9/11 Five Years Later

Emanuel Sferios

More About Disinformation

One of the characteristics of 9/11 disinformation a lot of people have a hard time grasping is that much of it is designed specifically to convince people of US government complicity in 9/11. This might seem like a contradiction, until one understands that 9/11 disinfo is part of a broader system of mass manipulation where the opposing perspective plays an essential role. The basic idea is to control both sides of the debate, and frame it in a way that makes the opposing side ineffective (not necessarily unbelievable). In the end it doesn't matter whether even a majority of the people believe the US government was complicit in 9/11 (this is already the case). What matters is only that the perpetrators can never successfully be prosecuted. Thus they pollute the body of evidence with red herrings and false lines of inquiry. If, in the process, they happen to cause some people to disbelieve the official story (as in the case with the "no plane at the Pentagon" hoax), all the better, because the end result is a weakening of any legal case that might be brought against them.

There is an important quote by E. Martin Schotz from his book, History Will Not Absolve Us: Orwellian Control, Public Denial, and the Murder of President Kennedy. It is: "One of the primary means of immobilizing the American people politically today is to hold them in a state of confusion in which anything can be believed and nothing can be known." Conspiracy theories, in other words, provide the perfect cover for real conspiracies. When anything can be believed because the available information is a convoluted mix of truth, falsehood and probability; when the actual truth itself is convoluted, involving deception, mystery and illusion; then one is ultimately left to their own emotions to decide. And emotions, of course, can be easily manipulated. What do you want to believe? After all, it's up to you. You'll never know the truth, or at least you'll never be able to prove it in a court of law. Do you really want to be marginalized and ridiculed as a conspiracy theorist? You get the idea.

Just a small piece of a very thoughtful post.

This is About as Strange as It Gets

Wait a minute ...
Remove the second beam splitter (dashed line) and the bulletlike photon takes one path or the other. Leave it in, and the photon's quantum wave splits and interferes with itself.

Credit: Jacques et al., Science

After a Short Delay, Quantum Mechanics Becomes Even Weirder

By Adrian Cho
ScienceNOW Daily News
16 February 2007

According to quantum mechanics, light can be either a graceful rippling wave or a hail of bulletlike particles, depending on how you look at it. Now, an experiment shows that an observer can make the choice retroactively, after light has entered a measuring apparatus. The result shows that reality is truly in the eye of the beholder.

A single dollop of light, or photon, must be described by a flowing quantum wave that gives the probability of finding it at any particular place and time. At the same time, the photon acts a bit like an indivisible bullet: When observed with a particle detector, it produces a distinct signal, like a pebble pinging off a car door. And things get weirder. The quantum wave can split in two and recombine, like ripples flowing around a stump in a pond, to create striking "interference" effects that determine which way the recombined wave flows. On the other hand, it's simply impossible to split a photon at a fork in the road. If there is no way to eventually put the pieces back together, the photon acts like a particle and goes one way or the other.

Even weirder still, the choice to allow the waves to recombine or not can be made even after the photon passes the fork where it should have split--or not. Famed physicist John Archibald Wheeler realized that nearly 30 years ago and dreamed up an experiment to prove the point. Now Jean-François Roch of the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan in France and colleagues have performed the experiment. The researchers shot photons one by one at a half-silvered mirror, or "beam splitter," to cleave the quantum wave describing each photon. After traveling different distances, the two halves sloshed back together at a second beam splitter 50 meters away, which could recombine them. The experimenters could randomly switch this second beam splitter on and off electronically well after the photon had passed the first one.

If the second splitter was on, interference between the two pieces directed the recombined wave of probability toward one or the other of two detectors, depending on the difference in the path lengths. If the second beam splitter was turned off so the waves couldn't recombine, then the photon took one path or the other with 50-50 probability, and equal numbers of photons reached detectors. The results, reported this week in Science, prove that the photon does not decide whether to behave like a particle or a wave when it hits the first beam splitter, Roch says. Rather, the experimenter decides only later, when he decides whether to put in the second beam splitter. In a sense, at that moment, he chooses his reality.

