"we're at war with three (wait no five) islamic countries, I dont think the US is all that concerned about anti-muslim sentiment." - I'm willing to be the US is concerned about anti-muslim sentiment when it might result in losing close ties to a powerful and influential family that is willing to cooperate with the US in a rich and powerful oil producing country like Saudi Arabia, Sicarius. Nice try though.

Mafia has said that I claimed that ''claimed that the US government hates all Arabs.'' I challenge him to provide a reference for this. It is in fact something which I have never said. Indeed my view is the Bushes ( et. James Baker etc..) actually liked the high-up Saudis an awful lot!

I was paraphrasing you Sicarius, forgive me. Now stop trying to distract me by quibbling over minor points and get back to the central issues.
Fulhamish is moving the goalposts in an attempt to make his point.
Sicarius is quibbling over stupid details in an attempt to stop the argument going in a direction that is not to his liking.
And both of you are ignoring the implications for their argument of the fact that the flights in question took place AFTER the no fly order was lifted.
I hereby submit all this in response to your earlier question, Sicarius for examples of instances in which the more conspiracy minded members of this forum refused to engage with evidence and used dishonest debating tactics.

@ fulhamish - Mafia has said that I claimed that ''claimed that the US government hates all Arabs.'' - That wasn't something you said, that was a sarcastic reference to Sicarius' claim that US political involvement in the middle east proves that the US government isn't concerned about anti-muslim sentiment at any time, under any circumstances.
And let the record show that you too, fulhamish have started nitpicking tiny points, and ignoring the main thrust of my argument in at attempt to derail the debate.

Mafia who exactly were you paraphrasing?

Mafia, showing your chosen reference to be inconsistent crap is hardly nit-picking.

Moreover, have you considered that the charter flight ban was longer than thart of US airliners?

Sicarius! Ugh. I've said that quite plainly, several times. I'm trying to debate both of you at the same time. I was leaving it up to you to determine which of you I'm responding to at any given point. Clearly this faith in your reading comprehension was misplaced. I shall therefore attempt to be more condescending as this debate wears on.

"Moreover, have you considered that the charter flight ban was longer than thart of US airliners?" - Was it? Evidence please.

"Moreover, have you considered that the charter flight ban was longer than thart of US airliners?" - And even if it was, that wasn't your initial point. You're retroactively changing your argument AGAIN. Your initial post said "No-fly order" not "no-chartered flight order". You are of course allowed to change your argument if your first one is proven wrong, but you've gotta come out and actually concede the first point, if you're going to do it.

And in any case, I haven't found any evidence to support the claim that charter flights were banned longer than other flights. As I understand it, foreign planes weren't allowed into the country for sometime after the no-fly order was lifted, but that isn't the same thing.

Naturally I'm not saying my own inability to find this information proves anything. Before I consider the point proven I will wait for you to provide me with something to back that claim up.

Mafia, I know you want me to give you a quote from a ''truther site'', but how about this from the St.Pete times.

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/06/09/Tampabay/TIA_now_verifies_flig.shtml

Maybe it is a little more impartial than your dedicated debunking site. Juat as with any ''research'' I would like to know who pays for it, can you help please, it was after all your chosen reference.

That is interesting. OK. So the US government flew one plane out of the US earlier than I had thought. I'm conceding the point. Now explain it to me. What does this tell us?

First of all, as I understand things, the no flight ban was lifted in a very very limited way on the 13th. And most airlines spent the day preparing for a return to full service the next day rather than flying many flights before then. I could be wrong about that though.
Secondly, ummm, at least one of the people on the flight was thought to have been a member of the Saudi Royal family. Is it really THAT unusual he'd want to return to Saudi Arabia from the states after Saudi nationals committed the most serious act of terrorism ever perpetrated against the United States. You've successfully proven that Saudis in the US were jumpy after 9/11 and that the US indulged them, in their desire to return home (also unsurprising, imagine what would have happened if something happened to a member of the Saudi Royal family while he was visiting the US). How is this linked to conspiracy theories about 9/11?

What the report means is that most of the 160 Saudis on these flights were not interviewed, but 22 of the 26 people on the "Bin Laden" flight were interviewed. There is no contradiction if you read the entire footnote, which the snopes website does not reproduce because it's trying to highlight the relevant parts.

It's clear that it isn't "on record" that the Saudis were flown out of the US before the no-fly order. But don't count on Fulham to admit he was wrong, or to cease with his usual contrarian conspiracy mongering.

http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf

Read the entirety of footnote 25 on page 556-557.

Footnote 25 addresses this Tampa flight, the FBI was misinformed by local police about how the three Saudis arrived in Lexington so they initially denied such a flight took place, but they were later made aware of it. But the airports in both Tampa & Lexington were both open. As your own source indicates, airspace was open to chartered flights.

I think there are several things which have to be established in order for the conspiracy mongers to have any credibility whatsoever.

