Hey Frikken, how about a point by point rebuttal of Fernando’s link backed list? O wait, you can’t can you?

Argumentum ad ignorantium right? Wake up brother.

Or perhaps I believe that peace can be achieved peacefully- one of those ways might be utilizing the last remaining bastion of equal opportunity- the internet…Good day sir, you’re unworthy of any further energy from me.

What a great answer.  You believe your government is a corrupt, criminal force with complete willingness to use its unumagunable power to slaughter its own people and you won’t do anything that is in any way meaningful about it because you believe your government is a corrupt, criminal force with complete willingness to use its unumagunable power to slaughter its own people. 

Sounds like a battered wife who won’t leave her husband because she’s afraid he’ll really hurt her.

“FBI confiscates all camera data associated with Pentagon attack”. This would have spawned an outrage from the public 60 years ago. Now we have a new high sleaze standard, and this event pales into obscurity.

People think they want the status quo and are willing to look the other way?: or does “truthdig” not keep them informed?

Real planes, fake planes. This acrimonious atmosphere of the “truth movement” may well be orchestrated by those that gain from the apparent bewildering irresolvable complexity of the matter. But let these things all simmer for now and concentrate on the known facts, such as the above FBI question. Maybe then even “truthdig” will join in.

FrikkenKids-
 
This is a ludicrous question to begin with and I really don’t feel it justifies an explanation, but you asked.  I liken it to chastising a gazelle, ‘Why do you not revolt against the lions?’

Yes, what a wonderful idea! Why don’t I go show my outrage by revolting against the military industrial complex and those who rule it? It’s only the most well-equipped(thanks to the false-flag operation 9/11), well-connected(thanks to illegal wiretapping), and most violent(thanks to secret ‘extraordinary rendition’ torture chambers across the globe) faction on the planet.

It’s already been revealed that the government tracks anti-war student groups(and others who have committed no crimes), not to mention most of the citizenry via cell records and whatever else has yet to be uncovered.

What would you suggest we do to make our case heard? Something illegal? Should I start killing people like our government? I wouldn’t stoop to their level, frankly.

Certainly they wouldn’t DREAM of ‘disappearing’ me or anyone I love, right? You are living in a dreamworld FrikkenKids…WAKE UP AND SMELL THE FASCISM!

How many lies need be exposed before your confidence in our ‘authority figures’ abates?

Those with ‘authority’ refuse to prosecute criminals in their midst, in fact actively PROTECT those criminals.

TDI, I think you’re the one ignoring something important.  Nobody yet has answered my questions from post #22118. 

Honestly, in my mind, all the blog arguing over what did or did not happen is quite trivial.  Any side trying to convince non-believers through blogs is really a silly exercise - that’s why all I’ve really done is try to point out some silly points of argument (like when “Chris in Davis” - not you -  said that the pentagon would be hard to find so I checked out Google Earth - witch has, of course, photographic representation of exactly what DC looks like from the air so I can’t imagine a better tool for me to have used.)  Humour me with a response to post #22118. 

I won’t write it out again, but I’ll summarize.  If you really believe, deep down in your heart of hearts, that the administration did this and your congress and military covered it up, how can your response be no more than to post video clips set to hip-hop music, and argue on blogs?  Where is the real response?  Where is ANY response that matters or fits the unimaginable outrage you would have to be experiencing?

FrikkenKids - I never claimed they were difficult or not difficult to spot from the air. I see how you blind apologists love schoolyard name calling. You can’t honestly refute any of the actual facts,  thus you must resort to belittlement.

I was simply making the point that if you were TRULY attempting to mimic the actions of the alleged terrorists, Gooogle Earth is an asinine choice of media(Although I’m sure it was REAL HARD for you and made you feel SUPER DUPER SPECIAL having been able to locate the Pentagon even with labeling off!!!).

I can also say that looking at a map is quite a different matter than looking out a window thousands of feet to the ground, simply because you can find something on a map doesn’t make you a navigator.

In any event, none of this really matters at all because the one thing you cannot explain away is the controlled demolition of WTC7….unless you can somehow account for it, FrikkenKids?

I’d like to believe(too bad I didn’t swallow the administration’s blue pill like this person). I would much prefer NOT thinking my government would kill its own citizens in cold blood (including firefighters who rushed in to the buildings to save lives).

Alas, the facts disallow such fantasy.

Sigh. The “Hijackers are alive!” story has been debunked six ways from Sunday.  Some of them had very common names in the Arab world.  Since the FBI released the photos a few weeks after 9-11 these stories died down.

Not that there’s any convincing these 9-11 Deniers.

Good call TDI, Google Earth did not exist in 2001 so there is no other possible way that anybody could have obtained an aerial view of Washington DC since, as everybody knows, Google Earth was the first to ever take a photo of DC from the air and maps were not invented until after 9/11.

Schmuck.

Keep going with your claims - I certainly can’t refute all of them (I leave that to others) - but don’t for a second suggest that it would be difficult to find any of those buildings from the air.

Intelligence elements of the government have probably fielded online names into half of the conspiracy theory cliques and may even have developed half of them to start with. The U.S. ruling class, the military-industrial-organized crime complex conspires every day in deeds and coverups and has done so since before the founding in relations with Native Americans and slave traders.

Discrediting conspiracy writ large is a sophisticated government propaganda program that is aided tremendously by having many conspiracy theories including quite a few that aren’t difficult to discredit and even put down as ridiculous.

In such a noisy conspiracy environment, the MIC then gets to vaccinate, or immunize around half of the common denominator American citizenry against accepting the savvy conspiracy theories by discrediting conspiracy theories per se.

