I’ve wanted to, but hesitated to post this for a long time here. However, the recent and open discussions about the attacks in Madrid have emboldened me. I’m wondering if anyone else here has doubts about the official version of what happened on 9/11.

Upfront, I should say that I do have doubts, although I have no specific answers to any of the questions I have. The implications that we haven’t been given the “true” story are dire: at the very least, this would indicate a massive failure of many different parts of our government and military and at the worst this may point toward US complicity - even participation - in the attacks.

It’s difficult to internalize the latter; in fact, if I really believed, in my bones, that the USA was complicit in the attacks, I’d return to Europe immediately and probably never come back. Still, there are just to many things that simply don’t add up. Many of the things one finds on the web are just garbage, but many more are as close to “facts” as one can get. As some of you know, I have my own experiences of 9/11 as well, but what I haven’t generally mentioned are all the strange things that went on in NYC in the two or three months after the attack. I suppose the question is, what gestalt does all this form?

So, what I’d like is for anyone who’s willing to share the things they think are suspect OR to debunk things that have been presented by the mainstream or alternative media as suspect.

This is one website with a good timeline drawn from mainstream sources (not that they are always to be trusted, but because they do not suffer from the accusations of severe bias other sources do.) There are many others out there for the googling.

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Michael Moore's making another 'mentary called FAHRENHEIT 9/11.

I don't doubt the official version. Claims that Bush initiated the attacks to re-establish public favor are absolute horse dung. We all know Bush probably couldn't count the fingers on his hands, let alone orchestrate mass, JFK-assassination-rivaling conspiracies.

"Before man came to blow it right
The wind once blew itself untaught,
And did its loudest day and night
In any rough place where it caught."

-Robert Frost, The Aim Was Song

I don't believe in complicated conspiracies. No one has time for those.
Before 9/11: even though there was probably intelligence that something big would happen, no one could imagine what actually happened. I am certain there was no real knowledge of the plans, and everything else must have been speculative, and hard to act on.
After 9/11: yes, blunder and idiocy followed upon one another. But such is human nature. Depressing but proved since ancient times.

I do believe the Bush-administration, and several puppy-dog-governments across the world have tried to shape this horrible situation to their advantage by spinning facts into something less true. And by scaring populations into irrational behaviour. But conspiracy, nah..

I kind of wanted leave aside the question of a greater conspiracy - I was more interested in breaking down the componant parts of things that "dont' add up" e.g., the melting point of the steel in the Towers, the fact that fighters were scrambled so late (and so few), President Bush the Younger staying so long at a completely unsecured location, etc.

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Personally I think much of this is tosh - and I suspect Digiprime's already read it being a New Yorker n' all, but for what it's worth: Nine Hundred and Eleven Missing Pieces by Alan Cabal(!) from NYPress.

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A lot of that is indeed "tosh" (love that word). There are many sites like this one.

Still, there are some very basic questions that have no good answers. I haven't put up a list because, 1. it'd be too long and 2. I was kind of hoping for some input from other people.

But, ok, here's one: why did President Bush stay at an unsecured location for so long, especially when, according to all timetables, those in the whitehouse were already being suttled off to presumably safe locations? It just makes no sense based on what we know now.

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Either option is frightening.
While all those 'plane switching', 'israeli art students' and 'Tesla weapons' scenarios just strike me as way out there, yes, too many things don't add up.
Just one thing that, so far, should have been cleared up (or maybe it has but I haven't seen it): who shorted all those stocks before that day? Is it that hard to find out?

Both the Canadian and US authorties droped the investigation around mid November 2001, if memory serves, this despite the chicago board seing, if I remember correctly, a 10 fold increase the previous two trading days on shorts of both airlines and similar increases in allied industries.

