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Not since nearly 50 years ago when the CIA tried to pass off
a man shown in two black and white photographs taken outside
the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City as Lee Harvey Oswald, has
the truth been so openly and casually violated as during the
ferocious campaign to roll back some of what was already
known and on the public record about Mohamed Atta in the
aftermath of the 9/11 attack.

At one point a man even came forward
to insist
he, not Mohamed Atta, lived with Amanda Keller at the Sandpiper Apartments in
Venice.
Well over six feet tall (Atta was 5'10) he looked far more
like a young Jean Paul Belmondo than the dark glowering
visage of Atta’s described by eyewitnesses.
In fact, the man, who avers Amanda
Keller mistook him for Mohamed Atta, looks as if he might be
hard-pressed to glower his way out of a paper bag.
No
matter. The
idea was a trial balloon, one of many sent up. The
idea seemed to be that if you
throw enough mud on the
wall some of it will stick.
In more innocent times,
this may have even been true.
But the after-image
burned behind a billion eyeballs of bodies hurtling out of
100th story windows to escape encroaching flames insured the
effort was not just unsuccessful, but was never even taken
seriously.
The Persistence of Memory
The revelation last
week that a key eyewitness to the activities in Florida of
the 9/11 hijackers never changed his story about Mohamed
Atta being drunk and belligerent in his bar four days before
the 9/11 attack raised new questions about major news media
coverage after the attack.

When
former Shuckum's bar manager Tony Amos re-affirmed his
initial account in an interview last week with the Miami
Herald, it became strikingly apparent that, with no
explanation at all, and without any retraction from him or
the major news outlets which reported his account, the
quickly-congealing official story had changed Mohamed Atta
from a belligerent drunkpounding down Stoli and orange juice
to a
meek teetotaler sipping cranberry juice and playing video
games.
There
are only two possible explanations for the discrepancy.
Neither
reflect well on the state of America’s vaunted free press.
Either Amos was coerced
by the FBI into retracting his initial account ten years
ago, and now feels free to once again state what he saw...
Or news reports
about the "Shuckum's incident" that were changed without explanation, most notably
those of Los Angeles Times reporter
Terry McDermott, invented new quotes from Tony Amos to fit someone's pre-determined
narrative.
How
could a detailed and corroborated statement which
was reported in NEWSWEEK, TIME the Washington Post, and by
the Associated Press have disappeared into thin air and
cranberry juice less than a week later?
The spotlight is
now swiveling from the credibility of the FBI’s official
story of the terrorist’s movements and activities in
Florida, long questioned in this space, onto the pasty
acquiescent faces of certain reporters and the plausibility,
truthfulness and integrity of their reporting.
Allegations made
here of a massive FBI cover-up in Florida are being
confirmed.
Amanda Keller & Mohamed Atta... Undercover lovers, or not?
Tony Amos
wasn't the only eye-witness to leave town after undergoing
grueling questioning by the FBI on three or four separate
occasions... Amanda Keller, who for several months was
Mohamed Atta’s American girlfriend, experienced the same
treatment.
It is time to take
a closer look at the brief article in the Sarasota
Herald-Tribune on the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attack,
headlined “LOVER: Amanda Keller”
which claimed she had recanted her story, and a closer look
as well at the newspaper itself, whose credibility must now
be questioned.
The implausibility
and lack of credence a reader can give reporter Heather
Allen's Sept 10, 2006 story is established in just the story’s
opening sentence and subhead, a quote purportedly from Keller: “It
was my bad. I really didn’t think about it until after I did
it.”
In all of the
put-downs, defamation and calumny poured by the official
story’s amen corner on the Internet onto the story of
Mohamed Atta’s erstwhile girlfriend Amanda Keller, never
once has a plausible explanation even been offered to
answer, should they be right, the big unanswered question
that would then be on everyone’s lips:
Why in the world
would anyone claim to have been the girlfriend of the most
reviled man on the face of planet Earth?
The only answer is
“publicity.”
No Motive. No explanation. Just... "My bad."
Yet no one—not even
debunkers like the Amazing Randi or the folks at Screw Loose
Change et al—has ever claimed Keller was looking for
publicity, because it is demonstrably not true.
Keller fled Venice as
soon as the FBI was done with her. Her last verified quote
to reporters was “I can’t really say anything. I’m afraid
I’ll get in trouble.”
And when we finally found
her more than a year later, here is how she felt when she
learned that her apartment manager had told reporters about
her fling with Atta:
"When I saw Charlie
(Grapentine) talking in the newspaper I knew they were going
to jump all over him. I thought, "Charlie, no! Can't you
just wait?"'
The article completely
fails the first burden of proof for a story claiming to
disprove that she was Mohamed Atta’s girlfriend—supplying
a motive. It offers no explanation at
all for Keller's actions.
