9/11 Conspiracy Theories

1. Justin
   August 7th, 2008 at 8:33 pm

   Of course as soon as they notice one thing missing from the counter points the conspiracy advocates immediately jump on that one point alone. OH MY GOD THEY DIDNT EVEN MENTION (BLANK)!

   Of course they ignore the rest of it. Sad but true.

2. ted
   August 7th, 2008 at 9:07 pm

   I worked with a young Muslim man who believed that no Jewish people showed up for work at the World Trade Center on September 11. How did they know in advance...?

3. Citizen Politician
   August 7th, 2008 at 10:03 pm

   Do not mock the theories until you have seen the evidence with your own eyes: http://www.911inplanesite.com/

4. bean
   August 7th, 2008 at 10:12 pm

   As a popular comedian once said, you can't fix stupid. Don't even try, just let Darwin sort them out.

5. nielo
   August 7th, 2008 at 11:15 pm

   Stanhope needs to read this.

6. Johnny Cat
   August 7th, 2008 at 11:21 pm

   That day was traumatic for me in its graphic realness. Some ultra-paranoid stuff there I had never even heard of.

7. William
   August 8th, 2008 at 12:12 am

   Ok, I'll try to use small words.

   Has anybody bothered to notice a peculiarity in a photo in the NIST's OWN PUBLISHED REPORT(I have a copy of the blown up photo as my screen background)?

   The photo CLEARLY shows a woman standing at the edge of the gash in one of the towers shortly before the towers came down.

   Simple question, if that area of the tower is suppose to be hot enough to symmetricly weaken the supporting structure, how did the nice lady get where she clearly is?

8. Paul in Boca
   August 8th, 2008 at 12:51 am

   William,
   Can you post a link to that picture?

9. Ola Amigo
   August 8th, 2008 at 2:02 am

   William, you might try to make a point as well. Did airplanes actually hit the towers? If so, what does your pic, which you don't link to, explain?

   BTW, you're a fucking lunatic. Have fun with that though.

10. PlaneTruth
    August 8th, 2008 at 3:41 am

    I clearly remember watching a National Geographic episode about 9/11. They showed a muslim schoolboy in NY who, a few days before the event, predicted the collapse of WTC towers.
    Anyone else watched it, or care to explain?

11. Moodindigo
    August 8th, 2008 at 3:52 am

    LOL @ Ola Amigo (can we still use LOL? I can't keep up.)

    Seriously though William, that's anomaly hunting, not real evidence of anything. Sufficiently complex events will always anomalys which you can point to and claim as evidence for whichever crackpot theory you happen to choose to believe.

    As far as conspiracy theories go, I don't think I could put it any more succinctly than this:

    xkcd.com/258/

    Nice post Miss C.

12. Carl
    August 8th, 2008 at 4:47 am

    took me all of 5 seconds to find the pic on google "nist 9/11 photo woman"
    http://netctr.com/images/womaninhole.jpg

    Just let the sleepers go back to sleep, no point in kicking a dead horse. But I'm through with Neatorama. It's a mistake for Miss Cellania to take sides on such a hotly debated issue. To be frank, this is disgraceful and insulting.

    The debate is between oldschool true american patriots vs. the new brand of nationalist patriots (ala the "patriot" act). The patriot act redefined patriotism to "blind submission." These are the types of people who fear rejection to the degree that they give up their rights with thunderous applause, just like the Germans did in the Nazi era. If the shit hits the fan these are the ones who will turn in their coworkers and friends, aiding in the death of freedom altogether.

    Our leaders use the threat of terrorism in order to grease people into handing over their rights. That means our current administration is a terrorist regime. see: "War On Terror Fear Campaign" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsqPeqhKJ7Q

    terrorism
    noun
    the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims. Don't tase me bro.

    If you were a citizen of Germany during World War 2, would you have spoken out against Hitler? Neocons are the Nazi Party of the 21st century.

    "When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist.
    When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat.
    When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist.
    When they came for the Jews, I did not speak out; I was not a Jew.
    When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out."

    -Friedrich Gustav Martin Niemöller"

    Excuse the intensity, but the "fucking lunatic" comment by Ola Amigo made me want to speak my mind. I don't know any of you well enough to say any of this directly against you. I guess I ended up kicking that dead horse though.

13. YT
    August 8th, 2008 at 5:25 am

    You know, I don't believe in what people say these days. Too many people are trying to convince me of something. I don't think many conspiracy theorists have the credentials to be making any authoritative statements, but if you want to talk about the lack of EVIDENCE, then the no one is guiltier than the White House.

    I also don't think it's very tactical to try to make a convincing case by making fun of the opposing side. It is very unbecoming. And it is very unfortunate to see readers of Neatorama circle-jerking to an article that appears to add nothing more to the discussion than conspiracy theorists do.

    If this wasn't written with such a condescending tone, I wouldn't be replying with counterpoints.

