September 11th And The Bush Administration - Compelling Evidence for Complicity

Walter E. Davis, PhD

08/31/03: (Information Clearing House)

Introduction

Clearly, one of the most critical questions of the twenty-first century concerns why the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were not prevented. As I outline below, there are numerous aspects regarding the official stories about September 11th which do not fit with known facts, which contradict each other, which defy common sense, and which indicate a pattern of misinformation and coverup. The reports coming out of Washington do very little to alleviate these concerns.

For example, the Congressional report released on July 25, 2003 by a joint panel of House and Senate intelligence committees concluded that 9/11 resulted in C.I.A. and F.B.I. "lapses." While incompetence is frightening enough given a $40 billion budget, it is simply not consistent with known facts. It is consistent with the reports from other government scandals such has the Iran Contra Affair which produced damage control and cover up but not answers to the more probing questions. But perhaps a comparison to Watergate is more apropos since we now have twenty-eight pages of this report, which the Bush Administration refuses to release. The report from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is believable unless you are seriously interested in the truth. Under more careful scientific scrutiny, it does not answer some very important questions.

Newspapers across the country call for an investigation into Bush’s lies about the reasons for war on Iraq. Many people may accept the fact of Bush’s false pretext for a war on Arab people in a distant place, especially after the fact. However, few people will be as accepting if it is shown that this Administration was complicit in acts of atrocities against its own people.

The magnitude of the crisis is readily apparent by noting that 9/11 serves as a pretext for a never-ending war against the world, including preemptive strikes against defenseless, but resource rich countries. It also serves as a pretext for draconian measures of repression at home, including the cabinet level Department of Homeland Security and Patriot Act I, and its sequel. September 11th has become the cause for numerous other acts from massive increases in military spending and to a Fast Track Trade Agreement for the President.

To date, investigations stop far too short, the public is left in the dark on too many questions easily answered, and no one in the Bush Administration has been held accountable for any actions surrounding the attacks of September 11, 2001. The National Commission on Terrorists Attacks Upon the United States, which was formed at the insistence of the family of some of the victims, is continuing to hold hearings and a final report is expected by May, 2004. It remains to be seen if, after a two-year lapse, they can come closer to the truth about September 11th. I believe that this would only happen if public pressure were brought to bear and accountability demanded from the Bush Administration. Accountability for any atrocity should attract the attention of serious investigative reporters, media critics and even news commentators. That is their chosen responsibility. Who is to raise the question of why journalists and others in the mass media are failing the people of the U.S. and the world?

In this article, I outline twenty-two items of evidence and questions, each one sufficient reason to demand an investigation into why September 11th was not prevented. Together, these items suggest that the most plausible explanation of events is that the Bush Administration was complicit in the terrorist attacks. This should be a national and international scandal. What is being discovered will shock many people, which is one of the reasons for deliberate corporate media coverup. But a significant number of people within the U.S. see (or will see) the consistencies in the events surrounding 9/11 as described below, and what they know about U.S. foreign policy. Nevertheless, the degree to which this Administration is pursuing a course of world domination at any cost is unprecedented. One of the best ways of putting a halt to this destructive course is to expose the Bush Administration and insist on their accountability to the American people. Thus, the intent of this article is to help fill the void in the media on the issue of the Bush Administration’s complicity in 9/11.

Here is the official story: On the morning of September 11, 2001 four Boeing passenger jets were hijacked within an hour by nineteen Arab terrorists armed with boxcutters. Pilots among these terrorists took control of the commercial planes and changed course toward targets in New York City and Washington D.C. Two of the planes were deliberately crashed into the Twin Towers, causing fires within the towers, which melted the steel support structures, thereby causing the buildings to collapse completely. A third plane was deliberately crashed into the Pentagon. Passengers on the fourth plane overpowered the hijackers and caused the plane to crash in Pennsylvania. This was an attack on America planned and directed by Osama bin Laden as the leader of Al-Qaeda, a previously obscure anti-U.S. international terrorist organization composed mainly of Arabs. This story cries out for further explanations, but nothing official is forthcoming. People are simply expected to believe the official version without question.

Evidence of Complicity by the Bush Administration in 9/11 Terrorist Attacks

The following twenty-two separate and related points, citing evidence requiring further investigation, and include questions that demand answers, were formulated on the basis of the information from the several sources cited at the end, which should be consulted for verification and documentation. These sources contain extensive detailed information and analysis beyond what is provided in this summary. I hope that this information will incite public outrage leading to full accountability.

1) The entire United States intelligence community knew of the 9/11 attacks before hand, including the fact that commercial jets were to be used as bombs; they also knew the approximate dates and possible targets but were called off their investigations. Western intelligence had been aware of plans for such terrorist attacks on U.S. soil as early as 1995. The plan was known as "Project Bojinka." It was known to both the CIA and FBI and was described in court documents in the trial in New York of Ramzi Yousef and Abdul Murad for their participation in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center (WTC).

Seven to eight weeks prior to September 11th, all internal U.S. security agencies were warned of the impending Al-Qaeda attacks. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was warned of the attack but did nothing to beef up security. At least two weeks prior to September 11th the FBI agents again confirmed that an attack on lower Manhattan was imminent. However, the FBI agents were commanded to cut short their investigations into the attacks and those involved. Agents were threatened with prosecution under the National Security Act if they publicized information pertaining to their investigations. Some field agents predicted, almost precisely, what happened on September 11th.

As early as 1997, Russia, France, Israel, the Philippines and Egypt all warned the U.S. of the possibility of the attack. Warning also came from came from several others sources as well. Recently (May 25, 2002), CBS revealed that President Bush had been warned in an intelligence briefing on August 6, 2001that bin Laden might be planning to hijack commercial planes for a domestic attack in the U.S.

2) There is incontrovertible evidence that the US Air Force all across the country was comprehensively "stood down" on the morning of September 11th. Routine security measures, normally in place, which may well have been able to prevent the attacks, or reduce their impact, were suspended for one hour while the attacks were in progress, and re-instated once they were over. Sequence of events:

8:46 a.m.: American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston smashed into the north tower of the WTC. The tower collapses at 10:28 a.m.

9:03 a.m.: United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston smashed into the south tower. It completely collapses at 9:59am.

9:38 a.m.: AA Flight 77 from Dulles hits the Pentagon.

10:10 a.m.: United Flight 93 from Newark crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Andrews Air Force Base is a huge military installation about 10 miles from the Pentagon. On September 11th there were two entire squadrons of combat-ready fighter jets at Andrews. They failed to do their job of protecting the skies over Washington D.C. Despite over one hour’s advance warning of a terrorist attack in progress, not a single Andrews fighter tried to protect the city. The FAA, NORAD and the military have cooperative procedures enabling fighter jets to automatically intercept commercial aircraft under emergency conditions. They do not need instructions from the White House to carry out these procedures, yet they were not followed.

