On Institutional Culpability for Nine-Eleven
I promised mojave_wolf a post about the destruction of the World Trade Center and the explanations of it, to spare ataxi from hosting a discussion of it on an unrelated post of his.
First, welcome to mojave_wolf, and some responses to your post:
The crucifixion of Iraq proves that this administration does not hesitate to kill large numbers of innocent people to achieve its objectives. Post-shock-and-awe, the only way to argue that they wouldn't "do 9/11" is to declare that they are the most despicable of racists, who wanted so badly to kill Arabs and Muslims that they lied for weeks and months in order to get the chance to do it, and yet restrainedly refrained from applying the same methods to white people.
However, this merely establishes that they would "do 9/11", if they thought they could get away with it. It does not, by itself, mean that they did do it. For that, we must look at the specific facts of the events of that day, any relevant lead-up, leaked documents, etc.
I have paid my fair share of attention to David Ray Griffin, Webster Tarpley, Peter Dale Scott, Loose Change, and my personal favorite, Indira Singh (also audio links). And while they are all certainly entertaining, the most any of them ever do is point out obscure technical details that they describe as inconsistencies, with, as others have pointed out, an overriding assumption that the modern technological state always functions according to specifications, and that therefore any deviation has to be nefarious rather than accidental. In my experience, the modern technological state is built on accidents and fuck-ups.
In other words, nobody that I have heard has presented a coherent, over-arching theory of how 9/11 "really" happened, complete with facts and citations to back it up, standing up to scrutiny and criticism (and in fact I recently heard David Ray Griffin pooh-pooh this very idea, stating explicitly that the conspiracy theorists have a different, lesser burden of proof than the defenders of the "official theory"). So, given that they refuse to present something which could persuade me, and that I haven't turned up any such things in my own research, I remain unpersuaded.
Then again, I also get irritated with "conspiracy-haters", who burst into a furious rage at the very mention of the idea that someone could even suspect such a thing. It's possible, it hasn't been proven or disproven, deal with it and be glad that at least somebody isn't taking government statements at face value.
Most of all, I feel like we don't "need" 9/11 to accuse them of heinous crimes against humanity. 9/11 is a minor incident compared to what they've done to Iraq; just by absolute numbers, Bush's unprovoked aggression there has amounted to over 200 9/11's inflicted on the Iraqi people (and it only gets worse if you adjust it by population size, which I've always found distasteful).
I've tried to steer clear of discussing specific claims here, such as the thermite controlled demolition, or the missile hitting the Pentagon, or the stand-down orders for the fighter jets, or the details of just how hot jet fuel gets and how hot it has to be to melt steel or weaken steel, or how fast pancaking floors should fall. We can get into these if you like, but I wanted to get my general attitude out there first.
First, welcome to mojave_wolf, and some responses to your post:
- The link that I posted wasn't to something to read--it's an audio link.
- I think you may be referring to Coleen Rowley, one of TIME Magazine's 3 People of the Year for 2002. I heard Amy Goodman interview her several times. As far as I know, Rowley doesn't advocate any of the "alternate hypotheses" of what happened on 9/11, but falls in more with the "incompetence theory" crowd.
- Yes, I am familiar with PNAC and their "new Pearl Harbor" document. In fact, I believe I took the time to sit down and read the whole thing in late 2002.
The crucifixion of Iraq proves that this administration does not hesitate to kill large numbers of innocent people to achieve its objectives. Post-shock-and-awe, the only way to argue that they wouldn't "do 9/11" is to declare that they are the most despicable of racists, who wanted so badly to kill Arabs and Muslims that they lied for weeks and months in order to get the chance to do it, and yet restrainedly refrained from applying the same methods to white people.
However, this merely establishes that they would "do 9/11", if they thought they could get away with it. It does not, by itself, mean that they did do it. For that, we must look at the specific facts of the events of that day, any relevant lead-up, leaked documents, etc.
I have paid my fair share of attention to David Ray Griffin, Webster Tarpley, Peter Dale Scott, Loose Change, and my personal favorite, Indira Singh (also audio links). And while they are all certainly entertaining, the most any of them ever do is point out obscure technical details that they describe as inconsistencies, with, as others have pointed out, an overriding assumption that the modern technological state always functions according to specifications, and that therefore any deviation has to be nefarious rather than accidental. In my experience, the modern technological state is built on accidents and fuck-ups.
In other words, nobody that I have heard has presented a coherent, over-arching theory of how 9/11 "really" happened, complete with facts and citations to back it up, standing up to scrutiny and criticism (and in fact I recently heard David Ray Griffin pooh-pooh this very idea, stating explicitly that the conspiracy theorists have a different, lesser burden of proof than the defenders of the "official theory"). So, given that they refuse to present something which could persuade me, and that I haven't turned up any such things in my own research, I remain unpersuaded.
Then again, I also get irritated with "conspiracy-haters", who burst into a furious rage at the very mention of the idea that someone could even suspect such a thing. It's possible, it hasn't been proven or disproven, deal with it and be glad that at least somebody isn't taking government statements at face value.
Most of all, I feel like we don't "need" 9/11 to accuse them of heinous crimes against humanity. 9/11 is a minor incident compared to what they've done to Iraq; just by absolute numbers, Bush's unprovoked aggression there has amounted to over 200 9/11's inflicted on the Iraqi people (and it only gets worse if you adjust it by population size, which I've always found distasteful).
I've tried to steer clear of discussing specific claims here, such as the thermite controlled demolition, or the missile hitting the Pentagon, or the stand-down orders for the fighter jets, or the details of just how hot jet fuel gets and how hot it has to be to melt steel or weaken steel, or how fast pancaking floors should fall. We can get into these if you like, but I wanted to get my general attitude out there first.