RationalWiki.org site and Operation Northwoods

EDIT use this link. Text below is incomplete.
Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart Bomb Used in Trade Center Blast - The New York Times(they work but are too old to be of any use)I can only find some material on the web. For now, this is the best I can do.

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THE NEW YORK TIMES

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Thursday October 28, 1993 Page A1

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"Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart
Bomb Used in Trade Center Blast"

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By Ralph Blumenthal

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Law-enforcement officials were told that terrorists were building a bomb that was eventually used to blow up the World Trade Center, and they planned to thwart the plotters by secretly substituting harmless powder for the explosives, an informer said after the blast.

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The informer was to have helped the plotters build the bomb and supply the fake powder, but the plan was called off by an F.B.I. supervisor who had other ideas about how the informer, Emad Salem, should be used, the informer said.

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The account, which is given in the transcript of hundreds of hours of tape recordings that Mr. Salem secretly made of his talks with law-enforcement agents, portrays the authorities as being in a far better position than previously known to foil the February 26th bombing of New York City's tallest towers.

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The explosion left six people dead, more than a thousand people injured, and damages in excess of half-a-billion dollars. Four men are now on trial in Manhattan Federal Court [on charges of involvement] in that attack.

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Mr. Salem, a 43-year-old former Egyptian Army officer, was used by the Government [of the United States] to penetrate a circle of Muslim extremists who are now charged in two bombing cases: the World Trade Center attack, and a foiled plot to destroy the United Nations, the Hudson River tunnels, and other New York City landmarks. He is the crucial witness in the second bombing case, but his work for the Government was erratic, and for months before the World Trade Center blast, he was feuding with the F.B.I.

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Supervisor `Messed It Up'

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After the bombing, he resumed his undercover work. In an undated transcript of a conversation from that period, Mr. Salem recounts a talk he had had earlier with an agent about an unnamed F.B.I. supervisor who, he said, "came and messed it up."

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"He requested to meet me in the hotel," Mr. Salem says of the supervisor.

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"He requested to make me to testify, and if he didn't push for that, we'll be going building the bomb with a phony powder, and grabbing the people who was involved in it. But since you, we didn't do that."

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The transcript quotes Mr. Salem as saying that he wanted to complain to F.B.I. Headquarters in Washington about the Bureau's failure to stop the bombing, but was dissuaded by an agent identified as John Anticev.

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Mr. Salem said Mr. Anticev had told him,

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"He said, I don't think that the New York people would like the things out of the New York Office to go to Washington, D.C."

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Another agent, identified as Nancy Floyd, does not dispute Mr. Salem's account, but rather, appears to agree with it, saying of the `New York people':

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"Well, of course not, because they don't want to get their butts chewed."

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Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

FBI Special Agent John Anticev: But, uh, basically nothing has changed. I'm just telling you for my own sake that nothing, that this isn't a salary, that it'syou know. But you got paid regularly for good information. I mean the expenses were a little bit out of the ordinary and it was really questioned. Don't tell Nancy I told you this. [Nancy Floyd is another FBI Special Agent who worked with Emad A. Salem in his informant capacity.]FBI undercover agent Emad A. Salem: Well, I have to tell her of course.Anticev: Well then, if you have to, you have to.Salem: Yeah, I mean because the lady was being honest and I was being honest and everything was submitted with a receipt and now it's questionable.Anticev: It's not questionable, it's like a little out of the ordinary.Salem: Okay. Alright. I don't think it was. If that's what you think guys, fine, but I don't think that because we was start already building the bomb which is went off in the World Trade Center. It was built by supervising supervision from the Bureau and the D.A. and we was all informed about it and we know that the bomb start to be built. By who? By your confidential informant. What a wonderful, great case!Anticev: Well.Salem: And then he put his head in the sand and said "Oh, no, no, that's not true, he is son of a bitch." [Deep breath.] Okay. It's built with a different way in another place and that's it.Anticev: No, don't make any rash decisions. I'm just trying to be as honest with you as I can.Salem: Of course, I appreciate that.Anticev: And as far as the payments go, and everything like that, they're there. I guarantee you that they are there.(Link has mp3 audio)

Whoa. Nobody quite said that. Thinking of doing something crazy and actually doing it are separate things. That is the point of RWs comment. As Rational Wiki pointed out. The fact that somebody thought this up and presented it is not all that great an example because the civilians in charge dismissed the operation as ridiculous. That is what Rational Wiki said. I note that RW discussed a number of other operations used by conspiracy theorists.If you want to demonstrate that some particular 9/11 conspiracy theory is not irrational, IMO Operation Northwoods is not much help. You ought instead to be talking about false flag operations that killed lots of Americans that were actually carried out. I'm not really surprised when a bunch of hawkish generals and admirals need to be reeled in. I want to hear about cases where the president and the secretary of defense went ahead and carried out some stuff.

But just because it can be demonstrated that the US government have entertained the possibilities of implementing False Flag operations does not mean that they de will implement them necessarily. That's theoretical.Therefore, the only thing that matters is what the evidence can demonstrate, and it is strongly not in favor of the conspiracy theorists. The CIA has devised many strategies since it's inception, and 95% of what they entertain is probably scrapped. I mean, we could just as easily uncover KGB documents that are designed to frame the CIA of implementing a False Flag operation. Either way it is all hearsay until you analyze the evidence.But I do agree with you that it would be naive to assume that the US government could never be so malevolent to actually implement a False Flag attack simply to drum up support for an otherwise unpopular campaign. I think if they really believed that it would work, and that the world would be none the wiser, they would devise a False Flag attack if the benefit outweighed the risk in their minds.

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Therefore, the only thing that matters is what the evidence can demonstrate, and it is strongly not in favor of the conspiracy theorists. The CIA has devised many strategies since it's inception, and 95% of what they entertain is probably scrapped. I mean, we could just as easily uncover KGB documents that are designed to frame the CIA of implementing a False Flag operation. Either way it is all hearsay until you analyze the evidence.

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There was a book that came out roughly 2 years ago called something like Disinformation and it had a forward written by James Woolsey (the last CIA director under H.W. Bush and the first under Clinton. He resigned under Clinton because he said they had "no relationship" when asked if they had a "bad relationship"). Two authors were from World Net Daily and they made the rounds to promote the book (I remember they were interviewed by George Noorey on Coast to Coast around September 2013). Oliver North also made the rounds to promote the book. North, on a conservative radio show, said that Snowden could be killed by the Russians but they would kill him in a way to make it look like the USA did it. North said either he saw (I can't remember what exactly he said) or he knows CIA people (Woolsey?) who saw documents showing that Russians knew the exact date of the 9/11/01 attack as far back as 1992. The exact day! I haven't read the book but I remember the author were telling Noorey that the Russians had lots of intel agents involved in Afghanistan and that there is a lot of evidence people havn't seen which indicates Russia was behind 9/11. But the main thrust of the book is that the Russians have a ton of agents in the USA and they promote all sorts of "conspiracy theories" to confuse the American public into thinking that the USA commits "inside job" assassinations and terrorist attacks against them. There are radio ads the government runs warning Americans what to do if approached by foreign agents trying to recruit them into being agents. I heard a radio ad warning Americans that (something like) "There are more Russian agents over here now than there were during the Cold War". I have yet to hear anybody comment on the ads but I sure as day heard them in the middle of commercials.