FU2 NFL!

I haven't watched MLB since 2001 when the over-payed, players of a kid's game threatened to go on strike not long after 9/11/01 because they didn't wanna get tested for roids. I see no difference between that & what is happening between the players and owners of the NFL. How they can squabble over whatever the hell they are squabbling about while millions of their fans lose their jobs, get tossed to the streets and struggle to feed their families in this depresssed economy, I just don't understand. It might as well be a giant loogey in the face. Well  FU2 NFL! I don't give a rats ass what yall are bickering about or who is more at fault or which side is the richest. The players union is one union I do not support. What would happen if the owners decided they won't lock out the players but they are going to change all the rules regarding season length and so on that the players are oppossed to? The players would at least threaten strike if not actually do so. Spoiled babies. Anybody else ever have a boss make a change in your schedule or come up with some new rule? You can bitch all you want & point out all the obvious flaws and discrepencies until you are blue in the face. The bottom-line is you will either suck it up & follow like a good worker bee or you can raise hell & eventually get shit-canned or you can simply walk off the job. Striking sure isn't an option for the common working stiff. Who gets to strike anymore besides government employees? Strikes haven't achieved the wanted results in a long time. The labor movement has been crushed. Hooray! Whoops, judging by the looks of things maybe the unions weren't the problem after all, huh? Either way, the players are not laborers. As much as they complain about the dangers of their job you'd think they were being forced to do it by circumstance and not gettting millions of dollars to do so. I'm venting about the players here because going on about our class system and my hatred of the aristocratic ownership class is for another occasion. They are our true enemy, not the players. I don't expect decency out of the plutocrats. However, the players (many from modest up-bringing) should know better than to get into this public squabble with the ownership especially right now. I must admit as a life long fan it will be tough giving up the games on Sunday & Monday & occasional Thursday & Saturday. But, there are always leaves that need raking that time of the year and kids that I can actually go play kids games with. I also must admit that giving it up will be made a bit easier by being a Browns fan. The last 15 or so years have been nothing but misery. The stadium now seems like some sort of fascist prison camp with signs imploring you to rat out your fellow fans for such offenses as cursing so they can thow you in their gulag in the bottom of the stadium. The new GM decided to shorten the hours allowed in the muni-lots for tailgating. Wouldn't want people having too much fun I guess. The game itself has now become almost unbearable to watch. If it isn't a flag for tackling too hard getting thrown and interrupting the flow of the game it's a beer commercial every other play. No more wasting my time & money. No more unrecpricated love. So long bitches...........Go Zips!

The three-headed dog that ate America or (Buy a Chrysler and help support child sex slavery)?

Cerberus (ˈsɜːbərəs)
— n
1. Greek myth a dog, usually represented as having three heads, that guarded the entrance to Hades
2. a sop to Cerberus a bribe or something given to propitiate a potential source of danger or problems
3. a private investment firm headquarted at 299 Park Avenue, New York City.

Most of us have heard of this three headed dog guarding the gates of hell before. He obviously isn't there to keep souls from entering through the gates. He is there of course to keep them from escaping. Some may have even heard the phrase of "giving a sop to Cerberus" before; meaning, to bribe. What a great symbol and name for an investment company, don't ya think? Well, somebody did.

Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. was founded in 1992 by Steve Feinberg, has John W. Snow (aka-73rd U.S. Secretary of the Treasury) as chairman and uses Dan (I can't spell potato) Quayle (aka- 44th VP of U.S.) as it's mouth piece. According to BusinessWeek, in 2005 Cerberus controlled companies earning over $30 billion in annual sales, making it bigger than Coke, McDonalds and Cisco with a larger payroll than Exxon.

John W. Snow is a person of great interest here. Snow became CEO of CSX Transportation in 1985 which just posted (Oct 12, 2010) record 3rd quarter earnings of $414 million. I'm sure Snow could have nothing to do with this record though, because in December of 2002 he sold CSX to another private equity firm, the Carlyle Group for $300 million. In hindsight, the Carlyle Group made a pretty decent bit of change on that one. It probably didn't hurt that former president George H. W. Bush was a Senior Advisor for Carlyle, former Secretary of the State- James Baker III  was a Senior Counselor for Carlyle, former British Prime Minister- John Major was a Chairman for Carlyle, and that former secretary of the defense- Frank Carlucci was Chairman and Chairman Emeritus at Carlyle at the time of the sale. So less than a month after selling his company to the president's dad's company, John W. Snow resigned as chairman at CSX so that the president could make him our new Secretary of the Treasury in January of 2003. Fishy? Nah, just business as usual, right?