    [Reality: Also never happened before; two jumbo jets full of thousands of gallons of combustible fuel crashed into buildings. What makes you think you could predict exactly what would happen? By that logic, every house fire would be exactly the same. Go ask your local firefighter that question. Fire is an unpredictable beast.]

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6H4GaNhTfA

    [Reality: A combination of fire and intense structural damage contributed to the collapse of building 7. The fall was what engineers call a "progressive collapse." Video shows cracks in the building's façade just before two of the penthouses fell into the building, starting the fall. A rapid chain reaction occurred from there.]

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD06SAf0p9A

    To compare, the Oklahoma Bombing:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZvLPZ_70GU&feature=related

14. Polx
    August 8th, 2008 at 5:27 am

    All the conspiracy nuts are crazy.

    No nano thermite, no shaped charges no remote controllled planes none of it.

    I do believe that the Neo Con GOP upper management allowed something to happen.

    A nice little outrage would allow George W to go finish what his Daddy started.

    Saddam has newver had anything to do with Al-Q, the Ba'athists hated everything to do with the Shia.

    The war in Iraq is not to restore democracy, or other nebulous crap, it is about expressly keeping the iraqi oil OFF the market.

    For the entire history of the country all the vested interests have been trying to keep it off the market as it'd annihilate the price.

    GWB abd his handlers needed an excuse to get the country behind him, unthinkingly, rabidly behind him.

    Take your eye off those most likely to commit terrorist acts and bam you've got a perfect excuse.

    It is not a conspiracy, it is allowing a thing to happen to give you an excuse.

    All the conspiracy nuts out there, with their "the govt blew it up" all fail to answer the one question, why?

    My veiw on it provides Trillions of reasons why.

    And what with the sinking of the Lusitania and Pearl Harbour, it's not like this hasn't been done before very successfully.

15. hark
    August 8th, 2008 at 5:43 am

    when did this blog suddenly get so stupid?
    stick with finding neat movies of two-faced kittens and stuff, leave the thinking to other people, you're embarrassing yourselves.

    seriously.

16. ted
    August 8th, 2008 at 7:16 am

    My current desktop background is not of some faked-up picture of the WTC, but a woman talking to a guy on a horse at Greenfield Village, in Michigan. No conspiracies there - I think...

    This caught the USA completely by surprise, even though they did have warning signs. These were the same type of warning signs they've had for many years. This one worked out for the terrorists.

    Yes, Bush used it as a stepping board for his own political ends, but I doubt they "allowed" it to happen.

17. Creampants
    August 8th, 2008 at 8:17 am

    I like how anyone that doesn't immediately believe everything they're told from a government that has lied to them time and time again is labeled a nut job. That makes tons of sense.

18. ok....
    August 8th, 2008 at 8:25 am

    Wow, that link was terrible. This guy apparantly thinks that the well qualified people behind organizations like "Scholars for 9/11 truth" are too dumb to be aware of those "counterpoints". On the contrary, they are much more sophisticated and educated than him.

    couple of major inaccuracies in the article:

    The jet fuel burning would have only been a flash in the pan. Most of the actual "heat" would be generated from office supplies and building walls, etc, burning. No steady lamp of jet fuel to melt the steel. Even if there was, the design of the towers was so reinforced and redundant that at 50% strength it could support 3-4 times the weight that it did.

    "A controlled demolition has evenly spaced charges, not sporadic ones randomly firing."
    ^
    This quote shows the (lack of) research the author did. The squibs photographed ARE evenly spaced, and timed.

    No doubt there are some nuts in the 9/11 truth movement, but its unfair to paint the whole movement based on the few nuts. No serious 9/11 truther thinks planes weren't used or all the jews were warned ahead of time etc...that is nuts.

    I'm not going to rebut every single poorly articulated "counterpoint" in the article, but I suggest that those who are curious and have an open mind read Stephen Jones peer reviewed paper on the subject http://www.wtc7.net/articles/WhyIndeed09.pdf

    Of course if you do not have an open mind to the possibility then by definition you won't put credence into any alternative viewpoint. But the author of that blog's argument relies on loaded thought terminating language like "conspiracy nuts", "this is just laughable", etc, without saying much anything of substance. His elementary layman rebuttals were the only thing laughable in that piece.

    My personal conviction is that the towers were demolished after the planes hit. Any opinion beyond that is conjecture on my part, but there is plenty of real evidence for the demolition. I do not know what the motives were, they might have even been trying to save nearby infrastructure from being damaged from one of the tops of the towers falling over. Most theories are more sinister, but there are a range of possible motives that are not "nuts". Who knows what actually happened.

    No doubt this comment box will devolve into a flamewar, in which I don't intend to participate. Have a good day everyone.

19. Broken5hift
    August 8th, 2008 at 9:28 am

    i find it amazing how close minded and ignorant people can be these days. One of the worst things to ever happen in the US is answered by our government in what is widely considered one of the most incomplete and half ass'd reports ever done. Yet people get angry when people question what really happened. I cannot stand people who refuse to open their minds and search beyond the standard BS given to us by our gov. America isnt the free and happy place some people desperately claim it is.

