Well, since we are near the end of this thread, I'll go ahead and post this whole thing, since others are talking about it...

Larry “Lucky Larry” Silverstein

Date Published: 2006-09-06

You’ve got to be lucky to make $4 Billion killing on a 6-month investment of $124 Million

Larry Silverstein is the New York property tycoon who purchased the entire WTC complex just 6 months prior to the 9/11 attacks. That was the first time in its 33-year history the complex had EVER changed ownership.

Mr. Silverstein’s first order of business as the new owner was to change the company responsible for the security of the complex. The new security company he hired was Securacom (now Stratasec). George W. Bush's brother, Marvin Bush, was on its board of directors, and Marvin’s cousin, Wirt Walker III, was its CEO. According to public records, not only did Securacom provide electronic security for the World Trade Center, it also covered Dulles International Airport and United Airlines — two key players in the 9/11 attacks.

The company was backed by an investment firm, the Kuwait-American Corp., also linked for many years to the Bush family. KuwAm has been linked to the Bush family financially since the Gulf War. One of its principals and a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, Mishal Yousef Saud al Sabah, served on the board of Stratesec.

Now, consider: The members of a small cabal owned the WTC complex, controlled its electronic security, and also controlled the security not only for one of the airlines whose aircraft were hijacked on 9/11, but the airport from which they originated.

Another little “coincidence” -- Mr. Silversten, who made a down-payment of $124 million on this $3.2 billion complex, promptly insured it for $7 Billion. Not only that, he covered the complex against “terrorist attacks”.

Following the attacks, Silverstein filed TWO insurance claims for the maximum amount of the policy ($7B), based on the two -- in Silverstein's view -- separate attacks. The insurance company, Swiss Re, paid Mr. Silverstein $4.6 Billion — a princely return on a relatively paltry investment of $124 million.

There’s more. You see, the World Trade Towers were not the real estate plum we are led to believe. From an economic standpoint, the trade center -- subsidized since its inception by the NY Port Authority -- has never functioned, nor was it intended to function, unprotected in the rough-and-tumble real estate marketplace. How could Silverstein Group have been ignorant of this?

The towers required some $200 million in renovations and improvements, most of which related to removal and replacement of building materials declared to be health hazards in the years since the towers were built. It was well-known by the city of New York that the WTC was an asbestos bombshell. For years, the Port Authority treated the building like an aging dinosaur, attempting on several occasions to get permits to demolish the building for liability reasons, but being turned down due the known asbestos problem. Further, it was well-known the only reason the building was still standing until 9/11 was because it was too costly to disassemble the twin towers floor by floor since the Port Authority was prohibited legally from demolishing the buildings.

The projected cost to disassemble the towers: $15 Billion. Just the scaffolding for the operation was estimated at $2.4 Billion!

In other words, the Twin Towers were condemned structures. How convenient that an unexpected “terrorist” attack demolished the buildings completely.

WTC Building 7 was a part of the WTC complex, and covered under the same insurance policy. This 47-storey steel-framed structure, which was NOT struck by an aircraft, mysteriously collapsed 8 hours later that same day into its own footprint at freefall speed — exactly in the manner of the Twin Towers.

How could this have happened? Mr. Silverstein gave the world the answer when he slipped up during a PBS television interview a year later, on 9/11/2002:

"I remember getting a call from the...er...fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, 'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.' And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse."

As anyone who knows anything about construction can tell you, “Pull” is common industry jargon for a controlled demolition.

One thing is for sure, the decision to 'pull' WTC 7 would have delighted many people. Especially because it has been reported that thousands of sensitive files relating to some of the biggest financial scams in history — including Enron and WorldCom -- were stored in the offices of some of the building’s tenants:

US Secret Service
NSA
CIA
IRS
BATF
SEC
NAIC Securities
Salomon Smith Barney
American Express Bank International
Standard Chartered Bank
Provident Financial Management
ITT Hartford Insurance Group
Federal Home Loan Bank

The Securities and Exchange Commission has not quantified the number of active cases in which substantial files were destroyed by the collapse of WTC 7. Reuters news service and the Los Angeles Times published reports estimating them at 3,000 to 4,000. They include the agency's major inquiry into the manner in which investment banks divvied up hot shares of initial public offerings during the high-tech boom. ..."Ongoing investigations at the New York SEC will be dramatically affected because so much of their work is paper-intensive," said Max Berger of New York's Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann. "This is a disaster for these cases."

Citigroup says some information that the committee is seeking [about WorldCom] was destroyed in the Sept. 11 terror attack on the World Trade Center. Salomon had offices in 7 World Trade Center. The bank says that back-up tapes of corporate emails from September 1998 through December 2000 were stored at the building and destroyed in the attack.

