What really happend during 9/11?

PBS Why the towers fell

Is a good place to start. There’s a lot of information and misinformation out there. Remember, whatever you learn- find the source and see if you think it is unbiased. Even with the link I gave you above.

There isn’t a lot to it.

19 guys decided to die for a stupid cause. They got some money from other stupid people. Four of them went to school to learn to fly planes.

The “why” part is the hardest to answer. My best guess is that we fuck around in the Middle East when we need leave. And our support of Israel. I do understand why they are pissed.

There are some people in parts of the world who are extremely upset that there are American troops in Saudi Arabia and that the United States is an ally of Israel. Some of these people are in a group called al-Qaida, and their goal is to more or less get the US out of the Middle East and the Muslim-run parts of Asia and not involve itself over there.

There are a lot of oil and natural gas resources in that part of the world, though, so it’s going to be hard for people to not go over there and meddle.

The man who runs al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden, has a lot of money; his father was in construction. He paid to set up training camps and teach people (mainly young men) how to make bombs, fight guerrilla-style and so on. It took a year to plan what happened in NYC and Washington, and the government knew that something was in the works, but didn’t believe anyone would actually try anything here, so nothing was done.

The thing is, there are people who are willing to die for their beliefs and take others with them, and not over money, or anything tangible. People in al-Qaida and groups like it believe that the Western world and Jewish people are trying to overrun and destroy them as Muslims, so acts like 9/11 are what they have to do so that they can “fight back.” It’s hard to deal with someone who really, really believes something, isn’t it? Well. These people are like that, except they’re willing to kill and die to maintain their beliefs.

@astrix24, it wasn’t “some Muslim guy,” It was 19 Muslim guys.

They weren’t ordinary Muslims, they were members of an extremist sect, al-Qaeda, that is essentially a death cult. @aprilsimnel explained their motives well.

Also, there is a movement of conspiracy theorists called the 9/11 truth movement who believe that, despite the numerous videos of planes crashing into the buildings and exploding, the actual reason the towers fell was because… George Bush’s administration planted bombs inside them. Don’t ask why.

What happened:
—2 planes crashed into the Twin Towers aka World Trade Center.
—1 plane crashed in Pennsylvania somewhere.
—Something hit the Pentagon. There weren’t plane parts around, but there was considerable damage at the Pentagon. Surrounding cameras were confiscated.

“Why” it happened:
This part depends on the truth, which may not be what is popularly believed.

—If al Qaeda members attacked the US, then it was because of the notable anti-USA sentiment in the Middle East that results from the USA’s support of Israel against the Palestinians, and previous meddling in the Middle East.

—If the USA government, or some secret agency, planned and executed the attack, then it was to raise nationalism in order to rally support for an invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. The USA invaded Afghanistan because it was believed that al Qaeda, and namely Osama bin Laden, were hiding there, and the Afghan government refused to find him and submit him to the USA. Al Qaeda and Taliban are not the same. Taliban began fighting us when we invaded Afghanistan, and have since been pushed to the mountainous region on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The first reason for the USA invasion of Iraq was for ties to al Qaeda. There weren’t any. The second reason was for weapons of mass destruction. There weren’t any. The third reason was for the abduction of Saddam Hussein.

Does anyone on here seriously believe that the US government was behind and executed the 9/11 attacks?

The USA funded and trained and supported Islamic extremists in Afghanistan to undermine the Russians in Afghanistan (during the Cold War). The USA promised to help them establish an Islamic state (movement: Islamism)

Once the Soviet Union disintegrated, the Americans abandoned the Islamists and decided that an Islamic super-state wasn’t such a nice idea. This made the Islamists feel betrayed and cast aside (because that is what the USA did to them).

The attacks on 9/11 were a last ditch attempt at vengeance against the lying, cheating, manipulative bastards (USA), who ruined the dream of Islamism and foolishly betrayed & made enemies of some of the most insane people in the world (Islamic extremists).

The CIA have a word for it, “Blowback”, IIRC.

@wilma

God, I hope not!

