Pinning the blame for 9/11

[Desperadoe]

Source: Philly.com

Less than a mile from the mournful place in Lower Manhattan where the World Trade Center came crashing to the ground, in a hushed federal courthouse, a small band of Philadelphia lawyers is prying loose secrets of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

It is here that the Cozen O'Connor law firm has filed an 812-page lawsuit on behalf of U.S. and global insurance companies alleging that Saudi Arabia and Saudi-backed Islamist charities nurtured and financed al-Qaeda, the author of those deadly attacks.


Led by its flinty chairman and founder, Stephen Cozen, the firm has invested thousands of hours and millions of dollars to scour the world for witnesses, documents and other evidence in its attempt to hold the oil-rich desert kingdom liable for more than $5 billion in damages.

Among the companies represented in the lawsuit are Chubb, Ace, Allstate, One Beacon, and nearly three dozen other insurers.<snip>



Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/20080531_Pinning_the_blame_for_terror.html

[99th_Monkey]

1. Great! I hope all the evidence becomes public domain, once presented. ~nt~

[roguevalley]

19. the cover sheet on the final report should be bush holding hands

with the king.

[Fearless]

2. You really want to know WHY it happened?

It happened because the US has a horrible foreign policy record dating back to Reagan in this area. They got pissed off by us and this happened. That's why. The specifics are inconsequential if we cannot cure the disease.

[Captain Angry]

4. I think it goes back to the Ottoman Empire

The political boundaries of Iraq only exist in their current form because of the division of the Ottoman Empire after WWI. Britain needed a place between them and India. There's a reason that in 2008 there are British soldiers in Basra. It's because they've had a presence in that part of Iraq for decades. Sometimes in, sometimes out.

If somebody was on the ball back then, Iraq would have been three countries, divided by latitudes.

We've been screwing around with that region for nearly 100 years. Our meddling in Iran in the 50's, Afghanistan in the 70's, Iraq in the 80's...

[Fearless]

5. Agreed... and even Western influence back into colonial times.

I just laugh when I look back and realize that Britain left Iraq in the 19th Century because they couldn't control sectarian violence. I guess it's one of those sad ha ha's.

[eridani]

9. Still, there were plenty of intelligence warnings

9/11 was eminently preventable.

[speedoo]

11. Yes it was. If you haven't already done so, read "The Commission"...

by Philip Shenon. It's about what the 9/11 Commission kept secret.

[Fearless]

20. Well, this particular event was probably preventable...

but hindsight is 20-20. But, something would've eventually happened even if we did stop 9-11.

I think that the operative word here is "intelligence". We do have a great deal of trouble finding intelligent people to elect... sigh.

[proud2BlibKansan]

29. Amen

We need to get our ass out of the Middle East or they will just attack us again.

[Politicalboi]

3. Yes let's hope

This goes somewhere. But I hope they concentrate more on the terrorist in the WH before anybody else gets the blame. I think this happened for money and power from Bush/Cheney. They gained everything they wanted. A war, unlimited amount of money, fear, and sympathy, signing statements, dictatorship, Patriot Act. Oh and 2.3 Trillion on 09/10/01.

[RedSock]

7. and some lefties still call them incompetent?!?!? (eom)

[truedelphi]

8. I sure don't. Some other DU'er was mentioning this the other day:

That an attendee at the Cheney energy policy meetings in the first weeks after Bush seized office said that the had to do with people sitting around and studying the maps of Iraq and the oil interests that country held.

And funny thing, we got an excuse to go there and tear up that country just nine months after he took office!!

[mallard]

15. Re: that's really the main thing

People hoping the courts can place blame the Saudis are a major part of the 'unspeakable' or non-speak problem, as goes the 9/11 fix. They really actively do not want the biggest insurance job of all time properly investigated and solved - regarding some very seriously unconvictted felons, if you will.

I'm sorry but hardly shocked to read their brand of deceptive - not misguided - take and vaguely condemning words, jumping onto this story from the very top of the thread. It's their job - no vagueries there.