Inside WTC 7 was the US Secret Service's largest field office with more than 200 employees. "All the evidence that we stored at 7 World Trade, in all our cases, went down with the building," according to US Secret Service Special Agent David Curran.

What a neat, complete, and fortuitous turn of events was 9/11.

Incidentally, it’s worth noting that one of Lucky Larry’s closest friends — a person with whom it’s said he speaks almost daily by phone — is none other than former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Also see, "Pull it"

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 19 2008 9:40 utc | 101

hkol- i had glanced at the initial miguel essay a few weeks ago, but was turned off by something in it & never returned to consider the full essay or the followups. i don't particularly weigh much value on the opinions or insights of economists, esp those from the ideological confines of the belly of the beast & when they are directed toward 'helping' so-called developing nations. africa is so incredibly huge & varied, i'm not comfortable w/ alot of generalizations on "economic" evaluations/solutions of/for the continent-at-large, but i'll take another look at the entire boston review series. it runs 40 pages printed, so it may take awhile...

Posted by: b real | Jun 19 2008 16:12 utc | 102

jason & the anemoi - or how long before the wind farmer becomes the terrorist suspect?

secrecy news: JASON on Wind Farms and Radar

Wind farms that use spinning blades and turbines to generate electricity have the undesirable side effect of disrupting the operation of radar systems. The JASON defense science advisory group was asked to consider the problem and to propose solutions.

“Wind farms interfere with the radar tracking of airplanes and weather. The velocity of the blade tips can reach 170 mph, causing significant Doppler clutter. This creates problems and issues for several stake holders, including DHS, DOD, FAA and NOAA,” the JASONs said in a report (pdf) to the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year.

“Examples of issues include: a wind farm located close to a border might create a dead zone for detecting intruding aircraft; current weather radar software could misinterpret the high apparent shear between blade tips as a tornado; current air traffic control software could temporarily lose the tracks of aircraft flying over wind farms.”

To address the problem Defense Department officials proposed a strategy of “non-technical mitigation,” by which they mean simply eliminating wind farms that interfere with DoD assets.

But the JASONs suggested several alternative approaches that in many cases would permit continued operation of wind farms in proximity to radar installations.

Posted by: b real | Jun 19 2008 20:21 utc | 103

so much for thinking offshore facilities are isolated from the conflict their inland counterparts bring

MEND Attack Shuts Down Shell’s Production

Royal Dutch Shell says it has temporarily stopped production at its main offshore oilfield in Nigeria, following a militant attack.

The raid took place overnight on the Bonga oil platform about 100km (65 miles) off the coast of the Niger Delta, the company said.

Though no group has officially claimed responsibility for the attack, a MEND source told The Times of Nigeria privately that MEND fighters carried out the attack and plan to intensify action to drive home its demand for the release of its leader, Henry Okah who is being tried secretly by Nigerian government.

It is the first attack on the oilfield, which normally produces about 200,000 barrels a day.
...
Nigeria's valuable offshore oilfields had always been considered difficult for most militants to attack, the BBC's Alex Last reports from Lagos.

But for the first time in the early hours, gunmen in boats reached the Bonga installation, Shell's flagship project.

The shutdown has cut a tenth of Nigeria's total output in one go.

here's the MEND communique

On Thursday, June 19, 2008, at 0045 Hrs, gallant fighters from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) overran the supposedly fortified Bonga offshore oil fields operated by the Shell Petroleum Development Company.

The main computerized control room responsible for coordinating the entire crude oil export operations from the fields was our main target. Our detonation engineers could not gain access to blow it up but decided against smoking out the occupants by burning down the facility to avoid loss of life.

However, our next visit will be different as the facility will not be spared. We therefore ask all workers in the Bonga fields to evacuate for their safety as the military can not protect them.

In order that the Nigerian military does not pass off this humiliating breach as another "accident", an American, Captain Jack Stone from an oil services company, Tidex has been captured.

This man was supposed to only be released in exchange for all Niger Delta hostages being held in northern Nigeria by the Nigerian government. Because the criminals in the government and state security want to use this opportunity to make money from ransom, we have decided he will be released in the coming hours.

The location for today's attack was deliberately chosen to remove any notion that off-shore oil exploration is far from our reach. The oil companies and their collaborators do not have any place to hide in conducting their nefarious activities.

We use this opportunity to ask the oil majors to evacuate their expatriate staff from Nigeria until the issues in the Niger Delta have been addressed and resolved.

Oil and gas tankers are also warned to avoid Nigerian waters. They stand the risk of laden crude oil or natural gas tankers being attacked.

