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this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024
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No Stupid Questions
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I didn’t actually believe this, but it was fun to entertain the idea.
Here’s why. At the time, there were a bunch of very odd coincidences. I’ll do my best to remember the best of them.
Next!
Next!
Edit: forgot one!
There are more, but it’s been 20 years and my memory is hazy.
Overall, there were some oddities around the whole event that, when allowing yourself to think completely outside of reality, make sense as to why it was an inside job.
Finally, personally I believe the Saudis did it in cooperation with Bin Laden and their goal was to bankrupt America. They did a pretty good job, from their perspective.
I can't vouch for the veracity of most of your content but I wanted to add that building 7 was also announced to have collapsed before it actually did.
Yep. There was also the quotes from Rudi Guilani where he said something along the lines of "Pull Building 7", where pull is demolitions parlance to set off the charges. This was like a day of audio snippet. Its also basically impossible to find the original footage that isn't pure conspiracy drivel, but I remember it from the time when all of this was happening. There was so much going on in the wake of 9-11, with the country pretty much instantaneously jumping into war mode, being immediately handed a narrative around al-Qaeda with no investigation into the causes or veracity of the government claims around al-Qaeda.
The push back on questioning the narrative was surreal. Like, you would be drawn and quartered publicly for doing so. The 'feeling' at the time was that the investigation into what actually happened and how felt like a complete sham that the government didn't really want to do because so many people weren't accepting the party narrative.
Also, keep in mind the context. There was a strong anti-war sentiment in 2003 going into the invasion of Iraq. The "9-11 was an inside job crowd" found themselves running with the anti-war crowd as general anti-institutionalists. This was when Alex Jones was just finding his footing and definitely wasn't quite fully right wing. He was more accurately (at the time, in historical context) anti-establishment. The modern right-wing movement hadn't fully formed, although it found its roots in this historical period (the Tea party would also come out of this period).
So just broadly consider the different vectors operating on public perception at the time. We were basically instantly construction a "Going to War is the Solution" narrative within hours of 9-11 happening, and the narrative around that construction was found to be fully formed as soon as it emerged, almost as if the institutions of the US government and its surrounding media had been prepared for this exact moment. Push back against this was effectively an instantaneous scarlett letter and there basically was none in US mainstream media*. There was a strong push back against any kind of independent investigation into the events leading up to the event. We got reports from the CIA and FBI, but considering the context, like, if those are the parties in question, do you believe them? Then you had the Saudi Bush family connections, the fact that we were basically going to war with Afghanistan when we knew it was the Saudis that did 9-11, which was like a pretty big red flag. Then there were the reports that globally, many governments warned about this happening to US intelligence agencies, but it seemed like they just kind of let it happen. Which is really where the conspiracy was focused. These days it gets too wrapped up in 'inside job' etc, but the general scheme was more about 9-11 being allowed to happen as an excuse for a Bush invasion into the middle east. This wasn't a conspiracy that was built in hindsight, the speculation was built in real time (before the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq), and then go figure, Bush invades the middle east, and specifically, goes after Iraq. This basically fully validates the theory, and to put a cherry on top, the evidence on Iraq was all just.. fraudulent. So if you limit the scope of the theory to 9-11 was 'allowed' to occur to justify a military industrial complex incursion into the middle east, its kind-of like "well yeah duh" because thats exactly what happened.
Wild fukin time and wild bit of history. Important to keep context in mind, and to have sources of information about the past which aren't 'edited' to reflect newthink.
*Democracy Now did exist by this time (finding its establishment after the Seattle WTO protests). If you want to really understand what was going on at the time, this would be the media source I would recommend.
Do you write? I really enjoyed reading your comments, just flowed naturally talented
Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it.
I'm a scientist, so I do 'write' professionally, but its a very different kind of writing than I do here, and I would say that they are entirely seperate (excepting my discussion sections where I afford a bit more liberty to style, although I tend to be more focused on methods in my publications, where I don't give myself as much liberty).