American Airline Flight 11 departed from Boston Logan Airport at 7:45 a.m. Between 8:13 and 8:20 a.m. Flight 11 became unresponsive to ground control and radar indicated that the plane had deviated from its assigned path of flight. Two Flight 11 airline attendants had separately called American Airlines reporting a hijacking, the presence of weapons, and the infliction of injuries on passengers and crew. At this point an emergency was undeniably clear. Yet, according to NORAD's official timeline, NORAD was not contacted until 20 minutes later at 8:40 a.m. Tragically the fighter jets were not deployed until 8:52 a.m., a full 32 minutes after the loss of contact with Flight 11.

Flights 175, 77 and 93 all had this same pattern of delays in notification and delays in scrambling fighter jets. Delays that are difficult to imagine considering a plane had, by this time, already hit the WTC. The plane striking the pentagon is particularly spectacular. After it was known that the plane had a problem, it was nevertheless able to change course and fly towards Washington, for about 45 minutes, fly past the White House, and crash into the Pentagon, without any attempt at interception. All the while two squadrons of fighter aircraft were stationed just 10 miles from the eventual target. Unless one is prepared to allege collusion, such a scenario is not possible by any stretch of the imagination.



3) Neither the Joint Chief of Staff, the Secretary of Defense nor the President of the United States acted according to well established emergency protocols. Acting Joint Chief of Staff General Richard B. Myers stated that he saw a TV report about a plane hitting the WTC but thought it was a small plane. So he went ahead with his meeting. By the time he came out of the meeting the Pentagon had been hit. Whose responsibility was it to relay this emergency to the Joint Chief of Staff?

The Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was at his desk when AA77 crashed into the Pentagon. How is it possible that the National Military Command Center, located in the Pentagon and in contact with law enforcement and air traffic controllers from 8:46 a.m., did not communicate to the Secretary of Defense, also at the Pentagon, about the other hijacked planes especially the one headed to Washington? After he was notified, why did he go to the war room?

The actions of the President, while the attacks were occurring, indicate that he deliberately avoided doing anything reasonably expected of a President wanting to protect American citizens and property. Why didn't the Secret Service inform him of this national emergency? When is a President supposed to be notified of everything the agencies know? Why was the President permitted by the Secret Service to remain in the Sarasota elementary school? At 9.05, nineteen minutes after the first attack and two minutes after the second attack on the WTC, Andrew Card, the presidential chief of staff, whispered something in President Bush’s ear. The president did not react as if he was interested in trying to do something about the situation. He did not leave the school, convene an emergency meeting, consult with anybody, or intervene in any way, to ensure that the Air Force completed it’s job. He did not even mention the extraordinary events occurring in New York, but simply continued with the reading class. His own explanations of his actions that day contradict known facts.

In the case of a national emergency, seconds of indecision could cost thousands of lives; and it's precisely for this reason that the government has a whole network of adjuncts and

advisors to insure that these top officials are among the first to be informed, not the last. Where were these individuals who did not properly inform the top officials?

In short, the CIA, the DCI, the State Department, the President, and key figures around him in the White House, were ultimately responsible for doing nothing in the face of the mounting evidence of an impending threat to U.S. national security. Incompetence is a highly improbable explanation.

4) Prior to 9/11, the US intelligence agencies should have stopped the nineteen terrorists from entering this country for intelligence reasons, alone. Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers' visas should have been unquestionably denied because their applications were incomplete and incorrect. Most of the 19 hijackers were young, unmarried, and un-employed males. They were, in short, the "classic over-stay candidates". A seasoned former Consular officer stated in the National Review magazine, "Single, idle young adults with no specific destination in the United States rarely get visas absent compelling circumstances."

There are several cases damaging to the credibility of the official accounts of 9/11. But the U.S. response to Mohamed Atta, the alleged lead hijacker, is most extraordinary. The FBI had been monitoring Atta’s movements for several months in 2000. According to PBS’ Frontlines, the Immigration and Naturalization Service failed to stop Atta from entering the U.S. three times on a tourist visa in 2001, even though officials knew the visa had expired in 2000, and that Atta had violated its terms by taking flight lessons. Furthermore, Atta had already been implicated in a terrorist bombing in Israel, with the information passed on to the United States before he was first issued his tourist visa.

5) How did many of the hijackers receive clearance for training at secure U.S. military and intelligence facilities, and for what purposes? Many of the terrorist pilots received their initial training in Venice, Florida at one of two flight schools of highly questionable credibility and with approval of US intelligence. Mohamed Atta had attended International Officers School at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama; Abdulaziz Alomari had attended Aerospace Medical School at Brooks Air Force base in Texas; Saeed Alghamdi had been to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. These are all names of identified hijackers, so why has the U.S. government attempted to deny the match? As early as three days after the 9/11 attacks, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III claimed that these findings were new and had not been known by the FBI previously. This claim is a lie.

Zacarias Moussaouri was arrested after his flight trainers at the Minnesota flight school, Pan Am International Flight Academy, reported highly suspicious behavior. He was greatly unqualified; he wanted to learn to fly a 747 but wasn’t interested in takeoffs or landings; he was traveling on a French passport, said he was from France, but could not speak French. When

contacted, the French said he was a suspected terrorist connected to Al-Qaeda. However, a special counter terrorism panel of the FBI and CIA reviewed the case and dismissed it.

There are numerous glaring anomalies, illegalities and scandals connected with Wally Hilliard and Rudi Dekker’s Huffman Aviation School at Venice, Florida where other hijackers trained. Dekkers had no aviation experience and was under indictment in his native country, The Netherlands, on financial charges. He purchased his aviation school at just about the time the terrorist pilots moved into town and began their lessons. He has yet to be investigated even though he initially trained most of the hijackers.

Britannia Aviation was awarded a five-year contract to run a large regional maintenance facility at Lynchburg at a time when the company virtually had no assets, employees, or corporate history and did not posses the necessary FAA license needed to perform the maintenance. Britannia was a company with known CIA connections. It was operating illegally out of Huffman Aviation, the flight school which trained Al-Qaeda hijackers and was given a "green light" from the Justice Department’s Drugs Enforcement Administration, and the local Venice Police Department was warned to "leave them alone." Why?

6) How were the hijackers able to get specifically contraband items such as box-cutters, pepper spray and, according to one FAA executive summary, a gun on those planes? On the morning of September 11th, when the 19 hijackers went to purchase their tickets and to receive their boarding passes, nine were singled out and questioned through a screening process. But they passed the screening process and were allowed to continue on with their mission.