If Keller didn't offer the Sarasota
Herald Tribune an explanation, and they didn't ask, we must
now question whether the newspaper ever even spoke with her.
But t hat’s
not the most grievous fault in the brief little
article.
Blaming it on the "conspiracy theorists"
That's in the story’s
disingenuous opening line, carefully crafted to be
misleading while avoiding being an out-and-out lie.
"For five years Amanda Keller has been
portrayed by conspiracy theorists as Mohamed Atta's lover."
It
wasn't "conspiracy theorists" (read: Daniel Hopsicker) who
first broke the story
about Mohamed Atta's American squeeze. That honor belongs to
Heather Allen's own Sarasota Herald
Tribune, as well as several
other local newspapers, notably the Charlotte Sun.
Reporter Allen had
only to search her own computer to see these stories.
The paper would
like to suggest that the notion that Amanda Keller lived
with Mohamed Atta had sprung full-blown out of the mind of
someone with eyes
spinning like pinwheels as he claims contact with
extraterrestrials.
But, of course,
the paper can't say that. That would be wrong.
So the Sarasota
Herald-Tribune merely deliberately
conceals from its readers the fact that the paper itself was
the first source of the report, and that all the "conspiracy
theorists" did was keep it from falling into that "memory
hole" where inconvenient information goes to die.
It turns out
Heather Allen's heady foray into international obfuscation
was not the first on this particular story by a reporter for
the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. More on that shortly...
From the Sept 14th
Charlotte Sun:
"Paula Grapentine
immediately recognized the face of a suspected terrorist who
may have trained for the World Trade Center attack at
Huffman Aviation in Venice. He was her next-door neighbor.
Postal carrier Neil Patton also recollects the names and
faces of Mohamed Atta, 33, and Marwan Al-Shehhi, 23, and
four other Middle Eastern flight school students. They lived
at the Sandpiper apartments in Venice until earlier this
year."
That same day the
Charlotte Sun ran a second story by
Elaine Allen-Emrich, based on an interview with Tony and
Vonnie Laconca of nearby Northport, who had rented a place
to a man named Mohamed "who was training at Huffman
Aviation, was 5'10" tall, and had perfect dark skin."
"Mohamed was associated with a local woman believed to be Amanda
Keller, a local restaurant manager, (Tony) LaConca said... "Mohamed
bailed her out of South County Jail," Vonnie LaConca said.... After
meeting Mohamed and Keller on Feb. 21, (another young woman) joined
the couple on an adventure to Key West the following day.
"Two men from Germany"
"They were gone for three days," said Tony LaConca. "They didn't sleep
-- it
was a continuous party."
LaConca said Mohamed footed the entire bill for the weekend including
buying Keller and the unnamed employee new clothes, alcohol, & drugs...
"The two girls were introduced to two men from Germany
that they said were Mohamed's friends," Tony LaConca
continued. "I thought it was strange, because Mohamed
didn't appear to be French-Canadian or German."
Reporter Emrich was probably wondering the same thing we
were... Who were the two mysterious German men?
She
called the FBI in Tampa.
"The FBI in Tampa would neither confirm nor deny that
any agents were interviewing people in the North Port
area," Charlotte Sun reporter Elaine Allen-Emrich wrote.
Exemplifiying the news blackout which
has prevailed from that day to this, she wrote:
"Asked for more information about Atta's wild weekend,
an FBI spokesperson identified only as Pam stated “We
recommend that you check in with CNN for current
information. Any press statements can be found on
televised stations like CNN.”
As opposed, we
presume, to untelevised stations.
The Sandpiper Apartment Skeleton Key
After the number of
terrorists believed to have trained in Venice rose to three
several days later, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune took note,
in a story headlined FBI
links 3rd terrorist to Venice.
“Detectives also
suspect Atta lived for several months in rural Charlotte
County before moving to Venice, Sheriff Bill Clement said at
a news conference Tuesday.
Clement said the
Sheriff’s Office has forwarded several tips to the FBI about
Atta, who used an alias in Charlotte County.
By September 22nd,
the
paper was beside itself. The fingers counting terrorists had
used up almost one whole hand already! And there was no end
in sight! Still, they gamely announced the figure they were
up to... right in the headline: (4th
Terrorist Suspect May Have Ties to Venice )
It turned out Hamburg
co-conspirator Ramzi Bin Alshibh
had also wanted
to come to Venice. (He didn’t. His visa request was
denied, it was later learned.)
“Atta patronized
local bars and businesses. He told the
manager of the Outlook bar he was from Germany and came to
Venice to learn to fly. Atta and several friends were
regulars at a Venice bar (at the Venice Airport) called the
44th Aero Squadron.”
“I never had any
problem with them,” said owner Ken Schortzmann. “He had a
fanny pack with a fat roll of cash in it.”
Remember the fanny
pack. It will come up again.
