[Intelforum] Sources: August terror plot is a "fiction"

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From: "David Guyatt" <hammer at firenet.uk.com>
To: intelforum at lists101.his.com
Subject: Re: Sources: August terror plot is a "fiction"
Date: Thu, 9 Nov 2006 12:28:20 -0000

Christopher,

Earlier in this thread, John Young warned "...others here have views 
and credentials, not to say magisterially dismissive rhetoric..." 

I now see what he means.  That's some magisterially dismissive 
rhetoric I just read.

You state: "Your claim that the FBI had a white van sitting outside 
Huffman Airport filming terrorists in training prior to 9/11 simply 
isn't true."  You immediately follow this statement by launching into 
an detailed explanation of why the FBI cannot have conducted any such 
surveillance.

And I agree with you.

For good orders sake, this is what I actually stated:  "After all, 
the FBI had agents parked in a white van outside of Huffman Aviation 
in Venice (where Atta took his flying lessons) "less than four hours 
after the buildings collapsed."

You will note that I did not say, or imply, that the FBI were sitting 
in a white van: "filming terrorists in training prior to 9/11."  
Furthermore, since this incident took place four hours after the 
"buildings collapsed", it certainly cannot have been a case of the 
FBI filming terrorists "prior" to 911.

To the extent that what you say about my claim being "simply 
untrue", very obviously IS simply untrue, simply because I didn't say 
what you credited me with.  Having now corrected this miststatement 
of fact, would you now care to comment on what I actually said and 
specifically state again that the FBI were not present in that white 
van that I mentioned?  Specifically, Christopher, if you please.  And 
feel free to cite proof of your assertion.  I have a friend to 
disabuse of a strongly held view, if you can prove this claim to be 
false.

You also say that: "The first thing that you need to recognize is 
that the FBI interdicts foreign enemies of the United States that 
enter the country to do us harm. That is their mission. "  

That is one part of their mission, certainly.  Other aspects involve 
combating crime, I understand.  For example, organised crime, 
cross-border crime and "the dismantlement of national 
drug-trafficking organizations". 

By the way, I noted the repitition of the word "conspiracy" in your 
post.  You used it a total of six times.  I'm wondering if that is 
something that "political scientists" are "obligated" to do to 
reinforce their possible prejudices?

David Guyatt




From: "Christopher Farmer" <<mailto:antiluminous at msn.com>antiluminous at msn.com>
To: <mailto:intelforum at lists101.his.com>intelforum at lists101.his.com
Subject: Re: Sources: August terror plot is a "fiction"
Date: Tue, 07 Nov 2006 03:54:40 -0500

Hi David,

The first thing that you need to recognize is that the FBI interdicts 
foreign enemies of the United States that enter the country to do us 
harm. That is their mission. The FBI had no involvement in the 9/11 
attacks, contrary to what the conspiracy websites have been 
propagating.

Now let's address your claims. The FBI did show up at Huffman 
Aviation at approximately 2:15 - 2:30 AM on September 12, 2001. The 
reason they were able to do so is not because they had prior 
knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, but because the parents of some of the 
hijackers on 9/11 found suicide notes in their homes left for them by 
their Jihadist sons. The FBI was able to use that information in 
combination with credit card receipts to locate the flight training 
schools that many of the terrorists perused and then received flight 
training.

Your claim that the FBI had a white van sitting outside Huffman 
Airport filming terrorists in training prior to 9/11 simply isn't 
true.

Look at it this way. In the United States, in order for the FBI to 
set up cameras and conduct surveillance of hostile foreign 
nation-state personnel operating in the United States requires the 
FBI to approach a FISA Court and get permission from a FISA judge. 
That is how it worked prior to the 9/11 attacks. There is nothing on 
record indicating that the FBI ever had any of the 9/11 terrorists 
under surveillance with the exception of one agent detecting flight 
training in Texas by Islamic fundamentalists but that didnât get very 
far up the chain of command because the dots were not connected on 
the matter.

Conspiracy websites on the other hand attribute the FBI's speedy 
response to Huffman Airfield as an indicator of "prior knowledge" by 
the FBI, rather than looking at the evidence. As a political 
scientist I am obligated to correct these misconceptions whenever 
they appear, and this is not to marginalize you in any way, but 
simply to address the truth.