7) At a time when the U.S. intelligence community was on alert for an imminent Al-Qaeda attack, the Bush Administration made it easier for Saudi visitors to come to the U.S. under a program called U.S. Visa Express, introduced four months before September 11th. Michael Springmann, former head of the Visa Bureau at the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia said that he was repeatedly ordered by high-level State Departtment officials to issue visas to unqualified applicants. His complaints to higher authorities at several agencies went unanswered. In a CBC interview, he indicated that the CIA was indeed complicit in the attacks.

8) Most of the hijackers were Saudis, as is Osama bin Laden, and the Saudi Arabian government is known to give financial support to terrorist organizations. Why is Iraq and not Saudi Arabia a target if the US government is concerned about terrorism? Saudi Arabia’s government cooperates with US oil and arms industries; Iraq did not. Iraq is forced to now, of course. At least fifteen of the far- flung network of terrorist pilots received their money from the same source. There is specific evidence that Osama bin Laden continues to receive extensive support, not only from members of his own family, but also from members of the Saudi establishment. A New Statesman report stated that "Bin Laden and his gang are just the tentacles; the head lies safely in Saudi Arabia, protected by U.S. forces." The hijackers responsible for 9/11 were not illiterate, bearded fanatics from Afghanistan. They were all educated, highly skilled, middle-class professionals. Of the 19 men involved, 13 were citizens of Saudi Arabia.

9) Why were the FBI called off its investigation of Osama bin Laden and the Saudi Royal Family prior to 9/11? Moreover, why were the FBI Agents ordered to curtail their investigation of these attacks on October 10, 2001? The FBI has repeatedly complained that it has been muzzled and restricted in its attempts to investigate matters connected to Bin Laden and Al Qeada. One law enforcement official was quoted as saying, "The investigative staff has to be made to understand that we’re not trying to solve a crime now." FBI Agents are said to be in the process of filing a law suit agents the Agency for the right to go public.

10) Osama Bin Laden was unofficially convicted of the attacks within a time frame that could not possibly have allowed any intelligence to have been gathered which supported the accusation. That is, it would be impossible if they did not already have that information. How could they have had no warning of an operation, which must have been very difficult to keep under wraps, but then be able to name the culprit in less than a day? And if they had some forewarning of the attack, even if it was not specific, then it raises even more questions about government agencies’ complicity.

It is not logical that Bin Laden was involved, and actually impossible, unless he was involved in the capacity of collusion with US authorities, or at best, in the context of the US knowing all along what he was up to, and deliberately allowing him to do it. The point has already been made that if he was involved, then it cannot have been a surprise, which in turn, points to the President and others in his administration.

From day one, there has not been a shred of publicly available evidence against Bin Laden. Up until mid December, there was nothing but the continued repetition of his name. The official documents detailing allegations against Bin Laden provide no convincing evidence. Of the 69 points of "evidence" cited, ten relate to background information about the relationship between Bin Laden and the Taliban. Fifteen relate to background information regarding the general philosophies of Al Qeada, and it's relationship to Bin Laden. None give any facts concerning the events of 9/11. Most do not even attempt to directly relate anything mentioned to the events of that day. Twenty-six list allegations related to previous terrorist attacks. Even if they were convictions of previous terrorist attacks, everybody knows that this isn't worth the paper it's written on, in terms of evidence for involvement of September 11th.

Within less than four hours of the attacks taking place, the media were fed comments, which assumed Bin Laden's guilt, comments made on the basis of events, which could not possibly have occurred. The Pentagon and the Department of Defense used dialogue attributed to Bin Laden, in an effort to incriminate him, while refusing to release all of the dialogue, and refusing to issue a verbatim, literal translation. Why was it considered necessary to lie, in order to create a case against Bin Laden? The truth could well implicate the Bush administration.

11) Pakistan’s Intelligence Agency (ISI) was indirectly involved in September 11th. The links between Al Qaeda, Pakistan’s ISI and the CIA; and, between the ISI, Osama bin Laden and the Taliban Axis are a matter of public record. Pakistan has also long been a supporter of Al Qeada. The Pakistani ISI (secret service) has been a mechanism by which the CIA indirectly channeled support to Al Qeada and has been used by successive US administrations as a "go-between." Pakistan's military- intelligence apparatus constitutes the core institutional support to both Osama's Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Without this institutional support, there would be no Taliban government in Kabul. In turn, without the unbending support of the US government, there would be no powerful military-intelligence apparatus in Pakistan.

It was reported that ISI’s Director-General, General Mahmoud Ahmad, had funneled $100,000 to the lead hijacker, Mohamed Atta, shortly before September 11th. The U.S. government protected him, and itself, by asking him to resign quietly after the discovery, thus blocking a further inquiry and a potential scandal. In the wake of 9/11, the Bush Administration consciously sought the "cooperation" of the ISI, which had been supporting and abetting Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. In other words, the Bush Administration's relations with Pakistan's ISI, including its "consultations" with General Mahmoud Ahmad in the week prior to September 11th, raise the issue of "cover-up" as well as "complicity". While Ahmad was talking to U.S. officials at the CIA and the Pentagon, the ISI allegedly had contacts with the 9/11 terrorists.

12) The USA and Bin Laden are not the enemies they pretend to be. It is established beyond doubt that senior members of the Bush administration have close links to the Bin Laden Family and this relationship is still going on behind the scenes. In fact, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence to indicate that Bin Laden, may have had something to do with 9/11, but the problem is that it also implicates the Bush Administration, the CIA, George Bush Senior, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and The United Arab Emirates.

It is well known that Bin Laden’s close working relationship with the CIA began in the 1980’s. The claim is that they have since fallen out, but this story is a lie. According to the mainstream media spin, this is OK, because the rest of the family has disowned Osama for his terrorist activities and anti-US views. This spin is also a lie.

The "blowback" thesis is a fabrication. The evidence amply confirms that the CIA never severed its ties to the "Islamic Militant Network". Since the end of the Cold War these covert intelligence links have not only been maintained, they have become increasingly sophisticated.

