Your belief about September, 11th, 2001

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by Beerfest

It leaves out lots of stuff worthy of discussion.

Your refusal to bring up specific points like asked is also leaving out lots of worthy discussion.

If you want to discuss, then discuss.

[oilyfan]

Originally Posted by Beerfest

What in the world are you talking about?

Let me spell it out then:

9/11 conspiracy theories - discredited by mainstream technical experts

[Flabbibulin]

The American government, under Bush, couldn't even get clean drinking water to New Orleans for days after Katrina... How the hell are they supposed to pull off the biggest, most carefully orchestrated cover-ups in world history- with the help of thousands of participants and no leaks?? Even Oswald is in his grave laughing at this one...

[Shazam]

beatingadeadhorse DOT JAYPEG

[oilyfan]

Originally Posted by oilyfan

And btw if you seriously think that the US government, which is usually such a sieve that hundreds of thousands of top secret documents are leaked regulary by sites like Wikileaks, can in this particular case keep the lid on the largest conspiracy in US history - you are most defintely a whackjob.

And still haven't answered my initial question - why can't we find one, and just one guy credible person who has come forward and said that they were part of the conspiracy

- the demolition experts who must have "set" this elaborate system up, in the middle of some the busiest real estate in the world. Have you watched the kind of preparation a building has to go through to get ready for controlled demolition?
- forget the demolition experts, lets just find the janitors who cleaned the WTC towers to tell us how they saw all the necessary "thermite" on Sep 10
- the firemen who saw all the wiring necessary to blow the tallest buildings in the world
- one politician who has an axe to grind, come forward and point out the responsible officials who ordered this?
- just one authentic formal document that shows the orders for this operation, out of probably thousands that must have been needed to "plan" this

Sometimes common sense is not common at all.

[Weiser Wonder]

I think it's rather ridiculous to assume that the Bush administration had the competency to pull off 9/11. It's possible that they knew about it and just let it happen, but beyond that, they had nothing to do with it.

[CaptainCrunch]

Seriously this debate pops up its head time after time.

Someone will always point out Loose Change which is a ridiculous joke of a movie. Besides the obvious mistruths in it (There was no aircraft wreckage at the Pentagon, and we've seen a lot of pictures of wreckage) To some pretty clever use of questionable witnesses. To Alex Jones continually reissuing the movie as his "Theories" get disproved (I.E. Cellphones from planes)

I remember watching a special on the learning channel where the engineers for reopening the 9/11 investigation were laughed at by engineers who had actually tested their theories.

The only conspiracy that happened was the failure of the Clinton Government and the Bush administration to act on the intelligence that was given to them.

If you read the book the looming tower it does a pretty good job of proving Al-Qaeda's roll in 9/11. Also read Ghost Wars which goes from the formation of Al-Queda and their actions leading up to Sept 10.

Popular Mechanics does an excellent job of disproving the Conspiracy theories in terms of the actual mechanics of the destruction of the tower.

There are also multiple sites out there that disprove the use of Thermite and so call theoretical Super Thermite as a demolition agent for the Towers.

[sa226]

Originally Posted by Phaneuf3

The Pentagon
A hijacked plane full of people disappears shortly after two more hijacked planes were crashed into buildings, radar shows the plane disappearing as a huge explosion occurs at the Pentagon, hundreds of eyewitnesses including at least one professional pilot have gone on the record reporting that they saw a plane crash into the Pentagon, and there is a trail of damage the width of a plane leading up to the impact site, and a 40,000 pound generator was hit by something big enough to knock it off its mounts and move it toward the damaged area. But the plane didn't cartoonishly punch an outline of itself through a reinforced wall intended to stand up to anything short of a direct nuclear strike, so it must have been a missile. Some people even say there were holograms involved!

I find this funny. Thank god there was a professional pilot there to add credibility to the identification of an airplane. Heaven forbid only a lawyer being there. Lawyers have no idea what planes look like.

[ResAlien]

Ugh, I haven't read a single post in here. Look, it boils down to this:

If you really think it was an "inside job" you need your head examined. Period.

Conspiracy theorists need to be culled from the population Logan's Run style.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by sa226

I find this funny. Thank god there was a professional pilot there to add credibility to the identification of an airplane. Heaven forbid only a lawyer being there they have no idea what planes look like.

The Lawyer would have been too busy setting up a class action law suit against the manufacturer of the aircraft on behalf of the thirty two gophers that were killed in the crash to fill out a witness statement.

[Red Ice Player]

Originally Posted by Weiser Wonder

I think it's rather ridiculous to assume that the Bush administration had the competency to pull off 9/11. It's possible that they knew about it and just let it happen, but beyond that, they had nothing to do with it.

That is plausible and marks the limit of any conspiracy theory I would consider.

[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...

[Essembi]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

The only conspiracy that happened was the failure of the Clinton Government and the Bush administration to act on the intelligence that was given to them.

