I really have no interest in debunking all the nutty conspiracies revolving around September 11, 2001. I find the exercise about as entertaining as discussing the virgin birth with a Christian fundamentalist. The truth is, it's is damn near impossible to convince a zealot of their senselessness.
I concede that there are a lot of questions yet to be answered about that dark day five years ago. But of all of the inquiries, none, in my opinion, if answered, would ever indicate the US government was behind the bloody affair. Sad thing is most 9/11 conspiracy theorists, conveniently dubbed the 9/11 Truth Movement, are on par with Bush for the Super-Negligence Award: what they are now propagating will never stop this out-of-control administration or any of our government's homicidal policies.
With all the banter about the Bushies and the neocons taking down the World Trade Center or flying a missile in to the Pentagon, the Truth Movement seems to willfully ignore that we've got real wars going on in the Middle East right now. And most of these battles started well before Bush took office or Bin Laden's combat teams flew commercial airliners in to the WTC.
I've yet to comprehend how sending out mass emails, which "prove" George W. Bush and company were behind 9/11, will ever bring our troops home or curb US imperialism. Never mind these hollow tirades "prove" nothing, the senders' obsessive tendencies (my inbox overflows with this nonsense) are a huge diversion from the actual crimes our government commits on a daily basis.
While some BYU physicist rattles his brain over the intricacies of WTC #7's collapse, our government is dropping toxic gas on poor peasants in Colombia in attempts to eradicate coca production. While David Ray Griffin pens his next best seller, forests in Alaska and Appalachia are being obliterated in the name of corporate profit. While so many truth seekers attempt to convince us (how they can seek the truth when they already think they have all the answers is beyond me) that the Jews who worked in the WTC were told ahead of time not to come to work on 9/11, Lebanon is being invaded and destroyed by Israel.
What's the Truth Movement doing about the hundreds of thousands of poor non-violent drug offenders who are rotting in US prisons, or the thousands more who are decaying on death row? What are they doing for the teenage girls who slave away in sweatshops piecing together our clothes and sneakers? What have conspiracy theories ever proven, anyway?
Just last week Al-Jazeera (not exactly an apologist for US aggression) aired an old video, which allegedly showed Osama hanging out with a few 9/11 perpetrators. Will the conspiracy pushers now try to convince us that Al-Jazeera is in cahoots with Fox News?
Indeed this administration, like so many before it, needs to be stopped at once. But we certainly don't need conspiracy theories to make the case.
Just last week Al-Jazeera (not exactly an apologist for US aggression) aired an old video, which allegedly showed Osama hanging out with a few 9/11 perpetrators. Will the conspiracy pushers now try to convince us that Al-Jazeera is in cahoots with Fox News?
It's erie how Usama comes up with a new love note for Americans when George needs one-- a note that invariably helps Bush. For me, Usama and Bush are both monsters, both terrorists, and it would not surprise me to learn that they worked together. Usama could have done the deed. George could have let him, thus fulfilling the neocon wish for a Pearl Harbor-like event. It's within the realm of believability. Bush has already, killed tens of thousands of people. The new videos don't weaken the case.
Now, I don't go around sending out emails about 9/11 truth, but I certainly DO entertain the possibility that the right wing bastards currently in the process of waging war on the middle class while dismantling the constitution and most major industries in this country, in the service of corporatism, could have easily been willing and able to perpetrate an act like 9/11.
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Rob Kall (762 articles, 3850 quicklinks, 321 diaries, 1642 comments)
on Monday, September 11, 2006 at 8:38:41 AM
Rob wrote:
"Now, I don't go around sending out emails about 9/11 truth, but I certainly DO entertain the possibility that the right wing bastards currently in the process of waging war on the middle class while dismantling the constitution and most major industries in this country, in the service of corporatism, could have easily been willing and able to perpetrate an act like 9/11."
After watching President Bush's reaction to the news of the attacks my thoughts were that he was thinking either:
1)"WTF!?! They told me this was going to be a simple hijacking." or,
2) "Well, I guess we shoulda taken this terrorism thing more seriously."
Given the comments by former Bush cabinet members and applying Occam's razor I tend to opt for number 2.
Cheers.
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Mike (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments)
on Monday, September 11, 2006 at 10:02:11 AM
. . . Rob, as the proprietor of a major progressive site, for standing up for the 9/11 Truth Movement. While I appreciate Joshua's point, it's critical that if one believes the administration was somehow complicit in 9/11, that we get to the bottom of it to stop them and their successors in their tracks.