I'm sure that John W. Snow did some wonderful things as Secretary of Treasury from 2003 to 2006 but that is not really the point of my story. I'm more interested in what he did after his position there. Snow resigned as Treasury Secretary on July 3, 2006 and was replaced by Henry Paulson, ex-CEO of another private equity firm- Goldman Sachs. Snow wasn't out of work for long. On October 19, 2006 Snow became chairman of Cerberus.

In April of 2006 Cerberus purchased majority shares of General Motors Acceptance Corp (GMAC) for $14 billion. Oh, the irony. Yes, the same GMAC you may have heard of recently due to their questionable mortgage foreclosure practices. The same GMAC that is being investigated for mortgage fraud. That's right, the mortgage holder, not the borrower is being investigated. What an automotive company needs its own bank for & what that bank is doing messing with people's mortgages is beyond my simple perspective on things I guess. Yes, the same GMAC that provided financing to GM auto dealers and customers. The same GMAC that was part of GM that was bailed out by Bush & Paulson in 2008. The same GMAC that has recently changed it's name to Ally Financial and is now majority owned by the U.S. Government. Confusing isn't it? It's meant to be.

With John Snow as Chairman, Cerberus returned the control of Chrysler to American soil by purchasing 80% of DaimlerChrysler in May of 2007. God bless Amerika. Did anyone know that one private equity firm owned the majority of the both American icons of industry at the time they were bailed out, against our will by us, we the people? As was GM, Chrysler was on the verge of bankruptcy and rescued by their savior, the 3-headed dog keeping us all trapped in hell, Cerberus.

Why would they purchase these collapsing giants you might ask? Well it seems it worked out pretty well for them. GM & Chrysler & therefore, actually Cerberus got handed quite a bit of tax payer money at the end of 2008 and early 2009 to puff these giants back up. And we all thought we were bailing out the auto industry. It turns out, it was just another bank bailout. Man we are suckers. Speaking of which, I love how Obama gets blamed for the auto industry bailout, I am pretty sure Bush & Cheney were still desecrating the White House in December of 2008 when it all actually started.

Cerberus has since gone on to purchase another icon of American industry, DynCorp in April of 2010. No?  Trust me they are an icon of one of Americas greatest industries- raping, killing and blowing shit up. Don't ring any bells, huh? Remember the American mercenaries raided by the 48th Military Police Detachment in Bosnia back in 1999 and charged with using 12-15 year olds as sex slaves? Yes, working for us, the tax payers. DynCorp gets 96% of its business from us. DynCorp, Halliburton's KBR & many others have a powerful lobby and have fought hard to allow us to keep up the human trafficking and child-sex slavery. Yes us. We pay for it, we just don't know it evidently. Heck, they just made a movie about it called The Whistleblower. It's not surprising if you haven't heard of them though.

“We try to hide religiously...If anyone at Cerberus has his picture in the paper and a picture of his apartment, we will do more than fire that person. We will kill him. The jail sentence will be worth it.” -Steve Feinberg

So what are we to make of all this? Just more business as usual, right? Boys will be boys. Corporate & government corruption is nothing new, right? Seriously, it is disgusting what We The People pay for every day with our tax dollars. It is just as disgusting to bury our heads in the sand like the three monkeys that can hear, see and speak no evil while the three headed dog laughs like a hyena and steals our souls. But, in reality what can we do? Aren't we just slaves too; Forced to find a way to keep up our payments to the likes of GMAC or they will rip away our homes? I don't know. But, I think we first need to unplug our ears, open our eyes and open our mouths if we are ever to escape. Maybe then we can find Orpheus.

It's just not fair!

It's just not fair! We should not let those Socialists in DC raise the taxes on those poor individuals making $200,000.00 a year or more or those poor couples making only $250,000 dollars a year or more back to what their rate was before Geoge W. Bush came to power. Don't you remember how they suffered under Slick Willy? If we let Obama have his way he will lock in the current tax rate that George W. Bush set for everyone except those poor people/couples making $200/250k or more each year. It just isn't fair. How will they be able to pay for their children's nannys and private schools? How will they survive? I understand in these trying times we all must make sacrifices but, these people have earned the right to be above all that haven't they? I think once you inherit or earn a certain amount of money, you have proven yourself enough and shouldn't have to engage in the sacrifices like the rest of the masses. God has obviously smiled upon them for a reason and we should respect that.