I attribute my writing style to years of participating in forums and threaded discussion boards, starting in the early 90s. I try to use quotes from who I'm replying to, hyper links, bold and italics for emphasis, but to use a conversational/ editorial style. When I was coming up on the internet, I truly believed that the internet allowed for the democratization of ideas, in that, on the internet you have no appeal to authority on your credentials or name or background. The only weight you can provide is rhetoric and whatever evidence you can scuff up, and because of that, the best ideas should find their way to the top. Boy was I wrong, but I still believe in the virtue of good ideas, and that belief is part of my motivation for being involved in places like (formerly) reddit or (currently) lemmy.
I would attribute not to all the writing you've done, but all the reading.
As a scientist, how did you feel at the time about the railroading of scientist Bruce Ivins for the Anthrax scare?
Before the Bush election, Cheney and Rumsfeild belonged to a think tank called a New American Century that created the plan to invade Iraq in order to create a government friendly to the US.
One author even said that America would need a new Pearl Harbor to regain its military strength.
I mean, this shit writes itself. If history were a work of political fiction, it would be called out as tropish, too on the nose and goofy to sustain disbelief.
The vast majority of the time, the pushback was low effort "asking questions" based on fundamental misunderstanding of the subject matter or entirely pulled our of their asses.
Bro say what you will about the baselessness of it, but 9-11 conspiracy theorists were anything but low effort. People made documentaries, traveled to track down steel, built media enterprises off the back of it.
Time consuming sure; But doubling down on their own fundamental misunderstandings and preconceived notions isn't what I would classify as real effort.
And those people are all people like Alex Jones and Paul Joseph Watson who are totally shameless liars and manipulators, all his 911 truth stuff led to stuff like the sandy hook denials and maga nonsence.
Yes, terrible people all.
But not lazy people. Not 'low effort'. Its important to get criticism right. These people went completely down a rabbit hole and committed to it fully. In doing so they were able to form a kind of platform that would buoy the communication and mental frameworks that have set up the current white nationalist and christian fascist movements. They invested enough effort to effectively and successfully restructure American politics. If not for the work they did in this time period, which might reflect banal in juxtaposition, the MAGA movement of 2016-current might not actually exist.
Yes. Terrible people and actions of huge consequence in hind sight. But not people just lazily asking questions.
The if you truly find your self in opposition to white nationalism, fascism, dominionism and zionism, you do both yourself and the rest of us a disservice if you fail to understand history and how these movements form and function, and what motivates these people to do what they do. To trivialize their efforts, its to underestimate them, and to set all of us in a position of weakness relative to a common opponent. These people are not for lack of effort, they do not lack for resources, and they are clever, if wrong in the conclusions they've made about the world. They are organized, motivated, funded, and fully committed to the vision. This final bit, their commitment, is the part that white liberals simply can-not comprehend. These people lack the cynicism that permeates white liberalism. They truly believe the things they do - whereas white liberals will only associate with political movements that are safe, low social impact, and demand little from themselves. White liberalism mistakes that every one else is as cynical as they are. See the comments by @phillaholic as an example of this political philosophy. Because of this cynicism, they constantly and completely underestimate the strength of their opponents. Examples of this political philosophy in action and its consequences are represented in modern political history throughout: Bush v Gore; The anti-war movement of 2003; The housing market collapse of 2007-8 and the refusal to hold capitol accountable in that time; Occupy Wallstreet; Obamas entire 8 years as president; Clinton campaign 2014-16; All of the investigations into the Trump administration 2016-2020; BLM 2016-2021; etc. We are all bearing the cost borne of the cynical heart of white liberalism.
You should never underestimate true believers.
Incorrect information in a chaotic situation? Would never happen!
Countless incorrect things were announced. Everyone was collectively panicking. That's odd, but it doesn't necessarily mean anything considering the building was already visibly damaged.
The building had been on fire for hours at that point with no water pressure to run the sprinklers or allow firefighters to effectively combat it. It was decided to stop efforts to save the building as it was presumed the integrity of the structure was damaged beyond repair.
