My 9/11 Conspiracy Theory

[DeistPaladin]

Here it goes:

A bunch of religious fanatics decided to kill some infidels for their god, as religious fanatics are prone to doing.

There were warning signs but Bush was obsessed with Saddam and his negligence inadvertently allowed the terrorists to be successful.

After it occured, some members of the Bush administration decided to take advantage of a nation shocked and scared to push their agenda, both domestically and in foreign policy.

They put forward the minimal efforts in Afghanistan because that wasn't really important to them. They then redirected the nation's anger against Iraq. The manipulated the intelligence to cook up a case for war and then proceeded to lie the nation into attacking Iraq.

There's my conspiracy theory. I think it's backed up by the facts.

Why isn't this story good enough for some people?

 

[orpiment99]

That is a conspiracy theory I can actually endorse.

And while your questions are rather rhetorical, I'll comment anyway: probably because we don't want to think we can be hurt so badly by an organization like Al-Qaeda, nor do we want to admit that collectively we acted like paranoid sheep in the aftermath.

Makes one rather proud, doesn't it?

 

[ImprobableJoe]

There are a few issues involved. I think the #1 problem is that on some level people find evil and malice more comforting than stupidity, laziness, and incompetence. If you assume a greater plan involving the highest levels of government, then 9/11 was a coherent plot that could not have been avoided. The idea that everyone in charge was in control of the situation, even in the name of evil, is something people can wrap their heads around.There is at least the hope that we can understand and prevent evil, even of such a great magnitude. We "get" good versus evil on a fundamental level, and the narrative makes sense from an emotional level. We can console ourselves with the belief that they did X in order to get Y, and now that they got it we're safe for a little while, and that the conspirators will not actually destroy the whole world.

What actually happened is much more terrifying. We had a complete failing of the government, thanks to a combination of right-wing deregulation and budget cuts. We have the Republican Party, and the "moderate" right-wing Democrats who have declared that government can't solve problems and then go out of their way to prove themselves correct. We had a president who only entered politics because he couldn't get his father to buy him the job of Commissioner of Major League Baseball, and he'd never actually had a job that wasn't based on family money and connections. We had an administration that basically rejected every warning about terrorism from the previous administration for the sole reason that they didn't like Clinton. Intelligence agencies were playing politics with each other, while Ashcroft's FBI was focused on busting strippers and porn movie distributors. A handful of terrorists managed to hit us really hard, and if you accept that it was because of incompetence and politics, than that means we are never safe from anything. Some attack down the road could kill ALL OF US. After all, if the government couldn't stop some guys with box cutters, how are they going to stop a real army equipped with nukes and biological agents?

"Evil" is MUCH less scary than "stupid."

 

[DeistPaladin]

A handful of terrorists managed to hit us really hard, and if you accept that it was because of incompetence and politics, than that means we are never safe from anything. Some attack down the road could kill ALL OF US. After all, if the government couldn't stop some guys with box cutters, how are they going to stop a real army equipped with nukes and biological agents?

"Evil" is MUCH less scary than "stupid."

I'm preaching to the choir here but this is a classic example of why it's important to face unpleasant realities because failing to do so makes them worse.

Unless we are willing to deal with the stupidity, incompetence and turf-defending in our government, the problem continues and we're still vulnerable.

Retreating into a fantasy world, however comforting that may be, always seems to make the real problems worse.

 

[nemesiss]

i have similar ideas about the 9/11 conspiracy...

i found the exercise that was happening at the same time with the same issue a bit too convienant, i also wondered how a complete plane could get vaporizered into nothing... but the video frames of it were highly classified.

with the aftermath of the 9/11 situation, it would be much easier to attack a foreign country like iraq.

i wonder if the "official" report will eventually become public... that should make a great deal of "noise".

 

[ImprobableJoe]

i have similar ideas about the 9/11 conspiracy...

i found the exercise that was happening at the same time with the same issue a bit too convienant, i also wondered how a complete plane could get vaporizered into nothing... but the video frames of it were highly classified.

with the aftermath of the 9/11 situation, it would be much easier to attack a foreign country like iraq.

i wonder if the "official" report will eventually become public... that should make a great deal of "noise".

Your ideas aren't similar at all... the OP contained reality-based conclusions, your post contains speculation from ignorance. Not at all the same thing.

