Originally posted by truthseeka
Here's one, for starters...
One of the first anomalies that many people noticed immediately after 9/11 was the inexplicable non-reaction of the military air defense system to the hijackings.
It has been standard operating procedures for decades to immediately intercept off course planes that do not respond to communications from air traffic controllers. When the Air Force "scrambles" a fighter plane to intercept, they usually reach the plane in question in minutes. The Air Force plane will then fly next to the non-responsive plane, and rock their wings -- a way to say "follow me" to a nearby airport (if the plane merely has lost its radio equipment). If the intercepted plane refuses to respond, there is a graduated series of actions the Air Force can use -- firing tracer bullets in front of the plane, even shooting it down if it is a threat. This is analogous to police pulling motorists over for having their lights out - every driver in the US knows that when a police car behind them turns on their siren, they are supposed to pull over, just like every pilot knows that when an Air Force fighter plane pulls beside them, they are supposed to follow their orders, too. If the light bulb has merely burned out, the motorist will get a warning, but the police have a graduated series of responses they can employ if the driver is not merely having a mechanical problem (ie. they have just robbed a bank and are driving with the lights off to avoid being seen).
The airspace over the northeastern US is among the busiest on the planet. It is home to the nation's political, military and financial headquarters, the largest population concentrations, and key strategic facilities. A jumbo jet in this area suddenly changing direction and altitude, and refusing to respond to air traffic controllers would be as dangerous as a truck on a busy rush-hour freeway driving the wrong way at full speed. When planes go off course in this busy environment, instant reactions make the difference between life and death -- which is why NORAD (North American Air Defense) practices these kinds of scenarios, and instantly scrambles fighters when there is any hint of a problem.
For critics of the official story of 9/11, the smokiest of the smoking guns is the "failure" of NORAD to intercept the planes. Even if one ignores the abundant evidence that allied intelligence services in other countries provided warnings that the attacks were about to happen, the information from the "insider trading " just before 9/11 that indicated which airline companies would be used, and other clues that clearly show complete official foreknowledge -- there is still enormous evidence that does not fit the official paradigm of "incompetence responding to a surprise attack."
The "timeline" of 9/11 was the first, and most important indicator of a massive discrepancy with the official story. NORAD's fighter interceptors can travel at supersonic speed, yet even the most basic calculations suggested that they had to fly far below even normal subsonic flight speeds to avoid reaching their destination (New York and Washington) in time. (See the "timeline" information lower on this webpage). Apologists for the Bush regime state that since they were not expecting the 9/11 scenario, and thought that the hijacking would be a "traditional" type hijack, but this avoids the question of why the off-course planes were not intercepted (a procedure that does not require Presidential authorization, unlike the order to shoot down the plane).
Even if one is willing to grant exceptional deference to the Bush / Cheney administration, and pretend that they had no idea 9/11 was about to happen, there is no excuse for this ignorance at 9:03 am, when the second (South) tower was hit. At that point, the entire military's air defense system had no doubt that the hijackings were intentional, multiple attacks, and that additional hijacked planes would be used as weapons. This is the time when "President" Bush was content to continue to read to second graders, instead of assuming his duties as Commander-in-Chief.
When the second tower was struck, Flight 77 was near the Ohio - West Virginia border. Around this time, that plane made an unscheduled 180 degree turn, and stopped communicating with air traffic control -- a big clue that this was also one of the hijacked planes. Nevertheless, no serious efforts were made to intercept this plane between 9:03 am and 9:38 am, when it hit the west side of the Pentagon. Planes were scrambled from an air base in the Norfolk, Virginia area during this time, but inexplicably were sent east over the ocean, instead of northwest toward the Washington area. (The weather that morning was perfectly clear, and there is no innocent explanation for why these interceptor planes were sent over the water, away from DC, instead of toward the National Capitol Area.)
Ultimately, Flight 93 was shot down around 10:06 am near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, although this was kept concealed from the public. It's probable that most citizens would have accepted the "need" to keep this plane from reaching the DC area (assuming that is where it was headed), a loss of life that would have ensured that a worse disaster was prevented. However, acknowledging this action might inspire further questions about 9/11 -- such as why the plane that hit the Pentagon also was not shot down, especially since most of the time it was hijacked it was flying over sparsely populated forest in West Virginia and western Virginia. There are a variety of theories why Flight 93 was shot down (but the evidence it was seems overwhelming - see
http://www.flight93crash.com for the best compilation), but perhaps a key issue is the fact the plane left Newark (NJ) airport almost an hour late, and therefore it had to be stopped since enough havoc had already been created, and an additional attack, another half-hour after the Pentagon crash, would have been even harder to explain as "incompetence." It is possible, too, that the "heroic passengers" story was always part of the script, but that is, of course, speculation.
More to come in the future...