As for the reporters announcing it collapsing early, its doubtful that it was anything but one of many mistakes reporters made live on air hours into an exhausting day of chaos. Maybe that had been told the building was going to collapse at any minute or maybe they had been told efforts to stop collapse had ceased and an assumption was made by the crew on the ground it had already fell. As I recall it was the BBC that said it fell before it actually did, so the idea of a foreign news outlet being in on a false flag conspiracy is just too ridiculous to be believable over something such as an exhausted reporter misspeaking in the middle of an emotionally overwhelming day.
A building fire started by jet fuel absolutely can melt steel beams, and the collapse of building 7 occurred exactly as you would expect from a building fire, which happened because the fire in the other buildings was blown across by the wind and explosions. None of the building collapse videos look like a demolition.
If the government wanted to execute an attack on Americans, why not just fund the terrorists and ignore warnings? Let the jihadists crash planes into buuldings. Setting hidden, controlled demolition charges and trying to make it look like a collapse is harder than finding some terrorists willing to die for their cause and teaching them to fly.
It is conceivable to me that members of the intelligence community, the military-industrial complex, and/or the government ignored warnings and allowed the attacks to happen for their own benefit. I would prefer to think it wasn't true, but I must concede that it would explain many inconsistencies.
It is theoretically possible, but implausible to me, that those same people would coordinate the attacks and support the terrorists to ensure that the attacks would happen as a false flag operation. This is an extraordinary claim with almost no evidence.
It is not in any way possible that the government demolished any of the buildings attacked on purpose and then covered up all evidence of the demolition. There would need to be too many people involved, too many videos altered or destroyed, and too much evidence planted after the fact. It is demonstrably false.
It wasnt the first skyscraper fire, but it was the first and still only skyscraper to collapse from a fire. So no i wouldnt say its expected at all.
Depends on who you ask. https://www.nist.gov/world-trade-center-investigation/study-faqs/wtc-7-investigation#Collapse
Even if you ask them
There’s a first for everything. And after reading the report, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that a building under those conditions would be expected to fail.
like a first for govenment coverup of a building demolition disguised as a terror attack?
Could have been, but it wasn’t. It’s utterly absurd to think it was logistically possible to do so without anyone seeing or leaking anything. That plot wouldn’t make it out of 9th grade creative writing class.
As I said with the very first statement, I don’t believe any of this.
This is exactly what many tinfoil hatters thought and probably still think.
I mean... In a way they were financed and armed by the US, just not recently...
The main one for me was that NORAD, for the first time ever, was "stress testing" their system and running every flight sim they had, so when things went down, they had no idea what was real and what wasn't.
The order to do so, for the first time, unprovoked, unnecessarily and unneededly came from Dick Cheney himself, who didn't even have the authority to order the Pentagon to do ANYTHING but his orders were followed regardless.
That's a pretty big discrepancy. It's really hard for me to rule that one out
Building 7 is a big leap of faith to hurdle.
The twin towers themselves collapsing in a controlled manner, that doesn't happen without blowing individual floors. Buildings in war zones don't fall down vertically, they'll partially collapse or fall over, not straight down - that ONLY happens with controlled demolition.
That's a big leap of faith.
Like almost everyone else, I was glued to the TV all day on 9/11. I remember when the Pentagon footage was aired on TV. It was played ONCE. That was a missile. It was clear as day. Beyond that, if it was an airplane, where's the fucking wreckage? Cuz that would be the first plane crash in all of history that left zero wreckage.
That's a big leap of faith.
It requires to many leaps of faith to believe the given story. Idk the whole of what happened, but I know we weren't told it.
The Patriot Act was introduced 5 weeks after the attack. 342 pages, no contradictions in the whole thing. Introduced, passed, and signed into law in 4 days. 5 weeks isn't enough time to read 350 pages of legalese, let alone write it. It was ready to go
Add to all the sus, America's government post WW2, at least, has not warranted any trust from the public. The CIA has done a LOT of fucked up, illegal shit to us. The Bay of Tomkin was a false flag fucking lie to the people. The incessant lie of Neoliberalism telling us that GDP is up! But everyone's quality of life is being striped away faster than our rights. Citizens United is bullshit, 2000 election was bullshit, Iraq and Afghanistan were both bullshit, qualified immunity and civil asset forfeiture are fucking repressive FASCIST bullshit and yea, you know, I don't think the people calling the shots have our best interests in mind, how could you?
