If you need a laugh, check this out:
A transparent and thorough investigation of suspicious trades before Sept. 11 could expose the masterminds behind the attacks by revealing who knew and profited from advance knowledge
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Josh
File this one under the catagory of Cynthia McKinney Stupidity.
Terry
Anybody know if the story is true that McKinney is Oliver Willis’s aunt?
space
Look, you can doubt that this was a “conspiracy” involving Bush all you want. But the facts are true.
The facts being that (a) there was trading pre-9/11 which indicated that people with significant amounts of money knew it was going to happen in sufficient detail (i.e. precise airlines) as to profit from it, (b) nobody has ever been prosecuted for the trading, and (c) there has been no serious investigation.
I’m just sayin’
Terry
space head says, “But the facts are true.” What a complete load of horse hockey! There is not even the tiniest scintilla of support for the “conclusions” reached by the demented conspiratorialists writing and referenced in the Linked article. The prime source, a noted crackpot German outfit, has been discredited on a whole host of other claims, of which these are only a small part.
Kimmitt
There are some weird patterns, but coincidence (and vague information, rather than specific information) explains most of them.
Jon Henke
No, guys, those “facts” are not true. The SEC investigated it…though, apparently, the word has not yet reached these people. They concluded:
“On Sept. 12, 2001, the Securities and Exchange Commission began an investigation to determine whether there was evidence that anyone who had advance knowledge of the terrorist attacks on September 11 sought to profit from that knowledge by trading in United States securities markets. In the course of that review, we did not develop any evidence suggesting that anyone who had advance knowledge of the September 11 attacks traded on the basis of that information.”
utron
A couple of weeks ago when I was lurking at DU, I saw a thread soliciting suggestions for a 2008 presidential candidate DUers could endorse. McKinney scored pretty high, IIRC. Things like that are almost reassuring; they let me know the “reality based community” still has its feet firmly planted in another dimension.
Kimmitt
Heh, that’s pretty funny.
space
The facts are these. There was a large volume of put options placed on United Airlines and American Airlines immediately prior to 9/11. That is not in dispute. The same is true of certain insurance companies.
Yes, the SEC has not charged anyone. But the SEC seals it’s investigations. While they have not charged anyone, neither have they provided any explanation for this trading.
What I find disturbing is that in an apparent effort to dismiss the claims of “conspiracy theorists” people here are willing to overlook the substantial evidence that people did trade on this information.
Am I saying that “Bush knew!” Of course not (if he did, he would have picked a better cover story than reading “My Pet Goat”). But it would not shock me in the least to find out that wealthy Saudis traded on the information. Nor would it shock me to find out that the Bush administration squelched an investigation for “diplomatic reasons”.
Terry
“space” is appropriately named if the term is intended to refer to the obviouly empty cranium atop his head. On virtually every single trading day, there are outstanding “puts” and “calls” on every major stock issued in this country. The SEC and NYSE found absolutely nothing amiss in terms of the level and/or timing of such transactions in the airline stocks in the subject period…ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!! Take off that tinfoil hat.
space
Terry, simply put, you are full of shit. You have no idea what the SEC found, other than that they did not prosecute anyone.
According to published reports (not conspiracy websites, thank you): On one day, UAL put option purchases were 25 times greater than the year-to-date average. In the month before the attacks, short sales jumped by 40 percent for UAL and 20 percent for American.
Now, I’m not saying this proves anything. But you would have to be fucking retarded to think that this might be more than mere coincidence when other airlines were unaffected. Investors just happened to guess that United and American Airlines would go in the shitter days before 9/11?
And this is “tin-foil hat” territory to you? Frankly, anyone who doesn’t take this seriously is incompetent to prosecute the fight against Al Qaeda because it demonstrates a pitiful understanding of how the organization is financed.
Would murderous criminals try to financially profit from their attacks (and thereby finance attacks in the future)? Only a fool would assume otherwise.
Terry
space – As someone put it, you are really full of shit, and God knows there’s a place for some of it in that empty cranium of yours!
Much of the hysteria about these so-called mysterious stock trades has its origins in a discredited September 21 story by the Israeli Herzliyya International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism, entitled
space
Terry:
Your thesis seems to be that because some people have no idea what they are talking about and are willing to speculate wildly about any manner of things that therefore there was no insider trading. That makes no sense.
Assuming that 4,000 of the options were bought by people with advance knowledge of the imminent attacks, these
Jon Henke
Look, guys: the SEC investigated it, and concluded there was no “there” there. Now, unless you’d like to suggest that the SEC — and all the people involved with the coverup, which would make it one MASSIVE secret — are covering up foreknowledge of 9/11, then it’s hard to see what kind of case you have.
There was a large amount of trading, and an investigation determined that it had nothing to do with knowledge of 9/11. Do you have any evidence that it did, or are you suggesting a coverup by the SEC?
Terry
Jon Henke sums it up pretty well as far as I am concerned.
Kimmitt
Or the SEC was incorrect; it’s hardly insane to posit that a government agency might have missed something.
I don’t find the story credible, but I also don’t find it utterly tinfoil-hat territory.
metoo
So what was all that business about the Pentagon wanting to set up a terrorism exchange to root out acts of terror before they hatch?