Rummy Remark Fuels Conspiracy Theorists

In a speech to troops in Baghdad on Christmas Eve, Donald Rumsfeld made a remark that some conspiracy theorists are pouncing on as a confirmation of a theory that's been making the rounds since 9/11; United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, was not brought down after the passengers overtook the hijackers, but, rather, was shot down.

The 9/11 commission concluded that the hijackers intentionally crashed the plane after the passengers overpowered some of them, but you know how well conspiracy theorists believe government commissions.

I don't see the point of this one at all. Why conceal it if the plane was shot down? Yeah, I know that there was some propaganda value in having the image of these hero passengers rise up and overthrow the hijackers, but that really did happen, and I don't think that, given what else happened that day, the admission that the plane was shot down would be cause the administration any trouble.

So, as much as I love to bash Rummy, lay off him for this one.

From this article: http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/12/27/rumsfeld.flt93/index.html

[Edited on Dec 27, 2004 by jake_lex]

if the plane was shot down, wouldn't it have been by the u.s. government? nothing pisses people off like their government killing them on their own soil.

who gives a shit if it was shot down. it didnt get to where they wanted it too so thats good enough for me.

Wouldn't we rather they have shot it down than allow it to fly into the Statue of Liberty or my house?

This is the one and only thing about 9/11 where I believe the 'conspiracy theory' side of the equation has at least some merrit. It seems very plausible to me. I remember clearly that on 9/11, on CNN, they interviewed a man on the ground in Penn ( who was said to be 4 miles from the crash site) holding a piece of debris from the plane he found on his farm.

Neither that nor Rummy's talk are damning evidence, but they make me go 'hmmmm'.

[Edited on Dec 27, 2004 by SonOfMorrissey]

The morons are after Rumsfeld in a big way, that is for sure.

If it was shot down, it was the only thing that could have been done at the time.

In such a big way apparently that we implant chips in his head to make him say stupid shit constantly? Nobody's forcing him to imply that a plane was shot down by its own government or drop gems like the following to an American troop on the ground in Iraq: "If you think about it, you can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up. And you can have an up-armored Humvee and it can be blown up."

That was in response to a question regarding their lack of armor. To add a little insult to the injury, Rumsfeld followed up, "As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They're not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time."

Then again, I guess there are some morons tucked away here and there gunning for him. Morons like Sen. Trent Lott[\B]: "I'm not a fan of Secretary Rumsfeld," Lott, R-Mississippi, told the Biloxi Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday morning. "I don't think he listens enough to his uniformed officers."

-OR-

Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard[\B]: "These soldiers deserve a better defense secretary than the one we have."

-OR-

Sen. Norm Coleman[\B] said he had "serious misgivings" about the process of providing armored vehicles for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I have reservations about what the secretary and the Army have done in this regard," the Minnesota Republican said, but later added, "I'm not at the point of pointing fingers. I don't who did this. I don't know what happened."

-OR-

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine[\B], a member of the Armed Services Committee, told Rumsfeld in a candid letter, "I'm very concerned that it appears the Pentagon failed to do everything in its power to increase production of the vehicles."
Collins, a GOP moderate, criticized as "troubling" Rumsfeld's remark last week to a Tennessee National Guardsman in Kuwait that "you go to war with the army you have. ... They're not the army you might want or wish to have at a later date."

-OR-

The criticism of Rumsfeld by Coleman, Collins and Lott followed a statement Monday by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz[\B]., that he has "no confidence" in the defense secretary.

Is there anything so vile, so over the top that you Freepers would be willing to pull the wool from your eyes and criticize your own party? I really don't think there is. But I guess that the general consensus amongst people who aren't Rethug Brownshirts or simply those that are plain ignorant is that the Republican party has been putting the party before the country for a long time now.

DO YOU PEOPLE REALLY THINK THAT WE SHOT THAT PLANE DOWN ?????

I am also intrigued by this theory. If I were faced with the choice of shooting down an airliner or letting it crash in a populated area. I'd pull the trigger. The real P.R. nightmare would be if the passengers had successfully retaken the plane but been shot down before the strike could be called off.

Yes.

Which is precisely the scenario that a lot of conspiracy theorists put out there. The government/military would have had no way of knowing that the passengers were successfully retaking the plane.

If the plane was shot down, I honestly believe the government did the right thing.

no.

An air to air missle isn't going to just "blow a plane out of the sky " ...a Sidewinder missile (heat seeker) would have most likely gone straight into an engine nacelle and blown off the wing (maybe) as it only has a smallish warhead (about 11kg), nowhere near enough to stop something of that mass , nor vaporize it immediately...depending on the altitude of the plane .... maybe no one would notice if they were flying nap of the earth, but if they were even a few thousand feet up.....most likely their would have been more sightings of the actual event...

I am of the opine that people did rush the cockpit and it crashed during a struggle...I don't know about all that "let's roll " stuff. But hell yeah, I wouldn't have to think twice about trying to do something instaed of being slaughtered like a sheep.



[Edited on Dec 28, 2004 by Racer_X]

I was in Paris at the start of the war (let me tell you how fun that was ). The French and British people I encountered thought I was crazy to believe that the plane had been retaken. That was where I first heard the theory that the plane had been shot down. I agree that it would be a PR nightmare if the passengers had retaken the plane already. It would be a PR nightmare to shoot down a plane carrying Americans anyway. I wouldn't put it past this administration to conceal something like that, even though I am generally skeptical of conspiracy theories.

datsun said:
The French and British people I encountered thought I was crazy to believe that the plane had been retaken.

The French were too busy figuring out how to surrender and the British were too busy figuring out some way to tax the whole event.

Shooting the plane down would be an absolute necessity - assuming the air force was in a position to do so. Given the advance notice created by the first three planes, it seems likely that they would have been.

It seems much more likely that it was shot down than crashed as a result of passengers rushing the cockpit.

I appreciate that everyone likes a hero story, but I would suggest that no one would be doubting this " conspiracy theory" if it had happened in another country or at another time.

Freudian Slip.

Excellent++rational for people who are willing to calmly entertain the idea that the plane may have been shot down. There's plenty of evidence; it's not some tinfoil hat theory. I know a few respectable people who believe it.

Whether it's really important is up for grabs as well, but it's a pretty good barometer for gauging peoples' skepticism.

The actual situation with regard to Humvee armor isn't as simple. When Rumsfeld says that you go to war with the equipment you have, that's true, because the equipment didn't include armored Humvees. His remark may have sounded insensitive, but it was true, and as far as I know the armed forces have been working on the problem all along.

If you want to pick on Rumsfeld, there are topics that represent real disputes - like his ideas about force composition, doctrine, and so forth, or his theory that there wouldn't be a strong insurgency after the end of the major campaign.

This has come up before and will keep coming up every so often.

It's okay by me that the government's knee-jerk response to "airliner off course" isn't "just shoot it down." Not any more, anyway.

[Edited on Dec 28, 2004 by joe_n_bloe]

maybe?

the heart of the issue is credibility. it isn't that the plane was shot down, it's that if it was shot down, they lied about it. and if the bush administration needed to lie about something that a lot of people seem to consider and acceptable action, what else are they lying about concerning events surrounding 9/11?

At this point, having read the independent comission's report, I suspect that the real cover ups of September 11th have to do with just how badly the airlines failed to prevent the attacks, how through the terms of the settlement, the airlines were protected from legal action that could have shut them down alltogether and in turn crippled the US economy, and how the things we were allowed to believe by the Airlines, FAA and the Bush Administration before the independent comission were airline friendly half truths.