3/13/2004: Madrid terrorism protest
 

http://cellar.org/2004/madrid.jpg

And so millions of people in Madrid go to the streets in grief and anger in a massive protest against terrorism.

Reuters story

My God, think of the damage a couple of suicide bombers or a poison gas cloud could do, to that crowd.:eek:

I imagine they have all thought of that and it didn't stop them turning out.

Those of us who lived or worked in London throughout thirty years of bombing by Irish and other terrorists continued every day in the knowledge that the next one might have our name on it. This is a wonderful pictorial record of the courage and steadfastness of people hurt and angered by the cowardice of the bomb planters, my heart and solidarity goes straight to them.

That is an interesting reaction, especially considering how we Americans cowered in our houses after 9-11.

Just to let you know that this have been the biggest protest ever in Spain. In Madrid (population 4 million) there was an estimation of 2,3 million. And the same in all cities in Spain.

Imagine losing a contact...

Quzah.

Q, you have proven several times today (this and the lame suicide bomber conversation ... left a nasty stain on the carpet!!) that you are indeed funny. :thumb:

We did?:confused:

No, I'm pretty sure the americans didn't cower in their houses.... In fact, if memory serves me correctly, they sent out a good whack of their population half way around the world to try and meet the threat head-on...

was it the right thing to do? ... were they successful? ...

history will be the judge, I suppose...

I could have chosen my words better there, but I don't recall 2.3 million New Yorkers getting together immediately after the mass murder. I recall all our media looking to our political leaders to tell us what to do instead asking us to look into ourselves. I never really thought about 9-11 as a media driven mass culture event before so I'm just thinking out loud here.

hah, fair enough.. I don't even live in america, but let me tell you: I was cowering plenty...

the thing about 9/11 that kind of makes it different than other the other terrorist attacks, for me at least, is that you had multiple things going on in a very short span of time...

the first plane into the tower... people were like "wow, that's a hell of an accident"... but then the next one hit, and people were like "Jesus, what's going on?" ... and then the next plane hit the pentagon, and people were really starting to panic.. and the the tower fell, and people were positive the world was going to end.. and there was still the plane in pennsylvania that those brave dudes managed to stop.. bound for the whitehouse I guess...

but the the point is that people started to think "holy shit.. what's next?" ... I mean, they destroyed the twin towers with airplanes!!! that's INSANE! .. These dudes are CRAZY... they could pretty much do ANYTHING after this...

so yeah... I think people were justified in being paranoid...

it would have been nice if they'd protested I guess... but ... what are they protesting? terrorism ? .... I'm not sure that's very effective.. .. I mean, you don't see a lot of pro-terrorism rallies... .. .... I'm not sure that they're getting their message to the right people by just having a protest..

You mean when the missile hit the pentagon...

Quzah.

i see stupid people

Show me a picture with:
1) Plane wreckage.
2) Scattered luggage and the like.
3) Bodies.

Explain why in the very first released photos, the grass is all there, but for some reason, they bulldoze it all away. And again, there is no wreckage at all anywhere. Compare this to the wreckage of any other aircraft you picture you'll ever see. There is no luggage; no bodies were ever recovered from this "crash". Where'd they go?

Quzah.

I'm gonna need to put on my tinfoil hat before I start doing the research on this, though.

I'm sure you've looked around, but this certainly shows some debris. Probably a really convincing job of Photoshopping, though. Big cover up and all.

So there was one engine and a landing gear? Where's the rest of the plane? This wasn't supposedly some tiny cesna. It's a fucking jet. Ok, so there's a handful of scrap metal. Where are the bodies? None were ever recovered.

...This post is a work in progress...

Someone's rant on the explosion at the time of occurance is here. Notice the grass in the bottom pictures. More photos.

Yet more. Interesting to note that in these photos, or a number of them, they seem to indicate that the aircraft should be mainly outside of the pentagon, not inside. In either case, the wings themselves should have done more damage than they supposedly did, since they store all the fuel. And as we know, that fuel is potent enough to take down a steel tower...

Here is a tinfoil hat site that shows a decent summary of pictures. Again, note no wing impacts in the close up pictures.

Anyway... Way to Hijack a thread eh? Ehehe.

Quzah.

A plane full of fuel flying at 250 mph and crashing into a reinforced concrete building (several walls worth of reinforced concrete, as well as supporting columns) is going to essentially vaporize. A great deal of the resulting shredded aluminum will burn completely in the subsequent fire (I have burned beer cans in campfires before, so I know this can be done). Other sites clearly show a landing gear, wheel, turbofan parts, tire tread, primered metal known to match the aircraft type, etc, etc.

Also, a hell of a lot of witnesses saw it happen. Pretty hard to confuse a commercial airliner with anything else.

I like the theory I saw on one site, though. That the government planted the "no plane" conspiracy theory so they could then discredit it, making those who adhered to it look like loonies.