This U.S. totalitarian conduct(whoops, i’m extreme—i’m risking neutralizing myself characterologically apart from my
conspiracy-theory advocacy) should not be difficult to comprehend, and here is my own testimony about the nature of our government at http://www.geocities.com/millenniumrevolution

So shall we beleive the conspiracy theory developed by our government or shall we question it? That is really the question, which conspiracy theory is real and which a lie. Why would the american government lie to its own people? Not like that doesn’t happen on a daily basis.

The logic of those true beleivers who hold the govenment’s story as sacred is really perverse.
Read up on it, view the videos on google and the web, make up your own mind. Critical thinking is critical! Don’t be a reactionary parrot regurgitating the party line, does it make sense that only 3 concrete & steel skyscrapers have ever totally collapsed from fire, and all three happened on the same day, 9/11 in NYC next to each other? Look it up on the internet, find another concrete and steel building that has collapsed from fire. 

Then wonder why the mainstream media isn’t playing this story over and over like the 9/11 collapse:

Sunday, 23 September, 2001, 12:30 GMT 13:30 UK
Hijack ‘suspects’ alive and well
Waleed Al Shehri
Waleed Al Shehri left the US a year ago, he says

Another of the men named by the FBI as a hijacker in the suicide attacks on Washington and New York has turned up alive and well.

The identities of four of the 19 suspects accused of having carried out the attacks are now in doubt.

Saudi Arabian pilot Waleed Al Shehri was one of five men that the FBI said had deliberately crashed American Airlines flight 11 into the World Trade Centre on 11 September.

His photograph was released, and has since appeared in newspapers and on television around the world.

Hijacking suspects
Flight 175: Marwan Al-Shehhi, Fayez Ahmed, Mohald Alshehri, Hamza Alghamdi and Ahmed Alghamdi
Flight 11: Waleed M Alshehri, Wail Alshehri, Mohamed Atta, Abdulaziz Alomari and Satam Al Suqami
Flight 77: Khalid Al-Midhar, Majed Moqed, Nawaq Alhamzi, Salem Alhamzi and Hani Hanjour
Flight 93: Ahmed Alhaznawi, Ahmed Alnami, Ziad Jarrahi and Saeed Alghamdi
Now he is protesting his innocence from Casablanca, Morocco.

He told journalists there that he had nothing to do with the attacks on New York and Washington, and had been in Morocco when they happened. He has contacted both the Saudi and American authorities, according to Saudi press reports.

He acknowledges that he attended flight training school at Daytona Beach in the United States, and is indeed the same Waleed Al Shehri to whom the FBI has been referring.

But, he says, he left the United States in September last year, became a pilot with Saudi Arabian airlines and is currently on a further training course in Morocco.

Mistaken identity

Abdulaziz Al Omari, another of the Flight 11 hijack suspects, has also been quoted in Arab news reports.

Abdelaziz Al Omari
Abdelaziz Al Omari ‘lost his passport in Denver’
He says he is an engineer with Saudi Telecoms, and that he lost his passport while studying in Denver.

Another man with exactly the same name surfaced on the pages of the English-language Arab News.

The second Abdulaziz Al Omari is a pilot for Saudi Arabian Airlines, the report says.

Meanwhile, Asharq Al Awsat newspaper, a London-based Arabic daily, says it has interviewed Saeed Alghamdi.

Khalid Al-Midhar
Khalid Al-Midhar may also be alive

He was listed by the FBI as a hijacker in the United flight that crashed in Pennsylvania.

And there are suggestions that another suspect, Khalid Al Midhar, may also be alive.

FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged on Thursday that the identity of several of the suicide hijackers is in doubt.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1559151.stm

IF there is ample evidence to support the ‘official’ version, and IF there is nothing at all to these ‘conspiracy theories’, then why not have a thorough analysis of the collapses (especially WTC7, for which there is little or no explanation other than controlled demolition)? There are too many unanswered questions NOT to have a thorough analysis. This would put these ‘conspiracy theories’ to rest. Right? The ‘official’ version of events defies logic as well as the laws of physics. It just doesn’t wash, and if a public investigation was performed, this fact would be evident all.

FrikkenKids - Google Earth DID NOT EXIST in 2001

“Formerly known as Earth Viewer, Google Earth was developed by Keyhole, Inc., a company Google acquired in 2004. The product was renamed Google Earth in 2005 and is currently available for use on personal computers running Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP, Mac OS X 10.3.9 and above, and Linux (Released on June 12 of 2006). In addition to releasing an updated Keyhole based client, Google also added the imagery from the Earth database to their web based mapping software.”

Also, if you take the time to look at the alleged flight plan, Flight 77 would have to fly at 20-30 feet off the ground at over 500 miles per hour directly over several swaths of roadway, which would cause overturned vehicles and potentially other damage- yet no overturned vehicles were reported and all the film from the security cams were immediately confiscated by the government.

Why would the alleged terrorist execute a 270 degree turn to hit the pentagon on the ONLY side which was reinforced (and virtually empty). Why not hit the opposite side with less maneuvering?

http://www.thepowerhour.com/images/Attack Path.jpg

http://www.armytimes.com/content/editorial/editart/pentagonimpact.jpg

Had the alleged terrorist simply veered into the Pentagon on the first pass, he might have struck the office of the Defense Secretary, yet he chose to fly around over terrain and highways to strike the one side which was recently renovated to withstand this sort of impact…..what a coincidence!

Never underestimate the power of denial and/or willful ignorance.

http://www.tvnewslies.org/html/9_11_-_all_the_proof_you_need.html

911 WAS an inside job!

I have a question for the conspiracy-minded.  If you really believe that your government did this - I mean really deep down, deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties (hee hee) -  you really believe that your government committed the worst case of mass murder against American citizens EVER, why don’t you do something about it more meaningful than release silly videos and post on blogs? 