13) How was it possible for the World Trade Center’s two towers to have completely collapsed as a result of two jet planes? The towers in fact stood for forty-five and ninety minutes after the crashes. The official story is that the burning jet fuel caused the steel girders supporting them to melt. However, there is simply no credibly scientific evidence to support this story. The WTC towers were designed to take the impact of a Boeing 707. It is highly unlikely that fire from the jet fuel could have melted the steel girders. This is especially true of the South tower since the plane did not hit it directly. Therefore most of the fuel did not fall inside the building. The South Tower was hit second and fell first. Both towers collapsed evenly and smoothly in a manner consistent with that caused by a planned demolition. Based upon scientific evidences, photos and videos of the event, and reports of scientists, the WTC architect and engineers, it is highly unlikely that the Towers collapsed because of burning jet fuel rather than demolition. There are also serious questions regarding the collapse of the building known as WTC7. It is also noteworthy that ownership of the WTC changed hands several months earlier because if the towers collapsed because of inside demolition, such accomplishment would require cooperation from the extensive WTC security forces.

14) Why was Bin Laden not captured before 9/11, and why has he not been captured since? There have been several opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden, but no effort to do so was made. Two US allies, Saudi Arabia, and The United Arab Emirates, have colluded in deliberately allowing Bin Laden to stay free. Bin Laden was meeting with the CIA as late as July 2001. An examination of U.S. attempts to capture Osama bin Laden show they have in fact consistently blocked attempts to investigate and capture him. Eleven bin Laden family members were flown safely out of the same Boston airport where the highjacking took place a few days earlier. Why were they not detained for questioning?

15) The September 11th disaster has resulted in power and profit at home and abroad by both the Bin Laden and the Bush families. There are significant business ties between Bin Laden and senior members of the Bush administration. Reports have emerged that Carlyle Group, the giant U.S. defence contractor that employs former President George W. Bush Sr., has had long-standing financial ties to the bin Laden family. So while there is compelling evidence that Osama bin Laden has not broken away from his family, it is also a matter of record that the Bush administration is in turn very significantly tied to the same family. The Carlyle Group has profited immensely from the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq and from the militarization of U.S. foreign policy.

16) Revelations of profits made by insider trading relating to the 9/11 attacks, point to the top levels of US business and the CIA. The intelligence community regularly analyzes financial transactions for any suspicious activity. Only three trading days before September 11th, shares of American and United Airlines -- the companies whose planes were hijacked in the attacks on New York and Washington -- were massively "sold short" by investors. Executive CIA Director AB "Buzzy" Krongard was one of those who profited from the deal. The names of the other investors remain undisclosed and the $5 million in profit taking remains unclaimed in the Chicago Exchange account. No similar trading in other airlines occurred on the Chicago exchange in the day immediately preceding Black Tuesday. There were also unusual trades on several companies occupying the World Trade Center, including Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., and Merrill Lynch & Co. These multiple, massive and unprecedented financial transactions point unequivocally to the fact that the investors behind these trades were speculating in anticipation of a mid-September 2001 catastrophe that would involve both United and American Airlines and offices in the Twin Towers. To date, both the Securities & Exchange Commission and the FBI have been tight-lipped about their investigations of trades. A probe could isolate the investors. Why has nothing been made public?

17) Selected persons were told not to fly that day. Newsweek reported that on September 10th, "a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns." Why was that same information not made available to the 266 people who died aboard the four hijacked commercial aircraft? A significant number of selected people were warned about flying or reporting for work at the WTC. San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown received a phone call eight hours before the hijacking warning him not to travel by air. Salman Rushdie is under a 24- hour protection of UK Scotland yard; he was also prevented from flying that day. Ariel Sharon canceled his address to Israeli support groups in New York City just the day before his scheduled September 11th address. John Ashcroft stopped flying on public airplanes in July of 2001.

Other evidence exists indicating that government officials knew of the attacks beforehand. For example, Tom Kenny who was with a rescue squad from FEMA told Dan Rather of CBS News that, "We arrived on Monday night (September 10th) and went into action of Tuesday." How is it possible for high government officials to have been caught by surprise as some claimed?

18) There are reasonable grounds for suspicion that the U.S. attack on Afghanistan was already planned before September 11th. A pretext for war is always needed. From investigative journalist Patrick Martin, "[t]his examination has found that a specific war on Afghanistan . . . launched in October 2001 had been planned for at least a year, and in general terms related to regional strategic and economic interests, had actually been rooted in at least four years of strategic planning. This planning, in turn, is the culmination of a decade of regional strategizing. All that was required was a trigger for these war plans, which was amply provided by the tragic events of 11th September."

It is public knowledge that Unocal and others in the oil industry were negotiating with Afghan officials for a pipeline across their country as part of the "Silk Road" strategy. It was also reported that the talks had broken down. A specific threat made at a meeting: the Taliban can choose between a "carpets of bombs" - an invasion - or a "carpets of gold" – the oil and gas pipelines. Experts agree that Central Asia and the Caspian Basin are central to energy in the 21st century and that energy is central to political, economic and military power. James Dorian noted in the Oil & Gas Journal: "Those who control the oil routes out of Central Asia will impact all future direction and quantities of flow and the distribution of revenues from new production" (cited in Ahmed, 2002, p. 69).

The plans for global domination developed by those of Project for the New American Century, a neoconservative think tank formed in the Spring of 1997, are also a matter of public record. These plans included specifics for taking military control of Central Asia, including regime change in Iraq. The primary architects of these plans include Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearle, Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, all part of the first Bush Administration ousted by Bill Clinton and now back in power with George W. Bush.

19) The 9/11 attacks came at an extremely fortuitous time for the Bush administration, the Pentagon, the CIA, the FBI, the weapons industry, and the oil industry, all of which have benefited immensely from this tragedy. It is worth noting the acute observations of Canadian social philosopher John McMurtry: "To begin with, the forensic principle of ‘who most benefits from the crime?’ clearly points in the direction of the Bush administration. . . . The more you review the connections and the sweeping lapse of security across so many coordinates, the more the lines point backwards [to the White House]."

20) Both the U.S. and the USSR are responsible for the rise of religious extremism, terrorism and civil war within Afghanistan since the 1980s. The U.S., however, is directly responsible for the cultivation of a distorted ‘jihadi’ ideology that fueled, along with U.S. arms and training, the ongoing war and acts of terrorism within the country after the withdrawal of Soviet forces.

21) The Bush Administration is clearly capable of creating or allowing such atrocities to occur. Hitler was able to play the anti-communist card to win over skeptical German industrialists. Certainly the Bush family are not newcomers to melding political and business interests, they got their start as key Hitler supporters. Prescott Bush, father of George Bush Sr., was Hitler’s banker and propaganda manager in New York, until FDR confiscated his holdings. George Bush Sr. used Manuel Noriega as a scapegoat, killing thousands of innocent Panamanians in the process of re-establishing U.S. control over Panama. It is also widely believed that the current Bush Administration knowingly misled the people about the war in Iraq.

