9/11 was a single horrific event carried out by a small number of radicals. I don't think it holds a candle by any metric to the lives lost and damage done in an actual government-run war scenario. We don't yet have foreign bombers blowing up cafes on a regular basis because somebody on their hit list was inside, but because of our actions, we someday might.
And on that afternoon, there will be rage upon the twitters, and that evening, the news.
And on the following day, we'll bomb the everliving christ out of the people we think are responsible, and on some day hence, we will be bombed in response.
The wheel turns--might as well get into the drone and bomb business. :(
Actually I think you'll bomb a bunch of other random people (Iraq, Afghanistan), and continue to treat the responsible "country" (Saudi Arabia) as an ally and friend.
Just before people rewrite history, afganistan and iraq governments had nothing to do with 9/11.
Unless you're a kook, the people responsible for 9/11 were a group whose interests include overthrowing the Saudi government. The erstwhile Afghan "government", the Taliban, harbored them.
Yes, fine, but: Saddam Hussein couldn't stand Al-Quaeda. So... what's up with that? I don't even care who did 9/11 and why, but I know how it was used. That alone is shameful enough -- with those kind of "friends" who the fuck needs enemies, right?
Iraq wasn't directly related to al-Qaeda, no. From a geopolitical standpoint, replacing one of the most hostile governments in the region with a more favorable one had some interesting long term potential. Eliminating the root causes of terrorism requires significant geopolitical and socioeconomic change in the Muslim world. Installing a new government right in the middle of the region could go a long way to helping with that over the next few decades.
And Italy was one of the Allies during WW1 before allying itself with Germany in WW2. During the fight against Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire, other nations provided assistance to Italy. Individuals jumped into the fray too. Hemingway, for example, was a volunteer ambulance driver in Italy in WW1.
Beating the USA over the head post-911 with the club of having assisted anti-Soviet fighters in the 1970s and 1980s makes as much sense as castigating Italy's WW1-era allies and people like Hemingway in the late 1930s for having come to Italy's aid twenty years earlier.
The US leaders who started these wars had no issue making comparisons to WW2 and claiming Bush compared to Churchill. Words such as 'Crusade' were used. Good versus Evil. Crappy comparisons have been a hallmark of the campaigns. What I said was, to my knowledge, fact. I was attempting to point out that friends can become enemies, so a bit of tact and care is obviously a good idea. And of course, claiming you're on a crusade and fighting evil is just plain BS. The US deserves castigation for its role in these conflicts, it has acted appallingly, as have others. My own country, New Zealand, has troops in Afghanistan and have been involved in some controversy. The only reason I can think of for this deployment is to brown nose a few so-called allies. Making the world safer one botch job, torture and killing at a time.
The Taliban are native Afghanis, mostly Pashtun. The mujahideen were Muslims from around the world who went to Afghanistan to defend it from the godless communists. Bin Laden was one of them, but not necessarily one that we armed and supported back then. (While the irony would be delicious, I don't know of any evidence that he ever had US support.)
You seem to be one of those people who make bad arguments, and as soon as those bad arguments are debunked, you immediately switch to a completely separate bad argument without ever acknowledging that you were mistaken in the first place. Most likely, you're unwilling to listen to other viewpoints and just want to hear yourself talk on the internet. Have fun with that. I'm not inclined to play along.
I think you are projecting here. And attempting a moral high ground. Where was I wrong exactly? Please point it out, then you can return to your high ground.
The argument remains the same, I drew a parallel with a current situation to highlight how ridiculous it was to blame the Taliban for 9/11 (as they had NOTHING to do with it). Just as Russia had nothing to do with Snowden (except that he's there).
Tin-foil hat aside, it strikes me as oddly coincidental that the folks who use drones these days to kill around the planet with impunity are the same folks who had several allegedly drone controlled airliners carry out an attack, garnering public support for several illegal wars.
Just saying, it's all mightily convenient. As ever.
As to foreign bombers... So? Most Americans agree drone strikes are a good thing, so surely they'd still be a good thing when they start happening on US soil?
I like how you say "tin-foil hat aside", then go on to state with what seems to be complete seriousness that 9/11 was carried out by the U.S. against the U.S. using drone-controlled passenger airplanes.
And? You thought the 9/11 commission report was good and conclusive? WTC7 just "imploded" due to "natural causes"? And of course destroying all the evidence pronto was the best way to investigate the crime?
I don't think a single word that comes out of the US (and UK) gov't is truthful. Why would they be truthful about 9/11?
making it even more convenient. The Nurimberg Laws could be passed thanks to this event. Almost as convenient as 9/11 so that the Patrot Act could be passed.
Hm. Interestingly, I was taught at school that it was a false flag op by Karl Ernst's SA thugs, who framed Van der Lubbe. This appears to no longer be believed. Good old revisionism to suit the current political clime, I suppose. Don't want anyone drawing any parallels!
