Dear 9/11 truth movement
Your theories are not, in fact, so shocking that our squaresville minds can’t handle them. Indeed, precisely the opposite is the case. The problem with your theories is that they are far too banal. Oooh, the US government killed civilians for political purposes; how unexpected. Why go to all the trouble of constructing a conspiracy theory to uncover a crime that would be almost insignificant compared to the ones the government doesn’t even bother to deny? Please get back to me when you’ve constructed a theory blaming 9/11 on a group of rogue templars out to hide the secret alien hatcheries under Manhattan.
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Many Americans operate under the assumption that while the US government has no respect for human life in general that American lives are considered sacred. If 9/11 were to be shown to be an inside job this would go a long way toward exposing the fact that the majority of the American populace is considered expendable and that corporate profits come are valued over the lives of the people to the extreme extent that the capitalist class is willing to commit mass murder of Americans in order to further its goals.
Comment by Anonymous @ 8/25/2006 12:35 am
But it isn’t true though. That’s quite important I think.
I’m perfectly willing to believe that we don’t know the whole story and the US government covers parts up - I’m not willing to believe that, based on entirely spurious ‘evidence’, Bush took a mad decision to destroy the world trade center and the pentagon. No.
I think Tim’s right that it displays an extraordinary lack of imagination - where the only agency capable of actually doing anything on the planet is the incompetant US government. No.
I’m not going to buy into a sub-racist idea that only Americans are capable of pulling off a big operation. There is a big wide world out there with people in it who do and think things without the permission of the CIA. It’s myopia.
On the day of the 7/7 bombing in London I heard people say it was organised by Blair, or the Israeli state. These people were not privy to secret plans but barmy and decided to believe what they found convenient to believe.
The truth is always more complicated and we need to look at the way the US and UK government turn situations to further their own ends without trying to write the script for a new edition of the X files.
Comment by jim jay @ 8/25/2006 3:48 am
Have you considered the evidence? The arguments for US complicity that I’ve encountered have not been based on some sub-racist a priori assumptions of incompetent Arabs or a misguided faith in the ubiquity of US agency. The arguments I’ve encountered is composed of contigent facts about the event.
Here are some of the reasons to suspect US complicity.
Evidence of Foreknowlege: There were many warning from foreign intelligence organizations about the impending attacks, and the US intelligence community itself was on red alert. The president also is known to have received a memo from the CIA in August titled “Bin Laden to Attack the United States.” Also the men identified as the 9/11 ringleaders were under surveillance for years before 9/11, on the suspicion they were terrorists, by a variety of US and allied authorities - including the CIA, the US military’s “Able Danger” program, the German authorities, Israeli intelligence and others. Two of the alleged ringleaders who were known to be under surveillance by the CIA also lived with an FBI asset in San Diego. A former FBI translator named Sibel Edmonds testified in front of the 9/11 commission and has publicly stated that she saw documents that showed the US knew al-Qa’ida would attack using airplanes as missles. Other FBI whistleblowers have come forward with stories of high level obstruction of investigations into the terrorists.
Evidence of complicity: The US air defense system failed to follow standard procedures for responding to diverted passenger flights. The various responsible agencies - NORAD, FAA, Pentagon, USAF, as well as the 9/11 Commission - gave radically different explanations for the failure The Penagon hit 1 hour and 20 minutes after the attacks began and there was no response from Andrews Air Force Base, a facility just 10 miles away and which housed Air National Guard units charged with defending the skies above the nation’s capital. Multiple military wargames planned long in advance and held on the morning of September 11th included scenarios of a domestic air crisis, a plane crashing into a government building, and a large-scale emergency in New York. These wargames created confusion both amongst FAA officials and inside Norad. A third building in NYC called World Trade Center 7 collapsed at near free fall speed and straight down despite the fact that it was not hit by a plane. No other steel structures have collapsed in this manner due to fire.
Evidence of a cover-up: There is a massive amount of evidence indicating a cover-up. The physical evidence from the towers was destroyed, the Bush administration resisted forming any independent commission, and the commission leader Thomas Kean has subsequently admitted that Pentagon officials lied to the commission.
This is just a very surface level list of the reasons given, the evidence given. Don’t you think it’s better to address the evidence rather than just picking one set of assumptions over another?
Comment by Anonymous @ 8/25/2006 9:13 am
Well, I’ve watched a long and tedious film about this which was very detailed and well researched - but it did not convince me. As well as seeing /hearing various moronic claims from the occasional activist.
Bush knew before hand? Well if he planned it he should do. Shouldn’t need a report to tell him about it should he?
But back to the report - There is a massive difference between knowing that a terrorist organisation want to carry out an attack on the US and stopping the specific attack.
It’s not credible to make the jump from recieved fore knowledge of an unspecified attack, which is a constant threat, to allowing 9/11 to take place.
Some of the terrorist cell were known to the authorities. How many people are under surveilance in the US? What does this mean in a practical sense? You make it sound like they knew what was going on in their heads just because some of them are on a list of possibles.
Remember we’re talking about deliberate collaberation not just mistakes. Too much of a jump.
