Off Topic – Did this really happen?

[Anonymous]

Bin-Laden not wanted by the FBI in regards to 9/11

Here is the FBI website detailing Osamas offenses. 9/11
is not mentioned:

http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/fugitives/laden.htm

[powayseller]

My husband was just telling me that there is no conspiracy, that even Bin Laden came out and admitted he had done it. I read him your post, but he said I should keep looking for more information until I find the admission.

He also said why would the government do this? What do they have to gain? He doesn’t want to believe anyone could do such a thing. Frankly, neither do I.

[PD]

Contrary to PS’s assertion, it is not patriotic to point hysterical fingers and accuse the US of crazy things. Neither am I a zombie-like “yes” man. She likes to believe this of me and anyone who disagrees with her as it casts her in the position of some kind of all-knowing prophet who deigns to enlighten us all as to the truth about real estate, the economy, terrorist attacks and the “secret“ workings of the government.

How about this as an explanation for the collapse of the towers:

The impact of the planes not only started an extremely hot fire due to absolutely full tanks of jet fuel but also damaged and destroyed important structural supports (which PS’s picture and proof of a hot fire ignores – that was ONLY a fire).

This structural damage and resulting fire led to increasing demands on the remaining supports.

The remaining supports gradually began to fail, one by one (popping noises).

The more supports that failed, the greater the load on the remaining supports. This led to more failures. High heat encourages failure.

Eventually, enough supports failed to lead to the first collapse. Ever played Jenga, anyone?

In any building or structure, there is a point of failure, no matter how well planned. No doubt there was an asymmetrical load on the center supports, which probably encouraged the failure.

The first collapse and resulting forces caused additional, catastrophic damage to the other buildings. This then caused the other buildings to collapse. If the first building had not fallen, it is possible that the other two would have remained standing.

Not enough rubble? Pulverized stuff takes up a lot less space than great big chunks.

I saw the Pentagon damage only day after the attack. It looked like a normal amount of rubble to me.

All of this talk about the World Trade Center is conveniently ignoring the Pentagon. If the government engineered it, why the heck would they blow up the Pentagon? Smoke screen, you say? Is that your only answer? Bull s**t!

Were the terrorist who killed themselves on the planes so anxious to do the bidding of the US government?

As for GPS tracking of the trucks hauling away the steel, how about this for an explanation:

Steel is valuable and they were concerned that it would be stolen for profit. Trucking in NY is notorious for being controlled by the mob.

They may have been concerned that anti-American and anti-government crazies and/or enemies would plant “evidence” to promote a conspiracy theory (like explosive residue).

Why would people believe that the US did this to itself? Some possibilities but not a complete list:

They have an anti-American bias and will accept anything that supports said bias.

It is less scary to believe that our own government did this than that there is group of people outside the US who will go to any lengths to bring us down, including using a nuclear device. After all, our government is unlikely to use a nuke on LA. So, whew, maybe it all over and there is nothing to really worry about.

If the US engineered 9-11, then it takes away any support for the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is very satisfying for those against the war.

Some people just like to be contrary.

People believe all sorts of stupid things.

People have a tendency to affix blame in a way that is the least scary. For instance, Jews were blamed for spreading the black plague. So they were burned, murdered and driven away. Those persecuting them felt there was lots of “evidence” too. History is rife with this sort of thing.

Some people see boogie men behind every door.

Some people are only happy if they feel persecuted in some way.

Some people will believe anything negative about a group outside of their own (like Dems vs. Reps) because it makes them feel good or enlightened or superior. They are also unlikely to believe anything negative about their own group because they feel enlightened and superior.

I could go on an on but I’m getting tired of this stupid subject as I have no doubt that I will not change the mind of a single person who is intent on believing that the US government planned and carried out an unimaginably grand scheme to blow up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in some convoluted, complicated plan to cause a war and enrich themselves. They just crossed their fingers and hoped that blowing up the World Trade center would not cause a national financial meltdown and general havoc. Oh, and who cares about the thousands of Americans who would die during the planned collapse of the towers.

I am supposed to be the one with my head buried in the sand? Get real.

[bgates]

So wait – you’re saying Jews didn’t cause the plague?

You’re in on this conspiracy, aren’t you 😉 ?

Heavyduty, why’d you imaginary conspiracy government half-ass things? Let’s recap: in the world you see when you’re off your meds, the government wanted to curtail civil liberties and start wars, for no apparent reason. To generate support, it launched this huge secret plan involving at least hundreds of people to secretly wire several buildings to explode when they were hit by airplanes that had been hijacked as part of the conspiracy. Then the government spread stories about WMD that they knew were false in a largely unsuccessful attempt to get support for an Iraq invasion.

Why not just nuke an American city in the first place? If the government you think about when you’re sniffing glue could break the chain of command at NORAD, they could get their hands on one nuclear weapon. They could detonate it in some second-tier city like San Bernardino or Newark to let LA and NY think they were targeted, but avoid the economic disaster of actually hitting the biggest cities.

