The claim by Alex Jones that drills were running on 9/11 for planes crashing into the Pentagon and World Trade Center is partially substantiated, although he manages to get the documentation wrong as usual. On April 18, 2004, USA Today published an article titled, "NORAD had drills of jets as weapons." The report cited NORAD officials who confirmed live-fly drills were conducted using hijacked airliners originating from the continental United States used as weapons crashing into targets including the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The specific drill USA Today referred to was "planned in July [2001] and conducted later" - likely on 9/11 itself when there were multiple scenarios being gamed.2

Weinberg says that the claim of an Air Force “stand-down” order issued on 9/11 is “dogma” to the 9/11 Truth community. That does not apply to FTW. Mike Ruppert starts off Chapter 19 of Crossing the Rubicon by explaining that the notion of there being a single “stand-down” order preventing fighters from being scrambled that morning is incorrect. Such simplistic analysis does not hold water. Planes were scrambled on 9/11, but only two sets of jets were available since the majority of air assets were diverted all across the world by numerous war game exercises.

Weinberg does admit the following:

Why they failed to find the hijacked planes is a legitimate question, and it may have to do with confusion arising from Vigilant Guardian

However, he states this in such a way that it gives the misleading implication that Vigilant Guardian was the only war game of significance taking place that morning. This is the false line maintained by the mainstream media when addressing the 9/11 war games.

Since FTW concluded our investigation, Paul Thompson, who runs CooperativeResearch.org, has discovered that yet another Air Force exercise was occurring on 9/11 besides the five laid out in Crossing the Rubicon: GLOBAL GUARDIAN.

According to Thompson this exercise, which simulates a “Global Armageddon,” is performed each year in October or November, but for some reason it was rescheduled for the week of September 11th in 2001.3 It is necessary to note that in May of 2001 – five months before 9/11 – Dick Cheney was placed in charge of the “seamless coordination” of all federal and military exercises related to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction by an executive order from Bush.4 Placed in the position of managing all such operations, Cheney is the most likely person to have rescheduled this drill. He was in the perfect position to set up the opportunity for the crimes of 9/11 to be successful.

To prove guilt in a court of law you must lay out a case for MEANS, MOTIVE and OPPORTUNITY. That’s what Ruppert did in Crossing the Rubicon. In Weinberg’s assault on those who believe 9/11 was an inside job, he presents nothing that invalidates FTW’s case against Dick Cheney and other persons of interest in the U.S. Government and military.

I met Bill Weinberg back in the fall of 2004 when I was invited (in place of Nick Levis) to debate him and former National Guard pilot Tom Whisker live on WBAI 99.5 FM, the Pacifica Radio affiliate in New York. The debate lasted four hours. Whisker hosts a radio show called “Weaponry,” aired late night after Weinberg’s program, “Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade (MORC).”

During the debate we quickly got into the Air Force response on 9/11. When I proceeded to document that Mike Ruppert obtained confirmation of a “live-fly” (meaning actual planes in the air) Air Force exercise running on the morning of 9/11 Whisker said, “That’s impossible!”

I detailed that we know the name of the exercise – Vigilant Warrior – because former counter-terrorism advisor Richard Clarke named the exercise in his book, Against All Enemies. It was Ruppert who discovered that the term “Warrior” meant the war game was a live-fly field training exercise headed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This information was obtained via email from NORAD Major Don Arias. All of this is documented extensively in Crossing the Rubicon.

In responding to Whisker’s dismissal that the information I had just stated was “impossible,” I demanded it was true and documented – and it is. Weinberg then moved us on to another aspect of the 9/11 debate. He did not want to get caught up in the fine, critical details since there were so many topics to cover. This was just before Crossing the Rubicon had been released. We were at a stalemate of sorts because all I could do was direct everyone interested in the debate to purchase the book when it came out.

Well it’s been out for a while now and may be ordered at the FTW website, along with Mike Ruppert’s 2001 DVD lecture at Portland State University, “The Truth and Lies of 9/11.”

Weinberg’s radio show, MORC, is often quite good, dealing with politics, art and culture from an anarchist perspective, and I have often listened. Upon meeting Weinberg and briefly chatting before our debate, he said, “This station (WBAI) has done a terrible job covering 9/11.”

He immediately gained respect in my eyes with that comment because it was – and is – all too true. Now Bernard White, who is managing WBAI into the poorhouse, is selling LOOSE CHANGE as the station’s main premium to entice new subscribers to donate money to WBAI. LOOSE CHANGE is a terrible ‘documentary’ on 9/11 that mixes truth with lies. White has made other questionable moves at WBAI like canceling Gary Null’s show. Null has pulled in as much, if not more money for WBAI than Amy Goodman during fund drives. But not all of Null’s politics fall in line with White’s, so he was canned. The American Left need not worry about “9/11 conspiracy theories” taking it down: It is proving to be very capable of suicide.

I agree with Weinberg that most of those who call themselves a part of a 9/11 “truth” movement are terrible analysts and reporters. But do not loop FTW into the analysis of those people and organizations unless you plan to really take us on – MEANS, MOTIVE, and OPPORTUNITY.

One thing Weinberg does not dispute in regard to Mike Ruppert’s case against Dick Cheney is the motive: Peak Oil. He is all too aware that we live on a finite planet and that Peak Oil is a reality the world will confront. Weinberg has much more in common with FTW than he may want to admit.

Shortly after the WBAI debate, I continued sparse email communication with Weinberg for a few months. Anyone who listens to MORC knows that Weinberg has sworn off of using the mass transit system in New York City, traveling almost exclusively by bike. I sent him a link (that I can no longer locate) of a plan for building enclosed bridges for transportation by bike alongside every major road in America. I had made a brief comment that such a proposal would never be embraced by Americans who are largely over-weight and out of shape. “But after Peak Oil ‘cuts the fat’,” I wrote, “Maybe this will be a viable option.” Weinberg wrote back to me:

“You should write for my publication instead of that charlatan Ruppert.”

I think that was our last exchange.

There is a part of me (my ego) that would like to issue a challenge to Weinberg and Whisker, calling for a “Round 2” of our debate. But I am not an historian, and 9/11 is history. Yes, it is critically important history, and that is why Mike Ruppert wrote a book of 600 pages and 1,000 footnotes to put this critical event into the proper context.

But FTW is done with over-analyzing 9/11. We’ve made the case, and no one has presented a serious challenge to it since it was published two years ago. 9/11 only holds a small fraction of the information that will help humanity understand the world we live in today and what is coming tomorrow. I am not a historical analyst. I won’t allow my ego to get in the way of doing my job any more than it already has.

1 Crossing the Rubicon, page 333

2 Ibid, 345

See also: http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/t...itaryExercises

3 Michael Kane, “Cynthia McKinney Brings 9/11 Back to Congress,” FTW, July 22, 2005 http://www.fromthewilderness.com/fre...briefing.shtml

4 Ibid, footnote #1

End