    Here's a tidbit for those of you who think these things are so above our gov: Confirmed plan by the Pentagon "Operation Northwoods"

20. John
    August 8th, 2008 at 10:03 am

    Here is the definitive case proving that 9/11 couldn't have happened as our government has argued.

21. I Would Love To Be Wrong
    August 8th, 2008 at 10:16 am

    Good work, linking to a "pop culture blog" for their uninformed and demagogic rantings about 9/11. Full of name calling, slander, and emotional manipulation.

    I would like to give this article credit for at least considering some of the more relevant facts.

    However, the whole article is completely unprofessional and biased, starting from a certain conclusion and selecting just the evidence that fits them. It is appropriate for a "pop culture blog", but not for a source that would help you figure out what is going on in the world, and frankly, Neatorama should be ashamed at linking to it. The slanderous assertation that "The motivation for the distribution of these crazy-go-nuts theories is greed masked by phony patriotism." is refuted by a quick glance at one of the most interesting 9/11 sites, "patriotsquestion911.com." This site shines light on the fallacy that those who don't believe the official line are all unemployed thirty year olds blogging from their moms' basements. It includes on the record statements from dozens of military colonels, majors, and captains; lifelong intelligence officers; airplane pilots; and high ranking foreign officials, including a couple European heads of state, top cabinet members, senior military officers, and parlimentary members. About 20% of the statements on this site say that the 9/11 report was an uncredible whitewash; the rest straight out claim that 9/11 was perpetrated by interests within the U.S. intelligence services. It's worth reading for anyone who is truly curious.

    First, to deal with his main assertation:

    "If there was any proof of conspiracy, it would be the largest news story in history."

    Here's the truth: The U.S. Government has a long and successful history of perpetrating massive crimes and subterfuge around the world, spreading lies and misinformation into the public record, and getting away with it. For all those who say that surely, somebody would come forward and report the conspiracy..I saw, what about Iran in 1954? What about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident? What about Guatemala, Indonesia, Chile, the Iran-Contra affair, etc. etc. etc? Who came forward in any of these cases, all of which required coordinated lies, deceit, and homicidal intent by highly placed officials? They all would have been major news stories, but no plucky young journalist ever won a Pulitzer for reporting them.

    In all of these incidents over the last 50 years, officials in the "intelligence" agencies conducted massive crimes against humanity that made 9/11 look like a day at the park. In virtually all of these cases, they succesfully maintained a veil the secrecy and silence from all those who were in on the deeds, and kept the events out of the popular consciousness to this day, even though they are now considered part of the historical record.

    Ask the average person on the street about the Iran-Contra affair, in which we secretly sold weapons to the same Iranian regime we now threaten with nuclear annihilation in order to fund an illegal war in Nicaragua, and you will get a blank stare. And this was widely reported and congressionally investigated just 20 years ago. Don't even mention the time our guys killed the democratically elected president of Iran, and succesfuly kept it a secret for decades. As we threaten to go to a disastrous war with Iran, most Americans don't know about that crucial event in the relations between our two great countries.

    Yes, he does mention the Iran-Contra affair and Watergate in the article. But, what other incidents of massive crime committed by our so-called intelligence" agencies have been widely reported and have entered the public consciousness? The number of such incidents that were widely reported are miniscule in comparison to those that did not.

    The U.S. Intelligence services have a proven track record of committing heinous acts of sabotage and violence, and keep their actions secret for a very long time.

    To those who say that there is no way they could keep their actions secret, I ask: Have they not successfully concealed crimes of similar magnitude in the past?

    Indeed, some people STILL question whether it was actually Hitler's agents who burned the Reichstagg.

    To those who say that no American could be so callous and heartless to kill 3,000 of their countrymen, I ask: What is the difference between killing 3,000 New Yorkers and killing 300,000 Guatemalan Peasants?

    Never doubt the corrupting influence of money. Money buys loyalty, money buys silence, money buys fear. Especially when those Ms turn to Bs turn to Ts.

    Most of the people who participated in the logistics of the attacks never really knew what they were doing, I bet. They were just following orders, and were on a need to know basis, kept in the dark themselves. most of them still haven't connected the dots as to what they were really doing. As for the people who were actually in on in, I imagine the number is less than 100, all sworn to a blood vow-if any of them spill, their family's lives would be forfeit, I imagine (this is, of course, pure conjecture). Remember: it is estimated that a core group of about 100 is enough in North Korea to keep that country shrouded in lies, disinformation, and tyranny.

    On a side note: In America, Television news defines reality. If something does not make the 24/7 news cycle, it is not accepted as having really happened. It doesn't matter how much evidence there is to support it. This crime was of such a magnitude, and hit so close to home, that most people could simply NEVER believe it was possible no matter what evidence was committed.

22. I Would Love To Be Wrong
    August 8th, 2008 at 10:16 am

    On to his article:

    Claim: "There is no way that jet fuel can burn hot enough to melt the steel in the World Trade Centers. Therefore, the fires from the planes could not be the cause of the Tower's collapse."