Occam's Razor should apply here, at least. We *saw* two planes crash into the WTC towers. We saw the wreckage of a third in a field on the same day. Why should we doubt that this was just another plane? What about all the relatives of the dead who put their loved ones on the plane that morning and drove off? The plane and their families went *somewhere*, never to return...

All this shit was started by a French book that came out in 2002. It was thoroughly debunked. If you start to believe in this kind of thing you should start questionning your sources harder. There is a ton of evidence in one direction and only a few stupid questions in the other. Like spode said, Occam applies here. Everyone is trying to introduce noise into your belief system. Don't help them.

The real plane and passengers are hidden in the studio where then filmed the moon landings.:rolleyes:

I'm going to file this alongside "The Holocaust never happened" and "The moon landing was faked by Hollywood."

Here's the Snopes page on this item btw.

Few items:

A hell of a lot of people didn't "see" it happen. Those that did seem to have different flight paths for the jet.

The FBI apparently seized every shred of video evidence of the actual crash itself. Compared to the towers, which were replayed over and over and over.

Why should you doubt this was another plane? That's a great sentence. I'll leave it at th[^***#$
NO CARRIER
***FILE PURGE ACTIVATED
...............................................................................
....................................................................
...............................................................
OK.
]

Well, I know that you and I didn't see it happen...but I'm still going with the least complex theory until someone gives me an explanation of why we would kill our own people and endanger our own military HQ. Wait, let rephrase that. I'll need an explanation from someone who hasn't been off their meds for awhile.

Our government can't even keep the fucking highways paved. I don't think they could make a conspiracy this large and keep it secret. Clinton couldn't even keep getting his knob polished by his intern a secret, after all.

Reports that the WTC did not collapse because of damage caused by the planes, but because Silverstein and FDNY decided to set off the charges that were built into the buildings and "pull them" down before they fell down.

Streaming footage.
Link Here

This is a HELL of a page about the Warren Commission's coverup about the Kennedy Assasination.

I'm finding all this stuff linked off other Conspiracy Theory sites. It's really interesting.

I remember watching TV on sept 11, and there were all kinds of reports about a "5th plane" ... and then all of a sudden you just heard NOTHING about it... they didn't even make a retraction, like "Oh, we're getting reports now that the 5th plane we mentioned was fine", or whatever.

I think it was somewhere near denver, or it had departed from denver, or something like that..

And you never hear anyone mention it.

Just sloppy reporting?

Maybe they actually flew *two* planes into the Pentagon!

I distinctly remember hearing that one plane was shot down by the Air Force, and that a bomb went off at the State Dept. that morning...I still have a copy of the Philadelphia Inquirer that shows the latter.

It isn't the first time the media has fucked up...won't be the last.

(EDIT: Sorry...I initially posted this about 20 minutes before the time listed to the left...was checking to see if I was still having a problem with deleting posts. No problem here or in Jimbo's forum, but I definitely can't delete posts in Politics and Current Events.)

I find it very hard to believe that you really think that. I'n one way I'm jealous of your sense of security and your ability to trust that everything in your government is so..well innocent.
On the otherhand wake up and smell the coffee. Your roads arent up to scratch probably because your country's government are after spending more on war than any other presidency except for Lyndon Johnson, and wasn't that because he was over the Vietnam war? What do you think the CIA and the FBI spend their days doing?

What do you mean WE? I was busy, VERY VERY busy post 9/11 - it didn't stop me, and I LIVE in NYC

Your right - first the disclaimer - I work for one of the major media outfits, and in particular, on the morning of 9/11 I was working on the software that takes all the news wires into our company, and puts it into a database

Yep, there were reposts of a truck bomb on the mall. Eventually, it turned out to be nothing, so the news guys just moved on without saying anything (TOO much going on)

I've talked with the "old timers" here - it was the most confused day they ever saw.

Couple that with the fact that all the major NYC based networks lost their AP wire feed when the first building came down, it caused some crazyness. APs NYC office was in 1 World Financial Center if I remember right, but anyway, either in WTC or across the street in one of the buildings that got pretty well trashed, and ALL the phone lines in that area went through the WTC basement

One of those "funny in the aftermath" stories. The 1st building comes down, and about 5 minutes later, we get a phone call from the news room "The AP NYC feed is down, and we're on DC backup - You have to fix the feed" We just told the caller "APs NY datalines went through the WTC - that feed isn't coming back anytime soon" The caller KNEW that, but had not even stopped to THINK about it

And don't forget: Hoffa, Elvis, TuPac and Biggie Smalls are in the secret basement of the Pentagon playing cards and drinking 40s. :D

Where's the black box?

Quzah.

In the hands of the NTSB, maybe?

Both black boxes from the hijacked aircraft which crashed into the Pentagon have also been recovered and turned over to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Top people are looking in to it. Top people.

My first reaction was to laugh.

Then I thought what a true curse it would be if you were bothered by stupid people wanting help all day.

Then I thought, "Dang. That actually describes some people's jobs."