“A dancer at the
Cheetah Lounge (in Sarasota) also reported seeing one of the
alleged terrorists at the strip club… A club manager
escorted a Herald reporter out of the club shortly
afterward, saying the Cheetah had no comment.”
Now we hear what
will soon become the official story.
“Huffman flight
instructors have said they believe Atta left the area
shortly after receiving his pilot’s certification.”
But Sarasota
Herald-Tribune reporter Earle Kimel had already noted a
discrepancy.
“However, Atta may
have been in Venice as recently as April. Charles
Grapentine, the manager of Sandpiper Apartments on Airport
Avenue in Venice, said he remembers seeing Atta at the
complex for about three weeks in April.
“He said Atta was
living in the apartment of Amanda Keller.”
It was just two days
after the attack.
A frosty response from the boys in Florsheim shoes
The story went on
to recount
making contact with Amanda Keller, who had already fled 160 miles
north to her mother’s house in Lady Lake, FL.
“Keller said she
met Atta through a friend and let him stay in her apartment
with her and her then-boyfriend because she felt sorry for
him. She said authorities told her not to say anything at
all about Atta.”
Then she spoke her
final words, until we found her over a year later. “I cant’ really
discuss anything,” she said. “I’m afraid I’ll get in
trouble.”
We later
interviewed Sandpiper apartment
manager Charley Grapentine, a grizzled ex-Marine, with
tattooed forearms. Remember Atta’s fanny pack?
“Atta always
carried a fanny pack around his waist,”
Grapentine told us, “I remember Amanda once
telling him that she needed some new clothes, and he reached
in and peeled off a few hundreds from a thick roll of cash
he had stuffed inside the fanny pack.”
The FBI did not
receive apartment manager Charley Grapentine’s recollections
kindly. Their response, says Grapentine, was positively
frosty, especially on the subject of talking to reporters.
“They called me a
liar, and told me to keep my mouth shut,” stated the
ex-marine grimly. “Nobody likes to hear that; that they
didn’t see something they know they saw.”
Wolf cookies strewn across the landscape of the American
mind
Even
before Heather Allen weighed in, another reporter from the
Sarasota Herald-Tribune had been caught selling wolf cookies
to the Great Unwashed about Amanda Keller.
Reporter Chris Grierauthored
the Herald-Tribune's first attempt to discredit Amanda
Keller, by literally camped out on her mother's doorstep until
being
ordered to leave by a momentarily-merciful FBI Agent.
Later, a source at the paper, requesting
either anonymity or a bullet-proof Kevlar vest able to repel
rocket-launched grenades, told us Grier was fired for
spying on other reporters in the newsroom and rifling
through the paper's databases....Shazaam!
But well before leaving he had launched his
very own
trial balloon, an unconvincing attempt to break the
connection between Atta and Amanda bearing the headline
5th Terrorist Pilot Vanishes.
“A reporter named
Chris...young, tall, kind of heavy, dark hair and a dark
goatee, came to my Mom’s house," Keller explained. "He was
mad because I wouldn’t talk to him."
"The Chris dude, his dark goatee, and everything."
"This dude would NOT
leave me alone!" 
Said Amanda, "I stood outside arguing with him forever,
and he was trying to trip me up, to get me to say something,
and I said, I don’t know what the hell you’re trying to do,
but it isn’t going to work.”
“So I called the
FBI agent that had been talking to me, right while this
reporter guy was standing there, and told him, this guy
won't leave me alone. And the FBI agent said let me talk to
him, and I handed him the phone, and I don’t know what was
said, but after that he left.”
From this
paparazzi-like sortie into 9/11 witness harassment, Grier
spun a fanciful tale. He was a
Terry McDermott-in-training, or on training wheels, but was
unfortunately tripping
over himself the whole time. Grier wrote: "In an interview
at her mother's house, Keller wouldn't talk about the man
who stayed on her couch."
That was okay, but, moments later,
Grier was inspired to write something else, which became his
downfall. About this
girl who wouldn't talk, he wrote that she "said that comments
attributed to her in the Herald-Tribune on Saturday were
wrong."
You see the problem. This isn't brain
surgery. We could almost hear faint voices all the way from
Wahington, exclaiming "Thank God we've got Terry McDermott!"
"Unconcerned with trifling concerns, like plausibility"
Grier's
"fifth pilot" fantasy, while totally implausible,
was vastly more
entertaining than anything ever written by boring old "Three
yards and a cloud of dust" Terry McD.
From that day until this,
in all of the in-depth news accounts about the Hamburg
cadre’s key members, Grier's "5th Pilot" has never been mentioned
again.
Grier's "Fifth Pilot" was an Everyman Terrorist,
an Unknown
Terrorist, whose name will be forever a mystery, cause,
it's, like, Unknown. Like, kind of, some kind of Ghost
Terrorist.
