"Now you're only playing games..."
No, no games....
"I'm questioning the entire article..."
OK.
"you're suggesting the Federal government is running a drug ring and was somehow connected to atta being in the U.S."
Finally! Something approaching a direct question!
Points:
1) I'm not 'suggesting' anything. (As I made clear in my post, the 'Protected Operation' thing was an ALLEGATION only.)
2) The author though, certainly appears to strongly suggest that Wally Hilliard was running some kind of a 'protected' operation.
"What credible evidence do you have for that absurd idea?"
I have no evidence for anything. (Never even been to Venice Florida). However, the author strings together a set of known facts to argue his (admittedly: circumstantial only) case:
As I understand his argument, I see him suggesting that it's pretty remarkable that the owner of a charter operation, with such a major heroin smuggling conviction, would escape without criminal sanctions.
(Not directly mentioned in this article, but other publications have referred to it), it also seems that --- under one or another of 'Huffman Aviation''s revolving names (Florida Air, Sunrise Airlines, Discover Air, Huffman, Plane 1 Leasing, etc., etc.) the *exact same airplanes* have done more then a little bit of government charters to nebulous government 'agencies and or affiliates' in the recent past.... (Not to get conspiratorial or anything on you... but perhaps you will recall that George Bush's public resume includes a short stint in Florida in the 'seventies working for a --- perhaps similiar, perhaps not --- 'private air charter' business that putatively was in the 'flower importing business' from South America... and that also had quite a number of government charters, in the post-Air America period. After all: people gotta get where they need to go, and that includes people in the government too, who might have important reasons to prefer private charters. Enough of that side trip through history though... back to the present and the article we are discussing):
All CASH charters from Venezuela (39 weeks in a row... employing the chief pilot of Venezuela’s “Air Force One”, Diego Levine Texar, according to arrest reports :), the last one of which (that we know of) bringingt in 43 pounds of heroin certainly would be expected to attract an EXCEPTIONAL AMOUNT of investigatory attention... considering that the outfit did not even have the FAA required air carrier certificate.... :)
[Court documents revealed that Hilliard’s leasing company, Plane 1 Leasing, had been paid in cash for each charter by the two Latin passengers, which aviation experts in South Florida said strains credulity. ...The court concluded Hilliard’s company knew what was going on. Affidavits later filed by the machine-gun toting DEA agents who had surrounded the Lear jet indicated Hilliard’s company’s involvement went much deeper than anyone was willing to acknowledge publicly.]
The FACT that some of the 9-11 terrorists also schooled at this precise same flight school, in the same time frame as it is known the heroin smuggling was ongoing... including Osama bin Laden associate Mohamed Atta, arriving directly from Afghanistan, has to at least raise a normal persons suspicions, I would think.
I mean, after all... what are the odds??????? (Like I said at the beginning: admittedly it's *circumstantial* information only....)
ALSO publically known though, is that FBI whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds, in the months after the 9-11 attack, bumped into some sort of evidence connecting terrorism and drugs. She so testified before the 9-11 Commission.
[Edmonds alleged that the US State Department blocked investigations showing links between criminal drug trafficking networks and the terror attacks on 9/11. "Certain investigations were being quashed, let's say per State Department's request, because it would have affected certain foreign relations [or] affected certain business relations with foreign organizations," she stated.]
Tenuous? Certainly.
Now... to go from this: “FBI Knew Terrorists Were Using Flight Schools” the Washington Post reported on Sept 23, 2001. “Federal authorities have been aware for years that suspected terrorists with ties to Osama bin Laden were receiving flight training at schools in the United States and abroad, according to interviews and court testimony.”
To this: "How do you think the FBI got here (Huffman Aviation) so fast after the attack?" asked the executive. "They knew what was going on here. Hell, they were parked in a white van outside my house less than four hours after the buildings collapsed." "We heard that 16 of the 19 terrorists had been on Interpol's Most Wanted list," this aviation executive continued. "But early on I gleaned that these guys had Government protection. They were let into this country for a specific purpose. It was a business deal."
IS SPECULATION, not known fact, (as I'm sure you'll agree), but, even there, the muck-raking Web journalist is quoting from the statement of a former employee of the Rudy Deckker / Wally Hilliard charter & flight school operation... not just making an allegation himself.
The circumstances surrounding this operation are --- at very least --- rather fabulous and out-of-the-ordinary, and... at least sometimes, where there is 'smoke' there is found a source of ignition.
Eh?
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