If the evidence is really there, where are the consequences?  If more than a third of the population of the USA really believes this, how could they tolerate living in that America?  How could anyone stay who actually believes their leaders are capable of such depths of depravity and that their government as a whole would then gleefully cover it up just go on with their lives?  How could a person who believes this not rise up?  Can you honestly just go on with your life - go to work, pay your taxes, send the kids off to school - if you believe that you live in a country run by the worst bloody murdering savages to have ever lived there?  If the third of the country rose up, Washington could be torn apart - the government would crumble.  You could start over again just like your constitution says you should.

Or maybe Time is right it is basically a coping mechanism.

Why does Truthdig avoid discussion of glaring 9/11 questions and inconsistencies? What motive do Coincidence Theorists at Truthdig have for denying the possiblitly that the certain individuals in the Bush administration did have the means and motive to orchestrate the 9/11 attacks as a catalyst to drive the US into war in Afghanistan and Iraq? 

Here are my guesses:
 
1. Denial- fear of having to admit the United States is capable of carrying out wars to expand it’s empire.
 
2.  Approval of the Iraq war because they agree with PNAC’s expressed mission to expand US hegemony and markets in Oil rich middle east.
 
3. Approval of the Iraq war because they agree with AIPAC and Israel’s desire for the US forces to provide protection for them.
 
I hesistate to mention the last motive for fear of the certain reprisal from Pro Israeli factions that will immediately yell that I am being anti-semitic.  I do not care what ethnic group or religion you belong to.  I do, however, care that my tax dollars are providing a lot of free protection to Israel at US tax payers expense

Why does Truthdig avoid discussion of glaring 9/11 questions and inconsistencies? What motive do Coincidence Theorists at Truthdig have for denying the possiblitly that the certain individuals in the Bush administration did have the means and motive to orchestrate the 9/11 attacks as a catalyst to drive the US into war in Afghanistan and Iraq? 

Here are my guesses:
 
1. Denial- fear of having to admit the United States is capable of carrying out wars to expand it’s empire.
 
2.  Approval of the Iraq war because they agree with PNAC’s expressed mission to expand US hegemony and markets in Oil rich middle east.
 
3. Approval of the Iraq war because they agree with AIPAC and Israel’s desire for the US forces to provide protection for them.
 
I hesistate to mention the last motive for fear of the certain reprisal from Pro Israeli factions that will immediately yell that I am being anti-semitic.  I do not care what ethnic group or religion you belong to.  I do, however, care that my tax dollars are providing a lot of free protection to Israel at US tax payers expense.

Chris in Davis: I won’t bother with most of your comments, but I do wonder how, exactly, the pentagon is supposed to be hard to spot from the air? 
Not knowing much about the layout of Washington, I conducted a small experiment using google earth (with all the labelling features turned off so it could be a challenge to see just how hard it is to spot the pentagon.).  Here’s what I found out in about 2 minutes

1. It’s right on a huge river - a very obvious land mark to see from above (that river is how I found Washington) 
2. A very short distance away to the south east (on the other side of about 16 lanes worth of highways) is a large airport full of jumbo jets with one of the major run-ways pointing directly at the pentagon. 
3.  To the west is one of the largest cemeteries you’re likely to ever see.  (That would be Arlington, I would have to assume.)  That place sticks out like a sore thumb.
4. Directly on the other side of the river is a massive straight line created by the Lincoln memorial, the reflecting pool, the Washington monument and that long skinny park pointing directly at the capital building.  That’s kind of hard to miss.
5. That area has 4 large bridges over the river and the pentagon is right between the bottom two.
6. Not to mention that the Pentagon is itself a massive pentagon shaped building with hardly any buildings directly around it. 

I was actually stunned - it was so unbelievably easy to find that building.  And of course the twin towers were just about the easiest thing to pick out of the New York skyline.  Stick to your other points, fella.  That whole building being hard to spot thing just isn’t helping your case.

I believe that TruthDig provides a valuable resource in support of progressive values, and I regularly enjoy the articles and videos posted there. Having said that, I am afraid that superficial dismissiveness of 9/11 conspiracies does a disservice to TruthDig readers by serving mainstream interests and overlooking what may be one of the largest crimes ever committed in the name of this country.

The comment that 9/11 conspiracies “are crap” and/or “strain credulity” adds no information whatsoever to the discussion, and indicates a complete lack of reasonable curiosity and thoroughness on the subject. Moreover, the suggestion that “no government could keep a secret like that from leaking” is fallacious. First, the secret HAS leaked, but many refuse to recognize the enormity of the implications. Second, the corporate-owned and controlled media benefits from maintaining official propaganda, and they are not willing to even raise the subject legitimately without rushing to belittle the messengers. Given that TruthDig prides itself on exposing the absence of critical analysis and the overall cowardice of the corporate controlled media, it seems strange that TruthDig would then engage in exactly the same kind of superficial dismissiveness on an issue that deserves far more careful investigation and reporting.

In fact, the crappiest credulity-straining version of 9/11 events out there is the official version. Somehow we are supposed to believe all of the following:

1. A huge 757 crashed into the Pentagon leaving a tiny hole and puncturing several reinforced concrete walls while doing minimal damage to the immediate surroundings. Not a single Pentagon camera can show the crash to a degree that is even remotely convincing, while the missile batteries that protect the Pentagon did not respond at all (a fact which has never been discussed in the mainstream media). Moreover, eyewitness accounts are so varied that they would be useless in any court of law.

2. Building 7 imploded at free fall speed into its own footprint on the afternoon of 9/11 even though it was not struck by anything. In fact, Building 7 was not even adjacent to the towers, but was separated from Tower 1 by Building 6. The 9/11 Whitewash Commission didn’t even bother to try to explain this strange event.

