Maybe this is what he meant by "No Child Left Behind"

This does lead to some very interesting questions, which are addressed in several websites.

Remember that the President wanted to come back to Washington on 9/11, but was diverted to Colorado for his own security, or so they tell us. Yet here the President is a sitting duck, minutes away from an airport, where any plane coming in for a landing can be diverted to the school in a matter of moments (and this IS something the Secret Service is very concerned about, particularly planes coming into Reagan Airport in DC suddenly going off course to attack the White House). And they do nothing for 20 minutes.

1. Were they that grossly incompetent? If so, why have no heads rolled?
2. Did they "knew" somehow that they were in no danger? Were they privvy to information that told them which buildings were targeted, and which were not?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: The actions of the Office of the President of the United States, on 9/11/01, were either criminally negligent stemming from gross incompetence, or worse.

Take a look at http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/main/essayaninterestingday.html for a complete timeline of Bush's day. See also
http://emperors-clothes.com/indict/911page.htm.

It will be worth your time to look at both.

David

What exactly is the point of your inquiry? What do you hope to establish, or debunk, that ultimately matters?

As to "Did they 'knew' somehow that they were in no danger? Were they privvy to information that told them which buildings were targeted, and which were not?"... Perhaps you should have a chat with the poet laureate of New Jersey, who will be happy to expound on his endless theories as to the 9/11 culpability of the jews, or the Republicans, or whatever.

How come some people never give Bush credit for decisively attacking and ending the Taliban, who gave harbor to the real perps?

There you go again, M-----.

1. You so desperately need to tie in a seperate argument (in this case, the Taliban) to OBFUSCATE the issue at hand.

2. You attempt here, as always, to slander with a wide brush, in this case by attempting to link this to the NJ fiasco. This has nothing to do with the Poet Laureate from NJ, but since you can't attack me, but you can attack the PL from NJ, you try to equate the two of us. Doesn't work.

3. As to the crux of the matter, you ask "What exactly is the point of your inquiry?" THAT is a fair question.

The point is that the actions of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government, on the morning of September 11th, 2001, were at best criminally negligent and at worst, criminal.

Look at the links. Read carefully (I know that's kind of like asking bin Laden to be nice, in that it's very out of character, but at least "try" to read carefully -- that's "with care" -- the voluminous and comprehensive sites I've llinked above carefully).

I know it's a lot of words, and that your attention span might not be up for it, but give it your best shot. Then explain to me why the President fiddled down in Florida for 20 minutes while the Trade Centers burned. Explain why no Air Force jets were launched to protect Washington until after the last jet hit the Pentagon, a full hour after the WTC was hit, while there were still hijacked planes in the air.

What ultimately matters is that the people responsible are held accountable. The President was asleep at the wheel, and acted incompetently in a time of crisis. His people acted incompetently in a time of crisis. No heads have rolled. No one has assumed responsibility. Instead, Bush has the audacity to take credit where there is instead an awful lot of blame for the tragic handling of the hijackings that morning.

O.K., I'll bite:

Huh?

I can't even tell what you are suggesting.

That Bush should face criminal charges when he leaves office because he didn't take adquate action in the first 20 minutes after the attacks?

That he could have done something in those 20 minutes that would have changed any outcome in the slightest?

That you have unearthed a smoking gun that proves that Bush was aware of the attacks, and purposefully killed 3,000+ people to advance his political agenda?

Something else?

I'm just not sure what the point is (though I say that in the spirit of asking for a point, not in suggesting you can't possibly have one).

As someone who was at ground zero that day, I can tell you that no one was prepared for what happened. We were there, and we still stood around like dopes, unable to comprehend what we were witnessing live. No doubt many of us should also go to jail for our stupid standing-and-staring tactics in the face of what was (in hindsight) obvious danger.

Jimpy,

I drove past the Trade Centers a half hour before the planes hit. I also was there.

Now then: There are so many questions. Did you look at the websites I suggested before asking the questions?