Incidentally, it's a little silly to think Cheney masterminded 9/11. But consider the Mafia scenario: Cheney or someone close to him expresses how helpful a major attack on American soil might be to their agenda. Over-zealous intelligence official seeks to ingratiate himself with top neocons by ordering hit (okay, mega-hit).
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Russ Wellen (58 articles, 1029 quicklinks, 66 diaries, 335 comments)
on Monday, September 11, 2006 at 10:23:40 AM
There is no worse activity that a press or journalist can engage in than ignoring questions altogether when none have been answered. What is the purpose of an independent free press when 1/3rd to 1/2 of the people with questions are ignored or are chastized with no reasonable explaination other than "the government says so"?
What is the reality? The Patriot Act and Homeland Security, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the secret prisons and Abu Ghraib, the murder of tens of thousands of people who didn't know anything about anything and who would have never harmed you. The wars were ready for action before 9/11. The Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights are nearly irrelevant. All that tax money going to big oil, military-industrialists and the banks that own the Federal Reserve. The expansion of the gulf between the have's and have nots, the tanking of the economy and all that debt. All of this after 9/11/01. It is clear to most people that the intel was falsified at every level to meet preconceived requirements to go to war.
The operational information before the crashes are published that to do with 9/11. Tenent was running around with his hair on fire and Ashcroft refused to fly. Several countries were warning this administration and some people even stated that the Trade Center was a target. Able Danger has disappeared altogether from the media and talking heads. Perhaps people should buy powerball tickets as there is a greater chance of hitting it big than the all of coincidences and many firsts on 9/11. Three firsts on steel structures burning down and colapsing into their own footprint and one first on the suspension of the theory of gravity and falling objects.
All media stations mentioned that the buildings came down like a controlled demolition but that was easy to forget and edit out. Too many people have short memories but the press edited those statements out after initially stated. I'm sure that many agree with NIST that it was a sure thing right? Oops, there is less than a 20% possibility using false information too and it still requires 90 minutes before failure. Surely, Mr. Holland can back up the NIST findings as he is an expert on such things to speak out and knows the full documentation without review.
NIST's findings are still a theory and cannot be proven beyond less than a 1 in 5 chance taking 90 minutes with a model that does not represent anything close to reality or even using ULs testing of floors and structural steel that works as a heat sink in pulling away heat. Four flimsy columns on a 9 story model is surely the equivalent to 47 massive box columns that took up 1/3rd of the area on each floor which each side of each column being 2" to 4" thick (at the lower levels) just happened collapse simultaneously while the concrete and interior were pulverized into dust with no large parts remaining and outside steel beams blown out. Towers 1 and 2 exteriors were exploded up and out and there was no resistence by the 47 columns joined closely by floors that were tested by UL that did not sag.
Is it possible that people don't believe in Galileo's proof of falling objects or Newton's theory of gravity. Clearly, it is in the best interest of those with something to hide or maintain the status quo to misuse science when it can be fabricated by special interests using lies and misinformation.
If 9/11 were confirmed as an inside job as indicated by a prodigious amount of evidence, it would mean that there are criminals and traitors in our government pursuing an agenda that is ruinous to the United States. These criminals and traitors would then have to be routed out to save our country.
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Dan Merica (21 articles, 72 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 47 comments)
on Monday, September 11, 2006 at 2:10:49 PM
"we've got real wars going on in the Middle East right now"
"our government is dropping toxic gas on poor peasants in Colombia in attempts to eradicate coca production"
"forests in Alaska and Appalachia are being obliterated in the name of corporate profit"
"non-violent drug offenders... are rotting in US prisons"
"thousands... are decaying on death row"
"teenage girls...slave away in sweatshops piecing together our clothes and sneakers"
All of the above atrocities are horrific and need to be addressed. I couldn't agree with you more.
Which one or two should I choose to work on? Is it really true that if I work on stopping war in the Middle East and getting drug offenders out of jail that I don't care about the teen-age girls?
My point, of course, is my disagreement that trying to solve one crime that The Regime has committed doesn't necessarily mean that we should ignore or not care about other, indeed, all of the crimes The Regime has committed.
If, by chance, we "conspiracy theorists" are right and those who believe the theories of conspiracy that The Regime has spouted are wrong, would that crime be the most outrageous crime that The Regime has ever committed?
What we "conspiracy theorists" want more than anything else, I believe, is to have an investigation during which the anomalies put forth by people like David Ray Griffith could be questioned, that the investigators are truly non biased and have never had a relationship, professional or otherwise, with any member of The Regime, that every and any member of The Regime must testify if asked and testify under oath and that no part of the questioning can be suppressed because of "national security" reasons.