The truth is that the FBI, through the FBI's New York field office, 
already had a paper trail emerging shortly after the attacks from the 
terrorist's families in the United States. The FBI response in 
Florida was coordinated using evidence derived from other locations 
after the attacks. In a very brief period of time, the FBI was able 
to build a mosaic that the terrorists were using credit cards for 
most of their purchases throughout the United States, and when flight 
schools appeared in those queries it drew the attention of the 
Federal Government very quickly.

Now conspiracy websites will try to blend some fact and fiction into 
their reports to sell videos and other products to consumers of 
conspiracy information. I have no doubt that Huffman Aviation was 
under some type of surveillance at one time or another because 
Florida is a state that has a large percentage of narcotic 
trafficking into our country. US law enforcement assets in Florida 
would operate in that manner. However, US law enforcement is not 
allowed to conduct 24-hour surveillance on suspects without court 
approval by a sitting judge and the surveillance laws here are very 
strict in that regard.

Surveillance cameras are tools for surveillance, not interdiction. 
Cameras can be used for interdiction if an entity with police powers 
has prior warning to an emerging or imminent life-threatening 
situation. That was not the case at Huffman Aviation, contrary to 
claims by conspiracy websites. In fact, London has tens of thousands 
of cameras installed everywhere. No other city on this planet has as 
many surveillance cameras as London has in operation, and yet not one 
of those cameras stopped the terrorist attacks in London on July 7, 
2005. The cameras were used afterwards to investigate the terrorist 
acts. Cameras are rarely, if ever, used to interdict. It is very 
important to recognize that and the attacks in London were a message 
by the terrorists that cameras donât matter and are nothing more than 
a false sense of security.

Huffman Aviation, at the time of the FBI inquiry there, had over two 
hundred foreign students. That means a culture existed at the school 
to train foreign students. Huffman Aviation admitted that they had a 
very deep marketing campaign in European countries to seek foreign 
students. Muhammed Atta and other 9/11 hijackers used to live in 
Germany for a time and they would travel to Prague, Czechoslovakia, 
to buy civilian passenger aircraft tickets to fly to the United 
States. In fact, Czech intelligence claimed that Muhammed Atta met 
with Iraqi intelligence agents in Prague.

The conspiracy sites try to persuade the reader into thinking that 
Muhammed Atta and the other 9/11 terrorists were the only foreign 
students at the flight schools indicated. Muhammed Atta and other 
9/11 terrorists attended several other flight schools as well, and 
all of those schools were located through evidence derived from 
credit card receipts and FBI Special Agent interviews conducted 
immediately following the 9/11 attacks. It was FBI investigative work 
that led the FBI to Huffman Aviation in the early morning hours of 
September 12, 2001. It was the FBI's mission to locate any remaining 
terrorist cells in a timely manner.

The credit cards used by the terrorists on 9/11 were funded through 
Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This allowed the US government to 
determine that the 9/11 attacks were the product of a transnational 
terrorist organization.

In sum, these are the key points that you need to think about, David:

* Prior to 9/11 there were thousands of foreign students in the 
United States on student visas and after 9/11 no one knew where those 
students were located. The student visa program had very serious 
flaws.

* Nearly a month after the 9/11 attacks, Muhammed Atta's student visa 
that he applied for months earlier arrived to a flight school 
approved by the INS. Remarkably, an INS clerk approved it after the 
9/11 attacks.

* Security at US airports prior to 9/11 was really degraded. In order 
for civilian passenger aircraft companies to remain profitable, those 
companies cut too many corners in security. The airports themselves 
were also a mirror image of our open society in terms of security. 
The airports and every other target of the terrorists on 9/11 were 
unsuspecting targets.

* When the attacks were in play, the US Federal Government sprang 
into action. The speed that organizations such as the FBI derived 
intelligence on the 9/11 terrorists is not indicative of 
foreknowledge, just efficient use of FBI personnel and resources and 
investigative ability.

That should clear up your unresolved questions. If you have any other 
9/11 information you want to debate, by all means send it my way.

Cheers,

Christopher Farmer
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