3. For the first time in history, not once but twice, a major skyscraper collapsed due to a fire in the upper floors. Not only that, the buildings imploded into their own footprints at free fall speed. Moreover, although numerous witnesses reported hearing explosions throughout the towers well before the collapses, and although a giant plume of smoke over 50 stories high came from the base of the towers long before the buildings fell (though this event was completely ignored buy the mainstream media), we are supposed to disregard such propaganda-contradicting evidence.

4. A bunch of half-assed Saudi miscreants with pen knives seized control of four airliners and then executed a coordinated attack with military precision. Although available information suggests that the Saudis in question were third-rate pilots with inadequate training in the aircraft in question, although they would have a very difficult time finding their targets by eye without being intimately familiar with the surrounding geography (especially the Pentagon, which is a low building in a highly urbanized landscape), although Flight 77 reportedly executed a virtually-impossible 270-degree turn while performing a nosedive and then leveling off a few feet above the ground prior to impact without damaging the Pentagon lawn, and although newspapers in Britain and elsewhere have reported that several of the supposed hijackers were alive and well long after 9/11, none of these considerations warrants questioning of the official version.

5. The US Air Force, with bases throughout the Boston, New York, and Washington DC areas, were completely unable to respond in a timely manner even though on numerous other occasions they were routinely able to be alongside wayward aircraft within minutes. Although meticulously constructed timelines (not reported in the mainstream media and ignored by the 9/11 Whitewash Commission) show the Air Force simply sat around for long periods of time and then flew at subsonic speeds towards their would-be targets when they were capable of flying in excess of Mach 2, and although multiple large-scale NORAD exercises (ignored by the 9/11 Whitewash Commission) were planned and executed on 9/11, some of which involved crashing planes into buildings (possibly including the WTC) and inserting false signals into airport control tower radar screens, none of these inconvenient facts warrants questioning of the official version.

The list goes on and on. Could the official version be accurate? At best that seems highly improbable. But if everyone in the corporate media dutifully reports that version, and if those in the progressive media refuse to recognize the plausibility of alternative versions and the enormity of their implications, then the Big Lie will stand. At some point, progressive journalists and bloggers, who are otherwise ready to challenge the existing regime on lesser issues, should at least show a basic level of curiosity and skepticism toward official 9/11 propaganda.

Boc, I love your opening paragraph:

“Let me get this straight: if I think the Official Word is wrong, it’s because I need to lie to myself in order to make sense of the incomprehensible. Gosh I’m so lowly and stupid! Thank you, Time magazine, for informing me! Yet another reason to not subscribe.”

Don’t something like 90% of Americans believe in God?  There is the ultimate example of people lying to themselves to make sense of the incomprehensible.  And yes, that is lowly and stupid.

Bah humbug. The governments are capable of doing anything; it should not strain credulity and it is not a reason to reject a conspiracy theory. Any conspiracy theory should be judged on its merit. Is it plausible that after the planes hit the twin tower, they would collapse like in the manner that they did. I dont know…I am not an engineer. Why didnt the defense department act after the planes lost contact for so long. I dont know. It will remain a mystery. I am sure there are numerous other questions.

Let me get this straight: if I think the Official Word is wrong, it’s because I need to lie to myself in order to make sense of the incomprehensible. Gosh I’m so lowly and stupid! Thank you, Time magazine, for informing me! Yet another reason to not subscribe.

Distinguishing crap from fact must be a lost art. What other qualification is there for journalism?

I would love to do a 180, and believe that the attacks were described accurately by the Report. Then I could appreciate how important it is for the NSA to snoop, and not have a suspiscion that opponents are being spied on. I would happily and cheerfully leave my contacts and saline solution in stowed luggage, not in my fanny pack where it’s handy; all for a good cause, you know.

Instead, all indications lead to an inescapable fact:  we are being lied to, and on a grand scale.

“-IT WOULD HAVE TAKEN HUNDREDS OR EVEN THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE IN THE GOVERNMENT TO PULL OFF 9/11 - there is no way they could have gotten away with it-”

This ridiculous assertion has been repeatedly made in an attempt to keep people from looking at the evidence. Classified / covert operations are designed to involve very few people, and information is “compartmentalized” so even those involved are given info on a “need to know only” basis.

However, there is another angle to this I haven’t seen brought up: How is it that people can easily accept 19 crazy Arabs (commanded by a man in a cave) could pull off an operation the scale of 9/11; but an equally small number of people (with literally 10,000 times the resources available to them) could not?

It is a bit like suggesting 10 armed thugs could plan and pull off a bank robbery, but 5 “bank executives” (with keys, codes, inside knowledge of procedure, security, etc.) couldn’t.

-Of course, to keep this analogy realistic, our “executives” would also need the power to destroy evidence, derail investigations, place gag orders, intercept communications on anyone they please, and (just for good measure) have the power to openly torture people.

For final measure, let’s not forget the Manhattan project. That involved well over 20,000 people and was kept a secret.

How does it defy logic “to believe that people living in caves and constantly on the run, can plan and carry out such a sophisticated operation”? 

Really, what’s so damned sophisticated about it?  Some Saudi tourists get into America (probably thousands do that every day) take some flight lessons, smuggle some case cutters onto a few planes, slaughter the crews and fly the planes into a few of the largest buildings in the world.  Where’s the complexity?  Al queda has (or at least had) vast financial resources.  They were not, at that time, constantly on the run in Afghanistan. 

We live in an age of leaked information.  In a meeting in Britain, officials are told that the US Government is fixing the intelligence about Iraq.  The Downing Street memo is leaked.  Prisoners are abused in Iraq.  Photos are leaked.  International phone calls are being monitored without warrant.  The information is leaked.  An Iraqi girl is raped and she and her family murdered allegedly by American soldiers.  The information is leaked. 

