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Almost 10 years on, 9/11 conspiracy theories abound (4 posts)

  1. truthmod
    Administrator

    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/09/01/almost-10-ye...


    For some Americans, the deaths of nearly 3,000 people was not the scariest thing about 9/11. It was realizing who carried out the attacks: yes, the American government.

    Defying countless official and non-governmental enquiries, media reporting, and often common sense, a significant number of people fervently disbelieve that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda sent 19 hijackers to execute the September 11, 2001 massacre.

    Instead, elements within George W. Bush's administration -- or perhaps Israeli agents -- used pre-placed explosives and missiles to blow up the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

    A relatively milder version is that the US government didn't actually blow up its citizens, but knew full well the attacks were coming, then did nothing to stop them.

    In both cases, the reasoning is that Bush's team sought to justify the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as a domestic clampdown on civil liberties.

    Wild as they might sound, the conspiracy theorists are not just some tiny fringe.

    A 2006 Scripps Howard poll found 36 percent of Americans believed in some form of government 9/11 conspiracy. Other polls have found widespread support not only in the Arab world, but also in France, where a book called "Horrifying Fraud" sold 200,000 copies shortly after 9/11.

    Even a decade later, the conspiracy movement is alive and kicking in the United States.

    Groups such as Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, or Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, see themselves as serious researchers exposing perhaps the biggest cover-up in US history.

    In fact the real loonies, says David Ray Griffin, author of "The New Pearl Harbor" and "Cognitive Infiltration," are those who believe the government version about the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

    "If we define miracles as a violation of scientific principles, in particular the principles of physics and chemistry, there are about a dozen miracles in the official story," he told KPFA, a liberal radio station in California.

    A summary of the leading theories is contained in "Loose Change," a homemade documentary viewed nearly 125 million times on Google and some 30 million worldwide on YouTube, according to director Dylan Avery.

    Splicing news footage and interviews, all set to a catchy music beat, "Loose Change" collates and expands on all the urban legends about 9/11.

    For example:

    -- The Twin Towers could not have collapsed from airplane impact alone.

    -- The astonishingly rapid collapse of World Trade Center tower 7, despite not being hit by a plane, bore the hallmarks of professional demolition.

    -- Wall Street trading on stocks directly affected by the disaster showed some people knew in advance about what was coming.

    -- A US missile, not American Airlines Flight 77, smashed into the Pentagon.

    -- United Airlines Flight 93 did not crash in a Pennsylvania field, but vanished, perhaps after being shot down by a fighter jet.

    The United States has long been fertile ground for conspiracy theories.

    In this parallel world, John F. Kennedy was assassinated by anyone ranging from the CIA to Cuban exiles. The Moon landing pictures were taken in a studio, while the US government is covering up evidence of UFOs. And American GIs are still held in bamboo cages in Vietnam.

    The most recent addition is the "birther" movement, which claims Barack Obama was not born on US soil -- and therefore is an illegitimate president.

    The conspiracy theorists remain a minority and face the scorn of the counter-conspiracy movement on websites like www.debunking911.com and www.screwloosechange.blogspot.com, which claims to prove wrong almost every statement made during the film.

    But Kathy Olmsted, who teaches history at University of California Davis, said extreme mistrust of government is understandable.

    After all, the Bush administration spent huge energy promoting its own false conspiracy theories about Saddam Hussein, claiming that the Iraqi leader possessed weapons of mass destruction and insinuating that he was linked to 9/11.

    "The Bush administration did certainly twist the truth, if not outright lie during the Iraq war," Olmsted said. "So people say, 'how do we know the truth about 9/11'?"

    Conspiracy theories may also aid people still struggling to comprehend the shock of what happened ten years ago.

    "It was difficult for people to believe that 19 men armed with box cutters could cause such damage and kill so many people," said Professor Rich Hanley, who lectures on the media and popular culture at Quinnipiac University.

    "It plays to how shocking this was to the American psyche."

    Posted 13 years ago #
  2. truthmover
    Administrator

    It's time for the yearly glut of hit pieces. I'm collecting links for a post to 9/11 Truth News next week. Here's what I've got so far, all published in the last week.

    http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/30...

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14665953

    http://www.asianpacificpost.com/article/unrelentin...

    http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id...

    http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/ron-paul-i...

    Posted 13 years ago #
  3. truthmod
    Administrator

    9/11 conspiracy theorists ignore most important element: the facts

    http://www.canada.com/news/canada-in-afghanistan/c...

    "The conspiracy community regularly seizes on one slip of the tongue, misunderstanding or slight discrepancy to defeat 20 pieces of solid evidence; accepts one witness of theirs, even if he or she is a provable nut, as being far more credible than 10 normal witnesses on the other side; leaps from the most minuscule of discoveries, to the grandest of conclusions; and insists, as the late lawyer Louis Nizer once observed, that the failure to explain everything perfectly negates all that is explained." — Vincent Bugliosi, from Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

    "He wondered, briefly, about the universe. Was it all right? Or was the whole thing meaningless and random, and insensately cruel?" — Gore Vidal, from Empire

    MONTREAL — A decade removed from the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, one element at least has reaped a boon from the horror unleashed on America that infamous day. Not the depleted ranks of al-Qaida, but rather the swelling legions of conspiracy theorists.

    Bad enough for al-Qaida that the attacks finally provoked a concerted effort by the U.S., allied intelligence and military forces to hunt down its masterminds, culminating in the recent elimination of Osama bin Laden.

    On top of that, their ardent boast that it was them and only them that did it has been relentlessly assaulted by a vigorous guerrilla army of conspiracy theorists in whose 9/11 scenarios al-Qaida is cast at best in a supporting role, as useful idiots haplessly manipulated by shadowy higher powers, be it the Illuminati, the international Jewish cabal, or the United States government — or all the above in cahoots.

    Posted 13 years ago #
  4. mark
    Member

    Media 9/11 Strategy: highlight hoaxes, ignore best evidence

    http://www.oilempire.us/media-strategy.html

    Written at the time of the fifth anniversary, the only thing that has changed is "thermite" is a more popular straw man than "no Pentagon plane."

    I guess it wouldn't be too rude to point out the person who created the "thermite" claim is also now claiming the US government may have created the earthquakes in Haiti and Japan. I cannot wait for the "Earthquake Truth Movement."

    The media is smart to focus on the weak claims and BS. The "truth" movement blew it by treating this as a contest to craft the most fantastic theories instead of an investigation (or a social justice movement). Now the damage is done.

    Posted 13 years ago #

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