Friday, September 09, 2011

Loose Change 2nd Edition (9/11 Lies)







Loose Change is a series of films released between 2005 and 2009 which argue that the September 11, 2001 attacks were planned and conducted by elements within the United States government, and base the claims on perceived anomalies in the historical record of the attacks. The films were written and directed by Dylan Avery, and produced by Korey Rowe, Jason Bermas and Matthew Brown.

Loose Change 2nd Edition Recut (2006) opens with a brief description of past suspicious and questionable motives in the history of American government. This discussion includes mention of Operation Northwoods, a plan put forward during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 to create and utilize bogus terrorist attacks against the United States which were to be blamed on Cuba as a pretext for invasion of the country. Focus is particularly directed at the previously proposed plans to substitute real commercial airliners with pilotless drone aircraft in order to investigate the plausibility of covertly using them as weapons whilst maintaining the cover of an accident.

Attention is also given to the Project for the New American Century, a neo-conservative think-tank which released a report in 2000 titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses". In particular the film points out a line from that report which states:
"The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor." – Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
It also highlights the fact that during the same year the report was released the Pentagon conducted the first of two training exercises which simulated a Boeing 757 crashing into the building. There is also mention that from September 6 to September 10 an unusual amount of put options were placed on the stock of American Airlines, Boeing and United Airlines]

This is followed by an examination of the attacks on the Pentagon. The film opposes the official story of Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon, alleging that the path of destruction does not match that which a 757 would leave. In particular it points out the size of the hole in the Pentagon caused by the crash, examining a lack of debris and landscape damage seemingly inconsistent with prior airliner crashes. It is also alleged that too few parts were recovered from the crash site to reliably ascertain that they were of a Boeing 757 and that certain flywheel observed at the site seemed too small to have been part of the aircraft's engine turbine. The wheel was officially declared to have been part of the APU but disputed by some experts as not to have come from the APU of a 757 but likely from an E-3 Sentry aircraft. It is also claimed that the alleged hijacker-pilot Hani Hanjour had difficulty performing basic controls on a small Cessna at a flight school where he rented, and that perhaps not even an experienced pilot could have maneuvered the reflex angle of turn at the airspeed and altitude at which the aircraft approached without going into a high speed stall. Mention is also given to three cameras on nearby buildings that allegedly caught the entire incident at the Pentagon on film, which the government confiscated and has refused to release in full.

The next section focuses on the destruction of the World Trade Center itself. The film comes out in favor of the controlled demolition theory of the destruction of World Trade Centers 1, 2 and 7. Cited as evidence are eyewitness reports from a janitor, firemen, and other people near the buildings who heard bangs, many of them describing them as explosions as well as videotapes showing windows far below the burning floors blow out during the collapse and seismograph results recorded during the collapse compared to the collapse of other similar buildings. The film claims that WTC 1, 2 and 7 were the first steel frame buildings in history to collapse due to fire. Another allegation centers on an audio recording in which it is claimed two distinct explosions can be heard at the time of the impact.

The film also posits that the official story of the collapse ignores the laws of physics. In particular, the video alleges that the fires inside the twin towers were not hot enough to bring the buildings down. An audio tape is presented in which the Captain of Ladder 7 claims that the fires can be brought under control by two lines and it is mentioned that building 7 had taken only minor damage before its own collapse. These allegations follow a listing of buildings that burned longer than the Twin Towers and did not fall.




For Flight 93, the video ignores the more mainstream theory of the plane being crashed by passengers to instead allege it was landed safely at Cleveland Hopkins Airport where it was evacuated by government personnel into an unused NASA research center. Evidence cited included photographs and eyewitness reports of the crash site as evidence, media reports of a corresponding and bizarre evacuation at Cleveland Hopkins Airport, oddities in the transcripts of cell-phone calls supposedly placed from the plane during the hijacking, and the sighting of the tail number of Flight 93 on an aircraft in use at a later date.

This is then followed by a more miscellaneous listing of allegations. It is claimed that cell phone calls could not be made from American Airlines flights at the time of the crash, asking why American Airlines had to install a system in their own airplanes to allow the reception of cellular signals within the planes if they could do this regardless on September 11. It is suggested that the calls from passengers and crew were faked using sophisticated voice-morphing technology developed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and that the December 13, 2001 video of Osama Bin Laden claiming responsibility for the attacks was also faked, featuring what appeared to be an overweight lookalike version of Bin Laden. Finally it is alleged that of the list of hijackers initially released by the government, many were not in the planes and therefore survived September 11, 2001 and may even be alive today.

In the end, the film gives financial motives for people who would have benefited from launching the attacks themselves. Mention is first made of Larry Silverstein, who stood to receive a substantial insurance payout after the attacks due to a specific anti-terrorism clause. Other allegations of insider trading and Halliburton's benefiting from the subsequent launch of America's "War on Terror" are made.

Saturday, September 03, 2011

Famine - Somalia



"Although we've saved many lives, 4,5 or 6 children die every day", says Doctor Abdalla Bulle. This is the result of a political deadlock, which has meant that aid is only trickling into an area hit by the worst drought in 60 years. Many aid agencies have pulled out of al-Shabaab areas and international donors are unwilling to rush in money, fearing it will end up in the hands of militants. Al-Shabaab deny they are hindering the aid effort: "we have only refused those who were doing more harm than good, and those with political agendas", a spokesman tells us.

Indeed, on the ground aid workers seem more concerned with a lack of foreign aid than with AS interference. "There is no fear that aid agency funds are going to al-Shabaab. It's not humane that we can't access funds because of this fear", Hassan from Islamic Relief says. They, like other aid agencies here, maintain that they fully control the distribution of their aid. Some refugees say the group is controlling their movements, but there remains little evidence of corruption. To stop the disaster a full-scale rescue effort is needed, but while the argument over access goes on, the people's long wait continues.