@astrix24-

At 8:40 a.m. on the morning of 9/11, a hijacked plane crashed into one of the two World Trade Center towers. These were the tallest buildings in New York City and the United States. At this point, most everyone thought this was an accident.

At 9:03 a.m., a second hijacked plane crashed into the second tower.

At 9:37 a.m., a third plane was reported to have crashed into the Pentagon, which is the giant headquarters for all of the United States military. The crash site was a mostly unoccupied section of the Pentagon that had just undergone a renovation.

At 9:59 a.m., the second tower that was hit collapsed.

At 10:03 a.m., a fourth hijacked plane is destroyed by impact in a rural area of Pennsylvania. This plane was supposed to hit the White House or another important target.

At 10:28 a.m., the first World Trade Center tower that was hit collapsed.

At 5:20 p.m., World Trade Center 7, a 47 story building that is part of the same building complex as the two towers collapsed. The reported cause is damage from falling debris and fires in the building.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to really know how or why this happened, because there are so many conflicting and incomplete stories. Even the official stories are incomplete. The best one can do is look around at the information available and decide for oneself the why and how.

@jfos, There were plane parts found near the Pentagon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_77

Also, if no plane hit the Pentagon, what happened to American Airlines Flight 77? Did it just vanish? Perhaps aliens abducted it?

This is where conspiracy theories fail. It’s easy to be “skeptical” of a mainstream explanation, but if you’re going to say Flight 77 didn’t hit the Pentagon, you can’t just not bother explain what happened to that airplane.

@Qingu, It may have landed at Reagan National 1 mile away. There are multiple eyewitness accounts of the plane approaching the Pentagon along a different flight path than the official account provides (which, if true, also makes it impossible for the plane to have caused the damage it did as it approached the Pentagon). Further, there is an eyewitness account of a plane flying low over the “back side” of the Pentagon at the time of the explosion/impact. So, that’s likely what happened if no plane hit the Pentagon. But, whatever… do your usual routine.

@kevbo what do you mean it “may have” landed at the airport?

Did anyone see it land? Are there any records of it landing? What happened to the plane after it landed? Where is the plane now?

More importantly, what happened to the people on that flight? Did they vanish? Murdered by government agents?

I’m not sure what your point is about eyewitnesses and different flight paths. We have a video of it happening. It’s on the Wiki page I linked to. Is the video faked?

It’s not a video. It’s an animated .gif as the mouse over text describes, and it’s a very sorry bit of public evidence given the body of footage that was confiscated and deemed “classified.”

It’s interesting that you go on about “I saw planes explode into buildings,” but you can’t really say the same thing in this case.

Obviously, I don’t know what happened to the plane or the people. I was just providing an answer to your question. If you want to move the goalposts further, I suppose you can do that, but isn’t that what conspiracy theorists do?

The video is at the end of the article.

And if you have no explanation for what happened to the plane or the people on it… why exactly are you disputing the official story? In order to dispute something, you need a better explanation to replace it.

@Qingu, if you don’t know the answer to that question, you haven’t been paying attention to our myriad debates.

Conspiracy theorists make the rather silly mistake of assuming little people can’t possibly do big things. Ergo, Lee Harvey Oswald couldn’t possibly have acted alone to assassinate John F. Kennedy; Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols couldn’t have blown up the Muir Federal Building, and a bunch of Muslim terrorists couldn’t have acted alone and pulled off 9/11. That idea is patently absurd. There is nothing that make pulling a trigger, parking a truck bomb, or hijacking an airliner more complex when the value of its target increases.

Is it possible that there were hidden agendas and secret plots that went above Al Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks. Sure, I suppose it is. But the “evidence” conspiracy theirist point to simply won’t hold water. In the absence of any proof that the US government or Saudi Crown or Bilderbergers or Illuminati or space aliens or bigfoot was behind it, what you see is probably what you get.