1 - Bush had close ties with the Saudi royals. I think this is fairly obvious. Prince Bandar in particular is very close to the Bush family. So we'll grant the conspiracy mongers this point.
2 - Top Bush admin officials ordered a special, secret evacuation of high level Saudi officials and other Saudi nationals at the request of Saudi officials. I think the evidence for this is sparse. The 9-11 commission certainly rejects this claim. It could be that the FBI evacuated more Saudis than they originally let indicated. But why then would they even admit to evacuating the Saudi officials that they did evacuate?
3 - A connection has to be established between the Saudi royals and Bin Laden family & Al Qaeda and in particular the hijackers. No such connection has been established. Some relatives, like Omar Awad, have ties to a group called WAMY are claimed to be financially linked to Al Qaeda but the evidence isn't clear-cut on that. So, even if special treatment was given to the Saudi royals and their friends, this doesn't indicate anything particularly sinister.
4 - 9-11 would somehow have to benefit Saudi Arabia in some geopolitical way. This isn't at all the case. The main beneficiary of US interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan has been Iran, the arch-enemy of Saudi Arabia.
5 - Widespread interagency and local/federal collaboration would have to take place across the country in order for this conspiracy between the Saudis and Bush admin to work to fly planes into the towers. In the age of the internet and wikileaks among other things, this kind of extensive conspiracy would be impossible to hide.

The more plausible scenario, especially when considering the overall incompetence of the Bush admin, was that there was some sloppiness and carelessness in dealing with the Saudis, and this has been interpreted into being something more sinister than it really is.

"That is interesting. OK. So the US government flew one plane out of the US earlier than I had thought. I'm conceding the point. Now explain it to me. What does this tell us?"

How's this for a fascinating coincidence - this flight departed from Tampa, Florida, which is just a few miles down the road from Venice, Florida - where Mohammed Atta and several other 9/11 hijackers got their flight training in the second half of 2000.

"I agree, but the thing is that I'm not convinced by the so called holes in any of the official explanations that most popular conspiracy theories I'm aware of rest on."

Mafia - *so* called holes? There are many, many holes. The existence of them proves that the official story is false...truth is never both wrong and right at the same time. So what you decide to believe after this conclusion is up to you. Just know the official story is wrong. So when you talk about being crazy for "clinging to that belief in the face of contradictory evidence"...that's funny. Especially since you are so willing to put your money on it.

Not really all that fascinating. They didn't even leave the US on this flight. They went to Lexington, KY. What is so interesting about this flight?

"The main beneficiary of US interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan has been Iran"

...and Israel.

>>The purest example of how Americans are shielded from truth is the media's (including many Internet sites') response to the large number of professionals who find the official explanation of September 11, 2001, inconsistent with everything they, as experts, know about physics, chemistry, structural engineering, architecture, fires, structural damage, the piloting of airplanes, the security procedures of the United States, NORAD's capabilities, air traffic control, airport security, and other matters. These experts, numbering in the thousands, have been shouted down by know-nothings in the media who brand the experts as "conspiracy theorists."

Cite with specificity so that I can argue against this.

Funny I don't see Muqtada al Sadr and ISCI being Israeli clients. And how did Afghanistan help Israel at all? Where is the Israeli presence in Afghanistan? Iraq hasn't normalized relations with Israel and Iraqi government officials have been very critical of Israel.

"And how did Afghanistan help Israel at all?"

Afghanistan didn't, but 9/11 certainly did.

"Iraq hasn't normalized relations with Israel and Iraqi government officials have been very critical of Israel."

True, but Iraq has become a military and political basketcase that poses no threat to anyone anywhere in a conventional sense. Iraq used to be portrayed as the most serious threat to Israel before the invasion, and Saddam Hussein was supposedly personally bankrolling all those suicide bombers at the beginning of the Second Intifada. Israel may not've gained very much (unless the stories about Israel developing an intelligence and economic foothold in Kurdistan are true), but its enemy certainly lost quite a bit.

"True, but Iraq has become a military and political basketcase that poses no threat to anyone anywhere in a conventional sense."

That was true prior to the invasion, as the meager defense Iraq put up during the invasion makes clear. Hussein paying a handful of Palestinian widows and harboring refugees isn't much of a threat when you consider the fact that there was much more evidence that Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia directly financed operations against Israelis. By all accounts prior to the war Israeli officials expressed much more concern about Iran, who came out of the war with their clients in control of Iraq and in a strengthened position. The strengthening of Iran has undermined, not increased, Israeli security. Israeli officials anticipated this to be the result, which is why according to both Bush and Sharon administration officials at the time, as soon as Israel got wind of a possible invasion of Iraq they began lobbying him not to do it and instead focus on Iran.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/29/3488

@ Darwyn "Mafia - *so* called holes? There are many, many holes." - We've debated this point ad nauseum at least twice Darwyn on these forums. You keep saying "Look at all these holes!" We ask about them, you explain your views, everyone else in a series of decreasingly patient posts attempts to explain how they aren't holes at all, and you simply never ever ever refuse to acknowledge that any of us have said anything. Let's not go down that road again. You think there are holes in the official report, everyone else disagrees with you. We've established this beyond any reasonable doubt, I'm sorry, but if a debate about conspiracy theories in general is going to move ahead from this point, you're going to have to accept that virtually everyone else here disagrees with you about whether or not there are holes in the official story of 9/11.

