Last week, I wrote about the 9-11 attacks from a very emotional and personal point of view. This week, I thought it would be interesting if we took a look at some of the conspiracy theories that are out there regarding the 9-11 attacks and see if any of them have any credence. There have been some interesting remarks in the comments section about some of these theories so I thought I would dive in with some of my own and open up the forum to an official discussion to all of the information that is out there. Let's start with an overall discussion of conspiracies.
Most of you who know me know that I believe the following to be true:
1. The United States government has been hiding the truth about UFOs from us, in particular the crash in
Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. This has been done out of concern that we would panic and because the truth about ETs goes along with the truth about human origins, our place in the universe, and how these facts represent a total loss of control of the government's authority over us. If you doubt the veracity of my statements or are now laughing hysterically, I would suggest you buy
The Day After Roswell by Colonel Phillip J Corso and
Alien Agenda by Jim Marrs. I don't think there will be much laughing after you read these two books.
2. On November 22, 1963 a coup d'etat occurred in our country much like the ones we see around the world everyday. The perpetrators were members of our own government and military who essentially saw President Kennedy as a threat to their way of life i.e. the money and power they had accumulated. The subsequent assassinations of Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy and John Lennon (all threats as well) cemented their power base and their stranglehold over us. These same people have been running the show, more or less, for the last 40 + years although these days they use scandal (mostly sexually based to freak out the neocons) to oust people from power. Assassination is employed only if someone is really going to change things for the better.
Over the years and throughout history there have been many other conspiracies but I chose these two because I believe they represent a fundamental American reality regarding how our culture works and what we have become. Part of how that culture works is the reaction that the word "conspiracy" brings when it is brought up in our culture. The next word that usually goes along with it is "paranoia," thus discrediting any notion that ANY part of conspiracy is true. It must be all imagined! And then, of course, Elvis invariably comes into the mix and the "loony" picture is painted for all to see. If you think I am kidding, check out how the media covers UFOs. They always put everyone in the same box: the loony one. It does a tremendous disservice to the serious researchers and scientists out there are who have accumulated volumes of evidence. People like
Stanton Friedman, who have accumulated volumes of photos and piles of trace evidence are laughed at because.....don't you know?....there's no such thing as UFOS!
This same "loony" label is applied to those people who believe in 9-11 conspiracies. Some Americans have a difficult time believing that cover-ups happen here. We hear about assassinations, coups, murders, conspiracies and all sorts of crazy shit happening in other countries and we believe all of them. America is different. That could never happen here, right? We are perfect. We are all honest and we are superior. People in virtually every other country believe a conspiracy first and tend to think that any simple explanation (i.e. lone nut, evil doers a-comin' to get us, swamp gas) is what is really crazy.
The official claim is often the story that seems too ridiculous to believe. In the case of the JFK assassination, the Zapruder film (see above frame) clear shows Kennedy being shot from a position to the right and front of him. Yet somehow we are expected to believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was the one guy above and behind the president that fired that shot.
If one decides to take the time to research these claims in a serious fashion, the amount of evidence is often overwhelming. So, it is with this spirit that we will dive into 9-11 and take a look at what is likely, what is possible, and what is utterly silly.
LIKELY1. People in our government knew 9-11 was going to happen and they let it happen to further their own goals.
2. Key elements of security were stripped away to allow 9-11 to take place.
3. Several distractions and "red herrings" were thrown out there to further confuse the public
POSSIBLE1. Explosive charges were place inside the towers ahead of time, including Tower 7.
2. The crash into the Pentagon was not a plane but a missile.
3. United 93 (below) was shot down, not bravely brought down.
4. People, who knew in advance of the attacks, sold stocks to gain and not lose money.
UNLIKELY1. The planes were flown by remote control.
2. All of the hijackers were actually CIA agents
3. Israel was behind the attacks.
4. President Bush knew ahead of time about the attacks.
These are the basic theories that are out there. There are others but they are all subsets of these so I just picked these eleven. Let's start with the unlikely theories and work our way backwards.
Some researchers believe that the planes were flown by remote control and that passengers were killed at a later point. I find this hard to believe as many family members received cel phone calls from the people on the planes. They all described Muslims as the hijackers so I think the Israeli and CIA deal is just plain stupid. I also think that George Bush knew nothing of the attacks ahead of time. His reaction (or non-reaction as was the case) showed me he had no idea what was going on. His role is to be the figure head and cheerleader. If people in our government knew ahead of time that there was going to be an attack, they would have left President Bush out of the loop for the reason of plausible deniability. Don't get me wrong. I still think Bush is a bad dude but he is more of a follower of evil and not an 0riginator of evil.