9/11 wasn't carried out by foreigners. There's no motive.
Means, motive, and opportunity: Who'd consider 3000 dead Americans a reasonable price to pay for carte blanche to make a pushbutton military coup possible in this country?
The US already controls, coerces, or mutually cooperates with a large number of other sovereign states (as we've seen with this whole Snowden airspace thing, or the global surveillance networks, et c).
Such an action would place a person or group that was able to exert leverage over the majority of US persons high in the running for "able to control the majority of humans on Earth".
No, there is no motive. Use your brain instead of your TV for once.
Analogy: a wasps best appears on your porch. Occasionally, you get stung.
Do you a) put up with being stung once in a while or b) whack the ever living shit out of the nest with a stick, knowing retaliation is the likely outcome, and wait to see what happens?
In spite of what the US media liked to portray, OBL was an intelligent man, well versed in both war and politics.
So no, there is no motive, unless you're suggesting that OBL's goal was to get Afghanistan and Iraq invaded, and millions of Arabs killed?
I'm not really sure what you're trying to say. Regardless, read your primary sources:
"[It is] easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaeda, in order to make the generals race there and cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses ... This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat." - OBL, 2004
So yes, it's very fair to suggest that his goal was to get Afganistan and Iraq invaded given that his formative years were spent, in his mind, bringing down the Soviet Union by provoking them into a protracted and costly battle in Afganistan. Al Queda is responsible for killing thousands of Arabs directly. It's no stretch to think that he didn't mind seeing a few million killed, like all sorts of utopian-totalitarian ideologues who preceded him, in the cause of bringing about 1000 years of utopia on earth through the establishment of a new Caliphate.
OBL was an intelligent man, like Hitler or Stalin were intelligent men. Ruthless, but almost impossibly warped in his views on why the present he lived in didn't fit his own fantasy.
"It is enough to know that the economy of all Arab countries is weaker than the economy of one country that had once been part of our world when we used to truly adhere to Islam. That country is the lost Al Andalus... No Muslim territory should ever become non-Muslim...Let the whole world know that we shall never accept the tragedy of Andalusia." - OBL, 2004
There's your motive if you're looking for one. Spain defeated the Muslim invaders who had conquered part of it 500 years ago and since it's now richer than the whole Muslim world put together it proves that... wait... what?
It proves that the CIA orchestrated '53 Iranian coup was a massive boon for the US, and that the US has successfully subjugated and held back an entire corner of the planet for a half-century.
Re: the wasps, you put on (or pay somebody to do so) a protective suit, wrap the nest in a plastic bag and put poisonous gas in it. Or, you smoke out the whole nest and kill all stray wasps with chemicals. I don't think this analogy is leading you to where you want to go...
It's sad that people just ignored the chief of counter terrorism on 9/11 stating that CIA knew terrorists were in the US planning an attack and purposely withheld it from the White House in an effort to develop sources. Not to mention ignoring the involvement of Saudi Arabia.
- High level FBI agents who have testified they would have stopped the attacks, but were purposely kept in the dark.
- The fact that on the morning of 9/11 the guy who wired 100k to Muhammed Atta to pay for the hijackings was having breakfast with the two guys who ran the official investigation into the attacks.
All this stuff about whether it was or wasn't a controlled demolition is just a red herring.
(I don't even speculate "who did what, exactly" -- but that this thing is fishy as fuck, and has been from day one, is undeniable. You can cover your ears and scream tinfoil all you want, but that doesn't answer the gaping questions. Apply Occam's razor, how about that? The possibility that the laws of physics were suspended that day is very slim, even more slim than aliens using lizards to convince mice to hypnotize humans to do it. Logic!)
Why would it not possible for a fire and/or an explosion to do exactly the same thing?
Because it would very likely tip over, or at least veer to one direction, instead of folding neatly into itself.
Did all the people in the building not see the dynamite strapped to the pillars?
What makes you assume dynamite?
Did they not see the 100s of meters of wires?
What makes you assume wires?
When did the guys that wired the build do the wiring?
Who knows? When did the dude who sucked at flying sports planes learn to fly a boeing so well? How did a passport of one of the attackers allegedly get found on the scene? If you want a conspiracy theory, try a bunch of guys taking down THREE high rises with TWO airplanes and a bunch of box cutters. Hah.
Was it during working hours or after hours?
How is that relevant?
How come no camera, person or security guard managed to see them?
Are you say it's not possible to deposit bags of C4 (etc.) with remote triggers in the right spots even just 10 minutes before impact, and safely get out? Or, to be alone in a room just enough to hide it in the ceiling or walls or wherever? I'm not saying it's easy, but it seems easier than even just flying a boeing so well without practical experience, or such a tall skyscraper folding neatly just by pure luck, and both of that happening twice on one day.
