9-11 Conspiracy Theories

First off, I completely and totally support people who want to "debunk" the various 9-11 conspiracy theories. If we on the left are going to confront the public with these theories, our evidence and arguments have to be as strong and as well-thought-through as it's humanly possible to make them. My own perspective on the whole issue is that I found the website cooperativeresearch.org (Now folded into 911Truth.org, their Reading Room is an excellent resource.) Cooperativeresearch had a comprehensive listing of all the suspicious and related events conncted to 9/11 broken up into four sections: Before 2001, 1 Jan 2001 to 10 Sept 2001, 9/11 and afterwards. I printed out the third section. It came out to 35 pages (The Reading Room lists 75 references related to "foreknowledge" about the attacks.) After reading the third section, I went a few pages into the day of 9/11. There was no single item that convincd me that 9/11 was an inside job. It was just the sheer number of suspicious incidents that did it. Of course, the Bush Administration's determined efforts to prevent an investigation and/or to limit any investigation as much as possible (The Reading Room lists 27 pieces concerning FBI/CIA interference with various investigations of 9/11.) simply confirmed to me that something smelled awfully funny here.

The film Loose Change is getting known around the web and available at the link.
Amy Goodman of Democracy Now leads a discussion of the film between makers of Loose Change and editors of Popular Mechanics. Good debate. And yes, they do have an extended discussion near the end about the collapse of the three towers, which is a major subject of the eSkeptic story.

One item from the eSkeptic story that jumped out at me was

In controlled demolitions, detonating devices weaken or disrupt all major support points in a building at the same time. Therefore, once the collapse begins, all parts of the building are simultaneously in motion, free-falling to the ground. However, this is definitely not what happens during the collapse of WTC Buildings 1 and 2. Carefully review footage of the collapses, and you will find that the parts of the buildings above the plane impact points begin falling first, while the lower parts of the buildings are initially stationary.³ The parts of the towers below the impact point do not begin to fall until the higher floors have collapsed onto them. This is not what we would expect if the towers collapsed from a controlled demolition, but it is exactly what we would expect if the building collapse resulted from damage sustained by the impact of the planes and subsequent fire damage. A conspiracy theorist may counter that the buildings were rigged to begin falling from the top down, but what are the chances that those planning such a complicated demolition would be able to predict the exact location the planes would impact the towers, and prepare the towers to begin falling precisely there?

To take the last point first, yes, the people in charge would have had to have planned with some degree of precision exactly where the planes would strike. It could not have been a coincidence where the Bush Administration simply allowed bin Laden to carry out his plans, it would have to have been a coordinated operation. To that end, this article strongly suggests that the youngest brother of the Bush family had the necessary time and access to the buildings to have made this happen.

George W. Bush's brother was on the board of directors of a company providing electronic security for the World Trade Center, Dulles International Airport and United Airlines, according to public records. The company was backed by an investment firm, the Kuwait-American Corp., also linked for years to the Bush family.
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Marvin P. Bush, the president's youngest brother, was a director at Stratesec from 1993 to fiscal year 2000. But the White House has not publicly disclosed Bush connections in any of its responses to 9/11, nor has it mentioned that another Bush-linked business had done security work for the facilities attacked.

We know that people accociated with the PNAC (PDF) began planning the Iraq War shortly after the Persian Gulf War (Or Iraq War I, which would make the current conflict Iraq War II) wrapped up, so for Marvin Bush to have taken over Stratesec in 1993 makes sense. That would give him and his employees plenty of time to calculate how to make the collapse of the towers appear to be credible.

BTW, good Dutch film (20 min.) here.

Yes, I completely agree. The conspiracy theories appear quite credible, but they need lots and lots of vigorous debate.