22) There are precedents for these kinds of acts of complicity and fabrications. Rejecting claim that the evidence for collusion is over-ruled by a belief that no country would do this to its own citizens, simply requires pointing out that the contemplation of terrorist attacks on U.S. citizens by the CIA is a matter of public record. The previously classified "Operation Northwoods" document reveals that in 1962, the CIA seriously considered the possibility of carrying out terrorist attacks against US citizens, in order to blame it on Cuba. The plans were never implemented, but were given approval signatures by all the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The plan included several options, including killing Cuban defectors or U.S. soldiers, sinking ships, and staging simulations of planes being shot down. All this was done to blame on Castro as a pretext for launching a war against Cuba.

Far from being an unprecedented shocker, suspected government complicity in 9/11 builds on an august and cynical tradition. "It’s the oldest trick in the book, dating back to Roman times." Examples of democracy being hoaxed include the sinking of the Maine, Pearl Harbor bombardment, which President Roosevelt is believed to have known about beforehand, and the hoax of the Gulf of Tonkin provocation.

Conclusions

The evidence seems clear that if the many agencies of the U.S. government had done their jobs, the September 11th attack would likely have been prevented. If there had been an immediate investigation into the September 11th attacks, the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq could not have been justified simply on the basis of terrorism. Surely questions must be asked about why there is yet no accountability of the Bush administration and why the journalists and others in mass media are not held responsible for the coverup, deception and lack of investigative reporting. From the evidence presented it would seem that much public whistle-blowing ought to be taking place. Why is it not yet evident?

I believe that it is important not to approach 9/11 as the possibility of some grand conspiracy, but a possible conspiracy of some sort nevertheless. One important insight is how hierarchical authoritarian social systems function. Top down directives and commands, especially if they carry the weight of threats of censorship and punishment serve to keep any dissent in check. There is a great deal of self-censorship operating in all institutions in the United States. It is also important to recognize the role of a shared ideology among the decision makers, or perhaps more specifically the role of what social psychologists, in studies of organizational behavior, call "groupthink." Groupthink is decision making characterized by uncritical acceptance of and conformity with the prevailing view. Thus, the will of a few key persons can be spread within and across government agencies.

Thus the possibility of complicity on the part of the Bush Administration is very real. At the very least, further and more honest investigations must take place and some accountability exacted from those responsible.

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development, Brighton, England, suggests,

The executive branch of the federal government has apparently enabled a lethal surprise attack with mass murder against two of the founding thirteen colonies, New York and Virginia. By such an act, the federal government would grossly violate and void its contract with the states, and abrogate its own constitutional rights and privileges. Even if you do not accept the complicity argument, it has failed to protect its largest city from the consequences of its overweening foreign policies.

Like a loose handgun, our Federal government has backfired on its owners, the States. The executive has gone to war in defiance of the Constitution, and Congress has abdicated its war-making authority on at least 200 occasions since 1945, according to the Federation of American Scientists. The federal government has proven utterly incapable and unwilling to remedy its chronic and world-threatening sickness (p. 376-377).

It seems apropos to conclude: "if you are part of the problem, then you are not part of the solution." The solution then lies with the people themselves and not with any US government agency, least of all the Executive Branch.





Sources

Ahmed, Nafeez Mosaddeq (2002). The war on freedom: How and why America was attacked September 11, 2001. Joshua Tree, CA: Tree of Life Publications. AThe War on Freedom rips apart the veil of silence surrounding 9/11, and lets readers look at the facts for themselves. This riveting and thoroughly documented study [718 citations] is a "must" resource for everyone seeking to understand the attack on the World Trade Center of New York on September 11, 2001 and "America’s New War."

Bamford, James (2001). Body of secrets : anatomy of the ultra-secret National Security Agency : from the Cold War through the dawn of a new century. New York: Doubleday, 2001. See for detailed information on Operation Northwood and other "secrets."

Burbach, Roger, & Clarke, Ben (Eds.) (2002). September 11 and the U.S. war: Beyond the curtain of smoke. San Francisco: City Light Books. This is an anthology of 41 short pieces by more than 30 authors who dissent from the bellicose actions of the U.S. government since 9-11-01. These essays provide the essential background and analysis needed to understand the origins and consequences of the attack of September 11th and the U.S. government’s response.

Chossudovsky, Michel (2002). War and globalisation: The truth behind September 11. London: Zed Books. "In this timely study, Michel Chossudovsky blows away the smokescreen, put up by the mainstream media, that 9-11 was an ‘intelligence failure’. Through meticulous research, the author uncovers a military- intelligence ploy behind the September 11 attacks, and the coverup and complicity of key members of the Bush Administration."

Grey, Steve (2002). September 11 Attacks: Evidence of U.S. collusion. stevegreyau@yahoo.co.uk.

Hopsicker, Daniel: http://www.madcowprod.com/archive.htm.

Jones, Alex: http://.

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States http://www.9-11commission.gov/ hearings/. See especially the testimony of Mindy Kleinberg, Stephen Push and others on the First Public Hearings Archives, p. 163.

Thompson, Paul: http://cooperativeresearch.org. See "US preparing for a war with Afghanistan before 9/11, increasing control of Asia before & since" and several other articles.

http://emperors-clothes.com. See several short articles by Jared Israel, John Flaherty, Illarion Bykov, Francisco Gil-White and George Szamuely.

http://globaloutlook.ca. This site has numerous links to documented articles and other valuable resources.

. This web site has extensive information and detailed analysis. It raises many serious questions about the official stories and reports. It has undergone recent revisions based upon new evidence.

http://www.UnansweredQuestions.org.

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com.

Address correspondence to: Walter E. Davis. 263 MACC Annex, Kent State University Kent, OH 44242 wdavis@kent.edu
Debunking conspiracy theorists' paranoid fantasies about Sept. 11

by Gerard Holmgren debunker@hotmail.com

Copyright Gerard Holmgren. Jan 2003.

This work may be freely copied and distributed without permission as long as it not for commercial use. Please include the author's name, the web address where you found it and the copyright notice.

Astute observers of history are aware that for every notable event there will usually be at least one ,often several wild conspiracy theories which spring up around it. "The CIA killed Hendrix" " The Pope had John Lennon murdered ", "Hitler was half Werewolf", "Space aliens replaced Nixon with a clone" etc,etc. The bigger the event, the more ridiculous and more numerous are the fanciful rantings which circulate in relation to it.

So its hardly surprising that the events of Sept 11 2001 have spawned their fair share of these ludicrous fairy tales. And as always, there is - sadly - a small but gullible percentage of the population eager to lap up these tall tales, regardless of facts or rational analysis.