Air defense not following proceedure - how many US civilian aircraft have the US air force been called on to shoot down? I think this was the first time - and they fucked up the proceedures. Shrugs.
There was a massive training exercise going on at the time so jet availability was limitted and command control was distracted at first - oh no, hold on - Bush must have arranged that deliberately! The fiend - and not one USAF member smelt a rat, clever.
Government officials lied - no! They must have been complicit in mass murder then. Or…. they turned a situation to their own ends and covered up incompetance.
You believe what you want to believe but let’s look at what it means to believe this was a state conspiracy… we’re talking about literally thousands of people who’ve supposedly been involved in deliberately covering up who the real culprits of 9/11 were. Not one of them has talked - not one of them thought, hang on, is this immoral?
How do you broach with someone whether they want to be part of your plot to be part of mass murder? Who said to Bush - hey George we got a great plan, Mwahahahahah.
Incidently I’m not arguing that people consciously rule out the attack being carried out by non-US citizens - I’m saying that the discourse in the US is focused on the US and is ‘ethnocentric’ - it’s a thin unimaginative gruel the conspiracy theorists are serving up.
I suggest they try political analysis instead - much more helpful.
Comment by jim jay @ 8/25/2006 2:43 pm
You’re confusing a shoot down with an interception. Interceptions are relatively common.
I would urge you to take a close look at the evidence of foreknowlege and the evidence that higher officials undermined investigations into the terrorists. The US had knowlege of the timeframe of the attacks and the methods that would be used and did nothing.
There is such a thing as compartmentalization and the US has a long history of successfully running cladestine internal operations. Look into the Syphilis experiments or the Human radiation experiments the US has done. Those went on for decades and before whistleblowers stepped forward. 911 is a short and small operation in comparison.
As to how plans might’ve been drawn up and presented to Bush, if such plans existed, the historical precedent is Operation Northwoods.
I’m not claiming that US comlicity is an established fact, but there is certainly enough circumstantial evidence to warrant serious scrutiny and investigation.
You mistake self-interest with ethnocentrism.
I can understand why you claim that the so called Truth movement is unimaginative, but I’d rather be served their thin gruel than your these strawmen fantasies you’re dishing out.
Comment by Anonymous @ 8/25/2006 11:13 pm
See, this is precisely what I wanted to avoid - attempting to argue evidence with 9/11 conspiracy theorists is a waste of time. Look, I’m perfectly happy to say I agree with you that Bush did 9/11, on condition that you stop trying to “prove” it to me. I’m really not interested in your spurious evidence, because nothing important hinges on whether or not the US government is responsible for 9/11.
Anonymous, you seem to be falling victim to the unfortunately common belief that there is some key fact that, if only we could get people to recognize it, would cause them to become radicalized. That seems like wishful thinking to me: I suspect most Americans would respond to proof that the government is responsible for 9/11 by saying, “Ah well, what are you going to do? Can’t fight City Hall,” that is, the same way people have responded to past scandals.
Besides, if you do want to demonstrate to people that the government is out to fuck them over, why not use something that’s easier to prove, like Schwarzenneger’s recent crypto-fascist union-busting campaign? What makes that harder, of course, is that it involves making a political argument for unions (likewise addressing Bush’s tax cuts requires making a political argument for class war against the rich). 9/11 truth activism is comforting because it holds out the possibility that, if you just amass enough evidence, you can prove that people should rebel, without the need for any messy evaluative arguments. But that’s just an illusion and, as Jim says, an illusion that serves as a substitute for politics.
Comment by tim @ 8/26/2006 11:40 am
*yawn* That was boring! :)
It is in the interests of the government to kill its own people if it means more oil, a deeper foothold in the middle east, and assertion of it’s military might as a super power in the 21st century.
Some of the things Bush has said may have been stupid, but other people within government aren’t. For example, covering their tracks!
Comment by hmph @ 8/26/2006 12:06 pm
nothing important hinges on whether or not the US government was responsible for 9/11
Now who is being unimaginative?
The has used the 9/11 attack to invade two countries and to push back civil liberties. If there is another attack like 9/11 in this country we may have to live with outright martial lawa.
Currently the most vocal prponents of investigating and exposing the truth about 9/11 are on the far right. That’s troubling. The failure of many on the left to back the families who seek a legitimate investigation or to show the slightest concern about exposing the truth about the most vicious attack on US soil since the civil war is a gift to the far-right, both to the Bush administration and to the conspiratorial right wing who oppose him.
The right wingers who are pusing 9/11 Truth have their own political analysis, and when people start waking up to the inconsistencies in the official story this is the political analysis they are served.
Michael Parenti’s essay about JFK (http://www.leftgatekeepers.com/articles/conspiracyphobia.htm) is instructive I think.
Comment by Anonymous @ 8/26/2006 3:15 pm
“The [US govt] has used the 9/11 attack to invade two countries and to push back civil liberties. If there is another attack like 9/11 in this country we may have to live with outright martial lawa.”
Sure, but that’s true whether or not the US government had anything to do with 9/11. The arguments against American imperialism abroad, and repression at home, do not hinge on the government’s responsibility or otherwise for 9/11.