 

[orpiment99]

i have similar ideas about the 9/11 conspiracy...

i found the exercise that was happening at the same time with the same issue a bit too convienant, i also wondered how a complete plane could get vaporizered into nothing... but the video frames of it were highly classified.

with the aftermath of the 9/11 situation, it would be much easier to attack a foreign country like iraq.

i wonder if the "official" report will eventually become public... that should make a great deal of "noise".

Not to be rude, but that statement makes me wonder what actual research you did on what happened, and how much searching for people who had the same doubts as you. Honestly, having questions is understandable, but you go to experts to get the answers.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Not to be rude, but that statement makes me wonder what actual research you did on what happened, and how much searching for people who had the same doubts as you. Honestly, having questions is understandable, but you go to experts to get the answers.

Yeah... like, for instance, I am declaring myself an "expert" on military exercises, having participated in dozens of them. Guess what, boys and girls? There are military exercises happening every day, on every military base in this country and most of them overseas. Not a week went by that I didn't either go to bed to or wake up to the sound of shit being blown up. Only a person ignorant of military behavior would point to a training exercise on 9/11/01 and say "something's fishy about that." The fact that there was training related to protecting the Pentagon from an attack... are you fucking stupid? That's like saying there's something suspicious about fire drills or dress rehearsals. Since the Pentagon is an obvious target, it is also obvious that training would be done based on the notion of a likely attack. Should the military practice scenarios that are LIKELY to happen, or UNLIKELY to happen? :facepalm:

 

[DeistPaladin]

i have similar ideas about the 9/11 conspiracy...

i found the exercise that was happening at the same time with the same issue a bit too convienant, i also wondered how a complete plane could get vaporizered into nothing... but the video frames of it were highly classified.

with the aftermath of the 9/11 situation, it would be much easier to attack a foreign country like iraq.

i wonder if the "official" report will eventually become public... that should make a great deal of "noise".

As others have noted, you apparently didn't read past the title of my original post.

My "9/11 Conspiracy Theory" post is an ironic one, meant to underscore how the reality of the situation that we know about is every bit as scandalous as anything a crackpot conspiracy theorist could dream up.

Consider, even without any direct involvement in 9/11, Bush is still guilty of negligence.

Even without any direct involvement in 9/11, the Bush administration still manipulated the American people with the fear Bin Laden helped create.

Even without any direct involvement in 9/11, the Bush administration still lied us into a war of aggression that cost the deaths of hundreds of thousands.

Reality has unveiled a dark enough conspiracy without dreaming up anything else.

 

[Sinue]

What I find ironic is that in the weeks, months, and years following the 9/11 attacks - we saw the uncovering of multiple conspiracies in government which, sadly are either ignored or minimized by trying to shoe-horn them with in to some grander (and impossible) paranoid fantasy. From the Tier 1A Abu Ghraib abuses, to the Valerie Plame scandal, to having delicious yellow cake. (The cake really was a lie, apparently)

To say nothing of the more subtle underlying conspiracies, such as Saddam's obstinance in allowing full access to suspected WMD sites as a bluff being played up to intimidate his neighboring countries (such as Iran) that he was on very poor terms with. Or the cognitive conspiracies our own minds play on us, as explored by psychologist Philip Zimbardo in his book "The Lucifer Effect", that lead to the Tier 1A abuses. In the latter example, it's possible that the events were set up to evoke this Lucifer Effect (based on the findings of the Standford Prison Experiment) while maintaining plausible deniability sure... but nothing pisses off a Conspiracy Theorist more than suggesting they are also susceptible to this effect were they in the shoes of those guards or those may have "set it up".

 

[xman]

I think it's the "inadvertently" part that makes me wonder. Why not scramble the jets? Why not get a military presence in the air ASAP? I don't think W. had any specific knowledge of what was going to happen, but it wouldn't surprise me to know his daddy was in on the deets, although ... the total incompetence bell does ring so true when we're talking aout these guys doesn't it?

 

[darthrender2010]

Even without any direct involvement in 9/11, the Bush administration still lied us into a war of aggression that cost the deaths of hundreds of thousands.

The death toll is over a million now

 

[orpiment99]

I think it's the "inadvertently" part that makes me wonder. Why not scramble the jets? Why not get a military presence in the air ASAP? I don't think W. had any specific knowledge of what was going to happen, but it wouldn't surprise me to know his daddy was in on the deets, although ... the total incompetence bell does ring so true when we're talking aout these guys doesn't it?

