Leaving Las Vegas:

How Las Vegas Fueled the 9/11 Terrorists

By

Neal Horsley

September 19, 2004

“Beyond Las Vegas’s reputation for welcoming tourists, we have seen no credible evidence explaining why, on this occasion and others, the [9/11 terrorists] flew to or met in Las Vegas.” THE PRESIDENT’S 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT, page 266

HERE IS THE EVIDENCE:

Look closely at the picture above and, unless your conscience is so defiled that you cannot see it, you will begin to understand what I mean by “fuel.”

This article presents documentary evidence proving that the pilots of the planes that became guided missiles snuffing out the lives of thousands of Americans came to Las Vegas to get the fuel they needed to crash those planes into their chosen targets. When the 9/11 Commission Report claimed to have no “credible” evidence that would allow them to reach conclusions about why the leaders of the 9/11 terrorists chose to continually visit Las Vegas in the days and weeks prior to 9/11, they lied. There is massive, irrefutable evidence that explains exactly why the 9/11 terrorists repeatedly visited Las Vegas: the 9/11 Commission just didn’t want to face that evidence.

We must correct the failure of the President’s 9/11 Commission. Unless we the people are willing to face the evidence that the 9/11 Commission ignored, we will continue to supply the terrorists of the world with fuel; and we the people will find that the 9/11 terrorists will be the first wave in a cascading tsunami of terrorism flooding the USA until the USA is drowned like a fertile field under a blood red ocean of terror.

A REVIEW OF THE FACTS ABOUT THE LAS VEGAS VISITS

Mohammed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 hijackers, along with all the other pilots of the hijacked planes, traveled to Las Vegas at least six times in the weeks immediately prior to September 11, 2001. To understand why it is significant that the pilots repeatedly visited Las Vegas you must understand that the FBI identified two distinct categories within the 9/11 terrorists: the Muscle and the Pilots. The Muscle were the 15 men who slit throats, stabbed people, blocked doors, and generally suppressed resistance; the Pilots were the men who flew the planes. The FBI considers the pilots to be the operational leaders of the terrorists. The reason why is obvious: pilots are like ship captains, unquestionably in command. To have all the pilots plus one more man who was allegedly a trainer of the pilots repeatedly visit Las Vegas prior to 9/11 meant that Las Vegas was a common focal point for the actual leaders of the 9/11 attack. Obviously something important was going on there.

The FBI did not ignore the obvious. Dozens of FBI agents spent several weeks scouring Las Vegas for clues about why the Pilots visited Las Vegas so many times. They found that the pilots left a trail of hotel and car rental receipts. While there might have been other visits, according to FBI records this much is certain: MARWAN AL-SHEHHI was in Las Vegas May 24-27, 2001; ZIAD JARRAH, June 7-10, 2001; LOTFI RAISSI, under arrest in London for allegedly training the terrorists to pilot planes, visited from June 11-18, 2001; MOHAMED ATTA, June 28 to July 1, and again from Aug. 13-14; HANI HANJOUR visited Aug. 10-14, the same time as NAWAF ALHAZMI.

In spite of all this evidence, the President’s 9/11 Commission refused to explain why the Pilots were in Las Vegas.

But officialdom did offer theories that did not make it into the 9/11 Commission Report.

THE “OFFICIAL” THEORIES

Theory One: According to a San Francisco Chronicle article on October 4, 2001, “…Some [government officials] thought they were casing Las Vegas because they planned to crash one of the planes into one of the huge symbols scattered throughout Las Vegas like the fake Statue of Liberty, or the 109-story Stratosphere Casino tower.”

That theory fails because Las Vegas did not get hit on 9/11.

Theory Two: The same article reported that another theory held that “this was just a convenient central meeting spot to hatch their plots because tourists of all ethnicities blend easily here…”

All it takes to cast serious doubt on that theory is review what the FBI found by examining hotel and car rental records cited in the paragraph above that gives the timeline of the Pilot’s visits to Las Vegas. While the five leaders all visited Las Vegas, there was never a time when they were all in the city at the same time. In fact available evidence proves that no more than three of the terrorists were together in Las Vegas at any one time and on that one occasion the three were together only for one day. If they came to Las Vegas to “hatch their plots” as the FBI theorized, it stands to reason they would have been in the city together; and it stands to reason they would have met for more than a short period of time. The conclusion is obvious: there is no evidence to prove that Las Vegas was a “gathering place” in which the terrorist leaders met to formalize their plans.

