Coordination, maximizing terror, hypotheses (fwd)

[Declan McCullagh]

At 06:03 PM 9/12/01 +0200, Eugene Leitl forwarded:
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 10:49:13 -0500
>From: Jeff Bone <jbone at jump.net>
>To: Robert S. Thau <rst at ai.mit.edu>, fork at xent.com
>Subject: Coordination, maximizing terror, hypotheses
>
>*  The targeting of the second attack may be a subtle pointer to state
>involvement.  I understand that the part of the Pentagon that was hit houses
>the nerve center for the Army's worldwide logistics command.  It appears that

It was one of the worst places to hit; the offices were under construction 
and not everyone had moved in yet.

>this part of the building was intentionally targeted, as the plane apparently
>performed an overshoot-and-return maneuver in order to line up with the south
>side of the building, whereas it could've gone into the opposite side with no
>such maneuver.  A small, highly-mobile group of perps wouldn't be concerned

This is nonsense, and shows how seriously we should take the rest of the 
message. I was at the Pentagon yesterday; the plane did not hit the south 
side. (Photos at mccullagh.org).

>*  Our own forces may have shot down the plane over Pennsylvania.  Dick Armey
>was giving an interview last night, and after being asked leading questions by
>Wolf Blitzer he started making comments about being given a classified
>briefing with information specifically about that plane.  The interview was
>then censored, with sound edited out for about 30 seconds.

I pulled a transcript from Lexis-Nexis. Here's what Armey said in response 
to the Pennsylvania question, (AUDIO GAP) in the original:

ARMEY: Well we learned some things about that.  At this point the information
is classified.  It is clear that we to have had a good investigation going
forward.  We are gathering information, there is a (AUDIO GAP) confidentiality
on what we know, but we do know that this is a serious premeditated crime, 
and I can say without any doubt or hesitation it's an international crime.

Did he 'fess up? I doubt it. Armey is a savvy political operator and gets 
classified briefings probably once a week or so. It's unlikely he'd cough 
up confidential material now (he hasn't before) -- it was ~12 hours after 
the attack happened, so he had time to reflect and digest it.

>   I think this could
>well be an "open secret" that the media has been let in on but gagged about in

Nope.

-Declan
(a MOTM)