Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Friday, November 3, 2006
Rumours have begun circulating today that a video due to be released
in one week's time, just prior to the midterm elections, will
show clear and crisp footage of American Airlines flight 77
hitting the Pentagon on September 11th 2001.
Such a release may sway uncertain voters into sticking with the
devils they know rather than the devils they don't as far as the
"protection" of America against Al Qaeda goes.
The video in question is the Doubletree hotel video, which government
watchdog/ sometime propaganda outlet Judicial
Watch says has been promised to them on November
9th.
9/11 Blog site Killtown
states:
"So how much do you want to bet that this Doubletree Hotel
security video will be released before this Tuesday (election
day) to ’shock & awe’ the voters in hopes to sway
the elections, especially if this video finally shows a plane
hitting the Pentagon?”
In answer to this question, prolific Blogger Kurt
Nimmo states:
"If I was a betting man, I’d bet the farm on it."
I wouldn't be so sure.
There are conflicting and confusing stories as to whether the
Doubletree video shows anything at all. The FBI, in response to
a FOIA request to release all tapes of the Pentagon on 9/11, has
stated to attorney Scott Hodes, representative of Mr Scott Bingham
who runs the website www.flight77.info,
that the Doubletree hotel video did not capture the impact:
The same statement also made it clear that the Citgo gas station
tape also did not capture anything. This statement was apparently
proven to be true last month when that video
was released.
It remains a mystery why the FBI confiscated the gas station
and hotel security videos within minutes of the crash and why
they did not release these videos for five years, given that they
say they show nothing.
Two conflicting stories muddy the waters on this issue however.
According to a CNN FOIA request of 2002, a nearby hotel's video
DID capture the impact. The following exchange is from a CNN
transcript of a report on the 2002 release of the
original "parking lot" footage, the four grainy video
frames:
MCINTYRE (on camera): These pictures are the first to be
made public, but they are not the only images of the plane hitting
the Pentagon. Sources tell CNN that the FBI on September 11th
confiscated a nearby hotel's security camera videotape, which
also captured the attack. So far, the Justice Department has refused
to release that videotape. Aaron.
BROWN: Why? Do we have any idea why they won't release it?
MCINTYRE: Well, the claim - we have filed a freedom of information
request for it. They claim that it might provide some intelligence
to somebody else who might want to do harm to the United States.
But officials I talked to here at the Pentagon say they don't
see any national security or criminal value to that tape. The
FBI tends to hold on to things. But the government may eventually
release that tape, and if they do, we'll bring it to you.
Furthermore, a story by Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough that
appeared in the Washington
Times 10 days after 9/11 backed up this claim, pointing
out that hotel staff had sat watching the video surveillance in
horror before the FBI arrived and shut down the scene:
A security camera atop a hotel close to the Pentagon may
have captured dramatic footage of the hijacked Boeing 757 airliner
as it slammed into the western wall of the Pentagon. Hotel employees
sat watching the film in shock and horror several times before
the FBI confiscated the video as part of its investigation. It
may be the only video available of the attack. The Pentagon has
told broadcast news reporters that its security cameras did not
capture the crash. The attack occurred close to the Pentagon’s
heliport, an area that normally would be under 24-hour security
surveillance, including video monitoring.
The confusion mounts as there are suggestions that this video
may not be the Doubletree video but a tape taken from cameras
at the Sheraton National Hotel which overlooks I395 and the Pentagon,
and has a clear view of the impact zone.
The FBI says, however, that there is no Sheraton video in existence.
So which is it to be? Does a hotel video capture the impact or
doesn't it? Was Gertz simply making his story up about the hotel
staff seeing the video? And if the FBI is telling the truth about
the Sheraton Hotel then why did the Sheraton, a major building
in the area, not have any cameras in operation?
Whichever story you believe, whether the footage does or does
not show the impact, the fact that the footage exists is not denied.
So something does not tally up here.
The FBI further admits that it has a total of 85
video tapes seized on 9/11 from businesses and traffic
poles in the area. It is maintained that only the previously released
parking lot footage shows the impact. How unlikely is it that
out of another 84 confirmed surveillance tapes directed at the
building, none of them captured anything?
I predict that if the Doubletree video shows anything at all
it will only serve to bolster the straw man argument and further
hype up the debate over what actually hit the Pentagon on 9/11.
As Killtown points out:
"if this video does indeed show a plane flying into the
Pentagon, it will not actually show the plane hit, but in fact
will show it disappear behind the Pentagon’s west wall (see
aerial photo above) and then a fireball will obviously be seen
coming up over the roof. This will be very similar to what was
seen with the first video of the 2nd WTC crash shown “live”
on TV which shows a plane (with no discernible markings) come
across the screen and disappear behind the North Tower (which
is blocking the view of the South Tower) and then a fireball is
seen erupting from the other side.
In this sense the video would fit right into the ludicrous "no
planer" theories which suggests that planes hitting the WTC
towers were CGI edited into TV footage. This would then further
stir debates about no plane hitting the Pentagon.
Unanswered questions need to be explored, but the Pentagon issue
must not become the core focus of the 9/11 truth movement. There
is evidence that suggests a 757 hit the Pentagon, there is evidence
that suggests something else hit the Pentagon. What is not in
doubt, however, is that whatever it was, it was not flown by a
man who didn't know his way around the inside of single engine
cessna and was described by his former flight instructors as "A
weak student who was wasting resources."
The danger is clearly that the government will use its media
mouthpieces in particular Fox News to hype the Pentagon issue
until it becomes the de facto keystone of alternative explanations
behind 9/11. At the point when that crescendo reaches its peak
crystal clear footage of Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon (whether
real or faked) will be released, knocking down the straw man argument
that the establishment itself erected.
The media obsession with this one facet of an entire smorgasbord
of 9/11 questions, and their refusal to address more hardcore
9/11 evidence, leads us to fear that this is the case.
We need to concentrate on the concrete facts that point towards
a cover up of complicity and not on wild speculation that will
only hinder the movement as a whole.