One of the wilder stories circulating about Sept 11, and one that has attracted something of a cult following amongst conspiracy buffs is that it was carried out by 19 fanatical Arab hijackers, masterminded by an evil genius named Osama bin Laden, with no apparent motivation other than that they "hate our freedoms."

Never a group of people to be bothered by facts, the perpetrators of this cartoon fantasy have constructed an elaborately woven web of delusions and unsubstantiated hearsay in order to promote this garbage across the internet and the media to the extent that a number of otherwise rational people have actually fallen under its spell.

Normally I don't even bother debunking this kind of junk, but the effect that this paranoid myth is beginning to have requires a little rational analysis, in order to consign it to the same rubbish bin as all such silly conspiracy theories.

These crackpots even contend that the extremist Bush

regime was caught unawares by the attacks, had no hand in organizing them, and actually would have stopped them if it had been able. Blindly ignoring the stand down of the US air- force, the insider trading on airline stocks - linked to the CIA, the complicit behavior of Bush on the morning of the attacks, the controlled demolition of the WTC, the firing of a missile into the Pentagon and a host of other documented proofs that the Bush regime was behind the attacks, the conspiracy theorists stick doggedly to a silly story about 19 Arab hijackers somehow managing to commandeer 4 planes simultaneously and fly them around US airspace for nearly 2 hours ,crashing them into important buildings, without the US intelligence services having any idea that it was coming, and without the Air Force knowing what to do.

The huge difficulties with such a stupid story force them to invent even more preposturous stories to distract from its core silliness, and thus the tale has escalated into a mythic fantasy of truly gargantuan proportions.

It's difficult to apply rational analysis to such unmitigated stupidity, but that is the task which I take on in this article. However, it should be noted that one of the curious characteristics of conspiracy theorists is that they effortlessly change their so called evidence in response to each aspect which is debunked. As soon as one delusion is unmasked, they simply invent another to replace it, and deny that the first ever existed. Eventually, when they have turned full circle through this endlessly changing fantasy fog , they then re-invent the original delusion and deny that you ever debunked it, thus beginning the circle once more. This technique is known as "the fruit loop" and saves the conspiracy theorist from ever having to see any of their ideas through to their (ill)logical conclusions.

According to the practitioners of the fruit loop, 19 Arabs took over the 4 planes by subduing the passengers and crew through the use of guns,knives,box cutters and gas, and then used electronic guidance systems which they had smuggled on board to fly the planes to their targets.

The suspension of disbelief required for this outrageous concoction is only for the hard core conspiracy theorist. For a start, they conveniently skip over the awkward fact that there weren't any Arabs on the planes. If there were, one must speculate that they somehow got on board without being filmed by any of the security cameras and without being registered on the passenger lists. But the curly question of how they are supposed to have got on board is all too mundane for the exciting world of the conspiracy theorist. With vague mumblings that they must have been using false ID ( but never specifying which IDs they are alleged to have used, or how these were traced to their real identities), they quickly bypass this problem, to relate exciting and sinister tales about how some of the fictitious fiends were actually searched before boarding because they looked suspicious. However, as inevitably happens with any web of lies, this simply paints them into an even more difficult corner. How are they supposed to have got on board with all that stuff if they were searched ? And if they used gas in a confined space, they would have been affected themselves unless they also had masks in their luggage.

"Excuse me sir, why do you have a boxcutter, a gun, a container of gas, a gas mask and an electronic guidance unit in your luggage?"

"A present for your grandmother? Very well sir, on you get."

"Very strange", thinks the security officer. "That's the fourth Arabic man without an Arabic name who just got on board with a knife, gun or boxcutter and gas mask. And why does that security camera keep flicking off every time one these characters shows up? Must be one of those days I guess..."

Asking any of these basic questions to a conspiracy theorist is likely to cause a sudden leap to the claim that we know that they were on board because they left a credit card trail for the tickets they had purchased and cars they had rented. So if they used credit cards that identified them, how does that reconcile with the claim that they used false IDs to get on to the plane? But by this time ,the fruit loop is in full swing, as the conspiracy theorist tries to stay one jump ahead of this annoying and awkward rational analysis.They will allege that the hijackers' passports were found at the crash scenes. "So there!" they exalt triumphantly, their fanatical faces lighting up with that deranged look of one who has just a revelation of questionable sanity.

Hmm? So they got on board with false IDs but took their real passports with them? However, by this time the fruit loop has been completely circumnavigated,and the conspiracy theorist exclaims impatiently, "Who said anything about false IDs? We know what seats they were sitting in! Their presence is well documented!" And so the whole loop starts again. "Well, why aren't they on the passenger lists?"

"You numbskull! They assumed the identities of other passengers!" And so on...

Finally, out of sheer fascination with this circular method of creative delusion , the rational sceptic will allow them to get away with this loop, in order to move on to the next question, and see what further delights await us in the unraveling of this marvelously stupid story.

"Uh, how come their passports survived fiery crashes that completely incinerated the planes and all the passengers? " The answer of course is that its just one of those strange co- incidences, those little quirks of fate that do happen from time to time. You know, like the same person winning the lottery four weeks in a row. The odds are astronomical, but these things do happen...

This is another favourite deductive method of the conspiracy theorist. The "improbability drive" , in which they decide upon a conclusion without any evidence whatsoever to support it, and then continually speculate a series of wildly improbable events and unbelievable co-incidences to support it, shrugging off the implausibility of each event with the vague assertion that sometimes the impossible happens (just about all the time in their world). There is a principle called "Occam's razor" which suggests that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the simplest explanation is most likely to be correct. Conspiracy theorists hate Occam's razor.

Having for the sake of amusement, allowed them to get away with with the silly story of the 19 invisible Arabs, we move on to the question of how they are supposed to have taken over the planes.

Hijacking a plane is not an easy thing to do. Hijacking it without the pilot being able to alert ground control is near impossible. The pilot has only to punch in a four digit code to alert ground control to a hijacking. Unconcerned with the awkward question of plausibility, the conspiracy buffs maintain that on that Sept 11, the invisible hijackers took over the plane by the rather crude method of threatening people with boxcutters and knives, and spraying gas (after they had attached their masks, obviously), but somehow took control of the plane without the crew first getting a chance to punch in the hijacking code. Not just on one plane, but on all four. At this point in the tale, the conspiracy theorist is again forced to call upon the services of the improbability drive.

