From kind teacher to murderous zealot: Acquaintances saw hijacker transfor

From the BKA's interviews with those who knew the Sept. 11 pilots during their Hamburg years, an answer emerges that is at once more single-minded and far more chilling than most Americans might have imagined.

In attacking the World Trade Center, the hijackers were attacking not only America's values and freedom, as President Bush has suggested, or even a world-renowned monument to American accomplishment, or a vital node on the American economy.

Rather, they believed they were striking a blow at what Atta considered "the center of `world Jewry,' and the world of finance and commerce controlled by it," according to a former Atta follower named Shahid Nickels.

So paranoid had Atta become, Nickels told the BKA, that he believed Monica Lewinsky was "an agent sent by the Jews" to bring down the Clinton administration because it was too sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.

In their book "The Age of Sacred Terror," Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, who were counterterror experts in the Clinton White House, write that "What appears to be senseless violence actually made a great deal of sense to the terrorists and their sympathizers, for whom this mass killing was an act of redemption."

more
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/world/9639881.htm

The truly insane will always assure you that they know they're perfectly sane, unlike the rest of us who occasionally have doubts.

I think that's what alarms me the most about the Bush gang, the total lack of doubt, the lack of curiosity that might compel them to assemble more facts and revise opinions when their policies clearly aren't working.

Tax cuts for the rich increasing inequality, throwing the government into insolvency, and doing nothing for the larger economy? Hey, we didn't cut them ENOUGH! Invading a country that was no threat to us diverted resources from a fighting a criminal organization that was, and increased recruitment into that organization? Well, we just didn't invade enough of those countries! We'll show 'em! Economic numbers getting worse and worse? Well, just stop counting! Scientists saying things that you don't want to hear? Why, just replace those pointy headed ivory tower types with good churchmen!

We're lucky Atta only found 18 like minded crazies. We've got a government that is full of them.

a country about 50% full of them.

Yikes.

Our country may contain a populace that is 50% "vulnerable" (which I would advocate indicates a growing informed and active other 50%),...but, we are not a country that has a 50% "zealot" population.

Of course, that is my personal observation.

based on current polling of likely voters for *. You are, of course, being much more careful with the actual facts. Thanks.

in articles about the hijackers, and lawsuits filed against the Arabs, etc.

Just noticing.......

....How could those who commandeered and flew the planes have set out to murder thousands of innocent men, women and children in cold blood?

Easiest to explain are the 15 young Muslims, most from Saudi Arabia, who served as the "muscle" aboard the four hijacked aircraft: lost young men, mostly not well-educated, some with histories of drug and alcohol abuse, looking for something to lend meaning to their short lives while aspiring to an afterlife with the 70 houses and 70 virgins they believed are promised to Islamic martyrs.
...

This is an issue going back more than a few US administrations.
The problem will continue to fester past Nov 3rd of this year.

as friendly toward the Palestinian cause, which it was. I remember in the last days of Clinton's presidency there were talks between Israelis and Palestinians organized by Clinton. He knew that conflict was at the root of all this Arab violence and discontent.

Funny also that a few days after Bush got in, I believe, it was stated that the U.S. would pursue a "hands-off" policy to that regard and the * administration walked off the bilateral talks.

Don't you think this, coupled with the neo-cons seizing power could have been the spark that ignited the 9/11 events? Granted, the terrorists were crazy people but at least the Clinton Administration seemed to know what to do to keep them away.

* on the other hand has given unrestricted support to the Israelis and that has inflamed the Middle East.

Taliban Head Told U.S. Official Clinton Should Be Ousted

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12717-2004Sep10.html

I agree with your assessment, so this other "recently declassfied" information about the Taliban is...well, interesting.

and was deliberately intended to sabotage negotiations and strengthen the reich-wing in Israel.

,...of others' world view and experiences.

Our administration suffers from the worst form of ignorance,...the ignorance of the privileged and powerful.

They cannot even serve as models of lawful or moral citizens or advocates of democracy since they hold themselves "above" all such concepts and feel NO conscience-effect from their evil misappropriation of any and all human good will in pursuit of their own selfish pursuits.

Of course, the American people are blinded by the "right", the self-proclaimed righteous ones.

These are terribly turmultuous times.

You speak the truth. :hug: :loveya: :hug:

However, I don't know if believing this Monica story is particularly paranoid of Atta. Maybe he was just well read? I have heard of this story, and while I'm not sure what to think of it, I don't know why it would be implausible -- hell, this whole affair was unbelievable to me (if unimportant).

I haven't read the book mentioned below, but seen it frequently (last time e. g. in Ecuador where it was very prominently displayed in Quito's largest bookshop). Seems to be a quite popular tractat.


>>Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad
by Gordon Thomas

St. Martin's. 354 pp. $26.95

Commentary
June 1999

Reviewed by Daniel Pipes

In this book, Gordon Thomas, a Welsh journalist living in Dublin, claims that long before Kenneth Starr had ever heard of Monica Lewinsky, Israel's intelligence service was in possession of tapes containing 30 hours' worth of intimate talk between President Clinton and his young intern. Thomas also asserts that Jerusalem was holding these tapes either for possible blackmail or to protect its mole in the White House, code-named "Mega." ...<<

http://www.danielpipes.org/article/805

CIA Accused Of Bank Heist

Shortly before U.S. forces began streaming across the Iraqi border, commencing Persian Gulf War II, the CIA and the Department of Defense, with a little help from Israel and some Europeans, pulled off a massive bank heist in Iraq to the tune of several billion dollars.



Exclusive to American Free Press

By Gordon Thomas



The CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) are accused by International Currency Review, the London-based journal, of mounting a joint ultra-secret operation to electronically remove an estimated $10 billion out of the Iraqi Central Bank hours before the start of Persian Gulf War II. The whereabouts of the money is not known.

“We believe it is in a secret CIA fund which will be used to mount further special services operations, such as tracking down Saddam Hussein,” said the Review’s publisher, Christopher Story.

Story is a former financial advisor to Lady Thatcher when she was Britain’s prime minister. In the past 10 years, he has testified before several congressional committees dealing with financial scandals.

DIA coordinates all intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is headquartered in the Pentagon.

The report is titled “The Great Robbery of the Central Bank of Iraq.” It has been sent to finance ministers of leading nations, the World Bank, the Bank of England and heads of all other major banks.

The report is bound to cause huge embarrassment to President Bush after he signed an executive order on March 23, ordering a worldwide hunt for the hidden assets of Saddam Hussein and his family.

more
http://www.americanfreepress.net/Bank_Heist.html

:hi:

to everybody on 9/11/2001. The run up was 8 months of the most hostile actions against the Palestinians in recent times, including the colin powell remark "go get em", things had reached the boiling point.

We were intentionally lied to about "attacks on our freedoms" and all the damn flags started coming out, to reshape the facts.