Conspiracies

I have been spending WAY too much time on conspiracy theories this week, and there has been chaos on the personal front. I was thinking that last night, siting by the pool swaddled in a hoodie, t-shirt and sweatpants. I watched the clock, and at 1930 precisely, disrobed and jumped into the pool.

I paddled there for about twenty minutes. My younger son appeared in his new late-model Explorer, which we had spent the day acquiring. The winter is coming, I thought, as the chill from the blue water began to sink into my thermal core. With his acquisition, he can return the Bluesmobile. I will have winter transportation, and the Hubrismobile can go back into hibernation until the azaleas return.

Finding the right used car was easy. I had the iPad-2 and the network in the police car as we drove from dealer to dealer, and found a likely VIN number in the right color scheme down in Springfield, where the salesman had to deal with me accessing Kelly Blue Book and his on-line inventory as we negotiated.

It is a new world, with new tools. Maurice the salesman must think that technology is conspiring against him, removing the mystery from his trips to “talk to the General Manager,” even I was able to research his profit margin.

Between the earthquake, the hurricane and the anniversary of the terror attacks there has been a lot to think about, and whether it is all linked somehow into some grand connection, nature conspiring against us.

It is tempting to think that. I am human, and of course I personally do embrace some conspiracies. Some are real and current.

One is in cyberspace. A variety of the spook agencies have been hacked for sensitive data lately. That is no surprise, but what did concern me was that an organization to which I belong- the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) was one of them.

The organization is headed by Fran Townsend, President Bush II’s Homeland Security Advisor. INSA released a paper last week calling for a government strategy to prevent cyber attacks through better information sharing.

Fran then had to send a note to the membership, informing us of “the fact of” the disclosure. The hackers apparently got off with the names, e-mail addresses and phone numbers of all of us, including former DNI Mike McConnell, DDCI Charlie Allen and USD-I Steve Cambone.

And Mr. Socotra, of course. I found myself listed on-line at a hacker site called “Cryptome” as a US Spy, along with my employer and private address at Big Pink. The site is run by two people named John Young and Deboarh Natsios. I have no idea why my residence is of interest to them, and have to consider them cyberterrorists.

I suppose it is Fran’s fault for letting her IT system be compromised, but then again, I suppose in this world we need to assume that we are being targeted all the time and take appropriate action. Fran sent a message warning us not to take communications appearing to come from the organization completely at face value. So in addition to everything else, we may be open to “Spear Fishing” attacks. Be alert.

So, Mr. Young and Ms Natsios are involved in a real and current conspiracy against me, but this is not new. Other conspiracies are historical. The Lincoln assassination was originally chartered and funded by an embattled and failing Confederate government. John Wilkes Booth had to change the mission from kidnapping to murder at the last moment based on the dynamic political situation. It was not the act of a deranged Lone Gunman.

My own pet conspiracy is that I think John Kennedy was ambushed and killed by more than one gunman. I base my opinion on a bit of film, captured by amateur cameraman Abraham Zapruder.

To me, the sequence suggests that the President was struck by a blow from behind, and then another almost simultaneous shot aimed from the right front- from the famous Grassy Knoll. You can look at it yourself- it is all out there- and it makes the jerk-jerk of the slain President’s head  make sense. It requires no “magic bullet.”

Beyond that, I do not want to walk into the hall of mirrors of the conspiracy buffs. I do not have any particular opinion on anything beyond that. More than one gunman means there was a conspiracy, and it had significant consequences. Jackie Kennedy apparently agrees with me, (or vice versa) though we will not see what she says until the long sequestered 1963 interview is revealed this Fall.

Further, I think there are some troubling things about the deaths of RFK and Dr. King, but I have no Unifying Field Theory to link them together. Shit, as they say, does sometimes happen. But high-profile murder normally has a motive.

So believing what I do, I was surprised to find myself growing increasingly agitated about a conspiracy theory regarding the attacks of 9/11. I was looking for some images of the attack as part of a tribute to those who perished when I found some that are much more widespread than I had suspected, and all out there on he wild-and-wooly worldwide web.

Apparently the US Government, assisted by Mossad, directed the 9/11 attacks.

I groaned. This is tortured stuff, so bear with me. The contention goes something like this: prepared demolition charges were rigged in the Trade Center; the two towers came down because they were blown down. WTC Building 7 is proof of this, since it collapsed without being struck.

I will talk about that in the morning, and concentrate on what got me going this morning.

The conspiracy continues: the Pentagon, meanwhile, was stuck by a rocket- or maybe a Global Hawk or something- since no aircraft wreckage or impact wing marks were found on the façade of the building. The single image from the Heliport security camera only shows a white streak in one frame prior to the explosion.

Let’s leave aside the impossibility of a Global Hawk to do anything like that, based on size, speed and payload.

Charges must have been planted in the building to account for the destruction.

I had just got back from Arlington, placing flowers there at the memorial in Section 64, and was looking for an image of the Pentagon burning that I should have taken myself the night of 9/11 from the BOQ at Ft. McNair. I found one- but it was imbedded in one of the Denier sites. I read with growing anger the lies contained in the site.

The site- I won’t dignify it with the URL anymore than I would provide you the home address, apartment number and contact phone of Deborah Artemos Natsios in New York.

The Conspiracy folks make it clear that there was something funny about the whole thing. The 9/11 Commission lied, just like the Warren Commission did. There is no evidence of an aircraft hitting the Pentagon.

I am quite serious about this- I have had inquiries before from people who find this crap credulous, citing the same sort of bogus experts pontificating that what clearly DID happen could not, based on the laws of physics, and that something else quite extraordinary happened.

