The 11th Anniversary of 9/11 ~ Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XRMrMdn0NQ
Can anyone still believe the official version?
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The 11th Anniversary of 9/11 ~ Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XRMrMdn0NQ
Can anyone still believe the official version?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grlDaXPTX3U&feature=relmfu
То же самое по-русски.
I really don't know what to believe.
But I know that something like 2500 Americans died. 250,000 Afghans and Iraqis, probably more since I saw those figures, have died in the ensuing wars.
I doubt more than a one or two of these, if any, had any responsibility whatsoever for 9/11.
I don't know what to believe either. I get sick of all the conspiracy theories, to be honest. It isn't that some of them don't have merit; to be honest some of them scare the heck out of me. It's just that 9/11 was such a horrifying time, I don't like to constantly think about it really. That, and I hate how 9/11 has been turned into a "political football" here in the United States.
9/11 was used to get support for the war in Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. How ridiculous is that? Sentiment against people from all Arab countries was high in the years immediately following 9/11, so our government used our own xenophobia against us to get support for a war! The Afghanistan War, I could understand in the years right after 9/11. But I don't know why it took over a DECADE of war to catch one old man with a terminal health condition? It's all a big mess.
Then there is this issue, which really angers me: The poor firefighters who ran into those buildings to save people, most of them ended up terminally ill. But the politicians haggled for ten years over how to deal with that. Finally, as they were about to vote AGAINST helping the sick firefighters, a comedian (Jon Stewart) makes an 11th hour plea for help, and only THEN do the politicians agree that, yes, the sick firefighters needed help.
9/11 is just a difficult topic, I think. People have really strong feelings about it still.
New 9/11 truth documentary among 'most watched' on PBS this week
The mainstream media ignored most of this, too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l-8PFk8j5I
There's just too many instances of lies and deceit. The smoking gun in this case is Building Number 7.
There's many other examples such as the USS Liberty incident. It's just sad that it's taken so long to convince people to ask questions and have doubts. Usually, people don't even want to have an open mind. The most common reaction is refusal to contemplate any conspiracy based on how elaborate a plan it'd have to be. Yet, the populace is so foolish and gullible, it's not that hard to pull wool over their eyes. Sure, you have to spin things and pay some people off, but big deal. These people have propaganda and spin to an art form.
I don't have really have an hour and 45 minutes to waste without a brief summary of what I'm going to see -- namely, which aspects of "the official version" does it actually challenge? The brief reviews I've been able to find are long on "glittering generalities" about not buying into everything we're told by Government and Big Corporate Interests, without offering much information about what sort of alternative hypotheses the film is actually putting forward.Quote:
Can anyone still believe the official version?
I mean, does the film mostly argue that the Bush Administration lied and lied after the 9/11 attacks, in order to politically-spin the event for its own purposes? That's an argument worth making, IMHO. But the argument that Bush and/or the CIA actually planned and perpetrated the attacks is a far more extraordinary claim requiring proportionately more extraordinary evidence.
And some arguments that some people have made about 9/11 were never worth making at all (e.g., that the Pentagon was hit by a remote-controlled missile, because AA Flight 77 and the people on it didn't exist, and there were in fact only three airplanes).
Remarkably, this "Pentagon hit by a missile" notion has been defended by self-described skeptics who would never dream of arguing that the Universe is only 6000 years old, or that the Sun and the other planets orbit the Earth, or that a 1:10^400 diluted extract of duck liver will cure influenza -- and, correspondingly, a massive worldwide secret cabal of atheistic scientists and/or Big Corporate Interests must be conspiring to Hide The Truth about Creation Science, about Ptolemaic Geocentrism, about Homeopathy.
Yet some people who are too educated to believe THOSE idiocies will eagerly brag about being "9/11 Skeptics," and will scold others for being "credulous sheeple."
So, that's why I'd like to know before watching it: what is this 105-minute documentary actually selling, Marcus?
What exactly do you think that that incident is an "example" of? I mean, I've heard various explanations for the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, but I'm not sure that I've ever heard it described as a "false flag operation" or a "casus belli" or whatever. The attack may have been a sort of "conspiracy" to make it more difficult for the U.S. to interfere in the already-planned Israeli campaign against Syria, but that's a rather different type of "conspiracy theory" than the ones floated about 9/11. (I mean, no one claims that the USS Liberty was attacked as an excuse for Israel to go to war against that the Arabs, since the Six-Day-War was already into its third or fourth day! Thus, whatever the reason was for the attack, it can't have been a "false flag operation.")Quote:
The smoking gun in this case is Building Number 7.
