let down his guard, and I will find it eventually. If that doesn't work I can always offer a cash reward to anyone who can ID him for me. Someone will out him, sooner or later.

If anyone out there knows more about this guy, let me know.

Hey Killtown, feel the warmth on the back of your neck? That's my breath.

Take down McClatchey's address and phone number from your site and I will go away.

Tally:

Errors: 9

Ad hominem attacks: 11

9-11!!!

(Cue in the X-Files music.)

Is spiked's Emily Hill stupid, or just 'plane stupid'?

Emily Hill is a freelance writer for UK's spiked who recently wrote another hit piece about 9/11 conspiracists. In her article, she mentions me and my 200+ 9/11 'Smoking Guns' page that lists over 200 hundreds pieces of evidence found in the mainstream media that points to 9/11 being an inside job.

In her first two paragraphs about me, she mentions a couple 'smoking guns' on my page and calls them "ridiculous" (emphasis mine):

These theories are 'plane stupid' – but popular

Tuesday 5 September 2006

~

Most of these ‘truths’, however, are still stuck at point ridiculous. The conspiracy website Killtown has an itemised list of 231 problems with the official account of 9/11. At number 14 is the apparently telltale sign that Salman Rushdie was banned from US airspace on 3 September 2001. At number 36 it is explained that the ‘Twin Towers were hated, poorly designed money-losers subsidised by the State and weren’t torn down before because of expensive asbestos removal’; so apparently ‘9/11 benefited the owners by efficiently destroying the complex in a way that they didn’t have to pay for’.

In a section titled ‘Fundamentalist Muslims “gone wild”’, Killtown argues that in May 2001, ‘Several alleged hijackers [were] seen at Las Vegas Strip clubs; several also patronised Nardone’s Go-Go Bar; Flight 77 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi hang out at Cheetah’s nude bar; Sept 10 – Atta and two Arab men allegedly spend hundreds [of dollars] on drinks and lap dances at FL strip club the Pink Pony.’ On the evening before the attacks, ‘Four alleged hijackers spend the night looking for prostitutes in Boston’ while ‘Hamza Alghamdi watched a porno in his hotel’. Here, speculation about what the hijackers got up to in their final few days bizarrely turns into speculation about whether they could have carried out the attacks, which then, of course, turns into speculation about who did carry out the attacks. One piece of speculation leads to another and another….

About the fundamentalist Muslims not acting so fundamentalist, Emily seems to say that I'm suggesting that they could not have carried out the attacks because of their previous nights behavior. Maybe she didn't choose the best wording, but I'm not suggesting they could not have carried out the attacks because they were "hung over" from their excessive partying or something, it's just that the evidence presented suggests that these alleged "fundamentalist" Arab Muslims do not fit the profile of fundamentalist Muslims by their "immoral and sinful" behavior leading up to the attacks. I'm sure some skeptics will counter with that since they were about to die for their cause, they felt that it was ok to sin a little bit before they would forgiven by their god for their "heroic deeds" right before they are given their 72 virgins or whatever.

But that is not the kicker of Emily's appalling article. Get this:

Other theories are stuck at point ‘here we go again’. Various websites claim that ‘Jews control the world’ and ‘America has become the Zionists’ whore’. Killtown claims that, shortly after 9/11, Mossad agents were ‘caught celebrating while filming themselves with the WTC burning in the background and [were] later arrested and found with boxcutters, multiple foreign passports, maps linking them to the attack’. Apparently they were also found with ‘explosives’ and a ‘large amount of cash in their white van’. There is, of course, no evidence for any of this. But who needs evidence when you have bright red headlines and lots of exclamation marks?!!!! With such colorful, capitalised emphasis, it must be true.

First, Emily tries to smear me by throwing me in with the "Jews did it" crowd (whatever that means) and then says something so absurd that I'm wondering if I just woke up with bad vision today. She says there is "no evidence" for the information I listed about the dancing Israeli's at the WTC and their white van. Hmmm. Um, Emily, did you what, think I just pulled all that information out of my ass or something? Did you not see the, um, NEWS SOURCES and HYPERLINKS TO THEM at the end of that 'Smoking Gun' entry where I FOUND THIS EVIDENCE???...

9/11 - Israeli spies caught celebrating while filming themselves with WTC burning in background and later arrested and found with boxcutters, multiple foreign passports, maps linking them to the attack, explosives detected, and large amount of cash in their white van (ABC, The Forward, Bergen Record)

Is Emily really that stupid that she couldn't even read or see the links to the sources where I found this evidence? Now she might not like or agree with this evidence stated in these news articles, but for her to say that there is "no evidence" when theses multiple mainstream news articles are littered with evidence about the Israeli spies at the WTC is one of the most absurd and unbelievable statements I've ever from a journalist.

There a couple of other things to point out about Emily's "top notch" article. She quotes me as saying that when the Israeli's were caught that "explosives" were found in their van. No, my 'Smoking Guns' list says that explosives were "detected" in their van. She says the spies were caught "shortly after 9/11." No, the were caught on 9/11 unless she thinks 9/11 ended earlier that day. She then tries to mock me by saying who needs evidence when all I have are "bright red headlines and lots of exclamation marks?!!!!" and "with such colorful, capitalised emphasis, it must be true". Do you see any of what she just mentioned on my 'Smoking Guns' page? Maybe she was talking about my related blogpost where I do have colored emphasis throughout the news articles to highlight the EVIDENCE, but I don't have "capitalized" emphasis and don't have any added exclamation marks there either.

Let spiked's editors know how you feel about Emily's 'plane stupid' article. Apparently they don't have very high standards for their writers because Emily's article and journalism skills are, as the Brits like to say, complete rubbish.