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First things first, read The Cell. A little background on Islamic terrorism in the U.S., the politics that shaped counterterrorism in the U.S., and a blow-by-blow account of every move the hijackers were known to have made in open sources. If you're serious about entertaining the idea that your own government participated in the attacks, then you need to do more serious research than simply surfing conspiracy sites on the web, bro.

then:

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Originally posted by digitalprimate:
the melting point of the steel in the Towers

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It's a sign of conspiracy that a commercial building can't withstand the impact of a jetliner plus a fire fed by enough fuel to get said plane across the continent? Some buildings could have withstood it, sure. But it had nothing to do with the melting point of the steel, it had to do with the specific method used in joining the steel members. When they sagged, they fell apart. A bad idea, sure, but who plans on a fire like that?

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the fact that fighters were scrambled so late (and so few)

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A sure sign of stupidity and "cost effectiveness", not of a conspiracy. We don't keep more fighters ready to scramble on short notice (or didn't, at least) because it's expensive to keep them that ready, and because your average Air Force flight line doesn't have munitions stacked up along side it for safety and cost reasons.

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President Bush the Younger staying so long at a completely unsecured location, etc.

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He hung out at the school for a few minutes (What's the threat there? He had air cover, since they always keep air cover ready for AF One, and if you can show me an Islamic terrorist group, or any terr group for that matter, that stands a chance against the Secret Service in an entry situation, I'll blow you for free. Have you seen the tapes of AQ practicing entry techniques? They suck harder than black holes.), then he got on AF One, with armed escorts, then he went to an AF base, then he went back to D.C. over the objections of everyone else. What kind of totally unsecured location were you thinking of?

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But, ok, here's one: why did President Bush stay at an unsecured location for so long, especially when, according to all timetables, those in the whitehouse were already being suttled off to presumably safe locations? It just makes no sense based on what we know now.

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It makes perfect sense. 1) Everything I said above about how secure he was. 2) For some hours, they didn't know that there were only four planes in the attack. Since D.C. landmarks were already identified as targets, they'd have been fucking stupid not to evacuate the WH, don't you think?

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Both the Canadian and US authorties droped the investigation around mid November 2001, if memory serves, this despite the chicago board seing, if I remember correctly, a 10 fold increase the previous two trading days on shorts of both airlines and similar increases in allied industries.

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Mmm hmmm. And segments of intel reports about the attacks had portions redacted before they were shared with Congress. Many have speculated that those sections redacted were about Saudi knowledge/complicity in the attacks. UBL announced ahead of time that something big would be happening around the time of the attacks and that all AQ operatives should return to Afghanistan before that time. Is it outside the realm of possibility that he also advised his rich Saudi backers to take care of their portfolios? And as horrid as it is to cover up for the Saudis, we have to keep in mind that destabilizing them won't lead to any more helpful regime.

I don't mean to sound harsh. I read back through my post and I sound harsh. But it's not a topic that a person with a soul can avoid being passionate about. Don't worry; I still love you, my little monkey friend. But a lot of your questions have been answered by non-governmental sources with very credible answers.

Politics is a big whore. -Romanian proverb

About the construction: even though I don't believe in conspiracy-theories, this story is really interesting and I think I posted it before, too.
Now, it is also apropos another thread, and the education of the architect

Since I read it the first time, fate had it that I had to read a lot about Islamic architecture for work, and I realised that Atta most certainly has studied the work of Yamasaki as part of his course curriculum.

When I was a student, most architecture professors would point to the wtc as an example of really bad construction, and thus bad architecture. Because the loadbearing structure was on the outside of the building, there was no natural light inside. The Islamic inspiration for the design was seen as kitsch. No one thought about planes, though.

Uhm, digitalprimate, I almost regret now having posted on your paranoia thread that I knew what you had for breakfast. You know that I really didn't know what you had for breakfast, right?

Conspiracy (and related) theories thrive by being highly selective of the evidence. Anytime you think there's reason to be paranoid, ask yourself how hard you've tried to *disprove* the hypothesis. The null hypothesis is right far, far more often than any other, it just makes for a lousy headline, that's all.