Can anyone reasonable believe, given the number of people who would have to have been involved, that not a single person would have an attack on conscience?  We’re talking about an attack that killed thousands of American citizens – women, children, parents, fire fighters.  How many orphans were made that day?  How many parents had to bury their children?  And not a single person who maybe modified one of the alleged attack drones, not a single officer or enlisted man from wherever the alleged cruise missile that hit the pentagon was fired from has felt the guilt?  Not a single person involved in planting or transporting the tons of explosives that would be needed in the twin towers had even a twinge of conscience watching people jump out of the tower windows in a desperate attempt to try to escape? (And by the way, how in the hell could that amount of explosives be concealed in buildings with tens of thousands of workers?)  Not even one of the people who made the allegedly faked phone calls to family members detailing the hijackings and saying tear-filled goodbyes?  Not a single person involved who may have had a friend or family member in the NY Fire or Police Department who was killed desperately trying to save lives while the conspirators wanted only to kill?  Not a single person involved has had a change of mind after seeing how the bumbling administration has handled the war the wonderfully 9/11 operation made possible?  Not even one person fired in the five years since has said anything even out of spite! 

Come on!

NIST’s World Trade Center FAQ

A REPLY to the National Institute for Standards and Technology’s Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
by Jim Hoffman

INTRODUCTION

    On August 30, 2006, the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) posted on their website a list of fourteen frequently asked questions (FAQ) and answers to them. NIST should be commended for at least addressing a number of the serious questions that have been raised with regard to its investigation. However, NIST’s new FAQ avoids answering the central charges of its most visible critique, Building a Better Mirage….
http://911research.wtc7.net/reviews/nist/WTC_FAQ_reply.html

•  Sorry, but a psychologist can also be a mental case, as the mental case president elected (or put on the throne) twice by the power of money and his supporters the merchants of death. In fact my experience with psychologist and psychiatrists confirms that each one of them needs ten more of their ranks to study them as mental cases, and so on infinitum.
•  Sure there was no lack of hatred towards the U.S. government by groups such as Al-Qaida. They did succeed in carrying out conventional operations requiring high-powered explosives to blow up American embassies.
•  However, to believe that people living in caves and constantly on the run, can plan and carry out such a sophisticated operation, as the 9/11 was, certainly defies logic, common sense and even science. Simply put, Al-Qaida did not have, and will never have, the know-how to plan and carry out such high-tech operation, eluding all the layers in the security apparatus of the one superpower of the world and its auxiliary the Israeli Mossad, unless one believes that the heavy weights in that security apparatus were bribed to look the other way; a situation, if happened, confirms the conspiracy theory and does not contradict it. The real question about the 9/11 should be, “Who stood to benefit most from the tragic events of 9/11?” All evidence points to the neo-Nazis of the world bent on achieving world control and the power of a militaristic supported empire. It is here where a serious investigation of the 9/11 should begin!

Just because “the Bush Administration had a knowing hand in the 9/11 attacks” argument isn’t on the table to the broad majority of Americans, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

Ask yourself why the facts of the attack on the Pentagon don’t measure up. Or why flight 93’s dots don’t connect the way the government has stated.

Why is the complete footage from the attack on the Pentagon still classified, when the WTC attacks are allowed to be shown again and again, even on news broadcasts today. The government could release the footage to discount skeptics and really prove again that the terrorists were responsible. But they refuse. And no one really asks for it.

It’s easy to blame it on some radicals from Afghanistan, but things just don’t add up, and we have a right to know everything that affected innocent Americans that day.

I don’t believe in conspiracies. Furthermore, the current administration’s collective stupidity negates any idea that they could carry out a conspiracy. My point is that the war isn’t what they say its about. And now it’s quite stupid to call the enemy Islamic Fascists.

There are millions of destitute foreigners and Americans that are repeatedly snubbed and tossed about like they mean nothing and are subordinates of America and its political machine. Only, they don’t have million-men armies and the ability to fight us the way we fight them. Suicide bombings are disgusting and absolutely ineffective, but put yourself in the poor’s shoes. The way we fight muslim radicals is with bullets, but there’ll always be more and more radicals because you’ll keep killing families, and relatives of those families will justifiably take vengeance.

We’ve gotta stop radicalism at the source: the schools, the recruitment, the youth, the madrasas, the mosques. Not with guns.

First, though, we’ve gotta impeach Bush for his devastating errors. We miss our troops and we can’t have them fighting this battle in the way they’ve been ordered to do so. If you look at things with open eyes, the people guilty of hurting the troops are the same people who sent them there via falsifications.

Yes, please dig a little further truthdig.  There are some very intelligent, informed, balanced, “non-reactionary” country loving citizens who are not mere tin foil hat wearing dopes who need an X-File to chase.  Start w/ Scholars for 9/11 truth to see what research and scholarship have been published, examine the physics, listen to questions regarding WTC 7, sift through the reactionaries and stay with scholars and academics who are willing to follow the evidence.  Relegating us to the ranks of the psychological needy who must compensate for such grand scale trauma is not in the spirit of digging for the truth - nor is blanket labeling such scholarship and research “crap”.  The official story “strains credulity” if you really examine it.

Ahhhhh, you are already retreating ... what you can’t say though is “I have studiously avoided blogging about ‘[rogue elements in] the U.S. government [having contributed to the] 9/11’ conspiracy theories because, frankly, they strain credulity*;”

See how that little bit of nuanced editing no longer strains credulity. Remove the strawman of an unwieldy govenrment bureaucracy for a lean, mean G. Gordon Liddy type, and voila! ... it starts making sense ... immediately, for many of us.

What is so amazing—I think to any rational person—are the number of threads/leads that weren’t followed up on AND which literally beg for an explanation if we are, in fact, going to find out what did happen.