There's many other examples such as the USS Liberty incident.
P.S. I'm inclined to believe that the attack can be explained as "accidental misidentification in the fog of war" -- mainly because it seems to me that the small strategic benefits that Israel might've gained by disabling the ship would be significantly outweighed by the risks to Israel in attacking an American military vessel. In other words, I'm not convinced that there was a believable motive for Israel to attack the USS Liberty on purpose -- there was just too much danger for not enough gain, IMHO.
Do you work for CIA, Throbert?
I agree with Throbert. To use to one's advantage and initiate are two rather different things. It's not news politicians are 'riding the waves' as opportunities come up.
(Not answering for Marcus.)
.The GREATEST tribute Americans and the world can give on this most SOLEMN day... | Peace . Gold . Liberty | Revolution
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Throbert: it seems you are pointing out the great confusion and uncertainty, lack of clarity about the issue. Without viewing the video, it is easy to guess that what it is selling, is the need for investigation, precisely to bring light to the issue. Why is it easy to guess? The man on the cover picture is the father of one of the first victims pulled out. He, and all the other families of victims, and many others for professional reasons need, want, deserve to have better investigation. And since this is used as justification for various things, we the public, deserve a real investigation, that really stands up.
One of the issues involved here is that of engineering, design, architectural etc, building codes and fire codes, insurance and actuarial issues, and related things. Since the early part of the twentieth century, buildings have been designed specifically to not come down under various disaster conditions. And so for the various engineering, design and architectural procedures/practices, safety and building codes and inspections, occupancy permits, etc, it is important to know what really happened in order to determine whether all those things need to be changed. The event really has a lot of infrastructure, construction, finance, insurance etc related issues as to improvements for safety. The buildings were not supposed to come down the way they did.
It doesn't look like you have researched or read much on this topic. Else, you wouldn't be asking these questions. I suggest you research somewhat and read some of the articles out there. There's also some videos if you also want something to watch and listen to.
The USS Liberty Cover-Up
'The USS Liberty': America's Most Shameful Secret
USS Liberty - Israeli Pilot Speaks Up
The USS Liberty
USS Liberty Dead in the Water | Watch Free Documentary Online
BBC NEWS | Middle East | Why did Israel attack USS Liberty?
US President LBJ Ordered USS Liberty Sunk as Pretext for War - YouTube
There's a lot more. The excuses given don't fly.
I clicked on just one of the links arbitrarily and read it. BBC NEWS | Middle East | Why did Israel attack USS Liberty?
It concludes with:
"If I could prove the Liberty was attacked in a premeditated fashion, I would write it - it would be a great historical scoop - but the truth is far more mundane."
I might be wrong, but from the tone of you earlier message I assumed the Israeli/US government conspiracy was a proven thing, but the source you've just cited leaves the question mark, to say the least...
Well, you don't have to and, to tell the truth, there's no way I could make you to. :)
However, consider that I posted my reply 23 minutes after you posted yours. So, even if you assume I read your post right after you published it and it took me no time to write mine, you still believe it only took me 23 minutes to visit all 7 links you posted and read/watch them all, carefully picking up the only context that would convey my biased opinion... I must be a super-researching-hero, must I not? ;)
No, I don't think you took even 5 minutes to visit any of those sites. ;-)
I figured you chose to focus on the mainstream link and pick out a 'view' that supports your bias.
Btw, one of the other links is collected from an article by a Toronto newspaper editor.
The main point I was trying to make is that after examining all the reports, evidence, first-hand accounts and various perspectives, it's obvious to me, that there is some sort of coverup and potential for a false flag event to have occurred.
So, I question your motives and bias when you single out a quote and perspective from some Israeli historian who concurs with official reports. Is it feasible that academics and official investigators will most likely side with the Government accounts?
I think it's reasonable to be skeptical of such opinions when the available evidence seems to be at odds with the official story. I likened the situation to 9/11. When you look at all the discrepancies and inconsistencies of the NIST reports, then it should be natural to have a double take. Instead, most people will ignore it and concentrate on what supports their bias.
So, out of 20 odd minutes that you supposedly took to go over those links, why choose a source that has no direct connection to the event? 'Peculiar.