Just to play the devil’s advocate here – @ETpro I don’t think that the “evidence” from the official story holds much water, either.
There are too many holes in the story coming from both sides. I think this is what makes the people so skeptical, period. The events of 9/11 were devastating, and naturally the people want a concrete explanation. Having so many versions coming at us, none of which seem to be able to fully bear their own weight, is frustrating. As an American, I feel it is not only my right, but my duty to ask questions.
In regards to the original question – it’s hard to say what “really” happened, for just that reason alone. No one is positive. There are a lot of opinions. Some believe that the official story released by the government is 100% true. Some believe that the conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11 are 100% true. Some people believe a sort of mish mash of both.
What really happened is that we were attacked. Planes crashed into buildings, buildings collapsed, innocent lives were lost. It was a devastating tragedy for the American people and for the world. Those are facts that no one can dispute.

What you should be worrying about is why we don’t know exactly what happened or why.

@TheOnlyNeffie & @zophu There is hardly ever a murder trail in which there is no dispute over EXACTLY what happened and why. Why on earth would you expect perfect closure on a murder of nearly 3,000 people in 3 separate locations by 19 perpetrators? There will certainly be a good deal we never fully know. But till better evidence comes along, I am comfortable with the 9/11 commission’s findings.

@ETpro many people are comfortable with that. Many people aren’t. In a country where you are innocent until proven guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt, I don’t think the “beyond a shadow of a doubt” part has been nailed for a lot of people.
It’s natural to want answers. Whether or not people will ever get the answers they’re seeking, well, that could be a different story entirely. :)

@ETpro Things of great social concern should be completely clear. When things of great social concern are not clear, people should not be comfortable. Whether the lack of clarity is justified or not.

@TheOnlyNeffie & @zophu I certainly do not discourage further investigation. If there are hidden co-conspirators I would gladly dance on their graves after they are punnished for the crime.

For a while, I was shocked that nobody wanted clarification on the Pentagon part of the story. Then I realized that the media stopped covering it.

In the fumbling chaos following 9/11, everybody stopped asking questions about the truth, and instead started buying American flags and discriminating against Muslims, Indians, Southwest Asians, Gas station attendants, Dunkin donuts franchisees, etc.

Channeling sadness and vulnerability into aggression and “retaliation.”

The problem I have with the conspiracy theories is that no one has come forth and admitted to being involved in the conspiracy or having knowledge of the conspiracy. In order for a conspiracy this large to be carried out, there would have to be hundreds of people involved (either directly or they could be someone who has knowledge of the conspiracy) and no one has come forth in 9 years. You may say: they’ve been paid off. Okay, for how long? Where’s the money coming from? Hundreds of people can only be paid off for so long.

I just wanted to say that because I never got a chance to say that in my terrorism class last quarter. :P

Bad things.
Really.

@ETpro, going along with your assumptions, the terrorists didn’t act alone. They were funded and trained, so your comparison to other “lone gunman” scenarios aren’t really good ones. Pulling off a hijacking of four commercial airplanes on the same morning and navigating and flying those planes is much more complex than the other examples you cite.

@DominicX, here’s an example of a philanthropic women’s organization that kept the name/meaning of their organization secret for more than 100 years, and nobody paid them to do it.

@kevbo

I’d say that’s pretty different than hiding a conspiracy that goes all the way to the White House and beyond. Seems like it would be a bit harder to keep this one completely silent for so long. Also, for such an air-tight silencing, how come there are so many holes in the plot that all the conspiracy theorists have picked up on?

@DominicX The problem I have with the conspiracy theorists are that they hold two totally contradictory beliefs and never see the contradiction. They are convinced that government can do nothing right. Even people who were vastly successful in the private sector pass through some force field that transmogrifies them into simpering idiots when they enter government life. And they are equally convinced that the US government made 4 aircraft full of people disappear into thin air, flew missiles into the WTC and Pentagon, but somehow made eyewitnesses see airplanes instead, and shot down flight 93 over the field in Pennsylvania. Air traffic controllers all over the Eastern USA would have seen all this on radar, but they are convinced that even though thousands of government operatives and employees and even civilians had to be in on such a conspiracy, their utterly incompetent government pulled this all off without a single hitch and nobody has ever breathed a word of it— no leaks, even to settle some score.

