Monday, August 21, 2006

What Are They Accusing Him Of?

In Loose Change: The Second Lame Attempt at the Truth (abbreviated LC:2LAatT) Dylan and Co. make the following statement about American Airlines pilot Charles Burlingame:

October 24th, 2000.
The Pentagon conducts the first of two training exercises called MASCAL, which simulate a Boeing 757 crashing into the building. Charles Burlingame, an ex-Navy F4 pilot who worked in the Pentagon, Participates in this exercise before retiring to take a job at American Airlines, where, less than a year later, his Boeing 757 allegedly crashes into the building.

In the viewer's guide, and also on here, we point out that Burlingame actually started flying for American in 1979. He eventually retired from the reserves in 1996, four years before Dylan says he participated in this exercise.

Well in "Loose Change: We change those items we didn't want the readers to look up to check themselves" the story changes a bit.

October 24th, 2000
The Pentagon conducts the first of two training exercises called MASCAL, which simulate a Boeing 757 crashing into the building. Charles Burlingame, an ex-Navy F4 pilot who worked in the Pentagon for 17 years, participates in an earlier version of this exercise in 1989 before retiring to take a job at American Airlines, where 12 years later his Boeing 757 allegedly crashes into the Pentagon.












OK, well they are still wrong with his retirement date, but at least they are a little closer. The major question to ask though, is so what? MASCAL, as the name implies is short for Mass Casualty. It is not an exercise to work out the details of an attack, it is an exercise to test the response to an event which causes more casualties than the normal medical channels are prepared to handle. The website the Loosers cite even explains this, mirrored here.


An Army medic found the practice realistic.

"You get to see the people that we'll be dealing with and to think about the scenarios and what you would do," Sgt. Kelly Brown said. "It's a real good scenario and one that could happen easily."

A major player in the exercise was the Arlington Fire Department. "Our role is fire and rescue," Battalion Chief R.W. Cornwell said. "We get to see how each other operates and the roles and responsibilities of each. You have to plan for this. Look at all the air traffic around here."

Each participant was required to fill out an evaluation form after the training exercise.

"We go over scenarios that are germane to the Pentagon," Jake Burrell of the Pentagon Emergency Management Team said. 'You play the way you practice. We want people to go back to their organizations and look at their S.O.P. (standard operating procedure) and see how they responded to any of the incidents."

These exercises are hardly limited to the Pentagon. Here is an article about one taking place in Bosnia.


Camp Butmir - The helicopter could be seen coming in to land. Then something went terribly wrong, the tail end went up in the air and then the whole thing came crashing down.

Once the smoke cleared and the dust settled, passers-by could see bodies strewn about the ground on the outside of the helicopter and screams of pain and agony could be heard coming from inside the wreckage.Within minutes, sirens of emergency vehicles could be heard approaching the scene to rescue the victims.

Fortunately, the scene was not a real one, but a Mass Casualty (MASCAL) Exercise that was part of Adventure Express/Dynamic Response, an exercise that involved troops all over BiH. Soldiers and medical teams from all three multinational divisions
(MNDs) in BiH came together on May 3 to take part in this necessary training.
This is another one of those "sinister assertions", where they list events only remotely connected, along with some creepy sounding music in order to imply some sinister, although completely unexplained force is at work.

So what exactly are they accusing Burlingame of doing? Participating in an exercise which might end up saving the lives of US servicemen? The horror...

20 Comments:

At 21 August, 2006 21:28, Blogger The Artistic Macrophage said...

If there link between 9/11 and that MASCAL exercise is Burlingame, and they are inferring that hence, he was part of the conspiracy, doesn't he seem a little low level to be in on it. I mean the CTers claim only a few higher ups had knowledge or were directly involved in the planning...oh no wait, they also think the NYFD were involved, and, oh ya, they we were all involved...what am I saying...

 
At 21 August, 2006 21:47, Blogger Pat said...

But--but--he was the pilot! On the plane! That didn't crash into the Pentagon!

 
At 21 August, 2006 22:06, Blogger James B. said...

I would imagine something different, but I don't know. I have never seen a source for this claim. Maybe it is one of those fake items which is in there to encourage us to do our own research?

 
At 21 August, 2006 22:15, Blogger nes718 said...

The major question to ask though, is so what?

Guys, get a clue! Your government told you this "attack" was a big surprise that no one saw coming, yet the plane crashing into the Pentagon scenario was well known for there to actually be a drill for it. Don't you think they would have also figured how to STOP a plane from hitting? Are you guys really that clueless or is your military really that incompetent?

 
At 21 August, 2006 22:20, Blogger James B. said...