    A more nuanced version of this arguent is: there is no way that jet fuel could burn hot enough to cause the towers to collapse in the way they did. They collapsed straight down, into their own footprint, at a free fall speed. Undoubtedly, the impact along with massive fires could cause the towers to collapse. But...NOT IN THE WAY THAT THEY DID. Maybe they could cause the top part to keel over, bringing the rest with them. But..THEY FELL AT FREE FALL SPEED. If we are to assume the pancake theory to be accurate, that the top floors collapsed into the lowers floors, it seems reasonable to assume that each floor, being undamaged by fire or impact, would slow down the descent of the floors collapsing on top of it, even a little bit. And yet, this didn't happen. All three buildings that fell that day fell at the same speed as an apple dropped from the roof. So, somehow, the fire on the top floors caused the bottom floors to instantaneously have ZERO structural integrity. I don't understand how this can be. Not to even mention the fact that, if you burn any quantity of fuel, it will EXPLODE. After 30 seconds, what is left burning? Carpets, papers, desks? How hot can they burn? After two hours, is there still any jet fuel burning?

    He claims, without support, that "A combination of fire and intense structural damage contributed to the collapse of building 7." The funny thing about WTC7 is that it is simply NOT MENTIONED AT ALL IN THE "AUTHORITATIVE" 9/11 REPORT. Go and ask ten people on the street how many buildings fell on 9/11, and I bet you that 8 will tell you "two, of course." It is amazing that no one knows such a basic fact about what was one of the most widely covered news events in modern history. Also, of course, if you watch a video of the fall of WTC7 back to back with a number of controlled demolition clips, it is visually indistinguishable.

    On to the pentagon: It is interesting that all the videos that showed what happened (from local gas stations, etc) were immediately seized by the FBI and never released. If you watch the few frames that were released, it is quite clear: they produce a completely different type of explosion from the WTC explosions. The WTC explosions were dark and smoky, the Pentagon explosion was bright and white. Why would they be different? He then goes on to claim that "There are dozens of pictures of wreckage." He posts one picture. This picture is, of course, THE ONLY ONE. If there are "dozens of pictures" of Pentagon wreckage, I challenge him to post even a second picture. Good luck.

    As for the other claims: he's mostly right, they are bogus. A lot of what is written on the internet is really crazy: missiles fired into the buildings, pods on the planes, the planes were CGI, etc. Just because there's a lot of garbage out there doesn't make the official story any more credible. This reflects on the amazing Popular Mechanics article: They cherry-picked just the most absurd and stupid theories, and in debunking them claimed to have verified the official story beyond a doubt.

    He claims that there is "There is not one shred of evidence of a conspiracy." I would dispute this, there is a MOUNTAIN of direct and logical evidence. However..what is the evidence of the "official story"? 1) A video tape, supposedly found in an Afghani house, showing Bin Laden confessing. However (and this is one of the first things that clued me in to the fraud)...the guy DOESN'T LOOK LIKE BIN LADEN! All these wars, this massive restructing of society..all based on a video of some fat arab with a beard. news flash: Bin Laden is not fat!...2) A passport that somehow escaped the massive explosion in NYC that incinerated the planes and fluttered to the ground, unharmed...okay, and 3) a bag that one of the hijackers forgot and left in their car in boston with a koran and a flight training manual. Also, some sketchy video of guys with beards walking through Logan airport. I may be wrong, but I believe that is ALL the evidence that was presented for years.

    What there is little evidence of are the assertations he makes in this article. It is tabloid sensationalism, and any who believe it deserve the reality they live in.

23. Evil Pundit
    August 8th, 2008 at 10:25 am

    So many conspiracy lunatics ... not encouraging.

24. Mr. Binky
    August 8th, 2008 at 11:08 am

    Logic doesn't work like this:

    "I don't understand" THUS => "My crazy idea"
    "This doesn't make sense to me" => "My crazy idea must be true"

25. vemmo
    August 8th, 2008 at 11:12 am

    I notice a lot of "pro-conspiracy" people take a very measured tone like "I Would Love To Be Wrong"'s fine post above, with lots of references to other studies by people with serious credentials, while a lot of the other side generally uses dismissive words like laughable and crackpot, and regurgitates non-thoughts like "if it happened we'd have heard about it" and "our govt just would never do such a thing", and their arguments generally amount to little more than "it's obvious". If your bullshit detector isn't still going nuts over the official line of bullshit, then you don't have one.

26. Powell
    August 8th, 2008 at 11:13 am

    This article sucks.
    "Now we get into the really stupid." That is a well reasoned and no biased analysis.

27. Hank Jones
    August 8th, 2008 at 11:25 am

    What makes you think the guy was trying to be unbiased? It is clearly not a neutral piece. It's very obvious it's not.

28. ted
    August 8th, 2008 at 11:44 am

    So, the latest slant is that the US government staged the destruction of the WTC and the attack on the Pentagon so plausibly that only these experts and anti-establishment folks could detect the clues.