Theory Three: Other government officials were convinced they kept coming back to Las Vegas because they had to meet somewhere to complete their planning and as long as the five leaders had to meet somewhere, they might as well do it where they could gamble and indulge in some forbidden frolicking.”

This theory is an expansion of theory two and failed for the same reasons. But this theory lives today because it offered the added idea that the terrorists engaged in “forbidden frolicking.”

The San Francisco Chronicle article demonstrates that the American press went with the “forbidden frolicking” theory. In the aftermath of 9/11, most American people believed the terrorists embodied all the evil known throughout the history of the world. When word leaked they had been seen in Las Vegas, many assumed their visits proved they were religious hypocrites. The American press buttressed that assumption by reporting that they drank alcohol, gambled, and paid strippers to perform lap dances for them.

The San Francisco Chronicle article continued, “Samantha [no last name was provided by the Chronicle article] remembers the killer settling into the crushed red velvet chair, staring blankly up at her while she undulated her hips inches from his face…He didn't look evil, she said. Not even interesting. Certainly not like a man who would, just three months later, hijack a jet and smash it into the World Trade Center to slaughter thousands of people in a suicidal fireball…To the 29-year-old stripper, Marwan Al-Shehhi simply looked ‘cheap….’”

“‘Some big-man terrorist, huh?’ Samantha said this week as she took a breather from the two-dozen lap dances she bestows daily upon the lonely at the Olympic Garden Topless Cabaret. ‘He spent about $20 for a quick dance and didn't tip more.’…She stopped and bit her lip, throbbing rock music rattling the dimly lit crystal ball overhead while other ‘girls’ in G-strings gyrated for grinning tourists. ..’I'm glad he's dead with the rest of them, and I don't like feeling something like that,’ Samantha finally said. ‘But he wasn't just a bad tipper - - he killed people.’"

Samantha’s story was seized upon as evidence that defined the character of all the 9/11 terrorists. In the past three years, insofar as the American public has noticed the terrorists’ visits to Las Vegas at all, the great majority has participated in forming the image that the leaders of the 9/11 attacks were merely religious hypocrites who professed to adhere to the rules defined by the Koran but in their private lives contradicted those rules with abandon.

Before you surrender to that theory, please take another look at Las Vegas. Look at it through the eyes of a tourist. For the evidence is clear that is exactly what the leaders of the terrorists did. According to the FBI, the terrorist leaders came to Las Vegas over and over again, alone, or with one companion. And while they were in the city they looked and behaved exactly like any of the tens of millions of men who pass through Las Vegas each year. In a word, the FBI evidence proves they were tourists.

The leaders of the 9/11 attacks came to Las Vegas to tour what the modern world had become. Review with me what they saw and you will begin to understand how Las Vegas fueled the 9/11 terrorists.

WILL THE REAL LAS VEGAS STAND UP

The San Francisco Chronicle article described Samantha’s club as “…the sprightliest strip joint on a dreary stretch of the old downtown known mainly for $10 street hookers and easy heroin…”

“$10 street hookers and easy heroin” is definitely not the image that Las Vegas ordinarily sends to the world, and it is certainly not the image the well-paid casino image makers try to create.

The Las Vegas advertising brochure called “The Best of Las Vegas” offers the “official” version of Las Vegas, “As often as you might have seen it on TV or in a movie, there is nothing that prepares you for that first sight of Las Vegas. The skyline is hyper-reality, a mélange of the Statue of Liberty, a giant lion, a pyramid, and a Sphinx, and preternaturally glittering buildings. At night, it’s so bright you can actually get disoriented—and suffer from a sensory overload that can reduce you to hapless tears or fits of giggles. And that’s without setting foot inside a casino, where the shouts from the craps tables, the crash of coins from the slots, and the general roar combine into either the greatest adrenaline rush of your life or the 11th pit of hell.”