He was Mohamed LNU (Last Name Unknown.) The record of
his existence consisted entirely of Grier's speculation in
the Sarasota Herald-Tribune about him staying with Amanda.
He was The Terrorist Who
Was Not There. In his own way, he was a pure thing.
There will never be a
follow-up story about him published anywhere.
There will never a
headline reading “Fifth Pilot Finally Identified.”
And there are no innocent
explanations for this. Make of it what you will.
When Seal Team 6
choppered into Osama Bin Laden's compound in Pakistan,
interpreters may have appeared uninterested in whether
Grier's 5th Pilot had
been seen in the vicinity.
But who knows? That may
have just been for show.
More on Mohamed Atta Wannabe

Backing up momentarily to an earlier trial balloon...
Since Mohamed
Atta's pathological loathing of women was attested to by
numerous eyewitnesses in Venice, including Amanda Keller
herself, making the
idea that anyone might mistake the man at left for Atta even
sadder.
A few examples: Atta and Al-Shehhi often stopped into
The Outlook, a local Venice bar.
Female bartender Liz Lehman
told newspaper that
"He (Atta) didn't like the fact that
women were behind the bar. It was almost like he was
offended that we would stand and talk to them."
Then there was the time Atta stopped by the
Grapentine’s apartment to discuss something
regarding the complex, Paula Grapentine told reporters.
“He came to talk about something and
said, 'I don't talk to women and you're supposed to look
down when you talk to me. He was very unfriendly," she
said. "He wouldn't talk to women. He treated women like they
were under him.”
Or an anecdote told to us byAtta and Amanda's next-door neighbor Stephanie Frederickson...
"One
day I remember, it was raining out, and I came out of my
apartment at the same time he came out of his. He didn’t
have a car that day, for some reason, so I offered him a
ride,” she told us.
"He got furious, and
shouted at me, ‘You do not speak to me unless I speak to you
first!'"
"I said get over
yourself, bub," says Stephanie Frederickson today, with some
little relish. "I said, you're in America now. The least
you cand
do is thank me for offering you a ride."
Mohamed Atta's pot-smoking German associates
Astute observers of
the post-9/11 scene in Florida may recall that the owner of
the Sandpiper Apartments, a certain Vicky Kyser, was
quoted telling authorities that the Arab flight students
clumped around Atta smoked a strange tobacco which
smelled to her like marijuana.
This was far from
the only reference to drugs in the saga of the
terrorist hijackers. Despite there clearly being nothing to
the stories (pace, Terry McD!) we prided ourselves on
following up on every one.
But when we
contacted her to learn if she knew more than she'd told (since other than a brief interview just after
the attack, she'd said nothing more) we were unable to find
her, until recalling the old FBI trick of
mis-spelling names they are a little leery about letting outsiders
talk to who might, you know, sully
the permanent record.
After trying
different combinations, we discovered her real name is
Vikki Keyser, and a prominent
real estate broker in the area. But when we called her she
sounded more horrified to hear from us than if we had been an ex-husband
of hers just
released from prison... against whom she had just filed a
restraining order earlier that day.
She'd promised the FBI, she said,
before saying no more, that she would keep silent. And not for the first time we
wondered: What the hell is that all about?
We could go on. In fact, we find,
to our chagrin,
we already have.
Nobody's idea of a conspiracy theorist

In the apartment
next door to Amanda and Atta’s apartment on the second floor
of the Sandpiper Apartments
lived a pleasant-looking 50ish housewife named Stephanie
Frederickson, at least until recently.
Ms Frederickson is
nobody’s idea of a ‘conspiracy theorist.’
She spends her days caring for the baby of a friend needing help. Her
husband is a Maytag repairman. It doesn't get any more
ordinary than that. She did not seek
publicity. She did not speak to the press.
But when we met
her, there was one burning topic which she wanted to discuss—something
both she and
Charlie Grapentine were fairly bursting to talk about.
It wasn't Mohamed
Atta. It was
how she had been harassed and intimidated by agents of the
FBI.
"At first, right
after the attack, they told me I must have been mistaken in
my identification," she stated. "Or they would
insinuate that I was lying. Finally they stopped trying to
get me to change my story, and just stopped by once a week
to make sure I hadn’t been talking to anyone.”
For at least six
months after the 9/11 attack, Frederickson says, she
received weekly visits from an agent in the FBI’s Sarasota
office. "The question they asked was always the same,"
she says. "You aren’t saying anything to anybody, are you?"
She shrugs. “Who
was I going to tell? Most everyone around here already
knew."
Stephanie
Frederickson, Charley Grapentine (who's no longer with us)
and even—no, make that especially—Amanda Keller, are
real American
heroes. In the middle of a
very dark time, they showed us that at least something
about who we are hasn't changed...
Real Americans won’t be silenced.
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