Plus if the taxes on the wealthiest 2% are raised from 35% as they are now to 39.6% as Obama wants to do the government would be stealing $700 billion dollars from them that they have been using to create jobs. Don't you remember how all those jobs were created after Bush cut their tax rates? ...um..Well, I'll find a source for that later. On the other hand if our government keeps handing them back that $700 billion of their hard-earned money they can keep creating jobs for poor folk like they have been. Again, I'll back up this claim with a source later, no time to find one right now. I'm sure though we all remember how well the trickle down thing worked during the Reagan & Bush Sr. years. You see the more we let the richest people keep more of their hard-earned & fully deserved money, the more of that money they use to create jobs for regular working Americans. That's why we have so many jobs staying here in America when it would be much cheaper to employ people in India or Bangledesh or Guatemala or Vietnam, etc... Also they are very philanthropic people and like to give their money away to poor people. They just don't want the government to take the credit and do it for them. This is completely understandable, it is their money. Am I the only one that gets this? Geez!

As a matter of fact, I think it would be even better if we just had a flat tax rate for everyone. It is so unfair that just because someone has more money that they should have to pay more in taxes. Fair is fair. It is a black & white issue like all issues. Their is no grey or in between. I mean think about it: why should a single guy making $200,000/yr have to pay nearly 40% (as Obama wants to do) of his money to the government while a guy making only $8,000/yr gets away with only paying 10%? Why in the heck should the first guy only get to take home $120,000 while the the other guy gets away with taking home $7,200? As a matter a fact the guy making $8000/yr will probably not have to pay anything at all after accounting for exemptions. It's ridiculous and just not fair! If we had a flat tax of say, 20% everything would be fair. The guy making $200k keeps $160,000 while the guy making $8k keeps $6,400. That's fair!

Better yet! Why don't we just get rid of taxes all together? The government's all screwed up and just wastes our money on lazy people that don't wanna work anyway! Besides, what do we need taxes for when we have the Federal Reserve bank? If the government needs money they can just print some more, right? Of course, those commie, socialist, liberal, terrorists are gonna say, "this will devaluate the dollar" and "it will drive up prices." I say, "so what?" Last time I checked a dollar was worth a dollar and if something costs too much for someone they should just learn to budget better. "Survival of the fittest" as those elitist, academia, evolutionary nuts like to say. I say, "give me liberty or give me death!" If God wanted everyone to be born equal he would have made us all clones, born at the same time, in the same place, to the same parents, with the same bank account, with the same connections and same opportunities!

“There’s class warfare, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” -Warren Buffett

ATTACK ON CORREA!!!

Correa, 47, speaking from the balcony of the Carondelet palace after his rescue, told hundreds of cheering backers that Thursday "was the saddest day of my life." He said 27 of his special forces bodyguards had been injured. Correa thanked the supporters who had converged on the hospital "ready to die to defend democracy." His loyalists had hurled stones at police who repelled them with tear gas. He said the uprising was not just a pay dispute. "There were lots of infiltrators, dressed as civilians, and we know where they were from," the U.S.-trained leftist economist shouted.

Both Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia alleged in Buenos Aires on Friday that the United States was somehow behind the police rebellion.

Like his leftist ally Chavez, Correa has drastically cut royalties to multinational oil companies in favor of his people, discouraging direct foreign investment while courting such nations as Iran and Russia.



I'm sure those multinational oil companies & the governments they represent had nothing to do with any of this. We would never support such a thing unless you count the Guatemalan coups of 54, 61 & 63 or the September 11th attacks in Chile, 1973 or the 1953 coup in Iran or in Panama in 1981 & 1989 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama or Haiti in 59, 71, 86, 90, 93 & 2010? or Bolivia in 68, 71, & 2008 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26724256/ or Venezuala in 2002 & 2006 . Not to mention the "Bay of Pigs" invasion of Cuba in 1961 or O.I.L. (Operation Iraqi Liberation) in 2003. The list of things our corporatocracy would never do goes on & on.