Others had tried to perform Wheeler's experiment but had lacked the single-photon source and other elements to really do it right, says Arthur Zajonc, an experimenter at Amherst College in Massachusetts. "This is the experiment you wanted to do, but it was too hard," he says. The experiment will likely become a classic cited in textbooks, Zajonc says: "It's going to be seen as a kind of a landmark."

Mission Accomplished — again

Riverbend spells it out for those who haven't figured it out yet:

And yet, as the situation continues to deteriorate both for Iraqis inside and outside of Iraq, and for Americans inside Iraq, Americans in America are still debating on the state of the war and occupation- are they winning or losing? Is it better or worse.

Let me clear it up for any moron with lingering doubts: It’s worse. It’s over. You lost. You lost the day your tanks rolled into Baghdad to the cheers of your imported, American-trained monkeys. You lost every single family whose home your soldiers violated. You lost every sane, red-blooded Iraqi when the Abu Ghraib pictures came out and verified your atrocities behind prison walls as well as the ones we see in our streets. You lost when you brought murderers, looters, gangsters and militia heads to power and hailed them as Iraq’s first democratic government. You lost when a gruesome execution was dubbed your biggest accomplishment. You lost the respect and reputation you once had. You lost more than 3000 troops. That is what you lost America. I hope the oil, at least, made it worthwhile.

Those Ungrateful Iraqis

You'd think they'd appreciate the way we've arranged for the their young men to broaden themselves, if by "broaden" one could mean "to be in several places at once. "

Inside Iraq:

February 15, 2007

At the morgue

We were asked to send the next of kin to whom the remains of my nephew, killed on Monday in a horrific explosion downtown, can be handed over. The young men of the family, as was customary, rose to go.

“NO!” cried his mother. “Isn’t my son enough?? Must we lose more of our youth?? You know there are unknowns who wait at the Morgue to either kill or kidnap the men who dare reach its doors. I will go.”

So we went, his mum, his other aunt and I.

I was praying all the way there.

I never thought a day would come when it was the women of the family, who would be safer on the roads. All the men are potential terrorists it seems, and are therefore to be cut down on sight. This is the logic of today, is it not? To kill evil before it even has a chance to take root.

When we got there, we were given his remains. And remains they were. From the waist down was all they could give us. “We identified him by the cell phone in his pants’ pocket. If you want the rest, you will just have to look for yourselves. We don’t know what he looks like.”

Now begins a horror that surpasses anything I could have possibly envisioned .We were led away, and before long a foul stench clogged my nose and I retched. With no more warning we came to a clearing that was probably an inside garden at one time; all round it were patios and rooms with large-pane windows to catch the evening breeze Baghdad is renowned for. But now it had become a slaughterhouse, only instead of cattle, all around were human bodies. On this side; complete bodies; on that side halves; and EVERYWHERE body parts.

We were asked what we were looking for, “ upper half” replied my companion, for I was rendered speechless. “Over there”. We looked for our boy’s broken body between tens of other boys’ remains’; with our bare hands sifting them and turning them.

We found him millennia later, took both parts home, and began the mourning ceremony.

Can Hollywood match our reality?? I doubt it.

He's old, he's tired, he's boring

But Noam Chomsky still speaks the truth.

The end of part of an interview from Commondreams.org:

US policy should be that of all aggressors: (1) pay reparations; (2) attend to the will of the victims; (3) hold the guilty parties accountable, in accord with the Nuremberg principles, the UN Charter, and other international instruments. A more practical proposal is to work to change the domestic society and culture substantially enough so that what should be done can at least become a topic for discussion. That is a large task, not only on this issue, though I think élite opposition is far more ferocious than that of the general public.