Posted by: b real | Jun 20 2008 4:04 utc | 104

Posted by: b real | Jun 20 2008 4:16 utc | 105

Thanks to b real for taking a look at Miguel's essay. I agree that any attempt to talk about all of Africa is doomed to be superficial, but there were a few specific details that I found interesting, e.g. the discussion of the efficacy of anti-parasite (worm) medical programs in improving school attendance. IIRC, one of the Rockefeller Foundations first major programs aimed at the eradication of hookworm in the southern U.S., presumably with similar good results.

It may all just be more pulling of our collective chain, but it seems that the spooks at Urban Moving Systems also received an earlier SBA backed loan in January of 1999. If someone is willing to pay the fee it should be possible to find out the amount of the earlier loan via a pre-pay data link from the site I linked to above. It is also of some interest that the bank actually making the loan to that New Jersey Mossad front was the Houston, Texas branch of J.P. Morgan Chase.

Posted by: Hannah K. O'Luthon | Jun 20 2008 5:43 utc | 106

the intention here is to simply share a different perspective :

mostly, the message Westerners (including Miguel) have for Africans is more or less: "if your would establish national identities and well functioning democracies and ... AS WE HAVE in Europe/USA, great progress will be yours ...".

but its very rare that a Westerner would support his/her message with anything close to a candid account of the strife, trials, tribulations, blood and tears that accompanied the 2000-plus years leading to the eventual aggregation of Europe from the hundreds of distinct languages & ethnicities that existed when the process started. And in each European country, one distinct (or derived) language/culture eventually achieved dominance over all others. And it was achieved in every European country (as well as the USA) by force, violence & coercion.

who knows why the Europeans are so reluctant to underscore & contribute valuable context and wisdom to their message by revealing and sharing their own historical account with Africans. Is it because it might give Africans the wrong ideas ? Or are they embarrassed that it might damage the perception of epic-ness or exceptionalism they would like to project ?

however, the Africans know a lot more about nation-building (in all its forms & derivations) than the Europeans can even begin to imagine, even without knowing anything about European history.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Jun 20 2008 7:47 utc | 107

shorter @107 - the myth of the noble savage

of course "africans" know aboot nation building, ask any 4500 year old Egyptian

Big cities (for the time), huge monuments, slavery, wars...

Sounds a lot like any "western" nation to follow.

Or the Maya, Moche, Inca, Aztec... Chinese...

"Nation Building" is gussified tribalism and many were quite happy to sell their enemies to the western slavers

Posted by: jcairo | Jun 20 2008 13:07 utc | 108

Trade war: US steel industry wins trade case against China

U.S. steel pipe manufacturers, who have been battling a surge in imports from China, won a major victory Friday when the International Trade Commission cleared the way for the imposition of stiff penalty tariffs for the next five years.

The "International Trade Commission" is a sole U.S. commission. The piece does not mention that.

The ruling means that penalty tariffs ranging from 99 percent to 701 percent will be imposed on Chinese imports of circular welded pipe, a form of pipe used in a variety of construction jobs from home plumbing to sprinkler systems and fencing.

Those piepes are about the lowest technology issue I can think about. Wooden carts are more difficult to make.

If the U.S. can't compete with manufacturing those unless a 8 fold mandatory price increase of the competing product, where does that end?

Posted by: b | Jun 20 2008 19:21 utc | 109

@108
as they say, we all have our dirty little secrets

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Jun 21 2008 1:16 utc | 110

It is 3 AM in Sweden and the sun is raising again. Not that it ever got dark.

Happy midsummer everybody!

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Jun 21 2008 1:19 utc | 111

b@109,

Free trade is not always fair trade. I am not familiar with the details here, but in a general sense, why not install tariffs if a country's manufacturing base is competing with underpaid, child, or prison foreign workers? I can think of other logical reasons for tariffs also. The U.S. has stricter enviromental laws that are very relevant in global pricing. Some steel protected plated parts are not even manufactured at all in the U.S. because of these prohibitive costs.

Posted by: Rick | Jun 21 2008 4:01 utc | 112

Swedish, it is 11:30 pm here, June 20, on the West Coast of Canada. Just got dark, we are at the 49th parallel.

Raising a glass of sinfully carbon tax hit*, imported from the other hemisphere, delicious, Chilean Gato Negro ("black cat") Cabernet Sauvignon, cheers to the solstice. Nostravya!

Good health to you all.

*Canada taxes liquor quite heavily, a bit less than for example Norway, but we do seek out "bargains" in our otherwise recently liberal retail liquor stores.

