Originally Posted by flylock shox
This looks like a fun thread. I'll wade in with a few points.
First, I've often seen people try to dismiss the arguments of others by calling them conspiracy theories, as though conspiracies either don't happen or are always visible to the public, neither of which are true. Conspiracies take place all the time, frequently affecting the highest levels in the political realm in particular. Hell, lobby groups ARE conspiracies, and they pretty much run politics. Even the Flames have closed door meetings to discuss only winning in the retro jerseys so they'll become the primary uniforms.
Second, I don't buy the "9/11 was an inside job" argument - the US government's response to 9/11 seemed clearly unprepared and shambolic, far too much so to be anything but genuine IMO. I think the fact that there was information about the threat of the attack well before it occurred, and that this information was ignored by the Bush administration, speaks only to the administration's incompetence.
There are, however, indications of smaller scale conspiracies within the broader context of 9/11. Chief among these was the authorization of the flying out of Bin Laden's family members while flight restrictions were still in effect for other aircraft. That is the type of call that presumably only comes from the top, and for reasons unknown. I've yet to see a good explanation for why this was allowed to occur.
The Iraq war, by contrast, was IMO the product of a clear conspiracy - the artificial engineering of a case for war using smoke and mirrors. From the Project For the New American Century, to the role of Halliburton, to the bald-faced attempts to connect Iraq to Al-Qaeda, the entire lead up to the war was manipulated by the Bush administration, and clumsily at that.
As for 9/11 though, no, I don't think it was anything other than what it appeared to be. Had the perpetrators been tied to Iraq (really, not fictionally as the Bush administration tried to do) then I could see an argument for conspiracy: a regime change in Iraq could benefit the US. But a change in Afghanistan? Not worth the conspiracy IMO.
Edit: Oh, and the flight that went down in Pennsylvania, I really thought that thing was shot down. I remember watching aerial footage of the debris trail, and it was little bits of debris, more little bits of debris, then BIG bits of debris - presumably the point of impact. Seemed to me the thing had to have broken up in the air to have a debris trail like that, suggesting it had been shot down. Personally, I think shooting it down would have been justified, but can see how the government might want to spin it to avoid appearing to have killed a bunch of innocent people, and instead making them into heroes. Can't remember what led to the definitive conclusion that it had been forced to the ground by passengers though...
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