Atlantic States could clean up with offshore windmills

From Lifescience.com:

To estimate how much area would actually be available to place wind farms on in the Middle Atlantic Bight, the researchers had to exclude areas used for bird flyways, toxic waste sites and shipping lanes.

“We don’t want to compete with that use,” Kempton said.

The researchers also had to consider that wind turbines must be spaced half a mile apart, otherwise they create turbulence that interferes with other turbines.

Even with all those allowances, the energy needs of most of the East Coast could be met, or even surpassed, with the installation of over 160,000 turbines, according to Kempton’s findings. But to achieve that energy, the turbines would have to be built out to a depth of 100 meters, according to the research published in the Jan. 24 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The reduced use of fossil fuels would reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the area by 57 percent, even in New England, one of the world’s most highly polluting areas, according to the study.

“The fact that we could get such huge reductions there gives me hope for other places,” Kempton said.

Besides the concept of windmills off the Atlantic Coast, which I haven't heard much about before, the striking sentence is that one in red. A half mile apart? Those guys apparently haven't see Altamont Pass.

Navy thumbs its collective nose at the California Coastal Commission

This copyrighted article tells how the US Navy thinks it's more important to train its sonar technicians how to use dangerously overpowered sonar equipment to possibly detect non-existent enemy subs than it is to follow the guidelines of the California Commission who's job it has been to enforce federal law, even though blasting its sonar through the coastal waters likely causes great harm amongst wildlife in the oceans,

Or so it says.

I'd quote some of it here, but the article says I may not do so. You'll have to read it yourself.

This is after:

• A report of how mention of possible sonar causing damage to stranded whales was left out of the final study about the stranding.
  
• Another report blamed Navy Sonar as the only likely cause of yet another stranding, but the Navy said there were too many variables to be certain.

The bird's eye lowdown on Rumsfeld

This article in Tom's dispatch is the first of a two-part series on Rumsfeld, and it's both very complex and very eye-opening.

It's long. But well worth reading.

Iguana Scoop from WhatReallyHappened.com

Thanks to the Cosmic Iguana
for noticing this:

IRANIAN MORTARS MADE IN USA?

WRH appears to have blown a hole in the evidence linking Iranian munitions with Iraqi insurgents, and if so, it is a big one:

WRH:

HOW LUCKY FOR THE US MEDIA THAT THIS BOMB SUPPOSEDLY MADE IN IRAN BEARS ENGLISH MARKINGS

Also, Iran gets its weapons, including mortars, from Russia. Russian mortars do NOT use 81MM rounds! They use 82mm.

AND, Modern Iran uses a solar Hijri calendar that is 621 years less than the Western solar calendar, so if this munition were really made in Iran. the date should read 1384 or 1385 (Wikipedia errs in showing it as 1427), rather than 2006! The reason for the uncertainty about those two dates is that the Iranian new year happens in our March. In any event, the numerals should be in Farsi. The letters in the center appear to be "HE". "High Explosive" is a common catagory of mortar shell. But "High Explosive" is English, not Farsi.... [*]

Just so you know here is what Iranian writing and dates should really look like:

Iran Newspaper - صفحه اول - 1385/11/21
روزنامه صبح. وابسته به خبر گزاری جمهوری اسلامی. [*]

I guess BushCo thinks we ARE really stupid.

General Odom is a wise man

He mentions a couple of facts and some myths about our Iraq policy.

Washington Post:

Victory Is Not an Option

The Mission Can't Be Accomplished -- It's Time for a New Strategy

By William E. Odom

Sunday, February 11, 2007; Page B01

[. . .]
Most Americans need no further convincing, but two truths ought to put the matter beyond question:

First, the assumption that the United States could create a liberal, constitutional democracy in Iraq defies just about everything known by professional students of the topic. Of the more than 40 democracies created since World War II, fewer than 10 can be considered truly "constitutional" -- meaning that their domestic order is protected by a broadly accepted rule of law, and has survived for at least a generation. None is a country with Arabic and Muslim political cultures. None has deep sectarian and ethnic fissures like those in Iraq.