9/11 and a Smoking Gun.

GMA, General Mahmoud Ahmad (aka, Mahmud Ahmed, Mahmood Ahmed), head of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) from 1999-Oct. 7, 2001.

What if the man that funded the 9/11 attacks was eating breakfast in Washington DC on the morning of September 11, 2001 with the chairmen of the House & Senate Intelligence Committees, Democratic Senator Bob Graham from Florida and Republican Representative Porter Goss from Florida? Does that directly connect members of our government to the attacks or is this just another one of those unfathomable coincidences?

Let's go back in time for a moment. I am sure we all remember Mohammed Atta (MMA), the ringleader of the 9/11 attacks. Here is part of a transcript posted on the Washington Post website of the 9/30/01 episode of ABC's "This Week" hosted by Sam Donaldson:

"As to September 11, federal authorities have now told ABC News they've tracked more than $100,000 from banks in Pakistan to two banks in Florida to accounts held by suspected hijack ringleader Mohammed Atta. As well this morning TIME magazine is reporting that some of that money came in the days just before the attack and can be traced directly to people connected to Osama Bin Laden. It's all part of what has been a successful FBI effort so far to close in on the hijackers' high command, the money men, the planners, and the mastermind."

Here is an excerpt from the TIME report referred to as published on 10/08/01:

"Sources have told TIME that in the ten days prior to Sept. 11, Atta received at least two wire transfers from a man investigators have linked with bin Laden."1

The connections are convoluted by intention. The plotters covered their tracks well.

So ABC, the Washington Post and Time magazine (hardly fringe news sources) are all reporting that the FBI (or other federal authorities) are investigating who sent MMA this money under the assumption that it will lead to the ultimate planners of the attack. Another assumption being made is that this ultimate planner is Osama bin Laden (OBL).

According to this CNN report from 10/08/01 that man is Ahmed Umar Syed Shiekh (ASS):
"Freed with Ahzar was Ahmed Umar Syed Shiekh, whom authorities say used a pseudonym to wire $100,000 to suspected hijacker Mohammed Atta, who then distributed the money in the United States." 2

Remember that name. It will be written many ways (e.g., Ahmad Umar Shiekh, Omar Saeed Shiekh, Umar Shiekh), but they all refer to the same man. For simplicity, I just call him ASS. The CNN article is referring to India releasing ASS, along with Ahzer and another bad-guy, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar into Afghanistan in exchange for the hijacked passengers of Indian Airlines flight 814 on Dec. 31, 1999.

Here's another interesting thing in the CNN article:

"Indian authorities have also said that 1999 hijacking was done with the help of Pakistan's ISI or Intelligence Service." 2
The idea that Pakistan would not be acting in the best interests of India is not a big shocker, nor is the idea that India would try to make Pakistan look bad. India and Pakistan have been feuding since 1947 and are still at war with each other over the territory of the Kashmir mountains. The idea that the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) would help with the terrorist act of hijacking an airplane is of interest though. To paraphrase George W. Bush, "you are either with us or against us" and "those that harbor terrorists will be treated the same as the terrorists." Since the government of Pakistan is allied with the United States this would be something neither side would want loudly reported.

To put this in some context, here's a brief history of notable, recent geo-political events regarding Pakistan and the ISI:

It is well established that Pakistan was a major ally of the U.S. in the 80's during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The CIA would funnel money and arms to the ISI (Pakistan's CIA), the ISI would funnel this material to OBL and other mujaheddin fighters who would operate and train out of Pakistan. They would then cross over into Afghanistan to fight the Soviets to the great pleasure of our CIA.

Things went south in the 90's. After the Soviet defeat, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Pakistan over their development of nuclear weapons. Some business relations went on as usual though. Pakistan holds a very strategic position for countries or corporations wanting access to the oil and natural gas fields of the newly liberated former Soviet Republics of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, & Uzbekistan. If a Western power wanted to access these fields they would need to pipe these resources to a port where these things could be shipped back home. If you look at a globe there are only a few ways to pipe resources in this region to a port.