From Wiki:
8:37:52: Boston Center control notifies NEADS (Northeast Air Defense Sector), the northeast sector of NORAD, of the hijacking of Flight 11, the first notification received by the military at any level that American 11 had been hijacked. The controller requests military help to intercept the jetliner.

8:46: Two F-15 fighter jets are scrambled from Otis Air Force Base in Massachusetts, intended to intercept Flight 11. Because Flight 11's transponder is off, United States Air Force pilots do not know the direction they should fly to meet the jetliner. NEADS spends the next several minutes watching their radar screens in anticipation of Flight 11 returning a radar contact.

 

[scalyblue]

Just a bit of an addendum to this, without transponders running, there's *no* way to track an airplane unless it happens to be in range of a radar facility.

 

[zuzu_petals]

To tell you the truth, I can accept stupidity and incompetance as the only factors involved in how it all came down.

However I find them PERHAPS insufficiant to explain how it is that our gov't failed to protect the Pentagon, when by the time that plane hit, all of the CNN-watching world knew we were under some sort of attack.

The reasons why our fighter planes weren't able to get there in time are like OJs alibies for the night of the double murder of his ex-wife and her friend. I find them difficult to swallow. No transponders needed, no awareness that we were being hit by hijacked planes inside the US and not from overseas would be needed, just business as usual as far as potecting valued assets.

No, I don't think missles hit the Pentagon, or demolitions hit the towers, or that someone "pulled" building 7.
I believe we saw what we think we saw that day. Sheesh, let's face it, a "controlled demolition" would not have sent that cloud of debris rushing for blocks and blocks and blocks away from the site if it had been in ANY manner "controlled".

My other question is why the plane that hit the Pentagon made that interesting and difficult turning manouver when if it hit the side of the Pentagon most accessable to it's pre-turn path would have struck the most occupied and most valuable side of the building rather than hitting the largely (clearly not completely!) un-occupied (due to ongoing renovations) and least sensitive side.

These are just nagging questions that incompetance just doesn't quite give a satisfying answer to.


Other than that, I do agree that most of the so-called 911 wackery is indeed just pure nuttitude.

 

[Finger]

However I find them PERHAPS insufficiant to explain how it is that our gov't failed to protect the Pentagon, when by the time that plane hit, all of the CNN-watching world knew we were under some sort of attack.

The reasons why our fighter planes weren't able to get there in time are like OJs alibies for the night of the double murder of his ex-wife and her friend. I find them difficult to swallow. No transponders needed, no awareness that we were being hit by hijacked planes inside the US and not from overseas would be needed, just business as usual as far as potecting valued assets.

The transponder of each hijacked aircraft had been turned off. So on every radar screen in viewing range, the planes would show up as just one of hundreds of other blips. Flight 77 was also flying a lot lower than flights 11 and 175 which caused it to sporadically dip in and out of radar view. In fact, the last time it appeared on radar, it was mistaken for a fighter jet because of its altitude and high speed.

Nowadays, the expected scramble time at high threat-level is about 30 minutes. But before 9/11, the time was over an hour. And that's during wartime conditions. Contrary to what conspiracy theorists claim, jets were scrambled that day and no "stand down" order was given. They just didn't make it there in time.

My other question is why the plane that hit the Pentagon made that interesting and difficult turning manouver when if it hit the side of the Pentagon most accessable to it's pre-turn path would have struck the most occupied and most valuable side of the building rather than hitting the largely (clearly not completely!) un-occupied (due to ongoing renovations) and least sensitive side.

The most training any of the hijackers had was Microsoft Flight Simulator. Just because you can fly a plane doesn't mean you can fly it well. The type of turn they did wasn't difficult as much as it was dangerous for a plane that size. One of the engines was severely damaged by the turn which is corroborated by eyewitnesses who saw the smoke. Its also pretty hard to see the ground when you're in a plane like that (they were using topography and landmarks to fly, not radar.) They could have lost the building for a minute or two, then had to turn around and find it again. How would the hijackers even know which part of the building was most occupied anyway? Like the "missile and bombs" conspiracy theorists, much of your reasoning relies on both ignorance and paranoia.

EDIT
I also just came across this video which demonstrates many of the maneuvers that conspiracy theorists say are impossible.