    Then, Bush uses the overwhelming public reaction as a launching pad to strike against Al Qaeda and then Iraq.

    But, when they get to Iraq, they can't find any WMDs, the biggest reason for the occupation in the first place. Why on earth, if the government is capable of such a cleverly-designed and acted-out plot in the heart of New York City (where everybody has a camera in his/her phone), were they not able to plant false evidence of WMDs in Iraq? Surely, they could have staged something equally as elaborate there, if they were trying so hard to protect their credibility?

    Really, the whole idea of planes going into the WTC and selected targets would be so difficult to stage and keep hush-hush, that it would have been immensely easier and less Byzantine to simply plant a couple of bombs under the WTC and Pentagon and then blame Iraq directly.

    To paraphrase Occam's razor, the simplest explanation is usually the most plausible.

29. Neatoramawontsendmeapassword
    August 8th, 2008 at 12:43 pm

    I've read articles and seen pictures from both sides, and I haven't come to a definitive conclusion one way or the other. In the end, though, it doesn't change the outcome. Somebody dropped the ball, and thousands of people died as a result. The focus should be on making sure it doesn't happen again.

    But I will say that calling someone else a "fucking lunatic" for questioning the "official" story doesn't make you look right or smart. It just makes you look desperate, intolerant, and insecure.

30. I Would Love To Be Wrong
    August 8th, 2008 at 1:17 pm

    Ted:

    Unfortunately, they did it in an incredibly sloppy and ham-handed way. They left all sorts of evidence. It was a very sloppy operation. Millions of Americans think there is something very, very fishy.

    However, it was primarily a media event, and through the television camer lens, it was quite successful. The real story is that the the media is compliant enough they they won't serious ask any of the really hard questions. The fact that 9/11 has been allowed to stand as long as it has seriously calls into question the credibility of most media in this country.

31. notfromconcentrate
    August 8th, 2008 at 1:30 pm

    I Would Love To be Wrong:

    Hey man, you're going to love this.......you're wrong.

32. Shish
    August 8th, 2008 at 1:51 pm

    The biggest question in my mind about 9/11 is why certain people go to such pains to attack this particular "conspiracy theory". Why do they care so much? Why so much vituperation, such vicious ad-hominem attacks on people who question the official explanations? There have been numerous other "conspiracy theories" in the past century but only a few of them have drawn this kind of response. And these few have something in common, suppression of public debate about something that might influence the course of government policy in international affairs.

    If I had to pick one thing to draw attention to in the referenced article, it's the very last word.

33. Orjan Morjan
    August 8th, 2008 at 2:17 pm

    Patriot. pa·tri·ot (p?'tr?-?t, -?t') -noun.
    Someone who blindly believes what the government tells them and labels people, who hold high the values of the founding fathers, as unpatriotic.

34. Doom
    August 8th, 2008 at 2:52 pm

    IHO, this was a pretty stupid post on Neatorama behalf.

    And even worse comments from the readers.

    (-10 respect points)

35. notfromconcentrate
    August 8th, 2008 at 2:55 pm

    Orjan Morjan:

    Where did you get that? Does moveon.org have it's own dictionary now? Here's the actual definition:

    Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This
    pa·tri·ot Audio Help /?pe?tri?t, -??t or, especially Brit., ?pætri?t/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[pey-tree-uht, -ot or, especially Brit., pa-tree-uht] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
    –noun
    1. a person who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion.
    2. a person who regards himself or herself as a defender, esp. of individual rights, against presumed interference by the federal government.
    3. (initial capital letter) Military. a U.S. Army antiaircraft missile with a range of 37 mi. (60 km) and a 200-lb. (90 kg) warhead, launched from a tracked vehicle with radar and computer guidance and fire control.
    [Origin: 1590–1600; < MF patriote < LL patri?ta < Gk patrités fellow-countryman, lineage member]
    Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
    Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

36. Jimbo
    August 8th, 2008 at 3:18 pm

    Why does total crap like this even considered neat?

37. Thebes
    August 8th, 2008 at 3:23 pm

    If you read NOTHING ELSE, then please, everyone know and CONSIDER this.

    The two men who chaired our nation's investigation into 9/11 are documented to have met the "9/11 Money Man" on the morning of that horrific day. Our nation's official report offers no explanation for this meeting. One of these men, Goss, later went on to head the CIA.

    It truly saddens me that Neatorama has stooped to poking fun at "9/11 Conspiracy Theorists" when there are so very many unanswered questions about the Neoconservative's theory of the events of that day. I expected better of this website- virtually everyone I know questions our government's story to some extent.

38. where to begin?
    August 8th, 2008 at 5:54 pm

    I realize 9/11 is still so fresh people are overly emotional in dismissing "conspiracy theories".

    That is fine. My suggestion is to start with the Kennedy assasination and work your way up to present times. It will be easier to objectively look at alternate explanations for an older historical event than one that is still fresh.

    There are very clear reasons for the Reichstag fire, the Gulf of Tonkin, the Kennedy assasination, and the 9/11 hoaxes. Be a student of history and view present day events through those lenses.