Listen to yourself. The last paragraph is utter nonsense. I actually agree that we aren't being told the full story on 9/11 but you make these accusations with zero grasp on the reality of how much work it takes to down a building like that. Demolitions like what you describe take months of prep, a gutted building, and precise explosives wrapped around multiple central supports. A few bricks of C4 on remote detonators stashed above a drop ceiling is never going to take out an entire building, let alone in the controlled way you claim occurred here... just synchronizing wireless detonators to explode simultaneously is a non-trivial technical feat. (Independent synchronised clocks and all the calculations for the travel time of the signal through various materials to different locations) I'm not saying it's not possible, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
I'm adamant that we're being lied to about things related to these attacks, but making things up to fill the vacuum of information is behavior that belongs back in the middle ages.
Hehe. Listen to yourself. So a plane crashing somewhere in the building, with a little help from gravity, can do the same as a prepared detonation that takes one month to plan, with carefully synchronized explosives around multiple central supports... Twice in a day.
If, as you claim, one or more of the buildings contained explosives which were detonated then why fly planes into them? I mean you could just blow up the buildings and blame it on whoever you wanted without needing to supposedly hijack planes and have to convince people that some dude who sucked at flying planes could now fly a plane.
Parts of the official story are perhaps hard to believe or lack credibility. But it was not an ordinary event, it was an extraordinary one meaning that we'll have a lot of unanswered questions and very little precedent. In the absence of certainty we fall back on our default positions. Some people could never imagine a bunch of foreigners hate the US enough and have the skills and ingenuity to pull something like this off. Only we have agency, others do not. Some people blame everything bad that happens on their government. In fact for some it's more palatable in a way to think that your government did it.
Anyway, we know you know the truth - but can you please keep your opinions to yourself, it only serves to derail the actual discussion at hand; but who knows, maybe that's your intention.
How were we supposed to get pissed off at 19 theology students from Saudi Arabia unless they flew planes into buildings so we could invade Afghanistan and Iraq?
It's not up to me to explain the events around 9/11. It's enough to know that the government and the media lied their asses off about it and are continuing to do so in order to prosecute a bullshit "war".
> It's enough to know that the government and the media lied their asses off
Life doesn't offer up points for being thoughtful and wise after the event.
The USA invaded IRAQ looking for WMD and trying to blaming Saddam Hussein for 9/11.
Even before the war started it was a well-known fact there were no WMDs and Saddam Hussein had no links to 9/11 and anyone who thought about this rationally knew an invasion was not a good idea.
But as you said the government and the media lied their asses off and the unwashed masses where taken in hook line and sinker.
The majority of the citizens of USA, UK, Australia and Spain all supported the plan to invade IRAQ.
Move on a decade and those same citizens now think it was a big mistake.
Well it too late. You can't put the genie back into the bottle.
Through their collective stupidity, the citizens of the USA, UK, Australia and Spain will be paying for that big mistake for years to come.
What's unfortunate the ripple effect of that big mistake affects us all.
Fires have never before or since destroyed a steel skyscraper.
The team that investigated the collapse were kept away from the crime scene.
By the time they published their inconclusive report in May, 2002, the evidence had been destroyed.
Is any of the above untrue?
Why did the government rapidly recycle the steel from the largest and most mysterious engineering failure in world histor? [..] ?
Why indeed? That's just scraping the surface, and attacking the ones who ask the questions you kinda should ask yourself, is just being silly. It's been nearly 12 years now, there is no excuse anymore, the shock wore off; "you" accepted Gitmo, so you can deal with this. Wo/man up.
To replicate the event you're describing, we need to have a multi-million tonne building, close to our steel building and we need to make that first building collapse.
Naturally flying a plane into the first building won't make if fall, so we'll need a few hundred kilos of strategically placed C4 in that building to bring it down.
To hide that C4 explosion we'll use the plane flying into the building as a diversion but at least we're guaranteed to bring down that first building.
Now we have a collapsing multi-million tonne building close to the steel building we are trying to bring down and that event will be creating millions of tons of flying debris.
Naturally, that amount of flying debris won't be enough to collapse the target building, but luckily we also places some C4 in a second building that is also close by.
Once again we are going to need a second plane to hide the C4 explosion in that second building, but that should be easy enough to arrange.
Now we've managed to bring down two massive multi-million tonne buildings and created flying debris with the equivalent energy of thousands of tons of C4 but we always knew that wouldn't be enough energy to bring down our target building.
Luckily, while laying the C4 charges on the other two buildings, we also manage to plant a few hundred kilos of C4 in the third building.
Now to finish the job, all we have to do is detonate those last few kilos of C4 and no one will be the wiser.
What a simple plan. It's fool proof and using the planes to cover up the C4 explosions is a stroke of genius.