The one thing we know for sure is that our government has once again lied to us. And if we continue to accept the lies, we will continue to be lied to. No straining of our credulity there.

And so the conspiracy theorists emerge from the woodwork.  They can’t believe that a brilliant, though evil, Arab sheik can conceive a simple, elegant, cruel plan to destroy the WTC after having done SO many effective attacks elsewhere, yet they can believe that the MOST incompetent administration since U.S. Grant can pull of such a well-guarded coup.

They can’t believe that 35 years of policies can generate such hatred of the US in a small group of people, but they can believe that the dirty tricksters, who can’t even beat a simple enemy in Iraq could bring off the 9/11 attacks without even a whisper getting out.

Occam’s Razor: The simplest solution is the solution.

OBL and Al Qaeda pulled off 9/11.  Mad King George and co. opportunistically used it to justify the war in Iraq. BTW, they were called liars and shown to be taking unnecessary steps BEFORE “Shock and Awe” in a major speech in March 2003 by none other than Jimmy Carter who had just won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Remember: On September 10, 2001, John Ashcroft KILLED all FBI funding of terrorism investigation—and by September 12, he, Rummy, Dickie and MKG were lying about it.

No, they are wickedly capable politicians, but desperately incompetent statesmen and leaders.

I’m scared of consipiracy theorists as much as i am scared of the bush administration as much as i am scared of creationists.

to me they all lack credibility and they all lack basic cognitive powers when presented with facts, research and disaster situations.

Great comments. Lots of opportunity for Truthdig to dig.

Maybe Popular Mechanics and Time are not part of the Big Business complicity. How may Engineering Majors go into Journalism?

Jet fuel burns in the engines of a Boeing 757 for thousands of hours during the normal work life of an engine. Nobody could vaporize a 757 using jet fuel without a conspiracy of some kind.

The absurdity of the operational claims of the official version of the Pentagon affair is unassailable. Accordingly, it seems reasonable to settle the issue in the following way.
Compliant (some are not) members of the 9/11 commissions will immediately be sentenced to several years of infantry duty in Iran, if not for gross dishonesty and corruption, egregious stupidity. They will be permitted to reduce the years of the sentence with the following:
Demonstrate the Pentagon event. (Show us!) In all fairness (which we know you advocate), you will be given 35 hours of flight training in a Cessna 17x (if you can fill in the x, multiple choice, three valid possibilities) and two hours in a 757 simulator.
A satisfactory performance requires that the Pentagon lawn is in no way harmed and that the plane disappears from existence at the end of the execution. The actual Pentagon will be used in the simulation, as there is no chance of it being harmed.
Other particulars: The final approach speed must be at 530 mph, in order to validate your claim. (The fact that a 757 has never flown at that speed at near ground level is no excuse. You were so stupid as to include numerical data that could in no way have been known.)
Understand that the test will begin near the Ohio border and expect an overcast sky, as this is the norm, and that the air over Washington is always hazy and the landscape is therefore totally bewildering. No navigation faculties will be available, consistent with your claims.
You may also reduce your sentence by paying back the public any part of the $15,000,000 that you wasted (stole), but it must be earned while serving fine food at Taco Bell. (Congressmen may only earn minimum wage.)

time magazine’s reasoning is mainstream pap

our mass media foment distrust & suspicion among the populace by portraying america & israel as always being right—anybody who disagrees with america or israel is wrong: for instance, our mass media hid the link between israel’s massive bombing of lebanon & the cluster bombs that america gives to israel

this continual propagandizing for america & israel can only lead americans to seek an outlet for their distrust & suspicion—it’s cold comfort to think that our government conspires against us to the extent of attacking us on 9/11 but it’s often the only way we can wake up our fellow citizens who go along with the unrelenting propaganda

Hello again

  I believe the point is that they CAN’T keep it secret. There are already to many questions, to many people that were there and were involved for this to be swept under the rug.
Time is acting as just another republican apologist.
Big business looks out for big business.

Many of the other posts here bring up excellent points…..ANY rational thinker would doubt the official 9/11 story with a cursory glance at the available evidence.

I think all of you here at Truthdig should do some research and discover WHY it is that over one third of the country smells something rotten in the state(s) of America.

9/11 Scholars for Truth is a good starting point.

Good Lord.

If the US government or a part of it was involved, it would necessarily involve hundreds of people?  And, on top of this, they wouldn’t be able to keep a secret?

Well, the official story asserts it was just 19 hijackers controlled by an evil genius in a cave.  Why would elements within the US intelligence agencies, with all of their vast financial, technical, and intelligence resources need a greater than 10 fold number of operatives?  Amazing.

Thousands worked on the Manhattan Project, and yet the product of it was a complete surprise to the newly elected President Truman.

Hundreds, possibly thousands work at Area 51.  And yet no one has much of an idea of what occurs there.  The National Security Agency, formed after WW2, had tens of thousands of employees and until the 1980s most Americans, even most members of Congress, had no idea that it existed.

As far as psychological explanations go, I’ll take the opposite viewpoint.  As ridiculous as the official goverment version of events is, as much as it defies logic and the available evidence (unfortuantely we know that the government has deliberately destroyed much evidence), it’s simply a much more comforting thing to believe than the “conspiracy theories.” 

Who wants to believe that our own government did this?  After you examine the evidence and begin to suspect complicity by our own goverment in the events of that day, you can be nothing but absolutely horrified.  To believe the official version of events is comforting.

So, pick up Popular Mechanics’ latest book which claims to refute the 9/11 conspiracy theorists.  It really doesn’t; it’s a sloppy display of logic and it provides no evidence.  But it’s the magic blue pill that will make you feel better and perhaps allow you to go back to sleep and wake up believing whatever you want to believe.