Well, I guess, the second sentence somewhat contradicts the first. It's either I spent 5 minutes to visit any of those sites and was able to choose the source that I wanted, or I haven't spent 5 minutes and then I was unable choose a source since I haven't even spent 5 minutes to visit any of those sites. Only one of the above might be true. :)
Well, I'm not in a position to question your research and deductive abilities, but something (the former part of my post, actually) is telling me I could still reserve the right to be skeptical and not trust your educated conclusions blindly. ;)
Seriously, though... you see, in my opinion, some of the conspiracy theories have a significant logical flaw which they don't like to expose. (Yay! The conspiracy of the conspiracy theories; how do you like that?) They all go mainly like that:
1. Oh, the 'official version' provided by the government to explain X fails to explain Y and Z.
2. Therefore, the government is lying.
3. Therefore, the government wants to hide something.
4. The 'inevitable' conclusion: the government itself is responsible for causing X.
In that step, the conclusion is not inevitable. There might be other causes. A somewhat better conclusion is that the government (i.e. the finite set of politicians) cannot make any good use of knowing who caused X. Or it can foresee bad uses.
What do you think of that?
Теория заговора - это то, что какие-то Бен Ладен и Аль-Каида сумели атаковать Пентагон. А то, что это провокация, следует изо всего.
No contradiction as the first comment was a joke. Hence, the smiley emoticon. At least, I hope you spent more than 5 mins. :)
Anyway, I'll try to answer your inquiry...????
I think you forgot #5!
5. In response to #1-#4, it is reasonable to suspect the probability and/or prospects of a coverup or conspiracy increase
Do you think 'all' conspiracy theories are postulated this way (via your list)? I don't think so. At least, it would open itself to dispel fairly quickly.
(and, perhaps #6 is: 6. The Government has an extensive history of deception, lies, deceit and unethical behavior when it comes to the people. Get the drift?).
I think your simplistic and thematic list fails. If that's what you take from every conspiracy theory you encounter, then perhaps you don't investigate or research thoroughly enough. Maybe 5 to 20 minutes is insufficient for you.
Thus, your list is too brief. It's true, there can be inadequate or incomplete conclusions but I was not talking about a generic theory. I presented some links for the USS Liberty conspiracy and Marcus and I added a video for 9/11. Do you think we both concluded or speculated based on only your list #1 through #4? I don't think so, dude. :)
You omit the reason many people speculate or suggest a conspiracy. Inadequate reports, peculiar findings that are contrary to the Government's according to other experts and lack of neutrality. One could go on but it's much more complicated than the presentation you put forth.
Well Hello... those of you who know me know that I tend to stay away from the politic threads... so you newbies don't bother to try and get me into a debate here... I have not watched the videos or read the articles posted in this thread. I have seen some other documentaries about it including Nova's Spy Factory (video transcript) (which I found interesting especially as I have driven by the motel in Laurel so many times!)
On the morning of 9/11 between 7-7:30 ish I was driving my girls to school and taking the back road behind Walter Reed Annex. I did this every morning for over a year now. I noticed something rather odd. Military personnel stationed on the hills of the property with their rifles. I had never seen them there before. I thought maybe the President was coming or something but he usually doesn't come to the annex, he goes to the main building. Anyway, I went on with my day and of course, we all know what happened.
I always wonder why the guards were stationed there that particular morning. Had military intelligence heard chatter that something was up but they just didn't have enough specifics so everyone was on alert? Or was it something else?
Well, I said 'some', not 'all', but I think 9/11 conspiracy theory (which is the main topic, btw) is put that way.
Ok, so let's go one step back. All we see, in the 9/11 situation is that the government's story is incomplete and we have the right to suspect it's lying. Alright. You have my agreement here. Yes, we realize with some degree of confidence that the government had probably worked out the story to support their further plans. B-U-T! You won't be able to explain that the government had actually designed or performed it! Simply, because you don't have a proof. So, until you venture a proof, I think there's no point to go on blaming the government for designing the 9/11.
In my opinion, the 9/11 was designed by the other people. And not by the Al-Quaeeda and Bin Laden. I also think those who work for the FBI are not less smart than those who create those videos, and they obviously have much more facts at their disposal.
I think the FBI knows who caused 9/11, but that is not the US government. What do you think of that?
Why, sure, just as I believe that you -- or, I guess, the editor of a Toronto newspaper -- went 'randomly' Googling for "Truth About the USS Liberty" websites and 'randomly' picked seven that avoided saying "Zionist".
A truly random search of USS Liberty websites would turn up quite a few in which the site's own authors (not anonymous commenters) use the word Zionist "as though translated from жид-масонский", to paraphrase a great quip from Maria Tsevtaeva.