Beyond that, what Splitcoil said.

Bellham
~Arguing principle from convenience is no principle at all.~

Cool link, M. I hadn't realised that Yamasaki was also responsible for Pruitt-Igoe (and attempting to find an image of the complex I discovered that the demolition of the buildings is featured in Koyaanisqatsi). Most interesting!

My problem with conspiracy theories is that most of them are based on the false premise that our governments - no matter how duplicitous or corrupt - nevertheless always act rationally. So when they screw up or do something foolish, the conspiracy theorist asks - what was the ulterior motive? There wasn't one - they're idiots. Although I am intrigued to know what JB means by "Conspiracy (and related) theories".

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It is important also to differentiate what some individuals knew, and what did the US government know.

Probably a lot of people knew that something big was going to happen, and a few of them maybe knew that it could happen the 11. But those that knew that AQ was toying with planes were unaware that an attack was inminent, and probably few expected an attack against the US mainland. The US embassies around the world (including the Spanish one) were on attack alert all that week.

That is enough to convince well informed people to ditch airlines (even before 9/11, they always went down when terrorism was up, just as a disruption to travel) and concentrate on military industries.

For the rest, misinformation and pure disbelief helped delay actions on that day. No need to invoke even idiocy. Astonishment would work as well.

If some people could have acted to prevent a terrorist attack and did not because it would give a boost to certain policies, it is possible, but we will never know for sure now.

José

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I don't mean to sound harsh.

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No offence taken at all. I agree it’s way too important to remain apathetic, and I‘m actually hoping someone can allay my concerns.

So, conspiracy theories first. It is true that at the heart of almost all conspiracy theories is a circular argument: a crucial piece of evidence is missing; therefore someone must have hidden or destroyed it; ergo, someone is hiding something. However, it is illogical to dismiss conspiracy theories qua conspiracy theories. Just because most are propounded by crack pots and snake oil salesmen and just because most prove to be nothing more than “tosh,” doesn’t disprove them all.

And, I would add, we know the US government has misled the world on multiple occasions, and not always about small things.

That having been said, I would re-emphasize what I said in my initial post - I am agnostic regarding the possibility conspiracy. And I agree that we’ll probably never know the everything everyone - from the aforementioned crackpots to US Senators - wants to know.

Still, some things just don’t add up.

Specifics relevant to s/c’s post:

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We don't keep more fighters ready to scramble on short notice (or didn't, at least) because it's expensive to keep them that ready, and because your average Air Force flight line doesn't have munitions stacked up along side it for safety and cost reasons.

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Actually, there was a biannual full scale NORAD drill in progress on 9/11, which indicates to me that we should have, if anything, been more prepared than usual (although admittedly I don‘t know enough about this type of drill to say anything definitive; others have though). Besides, how many mach 2 fighters do you need to intercept a commercial jet liner?

Moreover, we scramble fighters much more quickly on a very regular basis (and did pre 9/11 as well.) And, while it’s true that in order to fully arm most interceptors with air to air missiles you need a fair amount of lead time in a non-combat zone, it takes hardly any time at all to load cannons, which is really all you’d need to down an undefended commercial jet liner.

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He hung out at the school for a few minutes (What's the threat there? He had air cover, since they always keep air cover ready for AF One, and if you can show me an Islamic terrorist group, or any terr group for that matter, that stands a chance against the Secret Service in an entry situation, I'll blow you for free. Have you seen the tapes of AQ practicing entry techniques? They suck harder than black holes.), then he got on AF One, with armed escorts, then he went to an AF base, then he went back to D.C. over the objections of everyone else. What kind of totally unsecured location were you thinking of?

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I don’t know anything about air cover for AF One and I have no reason to doubt that the SS would be more than capable of defending against some kind of forced entry situation (a dedicated car bomb driver might be a different story though).

