conspiracy theories
by Eli
over the past few months i’ve been doing a bit of research into the events surrounding 9/11. i had done some research about a year ago, but nothing really comprehensive: i didn’t truely understand what happened and why it happened and how it happened, etc etc. this “second wind” of research came about after a pretty intense conversation i had on the 5th anniversary of 9/11. i thought that i held my own pretty well, but i didn’t know the details. so, i read more books and websites and watched a few more movies. at this point i am thoroughly convinced that some part of the US government had a hand in it.
anyhoo, something about this whole situation has been irking me, and it’s something that i’ve thought for a long time now (aside from 9/11 related things): i hate all the “rolled eyes” that people give “conspiracy theories.” people just assume that all “conspiracy theorists” are crazy nut jobs. think about it. what do you think of when some one says “conspiracy theory”? probably some crazy nut job waving their hands around in the air and going on about UFOs or the JFK assassination, right? well, to be fair, we all believe in conspiracy theories, it just depends on which ones you subscribe to.
the Oxford American Dictionary defines a conspiracy as:
a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful
with synonyms like: plot, scheme, plan, machination, ploy, trick, ruse, subterfuge.
it defines conspiracy theory as:
a belief that some covert but influential organization is responsible for an unexplained event
isn’t it then safe to assume that the official story about 9/11 is itself a conspiracy theory? i think it is! so what did Mr. Bush mean when he told us not to “tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories about the attacks of 11 September”? i guess the key word there is “outrageous.” well, let’s take a look at the theory that he and his adminstration put forth within minutes of the attacks themselves:
19 muslim extremists, organized by Osama Bin Laden in a cave in Afghanistan, outsmarted the most advanced military defense system in the entire world, simultaneously hijacking four airplanes and successfully crashing two of them into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon.
that’s quite a theory isn’t it? but is it outrageous? should we “tolerate” it?
what that theory doesn’t mention is that the three (3) steel-frame skyscrappers that collapsed due to fire that day were the first and only collapses in all of skyscrapper history. it’s pretty amazing for something that has never (ever) happened to happen at all, but three times on the same day? the above theory also doesn’t mention that all three collapses showed significant characteristics of controlled demolition but little to no characteristics of a collapse due to “fire-weakend” steel. also, molten metal was found flowing in and around the bases of all three buildings, and the resulting fires burned for weeks after the attacks. what could have melted that steel? it couldn’t have been the jet fuel.
as for the military’s explaination for why it did not intercept the hijacked airplanes? well, there have been three (3) of them, actually. The first 2 explainations (given on September 12th and 18th, 2001) said that the FAA didn’t notify the military with enough time. still, the stories showed some signs of a stand down order, so the military said that the first two stories were “incorrect” and gave us a third explanation almost three years later (the one backed by the 9/11 Commission). this third explanation absolved the military of any guilt and put the blame entirely on the FAA, saying that the FAA never notified the military of the hijacked airplanes.
hmmm, ok Mr. Military, so your first 2 explanations were “incorrect” and made you look guilty, but this third one is “true” and this is the one that sets you free? before you were “lying” to make yourself look worse, and now you’re “telling the truth” to make yourself look better? right.
what normally happens in a criminal case when a suspect tells three different versions of the same story? why should we believe the military now, after they lied to us for 3 years? and are we actually supposed to believe that every single person working for the FAA that morning compeletely ignored the hard-wired protocol to notify the military within one (1) minute of suspicious behaviour? are we actually supposed to believe that that sat around on their asses for almost a hour and a half while 4 planes were hijacked, and at the end of the day not a single one of them was reprimanded in any way?
what i’m trying to get at here is simple: people use the words “conspiracy theory” like they’re bad words or something. it’s a quick and simple way to play something off as stupid and uneducated, kinda like how the creationists say that evolution is just a theory, like that’s a bad thing or something. just because something is a conspiracy theory, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s stupid and uneducated. conspiracy theories are all around us and all of us believe some of them to some degree or another.
Good one Eli. I just refer to it as a ‘conspiracy in stead of a ‘conspiracy theory’. Because a theory is an educated guess, more or less. I believe that the 911 conspiracy is based on facts and facts alone. Anyway, I’ll pass this along to other people.
you have some good points. if you watch the movie about people on the hijacked plane that fought back, the military had a hand in trying to help them if i can remember correctly. so how are they to say that the military wasnt notified? facts and data formulate theories, i dont find raw data to be crazy but more truthful than anything else.
yeah, i’ve seen flight93, and what you say is true. but that movie in itself assumes the official story to be true so there are things in there that we sorta have to take for a grain of salt. it was actually pretty good just as a movie, but in my mind it is just another piece of propaganda. if you are more interested in this subject, you should read some David Ray Griffin’s books. he’s great.