@kevbo I do not believe the 9/11 commission said that the terrorist acted alone. All indications pointed to funding and organization being supplied by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Bin Laden confessed to this part in the attacks.

Devilish acts triggered by poisoned brains.

@astrix24 So how are we doing? Have you learned anything new?

@zophu, do you believe humans landed on the moon?

If so, what about all the gaps in that story? Why is there no good video of the event? Why are strange things present in the video we have? Why won’t the government give us more information about it?

Do you believe the Holocaust happened? Certainly, for such a socially important event, you should hold the evidence to a much higher standard of proof. Why is Auschwitz more like an air raid bunker than a dedicated murder chamber? Why is there little evidence of Zyklon-B in the bricks in the gas chambers, contrary to the “mainstream” claims? Why are there no official statements by Nazis that they intended a “final solution?” How do you explain the false claims made by a number of Jews about the Holocaust?

Certainly, if you dig around the internet, you’ll find no shortage of “gaps” or “questionable evidence” for both the mainstream accounts of the moon landing and the Holocaust. Are you skeptical of those accounts, too? Or just the 9/11 account?

Also, if you guys believe that Bush’s use of 9/11’s official story to justify wars counts as “evidence” that it’s fake… what do you think about the Jews’ use of the Holocaust to justify the creation of Israel and wars to defend it? Wouldn’t that also count as “evidence” that the Holocaust is fake?

I’m completely serious—I want to know why the 9/11 truthers in here are skeptical about the mainstream 9/11 story, but not about the mainstream Holocaust story.

@Qingu you and I aren’t always on the same side of an argument, but in this one, I gotta say go dude!

@Qingu

There’s a difference between being skeptical towards provided information and denying it. All I am saying is that there’s no reason to be comfortable with our understandings of the greater events in this world. Historians know more than any how powerful recorded events can be in effecting the world, often more powerful than any actual events. Why trust every organization of historians . . . at any point in history?

Regardless of how socially important the records are, there’s no reason to be comfortable with them. Everything with a grain of salt, even when it’s the official story and all of the qualified experts agree. There are always potential secrets, even when it would be ”really really bad” for there to be secrets.

So, here I am. Challenging your comfort. Do you really need to feel like you live in a safe and stable world that makes sense and obviously is only here to benefit the lives of the masses? If so, then you’re going to have to trick yourself. We all trick ourselves to some degree, anyway, so it’s not a big deal. Go for it.

In my humble opinion, anyone who denies the holocaust, or who believes a government conspiracy was behind 9/11 is a freakin’ fruitcake of the first order!

@CaptainHarley Yep, real tinfoil hat crowd.

@CaptainHarley

You equate the questioning of these controversial things with immaturity. That is a mistake. It is not more mature to give up thinking for yourself so that you might avoid being seen as a fruitcake, is it? You’re not supposed to care what others think about you when it comes to you thinking freely. The inevitable conclusion that a free-thinker comes to when they look at greater things can be summed up with three words, “I don’t know.”

Everybody keeps secrets; you keep secrets. Why then, do you consider it at all reasonable to believe there aren’t extraordinary secrets that are relevant to all of us? I’m not saying there’s much we can do about it ourselves, but we should at least acknowledge the problem, you know?

Being unsure of the trustworthiness of the people or systems you depend upon is not the end of the world; it’s the first step in making improvements. Then again, the paranoid side of things is something to be avoided. While we’re all conspiracy theorists of varying degrees, those generally unhealthy individuals fitted with the stigma “conspiracy theorist” serve as a distorted veneer to a way of skeptical thinking that is vital for any society to have. We shouldn’t disrespect that skeptical way of thinking just because there’s a hefty layer of insanity that’s encouraged to form around it.

Study the history, make the necessary assumptions, but leave what you can to the unknown. Don’t ever stop questioning whatever you can. It’s exhausting and it will challenge your principles, but this is what we must do else betray future generations to the unchecked secrets of powerful fools who would condemn them.

@zophu I know @CaptainHarley well enough to know he has not given up thinking for himself. I can assure you I have not either. I think we would both be open to new facts if they emerge. However, they haven’t emerged.