Posted by: jonku | Jun 21 2008 6:36 utc | 113

@110 yes, your 107 is very condescending

you make it sound as if africans are uneducated, incapable, children completely unaware of history, and would have taught the world to sing in perfect harmony

Happy solstice

Posted by: jcairo | Jun 21 2008 6:46 utc | 114

@114,

So, according to you, if I was to ridicule the Republican party for pushing an over-simplified agenda towards Southern Whites, would that make me condescending towards Southern Whites ?

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Jun 21 2008 9:49 utc | 115

I was speaking with an African guy a few weeks ago who was totally amazed by the extent of China's involvement in Africa. What seemed to impress him the most was the Chinese very hands-on approach and willingness to help build & develop stuff in virtually every sector. And he was particularly excited that the Chinese were establishing new markets for stuff produced & grown in Africa , for export to Asia. And he also said -- "the Westerners have been lying to us all along"

if China had listened to voices like Miguels rather than seek its own way, it would have remained a poor country. Only time will tell how well China's involvement will work out. So far so good though, in most instances around the African continent.

Still, anybody can believe what they want.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Jun 21 2008 12:36 utc | 116

@116 - fallacious is as fallacious does = 107 and if the thrust of @115 was your intent with @107, why didn't you just say that, rather than trying to bolster it with some fallacious narrowminded "history".

not only is brevity the soul of wit, it clarifies arguments

for the devil is in the details

One cannot mean what they say

if they can't say what they mean

You spoke with a single uninformed African guy, therefore 'africans'. Not good.

How do I explain those I've spoken with that bore no such illusion?

The elites that run these african nations, they still have the scales on their eyes, as regards the west, then I take it?

@107 narrowly focuses on Europe for all too human behaviour, behaviour every tribe in africa would be displaying right now if it were they that had a intellectual and techonological revolution half a millenia ago or so - it would toss this discussion on it's head.

"Still, anybody can believe what they want."

Then why are you ranting about the bad, bad west in africa or consider Bushco criminal (if you do)?

Still, as a recently converted Pastafarian, I can get behind the sentiment.

Posted by: jcairo | Jun 22 2008 11:17 utc | 117

jcairo@117,
let me restate my key point:
the process of nation-building in Europe yielded a result in which over 95% of the component languages/ethnicities of Europe were forced to accept the dominance of the small number of languages/ethnicities that we today know as the nations of Europe.

Africa today has at least two thousand distinct ethnicities/languages (not dialects). So when Westerners omit their own European context/history from their prescriptions for African progress & development, they are in effect saying "Do as I say, not do as I do". And theres nothing inherently wrong with this Western approach to Africa as long as its acknowledged.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Jun 22 2008 14:11 utc | 118

sure, restate the pointless

"Still, anybody can believe what they want."

"Do as I say, not do as I do"

Ask any resident of Falluja or Gaza the wisdom of those "arguments" (if one were to look up argument in the USA Today Dictionary(TM), would one see a photo of an empty aphorism such as these?) and if "there's nothing inherently wrong with this western approach."

An approach where the West isn't exactly very honest with it's own citizens is it?

I worked in a fairly large company and spoke to 20 or so people aboot this "politic"...

RIP George Carlin a funny wise man

...Back to our regularly scheduled programming

These 20 or so are just as unaware of the lies as your single african guy. School of the Americas? Laughter. Seriously. It is in the public record, look it up. Nope.
The planet is of a finite size. No, that's a nice philosophy. Their, WMD! WMD! becomes, the world is better off now.

To their thinking or "people will believe what they want to believe", this blog is nothing but a haven for conspiracy nuts gibbering over outlandish theories rather than political junkies discussing facts (for the most part).

A Muslim from Tanzania mentioned that I was the only other person he's spoken to that he has ever heard use the word oligarchy when talking politic. I've got a guy from Africa too.

Oh I see, my African guy only knew this because some kindly Westerner patted him on the head and 'splained it to him.

What a waste of time.

All this pretentious pseudo-intellectual claptrap just to put lipstick on the pig of the very obvious premise that the West behaves in a "do as I say, not as I do" manner.

All dressed up in a fallaciously, condescending manner with nowhere to go

Huge revelation for behaviour displayed by any empire, ever, including those in Africa. Which does include Egypt, iirc, and even they were once conquered by, gasp, even darker africans from the south, long before the technologically advanced Romans arrived

So, the leading citizens of the country this credulous tribesman is from, they are just as gulled with their hands in Uncle Sam's pocket?

And you're OK with it as long as the West admits that "freedom and democracy" is really a boot in your face for resources...

Posted by: jcairo | Jun 23 2008 10:26 utc | 119