Strangely, American political scientists whose business it is to know these things have been irresponsibly quiet. In the lead-up to the March 2003 invasion, neoconservative agitators shouted insults at anyone who dared to mention the many findings of academic research on how democracies evolve. They also ignored our own struggles over two centuries to create the democracy Americans enjoy today. Somehow Iraqis are now expected to create a constitutional order in a country with no conditions favoring it.

This is not to say that Arabs cannot become liberal democrats. When they immigrate to the United States, many do so quickly. But it is to say that Arab countries, as well as a large majority of all countries, find creating a stable constitutional democracy beyond their capacities.

Second, to expect any Iraqi leader who can hold his country together to be pro-American, or to share American goals, is to abandon common sense. It took the United States more than a century to get over its hostility toward British occupation. (In 1914, a majority of the public favored supporting Germany against Britain.) Every month of the U.S. occupation, polls have recorded Iraqis' rising animosity toward the United States. Even supporters of an American military presence say that it is acceptable temporarily and only to prevent either of the warring sides in Iraq from winning. Today the Iraqi government survives only because its senior members and their families live within the heavily guarded Green Zone, which houses the U.S. Embassy and military command.

As Congress awakens to these realities -- and a few members have bravely pointed them out -- will it act on them? Not necessarily. Too many lawmakers have fallen for the myths that are invoked to try to sell the president's new war aims. Let us consider the most pernicious of them.

1) We must continue the war to prevent the terrible aftermath that will occur if our forces are withdrawn soon. Reflect on the double-think of this formulation. We are now fighting to prevent what our invasion made inevitable! Undoubtedly we will leave a mess -- the mess we created, which has become worse each year we have remained. Lawmakers gravely proclaim their opposition to the war, but in the next breath express fear that quitting it will leave a blood bath, a civil war, a terrorist haven, a "failed state," or some other horror. But this "aftermath" is already upon us; a prolonged U.S. occupation cannot prevent what already exists.

2) We must continue the war to prevent Iran's influence from growing in Iraq. This is another absurd notion. One of the president's initial war aims, the creation of a democracy in Iraq, ensured increased Iranian influence, both in Iraq and the region. Electoral democracy, predictably, would put Shiite groups in power -- groups supported by Iran since Saddam Hussein repressed them in 1991. Why are so many members of Congress swallowing the claim that prolonging the war is now supposed to prevent precisely what starting the war inexorably and predictably caused? Fear that Congress will confront this contradiction helps explain the administration and neocon drumbeat we now hear for expanding the war to Iran.

Here we see shades of the Nixon-Kissinger strategy in Vietnam: widen the war into Cambodia and Laos. Only this time, the adverse consequences would be far greater. Iran's ability to hurt U.S. forces in Iraq are not trivial. And the anti-American backlash in the region would be larger, and have more lasting consequences.

3) We must prevent the emergence of a new haven for al-Qaeda in Iraq. But it was the U.S. invasion that opened Iraq's doors to al-Qaeda. The longer U.S. forces have remained there, the stronger al-Qaeda has become. Yet its strength within the Kurdish and Shiite areas is trivial. After a U.S. withdrawal, it will probably play a continuing role in helping the Sunni groups against the Shiites and the Kurds. Whether such foreign elements could remain or thrive in Iraq after the resolution of civil war is open to question. Meanwhile, continuing the war will not push al-Qaeda outside Iraq. On the contrary, the American presence is the glue that holds al-Qaeda there now.

4) We must continue to fight in order to "support the troops." This argument effectively paralyzes almost all members of Congress. Lawmakers proclaim in grave tones a litany of problems in Iraq sufficient to justify a rapid pullout. Then they reject that logical conclusion, insisting we cannot do so because we must support the troops. Has anybody asked the troops?