[Jackpine Radical]

26. Really! Here's something I wrote after Katrina:

STUPID LIBERALS


From 9/12/2005

The liberals like to make fun of President Bush�s intelligence. Why is it then that the average Democrat is too stupid to understand the President when he speaks in plain English? As, for example, when he praised Michael Brown for the outstanding job he had done in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. And again when he challenged his critics, saying, in effect, �What makes you think something went wrong with the disaster response?�

Consider the effects of FEMA�s brilliant New Orleans strategy. First, the New Orleans black population is now scattered across the country, thereby dissipating their voting power. I guess they won�t be delivering Louisiana for the Democrats in the foreseeable future. Second, real estate developers can now make a clean start and build New Orleans into a gigantic theme park that will put all the Disney enterprises to shame. And third, since all the actual disaster survivors are scattered across the country and are too poor to hire lawyers, there is nothing to prevent the Administration from funneling all the disaster relief money into the coffers of deserving but uninjured campaign contributors, just as Mr. Brown did in Florida after Hurricane Frances and just before the 2004 election. Admittedly, Brown was able to siphon off only $31 million for Bush supporters after Frances, but that was just sort of a practice run. This time tens of billions will be available to reward loyalists and friends of the administration for their support, regardless of whether they actually sustained any material damages from the hurricane.

As an indication of what is to come, Halliburton already has the contracts for cleaning up all military facilities in the wake of Katrina, and Dick Cheney�s recent visit to the Gulf Coast was followed a day or two later by the announcement that Halliburton subsidiary KBR got a no-bid contract for the civilian cleanup as well.
How, in the face of all this evidence of the Administration�s brilliant planning and execution of disaster relief efforts after Katrina, could any Democrat be so blind and stupid as to accuse our President of not being prepared, or of not being able to rise to the challenge of an unexpected opportunity?

[truedelphi]

28. I personally talked to Andy Card during the Katrina crisis

I called him as a reporter to ask why the efforts to help the Katrina victims were not along the lines of a Berlin air drop.

He just said that there were 25 million tons of rescue materials at near by airports and that the task now was to get the supplies to the affected populace.

As if the supplies could make it there without them being air dropped!

Meanwhile the airwaves were filled with the image of truck convoys S-L-O-W-L-Y making their way across the South - and perhaps scheduled to arrive sometime in early 2006

[bhikkhu]

6. That may be something...

If they can prove a connection to the Saudi government (richest mf's on the planet, btw), as is likely, then 5 billion in damages is just the beginning. *co has protected them for long enough.

[eridani]

10. Hope that they can get some of the stuff in Craig Unger's book into the public record.

Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, owner of War Emblem (who won the first two of three Triple Crown races in 2002) was at the top of the list of a group of well-connected Saudis who left the country from Lexington, KY in a luxurious customized 727 shortly after 9-11. According to one of bin Laden’s top operatives, Aziz knew well beforehand that a major attack was to take place in the US on 9-11. And the Bush administration let the bastard fly the coop. The very fact that a couple of hundred Saudis were flying around within the US to central pickup points like Lexington, while US citizens were prohibited from flying from Minneapolis to Chicago is totally outrageous.

On March 30, 2002, Al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan and questioned by two teams of intelligence agents. One of the teams consisted of Arab Americans posing as Saudi agents, who hoped to scare Zubaydah into thinking he would be turned over to the Saudis for the usual torture and beheading. Far from being intimidated, Zubaydah was relieved, and told them that a call to Prince Ahmed would explain all—and he knew all the phone numbers from memory. He also told them to call Prince Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki al-Saud and Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, members of the House of Saud related to King Fahd.

He said that several years earlier the royal family had made a deal with Al Qaeda in which the House of Saud would aid them as long as they kept terrorism out of Saudi Arabia. The interrogators insisted that 9-11 changed everything—the House of Saud would not stand behind them after that.

Zubaydah said that 9-11 changed nothing, because Ahmed and the others knew beforehand that an attack was scheduled for America that day. They didn’t know exactly what it would be, and they didn’t want to know. Bin Laden knew the Saudis couldn’t stop it without the specifics, and also that they couldn’t turn on him without disclosing their foreknowledge.

Bush helped Ahmed leave the country right after 9-11, unmolested until June 22, 2002, when he supposedly died of a heart attack in his sleep. On June 23, Prince Sultan died in a car wreck. On July 30, Prince Fahd died in the desert of thirst. None was older than 43, and all are beyond questioning now. That these three were named by Zubaydah and then died young a couple of months later is extremely suspicious.