Your plan involved thousands; mine involved tens. Your plan leaves the imaginary government vulnerable to imaginary geniuses like yourself who can pick apart the differences between airliner collision damage and demolition damage; in my plan, the government doesn’t have to cover up what type of weapon exploded. In your plan, the government has to work to tie lunatic hijackers to WMD efforts. In my plan, they have proof of a nuclear explosion on US soil – France would lead the charge into Iraq under those circumstances. My plan would lead to more military spending and more civil liberties restrictions than yours. Everything about my plan is better than yours. The only failing of both of them, once again, is they are both batshit crazy. But a crazy person like yourself who likes to pretend he’s smart isn’t bothered by that objection, so since you like fake ‘intellectual’ puzzles about why the government does secret evil things, I’ll leave this as an exercise for you and anyone else who has internet access in their desert survivalist compound or padded cell: why did the government use your weak over-complicated unconvincing plan and not my simple bulletproof one?

[salo_t]

bgates, what would be so hard about not taking action on intelligence reports? A memo comes in and states that a radical group wants to use our planes to hit important US buildings. Two things can happen at this point. Our government can do everything in its power to make sure this does not happen or… and this is why people are asking questions, the government can stand by and let it happen.
Bush and the neo-conservatives wanted a piece of the middle east very bad. Check this out: (you probably have it bookmarked anyway)

http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm

Read the statement of principles and then look at the names below that are endorsing it. This goes way back to before republicans had total control. It would have been nearly impossible to get involved in the middle east without some sort of tragedy happening on American soil first.
Letting 9/11 happen was all that was needed to get the Neo-conservatives plan in motion.
I would think differently if we had gone to war and actually fought the people that did this to us. But instead we went into Iraq, hooked up Halliburton and other friends of the administration with nice fat contracts and then proceeded to fight the Iraqi’s. Doesn’t make sense.
I honestly believe that Bush thought once we were in the middle east things would start working in our favor and we would have a strong foothold in the region which would mean control over the oil supply and stronger military presence in that region.
Remember that Bush did this on his own, anyone that spoke up against his poor judgment seemed to lose their job or suddenly decided to retire. Bush has changed his reason for going to war who knows how many times and none of the reasons seem to hold much water. This whole thing was a misjudged blunder on an enormous scale and now we are stuck trying to figure out what to do now.

Going back to 9/11. Its easy to see how letting something like 9/11 happen could easily be the trigger to get a plan, a vision in motion. Using a nuke would be a little over the top and can be traced back to where it came from.
You can sit back and say its all BS if that makes you sleep better at night but many Americans like myself who are not so simple minded tend to think that we have been mislead.

[PD]

Simple minds, hmmm? The lower a person’s intelligence, the easier it is to convince them of the impossible.

The terrorist attacks, if carried out by radical Muslims required as few as 20 people to be in on the plan (there were more, of course, but probably not hundreds). It required some flight training, money and planning. The actual plan was brilliantly simple.

For the US to have engineered it, including bombs placed in the towers, it would be the most complicated, wild, labor intensive, crazy and expensive plan ever devised by a Machiavellian mind. That anyone would actually believe this is amazing. It is even more amazing that the same people who believe Bush capable of such an intensely complicated and difficult plan are the same ones who make fun of his speech errors and go on at length about how stupid he is (according to them).

The outcome was also impossible to predict. The implications could well have included a stock market meltdown, destroying the value of the stocks held by the same people who were supposed to have engineered the whole thing for their gain. It could have kicked off a very severe and long lasting recession or depression, also bad for industry and stock values.

Bgates is right. If the government wanted to manufacture a terrorist attack as an excuse to invade the middle east, they would have used a much simpler plan with far fewer variables as to execution, outcome and potential discovery.

Although I have no proof of this, I would not be surprised if our government has acquired nuclear weapons, removed from the former Soviet Union, in an attempt to keep them off the black market. It would be much simpler to arrange for one of these nukes (or one of our own) to be detonated somewhere where our financial markets and government buildings would not be endangered. Voila! Easy plan, few people involved, simple execution and big impact.

Is it possible that the government was warned? Sure. I am certain that there are tens of such warnings every day. Each time a decision must be made as how credible the information is and to what lengths we must go in a preventative measure. Sometimes only hindsight and actual events tells us which of those threats are the real deal. How can anyone think for even a moment that information pinpointing the time and location of such a horrific event would be ignored? Does anyone really imagine a board room where the president receives such information, perhaps for events that are to happen in a few days, and right there comes up with a wild plan to spin a war and enrich Halliburton? At the same time he just decides to write off whatever buildings that might be destroyed within Washington? So what if a huge hole is blown in the Pentagon and that the rest of it just might burn down as a result. Who needs it anyway! “Yeah,” he must have said, “lets just roll the dice. Maybe the damage won’t be too bad.” Rubbing his hands together, Bush turns to Cheney and says, “Just think of those Halliburton contracts!”