During their first tours, most may well have favored "staying the course" -- whatever that meant to them -- but now in their second, third and fourth tours, many are changing their minds. We see evidence of that in the many news stories about unhappy troops being sent back to Iraq. Veterans groups are beginning to make public the case for bringing them home. Soldiers and officers in Iraq are speaking out critically to reporters on the ground.

But the strangest aspect of this rationale for continuing the war is the implication that the troops are somehow responsible for deciding to continue the president's course. That political and moral responsibility belongs to the president, not the troops. Did not President Harry S. Truman make it clear that "the buck stops" in the Oval Office? If the president keeps dodging it, where does it stop? With Congress?

Embracing the four myths gives Congress excuses not to exercise its power of the purse to end the war and open the way for a strategy that might actually bear fruit.

The first and most critical step is to recognize that fighting on now simply prolongs our losses and blocks the way to a new strategy. Getting out of Iraq is the pre-condition for creating new strategic options. Withdrawal will take away the conditions that allow our enemies in the region to enjoy our pain. It will awaken those European states reluctant to collaborate with us in Iraq and the region.

Second, we must recognize that the United States alone cannot stabilize the Middle East.

Third, we must acknowledge that most of our policies are actually destabilizing the region. Spreading democracy, using sticks to try to prevent nuclear proliferation, threatening "regime change," using the hysterical rhetoric of the "global war on terrorism" -- all undermine the stability we so desperately need in the Middle East.

Fourth, we must redefine our purpose. It must be a stable region, not primarily a democratic Iraq. We must redirect our military operations so they enhance rather than undermine stability. We can write off the war as a "tactical draw" and make "regional stability" our measure of "victory." That single step would dramatically realign the opposing forces in the region, where most states want stability. Even many in the angry mobs of young Arabs shouting profanities against the United States want predictable order, albeit on better social and economic terms than they now have.

This is sadly accurate

I need to write something about the cool little trip I just took with Bonnie, up to Seattle, Washington. But I haven't yet. So here's this.

Thirty-Six Sure-Fire Signs That Your Empire Is Crumbling

by David Michael Green
The Daily Reckoning
Fri, 09 Feb 2007 10:16 EST

So. You've built yourself an empire, eh?

Well, bully for you!

What's next, you ask? Well, now you've got to do what everybody does when they have an empire, of course. You've got to worry about it falling apart, mate!

But how to tell for sure? Let me see if I can be helpful. Here are some rules of thumb to keep in mind, thirty-six sure-fire indicators that your empire is falling apart:

You know your empire's crumbling when the folks who are gearing up their empire to replace yours start blowing up satellites in space. And then they don't bother to return your phone calls when you ring up to ask why.

You know your empire's crumbling when those same folks are cutting deals left, right and center across Asia, Latin America and Africa, while you, your lousy terms, and your arrogant attitude are no longer welcome.

You know your empire's crumbling when you're spending your grandchildren's money like a drunken sailor, and letting your soon-to-be rivals finance your little splurge (i.e., letting them own your country).

You know your empire's crumbling when it's considered an achievement to pretend that you've halved the rate at which you're adding to the massive mountain of debt you've already accumulated.

You know your empire's crumbling when you weaken your currency until it looks as anemic as a Paris runway model, and you're still setting record trade deficits. (Hint: Because you're not making anything anymore.)

You know your empire's crumbling when "the little brown ones" (thank you George H.W. Bush - certainly not me - for that lovely expression) in country after country of "your backyard" blow you off and proudly elect anti-imperialist leftist governments.

You know your empire's crumbling when you can't topple those governments and replace them with nice puppet regimes - like in the good old days - even if you wanted to. And you badly want to.

You know your empire's crumbling when one of their leaders comes to the United Nations and makes fun of your emperor, calling him the devil, and joking about smelling sulphur where he just stood. And though a few folks cringe, everybody laughs.

