Pentagon: Rumsfeld misspoke on Flight 93 crash

KiraSjon

Member
Messages
172
Pentagon: Rumsfeld misspoke on Flight 93 crash

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/12/27/rumsfeld....lt93/index.html

(As usual, here's a copy - the DoD doesn't have the transcript up yet but I'll post it when I see it.)

Defense secretary's remark to troops fuels conspiracy theories
From Jamie McIntyre
CNN Washington

Monday, December 27, 2004 Posted: 9:54 PM EST (0254 GMT)


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A comment Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made during a Christmas Eve address to U.S. troops in Baghdad has sparked new conspiracy theories about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

In the speech, Rumsfeld made a passing reference to United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to stop al Qaeda hijackers.

But in his remarks, Rumsfeld referred to the \"the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania.\"

A Pentagon spokesman insisted that Rumsfeld simply misspoke, but Internet conspiracy theorists seized on the reference to the plane having been shot down.

\"Was it a slip of the tongue? Was it an error? Or was it the truth, finally being dropped on the public more than three years after the tragedy\" asked a posting on the Web site WorldNetDaily.com.

Some people remain skeptical of U.S. government statements that, despite a presidential authorization, no planes were shot down September 11, and rumors still circulate that a U.S. military plane shot the airliner down over Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

A Pentagon spokesman insists Rumsfeld has not changed his opinion that the plane crashed as the result of an onboard struggle between passengers and terrorists.

The independent panel charged with investigating the terrorist attacks concluded that the hijackers intentionally crashed Flight 93, apparently because they feared the passengers would overwhelm them.
 

PyRo99

Active Member
Messages
567
Pentagon: Rumsfeld misspoke on Flight 93 crash

Yeeha. Good Ol' Rumsfeld.

He only makes it so much easier to pin down. And you can't make a "mistake" that large in size. It had to have been that, because you would clearly remeber them taking them down, not shooting it down.

Thanks for the link Kira,

Pyro
 

Mai

Junior Member
Messages
30
Pentagon: Rumsfeld misspoke on Flight 93 crash

Interesting. Assuming it was an innocent mistake, how could anyone make such a mistake? 9/11 is not something that's easy to forget, and Rumsfeld, as a secretary of defense, must have gone through all the tiny details of how 9/11 happened many times since it actually happened.

I don't think it's a far-fetched idea that the US shot down the plane. If they believed that the plane was about to crash into the Pentagon or another building, i can understand their reasoning. Hiding it hurts their credibility immensely, because the truth about what happened is (very) slowly coming out. We definitely did not get the full story about 9/11. I can't wait to read the reports about all this 50 years from now, when we will surely know more about what's happened back then.
 

Judge Bean

Senior Member
Messages
1,257
Pentagon: Rumsfeld misspoke on Flight 93 crash

But, is he saying that the plane was shot down by the attackers? His speech is so garbled regularly, and wild with rotating clauses, that it's almost impossible to interpret any fragment of a sentence like that.

However, the way he usually talks is by "linkage," in which the preceding clause subconsciously reminds him of an unrelated thing that he may not really want to speak, but cannot help it due to the semiautomatic engine of speech. To the average person, it sounds like what is usually called "rambling," but it differs from random stuff in that the speaker "prompts" himself.

Notice his constant use of rhetorical questions, which he asks himself: he needs the prompting to get through the statement because the statement is inherently a lie and full of dissembling, and he knows it and can scarcely control it.

So, what makes you feel better, that he is lying in whatever he says, or that he might have accidentally told the truth?

You know, folks, if people in positions of power in our government got in front of a microphone under the influence of truth serum and blurted out concealed facts in random order, our entire country would collapse in upon itself like a flaming zeppelin.
 

phase12

Junior Member
Messages
29
Pentagon: Rumsfeld misspoke on Flight 93 crash

Like many others, when glued to the television screen on 9/11, and hearing the first scant reports that a jetliner went down in PA, my first reaction, as well as my father's was that it was downed by the military.

I still hold that belief to this very day. That makes me feel guilty though, seeing as if I am wrong on this, I am taking away from the heroic actions of the passengers on the flight, if that is what really happened. Sadly, we'll probably never know for sure.
 

Judge Bean

Senior Member
Messages
1,257
Pentagon: Rumsfeld misspoke on Flight 93 crash

Originally posted by phase12@Dec 28 2004, 06:03 PM
Like many others, when glued to the television screen on 9/11, and hearing the first scant reports that a jetliner went down in PA, my first reaction, as well as my father's was that it was downed by the military.

I still hold that belief to this very day. That makes me feel guilty though, seeing as if I am wrong on this, I am taking away from the heroic actions of the passengers on the flight, if that is what really happened. Sadly, we'll probably never know for sure.


We know they were heroes; we have the tapes, and family members were on the cellphones and heard some of what went on.

The ones who rolled probably were hoping that the military would shoot them down. They certainly could not have expected to survive: that is what makes them heroic.

The military might have failed to shoot it down without the distraction of the passengers. The military might have already failed to shoot it down, explaining why it got as far as it did.

They cannot prove that a struggle did not occur in the cockpit, and I choose to believe it did.
 

dancho

Junior Member
Messages
87
Pentagon: Rumsfeld misspoke on Flight 93 crash

Rumsfeld has shooting on the brain. He probably "shoots" into a cab, "shoots" down to the airport, "shoots's onto a plane and "shoots" across the country. Then he shoots off the plane and shoots off his mouth. He likes to shoot.
 

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