Let us leave aside the problem of the “missing” Boeing 757, or two or them, if one contends there was nothing in the holes at the Pentagon or in the ground in Shanksville, PA.

For that to be true, of course, the latter two aircraft would have to have been spirited away to an undisclosed location, and crew, hijackers and passengers murdered and their DNA and selective generic wreckage then spirited into the attack sites.

Why people would prefer to believe that line of reasoning is beyond me.

I do not trust the Government, that is a given. Parts of it may have participated in a variety of plots down through the years, but on the whole, I have found its evil to be more on the banal side of poor policy implementation than of active malice.

The Pentagon lies are incredible, and I take this personally. The conspiracy crowd says there is no picture of what hit the building, and thus, it was a rocket (or something) other than a Boeing 757 operated as AA Flight 77. A pal mentioned this contention to me, and I had to write back in high warble:

“The aircraft was captured a “a thin white blue” in the helipad tape. It was a low data-rate camera with a limited field of view, and considering the black box indicated the aircraft was moving at 530 knots, not surprising that it only caught a partial.

The NEX gas station and the Doubletree videos show nothing (NEX camera pointed at the pumps, not the Pentagon) and only the tip of the explosion is seen from the Doubletree over the I-395 overpass.

So, there is no image of the jet moving at 530KTS indicated airspeed over Washington Boulevard, the Navy Annex, Route 27 and down into the Pentagon.

Here is what a trained pilot observed about AA Flight 77 when queried by Reagan National (DCA) controllers. They were mystified by the rapidly moving radar contact, turning and descending rapidly- this is a key point in the conspiracy theory, that the track was that of a military jet. Controllers asked Lt. Col. Steven O’Brien, flying a C-130 out of Andrews AFB, to make a visual ID. He responded that “it was a Boeing 757 or 767, and its silver fuselage meant it was probably an American Airlines jet.”

Approaching the Pentagon in his aircraft, he saw the impact site on the building’s west- heliport- side and reported to Reagan control, “Looks like that aircraft crashed into the Pentagon, sir.”

Flight 77 was reported en route Washington by passenger Barbara Olson (spouse of the US Solicitor General) on her cellphone, as she said “The airplane is flying over a residential area” at 9:26, one of five calls made by passengers during the brief flight.

The Pentagon is surrounded by roads. In addition to my pal Eileen, stuck on Rt 27 abeam the impact site, 186 eyewitnesses made depositions that a large passenger jet hit the Pentagon, and many were much more specific as to what kind and what airline:

USA Today reporter Mike Walter from Washington Boulevard: “I looked out my window and I saw this plane, this jet, an American Airlines jet, coming. And I thought, ‘This doesn’t add up, it’s really low.’ This is the quote that is twisted to suggest that something other than Flight 77 hit the building, but it is complete bullshit. Mike completed his phrase this way, after clearly identifying Flight 77, saying “And I saw it. I mean it was like a cruise missile with wings. It went right there and slammed right into the Pentagon.”

Terrance Kean, who lived in a nearby apartment building, heard the noise of loud jet engines, glanced out his window, and saw a “very, very large passenger jet”. He watched “it just plow right into the side of the Pentagon. The nose penetrated into the portico. And then it sort of disappeared, and there was fire and smoke everywhere.”

Associated Press reporter Dave Winslow: “I saw the tail of a large airliner … It plowed right into the Pentagon.”

Pilot Tim Timmerman noticed American Airlines markings on the aircraft as he saw it hit the Pentagon.

Motorist Mary Lyman, on I-395, saw the airplane pass over at a “steep angle toward the ground and going fast” and then saw the cloud of smoke from the Pentagon.

Omar Campo, another witness, was cutting the grass on the other side of Route 27 when the airplane flew over his head. “I was cutting the grass and it came in screaming over my head. I felt the impact. The whole ground shook and the whole area was full of fire. I could never imagine I would see anything like that here.”

Afework Hagos, a computer programmer, was stuck in a traffic jam near the Pentagon when the airplane flew over. “There was a huge screaming noise and I got out of the car as the plane came over. Everybody was running away in different directions. It was tilting its wings up and down like it was trying to balance. It hit some lampposts on the way in.”

The two black boxes from the 757 were recovered at the site, and nose cone and nose landing gear were sighted by Pentagon survivors within minutes of the crash. Engine sections with identifiable serial numbers were found in situ.

I personally saw identifiable aircraft wreckage in the growing pile of debris in North Parking daily for weeks afterward and smelled jet fuel in the Pentagon- along with other odors- when I was there for a very surreal meeting on 12 September.

DNA evidence from all but five manifested passengers or crew was found at the site.

Radar data from the Reagan tower was confirmed by the flight data recorder found at the site.

The attack happened at rush hour, and there were thousands of other people who saw what happened and what struck the Pentagon, my pal Eileen just being one of the hundreds who were not contacted by the 9/11 Commission because there was no question about what happened.

I have found absolutely zero evidence of anything happening during the attacks that is not consistent with the impact of four large commercial jets at near full fuel capacity.

There are a lot of other things about 9/11 that are not pretty, and likewise other things- policy driven- about what happened afterward that were downright ugly. But the facts of the attack, masterminded by KSM, executed by whack-job Saudi jihadists and sponsored by that asshole bin Laden, are incontrovertible.”

I doubt if it will change anything. People will believe what they want to believe. But of all the loony things I have been moved to write about, this is quite possibly the craziest.

We are a screwy species, you know?

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com