39. nielo
    August 8th, 2008 at 5:55 pm

    Sounds like you need to get out more Thebes.

40. ted
    August 8th, 2008 at 8:21 pm

    Sorry, Love to Be Wrong, but you just don't get my point. Why crash four planes at all? Why come up with such a fantastic and potentially unmanageable catastrophe such as using four planes when a few well-placed explosives will do?

    So what you're saying is when President Bush "got the message" while he was sitting listening to those school children, he wasn't thinking "What the hell?", but he was thinking, "Oh - was that today?"

    That picture of the "woman" in the building, for one, only looks like a woman if you want it to. To me, it looks more like the surrounding material of the building. It only looks like a woman because that's our mind's eye. Just like the man in the moon or the face on Mars.

    From what I've seen here, the people who think there's a conspiracy are pretty condescending, dubbing other folks as overemotional, mindless sheep just because they accept the overwhelmingly plausible sequence of events on Sept 11, and not the far-fetched, credibility-straining ideas of conspiracy theorists.

41. Johnny Cat
    August 8th, 2008 at 9:00 pm

    "Oh, was that today?"

    LOL, ted

42. Wow
    August 8th, 2008 at 10:37 pm

    Wow; what a thread. Guess you asked for it, eh Ms. C.?

    Here's my 3 cents on the subject:

    Cent 1: If the attack was indeed staged, there would be a cast of thousands to corral and keep quiet; the current administration isn't quite up to that task, nor is our military establishment.

    Cent 2: If the attack was indeed staged, wouldn't it make sense to have multiple followup "attacks" that would give the opportunity to put some real restrictions on people's freedom?

    Cent 3: The people who are so adamant that the 9-11 attack was staged also tend to be Bush haters; if the attack had happened during Clinton's watch, what do you want to bet that those same people would be the ones dismissing any claims of conspiracy.

43. Johnny Cat
    August 8th, 2008 at 11:05 pm

    OK fine, my 2 cents

    1) The Pentagon attack had perfectly fine video of the crash taken from a hotel nearby. That footage was seized and is presumably destroyed. The extended camera shots they released a year or two ago simply make the object look more like a missile to my trained eye. (Aviation Ordnance, 3rd class, USN, 1987-1990)

    2) The Project For the New American Century was a group of people, a thinktank, really, that posited a theory of how to propel the US into dominance throughout the 2000's. "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor" The PNAC had active advocates like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

    Out.

44. nielo
    August 9th, 2008 at 1:32 am

    Looks like the nutters are out in full force.

45. JC
    August 9th, 2008 at 2:38 am

    Wow, so it´s true there´s a conspiracy addiction.

46. chad
    August 9th, 2008 at 3:03 am

    Hey Ted, not to split hairs but noone had cameras in their phones in late 2001.

47. chad
    August 9th, 2008 at 3:14 am

    Shish wrote:
    "Why do they care so much? Why so much vituperation, such vicious ad-hominem attacks on people who question the official explanations? There have been numerous other “conspiracy theories” in the past century but only a few of them have drawn this kind of response."

    I believe the reason lies behind the fact that if what the "truthers" are saying is true, or even part of it is, it would create an insecurity that most people are not prepared to handle. People get defensive when their ideals and convictions are put into question. Imagine if there was a large lobby trying to prove that Jesus was a homosexual.
    OK not the best example but I think you get my point.
    Plus we all watched many of our countrymen die in a horrible way that day. Many people need someone to blame and to blame one's own government is a pill way to large for many people to swallow.

48. Ola Amigo
    August 9th, 2008 at 4:56 am

    Carl, you're an idiot too. You said and clarified nothing.

49. ted
    August 9th, 2008 at 7:08 am

    Hey, Chad.

    Wow, you may be right. Just looking it up, I see that camera phones were invented by that time, but I don't see anything about when they actually came into widespread use.

50. Thomas
    August 9th, 2008 at 12:07 pm

    Ted: Assuming that the gvt did allow or stage 9/11 to propel us into war with Iraq, allowing us to drive up the price of oil (which I take some issue with), not finding WMD is exactly what needs to happen to allow for a long and costly occupation. If Saddam is dead, the WMD are found and destroyed, and we were right the whole time, then its time to come home. No more permanent bases or no-bid contracts.

51. Thomas
    August 9th, 2008 at 12:13 pm

    As for attempting to drive up the price of oil, that sounds good on the surface until you realize that Iraq was OPEC's bitch. OPEC is a cartel that artificially controls the price of oil by imposing limits on what countries can export. Iraq's limits were set absurdly low, which kept the price high enough for all the other countries to make a pretty good penny. I think its more likely that the plan was to secure the dollar's supremacy (Iraq had decided to sell their oil on the Euro standard and not the dollar - that was one of the first thins that got changed under the CPA) and to attempt to break OPEC's control of the oil market by allowing Iraq to freely export, a plan that went hellishly awry when a combination of factors ended up doing the exact opposite: oil is about 120/barrel today, and OPEC nations couldn't be happier. And they didn't have to lift a finger.