Now we get to the theories that are possible. I find it extremely odd that both of the towers fell exactly into a hole. The official explanation seems incomplete. How did the buildings fall so precisely? Then again, I am not an architect or a metallurgist so maybe I don't know what I am talking about. But Steven E Jones, a physicist at Brigham Young University, does and argued that a "gravity driven collapse" without demolition charges would defy the laws of physics. And the collapse of Tower 7 still remains a mystery as all official reports offer no conclusive explanation for the collapse. FEMA released the following findings:
The specifics of the fires in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain unknown at this time. Although the total diesel fuel on the premises contained massive potential energy, the best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence. Further research, investigation, and analyses are needed to resolve this issue.Several interviews with local firefighters on the scene that day said that WTC 7 had to be "brought down" for safety. When did people have time to plant charges (which normally takes weeks) and blow up a building when chaos was everywhere and the attacks had just occurred hours before?
The Pentagon crash also bothers me. First of all, why is the only witness I have ever seen interviewed a reporter (Mike Walter from USA Today)? And he said that a missile-like object", not a plane, flew into the building. He later recanted and said he misspoke. I find it odd that all of the people that were on the highway have not come forward to discuss what they saw that day. No one really even talks about the Pentagon crash. The only video we have is some blurry time lapse stuff. You can't really see anything. I went into Target the other day and was on 30 high definition cameras every where I went in the store. Am I to believe that the nerve center of our armed forces only has cameras that are 30 years old and cover the building only from distance of a half mile? And why can't we see the camera footage from the gas station across the street? That tape has been confiscated for national security.
The United 93 flight also bothers me. The photos that I have seen of the wreckage suggest a break up in the air as debris is strewn about for a half mile or more. Look closely at the picture on your left that is from FEMA. Click on it to blow it up if you have to. There also seems to be a lack of debris which also suggest a shoot down. And what happened to the bodies? Any crash should have bodies but there wasn't anything but a small amount of remains. We do know that President Bush gave the order for a shootdown so I guess I am wondering, if that did happen, why won't they tell us? I think most of us would understand, given the gravity of the situation, that it would've been necessary.
There are also reports of people that sold stock in advance of the 9-11 attacks. According to the 9-11 Steering Committee ( a group made up of 9-11 widows and independentt researchers), "Never before on the Chicago Exchange were such large amounts of United and American Airlines options traded. These investors netted a profit of at least $5 million after the September 11th attacks. Interestingly, the names of the investors remain undisclosed and the $5 million remains unclaimed in the Chicago Exchange account."
Which brings us to what I believe really happened on 9-11. The 9-11 commission report details that several government officials knew that Al Qaeda was going to attack inside of the United States. The official explanation has always been "bureaucratic entanglements" but then National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice stated that she had received a report entitled "Bin Laden determined to attack in the United States." So, I guess my question is, why didn't they do anything?
In October of 1999 the Pentagon created
Able Danger, a group specifically designed to track terrorists. In recently declassified documents, this group had identified Mohammed Atta (as a dangerous terrorist determined to attack inside the US) and three of the other 9-11 hijackers a full year and a half before the attacks! This contradicts the White House's version which has always said they knew nothing of Atta until after the attacks. Able Danger was effetively shut down in May of 2001. The White House's own terrorism task force, headed by Dick Cheney was created in May of 2001. It never met a single time. So, the program that was making progress, identified Atta, and was actually fighting terror was.....shut down and at the same time a new one, in the White House, was created that did nothing and never convened.
Hmmm......
In addition, I found the complete lack of response by our military to be troubling. Jets were scrambled, flew around, and did nothing. The official explanation is that no combat ready jets were close to the target sites. Yet,
Andrews Air Force base is 15 miles away from the Pentagon and you know what? I hear they have some planes there. They had plenty of time, after the second plane hit the South Tower, to get in the air and protect potential targets in Washington. I also find it extremely hard to believe that the FAA basically decided to throw out their rule book on tracking planes on September 11th. When a plane's transponder goes offline and a plane changes course on a normal day, alarm bells go off. Yet, most of the testimonies contain vague notions of what was going on and bizarre comments along the lines of "We had no idea what was happening. We were too much in shock to figure it out." Huh? Don't these people train for potentially crazy catastrophes all the time?
