Kiwiblog

Got sent this by e-mail, and verified that it is true.

Delta Flight 15

This is not political, it is about 9-11 and believe me you want to read this.

Here is an amazing story from a flight attendant on Delta Flight 15, written following 9-11:
 
“On the morning of Tuesday,  September 11, we were about 5 hours out of Frankfurt, flying  over the North Atlantic . All of a sudden the curtains parted  and I was told to go to the cockpit, immediately, to see the  captain. As soon as I got there I noticed that the crew had  that “All Business” look on their faces. The captain handed me  a printed message. It was from Delta’s  main office in Atlanta and simply read, “All airways over  the Continental United States are closed to commercial air  traffic. Land ASAP at the nearest airport. Advise your  destination.”
 
“No one said a word about what this could  mean. We knew it was a serious situation and we needed to find  terra firma quickly. The captain determined that the nearest  airport was 400 miles behind us in Gander, Newfoundland. He  requested approval for a route change from the Canadian  traffic controller and approval was granted immediately–no  questions asked. We found out later, of course, why there was  no hesitation in approving our request. 
 
“While  the flight crew prepared the airplane for landing, another  message arrived from Atlanta telling us about some terrorist  activity in the New York area. A few minutes later word came  in about the hijackings.
 
“We decided to LIE  to the passengers while we were still in the air. We told them  the plane had a simple instrument problem and that we needed  to land at the nearest airport in Gander, Newfoundland to  have it checked out. 
 
“We promised to give more  information after landing in Gander . There was much grumbling  among the passengers, but that’s nothing new! Forty minutes  later, we landed in Gander. Local time at Gander was 12:30  PM! …. that’s 11:00 AM EST. 
 
“There were already  about 20 other airplanes on the ground from all over the world  that had taken this detour on their way to the U.S.     After we parked on the ramp, the captain made the  following announcement: “Ladies and gentlemen, you must  be wondering if all these airplanes around us have the same  instrument problem as we have. The reality is that we are here  for another reason.” Then he went on to explain the little bit  we knew about the situation in the U.S. There were loud gasps  and stares of disbelief. The captain informed passengers that  Ground control in Gander told us to stay  put. 
 
“The Canadian Government was in charge of  our situation and no one was allowed to get off the aircraft.  No one on the ground was allowed to come near any of the air  crafts. Only airport police would come around periodically,  look us over and go on to the next airplane. In the next hour  or so more planes landed and Gander ended up with 53 airplanes  from all over the world, 27 of which were U.S. commercial  jets. 
 
“Meanwhile, bits of news started to come in  over the aircraft radio and for the first time we learned that  airplanes were flown into the World Trade Center in New York  and into the Pentagon in DC. People were trying to use their  cell phones, but were unable to connect due to a different  cell system in Canada . Some did get through, but were only  able to get to the Canadian operator who would tell them that  the lines to the U.S. were either blocked or  jammed. 
 
“Sometime in the evening the news  filtered to us that the World Trade Center buildings had  collapsed and that a fourth hijacking had resulted in a crash.  By now the passengers were emotionally and  physically exhausted, not to mention frightened, but  everyone stayed amazingly calm. We had only to look out the  window at the 52 other stranded aircraft to realize that we  were not the only ones in this predicament. 
 
“We  had been told earlier that they would be allowing people off  the planes one plane at a time. At 6 PM, Gander airport told  us that our turn to deplane would be 11 am the next morning.  Passengers were not happy, but they simply resigned  themselves to this news without much noise and started to  prepare themselves to spend the night on the  airplane. 
 
” Gander had promised us medical  attention, if needed, water, and lavatory servicing. And they  were true to their word. Fortunately we had no medical  situations to worry about. We did have a young lady  who was 33 weeks into her pregnancy. We took REALLY good  care of her. The night passed without incident despite the  uncomfortable sleeping arrangements. 
 
“About 10:30  on the morning of the 12th a convoy of school buses showed up.  We got off the plane and were taken to the terminal where we  went through Immigration and Customs and then had to register  with the Red Cross. 
 
“After that we (the crew)  were separated from the passengers and were taken in vans to a  small hotel. We had no idea where our passengers were going.  We learned from the Red Cross that the town of Gander has a  population of 10,400 people and they had about 10,500  passengers to take care of from all the airplanes that were  forced into Gander ! We were told to just relax at the hotel  and we would be contacted when the U.S. airports opened again,  but not to expect that call for a while. 
 