52. ted
    August 9th, 2008 at 6:27 pm

    Good point about the WMDs, Thomas. At least someone can actually form a cogent response to my points. The whole WMD thing is egg in the face - it practically shut down the world against the US occupation, and that would be a really stupid gamble for people who staged such an extravagant plan in the first place. Assuming the whole thing is staged, should they not have also staged signposts to WMDs, say, pointing to Iran?

    Looks like a lot of conspiracy theory thought focuses on putting down your opponents, and maligning them as irrational, obsessively patriotic, insecure, and traumatized.

53. Woogie
    August 9th, 2008 at 10:58 pm

    It's rather telling that the "nuts" are making coherent arguments, whereas the people who believe the government version offer nothing but petty insults.

    To accept, verbatim, the government version when there are so many flaws and holes is to piss on the memory of the thousands that died that day IMO. To not question, to accept blindly without the hint of being able to think for yourself is disturbing.

    Do I believe the government did it? Directly? No. Do I believe they knew it was coming and did nothing? Absolutely. Pearl Harbor was allowed to happen to justify America entering the war. This much as has been confirmed by various sources over the years. But it took several decades for it to even be considered as possible.

    Governments will sacrifice their citizens for their own ends, whether noble or nefarious. Anyone who doubts this, just look up the bombings of Coventry in World War 2. The British government knew it was coming, but couldn't issue an evacuation order, because if they did the German's would know their code had been cracked. Hundreds were killed.

    Anyone who doesn't at least question 9/11 is so very very blind.

54. ted
    August 10th, 2008 at 9:20 am

    Woogie, you're obviously not reading the comments very closely. None of the comments I made contained any petty insults, and all of my arguments were coherent. That's not to say I blindly accept any "government version" of events.

    It's interesting that you call it the "government's version"; it shows a natural mistrust of the government, which can be a good thing if not taken to the paranoid extreme.

55. Thomas
    August 10th, 2008 at 11:37 am

    Ted, the Iran WMD argument is moot. All I hear about is whether Iran has nukes or nuclear ambitions. Did Russia give them nukes? Are they enriching uranium? Is it for weapons or energy? Its died down a little in recent months, but there's definitely a push to attack Iran, making that the second preemptive war in US history.

    At the end of the day, I'm doubtful that the US did anything more than let it happen. But let it happen they did. If anyone wants to tell me that three airliners turned off their flight transponders and made u-turns over the most protected airspace in the US, and no one noticed, I'll tell you to your face that you're crazy. It is standard protocol to scramble jets within three minutes of a transponder going off or a plane going off course. No order is given, it just happens. An order must be given for it not to happen. And it didn't. That alone should raise some eyebrows of all levels of civic and governmental minds.

56. ted
    August 10th, 2008 at 6:11 pm

    The country is Iraq, Thomas. I did mention Iran later, but not in reference to the WMDs.

    Now you're calling me crazy. I think their reaction time was way too slow to the planes' change of flight because of complacency. It had never happened before. I really doubt they'd let it happen because it's way too embarrassing, for one thing.

    Did they take advantage of the attacks for their own political ends? Of course. Again, a conspiracy like that would be way too big to manage reasonably.

57. Alex Fear
    August 15th, 2008 at 2:40 pm

    @Ted, you make some fine points but this question:

    "Sorry, Love to Be Wrong, but you just don’t get my point. Why crash four planes at all? Why come up with such a fantastic and potentially unmanageable catastrophe such as using four planes when a few well-placed explosives will do?"

    Could equally be asked of the terrorist hijackers. How did they hide such a fantastical plan, and why didn't they use bombs instead of planes?

    I have my beliefs about 9/11 but at this point I'm not trying to argue either way - just putting your logic to the test.

    Also, real conspiracies do exist as someone pointed out in a comment above. To question those conspiracies would be conspiratorial in itself eg. Did Nixon really conspire to gather information about an opponent, or was he set up by someone who didn't want him to win the next election? Did Guy Fawkes really plot to blow up English parliament or was he a scapegoat?

    Equally, it is very real and very feasible a government would want to harm it's own people to political ends. Unless you do trust the words of democratically elected leaders such as Robert Mugabe?

    Finally, since it is believable that terrorists conspired to fly planes into major American landmarks, and it's believable that high level operators such as Bin Laden conspired (there's that word again) with others behind closed cave-doors to carry this out... is it really that hard to imagine some higher-level agents working for any countries government eg. Taliban or America used Bin Laden and others to carry this out?

    Oh but we're back to the American government would never lie to it's people argument again.

    Look through your emotions and see the big picture. Like I say, I'm not promoting my views, just asking questions.

58. I Would love to be wrong
    August 16th, 2008 at 2:28 am

    Ted:

    I wanted to thank you for making some well reasoned and intelligent arguments. You take offense to the comment that all those doubting the 9/11 conspiracy just use pejoratives..however, you are the only exception.