The only problem we face is this last explosion makes the building collapse like a demolition.
Notice that the nutters never have any explanation for why conspirators would
1) bother with the 3rd building (are not the first two enough? The third didn't even get much publicity, it surely did little to rally public support)
2) wait so long after the collapse of the first to blow the 3rd (why wait? Surely one of the conspirators should have pointed out that a wait would only serve to make people suspicious. take it down seconds after one next to it falls and everything will look much more "natural")
3) bother with C4 at all (aren't planes slamming into buildings horrific enough? Controlled detonation of them afterwards adds very little but VASTLY increases the chances of something going wrong or the conspiracy being uncovered).
Conspiracy theorists almost never put themselves in the minds of the alleged conspirators. They latch onto things that are odd or unusual but the explanations they offer never actually reduce the oddness. WTC7 falling a few hours later is odd... it being blown up deliberately a few hours later is even more odd.
I couldn't agree more. When it comes to conspiracy theories, the logical thought process seems go missing.
I particularly like the one about how the Pentagon was hit by a cruise missile.
Once again assuming this is true, any minimal amount of analysis raises a whole bunch of questions.
For example:
1) Flight 77 took off, so if it didn't hit the Pentagon where did it go? How did it just disappear?
2) The control tower voice and radar details match with the Flight 77 flight data recorder and they show the plane hitting the Pentagon.
Does that mean the control tower was in on the plot? Did the Pentagon also fudge the radar recordings?
3) Wouldn't the cruise missile also have shown up on the radar recording? Did the Pentagon remove it from the radar recordings?
4) Where was that missile launched from? Didn't anyone notice that launch? How did they keep the launch quite?
5) Wouldn’t someone, somewhere in the US Armed Forces be missing one cruise missile from their armaments inventory? Has no bean counter noticed that unaccounted missile?
And as always the conspiracy theorists answer to these types of question is the government did it but cover it up.
Thanks, a lot of that is very interesting indeed, but is there a version without the constant (and sometimes rather low) personal attacks against a vague group of people? I'm old enough to read past them, but still, bleh. "The conspiracy theorists" are not some monolithic group, for example: http://www.ae911truth.org/
> If you were told it's something different you wouldn't believe it.
Sure I would. It could be an apple wrapped in an orange shell. It could be a hologram. It could be a picture of an orange with a small kitten hidden behind it. It could, indeed, even be a chroma-shifted live-view of earth from space.
> What does it look like to you?
Looks like all the supports gave out at pretty much the same time. Like if there was a large fire and badly maintained fireproofing on them. Or maybe a gang of small kittens chewed them off. You have to admit it looks precisely like it would if you had a thousand kittens scratching at the supports simultaneously (assuming robot kittens, of course).
Yeah, when you have nothing, attack the messenger with standard insult, tell people they are mad conspiracy theorists.
Trouble is, too many of these conspiracy theories turn out to be true. Just cast your mind back to the reactions of politicians when the rendition allegations first surfaced. Oh how they laughed and patronised. How they insulted and mocked. And then these same shameless filthy cowardly politicians came back to then justify their lies.
As for 9/11, I'm not sure any one knows the whole truth yet. Maybe we do, maybe those same politicians are telling the truth, but equally they themselves give us enough reason to doubt their word.
The US government and the NSA have just been outed in the largest conspiracy in US history. All the tinfoil has melted and that mindless rejoinder with it.
The NSA gets caught intercepting communications with the express purpose of spying on people[1], therefore all conspiracy theories are now true? What next, reptilian freemasons?
[1] You may notice that "intercepting communications with the express purpose of spying on people" is the charter of the NSA and of analogous agencies everywhere in the world.
Longtime dissenters and critics of the government have been vindicated as of late. Please recall that the "tinfoil" has melted because of the recent USG/NSA conspiracy. You need to drop the term "tinfoil hat" as it no longer has legitimacy.
There's a distinction between criticism and conspiracy theories. People who seriously maintain that the US government was behind 9/11 are kooks, same as creationists and people who think reptilian Jewish Freemasons control the world, and they gain zero credibility from the revelation that the NSA has the ability to tap Skype, Gmail, and Facebook.
> People who seriously maintain that the US government was behind 9/11 are kooks, same as creationists and people who think reptilian Jewish Freemasons control the world
You forgot to mention the Arizona farm where Jim Morrison and JFK are living together.
Your debating skills suck. If you wish to be taken seriously, don't engage in namecalling and don't conflate issues by adding Bigfoot poison to the mix. It wrecks your cred.
the age-old question of "cui bono?" remains the single best way to nose out what actually happened, and this often flies in the face of what most people regard and record as "history".
NOTE: i'm supressing a serious rant along your vector.
Many people around the world would say that one of those days was September 11, 2001.