Once again, the rumor (long debunked) that Bin Laden family members were ferried "secretly" out of the country while the post-September 11th flight ban was still on is oozing back into the light, here, and in the comments here. This really pisses me off.
You know, it hasn't been even two years. They are still burying people killed in the attacks -- or at least burying what they can of them. Another videotape of planes going into the Towers has surfaced. It is still clear, at least to me, that Americans had war declared openly on them by power-hungry totalitarian fanatics, and we can't afford to go back to our previous stance of "Oh, they are just blowing off steam, ignore them, they are only foreigners." But some people would rather focus their rage on the victim, because that victim was us. This stance of -- I don't know what to call them, blame-the-victimers? -- reminds me of the attitude of wife-beaters towards the spouses they have just battered: "It's your fault, you made me angry. I wouldn't hurt you if you didn't make me angry."
Posted by Andrea Harris at September 7, 2003 04:17 AM[Admin note: the comment has been removed. this blog is not a forum for anti-semites.]
Posted by: thepusher at September 7, 2003 at 12:17 PMIt would be nice if Snopes.com could find a version to settle on.
Posted by: Dark Avenger at September 7, 2003 at 06:44 PM[The comment has been removed. This blog is not a forum for trolls to express their hatred of Christians, Jews, Muslims, or any other religious or ethnic groups under the guise of lame "satire."]
Posted by: thepusher at September 7, 2003 at 11:38 PMAndrea, Good of you to catch this. The trolls will surely be out this week looking to vent what's left of their spleens that they haven't already eaten.
Nothing like given rumors a second chance in life, I guess, hoping that they may stick this time around.
Thanks for the lead to Snopes.com, which I thought was pretty damn clear about what is and isn't known absolutely.
Posted by: Hatcher at September 8, 2003 at 06:34 AMThe Snopes.com article aside—and that the bin Laden family members in the US were only allowed only to fly within the country was still in a violation of the ban and disturbing enough—you seem to imply that questioning the Bush administration is equivalent to callous disregard for those who lost family and friends on 9/11. Then what do you make of this?
After the formal meeting, senior agents in the room faced a grilling by Kristen Breitweiser, a 9/11 widow whose cohorts are three other widowed moms from New Jersey.
"I don’t understand, with all the warnings about the possibilities of Al Qaeda using planes as weapons, and the Phoenix Memo from one of your own agents warning that Osama bin Laden was sending operatives to this country for flight-school training, why didn’t you check out flight schools before Sept. 11?"
"Do you know how many flight schools there are in the U.S.? Thousands," a senior agent protested. "We couldn’t have investigated them all and found these few guys."
"Wait, you just told me there were too many flight schools and that prohibited you from investigating them before 9/11," Kristen persisted. "How is it that a few hours after the attacks, the nation is brought to its knees, and miraculously F.B.I. agents showed up at Embry-Riddle flight school in Florida where some of the terrorists trained?"
"We got lucky," was the reply.
Kristen then asked the agent how the F.B.I. had known exactly which A.T.M. in Portland, Me., would yield a videotape of Mohammed Atta, the leader of the attacks. The agent got some facts confused, then changed his story. When Kristen wouldn’t be pacified by evasive answers, the senior agent parried, "What are you getting at?"
"I think you had open investigations before Sept. 11 on some of the people responsible for the terrorist attacks," she said.
"We did not," the agent said unequivocally.
From the article "Four 9/11 Moms Battle Bush" in the September 9 New York Observer, available here
Yes, some are still burying their dead. Some are mourning. And some of those burying their dead and mourning are mad as hell and want answers.
Posted by: Curtiss Leung at September 9, 2003 at 05:21 PM