If, in fact, there are logical answers to the anomalies that The Regime has never made public or haven't been otherwise publicized and The Regime is proven to have had nothing to do with what happened on 9/11, so be it. I truly believe that the "conspiracy theorists" would rather be proven wrong than to find out they're right and prove that our government purposely murdered 3,000 of its own citizens on September 11, 2001.
The problem is, Mr. Frank, the two official investigations into what happened on September 11, 2001 never started by asking the question "Who did this?"
If it is proven that The Regime was involved, wouldn't it be good to know so that they can be held accountable and face what they would have coming to them?
Michael Bonanno
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Michael Bonanno (72 articles, 18 quicklinks, 24 diaries, 123 comments)
on Monday, September 11, 2006 at 5:12:31 PM
This article by Mr. Frank is in the category of "shock and awe" for his firing off all kinds of contentious missiles, without direction, all with a lack of any logic and as broadly insulting to so many people, like some anti-personnel grenade, scattering insults like shrapnel in all directions. Forget the fact he starts off with an impertinent (irrelevant) religious insult that made me cringe ( I thought "Arnold" was the master of such things, but gratuitously throwing in comments about a sacred belief like "the virgin birth" in so many faiths is senselessly over the top, and bewilderingly provocative. It almost seems to have been conceived as a way to get a rise out of so many of us who frequent this site. To post this whole thing of his at the hour of the 5th memorial of 9/11 is the worst of all. I've read Frank before, and thought he was capable of a way better effort than this.
The lapses of logic he shows from the start of the article have me thinking "cognitive dysfunction issues" or early on-set Altzheimers. Wow! Like people in the 9.11 Truth movement are all ~apparently to him~ one uniform garden variety of "loonies," which he dismisses with a few keystrokes. Maybe he doesn't really believe that, but the lack of discipline in his language and bizarre bile of this "piece" seems to aim at everyone with his scattershot approach.
Unbelievable. I thought I'd heard it all when Terry Allen recently wrote an inflammatory "piece" (of something) which was reposted at Alternet, dismissing 9.11 research, much to my astonishment.
But, Frank ?! I'm coming up with conspiracy theories of my own, to explain such a phenomenon as this thing he's stuck in our faces: such as, where is Joshua Frank, and what have you done with him? Or, is this guy his evil twin? The last time I was this surprised by words out of someone's mouth who I considered a fairly known quantity is when Dennis Miller suddenly started blaspheming his way on to right-wing talk shows.
I'd be interested to find out what's REALLY behind this execrable little anti-9/11 fact-finding ( because that's what it is: it seems to impugn taking an interest in the contradictions of 9.11 reporting, smugly and a priori ) rant of Frank's, as there just has to be a back-story, some interest of his gone south or sour, something we're not being told.....
Otherwise, explain to me why ~as Ellen Barry did badly in yesterday's L.A. Times~ all the naysayers like Frank feel the need to present the 9.11 Truth Movement as some kind of idee fixe, OCD obsession, geeky self-indulgence, when the entire modern history of world events is quite intimately linked to it? And certainly nothing can be more practical than prosecuting our high-treasonous traitors, if indeed they be, as they seem to be, for murders on our soil, when that is so much easier and do-able than having them tried elsewhere for war crimes.
I don't have the patience or respect for Mr. Frank, certainly anymore, after this, to probe his "piece" with a stick, fallacy by fallacy, especially since he showed such a smug disrespect for 9.11 "Truth" researchers, and with his "stock" simply plummeting like an imploding Twin Tower every time I read it.
But they are there. As with the game "where is Waldo?" ~ I challenge anyone to find any single premise he makes here that is either convincing or persuasive as logic or fact. Especially his contention that 9.11 Truth doesn't really matter.
Has he become a shill for Big Media? I'm simply amazed, and quite "frankly" struggling to find any conspiracy theory that would begin to explain such an amazing "piece" (of "you-know-what")....John E
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muservin (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 39 comments)
on Monday, September 11, 2006 at 10:21:16 PM
for the criminal investigation and trial? Per all the laws of this country and the Roman laws without the proper due process all things are on the table. We, the US people allowed ourselves to be deprived of the only mechanism which could bring us to the truth. Now we get what we deserve- noise.
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Mark Sashine (47 articles, 19 quicklinks, 235 diaries, 3361 comments)
on Tuesday, September 12, 2006 at 8:05:04 AM
I have to confess that I have not read every site about 9/11, so I certainly cannot speak with any authority on every theory of what happened.
However, I can say this with great certainty. We still do not know the real story and one does not need to be a conspiracy buff to have grave suspicions and doubts about the official story.