Piping through Russia, Iran or China would mean allowing them to control the flow of the oil and gas through their territory. The Iran & China option aren't even political realities. Russia would allow a pipeline but it would be very expensive and Russia would want it's share of the profit. None of these options would be very appealing to a Western company looking to make a profit. The only other way to get resources from this region would be to pipe them through Afghanistan & Pakistan to a port along the Pakistani or Indian coast of the Indian Ocean. But this all goes towards the motives for the events of 9/11. I'll leave that for another time and for now just say Pakistan is strategically important to the interests of the U.S.

Now back to the Pakistani history. In May of 1998 India, then Pakistan held live nuclear tests. The last thing the U.S. would want is a nuclear-armed, fundamentalist Islamic regime controlling the flow of our oil. In September of 1999, lieutenant-general Ziauddin Butt, director of the ISI held detailed meetings with the CIA and warned them about the 'fundamentalist' influence in the military. He had also warned about the growing threat of 'Talibanisation' in Pakistan." On October 12, 1999 General Pervez Musharraf launched a coup and ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif. He took control of Pakistan and pronounced himself chief executive. One of the key Generals in this overthrow was General Mahmoud Ahmad (GMA).3

According to this excellent TIME article GMA tipped off an OBL associate named, Ahmed al-Khadir who was wanted for the bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad in 1995, and helped him escape into Afghanistan. 4

"Put bluntly, the Pakistani spy agency, known as the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), had betrayed the Egyptians." 4

GMA was a known supporter of the Taliban.

"When the President (Musharraf) sent him (GMA) down to Kandahar last Sept. 17 to persuade Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar to hand over bin Laden, the spymaster instead secretly told Omar to resist, an ex-Taliban official told Time."4

GMA arrived in Washington DC on September 4, 2001 for a week of meetings with his counterparts in the CIA. GMA was now the director of the ISI.

According to this NY Times article published September 13, 2001: "WASHINGTON, Sept. 12...The director of the Pakistani Interservices Intelligence, Gen. Mahmoud Ahmad, who happened to be here on a regular visit of consultations, was called into the State Department today to meet with Deputy Secretary Richard L. Armitage."5

The NY Times doesn't make a big deal out of it but they do verify that GMA just "happened to be here" in DC on 9/12/01. Are they raising an eyebrow at us? When do you suppose he arrived in Washington DC? The article declines to say but the only air traffic flying the first few days after the attacks were taking OBL's family and Suadi royals out of the country.6 This means he had to have already been in DC before the attacks occurred.

But no need to speculate, this is confirmed in an interview with Porter Goss himself in this Washington Post article: "On the morning of Sept. 11, Goss and Graham were having breakfast with a Pakistani general named Mahmud Ahmed -- the soon-to-be-sacked head of Pakistan's intelligence service. Ahmed ran a spy agency notoriously close to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban."7

So now we know that ASS is sending the money to MMA. But what does this have to do with GMA eating breakfast with the chairmen of the House & Senate Intelligence Committees on the morning of September 11, 2001?

Here's an interesting clue. According to this NY Times article published March 19, 2002: "The government may have other reasons not to give up Mr. Sheikh (ASS), including reports that he has links to Pakistan's main intelligence agency."8

This article is referring to the fact that the Pakistani government had arrested ASS as "Ahmed Omar Sheikh, the main suspect in the killing of the American journalist Daniel Pearl" and their reluctance to release him to United States custody.8 That's right, the ASS that wired the money to MMA is the same man that supposedly beheaded the Wall Street Journal's Daniel Pearl. I know this begs the question, "What exactly was Daniel Pearl investigating at the time of his capture?"

There is also this report for the British news agency, Guardian by Labour Party politician Michael Meacher: "This is all the more remarkable when this is the same Omar Sheikh who, at the behest of General Mahmood Ahmed, head of the ISI, wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the leading 9/11 hijacker, before the New York attacks, as confirmed by Dennis Lormel, director of FBI's financial crimes unit."9

So now we have a British politician claiming that an FBI director has verified that ASS sent the money to MMA on orders from GMA. Understandibly, this story hasn't made a big splash in the Western media. The only other place you will find this story is in the Pakistani newspaper, Dawn:

"NEW DELHI, Oct 8: Director General of Pakistan's Inter- Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt Gen Mahmud Ahmed has been replaced after the FBI investigators established credible links between him and Umar Sheikh, one of the three militants released in exchange for passengers of the hijacked Indian Airlines plane in 1999.