So now that our incredibly lucky hijackers have taken control of the planes, all four pilots fly them with breath taking skill and certainty to their fiery end, all four pilots unflinching in their steely resolve for a swift meeting with Allah. Apart from their psychotic hatred of "our freedoms" , it was their fanatical devotion to Islam which enabled them to summon up the iron will to do this. Which is strange, because according to another piece of hearsay peddled by the conspiracy buffs, these guys actually went out drinking and womanizing the night before their great martyrdom, even leaving their Korans in the bar -really impeccable Islamic behavior - and then got up at 5am the next morning to pull off the greatest covert operation in history. This also requires us to believe that they were even clear headed enough to learn how to fly the huge planes by reading flight manuals in Arabic in the car on the way to the airport. We know this because they supposedly left the flight manuals there for us to find.

It gets better. Their practical training had allegedly been limited to Cessnas and flight simulators, but this was no barrier to the unflinching certainty with which they took over the planes and skillfully guided them to their doom. If they are supposed to have done their flight training with these tools, which would be available just about anywhere in the world, its not clear why they would have decided to risk blowing their cover to US intelligence services by doing the training in Florida, rather than somewhere in the Middle East, but such reasoning is foreign to the foggy world of the conspiracy theorist , too trapped in the constant rotation of the mental fruit loop to make their unsubstantiated fabrications seem even semi-believable.

Having triumphantly established a circular delusion in support of the mythical Arabs, the conspiracy theorist now confronts the difficult question of why there's nothing left of the planes. Anybody who has seen the endlessly replayed footage of the second plane going into the WTC will realize that the plane was packed with explosives. Planes do not and cannot blow up into nothing in that manner when they crash.

Did the mythical Arabs also haul a huge heap of explosives on board, and mange to deploy them in such a manner that they went off in the exact instant of the crash, completely vapourizing the plane? This is a little difficult even for the conspiracy theorist, who at this point decides that its easier to invent new laws of physics in order to keep the delusion rolling along.

There weren't any explosives. It wasn't an inside job. The plane blew up into nothing from its exploding fuel load! Remarkable! Sluggishly combustible jet fuel which is basically kerosine,and which burns at a maximum temperature of around 800 C has suddenly taken on the qualities of a ferociously explosive demolition agent, vapourizing 65 tons of aircraft into a puff of smoke. Never mind that a plane of that size contains around 15 tons of steel and titanium, of which even the melting points are about double that of the maximum combustion temperature of kerosine - let alone the boiling point - which is what would be required to vapourize a plane. And then there's about 50 tons of aluminium to be accounted for. In excess of 15lbs of metal for each gallon of kerosine.

For the conspiracy theorist, such inconvenient facts are vaguely dismissed as "mumbo jumbo". This convenient little phrase is their answer to just about anything factual or logical. Like a conjurer pulling a rabbit out of a hat, they suddenly become fanatically insistent about the devastating explosive qualities of kerosine, something hitherto completely unknown to science, but just discovered by them, this very minute. Blissfully ignoring the fact that never before or since in aviation history has a plane vapourized into nothing from an exploding fuel load, the conspiracy theorist relies upon Hollywood images, where the effects are are always larger than life, and certainly larger than the intellects of these cretins.

"Its a well known fact that planes blow up into nothing on impact." they state with pompous certainty. "Watch any Bruce Willis movie."



"Care to provide any documented examples? If it's a well known fact, then presumably this well known fact springs from some kind of documentation - other than Bruce Willis movies ?"

At this point the mad but cunning eyes of the conspiracy theorist will narrow as they sense the corner that they have backed themselves into, and plan their escape by means of another stunning backflip.

"Ah, but planes have never crashed into buildings before, so there's no way of telling." they counter with a sly grin.

Well, actually planes have crashed into buildings before and since, and not vapourized into nothing.

"But not big planes, with that much fuel ", they shriek in hysterical denial.

Or that much metal to vapourize.

"Yes but not hijacked planes!"

"Are you suggesting that whether the crash is deliberate or accidental affects the combustion qualities of the fuel?"

"Now you're just being silly".

Although collisions with buildings are rare, planes frequently crash into mountains, streets, other aircraft, nosedive into the ground,or have bombs planted aboard them, and don't vapourize into nothing. What's so special about a tower that's mostly glass? But by now, the conspiracy theorist has once again sailed happily around the fruit loop. "Its a well documented fact that planes explode into nothing on impact."

Effortlessly weaving back and forth between the position that its a "well known fact" and that "its never happened before, so we have nothing to compare it to", the conspiracy theorist has now convinced themselves ( if not too many other people) that the WTC plane was not loaded with explosives, and that the instant vapourization of the plane in a massive fireball was the same as any other plane crash you might care to mention. Round and round the fruit. loop...

But the hurdles which confront the conspiracy theorist are many, and they are now forced to implement even more creative uses for the newly discovered shockingly destructive qualities of kerosine. They have to explain how the Arabs also engineered the elegant veritcal collapse of both the WTC towers, and for this awkward fact the easiest counter is to simply deny that it was a controlled demolition, and claim that the buildings collapsed from fire caused by the burning kerosine.

For this, its necessary to sweep aside the second law of thermodynamics and propose kerosine which is not only impossibly destructive, but also recycles itself for a second burning in violation of the law of degradation of energy. You see, it not only consumed itself in a sudden catastrophic fireball , vapourizing a 65 ton plane into nothing, but then came back for a second go, burning at 2000C for another hour at the impact point, melting the skyscraper's steel like butter. And while it was doing all this it also poured down the elevator shafts, starting fires all through the building. When I was at school there was a little thing called the entropy law which suggests that a given portion of fuel can only burn once, something which is readily observable in the real world, even for those who didn't make it to junior high school science. But this is no problem for the conspiracy theorist. Gleefully, they claim that a few thousand gallons of kerosine is enough to

:completely vapourize a 65 ton aircraft

:have enough left over to burn ferociously enough for over an hour at the impact point to melt steel ( melting point about double the maximum combustion temperature of the fuel )

:still have enough left over to pour down the elevator shafts and start similarly destructive fires all through the building.

This kerosine really is remarkable stuff! How chilling to realize that those kerosine heaters we had in the house when I was a kid were deadly bombs, just waiting to go off. One false move and the entire street might have been vapourized. And never again will I take kerosine lamps out camping. One moment you're there innocently holding the lamp - the next - kapow! Vapourized into nothing along with with the rest of the camp site, and still leaving enough of the deadly stuff to start a massive forest fire.

These whackos are actually claiming that the raging inferno allegedly created by the miraculously recycling, and impossibly hot burning kerosine melted or at least softened the steel supports of the skyscraper. Oblivious to the fact that the smoke coming from the WTC was black, which indicates an oxygen starved fire -therefore, not particularly hot, they trumpet an alleged temperature in the building of 2000 C , without a shred of evidence to support this curious suspension of the laws of physics.

Not content with this ludicrous garbage, they then contend that as the steel frames softened, they came straight down instead of buckling and twisting and falling sideways.