Sources: Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Scribner, 2004
Gerald Posner, Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11, Random House, 2003

[Beam Me Up]

12. Did al-Qaeda bring down the towers and WTC 7, leaving pools of molten

metal beneath the structures and fake the data on the Flight Data Recorder of AA 77 that alledgedly hit the Pentagon? If they were responsible for 9/11, they had to have. If they weren't responsible for these and many other anomalies that are not discussed in the network media (about whose integrity we now need have no more illusions than we have had regarding that of the Bush administration), then who was?

You know, in a criminal investigation if your lead witness provides falsified evidence and testimony you have to ask yourself, why? What are they covering up about 9/11?

[DramaOnHwy61]

13. * depends on how you define "al-Qaeda" ?

[DeeDeeNY]

17. Everything the * administration has done with this raises suspicions

Putting aside all valid unanswered questions, if one knew absolutely nothing about 9/11 except for the fact that * fought the establishment of the 9/11 commission from the beginning and then, when pressured to testify, would go only as a "team" with Cheney, no sworn testimony and no transcript -- that one fact is all anyone needs to know to raise suspicions.

[mallard]

24. Re: thanks for making that important point

It makes you wonder what drives these rumor-based convictors of Saudi royals, or Saudi whoevers, when there's a huge structural fault in the entire public blame dispersion phenomenon - going on with a passion - involving serious protections for the guilty remaining in effect, all as a result of the new post-9/11 anti-Muslim security blitz campaign which seems to also disregard just how much suffering is acceptable in a country that never did us harm; being engaged as we are in an aimless colonial 'war' which 9/11 was used to promote - one which without 9/11 wouldn't find us in this war/atrocity program/empire aspiring/economic collapse/over-borrowed dilemma we're in.

D'uuuuh does not say enough. This is evil on a stick and not-interested-in-the-truth players join us here as if well-intentioned friends - 'hoping' the Saudis get nailed! Unbeleivable.

[TomClash]

14. We'll see

As a general rule, where insurance carriers are involved the stench of manure is sure to follow.

This isn't about truth - it's about money.

[DeeDeeNY]

16. "flinty chairman and founder, Stephen Cozen"

I wonder what that is supposed to mean. I've heard of flinty-eyed but not flinty, and what does it have to do with this lawsuit?

[Doctor_J]

27. Flinty means course, hard, abrasive - like flint

It's going to require some flint to crack the Bush/Saudi/Media Cabal

[ohio2007]

18. Actual promotional flyer for the WTC in the 1980s.

Actual promotional flyer for the WTC in the 1980s ;

The closest some of us will ever get to heaven

The World Trade Center, New York

In a world without religion,
these two buildings would still be standing.

http://www.freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Main_Page


Can't handle the 'truth' ?

[unhappycamper]

21. Saudis Hit With $5B Lawsuit Over 9/11

Source: military.com / Philadelphia Inquirer

Saudis Hit With $5B Lawsuit Over 9/11
June 02, 2008
Philadelphia Inquirer

Less than a mile from the mournful place in Lower Manhattan where the World Trade Center came crashing to the ground, in a hushed federal courthouse, a small band of Philadelphia lawyers is prying loose secrets of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

It is here that the Cozen O'Connor law firm has filed an 812-page lawsuit on behalf of U.S. and global insurance companies alleging that Saudi Arabia and Saudi-backed Islamic charities nurtured and financed the al-Qaeda, the author of those deadly attacks.

Led by its flinty chairman and founder, Stephen Cozen, the firm has invested thousands of hours and millions of dollars to scour the world for witnesses, documents and other evidence in its attempt to hold the oil-rich desert kingdom liable for more than $5 billion in damages.

Among the companies represented in the lawsuit are Chubb, Ace, Allstate, One Beacon, and nearly three dozen other insurers.

Read more: http://www.military.com/news/article/saudis-hit-with-5b-lawsuit-over-911.html

[Crazy Dave]

22. I told somebody over the weekend...

...that it wasn't Afghanistan that needed to be invaded. Just look at the numbers, 15 from Saudi Arabia (our buddies), 2 from the United Arab Emirates (also our buddies), 1 from Egypt (just an acquaintance) and 1 from Lebanon (still pissed at us).

[KansDem]

25. 89% of the attackers on 9/11 were from countries that were...

...either friends and business partners of the Bush Family or connected to Cheney's Halliburton.

89% !!!

Why this hasn't been trumpeted from every newsroom is beyond me...

edited for accuracy

[yurbud]

23. hell froze over--a story that makes me applaud insurance companies.