“We  found out the total scope of the terror back home only after  getting to our hotel and turning on the TV, 24 hours after it  all started. 
 
“Meanwhile, we had lots of time on  our hands and found that the people of Gander were extremely  friendly. They started calling us the “plane people.” We  enjoyed their hospitality, explored the town of Gander and  ended up having a pretty good time. 
 
“Two days  later, we got that call and were taken back to the Gander  airport. Back on the plane, we were reunited with the  passengers and found out what they had been doing for the past  two days. What we found out was incredible. 
 
“  Gander and all the surrounding communities (within about a 75  Kilometer radius) had closed all high schools, meeting halls,  lodges, and any other large gathering places. They converted  all these facilities to mass lodging areas for all the  stranded travelers. Some had cots set up, some had mats with  sleeping bags and pillows set up.
 
“ALL the high school  students were required to volunteer their time to take care of  the “guests.” Our 218 passengers ended up in a town called  Lewisporte, about 45 kilometers from Gander where they were  put up in a high school. If any women wanted to be in a  women-only facility, that was arranged. Families were kept  together. All the elderly passengers were taken to private  homes. 
 
“Remember that young pregnant lady? She  was put up in a private home right across the street from a  24-hour Urgent Care facility. There was a dentist on call and  both male and female nurses remained with the crowd for the  duration. 
 
“Phone calls and e-mails to the U.S.  and around the world were available to everyone once a day.  During the day, passengers were offered “Excursion” trips.  Some people went on boat cruises of the lakes  and harbors. Some went for hikes in the local forests.  Local bakeries stayed open to make fresh bread for the guests.  Food was prepared by all the residents and brought to the  schools. People were driven to restaurants of their  choice and offered wonderful meals. Everyone was given tokens  for local laundry mats to wash their clothes, since luggage  was still on the aircraft. In other words, every single  need was met for those stranded  travelers.
    “Passengers  were crying while telling us these stories. Finally, when they  were told that U.S. airports had reopened, they were delivered  to the airport right on time and without a single passenger  missing or late. The local Red Cross had all the  information about the whereabouts of each and every passenger  and knew which plane they needed to be on and when all the  planes were leaving. They coordinated everything beautifully.  It was absolutely incredible. 
 
“When passengers  came on board, it was like they had been on a cruise. Everyone  knew each other by name. They were swapping stories of their  stay, impressing each other with who had the better time. Our  flight back to Atlanta looked li ke a chartered party flight.  The crew just stayed out of their way. It was mind-boggling.  Passengers had totally bonded and were calling each other by  their first names, exchanging phone numbers, addresses,  and email addresses. 
 
“And then a very unusual  thing happened. One of our passengers approached me and asked  if he could make an announcement over the PA system. We never,  ever allow that.  But this time was different. I said “of  course” and handed him the mike. He picked up the PA and  reminded everyone about what they had just gone through in the  last few days. He reminded them of the hospitality they had  received at the hands of total strangers. He continued by  saying that he would like to do something in return for the  good folks of Lewisporte. 
 
“He said he was going  to set up a Trust Fund under the name of DELTA 15 (our flight  number). The purpose of the trust fund is to provide college  scholarships for the high school students of Lewisporte.  He asked for donations of any amount from his fellow  travelers. When the paper with donations got back to us with  the amounts, names, phone numbers and addresses, the total was  for more than $14,000! 
 
“The gentleman, a MD from  Virginia , promised to match the donations and to start the  administrative work on the scholarship. He also said that he  would forward this proposal to Delta Corporate and ask them to  donate as well.  As I write this account, the trust fund  is at more than $1.5 million and has assisted 134 students in  college education.

What a great story.

Normally I wouldn’t highlight a comment by Phil U, but such lunacy deserves to be exposed. Yesterday he commented:

ed snack…9/11 was done by mossad/cheney..and some others..

(and shrub jnr knew it was going down…so they had him reading to school kids..

..while cheney sat in his bunker in the pentagon..monitoring/ensuring the clear passages of the planes into new york..

..just more rightwing murdering bastards..

Yes Mossad and Dick Cheney were behind the 9/11 attacks, right after they faked the moon landing and shot JFK. That is seriously deranged.

I doubt there will ever be another day I can recall as graphically as 9/11. My birthday was the previous night (I was born on 11 September, but in NZ of course the attacks happened on 12 September NZST) so I had just been asleep for a couple of hours when a friend from the UK texted me telling me to switch on the TV as a plane has flown into the World Trade Centre.