Considering the moon shot, all that has come out so far is a reasonably conclusive set of facts suggesting that we actually did lan don the moon (you can still see some of the things left there with a powerful telescope). While there are details that we don’t know and may never fill in, there is no reason to reject the reality of the moon landing and instead insist it was filmed in the Arizona desert.

Regarding the 9/11 attacks, again we may never know every single detail. But what we do know says it was an al Qaeda attack carried out by 19 men who trained specifically for the mission. There simply is no credible evidence suggesting that our own government orchestrated it.

Saying that is not closed mindedness. It is simply recognition of the state of the facts at hand today.

@ETpro As far as the moonlanding goes, what does it matter? I mean, if I had to make a practical decision that hinged upon whether or not it actually happened, I’d go with that it did. (Not that it’s very relevant one way or the other.) Again, my only point was that we should not be certain about things of great social concern that are not very clear when it’s unnecessary to do so. To come to any conclusion based on limited or convoluted or possibly-corrupt data just because it is the only data available is foolish, don’t you think?

Any sort of certainty is a luxury of the past when all humans had to worry about was basic tribal stability and where they would get their meals. It’s okay to be unsure. It’s something we have to learn how to live with. This world is far too complex for us to have to count on our own security to function. Fear is obsolete.

I mean, even if 9/11 was a super-conspiracy, maybe it was done for the best. How should we know? There are people more qualified and informed than any of the general public could be who are involved in such important matters. The point is, we can’t really know—layer after layer, there’s too many unknowns—and we should mark that as an incompetence in us as a people.

@zophu You are welcome to doubt what you wish. I see the evidence for the 9/11 commission’s conclusion as overwhelming, and the conspiracy theorists objections are silly. I have looked at them in detail. Because if our government had done it, I would definitely want to know,. I would not just assume that some bureaucrat somewhere knew far more than the public and did the right thing.

@Qingu, there’s a very simple answer to your question, and that is that 9/11 truthers might not be as knowledgable or curious about other events.

@ETpro, it is not true that conspiracy theorists believe the government is simultaneously incompetent and all powerful, although “incompetence theory” and “conspiracy theory” do go hand in hand. For example, a friend of mine once chuckled (in relation to my discussion with him about 9/11) that he got a kick out of callers on a Native American talk show because half the callers would decry the Bureau of Indian Affairs as a bunch of idiots and the other half would claim that the Bureau was conspiring to screw the natives over. Well, what if the folks at the top purposely underfunded the BIA from year to year, which prevented rank and file employees from doing their jobs well? Is that conspiracy or incompetence, and how would the average person know the difference?

Better yet, if we are conditioned to believe in government incompetence, doesn’t that provide pretty effective cover for anyone with an agenda to deliberately abuse the public trust?

Among the arguments that you looked at in detail (and since you bring up air traffic control), did you note that on the morning of 9/11 air traffic controllers were made aware of and were participating in drills related to hijacked aircraft and war games with radar blips added and subtracted from air traffic displays? Would you characterize that as them being in on the plot, being incompetent, being misdirected to prevent them from responding, or as GW Bush described it, merely a “bizarre coincidence”?

Not that I would expect you would have, since it’s a different event, but did you note that on the morning of the 7/7 bombings in London, first responders were holding mock terror drills to respond to subway bombings? Would you characterize that as evidence that the first responders were in on the plot, incompetent, misdirected, or was this more bizarre coincidence akin to the 9/11 coincidence?

@DominicX, you have a point, and I would agree with you that we will surely never hear someone from the inside come forward until (like other state secrets) information is revealed 75 years from now, when the entire event is irrelevant. But you do ask good questions about keeping people quiet. In response, I would say: a) putting anthrax in the mail was an effective deterrent; b) one could reduce risk of exposure by employing people who are loyal to a cause or causes other than a conventional definition of defense of the U.S. (I’m allowing for the possibility that some believed that a 9/11 was necessary to ensure that we got to the oil/resources first.); and c) given the many recent tales of finance and bailouts, I think it’s obvious that there’s plenty of money for those with an inside track.