The first thing that really made me suspicious was the fact that the Bush administration, and the Republican congress, resisted any kind of investigation into the worst attack on American soil, by foriegn forces, since the war of 1812. Even after they had no choice and the 9/11 commsission was formed, they still resisted. Often, the commission had to fight the W.H, tooth and nail, to get documents and testimony.
This caused me to start my own research project. What I found left me certain that either the W.H. was crminally negligent or, more likely, complicit, in the events of 9/11, including the anthrax attacks which followed.
At the very least, they knew something was coming and they knew it was going to be huge. Of that there can be no doubt, as there is tons of evidence that they had to have known. Never had there been so many warnings; the system was blinking RED all summer. Government officials were warned against flying commercial, John Ashcroft being one of them.
How can anyone read the PNAC document and not know that they stood down, went deaf and allowed this to happen.
Were they in league with bin Laden? I doubt it. However, he, or his suicide hijachers, may have been being fed information, like that there would be military exercises on 9/11, which would provide a cover of confusion.
Why was the FBI given orders, in the first weeks of the Bush administration, to back off the bin Ladens? Just because they are friends with the Bush family? We do not need presidents who are that friendly with America's enemies.
We are told that the Bushites were so anti-Clinton, that they did not want to follow Clinton's advice about anything including the threat posed by Al Qaeda. Why, then, did they retain two Clinton appointees: Tenet and Minetta, who would be heading up two agencies that would get most of the blame for 9/11?
They knew something big was coming and they intentionally did nothing, of any real import, to try to stop it. 9/11 was like a dream come true for the NeoCon PNACers. It would set in motion their plans for Pax Americana.
I don't have to be convinced that a cruise missle hit the Pentagon or that the towers were imploded in a controlled demolition to hold the Bush administration accountable for the events of 9/11.
Oh, by the way, Judicial Watch (hardly a left wing organization) is still waiting for the White House to answer their inquiry, filed in 2002, into why W.H. personnel began taking Cipro on the evening on 9/11, long before the first anthrax death in Boca Raton, while leaving postal workers and other Americans vulnerable.
Damn good question!
One which still needs answering. Doubt that it will be, since the FBI backed off the investigation as soon as they figured out that it was an inside job.
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wintefire6 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 88 comments)
on Wednesday, September 13, 2006 at 12:27:42 PM
Such absurdity abounds even more than piles of rubble, facts
Stop, all you anti-conspiracy theorist "conspiracy theorists." Man, whassup with Frank, Hamish, and others posting here such cognitively challenged "logic," and what is their whining about 9.11 Truth but a conspiracy theory, the mirror image of our real one, and a rather pale one at that. Zogby just polled 36% of the public think it was an inside deal, 42% find the story lacking, and this reported by not such a Truth-sympathetic reporter, Ellen Barry, in L.A. Times on Sunday. Not to mention fully half of NYC think they were short sheeted by their own government. And this is less important than a "real" war? What were these infamous, world-changing, fear-mongering attacks, chopped liver?
What exactly is the quantifiable IQ of journalists who think that it's easier to stop a war started by the probable perpetrators, than it would be to seize the reins from them, say, in a court of law. By a trial of these facts, or a real investigation.
Especially with our history of bogus presidential assassination investigations, et al, etc. Like we don't need to press this issue, and the need for more disclosure about our shadow governance?
This is so sad, I can't believe people would comment here in such a manner, let alone publish such tripe. Let me get this straight: stopping the war comes BEFORE stopping the same people who started it, from murdering their own citizens? That's a nice trick, if it could be done?
My Time-Warped message in a bottle to Germany of the 1930s. Stopping Hitler from heading to world war comes before finding out who really started the Reichstag Fire.
The latter was clearly totally irrelevant.
Sure, ask the citizens of Dresden, or Vonnegut in SlaughterHouse Five, just how much of a snap that was.
Maybe we should learn from their example, while we still have more of a handle on our own airwaves. Dietrich Bonhoeffer tried to denounce Hitler two days after he seized the Chancellor-ship, and his broadcast was cut off mid-sentence. At least we have the opportunity to build a citizen awareness here, but not if enough Franks and others continually try to drown us out, as if Media needs the help.
What a disservice they render all of us.
Brilliant arguments, Frank. I'm awash in awe. Didn't you write about Bush on the couch. You should climb onto one, with all the rest of the pooh-poohers.
Wit the poll results supporting 9.11 Truth, we should begin talking about such pooh-oohers as being delusional and paranoid, with their inverse conspiracy theories, perhaps.
Because, in the light of such evidence, that's ALL they are....just inferior theories. ~JE
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muservin (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 39 comments)
on Saturday, September 16, 2006 at 4:24:03 PM