MASCAL was not simulating an attack genius, it was an accidental plane crash. That would not be unthinkable given the Pentagon is a absolutely huge building and located less than 2 miles away from Reagan National Airport.

 
At 21 August, 2006 22:40, Blogger Alex said...

We've also got exercises simulating attacks on a harbour, attacks on a power plant, a hostage taking at a major corporate building, a hostage scenario at a university, IED makers in residential areas, suicide bombers operating out of ghettoes, etc, etc, etc. That's rather the point of military exercises Einstein: we try to imagine plausable scenarios, and then practice responding to them. However, the main goal of most exercises isn't to develop an SOP for responding to any one possible situation; rather it's to practice critical skills such as communication, logistics, organization, and the ability to adapt. Only an utter moron could convince himself that, because the military at some point in the past created a training scenario involving an aicraft crashing into a building, that this is somehow proof positive that the government pulled off 9/11. The lack of critical thinking skills required to draw such a conclusion would normaly suggest to me that NOBODY would be dumb enough to even attempt to connect the two events. Yet you nonsync, when it comes to showcasing the extremes of stupidity which human beings can achieve, never fail to deliver.

 
At 21 August, 2006 22:45, Blogger nes718 said...

MASCAL was not simulating an attack genius, it was an accidental plane crash. That would not be unthinkable given the Pentagon is a absolutely huge building and located less than 2 miles away from Reagan National Airport.

Damn, you stepped right into that one. So you’re saying your military didn't expect the Pentagon to be attacked with a plane correct? So you're inferring they are incompetent because they didn't cover all their bases. Is our military really that unprepared? DC is restricted airspace, how do they enforce that, wishful thinking? Ha!

 
At 21 August, 2006 22:49, Blogger nes718 said...

Only an utter moron could convince himself that, because the military at some point in the past created a training scenario involving an aicraft crashing into a building, that this is somehow proof positive that the government pulled off 9/11.

You're the one drawing the conclusion here. The likelihood that no plans were in place for a hostile aircraft entering DC RESTRICTED airspace is NIL. How you guys whine and make so many excuses is beyond embarrassing. Face it; you were lied to, end of story.

 
At 21 August, 2006 22:54, Blogger Alex said...

The likelihood that no plans were in place for a hostile aircraft entering DC RESTRICTED airspace is NIL.

Aicraft on standby take a minimum of 10 minutes to launch. Then you've got the time required to actually figure out that a plane is off track, then figure out exactly where it's going, and then give the order for them to launch. Do you have ANY idea how much work, and how much TIME, it takes to do all that? Obviously not, otherwise you wouldn't be spewing such garbage. Keep in mind that there have been several incidents before 9/11 involving small aircraft and the white house. Aircraft entering "controlled space" is nothing unusual. Untill 9/11, entering controlled space simply meant you'd be arrested when you finaly got around to landing. There was certainly no SOP for shooting down such aircraft. No matter how many times we explain it to you, you seem incapable of grasping the simple concept that pre-9/11, the only aircraft considered hostile were the ones OUTSIDE the borders of the US.

 
At 21 August, 2006 23:09, Blogger Alex said...

Well to be fair, it was SOP to intercept airliners outside US soil which were behaving unusualy, just on the off chance that a foreign government (or some foreign group) was using them for...whatever. There was no such plan in place for airliners inside north american airspace however. It had simply never occured to anyone that terrorists may attempt, and succeed, to hijack domestic flights and use them as weapons. Which may very well be why the 9/11 hijackers all used domestic airliners. They realized it was the one major weakness in our air-defence planning.

 
At 21 August, 2006 23:41, Blogger nes718 said...

There was no such plan in place for airliners inside north american airspace

That you know of. Wouldn't all the be classified anyway?

But again, why is the obvious so difficult for you people to understand? By the time the Pentagon was hit, two building in NYC were up in smoke via planes! There was enough time to strike down anything that threatened DC airspace, PERIOD!

 
At 21 August, 2006 23:59, Blogger Alex said...

Wouldn't all the be classified anyway?

no.

By the time the Pentagon was hit, two building in NYC were up in smoke via planes! There was enough time to strike down anything that threatened DC airspace, PERIOD!

Once again, you'd have to be pretty ignorant of how these things work in order to make such a statement. Maybe if you were Allah you could reach out your hand and strike down any airliner over US airspace. Meanwhile, us puny mortals have a much harder time with that sort of stuff.

And anyway, even if we assume you're right (which you're most deffinitely not), what difference would it make? If they had shot down flight 77, you'd find a way to work that into your conspiracy theory also. No matter what the government did or failed to do, you'll always find a way to blame it on the CIA and Da Joooos.