As for why all the silence despite the numerous holes that conspiracy theorists have picked up on, I think it means that we’ve gotten to a point where the levers of power are controlled sufficiently to ensure that enough normal people either support or at least do not critically obstruct an agenda, so it doesn’t matter whether the job is done perfectly. There were more holes in the theories linking Iraq to 9/11 and reasons given for invading Iraq than there were in the official account of 9/11 itself, and that didn’t stop us from invading. It didn’t even slow us down.

Even if there was NOTHING else to disprove the conspiracy theory of things like 9/11, it would be sufficient to point out that the federal govenment is like a sieve when it comes to keeping secrets.

@kevbo Sorry, I have to agree with @CaptainHarley. Knowing our government as well as I do, the idea of a 10,000 conspiracy remaining absolutely secret from a decade is laughable at best. Yes, I am aware of the war games theory. It simply is not true that blips were flashing in and out, nor is it true that all the available fighter jets in the USA were in Alaska. The sites claiming such are all conspiracy theory crackpot sites with zero credibility based on other outlandish claims they make.

Well, if usatoday.com and other newspapers’ Web sites qualify as crackpot sites, I guess we are in trouble.

@kevbo Your link leads to the home page of USA Today, with its current stories of the day listed. Can you provide a link to a credible source supporting the claims that war games crippled our ability to respond and that blips popped on and off air traffic controller’s screens all over the Norht Eastern USA?

Naturally, we didn’t scramble jets and shoot down commercial airliners full of innocent people just because the planes were hijacked. But despite any war games underway in Alaska, the Air Force did scramble jets and was prepared to down flight 93 once they knew what the hijackers intended to do with it. The passengers on board just saved them the effort.

The official claim is that war games and exercises on the morning of 9/11 actually expedited the defense response and that it took about 30 seconds to switch from exercise to real world response. Isn’t that remarkable?

This Wikipedia article describes blips (called “injects”) used in conjunction with the Alaskan operation. This Toronto Star article (the original is behind a pay wall) also references these injects and how they were “instantly” purged from the screens once NORAD hears from the FAA.

Curiously, this wikipedia article cites the following from the 9/11 Commission Report (the very same that you are “comfortable” with):

On page 17 of the 9/11 Commission Report when Boston center calls NEADS (Northeast Air Defense Sector), the response from NEADS was “is this real world or exercise?”. According to the 9/11 Commission’s staff statement No. 17,[1] for instance, page 26 of the Commission’s final report documents FAA’s report of a “phantom flight 11” at 9:21,[2] 35 minutes after the real flight 11 crashed into the WTC and even longer after the war games are alleged to have been aborted.

So not only were there blips, but one happened to have the same flight number as one of the planes involved in 9/11.

Crackpot? Zero Credibility? Outlandish? Give me a break. That’s just insulting.

So, regarding 7/7, a former Scotland Yard officer turned crisis management response consultant was conducting/about to conduct multiple subway bombing response exercises involving 1,000 participants on the morning of 7/7 as cited in these video and audio interviews recorded the same day as the attacks and quoted in this 2009 article in Britain’s Daily Mail

Oddly, the BBC asserts in 2009 (a few days before the above-referenced Daily Mail article was released) that he remembered differently, stating:

But Peter Power, a former Scotland Yard police officer, says on 7 July, the exercise he ran was office-based and involved just six people from a publishing company.

Back to 9/11, I don’t think anyone truly skeptical of the official 9/11 story literally believes that all fighter jets were in Alaska, and it’s almost too obvious and elementary to mention (as you do above) the fact that fighters did respond to airspace pertinent to 9/11, so your argument there is plainly silly. Even though you ignore my questions, it’s obvious, too, that the jets responding to D.C. threats were literally misled having been sent out over the Atlantic.

I’m not nor have I ever claimed that 10,000 people are keeping a 10 year old secret, but you haven’t answered whether it’s possible or likely that 10,000 people were kept distracted while 9/11 was taking place.

Finally, in typing “usa today dot com” I was merely naming the site. However, this article about war games similar to 9/11 that preceeded 9/11 is what I was recalling.