I switched on CNN and spent three hours transfixed watching the towers get hit and then eventually collapse. To the end of my days, I will recall those awful scenes of human beings on the upper levels of the twin towers jumping to a quick death rather than face a certain slower death.

Within an hour it seemed half of New Zealand was awake – or at least half of my friends. We were texting and talking to each other in disbelief, and even then with some anger about who had done this.

Around 5 am I headed into work at Parliament. Most of the day we did nothing but watch the televisions. Around 7 am though I had an idea. I went to our NZPA/Reuters feed. Normally I set it to NZ Politics, but swapped it over to International General. This covers stories from anywhere in the world which may be of interest to New Zealanders.

I scrolled back five hours looking for the very first story on the attacks, and found it. A one sentence story that just reported a plane had how one of the WTC towers. A couple more bland stories followed and then the all important story reporting a second plane had hit the WTC, turning it from a possible accident to a certain attack. I read every story of those first few hours, as each new detail unfolded with horror.

So much has been written about the attacks, and how the world changed that day (and it did). But my thoughts remain of the 3,000 souls who perished. They were not part of any war. They were not in a war zone. They were just you and me – people at work, plus of course the brave fire fighters and police officers who died trying to rescue others.

And such a terrible blow at New York itself. You see New York is not really an American city, it is a global city. We have three global cities – New York, London and Hong Kong. They may be physically part of the US, UK and China but they are global hub cities, with workers from scores and scores of different countries.

I recall the inevitable black humour that emerged within hours. Maps showing a lake where Afghanistan used to be.  I also recall Yasser Arafat donating blood to help the American Red Cross out, Australia declaring under the ANZUS Treaty that they stand ready to help the US strike back, as was NATO under the NATO Treaty.

At the time the US was not engaged in any significant overseas wars. And it is long forgotten, but Bush had been an isolationist President. He was actually sceptical of US even getting involved in former Yugoslavia. I worry that tomorrow’s students will regard 9/11 as a response to Iraq and Afghanistan, when in reality it was the other way around.

Iraq is highly debatable, but few would dispute that the US couldn’t allow this attack on their homeland to pass without those responsible being held accountable. International law clearly allows you to strike back after you have been attacked. The notion that all the US could do was send polite letters to the Taliban asking for those responsible to be extradited was farcical. The US did of course ask the Taliban to hand over those responsible, but they refused.

But despite that I recall how the Greens organised a protest march for later that week. Not to protest the slaughter of 3,000 civilians. But to protest against the United States responding. I was outraged and angered. In my mind they were the latter day Neville Chamberlains. but worse than that, the timing was so appalling. The death toll was still rising daily, and these people were marching against the United States, not against the terrorists. They were marching on Parliament and I was determined that a message go out that not all Kiwis hated the US. So I managed to arrange a US flag. Not a normal size one, but the largest one my “supplier” could locate – off memory it was 60 feet long. When the protest arrived at Parliament we unfurled the flag from our balcony. It was so huge it needed half a dozen of us.

Sadly it only got to stay up for a few minutes as some tosser from (off memory) Marian Hobbs’ office complained to the Speaker, and he sent security to make us take it down.

Anyway 10 years on, and the world has changed forever. Apart from anything else, air travel will never be the same again. Osama bin Laden is dead, and Al Qaeda much weakened. Somewhat remarkably they have not managed another successful attack inside America again.

I often wonder what would have happened if 9/11 had not occurred. Bush may have stayed an isolationist and who knows how this may ave affected his presidency. He may have ended up a one term President, or he may have ended up a less controversial two term President.

But it is too easy to focus on the big global aspects of 9/11. Today my thoughts and memories are on the 2,977 who died in the attacks (excluding the hijackers) and their families. Special thoughts to the 100 or so nine year olds who were born after their fathers died in 9/11.

The other strong memory is the brave passengers and crew of United Flight 93. They knew their actions would probably lead to their deaths. Logically they knew they would probably die anyway, but it still takes courage to rush armed hijackers – not to save your life, but to save others. Thanks to them, the plane did not reach Washington DC.

Horribly, it might not have made DC anyway. Two F16s had been ordered to intercept it. But they did not have time to arm the jets, so if it were not for the passengers, the F16s would have had to ram the 757 which would have have been a terrible (yet necessary) act.

