i dont think ms.wale had an emotional breakdown. i think she knew information the feds did not want exposed, so she was targetted. the article itself is a "hit piece" but its done with such subtlety that its easy to miss it:
QUOTE
At turns, she sounds impatient and agitated. Her story veers off into conspiracy theories.
QUOTE
Long after the FBI and reporters left her hotel, she became fixated on understanding what happened on Sept. 11, and pulled all-nighters conducting research on the Internet.
what conspiracy theories? isnt likely that the internet exposed her to all the doubt and suspicion that was shed on the official story? its possible having realized that something wasnt right, she began to conduct her own investigation and research?
QUOTE
In the past two years she has gone from corporate darling to persona non grata, banned from the hotel she ran for about seven years for allegedly threatening to hurt an employee.
why would she threaten an employee? how does any of this relate to her experiences with the "hijackers"? i think the "threats" they allege are actually part of the set-up to get rid of her. if you read the article closely, you see that she had access to certain records of atta's. perhpas she had returned to the hotel seeking further documents and was obstructed by persons there with whom she became confrontational. so she was charged with tresspassing and prohibited from any futher access to the hotel or the evidence she may have been seeking.
another part of the story reveals that she was in maryland to discuss her concerns with the coporate suits of the comfort inn coportation. at some point in her visit, she ended up in washington dc, and after a speeding ticket, she was admitted for psychiatric evaluation. but read closely what she claimed:
QUOTE
"Wale had been stopped for speeding, according to Tucker and hospital reports, and told police that she had been trying to get away from government agents."
who's to say
they werent after her? it is very possible that she held (and still holds) damning information about certain "inconsistencies" about atta & co. that she was personally privy to, and that as a result she became targetted for discredit and silencing.
the net result (and intent imo) of the article is to discredit ms.wale, based on the premise that she sufferred so much stress that she is now a kook. when i read the article it felt like i was missing something. i didnt understand how this poor lady went from what should be a random witness to these "hijackers", to a person ousted from her job, and then to a person who needed psychiatric help. its not like she had some sort of in-depth relation to these arabs, nor that she was in ANY position to have stopped them, so again, why she "broke down" was quite a mystery to me. reading further it became apparent: the piece is pretending to sympathize with ms.wale, while it underhandedly attempts to paint her as unreliable due to the massive stresses placed upon her. but it does not fully tell whatever it is that ms.wale was really afraid of, though it pretends to.
***
...i wanted to help shed some light on this sort of suppressive method. i am fairly certain ms.wale is a victim of just this sort of tactic, and while my heart goes out to her, i dont think the article was doing her any favors.
i also get the sense that ms.wale has been scared silent permanently. whatever they used to leverage her could include a perpetual fear of reprisal so she may never reveal what she knows. BUT if any of you researchers out there are curious/sympathetic enough to her plight, maybe you could reach out to her and find out her REAL story.
***
update feb2011 - the original link isdead, the full original article not available (even at waybackarchive), but the following excerpt came from here (looks almost complete but was snipped once):
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...ddress=125x2327http://www.pressherald.com/news/local/030909911series.shtml (dead/unavailable)
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.pr...911series.shtml (all dead or article absent)
QUOTE
'It's been a loss of a lifetime'
By JOSIE HUANG, Portland Press Herald Writer
Copyright © 2003 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
E-mail this story to a friend
Staff photo by Fred J. Field
Laura R. Wale was general manager of this Comfort Inn in South Portland where two terrorists stayed before they flew an airliner into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Since then she has lost her job and suffered an emotional breakdown.
Laura Wale says her life was good. Maybe too good.
As general manager of the Comfort Inn in South Portland, she was a popular supervisor and savvy moneymaker for the hotel chain. She bought a three-bedroom house in Portland on her $70,000-plus annual salary and took regular trips to Las Vegas with her partner.
Then on Sept. 10, 2001, at 5:43 p.m., terrorist mastermind Mohamed Atta and a companion, Abdulaziz Alomari, checked into the hotel she managed. Twelve hours later, they left for the Portland International Jetport to strike the World Trade Center and change the world.
Two years after the attack, Wale has become one of the terrorists' most unlikely victims. She never met Atta or Alomari. But she believes her connection to 9/11 and the stress of dealing with federal investigators, the national media and her company sent her life into a tailspin.
<snip>
At turns, she sounds impatient and agitated. Her story veers off into conspiracy theories.
How did government agents know to storm the Comfort Inn only hours after the Twin Towers fell? Why did the FBI release surveillance video of Atta and Alomari at various locations in South Portland, but not the lobby of the Comfort Inn?
What, she wonders, is on that tape?
A fastidious record-keeper, she produces documentation of her falling out with the Silver Spring, Md.-based Sunburst Hospitality Corp., which runs the Comfort Inn hotel chain, including a photocopy of the criminal trespass notice.
Sunburst's executive vice president and chief operating officer, Kevin Hanley, refused to comment for this story.
But in a Sept. 25, 2001, letter he commended Wale and her staff for their "unparalleled professionalism" after Sept. 11. He reserved special praise for Wale, passing on a compliment from an FBI agent.
<snip>
The constant pressure was beginning to wear her down.
Wale said it upset her that she needed to be tested for anthrax because she had been one of the first people to enter the terrorists' hotel room after the attacks.
But perhaps the biggest blow came when she discovered on Sept. 26 that the federal government had cited her in court records in its case against the alleged 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui. As the Comfort Inn's general manager, she was the custodian of hotel records being used as government exhibits.
"What does anything they acquire from my hotel on 9/11 have to do with him or (what do) I have to do with it?" she asked.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, where Moussaoui is facing trial for conspiracy to murder, would not comment on the case.
***
see also:
QUOTE
Former congressional aide ruled unfit for trial
Tue Sep 16, 2008 6:09pm EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former aide in the U.S. Congress charged with giving secret information to Iraqi intelligence agents is mentally incompetent to stand trial, a federal judge has ruled.
http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=13552http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum/index.p...&p=10771154