Theorizing is generally a waste of time and energy but if you can’t accept that important powers can lie creatively, succumb to creative lies, or otherwise be misunderstood due to corruption you have little imagination.

When it comes to the deaths of thousands of Americans, I much prefer cold, hard facts to any sort of “imagination.”

It’s best not to theorize much, like I said, but it’s worst to believe in the well-packaged and widely-distributed information simply because they are the closest things we have to cold, hard facts. Your imagination simply proves that it’s possible for there to be corruption, it’s not something to depend upon for absolute conclusions anymore than the official claims. The point is that we can’t depend upon anything for absolute conclusions, and should be at least a little pissed off about that.

My first thought about @DominicX‘s point about people keeping their mouths shut is that fear is an incredible motivator – even greater, it can be argued, than money. I do not think that it is unrealistic for the government (or some shady black ops group related to the government) to have the ability to intimidate those “in the know” into keeping quiet until the time – as @kevbo pointed out – “the entire event is irrelevant.”

To me it is highly unlikely that the government orchestrated the attacks of September 11, 2001. Could they have had intel on what was in the works and ignored it? Could they have had the intel and instead of attempting to foil the attack covertly support it then plan and implement a cover up? I think, given some of the well known decisions of the United States intelligence community, the answer to those questions is a resounding yes.

For the government to be involved, would mean that both the Clinton administration and the GW Bush administration would have had to cooperate and coordinate the whole plan.
Not likely.

@wilma the entire intelligence community is not replaced with each president. That would be the most important group of individuals to carry out this kind of plan.

@SuperMouse yes I know that, but the conspiracy theorists often point at the president and his administration.
I think it’s ridiculous.

@zophu, you insinuated that I believe the official story because I like to believe in a “safe and stable world.”

Ironically, I think it’s the conspiracy theorists who are motivated by this desire, not me. The world of 9/11 truthers is stable and “safe” in an authoritarian, paternalistic sort of way—the government is in total control, and extraordinary events like 9/11 could not possibly be caused by forces outside this central authority.

My world (the real world) is messy and complicated. Motivated individuals can come from out of nowhere and kill 3,000 people. The world is constantly changing through forces outside of our control—outside of any government’s control.

What’s really interesting to me is how similar your views are to a Christian creationist, in their structure. Both you and the creationist need to believe that someone is in control, that extraordinary things cannot happen by chance or without planning. Obviously, 9/11 truthers believe that “someone” is a shadowy government, not a deity. But both beliefs seem motivated by an almost childish need to trust that an authority is in control—even if that authority is malevolent.

Also, you said:

“It’s best not to theorize much, like I said, but it’s worst to believe in the well-packaged and widely-distributed information simply because they are the closest things we have to cold, hard facts.”

This is an insane statement. If an explanation is the closest to cold, hard facts, it is not “wrong” to believe it. It’s wrong not to believe it.

Einstein showed that gravity is a curvature in space time. This isn’t a perfect explanation for gravity (it contradicts another theory, quantum mechanics) but it’s the best we have. According to you, it’s “worst” to believe in Einstein’s theory of relativity, and instead we should use our imaginations to come up with some completely unevidenced explanation for what causes gravity, perhaps involving space unicorn conspiracies.

@kevbo, do you believe the official, mainstream explanation for the alleged Holocaust?

Are you remotely skeptical of that explanation?

Why or why not?

@Pied_Pfeffer , yeah, a little bit. Everyone is giving ,me good information.

@Qingu, I’ve already given you my take on the Holocaust.

You did? I only vaguely remember you saying you thought it happened, but you didn’t get into why.

Basically, I don’t know enough facts, but I question the 6M figure and whether the Khazar descendants were sold out.

Why exactly do you question the facts?

Part of the reason you question the facts about 9/11 is that the alleged “conspirators” were able to use the mainstream story to further their strategic goals (war in Iraq/Afghanistan). Is this also why you question the facts about the Holocaust?

Aren’t you the one who admonished the OP not to ask why?