It should be obvious that Las Vegas with its world-renowned security that is being emulated by every government on earth is doing everything money can do to prevent people from deciding that Las Vegas is actually “the 11^th pit of hell.”

But there are some things that money cannot do. This article offers evidence proving that the leaders of the 9/11 Terrorists believed Las Vegas was in fact an embodiment of the path that leads directly to the 11^th pit of hell.

You might think what the terrorist thought about Las Vegas is not relevant to what happens to you and your family, but read on and you will see that most of the world already understands that Las Vegas is a symbol for everything that you and I and our families represent as citizens of these presently united States of America.

Las Vegas As Symbol

Las Vegas is more than a city: it is a symbolic city.

The journalist Kurt Anderson in his piece entitled “Las Vegas” for Time magazine in January 1994 said, “Las Vegas is a perfect reflection of America.” Academics have noticed too. Ingolf Vogeler, a nationally known professor of the new science called Human Geography, says, “Las Vegas is a metaphor for the USA.”

Did you notice that the advertising brochure quoted above described the skyline of Las Vegas as containing replicas of some of the best known places on the planet? Another article amplified the point, “The Luxor, a 36-story bronze and glass pyramid themed on Ancient Egypt, shoots the most powerful artificial light beam ever created from its apex, while Paris Las Vegas has a reconstruction of the Eiffel Tower, and then there’s Caesar’s Palace, with its full-size replica of Caravaggio’s ‘David’, and the MGM Grand Hotel and Theme Park, which is entered through the mouth of the world-famous MGM lion.” (To those who have read this Bible verse, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour…”, it is most significant that Las Vegas offers its visitors the opportunity to enter its main casino by literally walking through the mouth of a lion.)

Do you begin to see the point? Ancient Rome is there with her Coliseums and Rulers, and ancient Egypt as well with her Pyramids and Rulers; and Venice is there, the Venice that in the middle-ages was herself a symbol for abandoned decadence; and the USA is there with her Statue of Liberty, and so on and so on until the point is clear: Las Vegas is a symbol, a symbol of the whole world.

It is hard to ignore the fact that Las Vegas literally wants everyone to see that she embodies the entire recorded history of the species homo sapiens. Not only does she embody it, Las Vegas says, she is it! The highest fulfillment of all the dreams and aspirations of all the peoples who ever lived! And over all there is one message that pulsates like the largest neon sign every conceived, pulsates across the atmosphere of the city that truly never sleeps: Las Vegas is first and last a symbol for America as it is today—the Hegemon of the whole wide world.

Artists of all categories have long known and gazed at symbolic Las Vegas and have seen the direction things were taking, both for good and for bad. Hunter S. Thompson, the gonzo journalist who came to Las Vegas in the 1970’s to cover a motor cycle race came away with a completely different story he entitled “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream.”

Thompson wrote about Las Vegas in the 70’s and even then Las Vegas was already a symbol for America, the America who was rapidly becoming Hegemon. To Thompson, America was to be the place like Las Vegas where people were to be free to do and be what ever they wanted to do and be as long as they were willing to pay the cost of admission. Las Vegas was saying to Thompson that the American Dream was to be rewritten so that all the old restraints were removed and a new freedom—A Savage Freedom?--was to be revealed that knew nothing of the boundary lines of the past.

But other artists saw a different message in the symbol that is Las Vegas.

“Leaving Las Vegas” is a movie starring Nicholas Cage. To Cage’s character, leaving Las Vegas is a metaphor for dying. But it’s not your ordinary live-to-an-old-age-and-die kind of dying. “I came here to drink myself to death,” Cage’s character tells his new found hooker girl friend. In other words, “Leaving Las Vegas” is a story about dying by willfully poisoning oneself to death via massive quantities of alcohol over a period of three weeks because that is what a person can do in Las Vegas. In “Leaving Las Vegas,” even though something called “love” might be found--even love in the form of the actress Elisabeth Shue, a person whose most maternally enticing breasts nevertheless lack the power to dissuade her lover from “leaving Las Vegas”--death is the ultimate destination.