Hello Friends
  People also used this argument to explain the lone gunman theory in the JFK assassination, and hey, it was probably the same interest group involved in both cases. Big Oil from Texas. It’s worked before, so why not try it again. This is the nature of the Big Lie; it’s to big, and to preposterous, to complicated for anyone to think it’s true.  No one could be that evil, but guess what, they are. These are the same monsters that gave us the slaughter and chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s big business as usual.

Sweeping dismissive statements such as “they’re all crap” disavow the very real questions about and conflicts with the official 9/11 story, which is also a “conspiracy theory”.  Rather than dismissing alternate hypotheses or assuming that we the masses need to fill some psychological vacume, try directly engaging and responding to the scholarship and research that has been presented which places the “official story” in doubt?

“We need grand theories to make sense of grand events, or the world just seems too random.”

And this is why “man” invented “GOD.”

To the conspiracy fools.  Look how completely inept the US administration is.  Mistake after mistake.  Leak after leak after leak.  Think of the hundreds of people who would have to be in on this.  How in the world can you imagine they could cover this up?  Leaks from high level meetings with only a few people are common.  And then consider that the people who you say murdered thousands of citizens in the most spectacular covert-op in the history of the world have done nothing to silence the conspiracy theorists. 

You’re just being silly.

News facts, as mentioned below, do not align with the findings of the 9/11 commission report, which is strange since the objective of the commission was to deliver ‘the fullest possible account’ of the events surrounding 9/11. Forums such as this one are universally hostile to any question of a cover-up by the government. The “official story” has a counterpart narrative which is far more credible, based on mainstream news articles alone.

1) No preventive measures were taken by the US Government prior to 9-11 after receiving very specific warnings from own intelligence agencies, the German, French, Jordanian, Israeli, Russian, Britain’s, Egyptian and Canadian governments Also FBI translator Sibel Edmonds states: ‘I saw papers that show US knew al-Qaida would attack cities with airplanes’.

2) The head of ISI Pakistani Intelligence, Mahmoud Ahmad funneled $100,000 to Mohammad Atta just prior to the attacks on 9-11. Moreover he was in Washington DC with CIA and FBI heads during the week of 911. ( http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FD08Aa01.html )

3) CIA Head of Station meeting with Osama bin Laden in an American Hospital in Dubai several times in June 2001. ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterro…584444,00.html )

4) Ranking Pentagon officials canceling travel plans for morning of 9/11. Also San Francisco’s Mayor (Willie Brown) being warned on 10 September not to fly the next morning.

5) Several war game exercises were being conducted on 9/11/01. NORAD (as of 9-11) having already planned an upcoming exercise involving a simultaneous hijacking scenario. FAA bans takeoffs at 9:26 am for all civilian, military, or law enforcement aircraft ( http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti…174912,00.html )

6) Bush Administration vigorously opposing Congressional Hearings that might investigate details relating to the attacks on 9-11. More suspiciously Bush/Cheney only agree to testify without an oath, in private, without note-taking.
( http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...11.commission/ )

7) Tapes of interviews with air traffic controllers were deliberately destroyed. ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp…&notFound=true )

8) Sn. Mark Dayton, investigating 9/11, saying publicly that NORAD “covered up truth” and “lied to the American people” ( http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/e…521846767-3035 or on video at http://video.google.com/videoplay?do…13291572630132 time 00:00:30 )

9) Fire Engineering stating that the investigations were “corrupted by political forces” and called the investigation sanctioned by FEMA a “half-baked farce”. ( http://fe.pennnet.com/Articles/Artic…ICLE_ID=131225 )

10) Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle would assert that Cheney called him earlier in the day to urge him to avoid an inquiry into 9-11. ( http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLI….terror.probe/ )

11) 9/11 panel criticizes Defense, Justice dept’s for not cooperating fully and CIA, FBI for intimidating witnesses. ( http://web.archive.org/web/200308290…0708_1993.html )

12) Dept. of Defense changes hijacking rules, few months before 9/11, which states that for all non-immediate responses, assistance from the DoD must get approval from the Secretary of Defense who is currently Donald Rumsfeld ( http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/cjc…i/3610_01a.pdf )

13) Large number of “put” options are placed on American Airlines stock betting that the stock price would fall. ( http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/...-SearchStories and http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl…9/MN186128.DTL )

14) Jeb Bush activating the National Guard four days prior to the 9-11 attacks. ( http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar…TICLE_ID=25051 )

15) FBI agents publicly complaining that their efforts to track and investigate Al Quaida agents in the US were being blocked ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/events/newsnight/1645527.stm )

16) President Bush issuing Executive Order 199-Eye demanding that all investigations of Osama bin Laden’s relatives cease ( http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/200…ws_story3.html )

17) Two employees of Odigo, the instant messaging service, received e-mail warnings of the attack two hours before the first assault on the WTC (http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/se…etz_odigo.html - cached)

18) attempt by Coleen Rowley and other Minneapolis agents to obtain a warrant to search Zacarias Moussaoui’s computer ( http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...oussaoui_x.htm )

19) Not one of the perpetrators (19 in all) was caught on videotape before boarding. Atta was videotaped boarding a flight in Maine. Also the alleged video of Hani Hanjour doesn’t look like him at all.(compare these images http://www.nynewsday.com/media/photo…7/13512460.jpg with http://s3.amazonaws.com/911timeline/...anihanjour.jpg )

20) White House staff given Cipro, before first cases of anthrax reported. ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv…201158_000.htm )

21) President Bush’s phone logs on 9/11 don’t exist mysteriously. “The President was cut off,” panel chairman Thomas Kean said later. ( http://www.nydailynews.com/front/sto…p-176138c.html )