To be clear, I don't think that everyone who suspects that Israel deliberately attacked the USS Liberty is anti-Israel or anti-Jewish.
However, in a Venn diagram, the "USS Liberty skeptics circle" would overlap quite a bit with the "rabid antisemite circle"! I would also note that there are various different "alternative explanations" for the Israeli attack. Some theories claim that Israel had "strategically rational" motives (such as wanting to delay American knowledge of the planned Golan Heights attack) -- such theories I would consider to be essentially sane and plausible, even if they may be incorrect.
But other theories seem to be based on assumptions of a Giant Jewish Conspiracy To Destroy Muslims And Arabs Everywhere (e.g., "the real reason for the Liberty attack was done to cover up a massacre of Egyptian POWs")
Also, some of the theories strike me as possibly self-contradictory. Supposedly (says yet another theory), Jewish control of the US government was such that the Jews were able to coerce President LBJ into authorizing the Israeli attack on the Liberty. But... if the Jew-tentacles reached so far, and gripped the US government so tightly, wouldn't it have been much simpler to NOT attack a US Naval ship, and simply tell their American puppets "We're going to invade the Golan Heights, and you won't make any attempt to interfere, okay "?
I just wanted to highlight this and add a point: Some "Truth About 9/11" websites and documentaries have produced petitions signed by 5,000 professional engineers who "are asking troubling questions" or "agree that the official version is incomplete," etc. Suffice to say, some of these sites and movies are very eager to create the impression that 5,000 engineers support the "controlled demolition by CIA-planted explosives" hypothesis.
But in fact, the vast majority of these engineers are asking questions about how to improve the fire-resistant insulation on steel girders, and whether the fuel tanks for Building 7's emergency electrical generators were properly constructed, etc. (And I suspect that some of the engineers who signed this or that petition were kicking themselves afterwards, upon realizing that their positions had been misrepresented.)
P.S. Decades ago, "telekinetic spoon-bender" Uri Geller went on Johnny Carson's talk show, and ended up rather embarrassed -- Geller didn't know that Carson had worked professionally as a stage magician in his younger days, and thus Carson had no difficulty spotting Geller's фокусы. So, of course, Geller's "telekinesis" suddenly didn't work, and he had to make up an excuse about solar flares, or something. James Randi and Penn & Teller have made the same point: scientists are sometimes easy "marks" for con-artists, because scientists tend to assume that everyone is being honest, and aren't trained in deception (as magicians are, of course). So I suspect that some of the scientists and engineers who get quoted by "9/11 Skeptics" were deceived, as Geller tried to do with Carson; and others were simply quoted out of context without their permission.
P.S. Also, if you suspect that 9/11 was a "false flag operation" and "inside job," the simplest possible conspiracy theory is this:
19 hijackers who were hired by the US government (i.e., they weren't "Al Qaeda operatives") hijacked four planes, three of which hit their targets, and the intense heat of burning jet fuel was sufficient to cause massive destruction and loss of life.
And before you start speculating about "controlled detonation" and explosives secretly planted in the WTC buildings, you need to rule out the above theory -- otherwise, you're just "multiplying entities without necessity."
Similarly, if you think there was a conspiracy within the federal government, you should rule out the possibility of a "Tiny Rogue Cabal" inside the CIA before you start suggesting that the conspiracy went all the way to the White House. (Occam's Razor tells you to prefer a minimum number of conspirators, rather than a huge number of conspirators, since every additional conspirator is an additional traitor or whistleblower or accidental leaker.)
Finally, you need to give some thought to a coherent motive. The idea that Bush planned the 9/11 attacks as a pretext for the invasion of Iraq makes very little sense to me -- since the 9/11 attacks did not use WMDs, yet the justification given for the Iraq War was the supposed danger that Saddam had a stockpile of WMDs. (If Bush planned the 9/11 attacks because he wanted to invade Iraq, why didn't he arrange for some biological warheads or a radioactive "dirty bomb" to be smuggled onto one or more of the airplanes? Or, conversely, why didn't he try to argue that "Saddam is illegally stockpiling X-acto knives and box-cutters"?)
Another line of thought is that the Gummint planned the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to Take Away All Our Freedoms. ("We'll sweep into power with a degree of control that will make martial law look like anarchy" -- Angela Lansbury, The Manchurian Candidate).