Cheryl Crowe wrote a song also titled “Leaving Las Vegas.” The lyrics say, “I'm Leaving Las Vegas/Lights so bright/Palm sweat, blackjack/On a Saturday night/Leaving Las Vegas/Leaving for good, for good/I'm leaving for good/I'm leaving for good. I'm standing in the middle of the desert/Waiting for my ship to come in/But now no joker, no jack, no king/Can take this loser hand/And make it win.”

Thomas Lynch, an award winning poet and essayist, came to the writing craft after years of being an undertaker. He says of Las Vegas, “Las Vegas seems perfect for the mortuary crowd -- a metaphor for the vexed, late-century American soul that seems these days to run between extremes of fantasy and desolation. Vegas seems just such an oasis: a neon garden of earthly delights amid a moonscape of privations, abundance amid the cacti, indulgence surrounded by thirst and hunger… We undertakers understand winners and losers. Our daily lives are lessons in the way love hurts, grief heals, and life -- always a game of chance -- goes on. In Vegas we get to play the game as if there's no tomorrow. And after a long night of winning or losing, it's good to have a desert close at hand into which we wander, like holy ones of old, to raise our songs of thanks or curse our luck to whatever God there is, or isn't.”

As the evidence you are about to read will prove, it is not just artists who have contemplated Las Vegas as symbol. The 9/11 terrorists looked long and hard at Las Vegas. And before the 9/11 terrorists came to America their leader, Osama Bin Laden, had looked long and hard at Las Vegas. And before them all another man had stood and taken a long hard look at the United States of America. That man taught Osama Bin Laden and all his ilk and followers and wannabes to understand that the United States of America is the embodiment of everything that had to be destroyed if the God of Abraham was to be served. The man who taught Osama Bin Laden and the 9/11 terrorists to want to destroy the USA was named Sayyid Qutb.

MEET SAYYID QUTB, THE FATHER OF MODERN ISLAMIC RAGE AGAINST AMERICA

Sayyid Qutb, behind bars during his trial in Eqypt on charges he was helping an effort to overthrow the government. He was hanged in 1966. Credit: Library of Congress © 2003

National Public Radio (NPR) that serves more than 750 independently operated radio stations across the US produced a program in their “All Things Considered” segment about Sayyid Qutb (pronounce Say-yid Koo-Toob) on March 3, 2003. NPR described him this way: “Egyptian writer and educator Sayyid Qutb spent the better half of 1949 in Greeley, Colo., studying curriculum at Colorado State Teachers College, now the University of Northern Colorado. What he saw prompted him to condemn America as a soulless, materialistic place that no Muslim should aspire to live in…Qutb's writings would later become the theoretical basis for many radical Islamic groups of today -- including al Qaeda.” According to NPR, the man who provided the ideas—“the theoretical basis”—for al Qaeda is a man who used the United States of America as a symbol for everything that must be fought against in this world. In “The America I Have Seen” Qutb defined the USA as the epitome of everything that a good Muslim must be prepared to resist. His subject was America in 1949, the glorious victor of world war II and the emerging Hegemon of the New World Order the USA was spawning. NPR summarized Qutb’s book, “Qutb denounced the primitive jazz music and loud clothing, the obsession with body image and perfection, and the bald sexuality. The American female was naturally a temptress, acting her part in a sexual system Qutb described as "biological": "The American girl is well acquainted with her body's seductive capacity. She knows it lies in the face, and in expressive eyes, and thirsty lips. She knows seductiveness lies in the round breasts, the full buttocks, and in the shapely thighs, sleek legs -- and she shows all this and does not hide it."

NPR continued, “Even an innocent dance in a church basement is proof of animalistic American sexuality: "They danced to the tunes of the gramophone, and the dance floor was replete with tapping feet, enticing legs, arms wrapped around waists, lips pressed to lips, and chests pressed to chests. The atmosphere was full of desire..."

To Qutb, women were vixens, and men were sports-obsessed brutes: "This primitiveness can be seen in the spectacle of the fans as they follow a game of football... or watch boxing matches or bloody, monstrous wrestling matches... This spectacle leaves no room for doubt as to the primitiveness of the feelings of those who are enamored with muscular strength and desire it."