Me too. Twice...

I'm also pretty sure the city was in a lock down status, if there was no reason for you to be out of your home, you didnt leave. Thousands of New Yorkers protesting after a vital part of the city was demolished would only create even MORE confusion/chaos/problems

Yep, parts were blocked off for sure.

And incompently at that. You'd figure if the goverment wanted to take out part of the pentagon they would have targeted the section that hadn't been reinforced yet.

The ONLY parts of NYC that were locked down was Manhattan below Canal

I _HATE_ when people forget that NYC is actually made up of 5 counties, and is QUITE large

There is

NY County - aka Manhattan + some small islands, and a couple of blocks on the mainland (a canal was moved - don't ask)

Bronx County - "the Bronx" - the only part of NYC on the mainland - all others are on islands (except for those few blocks)

Richmond County - aka Staten Island - NYCs most rural county

Kings County - aka Brooklyn - This is actually on "Long Island".

Queens County - aka Queens - again, on Long Island

When folks say "NYC", they are usually thinking "Manhattan", which is actually the smallest part of NYC by FAR (smallest county in the USA at 22 square miles)

If your in Manhattan, and someone says, they are going to "Long Island" - they usually mean Nassau or Suffolk, which are the 2 NON NYC counties on LI

If your on Long Island, and your going to Manhattan, your going to "the City" - Brooklyn and Queens are "forgotten"

NYC Government is VERY Manhattan centric - One of the past Mayors coined the term "Outer Boroughs" for the other 4 Boroughs of NYC, nad he would say it with distain

BTW A GREAT web site for NYC stuff
Forgotten NY

Yep.

The US government is large and beauracratic, but good or evil are two things I would not attribute to it. It will do what it needs to keep the country running, and not much more. For better or worse I think the sense of security comes from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and the carrier battle groups the US is more than will to use that ply them. The 9/11 terrorist attacks were a fluke due to disintegrating relations between the FBI and the CIA.

So I would expand the saying to include the following: "Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity or inertia."

Plus you're preaching to the choir if you're telling 'Spode to not trust in the US government.

I'm not trying to tar the whole govt. with the same brush by saying it is either good or evil. I'd like to think most of us are intrinsically good, but due to the basic fact that it is run by humans (and... wait for it....they're not perfect!), the actions taken by the govt. are subject to error. The margin of error is the 'Evil' i'm talking about.
Also I don't think you're giving the poeple who run your country(I don't mean Dubya or his cronies) the credit they deserve. They may not be taking the high road at the moment but jeez louise I don't think stupidity or inertia got the US to become a superpower. I hate to say it but someone has to be doing something right over there because you basically control the world's economy!
I think you took my sense of security comment in the wrong context. I didn't mean defense against attack from outside forces, I meant the security in believing that your govt. is working for your benifit without jeopardising the freedom and/or lives of other nations.

So if 9/11 was a fluke, what was the 1993 WTC bombing?

OK, now THAT was funny.

Don't believe too much in the many conspiracy theories, but This thread about people in one of the towers is one of the most fascinating I've read.

There wasn't any parking left under the building they actually wanted to blow up ... that's why the towers didn't fall on that attempt. They only had enough explosives for the Chrysler building in the van that first time.

Just a quick disclaimer, the purpose of that link was to see some fascinating pictures of a close up shot of one of the towers, and the debate about what is there or not there.

To the best of my knowledge, there are no jumper pics in the actual thread itself.....I know at would be very disturbing for some. Although the pictures there aren't real graphic, they can be disturbing.

I've seen the jumper pics many, many times.

What was more disturbing was watching the documentary 9-11-01 that was made by that french film crew ... during one of the segments filmed in the Battallion Command Post in the South Tower Lobby, you could hear the sound of the bodies hitting the ground (the narration including the explanation of the noise, that it wasn't just falling debris). That's chilling.

No wolf, I mean, were the CIA and FBI playing games when that one happened?

Not to derail this back to the topic of Spain, but here's an article on why they voted the Popular Party out.

NYTimes Link (reg req'd)

OK, by my count, that's the 3rd country.

1) Pakistan held local elections shortly after the Afghan war in which many local pro-taliban leaders were elected as a direct result of that country's pro-US stance.

2) In South Korea, the winner of that election won based almost entirely on an anti-Bush platform.

3) Now Spain is the third country to toss out its leaders because they were in bed with Bush.

The British aren't too happy with Blair, but the US is having the next election, so we'll see who's next.

Germany was in there: Schroeder rode in on anti-US sentiment.

I'd say to be careful about whether it's anti-Bush or anti-US.

It's anti-Bush. The sentiment was primarily pro-US in Europe in the timeframe between 9-11 and Bush's Iraq adventure. And even before 9-11, the sentiment was much more pro-US than it is now. And even more so again when Clinton was in office.

That's not to say that we were loved, but Bush has been a massive wedge in all of the cracks between the US and the rest of the world.