"_______ doesn't happen without _______" all all bullshit based on nothing. NIST has published their findings. They had 200 Experts, 125 of which came from the private sector investigate how the towers came down, and there is absolutely no evidence what so ever that they were brought down in a controlled manner. I even remember watching a documentary that interviewed the owner or engineer of one of the US's top demolition companies that easily pokes holes in the idea that a major skyscraper with people, furniture, etc could be brought down like that at all. It's total nonsense. NIST has a FAQ page
Someone showed a video of WTC 7 collapsing to a Dutch demolitions expert. He said it was clearly brought down in a controlled demolition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JXRctbAkQE
Sure, one guy looks at a video for twenty seconds and that counters 200 experts spending months researching and simulating it and those opinions are equal. If it were clear, you’d have thousands of experts claiming it. In reality, you have one guy willing to tarnish his reputation by making an impulse statement after seeing none of the facts.
This is a textbook example of cherry picking.
Donald Trump's presidency pretty much removed any doubt I had about the official 9/11 story.
He proved that our government is full of regular idiots who are just barely able to work together. Of course the 3 letter agencies have a lot of power and fancy technology, but if the CIA or NSA was seriously that in control of this country, Trump would have never happened. He is a bumbling moron who did a ton of damage to this country and nobody lifted a finger apparently? Damaging alliances, burning undercover assets, etc.
Our Congress can't work together long enough to pass basic bills. No way the Patriot act was planned with a false flag in mind.
The 9/11 conspiracy is just way too big and would need way too many participants to keep it under wraps like that.
Plus, every big disaster has conspiracy theories. If you believe all of them, you're pretty much saying bad things never happen without the overlords planning them. 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, JFK assassination, RFK assassination, Pearl Harbor, and every other major event have had massive conspiracy theories and claims that they were inside jobs.
Yeah, the official story has holes but reality is messy. It was a big attack involving/affecting a lot of agencies, corporations, and people. It's pretty much guaranteed that out of the measly 365 days in a year, a lot of these groups and individuals would be doing their "once a year" inspections, misremember details in their panic, deal with other terrorist attacks, intersect with ongoing crimes that were being committed separately, etc.
Seriously, a plane crashed into one of the biggest and wealthiest business centers in the world. The conspiracy theories write themselves no matter how clear the evidence is. Of course one of those companies has ties to foreign governments, obviously one of the CEOs is commiting fraud, one of the employees is bound to have worked for the government in a sensitive role. Imagine the ties you could find on one of the planes alone. Every plane in the sky right now has a politician's relative, a political activist, a criminal, a foreign diplomat, high-ranking military, or all of the above. All of these things would spark a great conspiracy theory. Imagine the things you could find if you wanted to blame Boeing. Start looking into details about every employee they have and connect some dots. It's easy.
Oh I agree, you dig for dirt, you'll find it, guarenteed. Whether or not it's actually connected and not happenstance, that's a different story.
You only need you and 23 other people in a room to find two people with the same birthday. Coincidence is much more common than we think, just like true random doesn't feel like random to us, and if something doesnt make sense, the brain can basically retcon on the spot and you'll believe it as dogma to your core.
It's important to be aware of and to acknowledge our limitations, for sure. Crazy important.
But let's keep playing. Take my comment and strike out everything about the buildings falling and I'm still calling it sus.
Were we just that unlucky that the first ever stress test of NORAD happened to coincide? Maybe, it's a possibility, an extremely small one. 1/18687 to be exact. Not very probable.
How about the missile into the Pentagon that was broadcast on live TV? The gas station footage was broadcast not the actual live event. Story goes reporters found a single camera that hadn't already been seized and was pointing in the right direction.