Re: 9/11, what compelled me to think differently was watching tower collapse video with an eye toward the possibilty of it being a controlled demolition. The war(s) had already been going on for 5 years (unquestioned by me) at that point.

So, I question the Holocaust facts (albeit on a far back burner), because I pretty much question everything now. Because if 9/11 can be “faked” so to speak, then that is likely true for some other political events, such as 7/7 as mentioned above.

Do you think that Group X benefiting from a “mainstream explanation” counts as evidence that the mainstream explanation is made-up by Group X?

That’s what I’m trying to get at.

I don’t think anyone with an IQ over 100 thinks that is true, and I think it’s a little obtuse of you to make that assumption.

But you’ve repeatedly said that Bush’s use of the mainstream 9/11 story to promote wars counts as evidence that Bush made up the story—and orchestrated the event to boot.

So are you saying it’s impossible for Group X to make up an explanation and benefit?

If you can find where I’ve used that solely as evidence, I’ll eat my words.

No. I’m not saying it’s impossible.

I think the fact that you are even asking me this means you are mixing up your logic, though.

Have you heard the phrase “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence?”

Have you ever heard of proxies?

Please cite where I’ve used that as evidence or retract your accusation.

I distinctly remember you bringing it up in our last go-round, but perhaps I am misremembering. In any case, if you don’t actually think it counts as evidence, then I certainly will retract my statement.

I’m not sure what your point about proxies is.

Can you distinctly remember X and misremember X in the space of a few minutes? Wow, that’s amazing!

What-huh?

Discussions on this subject have so often become, thus, so very tedious…

Stop Following ☜

@The_Idler sorry

@Qingu

I didn’t read your discussion with @kevbo, but I read your response to what I said.

I think I made myself pretty clear the first time, but let me explain myself again. I hope others understand what I write on here better than you have in the past.

I don’t deny any of the history, because I am not qualified to do so. I do not believe in any of the history without question, because there is no reason for me to.

It’s interesting that you used a literal theory as an example of something that is ridiculous not to hold as fact. I think you should reevaluate both what I said, and what you said. We’re not really in that much disagreement, I think.

I made the statement that if I had to make a practical decision that required me to believe one way or another on whether the famous Moonlanding took place, I’d go with the closest things I had to cold, hard facts. Which is the video footage and the general agreement among experts that it happened, I guess. In the back of my mind, however, would be the questions. (“Didn’t they supposedly lose the original tape at NASA recently or something? That’s suspicious, I think.”)

But it wouldn’t bother me that much. It’s far too complex a thing for me to worry about with far too much missing information, both in my lack of education and possibly with the presence of secrets. For example, the report of the missing tape could have been made just to encourage the insanity of the stigmaed conspiracy-theorist community to preach more about irrelevant maybe-conspiracies.

This causes people like yourself to disregard anyone who only questions the ultimate reliability of the official or conventional information. And it is because people like yourself that we have to live in the dark, where people are too busy trying to convince themselves that they already know the way to actually begin the hard, dirty work of actually beginning to find a way on our own. We just have to follow whoever has the only lantern in the distance, we have no other choice. That is the problem.

Like with the Moonlanding, it’s the same for any other controversial conspiracy-thingy. It’s futile to try and hold honest certainty, one way or another. You have to go with what’s officially accepted, which is where the real problem is.

We should have other options. But we don’t. I don’t know what we can do about it besides generally just try to improve the world so that we may one day reach a point of sanity that allows our population to be competently aware of itself.

I think you need to spend more time reading and thinking about the words of others before responding to them.

You made a half-point there with the conspiracy theorists wanting to believe some-one is in control for some kind of feeling of security. I guess that could be psychology that can be involved in it.

But the truth is, we live in a social structure where no one is necessarily in control. And even if a one is in control, if it were to die today it would be replaced tomorrow by some other one just as corrupt. It’s insanity that’s in control as far as I can tell—an incompetent design that we don’t seem to be doing enough to improve upon—and that doesn’t help me feel more secure in the world.

I get my security from my inner self, and hopefully one day from those that I can love. I don’t need to make up scenarios about how the world works. I work with what I understand, and I don’t understand much.