I'll quote from one:

"At approximately 8:13, Flight 11 was instructed by air traffic controllers at the FAA's Boston Center, in Nashua, New Hampshire, to climb to 35,000 feet. The plane did not obey the order and its transponder was turned off. Air traffic control manager Glenn Michael said, "we considered it at that time to be a possible hijacking." [AP, 8/12/02, emphasis added] According to FAA regulations, that was the correct decision: "Consider that an aircraft emergency exists ... when ... there is unexpected loss of radar contact and radio communications with any ... aircraft." [FAA Air Traffic Control Regulations, Chapter 10, Section 2-5 ]

"If air traffic controllers believed Flight 11 had been hijacked at 8:13, NORAD should have been informed immediately, so military planes could be scrambled to investigate. However, NORAD and the FAA both claimed NORAD was not informed until 8:40 - 27 minutes later. [NORAD, 9/18/01, AP, 8/12/02, AP, 8/19/02, Newsday, 9/10/02; one NORAD employee said it took place at 8:31, ABC News, 9/11/02] Indeed, before contacting NORAD, Boston air traffic controllers watched Flight 11 make an unexpected 100-degree turn and head south toward New York City [Christian Science Monitor, 9/13/01], told other controllers of the hijacking at 8:25 [Guardian, 10/17/01], continued to hear highly suspicious dialogue from the cockpit (such as, "Nobody move, please, we are going back to the airport. Don't try to make any stupid moves") [Guardian, 10/17/01, New York Times, 10/16/01], and even asked the pilots of Flight 175 to scan the skies for the errant plane. [Guardian, 10/17/01, Boston Globe, 11/23/01]

"Is NORAD's claim credible? If so, the air traffic controllers (including Mr. Michael) should have been fired and subject to possible criminal charges for their inaction. To date, however, there has been no word of any person being disciplined at any institution at any level for what happened on 9/11. "

[more]

"If NORAD's claim is false, and it was indeed informed within the time frame outlined in FAA regulations that Flight 11 may have been hijacked, that would mean NORAD did absolutely nothing for almost thirty minutes while a hijacked commercial airliner flew off course through some of the most congested airspace in the world. Presumably, that would warrant some very serious charges. Again, no one associated with NORAD or the FAA has been punished."

2. You may remember when Payne Stewart's plane depressurized and flew aimlessly all across the continent. It was escorted by fighter jets the entire way, to make sure (somehow) that it landed out of harm's way. You may also realize that Reagan Int'l Airport is scant miles from DC landmarks including the White House and the Capitol, and so the Air Force is ever on ready alert to act if a plane, coming in for a landing, suddenly veers off for Washington. It would take only minutes for a plane to hit the White House from being cleared for a landing, and the Air Force is ever on the ready to scramble for just such an emergency. But where was the Air Force, a full hour after the planes hit the WTC, to protect the people inthe Pentagon -- or the Capitol or the White House, which the plane could have hit instead?

3. If it is true that only the President could give orders to shoot down a commercial airliner, then his dallying at the school was negligent to a point of tragic consequences, because he did not place himself in a position to make any decisions until it was far too late to do anything.

Food for thought. Follow the links. Read first, then ask me your questions.

Uh, if it is any consolation, I looked at the links you posted (well, the ones that worked anyway).

My questions are unchanged. See above.

Ok, to your questions, there are no smoking guns. What we have is, however, demonstrated incompetence. And we have an awful lot of unanswered questions as to what happened on the morning of 9/11/01 between NORAD and the FAA. See above.

We also have a lot of questions about what Bush was doing, and whether the Secret Service was doing its job letting him linger, and whether the President was doing his job or simply showing his true colors as the crisis developed around him.

The criminal negligence to which I refer is truly somewhere between the FAA and NORAD.

The timeline that you can link to is extraordinary in its comprehension. There are sub-timelines within it. The author writes:

"This webpage is meant to be a comprehensive resource for anyone attempting to understand 9/11, the anthrax attacks, and the "war on terrorism." Once you start reading, I think it will become clear that there is much more going on than the "official story" claims. The mainstream media is the one that's failed to "connect the dots". There are an amazing amount of intriguing news stories that have squeaked into the media but not reached a wide audience, and/or have not been properly followed up or placed into context.