Egyptian political scientist Mamoun Fandy tells [NPR]l that Qutb's critique of America was in many ways a critique of [1949] Egyptian society. "Fandy says Qutb was warning Egyptians of the West, of modernity, of things they were very attracted to," [NPR] says.

And the USA, even in 1949, was the embodiment of “the west.”

HOW AMERICAN SOCIETY BECAME VIEWED AS THE EMBODIMENT OF THE SECULAR REVOLUTION IN THE WORLD

To understand what would have been going on in the minds of the 9/11 Terrorists “tourists” as they sampled Las Vegas, it is necessary to review what Sayyid Qutb taught Muslims during the two generations prior to the 9/11 attacks.

In his book Milestones published at the height of the cold war when the balance of nuclear power in the world was maintained by a strategy called Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) Qutb wrote, “Mankind today is on the brink of a precipice, not because of the danger of complete annihilation which is hanging over its head - this being just a symptom and not the real disease - but because humanity is devoid of those vital values which are necessary not only for its healthy development but also for its real progress...It is essential for mankind to have a new leadership...It is necessary for the new leadership to preserve and develop the material fruits of the creative genius of Europe, and also to provide mankind with such high ideals and values as have so far remained undiscovered by mankind, and which will also acquaint humanity with a way of life which is harmonious with human nature, which is positive and constructive, and which is practicable…Islam is the only system which possesses these values and this way of life…”

Qutb continued, “If we look at the sources and foundations of modern ways of living, it becomes clear that the whole world is steeped in Jahiliyya (pagan ignorance of divine guidance), and all the marvellous material comforts and high-level inventions do not diminish this Ignorance. This Jahiliyya is based on rebellion against God's sovereignty on earth: It transfers to man one of the greatest attributes of God, namely sovereignty, and makes some men lords over others. It is now not in that simple and primitive form of the ancient Jahiliyya, but takes the form of claiming that the right to create values, to legislate rules of collective behavior, and to choose any way of life rests with men, without regard to what God has prescribed. The result of this rebellion against the authority of God is the oppression of His creatures...The Islamic civilization can take various forms in its material and organizational structure, but the principles and values on which it is based are eternal and unchangeable. These are: the worship of God alone, the foundation of human relationships on the belief in the Unity of God, the supremacy of the humanity of man over material things, the development of human values and the control of animalistic desires, respect for the family, the assumption of the vice-regency of God on earth according to His guidance and instruction, and in all affairs of this vice-regency, the rule of God's law [al-Shari'a] and the way of life prescribed by Him...”

Couple the things Qutb said above with the message he wrote about the venal, rapacious, and licentious carnal nature of American society and you will begin to understand how the leaders of the 9/11 terrorists would have seen Las Vegas as the actual verification and validation of everything that Qutb said, not only about America, but about the consequences of the secularization of the entire world.

THIS IS NOT A MUSLIM TERRORIST POLEMIC!

I issue the disclaimer above because we are moving to a place and time where if a writer actually tries to explain why terrorists do what they do the way they do it, the writer will be seen to be a terrorist himself. For example, in the immediate aftermath of the attack by Chechen terrorists on Sept 1, 2004 that resulted in the death of scores of Russian schoolchildren, Russia President Putin erected a terrible milestone on the path I am describing. "Anyone who feels sympathetic towards such provocations will be viewed as accomplices of terrorists and terrorism," Putin said.

While at one level anyone with children agrees with what Putin said, on another level what he said, if actually implemented in law, would literally make it impossible for a reporter to talk accurately about a deadly conflict where terrorist activity was involved without, according to Putin’s definition, becoming “accomplices of terrorists and terrorism.”

Why? It is impossible to accurately relate the facts about conflicts between people without actually sensing what both parties to the conflict are sensing. The only way a reporter can sense what the people involved in the conflict are “sensing” is to, at least in some degree, become “sympathetic.”

Merriam Webster defines sympathy as, “1 a : an affinity, association, or relationship between persons or things wherein whatever affects one similarly affects the other…” In order for a reporter to work effectively, it is essential that they be first and foremost a homo sapien who is able to recognize fellow homo sapiens when they encounter them and then they must be able to feel what they feel. It is this ability to actually recognize and sympathize with other homo sapiens that is the fundamental prerequisite for any truthful or honest reporter. In other words, unless a reporter can sympathize with the subjects of the report, the report cannot “feel” what they are trying to explain when they relate the facts of the story as they see them from their point of view.