 
At 22 August, 2006 00:19, Blogger Unknown said...

MASCAL's are just exercises to prepare for events which can cause massive casualties. "How" it happens isn't as important as how it's taken care of. MASCAL's are used to develop triage skills for medical personal as well as first responders. I was part of several MASCAL's in the Army. We did it all from nuclear weapons to anthrax. By Nessies logic we should be getting nuked any day now....

Plus how is the airspace above and around the Pentagon restricted when there is a airport 2 miles away? Flights regularly go by the Pentagon. As mentioned before there are no static defenses at the Pentagon so it along with basically the rest of the country has to rely on aircraft. We have already talked about how long it takes so why the confusion? All your doing is kicking the military while its down nessie. They weren't fast enough for your "standards" so it must be a conspiracy. But on the flip side they were fast enough to take out 93? So which is it? Did the governemt do everything they could including shoot down 93? Or did they "stand down?" Or did they go half and half for some stupid reason? Plus I thought it was a cruise missile and the passengers weren't real. Care to explain? My bad I forgot that it was really a super secret modified Javelin that plants aircraft parts. Gosh, this grunt can't seem to keep up with you nessie!

 
At 22 August, 2006 05:18, Blogger shawn said...

But again, why is the obvious so difficult for you people to understand?

Nesnyc you can't even understand basic history, so I don't know why you'd attack anyone else for not "understanding" something.

 
At 22 August, 2006 06:05, Blogger Chad said...

I'm starting to lean towards the idea that NESYNC is just trying to wind everyone up. It cannot be possible that someone could be so stupid, gullible and paranoid.

You must be new here Homer. :)

 
At 22 August, 2006 08:18, Blogger The Artistic Macrophage said...

Having participated in the civilian equivalent to the MASCAL (Massive Casualties) exercise, and been the team leader, I can attest to the lack of concern one has with the actual event from a causative perspective.

MASCAL is all about response time, and triage. TRIAGE, from my perspective, was the most important. When 30 people hit your ER, some on stretchers, some on their own feet, and some in pieces, you have to determine who gets treatment first.

Triage in this setting, will often take two forms...(1) Triage of who is salavagable, and who isnt, (2) Triage who is in the most life threatening state, and who is less so. Someone who has their brains blown out, but is clinicly "alive" may be the most critical, but is nowhere near as salvagable as someone who has a ruptured spleen. The ruptured spleen will likely be fatal with out prompt treatment, but once removed, the persons chances of recovery are good, where as no matter what you do for the "Brains gone" patient, he will at most be a vegetable...but I really digress.

The point is, those running MASCAL drills, for the most part, could care less of the details of the cause, or who caused, the event...

 
At 22 August, 2006 20:51, Blogger shawn said...

Ths sad thing is is thst Michael Moore gets lumped in with these lunatics.

Err a guy who uses selective evidence and half-truths being lumped in with Dylan Avery? Well, I never.

It's fine for the guy to have an agenda, but he (like Dylan) shouldn't pass what he makes off as documentaries, they're op-eds.

 
At 23 August, 2006 06:47, Blogger nes718 said...

If they had shot down flight 77, you'd find a way to work that into your conspiracy theory also. No matter what the government did or failed to do, you'll always find a way to blame it on the CIA and Da Joooos.

It would be that much harder to believe that the government (ZOG) was involved in 9/11 if they had legitimately attempted to stop anyone of the "hijacked" aircraft. The chances of them missing the "plane" that hit the Pentagon are also NIL. Someone made the call to let that happen. That's the ONLY conclusion we can come up with based on the evidence. Everything else your media and military are telling you is a bold faced LIE!

 
At 23 August, 2006 08:24, Blogger shawn said...

Nesnyc, isn't it odd your entire worldview has no evidence for it? Don't you ever question that?

His icon is so fitting. I can imagine the real Mahmoud spouting the same unsupported hate propaganda.

 
At 23 August, 2006 08:29, Blogger Alex said...

The chances of them missing the "plane" that hit the Pentagon are also NIL. Someone made the call to let that happen. That's the ONLY conclusion we can come up with based on the evidence.

WHAT fucking evidence??? It's just been explained to you that DC was NOT restricted airspace. It's also been explained to you that even had it been restricted this would in no way have automaticaly led to a fighter intercept. AND it's been explained to you that even fighters on standby would have had a tough time intercepting flight 77 given the timeline that was reported for it. So WHAT fucking evidence supports your crazy-ass theory? Come on! Give me a complete theory here instead of making up shit about "restricted airspace" and "classified information". Let's hear it!

 

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