Still, the fact remains that while at the school, NORAD and other security agencies knew that at least two planes had been hijacked and that one had already crashed into the WTC. So, either they knew the exact nature of the threat (four planes and where they were) or they knew only that multiple planes had been hijacked nearly simultaneously. In the former case, what is the excuse for not scrambling fighters earlier. In the latter case, I’m not sure air cover would matter - you’re still talking about potentially having to shoot down a large aircraft in the vicinity of the president.

Finally, not knowing the nature of a serious threat to national security, but knowing that the President’s route and schedule were known in advance, it defies all basic tenants of security (something I actually do know something about) to keep him in the same place for that long. In any case, being airborne in AF One would have been the safest place at that point.

And the President staying so long in the school presents another problem: why did he remain away from the closest command and control center for so long?

Just two of the many questions.

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I realise now that I fell into the now common error of using "conspiracy theory" in the plural sense. Actually, "conspiracy theories" or "a conspiracy theory" are misnomers, or, at least, misleading. There can be allegations of conspiracies, but tacking the word theory onto such allegations merely allows for the sort of knee-jerk dismissal that digiprime decries. And there is THE conspiracy theory, meaning the conspiracy theory of history. This states that historical events are entirely the result of behind-the-scenes machinations by powerful people or institutions, and that things happen because they were planned to happen. Because this approach to history has produced a number of disparate (occasionally overlapping) versions of this historical approach, it might be appropriate to talk about conspiracy theories in the sense that one can choose between, say, the Illuminati theory and the reptilian alien-human hybrids theory. But specific allegations of shadowy dealings, unanswered questions, cover-ups or disinformation aren't conspiracy theories in that sense. Alleging Nixon covered up White House connections to the Watergate burglary is not a conspiracy theory. Arguing Watergate was part of a centuries long program to hand control of the planet to the Reticular Greys would be.

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on the whole jet scramble thing delay.
Well, to be fair, people just thought it was a 'normal hijack' Until the first plane went it to the towers, it would have been pretty radical to shoot a jet full of hostages out of the sky.

they have the internet on computers now?

Actually, no Chatsubo. By all timelines, NORAD and several agencies were aware of at least the second plane being hijacked shortly after the first. As two hijackings this close together would have about a one in a zillon chance of being unrelated, we should have known something unusual was happening. Certainly after the first plane hit the WTC you'd think we'd have known something very wrong was happening - but still no fighters were scrambled at this point.

Moreover, it is standard policy to immediately scramble fighters if a commercial jetliner deviates much less than these two did from their flight paths. I can send you links to examples of this and statments of policy if you like.

I'm not trying to be contentious, just pointing out how much doesn't add up (and hoping for some rational explainations).



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...it would have been pretty radical to shoot a jet full of hostages out of the sky.

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Yes, it would have been. However, that's not the main reason it is policy to dispatch fighters to wandering planes - the main reason to take a look at what's going on close up.



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Okay, like beer, I think its best to approach in in terms of strength.
The Strong BLIHOP argument (Bush Let It Happen On Purpose) - 9/11 was delibrately planned and executed by the Bush Admin/Carlyle Group/Bavarian Illuminanti, etc, as an excuse to place the US military both into Central Asia (as part of the Brewesnki Doctrine - who ever controls Afghanistan controls Eurasia, and whoever controls Eurasia, controls the world) and the Middle East, secure Bush a second term, and generally fuck around with the Constitution.
The Medium BLIHOP argument - Bush had already decided to invade Afghanistan before 9/11. OBL found out and started planning a pre-emptive strike. The US found about the pre-emptive strike, but let it happen anyway for many of the reason listed above.
The Weak BLIHOP - like the medium, except that the US seriously underestimated the scale and size of the attacks - maybe they just hoped that OBL would wack Clinton.
Personally, I think the truth is probably from weak to medium.

they have the internet on computers now?

Well, I'm not sure I buy into any sort of grand unified theory of 9/11 yet, although the way you've delineated it certainly puts things in context.


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