Trouble is that such a complete loss of freedom never actually happened. Yes, some aspects of the Patriot Act had the potential to be gradually corrosive of civil rights, and people were quite right to be alarmed that the Patriot Act set "troubling legal precedents." But there's a difference between "gradual corrosion" and the outright suspension of the Constitution. It seems unlikely to me that the Government would go to all the trouble of murdering 3,000 citizens (and temporarily crippling the nation's financial center) as a pretext for passing some laws that were notably NOT very draconian.
With respect to conspiracy theories, I always apply Occam's Razor:
"other things being equal, a simpler explanation is better than a more complex one."
IE, did the US government orchestrate a complex disaster, which would involve the silence/compliance of thousands of people
OR, did angry people from countries which we have had wars with, avenge their dead by attacking the World Trade Center.
I stand by the basic premise. Granted, many questions exist, serious questions, such as why Bin Laden's family was allowed out of the US when no one else was allowed to fly. But I do not necessarily believe that contradicts the main premise.
As Crocodile so adroitly pointed out (только если бы я умела так свободно писать по-русски!), evidence is needed for these conspiracy theories, before any of them can be taken seriously.
Occam's razor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Your theories are insufficient. Your speculation, also. You won't even put in a fraction of time to research on your own.
And you have the audacity to simply conclude and summarize that you have some sort of explanation?!? How can you all dismiss any of these theories without investigating and reading the content? You just see the word 'conspiracy' and write it off immediately? Mr. McGhee, you have some idea but there's a lot of material out there. A lot of it explains or at least gives an explanation for your questions.
Please read some of the articles. C'mon, it's not that hard. I thought the videos might be interesting to you because people have short attention spans in general. Sometimes, people want something visual to complement reading material.
Also, when the public is presented some report on this and too many parts of it don't make sense, it makes me ask questions. Many have took it upon themselves to investigate all this and way too many WTH scenarios are involved with 9/11, for e.g.
Based on what?
There are many theories for that but your conclusion that jet fuel took the towers down is laughable. Where did you get that idea? Are you an expert on melting metal and temperatures?
Also, the official explanation is that fire and fragments from the other buildings brought it down but there has been much debate on the plausibility of that scenario. I happen to agree with it. Most of the official scientific explanation are from paid engineers with Government connections, not independent bodies or neutral experts.
Also, I asked people to check out the PBS video but no one did. Big surprise. If you come up with theories, try to explain why you reached that conclusion with more weight than just parroting what the Government statements were.
Building No. 7 had a 'symmetrical, box-like collapse', where all four corners, and all four facades of the building fell simultaneously straight to the ground. Look at the speed in which the building fell. It's a 576-foot tall building and most concur with the estimates that it fell in 6.5 seconds. If you want to argue on common sense and quick theorizing then I can do the same, right? Does that make sense? From fire?!?
I always apply Occam's razor too. But the evidence is needed for the official version too! And all the evidence we have says it was done by the American government. There is no need to make all the people silent because the American authorities have information power and can always call such people "conspirologists". Americans simply believe that their government can't be so cruel and they are ready to believe everything but that version, no matter how many arguments are given in its support.
I agree, there are several major flaws in the 'official version'.
I disagree, there's no such evidence. The farthest you could go is to claim the US government knew something was to happen, but they didn't take sufficient precautions to deal with that. Took it lightly, so to speak. Any government is just an always-quarreling group of selfish smug bureaucrats and nothing more. How do you imagine the US government design it? George W. Bush calls John Ashcroft to his ranch, they have some beer and a nice BBQ steak and then Bush calls Ashcroft aside and says something like: "Hey, John, we are unpopular this season, let's crash some airplanes onto some buildings in NYC and whatever's left we'll dump on the Pentagon, how do you like that idea, dude?" ;)
Seriously speaking, the places like the FBI, the CIA, etc. are constantly conveying internal tests of their employees. The tests are of the various nature, among them are the loyalty tests of various kinds. Among them, the higher management is asking the lower management to pass some classified info to their subordinates and see if the subordinates are loyal and would report the incidents to the higher management. If you call you bosom friend in the FBI and ask them to trait their organization, they will agree with you 100% and the very next thing they would report on you to their management and one level up simply because they would think it's just another test. So, no. The US government has nothing to do with the design and the performance of the 9/11. Until you present a proof, which would really prove and not just suspect, you have no right going on blaming the US government.
Really? How so? Based on what?
I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest you both (yourself and Marcus) can't be right.
911 Proof
9-11 Research: The Evidence
Read through tons of links and investigate all claims and for me, it keeps coming back as enough evidence. I'm not sure how you conclude there isn't. You still haven't said.