What gives with the odd reporting about United 93 in the Times of London?
The Times of London has video of two of the 9-11 hijackers from Afghanistan in 2000, as you know. But it is a bit of strange reporting, in our view, by Yosri Fouda. For example, there’s this: “Dates on the tape show Atta was filmed on January 18, 2000, together with Ziad Jarrah, the pilot of United Airlines flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after the passengers apparently stormed the flight deck.”
“Apparently?” Is there a conspiracy theory we’re unaware of? The flight deck tapes appear to be pretty conclusive, as do the cell phone calls, and all the evidence, that the heroic passengers of United 93 stormed the flight deck and came pretty close to taking back control of the plane from the vermin they attacked. And there’s this: “Jarrah, wearing a collarless shirt, removes his glasses and reads out his will. He piloted United Airlines flight 93, which was assigned the target of Capitol Hill, but crashed.” This story has everything backwards. As far as we know, the target of United 93 has never been definitively established, but it surely has been established beyond doubt that the passengers stormed the cockpit.
UPDATE
The Times could have taken the occasion of the video to do a couple of interesting things, but chose not to. There is, for example, no link to the will of Mohammed Atta, despite showing the video of him reading the bizarre document. That will is a very revealing document about the kind of men we are dealing with, and should be required reading.
UPDATE II
Of course if the Yosri Fouda who wrote the Times article is the same Yosri Fouda who was “chief investigative correspondent for Al Jazeera,” and who has said, “I do not really believe there is such a thing as al-Qaida”, perhaps that might give some hint as to why the heroism of the passengers of United 93 was downplayed, the destination of United 93 known with apparent certainty, and the sickness and evil of Mahammed Atta unreported. Or perhaps not.
If Yosri Fouda does know definitively that the target of United 93 was “Capitol Hill,” that would be quite a scoop; it was reported as recently as last month that “even Osama bin Laden was unsure of the final 9/11 target” of United 93. Such knowledge would also be an excellent reason for the authorities to be spending some quality time with Mr. Fouda.
UPDATE III
Having learned a tiny bit about Yosri Fouda (if it is the same man), who has met “with Khalid Sheikh Muhammed and Ramzi bin Al-Shibh, two of the 911 operatives”, and who seems to get along well in two different worlds, we found the last paragraph of his article very interesting:
Investigators have also puzzled over the fact that unlike the rest of the hijackers — most of whom were young Saudi fundamentalists — Atta and Jarrah were well educated and appeared to fit into western society while studying in Germany. The video indicates how easily they slipped from a western identity to a fundamentalist one. It also shows up the subterfuge they maintained in Germany and America that they did not know each other, all part of evading detection.
“Evading detection” indeed, by appearing to fit in well in the West and avoiding fundamentalist ties and connections with other enemy agents while in the West. We must be getting paranoid in our old age, the way we read those words.