Since they're already re-engineered the combustion qualities of jet fuel, violated the second law of thermodynamics, and re-defined the structural properties of steel, why let a little thing like the laws of gravity get in the way?

The tower fell in a time almost identical to that of a free falling object, dropped from that height, meaning that its physically impossible for it to have collapsed by the method of the top floors smashing through the lower floors. But according to the conspiracy theorists, the laws of gravity were temporarily suspended on the morning of Sept 11. It appears that the evil psychic power of those dreadful Arabs knew no bounds. Even after they were dead, they were able, by the power of their evil spirits, to force down the tower at a speed physically impossible under the laws of gravity, had it been meeting any resistance from fireproofed steel structures originally designed to resist many tons of hurricane force wind as well as the impact of a Boeing passenger jet straying off course.

Clearly, these conspiracy nuts never did their science homework at school, but did become extremely adept at inventing tall tales for why.



"Muslim terrorists stole my notes, sir"

"No miss, the kerosine heater blew up and vapourized everything in the street, except for my passport."

"You see sir, the schoolbus was hijacked by Arabs who destroyed my homework because they hate our freedoms."

Or perhaps they misunderstood the term "creative science" and mistakenly thought that coming up with such rubbish was in fact, their science homework.

The ferocious heat generated by this ghastly kerosine was, according to the conspiracy theorists, the reason why so many of the WTC victims can't be identified. DNA is destroyed by heat. (Although 2000 C isn't really required, 100C will generally do the job.) This is quite remarkable, because according to the conspiracy theorist, the nature of DNA suddenly changes if you go to a different city.

That's right! If you are killed by an Arab terrorist in NY, your DNA will be destroyed by such temperatures. But if you are killed by an Arab terrorist in Washington DC, your DNA will be so robust that it can survive temperatures which completely vapourize a 65 ton aircraft.

You see, these loonies have somehow concocted the idea that the missile which hit the pentagon was not a missile at all, but one of the hijacked planes. And to prove this unlikely premise, they point to a propaganda statement from the Bush regime, which rather stupidly claims that all but one of the people aboard the plane were identified from the site by DNA testing, even though nothing remains of the plane. The plane was vapourized by the fuel tank explosion maintain these space loonies, but the people inside it were all but one identified by DNA testing.

So there we have it. The qualities of DNA are different, depending upon which city you're in, or perhaps depending upon which fairy story you're trying to sell at any particular time.

This concoction about one of the hijacked planes hitting the Pentagon really is a howler. For those not familiar with the layout of the Pentagon, it consists of 5 rings of building, each with a space inbetween. Each ring of building is about 30 to 35 ft deep, with a similar amount of open space between it and the next ring. The object which penetrated the Pentagon went in at about a 45 degree angle, punching a neat circular hole of about a 12 ft diameter through three rings ( six walls).A little later a section of wall about 65 ft wide collapsed in the outer ring. Since the plane which the conspiracy theorists claim to be responsible for the impact had a wing span of 125 ft and a length of 155 ft, and there was no wreckage of the plane, either inside or outside the building, and the lawns outside were still smooth and green enough to play golf on, this crazy delusion is clearly physically impossible.

But hey, we've already disregarded the combustion qualities of jet fuel, the normal properties of common building materials, the properties of DNA, the laws of gravity and the second law of thermodynamics, so what the hell - why not throw in a little spatial impossibility as well ? I would have thought that the observation that a solid object cannot pass through another solid object without leaving a hole at least as big as itself is reasonably sound science. But to the conspiracy theorist, this is "mumbo jumbo". It conflicts with the delusion that they're hooked on, so it "must be wrong" although trying to get them to explain exactly how it could be wrong is a futile endeavour.

Conspiracy theorists fly into a curious panic whenever the Pentagon missile is mentioned.They nervously maintain that the plane was vapourized by it's exploding fuel load and point to the WTC crash as evidence of this behavior. (That's a wonderful fruit loop.) Like an insect which has just been sprayed, running back and forth in its last mad death throes, they first argue that the reason the hole is so small is that the plane never entered the wall, having blown up outside, and then suddenly backflip to explain the 250 ft deep missile hole by saying that the plane disappeared all the way into the building, and then blew up inside the building (even though the building shows no sign of such damage). As for what happened to the wings - here's where they get really creative. The wings snapped off and folded into the fuselage which then carried them into the building, which then closed up behind the plane like a piece of meat.

When it suits them, they'll also claim that the plane slid in on its belly, (ignoring the undamaged lawn) while at the same time citing alleged witnesses to the plane diving steeply into the building from an "irrecoverable angle." How they reconcile these two scenarios as being compatible is truly a study in stupidity.

Once they get desperate enough, you can be sure that the UFO conspiracy stuff will make an appearance. The Arabs are in league with the Martians. Space aliens snatched the remains of the Pentagon plane and fixed most of the hole in the wall, just to confuse people. They gave the Arabs invisibility pills to help get them onto the planes. Little green men were seen talking to Bin Laden a few weeks prior to the attacks.

As the nation gears up to impeach the traitor Bush, and stop his perpetual oil war, it's not helpful to have these idiots distracting from the process by spreading silly conspiracy theories about mythical Arabs, stories which do nothing but play into the hands of the extremist Bush regime.

At a less serious time, we might tolerate such crackpots with amused detachment, but they need to understand that the treachery that was perpetrated on Sept 11, and the subsequent war crimes committed in "retaliation" are far too serious for us to allow such frivolous self indulgence to go unchallenged.

Those who are truly addicted to conspiracy delusions should find a more appropriate outlet for their paranoia.

Its time to stop loony conspiracy theories about Sept 11.

[Webmaster's note:

The Pentagon missile theory is the Number One Most Contentious issue amongst 911- skeptics. The arguments have been very heated.

Early news releases included three photographs that seemed to show aircraft debris at the Pentagon, but missile theory advocates disagree that the fragments came from a jetliner. Very recently more photos have been located, but some of them have no context to prove they were from the Pentagon. (See http://www.rense.com/general32/phot.htm)

Everyone agrees that if the plane didn't crash at the Pentagon, it must have gone somewhere else -- but no trace has been found. David McGowan mentioned that a reader wrote him to say that there were media reports of a plane crash in Colorado that day, which were quickly squelched and never heard from again.

Personally I am inclined to accept the photographs showing that an airliner struck the Pentagon, even though there are many troubling inconsistencies in this version of events. However, I have no reason to doubt the sincerity or the sanity of anyone who has taken the other side in this issue.

If an airliner did strike the Pentagon, how was this accomplished? See my page entitled "Hani Hanjour, aerobatic pilot?" for more discussion. ]