The SST reports:

POLICE will boost security for the USA’s first pool game in next year’s Rugby World Cup because it falls on the 10th anniversary of alQaeda’s deadly September 11 attacks in 2001.

Cup police operations head Superintendent Grant O’Fee said police had not been involved in the draw but were “aware of the significance of the date”, and might put in place “some different arrangements than we have for normal games”.

The pool game, against Ireland, will be played at New Plymouth’s Stadium Taranaki.

I might give that game a miss.

War is a Crime blogs a transcript of how Bush and Cheney pulled off 9/11, as alleged by the “911 truthers”:

Cheney: No, we bomb the World Trade Center and blame it on Osama bin Laden.

Feith: Oh. How?

Cheney: Easy. First, we cultivate 19 suicidal Muslim patsies from a variety of Middle Eastern countries, I’d say mostly from Saudi Arabia. We bring them to the U.S., train them at U.S. flight schools. They should be high-profile terrorist suspects who are magically given free reign by the security agencies to travel back and forth to various terrorist training camps to study passenger jet piloting. Actually that process is already underway now. Our friends in the Clinton administration are seeing to it that four groups of Arab men are being brought along by the FBI and the CIA.

Wolfowitz: How is it that the Clinton administration is already helping us with this, when we haven’t even planned this yet?

Cheney: They just are. Okay?

Wolfowitz: Okay, fine. And what do we do with these hijackers?

Cheney: We sit idly by while they plot to hijack a series of passenger jet planes and crash them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the White House.

Wolfowitz: And how do we get them to do that?

Cheney: We just do. You see, we worked with these people back in the old mujahadeen days in Afghanistan. So naturally we’re still thick as thieves with them.

Feith: Oh, of course. So we get them to fly into these buildings. And the impact from the planes will bring down the World Trade Center.

Cheney: No, Doug, dammit, you’re not following me. The impact from the planes most certainly won’t be sufficient to knock down the Towers. We know this because we’ve privately conducted studies which show that the Towers will easily be able to withstand impact by two jets loaded to the gills with jet fuel. That said, the jets will likely cause skyscraper fires hot enough to kill everyone above the point of impact; we’re going to have to assume, of course, that the exits from the higher floors to the lower floors will be mostly blocked after the collisions. So assuming we crash the planes about two-thirds of the way up each of the towers early on a business day, we’re looking at trapping and killing a good three, four, maybe even five thousand people on the upper floors.

Feith: Fantastic. I love killing people in the finance industry. It’s too bad the people on the lower floors will get to escape.

Cheney: It is too bad — especially since we’re going to blow up the rest of the building complex anyway.

Feith: We are?

Cheney: Yes. You see, the way I see it, our best course of action is to first crash planes into each the towers, trapping and killing those thousands on the upper floors of each building. After the impact, of course, the people on the lower floors will find their way out of the building and on to the street, where they will achieve relative safety — at which point we’ll finally detonate the massive network of explosive charges we’ve secretly hidden in the buildings in the weeks and months prior to the attacks.

As hilarious as these are – the sad thing is tens of thousands of people actually believe this is what happened.

Feith: So why don’t we detonate the charges earlier, so that we can kill the people on the lower floors, too?

Cheney: That’s a good question. At some point we have to sacrifice effect for believability. You see, if the planes crash into the buildings and the buildings immediately collapse, everyone will be suspicious and they’ll immediately be onto the presence of the explosives. So what we have to do is let the planes crash into the building, give the jet fuel time to start fires that will “soften” the building core, and then we detonate the charges. Afterwards, we’ll be able to argue that the fires coupled with the impact actually caused the buildings to collapse.

Feith: Why will we be able to argue that? Didn’t our studies show that impact and fire alone wouldn’t have caused the buildings to collapse?

Cheney: Those were our secret, far-more-advanced studies, done with secret, far-more-advanced military technology. The vast majority of the world’s civilian structural engineers, however, can be counted on after the incident to conclude that the buildings collapsed due to a combination of fire, impact, and the knocking off of fireproofing from the building beams.

Feith: Why can they be counted on to conclude that?

Cheney: Because that’s what our secret research shows their not-secret research will show! Jesus Christ, work with me on this, will you?

I love Cheney’s lines.

Wolfowitz: I think I get it. We crash the planes, kill everyone above the impact of the planes, let the people underneath the impact out to safety, then collapse the buildings about an hour or so later using the explosives that we pointlessly incurred months and weeks worth of career- and life-threatening risk to covertly plant in a building complex visited by hundreds of thousands of people every week.