The FBI team, which had sought adequate inputs about various terrorists including Sheikh from the intelligence agencies, was working on the linkages between Sheikh and former ISI chief Gen Mahmud which are believed to have been substantiated, reports PTI website.

Informed sources said there were enough indications with the US intelligence agencies that it was at Gen Mahmud's instruction that Sheikh had transferred 100,000 US dollars into the account of Mohammed Atta, one of the lead terrorists in strikes at the World Trade Centre on Sept 11, it adds." 10

If that's not credible enough, there is also this report from Seymour Hersch in the New Yorker: "A senior military officer told me that because of the visas and other documentation needed to infiltrate team members into the United States a major foreign intelligence service might also have been involved."11

There is also this report in the Pittsburgh-Tribune: "Some believe that after the successes of the U.S. military, Saeed Sheikh has acted as a "go between" for the "tall man" — as bin-Laden is known — and the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI)."12...and there are always the words of Daniel Pearl's widow:

"We first came to Karachi four month's ago: September 12, 2001. We flew in from New Delhi.... We had witnessed the [911] attacks almost as they had happened on CNN ... We were here to ask the big questions: Who was responsible for the attacks? Who financed them? Who protected the terrorists?.... In October, the FBI were looking for a link between Omar Saeed Sheikh and the then director of the ISI, Lieutenant General Mahmood Ahmed. They wanted to know who instructed Omar to wire the $100,000 to Mohammed Atta. I read that Ahmed had been dismissed as head of the ISI by President Musharraf on October 7, 2001. So it appeared Omar may have associated with the head of ISI and Al Qaeda. He surrendered to another former ISI officer who held him in custody for a week until just one day before Musharraf met with President Bush.... Questions bounce back and forth in my brain like a Ping-Pong ball gone wild. The distinctions between good and bad, government organisations and terrorist organisations, are not simply fading: they seem to be faces of the same coin. Did Musharraf know Omar was in custody? Could he not know? The CIA (God only knows what their position is here) didn't know?" - Mariane Pearl, A Mighty Heart, Virago Press, 2003.

So the question now becomes, "Do the chairmen of our House & Senate Intelligence Committes know this General Mahmoud Ahmad has in the very least, strong links to Al-queda & the Taliban?" Of course they do. That is what they will say the whole breakfast meeting is about, terrorism & OBL.7 But the bigger question is, "Do they know he ordered ASS to send $100,000 to MMA?" We know what that answer will be- It just happens to be another one of those crazy coincidences that pop up when-ever investigating anything regarding the events of 9/11.

So what happened to all these characters? Well since Bob Graham & Porter Goss where in the position they were in, they were put in charge of the investigation and public hearings of the so-called "intelligence failures" surrounding 9/11. How convenient.

Bob Graham ran as a Democratic presidential candidate in 2004 (that obviously didn't work out)and currently serves as the Chairman of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. Perfect.

Porter Goss was appointed by George W. Bush as the new Director of the CIA in 2004 after George Tenet resigned due to all of those "intelligence failures." Really. He resigned in 2006 and is now living the life on the lecture circuit.

After General Mahmoud Ahmed was fired from his post as Director of the ISI for financing terrorism and 9/11, he has gone on to teach & preach with Tablighi Jamaat for the spiritual reform of Muslims. Wonderful.

As for Ahmed Umar Syed Shiekh, he nearly started a war in 2008 making prank phone calls from his prison cell posing as the Indian Foreign Minister in calls to the Pakistani President Zardari. Why isn't he dead yet? Read #12.

Depending on who you believe, Mohammed Atta is either still running around the middle-east incognito somewhere, in paradise with 70 virgins or rotting in the deepest bowels of hell. I refuse to speculate.

Smoking gun? Probably about as close as we will get. It depends on what Graham & Goss really knew as they sat eating breakfast with the Pakistani General that morning the towers came down.