    Why use four planes? Why such a big incident? Well, because they could, I suppose. Because it is quite easy to install remote control devices on airplanes (assuming that's what they did). Because, who could believe that terrorists could sneak into the WTC planting explosives all over? Because, this way, it constricts travel.

    Why, then, did they not plant WMDs in Iraq? I don't know, it's a good question. It might make sense when you think about the attacks in the context of psychological warfare against the American people to make them accept a police state. To me, the Iraq war seemed like a huge smoke screen, to draw media attention and the ire of those from those who might be suspicious of the government. So, the whole Iraq fiasco is made as preposterous as possible (for instance, only guarding the oil ministry and not the national museum in the initial invasion) in order to make it appear the the government is just hopelessly inept, and not overtly malicious.

    So, the "politically correct" thing to do is to criticize the Iraq War, and not to mention 9/11..even when, whether the govt. did it or not, the 9/11 commission report is glaringly erroneous and full of holes.

    By the way, it is clearly a woman that is in the hole in the photos. The "official line" (NIST website) is that she was just away from the center of the heat.

    In my eyes, I do believe it is possible that 19 hijackers committed the act..but I wouldn't put the odds at more than 5-10%. There are just too many things that don't fit together in the story. Why didn't they scramble planes to protect the pentagon more than an hour after the wtc attacks? Why wasn't anyone reprimanded in the air defense? What about norm mineta's testimony on cspan that directly contradicted what cheney had claimed? Why the lies about having "never anticipated anything like this?", why were the pentagon video tapes and wtc rubble destroyed?

    If people doubt the government's story, it is because the government acted like a guilty criminal in dealing with it.

59. StructuralEngineer
    September 12th, 2008 at 12:14 pm

    I would love to be wrong,

    Let me give you some information that might be usefull.

    One thing that you must understand, is weight bearing loads. WBL basically say that X floor can hold X weight. X floor exerts X amount of force on load bearing structure. If X floor (In this case, FLOORS) are compromised, than X floor caan only hold X weight.

    Example. Take a stack of bricks. Not cinder blocks, but bricks. Walking stones are the best for this analogy. Stack them 15-20 tall. Put a small spacer on all four corners of each block before putting the next one on. Now, take a hammer and wack the top one fairly hard. I can almost GUARANTEE that your hammer will break every brick in the stack. This is basically what happened on 9/11.
    The floors below were only designed to safely hold X amount of weight. EVEN IF they could hold 50% more than the design pressure, they STILL couldn't hold up 25-30 floors above it. This would exceede its WBL by 3000% or more. Impossible to hold.

    And as far as it slowing them down, nope. Not at all. When X floor recieved X load from 25-30 floors above, it failed. This in turn created MORE weight for the floor below it to try to absorb. It couldn't so it failed also.
    For instance. If it took (Not accurate just numbers for argument sake) floor 75 10 seconds to absorb 100 pounds of weight from above to the point of failure, then now floor 75 has not only 100 pounds of pressure from the inital fall, but also floor 75's weight. Now, because floor 74 has 110 lbs of weight, it would only take 9 seconds. See my drift?? Multiply that by millions of pounds of force, and you get casastropic failure.

60. indiethinker2008
    October 25th, 2008 at 9:45 pm

    Three links that should be the last word on 911 conspiracy theory

    http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/50427/911_conspiracy_theorist s_echo_early.html?cat=62

    http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/991808/alex_jones_dnc_confron tation_with_michelle.html?cat=8

    http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/728809/what_should_be_the_las t_word_on_the.html?cat=9

61. joshua young
    May 10th, 2009 at 2:47 pm

    Some of these conspiracys are insulting towards our country and do highlight the interest of americans.

    There is an old sayin we've all herd: "Is it better to be a feared leader or loved leader."-(something like that) What I mean by that is: In the time of G.W. Bush were people blaming him for 9/11, cause they feared him or couldn't trust him. After all, he was the new president. And its easy for people to assume the goverment had some informatation before-hand of the attack. People will blame politics because, either thay can't trust them or they just don't like them.

62. mikey portland maine
    July 4th, 2009 at 12:36 am

    I saw an interview where one of the architects of the towers said they were designed to withstand 10 plane crashes.The Empire State Building did not come close to this level of failure.Look at the impact over and over again if need be,you see those GREAT BALLS OF FIRE,there goes all your jet fuel burning up in open air outside of the towers.Some other entity made those fires burn hotter than the devil himself.Somebody asked why would the u.s.gov. do this?It's a three word answer (NEW WORLD ORDER!)look for G .W. Bush Sr.speech 9/11/91 he told us "It is more than an idea,now we can see a new world coming into focus,A New world Order")Ever notice how many times the number 11 comes into play in this country-society-government-9/11 itself?Evidence is all around us.The only nuts outthere are the ones who accept the official version and those who don't question it at all.Where do you think our next war is going to be?North Korea?Pakistan?Iran?Suddenly now as of today 7-3-09 Russia is our new bestest buddy and gonna let us ship our stuff to Afganistan over their land and perhaps airspace,since when do they wanna do anything for us?

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