[salo_t]

I don’t think our government engineered 9/11. I think they just saw opportunity and turned a blind eye and let it happen. More than likely they had no idea of the extent of the attacks just that they would be coming at a certain time and would target the towers. Having this information allowed them time to put a plan of their own in place.
This would explain why a huge insurance plan was placed on the towers weeks before they were hit. I also find it interesting how the buildings fell so easily and orderly. I studied architecture in school and while I’m no expert I have listened to many experts talk about how the buildings falling like they did is very unlikely. I have to agree.
If I went out and bought a huge life insurance plan on my uncle and he turned up dead two weeks later you can bet your ass I would be investigated, this is no different. There are just too many unanswered questions and too much data to support the fact that a certain amount of people knew this was about to happen.
Its my opinion that people in the Bush administration felt that the 9/11 damage was a small price to pay to get their true agenda for the middle east off the ground.
Unfortunately for Bush and the rest of the world they have only managed to make things worse.

[PD]

It would have been extremely stupid not to insure the towers against a terrorist attack. After all, it had already been a target of a terrorist attack! Sorry but your smoking gun is a broken water pistol.

Gosh, my neighbor updated her homeowner’s insurance two weeks before the Cedar Fire. If her house had burned down, would you have accused her of setting the fire?

Hey, what about Powayseller – her prefab house actually did burn down and she rebuilt a better, nicer house. Do you suppose she set the fire? (firmly tongue in cheek)

As for the buildings falling straight down and collapsing in on themselves, this is a far more likely scenario than the great big Machiavellian plan where explosives were installed. Gravity pulls one way – DOWN.

It is far more likely that there would be strange coincidences than that the government was in on it.

I lived in Northern Virginia during 9-11. My neighbor’s office was destroyed at the Pentagon. In a strange and lucky coincidence, he happened to be home that morning. Do you think he was in on it?

[salo_t]

Sort of odd that they didn’t have this insurance since the place was opened in 1973 but managed to get it a few weeks before the place was attacked. Anyhow thats only one piece of this huge puzzle and not the bases for why I feel the way I do.
Since you seem to have all the answers and feel that it was just your run of the mill terrorist attack than why dont you give me some reasons why you feel that the government had no idea before hand. And use facts this time. I personally would love to believe that our government was not involved but after all I have read and seen thats not the conclusion that I come to.

[no_such_reality]

Here ya go PS, take a look at the Windsor tower photo again. You can see in the aftermath and during the fire that the steel structure was collapsing. Since the Windsor building has a solid reinforced concrete core and the fire was on top, it didn’t drive into the ground.

The WTC, the fire and impact was about the 80th floor. Now imagine if the 80-85 floors heated and twisted like the top of the Windsor building did in the after picture on Wikipedia, however, unlike Windsor, WTC had another 20 floors on top.

[Anonymous]

Thank you, PD/bg/nsr/PC, for presenting the reasoned, sensible counterargument.

[salo_t]

I’d also like to add a thank you to PD/bg/jg for always keeping it real even when the facts are stacked well against your arguments. Well done!

[PerryChase]

Salo, i guess i’m not getting any thanks, ha.haha. That’s Ok.

No, there are no conspiracy. Considering how incompetent the Bush Administration is, they simply missed the signs of an impending attack. Once 9/11 occured they seized that opportunity to advance their agenda. Now every government around the world is following the lead of the Bush Administration and using “terrorism” to crack down on discent.

If you want to gauge the competency of the Bushies, consider that now that we are in control of Iraq, terrorism and corruption in that country are the biggest threats ever. Our presence in Iraq is creating more terrorists than ever.

Bush was the Decider before but now he’s the Thinker. He won’t finish thinking until January while our soldiers are being killed in Iraq. So much for competence. No, Bush was not capable of managing that conspiracy.

[Anonymous]

Sept 11 conspiracy theorists are complete morons.

[bgates]

salo_t, the insurance ‘argument’ would be made to work either way. If the developer got coverage, he’s the rich guy who suspiciously saves money in the attack – but if he’s denied coverage, then the insurer is the rich guy who suspiciously saves money in the attack. It’s not a falsifiable argument. It’s not science. It’s hysteria.

Show me the peer-reviewed publication that has experts questioning the collapse. Explain why there’s been no accusation against Bush from any academic journal, any mainstream media outlet, any military general, or even the Democratic party. These are all groups that have opposed Bush strongly, at times even dishonestly, but the champions of this crackpot conspiracy garbage are anonymous internet posters.

It’s no use arguing with people over their religious beliefs. For whatever reason, you think it’s important that you have access to special knowledge that lesser beings cannot accept. I’ll be sure to sacrifice a goat in your honor after the game. In the meantime, why don’t you call up this guy, I’m sure you’ll get along famously.

[Author]

Posts