Cheney: Exactly! The actual deaths will mostly be caused by the planes. But we’ll incur the massive additional risk simply to destroy the building, for effect, because it will look cool and scary on television.

Again, this is what some people believe.

Over at uncensored they pose 156 questions on 9/11. If you can’t answer them all, then Bush did it.

They also have many interesting questions on other issues ranging from Henry Kissinger to The Sun-Sentinel. I’m not sure what they all mean, but it is disturbing the authorities have been unable to answer them all.

The Herald on Sunday has confirmed that not only has Jeanette Fitzsimons endorsed a 911 conspiracy theory book (and the book is barking mad) but she met the author yesterday in Wellington.

Fitzsimons said after her meeting with Gage that there were “some unexplained matters”.

“What I’ve found is that there are a lot of highly trained people who say [the Twin Towers] could not have collapsed the way they say it did.”

Asked if she was a 9/11 sceptic, Fitzsimons said: “I would say I’ve got an open mind. I’m not interested in conspiracy theories, I’m interested in evidence.”

That is disingenous bullshit. hiding her prejudices. Planes flew into the WTC, and they collapsed. There was no secret Government conspiracy where they rigged up explosives and faked the planes. When Jeanette says she wants evidence and is not interested in conspiracy theories, try reading it like this

“I’m not saying the moon landings did not happen. There are some unexplained matters and a lot of highly trained people saying the landings were not possible they way they happened. I’ve got an open mind on the moon landings – I’m not interested in conspiracy theories – I’m interested in evidence.

The Herald continues:

Matthew Dentith, an Auckland University PhD candidate who is writing his doctorate on conspiracy theories, said Fitzsimons’ meeting was “naive” and would add credibility to groups with fringe and anti-semitic agendas.

“You want politicians to have ethical standards and who judge things with reason – and all the 9/11 conspiracies collapse when prodded.”

Of course they do. But Jeanette’s nuttiness actually has consequences. In some parts of the world, great segments of the population do believe 911 was faked by the Jews and the US Government. They go around preaching that. And Jeanette’s actions gives such stuff a degree of respectability.

This is amazing. You know how the Greens go on and on about how climate change is real, and anyone sceptical is a crazed anti-science denier.

Well the former co-leader of the Greens, Jeanette Fitzsimons, has joined the ranks of the barking conspiracy theorists who think the US Government actually blew up the Twin Towers with explosives.

Richard Gage is talking in NZ at the moment. From Wikipedia:

The organization is collecting signatures for a petition to the United States Congress that demands a truly independent investigation with subpoena power of the September 11 attacks, and in particular “a full inquiry into the possible use of explosives that might have been the actual cause of the destruction” of the World Trade Center buildings.

His petition has around 5,000 signatures on it, out of 300 million Americians. He has also produced a film called 9/11 Blueprint for Truth and one of his fellow nutters has a book called Crossing the Rubicon.

Ruppert identifies players who were involved, would have had to be involved and may have been involved and clearly points out amazing ommissions by the 9/11 Commission and 9/11 Truth researchers including the FACT that the deputy director of the National Military Command Center [a position required to coordinate NORAD,FAA and JCS in both wargames and real-world events] actually asked on September 10, 2001, to be absent from duty on September 11 between 8:30 and 10:30 a.m. [the exact time of the attacks], that this did occur despite the fact the the hijackings and attacks were already taking place and that no one has ever received an explanation why. [further Ruppert reveals that the Officer who replaced this important defense coordinating position was a long-time Bush Administration friend recently qualified to hold the position as the result of Bush appointment who filed the shortest testimonial in all of the 9/11 Commission's requested written depositions]

Anyway the local NZ truth 911 website has a quote from Jeanette Fitzsimons:

“There is so much that does not make sense about the official version of 911. I have read all 600 plus pages of “Crossing the Rubicon” and it appears to me to be well researched, though I still have an open mind on the matter of what exactly did happen. It is time we knew the truth one way or another, and an independent enquiry is the way to achieve this. If we do not know the truth of our history it will compromise our future.”

I await Jeanette also calling for an independent inquiry into whether the moon landings were real.

Next time someone from the Greens puts down someone who is sceptical of climate science “projections”, then remind them of how Jeanette is unsure whether or not hundreds and thousands of people in the US Government actually blew up the Twin Towers themselves, hijacked the planes themselves and buried them all in the Nevada desert after shooting all the passengers (or whatever their exact theory is)