Comment by tim @ 8/26/2006 4:16 pm
Tim! Tim! I just awoke from a nap in which I dreamt that you had a bed whose bottom half was made of chocolate aero bars. I ate a bit but it tasted old because the bed had sometimes been outside and had therefore gotten wet on a few occasions. Whatever could it mean?
Comment by infinite thought @ 8/27/2006 9:04 am
Is the reason that Bush organised 9/11 or was complicit in order to have an excuse to attack Afghanistan and Iraq (again). Is that supposed to be the reason?
How many countries has the US gone to war with without this kind of full on justification? All you need to do is put a spin on the press -you know - democracy, freedom, blah.
When US forces killed thousands of people in Somalia with an often indiscriminate use of force which US citizens had to die to justify that? When the US sent troops to Vietnam they didn’t need to engineer some dubious terrorist attack to do so.
Basicly there are enough people in the US willing to salute the flag that the US government can more or less do what it likes abroad. They don’t need an excuse.
Or is there another reason they carried out these attacks?
(Incidently there is a big difference between a strawman argument and disagreeing on something, I sat through that boring film in order to hear the arguments, if I was going to dismiss them out of hand I would have done something more interesting instead)
The key thing is we need more people in the trade union, anti-war and anti-capitalist *movements* to effect change - you can’t beat these people by proving they are immoral.
Comment by jim jay @ 8/27/2006 12:07 pm
Somehow the US ogv’t only get its act together when the time comes to pull crazy, incredibly complex, conspiracies involving hundreds of people who all keep their mouths shut.
For little things, like warrentless wiretapping, the leaks just pour out.
My favorite idea is that a cruise missle hit the pentagon. I happen to be one of the hundreds who saw the plane hit with my own eyes … but some idiot who was no where near the area claims to “prove” it was a cruise missle based on a few seconds of video. Now I know why my grandmother, who saw Bergen Belsen as an army nurse in WWII, had such a violent reaction to Holocaust deniers.
Comment by xipetotec @ 8/27/2006 6:27 pm
For all their talk of being the ones who see the hidden truths, the peddlers are the epitome of “stupid americans” - they dont think something is real unless they see it on TV.
Comment by xipetotec @ 8/27/2006 6:33 pm
jim jay: You confused interception with shoot down, you claim that the Bush administration had more limited foreknowlege than it did, and you invent racist attitude or xenophobia for those who dare to question the official story.
In the case of Vietnam there was a false flag attack that justified the use of force, it’s called the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. In the Gulf War there was the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (along with false propaganda about incubator babies), an invasion that was given US Sanction before hand but which was then used to justify putting bases in Saudi Arabia and murdering some 100,000 Iraqis.
Also what makes the War on Terrorism different, more frightening, than Vietnam is that it is a perpetual war, a war without end and that it comes along with curtailing civil liberties.
Comment by Anonymous @ 8/27/2006 8:36 pm
In the case of Vietnam there was a false flag attack that justified the use of force, it’s called the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.
Defintion: “False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments which are designed to appear as if they are being carried out by other entities.”
The Gulf of Tonkin was not a “false flag” attack because the Vietnamese DID fire on the American ship - the lie concerned the circumstances surrounding the attack (we claimed it was unprovoked and in international waters, when actually it was provoked and in NV waters).
The same applies to the Invasion of Kuwait. Iraqi Forces, NOT american forces disguised as Iraqis, DID invade Kuwait.
Comment by xipetotec @ 8/27/2006 10:44 pm
xipetotec: My main point was not that the US always uses false flag operations, but that the US government almost always has to push the notion that the enemy is a threat in order to justify the use of force to the public and will manipulate events in order to provide such justifications. In the case of the Gulf War the US was very close to Saddam Hussein prior and gave a green light to his invasion of Kuwait. This in itself may not constitute a false flag but the perceived threat was clearly inflated, and my main point is clear enough.
Finally, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident did not occur in the manner you describe:
Media Beat (7/27/94)
By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon
Thirty years ago, it all seemed very clear.
“American Planes Hit North Vietnam After Second Attack on Our Destroyers; Move Taken to Halt New Aggression”, announced a Washington Post headline on Aug. 5, 1964.
That same day, the front page of the New York Times reported: “President Johnson has ordered retaliatory action against gunboats and ‘certain supporting facilities in North Vietnam’ after renewed attacks against American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.”
But there was no “second attack” by North Vietnam — no “renewed attacks against American destroyers.”
Comment by Anonymous @ 8/28/2006 1:34 pm
it, sorry your important questions got lost in this flurry of empiricism masquerading as science. I must say I find your dream very difficult to wring any meaning from, despite the fact that Aeros are surely the most Lacanian of all chocolate bars.
Comment by Tim @ 8/28/2006 11:11 pm
Yes, but I like the way my way-off-tangent comment seems strangely fitting…yes, Aeros are Lacanian aren’t they, hadn’t thought of that. I forgot to add you were in some kind of student room, permanently typing away at your computer (whilst not sleeping on your chocolate Lacanian bed). Let the meaning evaporate like hundreds of tiny holes in an Aero!
Comment by infinite thought @ 8/29/2006 7:06 am