Even more strange are all of the military exercises happening around the East Coast on September 11th. According to
Wikipedia:
The following war games and training events were being conducted by USAF, NORAD, CIA, NRO, FAA and FEMA:
1. Northern Vigilance: a yearly Air Force drill simulating a Russian attack, in which defense aircraft normally patrolling the Northeast are re-deployed to Canada and Alaska.
2. Vigilant Guardian: a NORAD exercise posing an imaginary crisis to North American Air Defense outposts nationwide with a simulated air war and an air defense exercise simulating an attack on the United States.3. On the morning of 9/11, 50 minutes before Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, the National Reconnaissance Office, who are responsible for operating US reconnaissance satellites, had scheduled an exercise simulating the crashing of an aircraft into their building, four miles from Dulles airport.
4. Tripod II, a FEMA drill simulating a biowarfare attack in New York City, was to take place on September 12th. FEMA set up a command post for this exercise at Pier 29 on September 10th. It is theorized that with these multiple training scenarios being carried out that NORAD, FAA and other military personnel would have been confused in the event of a real attack. What the...? You mean our government, which had no idea at all that hijackers were going to fly planes into buildings, was actually drilling for a response to that very scenario on the same day that it actually happened? This is the part of all of the conspiracy theories that really sticks out as beyond suspicious to me. And it shows how our government has been flat out lying to us.
All of these theories I have discussed are covered extremely well in a
new book by Jim Marrs entitled The Terror Conspiracy. I urge all of you to read this book as it contains some startling information about what happened on that day. It is very well researched, resourceful book for all things related to 9-11 conspiracies and if your first reaction is to dismiss these theories as "loony," read this book and then come talk to me. As one reviewer on Amazon put it:
"If you aren't convinced by the obvious, then I recommend you put down this book and get back to the flock; I'm sure they miss you....If you read this book and still wholeheartedly believe the 9/11 Commission Report, then I'd like to discuss with you a proposition wherein you transfer all of the money in your savings account over to my savings account. "
It's pretty clear to me, given the direction our country has taken in the last five years, that several key people in our government and in our corporations benefited greatly from the 9-11 attacks. After the attacks, a frightened population gave our leaders a green light to do whatever they wanted. I myself fell into it, as many of you will remember, being a proponent of the invasion of Iraq. I think the picture at left sums up about how well the Iraq thing is going and I consider myself to be partly responsible for this. The 9-11 attacks provided Bush Co with the political capital to go after the resources in Iraq, which at the time, were going into Europe. And we all know how important money is to Americans.
I believe that key people in our leadership knew what was coming on September 11th and they let it happen to further their own plans for power and domination. We like to think of America as a benevolent place but we are really no different than any other empire in history. The people in power, particularly the folks running the show now, have one goal: the accumulation of wealth through whatever means necessary. That wealth brings them power and control to lord over us. Sometimes that means trying to control chaos to achieve even more power and reap more financial rewards. That is what happened on 9-11. They are not interesed in protecting us in any way. If they did, the leadership of Al Qaeda would have been in custody a long time ago rather than dangling in the wind...serving the purpose of fear and paranoia thus making us submissive. If they did, they wouldn't have let 3000 people die needlessly on 9-11 and thousands more since then in Iraq.
I have no idea for certain who these men are that allowed this to happen. It would be silly for me to accuse anyone, without any real proof, of knowing about the attacks ahead of time. I do, however, have a pretty good idea who knew and so do all of you.
Maybe someday they will be brought to justice.
Alright, so I know that I said I was going to post my Best of 2006 this week. I will...it's just going to be a bit later in the week. I know you are all waiting with bated breath to see what my picks are for the Best CD, Best TV Show and Best Film of 2006 but you are just going to have to wait.
would explain to him that, sitting in my chair at home or at the Spring Street Bar, where I watch Vikings games, I can tell which of the six offensive plays, from his grand playbook, he is going to run. If I can tell what he is going to do, then imagine what someone who watches sixty hours of film a week can see. I bet Bill Bellichik wrapped his film day after about one hour of viewing. In addition, having a tough run defense is great. Giving up an eight yard passing cushion over the middle of the field on every single play is not great.
I may not even need 5 minutes with dumbfuck. I would simply say to him that a B- average is not failing and if he wants to recruit decent athletes to come to the U, he should hold them to a standard of...say a 70 percent or better which I think is fair. But I don't think the man can tell where he is half of the time so it might be pointless. He certainly doesn't have any clue how to win.
"The most painful aspect of the presidency is the fact that I know my decisions have caused young men and women to lose their lives."