"You might call some or all of this "conspiracy theory." The term "conspiracy theory" is bandied about to discredit ideas that run counter to what is widely believed. But sometimes the official story turns out to be a lie - look at what the Nixon Administration was claiming and the press generally reporting when the Watergate story was in its early stages, for instance. The alternative to conspiracy is "coincidence theory." At some point, when enough "dots" line up, the thought that everything is just coincidence becomes the wildest theory of all.

[more]

"I don't know exactly what happened on 9/11. I have my theories and hunches, but it's an extremely complicated plot, and there are a number of plausible explanations for part or all of the story's aspects. Also, I don't want to force my ideas down your throat. I'm using the timeline to draw attention to interesting stories that you may not have read. I have tried to let the stories speak for themselves, and reduce my voice as much as possible. When I do add my own comments, they are usually at the end of a summary and in italics. Plus they are almost always phrased as a question. I hope you come to your own conclusions."

Dive in. You can spend literally hours trying to figure out how the facts diverge from the "Official Story."

For those of us who really care about the truth, the divergence is important. For those of us who knew people who died that day, or know people who knew people who died that day, it's important for people to take responsibility for the screw ups that cost more lives than were necessary.

There was a meeting between the FBI and some families of those who died. The families were furious at the FBI for not following leads. There was one person in particular who was drawing their wrath. At one point the FBI director said, "What do you want me to do, fire her?" The answer was an instantaneous, "YES!"

Kissinger is no longer heading the commission to investigate, but we still have no answers to an awful lot of questions.

Unfortunately for you, David, it is not necessary for me to obfuscate your thinking & writing here - you apparently did that at the time you did your thinking & writing.

Okay, don't take my word for it. Take Jimpy's - he's saying the same thing I'm saying. Your post makes no sense, your writing is unclear and your thinking on this matter is less than coherent. And the more you write, the less coherent any argument you're attempting becomes.

I second Jimpy's statement, "I'm just (still) not sure what the point is..."

If I were you I'd look at the two responses I've received, and consider the many I did not receive, and I'd go back to the lab on this one. I'd find another angle to go after Bush.

Ok. I concede that I have not been very clear.

I will say this: Less than 2 years after JFK's assassination, almost everyone believed the official story of the Warren Commission Report that Oswald acted alone. By the time of the Church Commission on assassinations, during the Ford Administration, it was conceded by that commission (way before Oliver Stone) there was very likely a conspiracy to kill JFK.

The problem with the lone assassin theory is that the facts (especially with the Zapruder film) were not consistent with the "Official Story."

What we have here, with September 11, 2001, is a similar situation: The facts as they have been documented and footnoted very thoroughly, are not consistent with the "Official Story."

Now, you are asking, and rightly so, "What does this mean?" The answer is that it is too soon to tell. I am convinced, however, that when the truth is eventually uncovered (if it ever is), we will find that people dropped the ball, and that lives were lost in the process. Whether the ball was dropped by incompetence or with malice, I don't know, and won't conject. But between the FAA, NORAD, the Secret Service, and high levels within the Bush Administration.

Again, from above:

"Is NORAD's claim credible? If so, the air traffic controllers (including Mr. Michael) should have been fired and subject to possible criminal charges for their inaction. To date, however, there has been no word of any person being disciplined at any institution at any level for what happened on 9/11.

"If NORAD's claim is false, and it was indeed informed within the time frame outlined in FAA regulations that Flight 11 may have been hijacked, that would mean NORAD did absolutely nothing for almost thirty minutes while a hijacked commercial airliner flew off course through some of the most congested airspace in the world. Presumably, that would warrant some very serious charges. Again, no one associated with NORAD or the FAA has been punished."

Why has no one been held accountable? Why was the Bush Administration so reluctant to set up a commission to look into this, and why did it give it so few teeth? And why are the facts so contradictory of the "official story?"