This is a very good point. In hindsight the intelligence that was available certainly seems compelling, however no one on 9/10 would have had the slightest expectation that something of this magnitude could have been possible, warning signs or not.

[kirant]

Originally Posted by Red Ice Player

Hmmmmm......Lets see, a bullet shaped object weighing over 100 tons travelling in excess of 400 miles per hour hitting a glass and steel wall would just bounce off? Dude. I saw that second plane hit. Its called irresistible force.

That's a bit simplistic. You have to consider the plane's weight distribution. A large amount of it is placed in the centre/the "bullet" shape of it. The wings are very light. If we threw on wings on a bullet and fired that, going with your example, and it hit a mesh of steel and glass, the "wings" on the bullet would break pretty quick.

I'm not denying that the plane's centre should be able to smash through the walls, but the wings are very thin and weak.

[Phaneuf3]

Originally Posted by sa226

I find this funny. Thank god there was a professional pilot there to add credibility to the identification of an airplane. Heaven forbid only a lawyer being there. Lawyers have no idea what planes look like.

It's only funny because it needs to be there. Some of the theories about what crashed into these buildings (or if anything did at all: lulz)are just plain nutso. Some truthers will tell you that it was a missile and not a plane. Others will tell you that the planes that were supposed to have crashed were replaced by dummy military planes with missiles attached to the bottom.

I certainly could identify an airplane. I'd expect a pilot should be able to identify which specific type of airplane.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Essembi

This is a very good point. In hindsight the intelligence that was available certainly seems compelling, however no one on 9/10 would have had the slightest expectation that something of this magnitude could have been possible, warning signs or not.

There have been multiple stories of the executive arm of any government ignoring solid intelligence, not because allowing the event to happen would enhance a political endgame, but because the intelligence is either too good, or simply because whats coming is almost unheard of.

The American's had several warnings of an attack on a U.S. Naval asset, but figured that nobody would be stupid enough to attack a U.S. War Ship. Yet the U.S.S. Cole was attacked by a bunch of guys in a rubber dingy.

9/11 Airplanes flying into major U.S. Cities, go back and get more information or confirmation because this is unlikely.

There has been an ongoing war between the U.S. intelligence services and the executive branch since Kennedy sold out the CIA in Cuba, there is no trust.

[oilyfan]

Originally Posted by kirant

That's a bit simplistic. You have to consider the plane's weight distribution. A large amount of it is placed in the centre/the "bullet" shape of it. The wings are very light. If we threw on wings on a bullet and fired that, going with your example, and it hit a mesh of steel and glass, the "wings" on the bullet would break pretty quick.

I'm not denying that the plane's centre should be able to smash through the walls, but the wings are very thin and weak.

That statement is plain wrong , the wings on a passenger jet aircraft are probably the strongest parts. They are designed to have incredible flex, they carry the engines that provide the thrust, and have to carry the weight of the aircraft. They acted like knives and sliced through the steel mesh easily.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by MattyC

My only issue with 911 is how the buildings fell. I don't know who it was or why and Im not going to speculate that it was the US or AQ or whatever. But if a building is going to collapse from an impact like that its not going to do so in perfect demolition style.

There's nothing special about the way buildings fall in controlled demolitions. They fall that way because of basic physics. If you destabilize a building's support structure, the weight of the building will collapse in on itself.

Go to YouTube a search for videos of controlled demolitions (I think you can find the Calgary General Hospital among others), most buildings actually require very few explosives to cause the catastrophic failure that will make the building fall. Once the supports are destabilized, gravity and inertia do most of the work.

The WTC towers actually stood for quite a long time after the planes hit, but after the fires burned for so long, the steel finally weakened to the point of failure, and they fell...just like a building in a controlled demolition (although, there was definitely a lot of damage to surrounding buildings - so, they definitely weren't "clean" collapses), not because they were controlled demolitions but because controlled demolitions take advantage of a building's natural tendencies to collapse in a certain way, which is the same way the WTC towers fell.

[sa226]

Originally Posted by kirant

That's a bit simplistic. You have to consider the plane's weight distribution. A large amount of it is placed in the centre/the "bullet" shape of it. The wings are very light. If we threw on wings on a bullet and fired that, going with your example, and it hit a mesh of steel and glass, the "wings" on the bullet would break pretty quick.

I'm not denying that the plane's centre should be able to smash through the walls, but the wings are very thin and weak.

Wings are not light....Fixed wing aircraft have a main wing spar that runs along a majority of the wing length and supports a large majority of the lift forces of the airplane. Not to mention fuel is carried in the wings. As far as mass and internal structure, wings are certainly not light

[Beerfest]

Originally Posted by oilyfan

That statement is plain wrong , the wings on a passenger jet aircraft are probably the strongest parts. They are designed to have incredible flex, they carry the engines that provide the thrust, and have to carry the weight of the aircraft. They acted like knives and sliced through the steel mesh easily.