Pft. Did you catch the date on that? 2007. Long after the Iraq War became unpopular, suddenly the claim became "Israel was against it all along!" - at the same time the Powers That Be were trying their damnedest to gin up support for war against Iran and Walt & Mearsheimer published their book which documented Israel's extensive behind-the-scenes lobbying for the Iraq War. And the mouthpieces of Israeli interest in the United States were adamant that America invade Iraq - not Iran - from before Bush was sworn in up until the day the war began (and beyond!). This article was pure propaganda and spin control. Also, nowhere does it say that Israel "began lobbying him not to do it" - the claim (if it is to be believed) was simply that Bush shouldn't 'take his eye off the ball' and remember to take out Iran just as soon as Iraq was done.

"Hussein paying a handful of Palestinian widows and harboring refugees isn't much of a threat"

I was being sarcastic.

"By all accounts prior to the war Israeli officials expressed much more concern about Iran"

Can you find any of these 'all accounts' published in 2002-2003? Far from discouraging an attack on Iraq, Netanyahu appeared before Congress after 9/11 and vocally advocated for it.

Ariel Sharon visited the US in February of 2002 in order to explicitly tell the Bush administration that the main threat was Iran, not Iraq.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35510-2002Feb6?language=printer

"During meetings here yesterday, including with Vice President Cheney, Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer warned of the hazards posed by Iranian support for terrorist groups and development of advanced weapons.

"Today, everybody is busy with Iraq," Ben-Eliezer said in an interview. "Iraq is a problem. . . . But you should understand, if you ask me, today Iran is more dangerous than Iraq.""

Here's an October 2002 article in which Israels' chief of staff says he's not losing any sleep over the Iraqi threat.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/07/international/middleeast/07ISRA.html

Here's the head of the Israeli army, right before the war in 2003, saying that he was more concerned about Palestinian militants and Iran rather than anything Iraq was doing, and that war in Iraq would cause a "regional earthquake".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2736283.stm

Here is former Israeli defense Minister Moshe Arens in 2002 proclaiming that the primary missile threat in the region was Syria, not Iraq.

http://www.jcpa.org/brief/brief2-4.htm

Arens says:

"The present Iraqi capability is relatively limited. According to recent U.S. estimates, Iraq may have a dozen or two Scud missiles that were not caught by UN inspectors. They are working to attain nuclear capability but do not have it at the moment. However, both the Iraqis and the Iranians have chemical warheads, and both probably have biological weapons as well."

This is hardly the assessment of people beating the drums for war in Iraq.

Here's an October 2002 article which describes how opinion on the Iraq war is divided in Israel.

http://articles.latimes.com/2002/oct/16/world/fg-iziraq16

Interesting comments include the assessment, which is also present in the BBC article, that if the war fails the people who will pay the price are the Israelis. Also many doubt the threat capability of Iraq, and many resented the prospect that the US would handcuff Israel with the Palestinian issue during the Iraq war.

Finally, Netanyahu didn't advocate war in Iraq in his speech to Congress. He did so in an op-ed to the WSJ, but that's not what you're claiming. Why do you have to make stuff up? At any rate, Netanyahu wasn't relevant at the time.

Here's the speech you're referring to.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/531335/posts

Iraq is just one of many threats Netanyahu mentions in the speech. In fact Iraq is the third specific case he mentions in his description of the "international terror network". The first case he mentions is Iran. In the speech Netanyahu says the following:

"The growth of this terror network is the result of several developments in
the last two decades: Chief among them is the Khomeini revolution and the
establishment of a clerical Islamic state in Iran. This created a sovereign
spiritual base for fomenting a strident Islamic militancy worldwide, a
militancy that was often backed by terror."

Walt and Mearsheimer select out any evidence, public statements, or polls which do not conform to their narrative of the pro-Israel lobby and Israel controlling US foreign policy in the Middle East.

"You think there are holes in the official report, everyone else disagrees with you."

The hostility and outright lies the commission faced from just about everyone in government was so serious that a number of the 9/11 commissioners have said that their report is, at the very least, compromised. The Chief Counsel even said the commission was "set up to fail". While I personally don't think the towers were rigged with explosives or hit by remote controlled aircraft or anything like that, there are still plenty of - if not unanswered questions - then certainly questions that merit renewed examination.