When Putin decrees that anyone who “feels sympathetic” to terrorists will be viewed by government as “terrorists” then he prohibits the single most important prerequisite required for accurately reporting a story. Under such “laws,” Russian reporters must stop trying to explain both sides of deadly conflicts and become nothing more than mouth pieces for one side in the deadly conflict. Either that or they will be arrested as “terrorists” themselves.

To date, Russian President Putin’s formula has not been applied in the USA. In fact, Time magazine directly violated Putin’s formula about the same terrorist attack that killed the Russian children in its report entitled “Hostage Bloodbath Highlights Putin's Chechen Failure” by Tony Karon on Friday, Sep. 03, 2004. He reported, “The Russian crackdown, which began late in 1999 as Putin sent in troops to reverse the autonomy granted the region by former President Boris Yeltsin following a series of unsolved apartment bombings in Moscow — a brutal campaign that struck a popular chord and served as the would-be president's introduction to Russian voters — has certainly given Chechens plenty of reason to contemplate attacking Russians. Thousands of Chechens have been killed in the course of the crackdown, and scores of fighting-age men continue to simply disappear following visits to their homes by Russian forces.”

Tony Karon could not have written those words unless, at some level, he had been able to feel “sympathetic” to the “thousands of Chechen” people who “have been killed.”

Does that mean that Tony Karon is a Chechen terrorist? To Vladimir Putin it does. To me, and I hope to you, it means that Tony Karon is trying to be a responsible reporter, providing an honest account of the terrible conditions out of which deadly conflicts always emerge.

The point is this: it is not wrong to sympathize with both sides in a deadly conflict, even when you are on one of those sides and people are trying to kill you. It is this ability to rise above the conflict and see it as it really is that separates our species from all others on earth. In fact, it is precisely this ability to see both sides in the midst of terrible battles that allows the path to peace/victory to be found.

I say all that about Putin to say this: it is not only necessary and proper for you to actually try to see Las Vegas as the 9/11 terrorist leaders would have seen it, it is absolutely essential if you want to be able to avoid future terrorist attacks.

LAS VEGAS PROVES HOW EASILY PEOPLE CAN BE CONDITIONED TO ACCOMMODATE EVIL

If you do an Internet search, you will find that many travel agencies have all usurped some anonymous writer’s picturesque verbal description of Las Vegas. There is one telling paragraph from that description, “Las Vegas can be whatever a visitor wants, and for a few days, a visitor can be whatever he or she wants. Just be prepared to leave all touchstones with reality behind. Here, you will rise at noon and gorge on endless amounts of rich food at 3am. You will watch your money grow or (more likely) shrink. You will watch a volcano explode and pirates fight the British. And after a while, it will all seem pretty normal…”

The Las Vegas billboard says, “As Real As It Gets.” And in Las Vegas it is no exaggeration: it is reality.

Remember the brochure just quoted? Think about what it means to “leave all touchstones with reality behind” and then have it “all seem pretty normal…”

It is impossible to imagine a more accurate or poignant description of what brainwashing consists of. In brainwashing all that went before is “cleansed” away and replaced with a completely new reality.

To understand Muslim terrorism you must understand that they have been taught by men like Sayyid Qutb to believe that the entire secular world, personified by America’s Las Vegas, is nothing more than a colossal exercise in brain washing designed to condition people to abandon the knowledge of the One, True God and replace the worship of that God with the worship of another god—any god will do, even the most licentious Greek and Roman gods like Pan and Bacchus or the earlier Biblical gods like Baal.

Look at Las Vegas from this point of view and you will begin to see what the 9/11 terrorists saw. They saw a city whose entire reason for existence was to pander to the basest, most carnal forces found within our species. They saw a city whose goal it was to turn every conceivable activity of mankind, no matter how base or degrading or evil in the eyes of the God revealed in the Holy Texts, into a source of financial profit.

SEE FOR YOURSELF