Investigation of Flight 93 Explosion May Lead to Sources in Bay City
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"Not only do we have a right to know, we have a duty to know what our Government is doing in our name...If there's a criticsm to be made today, it's that the press isn't doing enough to put the pressure on the government to provide information."Walter Cronkite - On the 3-28-02 Media Matters Show on PBS.
"They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety". - Ben Franklin
On September 11, 2001, the day of the 9/11 attacks, I was at one of many civic meetings I regularly attend.
Seated next to me was a friendly sort of man who had a shocking tale to tell: he had been talking on a cell phone with his friend who was driving on a Pennsylvania highway as United Airlines Flight 93 came down.
The horrific incident had occurred just that morning so there was an air of great excitement in the conversation as my companion recounted the eyewitness report.
The friend who was drivingclaims the plane came so close to the highway he could see what apparently was a hijacker in the cockpit; the pilot obviously wasn't a typical United Airlines pilot, he said. The hijacker may have had a cloth headband or turban, according to the report.
The upshot of the story was that the eyewitness driving on the expressway saw a sight that startled him more than anything else: two F-16 fighters flying very close to the airliner.
He did not know what happened after that brief sighting, but he knew the military aircraft were obviously tracking the airliner that soon went down.
The world quickly heard the dramatic story of how a courageous group of passengers determined to assault the hijackers. They were galvanized with the undying cry, "Let's Roll." They have rightly been lionized in public perception for their heroism. We all know the tragic story of how the plane went down with the loss of all passengers. We want to accept the government's story that the hijackers took the plane on its final fatal dive under their own twisted volition.
I put the table talk out of my mind, believing perhaps naively that if there was anything more we should know about the eyewitness report of the F-16s we would certainly be informed by the government.
It's been three years since that fateful Tuesday morning of Sept. 11, 2001. The emotions of the nation have been on a rollercoaster ever since. Congressional and special committees are still poringover myriad reports and mounds of testimony. But never, until Sunday, Sept. 12, 2004, have I heard any official report or even a news report that spoke to the fate of Flight 93 other than the original version: the hijackers crashed the plane.
The FBI reportedly has been investigating the Flight 93 crash. There are numerous allegations that the plane blew up before it crashed, that the tail came off, that debris was uncharacteristically scattered over many miles of Pennsylvania countryside. There are websites and discussion groups about the incident that can be accessed by simply putting "Flight 93" into the browser. You can spend hours, and days, weighing the information and agonizing over the horrendous implications of the reports.
On Sunday a letter to the editor appeared in The Bay City Times in which the writer claims to know the F-16 pilot who says he shot down Flight 93 with a Sidewinder missile. The pilot reportedly says he was acting under orders.
Theletter writer, Clifford Saladine, of Bay City, a retired Delta College television technician, concluded his letter: "It is about time the citizens of this country are told the truth of what is going on..." I agree totally with Mr. Saladine, who must be commended for his courage and patriotism. There are those today who would question his right to discuss the matter, even though it is a Constitutional right of free expression.
Eventually the truth will emerge. Oh, unfortunately it will be obscured in a melange of claims and counter-claims, of government obfuscation, of political machinations. But one thing must be constant if our democratic republican form of government is to survive -- the truth must be paramount.
The truth needs to come out in honor of the memory of those heroic passengers who gave their lives in a futile effort. The cause and the spirit of freedom of this nation demands it.###
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