1 TIME, Atta's Odyssey: How a shy, well-educated young Egyptian became a suspected ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks. The mystery begins to unfold in Germany, By JOHN CLOUD, Oct. 8, 2001. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,10987,1000939,00.html

2 CNN.com, India wants terror spotlight on Kashmir, By Maria A. Ressa, October 8, 2001. http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/south/10/08/india.ressa/

3 BBC News, Pakistan's coup: The 17-hour victory, November 11, 1999. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/475195.stm

4 TIME, Rogues No More? By Tim McGirk, April 29, 2002.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,501020506-233999,00.html#ixzz0dGoe3k6H

5 The New York Times, AFTER THE ATTACKS: THE DIPLOMACY; Powell Says It Clearly: No Middle Ground on Terrorism, By Jane Perlez, September 13, 2001. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/13/us/after-attacks-diplomacy-powell-says-it-clearly-no-middle-ground-terrorism.html?scp=1&sq=general++mahmoud+Ahmad&st=nyt

6 The Tampa Tribune, Phantom Flight From Florida, By Kathy Steele, Oct 5, 2001. http://web.archive.org/web/20011108145853/http://www.tampatrib.com/MGA3F78EFSC.html
7 The Washington Post, A Cloak But No Dagger: An Ex-Spy Says He Seeks Solutions, Not Scapegoats for 9/11, By Richard Leiby, Saturday, May 18, 2002; Page C01. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A36091-2002May17¬Found=true

8 The New York Times, A NATION CHALLENGED: THE OUTLOOK; Cloud Over Pakistan: Is Musharraf's Life Safe? By Raymond Bonner, March 19, 2002. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/19/world/a-nation-challenged-the-outlook-cloud-over-pakistan-is-musharraf-s-life-safe.html

9 Guardian, Britain now faces its own blowback: Intelligence interests may thwart the July bombings investigation, by Michael Meacher, September 10, 2005. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/sep/10/terrorism.politics/print

10 Dawn, Gen Mahmud's exit due to links with Umar Sheikh, October 9, 2001. http://web.archive.org/web/20011011083446/http://www.dawn.com/2001/10/09/top13.htm

11 The New Yorker, What Went Wrong: The C.I.A. and the failure of American intelligence. by Seymour M. Hersh, October 8, 2001. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2001/10/08/011008fa_FACT#ixzz0dIpfbT6T

12 Pittsburgh-Tribune, Did Pearl die because Pakistan decieved CIA? March 2, 2002. http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_20141.html

Indian Point

All I want to say is that we are very fortunate that on September 11, 2001 we were attacked by whomever we were attacked by and NOT fanatical, terrorists hell-bent on the destruction of the United States.

If fanatics wanting to destroy the U.S. had attacked, I am sure they would have chosen a much choicer target. Only 24 miles north (upwind) of Manhattan lies the Indian Point Nuclear Reactor facility located in Buchanan, New York just south of Peekskill. If the perpetrators would have chosen Indian Point as the target for two 767s, rather than the World Trade Center, more than 500,000 could have easily died and New York City would have to be permanently abandoned. The 100 mile radius around the plant would be rendered useless for thousands of years.

I know this is no consolation to the families of those that did die on that day or as a result of the events that day. It is my purpose to help bring the real perpetrators of the crime out into the light of day so that hopefully they can be brought to justice.

Aaarrrrrrghhhh!!!!!!!!

Here are a few of my comments I posted in response to other posters regarding this story: Russian special forces storm oil tanker, free ship

Ha Ha Ha! Stavation. Hilarious! Wow. The ignorance and immaturity of the people posting here is truly astounding and I already thought most of the public was just a couple IQ points above taking the short bus to school.

Reading the ignorant & racist garbage posted here, I realize this won't be the most popular post but, I think the Pirates AARRRRRRR AAAAAAAWesome!!!!! The courage it must take of these poor, starving, oppressed people to challenge the ruling powers of the world is amazing. If all of you Einstein’s really want to get rid of them we should look at the root causes. How would you feel if a foreign power came to your country, told you you'd be rich if you let them take your oil and then they take your oil and make billions of dollars and give you nothing while your family starves in a rat-infested cardboard box? Who are the pirates again? The international corporations that oppress and exploit these people are the real pirates.

Al Qaeda is actually on your side folks! Don't you remember the story last week about them rooting the pirates out of their refuges on land? http://www.cleveland.com/world/index.ssf/2010/04/somalia_al-qaida_franchise_pus.html You see Al Qaeda actually works for the CIA. Don't you remember about how they gave us an excuse to go set up our trans-Afghani pipeline & launch Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL)? I dare anyone to find a story about pirates seizing a ship full of oil bound for the U.S. They know better. Quit being so ignorant people and starting paying attention.