You know your empire's crumbling when just about your entire military land force is tied up in a worse-than-useless war launched on the basis of complete fabrications, that every day is actually making you less - not more - secure from external threat.

You know your empire's crumbling when almost half the soldiers in that war are high-paid mercenaries, and you don't dare institute a draft.

You know your empire's crumbling when you send soldiers into war with two weeks training and a lack of armor, and then you keep them there for three, four and five rotations.

You know your empire's crumbling when a member of the Axis of Evil can test missiles and explode nuclear warheads, and all you can do about it is mumble some pathetic warnings about how they better not do that again or there will be consequences.

You know your empire's crumbling when you even think that there is an Axis of Evil.

You know your empire's crumbling when a rag-tag military hodge-podge of irregulars has you pinned down in an endless fight you can't win, but also can't lose.

You know your empire's crumbling when you're too dumb to even ban Humvees as a first step toward ending your dependency on a foreign-owned crucial resource.

You know your empire's crumbling when you trade your prior moral leadership on human rights issues for global disgust at your torture, 'extraordinary rendition' (a.k.a. kidnaping for torture) and the dismantling of nine centuries worth of civil liberties progress.

You know your empire's crumbling when you blow off international law that you once helped create, and undermine the institutions of international governance that you once helped build.

You know your empire's crumbling when opinion polls confirm that every month you're more and more despised throughout the world.

You know your empire's crumbling when you can't even pull off the hanging of a tin-pot murderous former dictator without turning him into a hero.

You know your empire's crumbling when you're the richest country in the world, but nearly 50 million of your people don't have basic health care coverage.

You know your empire's crumbling when the World Health Organization ranks your healthcare system 37th 'best' in the world, just above Slovenia, and just below Costa Rica. (And far below Colombia, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia and Morocco.)

You know your empire's crumbling when instead of making it easier for citizens to obtain a higher education, you're making it harder and more expensive.

You know your empire's crumbling when your government gives tax breaks to industries as a reward for exporting your jobs elsewhere.

You know your empire's crumbling when the so-called 'opposition' party can't even turn that obscenity into a viable campaign theme and use it to clobber the worst emperor in your history.

You know your empire's crumbling when your middle class has been stagnant for three decades, while the wealth of the hyper-rich continues to climb through the roof.

You know your empire's crumbling when your reaction to that is to exacerbate the problem by enacting tax policies that massively increase further still the gap between the rich and the rest.

You know your empire's crumbling when the predatory class has taken over your government and is stripping the country of everything not bolted down to the floor. And then it sells the floor itself, as well, to your rivals.

You know your empire's crumbling when you're spending tens of billions of dollars you don't own on new nuclear warheads and space weapons that don't work, to be used against an enemy you don't have.

You know your empire's crumbling when one of your cities drowns and your government does next to nothing before, during and after.

You know your empire's crumbling when a massive environmental nightmare is looming around the corner, and your emperor not only ignores it, but claims it isn't real while taking steps to exacerbate it.

You know your empire's crumbling when your emperor is warned by a CIA briefer of an imminent terrorist attack of vast proportions, and responds by remaining on vacation and dismissing the briefer with the words: "All right. You've covered your ass, now."

You know your empire's crumbling when the same emperor drops everything to fly across the country from his vacation home in order to sign a bill intervening on the wrong side of a personal medical drama involving a single family.

You know your empire's crumbling when gays and immigrants are used as diversionary issues to keep people from thinking about the pillaging of their country and their wallets actually taking place. And it works.

You know your empire's crumbling when people are getting more religious and less scientific, not the other way around.

You know your empire's crumbling when your political leaders start to be chosen by dynastic rules of succession.

And you especially know your empire's crumbling when the most idiotic child of one of the least accomplished leaders in its history is not only crowned as the next emperor, but is even revered for a time by most of the public as a great one.

Rome? Britain? Spain?

At this rate we'll be lucky to end up like Belgium.

David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to his articles (dmg(at)regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his website.