So I'm a poli sci guy. Where normal people flow sports teams or celebrities, I follow politics. Global politics as well as domestic, both federal and my state. It's just what I do. Easily I've read 50+ articles a day since 1997. EASILY. That day was the first day for me at a new tree service, and I was the first guy to arrive at the arborists house before we rolled out and I delivered the news of the attack. Guys started showing up, we had the news flipped on and BAM 2nd Impact. Work was called off that day, after that. The Pentagon news came about 2 hours later, we were all still sitting in the arborists living room, just watching when the footage played, so 5 sets of eyes saw it and I said bullshit that's a plane. 2 guys were ex military, they went off, about wreckage, how small the impact is. I can not forget that memory, besides the 2nd tower falling, the Pentagon lie, a quick oopsies they hoped ppl would forget if they just lied loud enough and fast enough, that redacting in real time, really set the dark tone that was to come. It wasn't that we were just attacked. Some part of it was opportunistic.
2001 was basically the stone ages compared to now. The Internet was still geocities, a/s/l chatrooms. All your base had JUST belonged to us. It would've taken a whole lot less individuals to conduct something in an unmonitored world.
I don't claim to know what happened, I just knew we're being lied too. There's no theory, just calling bullshit for what it is.
There was plenty of wreckage. There were no big chunks of fuselage or wings or engines, but that isn’t uncommon with extreme accidents. A plane at high speed slamming into the ground, a cliff, or a heavily reinforced building, is going to disintegrate into pretty small pieces, making investigations difficult. And indeed there are photos of small chunks of plane wreckage found at the Pentagon on 9/11.
How can you not believe any of what you wrote but also say that you believe the Saudis did it? The Bush-Saudi connection was known for a decade before September 11th.
Bush Sr. literally invaded Iraq to protect Saudi oil interests. No one at the top actually believed Saddam was an immediate threat to U.S. interests.
The only planes that flew out of the U.S. after the attacks were Saudi nationals who were granted exception by the White House to flee the country.
I'm not the person you're responding to, but where I land on the question is basically I think there's a very good chance that GWB knew about a credible threat of something like 9/11 happening and deliberately chose not to interfere. So more like an act by intentionally doing nothing.
It's been pretty well publicized that the lack of collaboration between the three letter agencies allowed them to slip through the cracks. Foreign intelligence knew about it, but domestic wasn't aware. The fact of the matter is, they aren't just sitting around getting 1 of these reports every couple months that they have to investigate. They get Thousands of these constantly. There's a declassified docuseries on Netflix, that despite being "copaganda" to a degree, all describe legitimate threats that could have turned into big things if they were left along. There's no doubt what the individuals intended to do. I don't think the Bush Administration left anyone do anything, they simply didn't let a tragedy go to waste.
Do I think Dubya sat around in dark rooms in 2001 with Bin Laden, planning every stage of 9/11? Absolutely not. I don't know any serious Truther who does, either. But there's no doubt in my mind that some members of the Bush admin and the Pentagon knew in advance that something big was going to happen. That, in my mind, is qualitive enough to be an inside job
The word "serious" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. There are a ton of truthers out there with some truly unhinged theories about 9/11, and I'd say that the unhinged truthers outnumber the reasonable ones by a fair bit.
Because I knew someone would take the bait. The saudis did it is another conspiracy theory from the time.
The conspiracy theories around 9/11 are almost as numerous and as fun to play with as JFK assassination.
Of course, the meme is a parody of anyone who thinks that's a legitimate argument. You don't need to liquify a material for it to lose its structural integrity.
No, people actually believed it from day 1.
Yes, people believed "jet fuel can't melt steel beams", but the meme is a parody of people who believed it.
Sometimes parodies are just literal reflections.
Building 7 had one of the towers fucking fall on it, was seen bulging massively before collapsing, and it was pretty obvious what was going to happen, hence people getting confused and saying it had already collapsed.
Weren’t the towers completely closed just prior to the incident?