22) 7 of alleged 19 hijackers are reported alive, moreover FBI Director admits some identities are in doubt. ( http://web.archive.org/web/200109272…101probe.story and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid…st/1558669.stm and http://www.guardian.co.uk/september1…784541,00.html)

23) Bush mentioning “I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority.” ( http://www.watchblog.com/democrats/archives/003691.html )

24) Terror Anthrax Linked to Type Made by U.S. The powder used in the anthrax attacks is virtually indistinguishable from that produced by the United States military, according to federal scientists. (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/03/na…odaysheadlines )

25) All 4 hijacked planes were well below normal passenger loads, averaging only 27% full. ( http://a188.g.akamaitech.net/f/188/9…jack091101.htm )

26) Sept 10 - FEMA deployed to NYC, arrives night before attacks in downtown Manhattan. ( http://www.nyc.gov/html/oem/html/oth…d05_22_02.html )

27) undamaged passport of one of the perpetrators (Satam al-Suqami), surviving the fire at wtc ( http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/1…ism/index.html )

28) Hani Hanjour couldn’t fly a single engine Cessna airplane but was able to navigate a commercial jet .( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv…hijackers.html )

29) Mayor Rudolph Giuliani bans all video and photography at Ground Zero for unknown reasons. ( http://www.boston.com/news/daily/26/photo_ban.htm )

30) Three low flying white planes where spotted at each terror location. (plane image at wtc http://worldtradecentertruth.com/JetDixon4.pdf , image at pentagon http://www.loosechange911.com/img/ev…pentagon54.jpg and witness reports at Pennsylvania http://www.rense.com/general64/white.htm

31) Video recordings of pentagon strike from adjacent businesses were immediately seized by the FBI.

32) Alleged Flight 175 hijacker pilot Marwan Al-Shehhi reportedly leaves behind Boeing 757 manuals, east coast flight maps, an airplane fuel tester, and a protractor in his hotel room. However Flight 175 was a Boeing 767. ( http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories…124-7402.shtml )

33) Marvin Bush and Wirt Walker III, the president’s brother, involvement with the security for the World Trade Center, United Airlines, and Dulles International Airport. Security contracts for the WTC complex ended on 9-11-01.

34) Larry Silverstein, owner of the WTC 7, signs a 99-year lease for the rest of the WTC just six weeks before the attacks. ( http://www.cbsnews.com/elements/2003…6_person.shtml )

35) US pulls the plug on Muslim websites on 9/10/01. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Ar…253580,00.html)

36) secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta testified for the 9/11 commission about a young man asking Cheney ‘...do the orders still stand?’. This must have been a stand-down order.

37) Excessive financial transactions totaling more than 100 million dollars that electronically passed through the World Trade shortly before the strike ( http://www.wanttoknow.info/011218reuters.orig and http://archives.cnn.com/2001/TECH/in…arddrives.idg/ )

38) FBI says it has “No hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11: http://www.informationclearinghouse….ticle13664.htm

39) The military conducts exercises simulating hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets among WTC. ( http://www.usatoday.com/news/washing…18-norad_x.htm )

40) Military chief Myers states: “the goal has never been to get bin Laden.” ( http://www.defenselink.mil/transcrip…_t407genm.html )

41) fact that the steel from the WTC buildings was quickly removed from the crime scene.

about the 9/11 report itself:

42) the 9/11 Panel Suspected Deception by Pentagon ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn…080101300.html )

43) The official report of the 9/11 Commission does not address the collapse of WTC7; an occurrence that FEMA admitted it could not explain.

44) The Report did not include key testimony by secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta

45) The Commission’s claim that it found no evidence that any foreign government, including Pakistan, had provided funding for the al-Qaeda operatives, and claims: ”that after all is a matter of no great importance”.

46) the report’s time-line of the event on 9/11 is the third official change of these time-line.

47) The claim that the core of each of the Twin Towers was “a hollow steel shaft”, a claim that denied the existence of the 47 steel columns.

48) no mention of the FBI agents who reportedly claimed to have known the targets and dates of the attacks well in advance

49) The omission of Gerald Posner’s account of Abu Zubaydah’s testimony, according to which three members of the Saudi royal family—-all of whom later died mysteriously within an eight-day period—-were funding al-Qaeda and had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks

50) The Commission’s denial in particular that it found any evidence that money from Prince Bandar’s wife, Princess Haifa, went to al-Qaeda operatives

Well, they aren’t all crap ... the abiltity of a few key administrative officials to downgrade the intelligence on Al Qaeda and take advantage of the “what we need is another Pearl Harbor” mentality of the Neocons is strikingly real.

We now know key adminstration officials lied to us about the events of that day.

We also know that when the people show a willingness to accept being lied to, they will continue to be lied to.

Why is this so strange to comprehend in a day when the independence of auditors and inspector generals is a measure of good business and government practice?... and then when we the people question commissions (Warren AND 911) we are derided for pointing out that the facts as presented do not hang together? ... and that is not the same as saying that anyone else’s scenario is any more on target ... it is saying we DON"T KNOW what really happened leading up to 9/11 nor on the day itself ... yet!!!

Don’t we the people—who pay with our blood and treasure—have the RIGHT to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

I thought this was the most inane explanation and rationalization I have ever heard. There are FACTS that cannot be explained. We are not flailing around looking for conspiracies, the story just doesn’t add up and needs to be investigated to prevent it from happening again. There is no question that the government’s response was passive, incredibly so. Why was that? I don’t think it was a coincidence that this government got its wish to invade Iraq on a silver platter. Treasury Secretary Paul O’neill made that plain in his book. Gas is sky high and we have oil men at the top of the government is not another coincidence. I think that this blog is in denial, as much as many of the citizenry of America. I hope you all wake up before everything has gone completely to hell. We’re about halfway there now.