4um: The 9/11 conspiracy plots thicken

They are politically diverse and include academics, ex-officials and Web surfers. All share a belief that the Bush administration played a role in the 9/11 attacks. Their numbers seem to speak to Americans' innate distrust of their government.

NEW YORK — He felt no shiver of doubt in those first terrible hours.

He watched the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and assumed al-Qaida had wreaked terrible vengeance. He listened to anchors and military experts and assumed the facts of Sept. 11, 2001, were as stated on the screen.

It was a year before David Ray Griffin, an eminent liberal theologian and philosopher, began his stroll down the path of disbelief. He wondered why Bush listened to a child's story while the nation was attacked and how Osama bin Laden, America's Public Enemy No. 1, escaped in the mountains of Tora Bora.

He wondered why 110-story towers crashed and military jets failed to intercept even one airliner. He read the 9/11 Commission report with a swell of anger. Contradictions were ignored and no military or civilian official was reprimanded, much less cashiered.

"To me, the report read as a cartoon," Griffin said. "It's a much greater stretch to accept the official conspiracy story than to consider the alternatives."

Such as?

"There was massive complicity in this attack by U.S. government operatives."

If that feels like a skip off the cliff of established reality, more Americans are in free fall than you might guess. There are few more startling measures of American distrust of leaders than the extent of belief that the Bush administration had a hand in the attacks of Sept. 11 to spark an invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.

36 percent suspicious

A recent Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll of 1,010 Americans found that 36 percent suspect the U.S. government promoted the attacks or intentionally sat on its hands. Sixteen percent believe explosives brought down the towers. Twelve percent believe a cruise missile hit the Pentagon.

Distrust percolates more strongly near Ground Zero. A Zogby International poll of New York City residents two years ago found 49.3 percent believed the government "consciously failed to act."

Establishment assessments of the believers tend toward the psychotherapeutic. Many academics, politicians and thinkers left, right and center say the conspiracy theories are a case of one plus one equals five. It's a piling up of improbabilities.

Thomas Eager, a professor of materials science at MIT, has studied the collapse of the twin towers. "At first, I thought it was amazing that the buildings would come down in their own footprints," Eager says. "Then I realized that it wasn't that amazing — it's the only way a building that weighs a million tons and is 95 percent air can come down."

But the chatter out there is loud enough for the National Institute of Standards and Technology to post a Web "fact sheet" poking holes in the conspiracy theories and defending its report on the towers.

The loose agglomeration known as the "9/11 Truth Movement" has stopped looking for truth from the government. A cacophonous and free-range a bunch of conspiracists, they produce hip-hop inflected documentaries and scholarly conferences. The Web is their mother lode. Every citizen is a researcher.

Did you see that the CIA met with bin Laden in a hospital room in Dubai? Check out this Pakistani site; there are really weird doings in Baluchistan ...

Peter Knight, senior lecturer in American studies at the University of Manchester and editor of the 2002 book "Conspiracy Nation: The Politics of Paranoia in Postwar America," called the movement "a strange beast, an amalgam of elements. You've got the anti-Bush, anti-Iraq war crowd — you know, if they lied about the war, maybe they lied about 9/11. Another part is people merely interested in the anomalies, with no preconceived political agenda.

"Then you have the more traditional right-wing conspiracy part of the continuum that believes a vast cabal has taken over the United States, the mega-conspiracy of the right's new world order. To them, all of these things are connected. Each group inserts 9/11 into its pre-existing conspiracy model."

The academic wing is led by Griffin, who founded the Center for a Postmodern World at Claremont University; James Fetzer, a tenured philosopher at the University of Minnesota; and Daniel Orr, retired chairman of the economics department at the University of Illinois.

The movement's de facto minister of engineering is Steven Jones, a tenured physics professor at Brigham Young University who has studied vectors and velocities and tested explosives and concluded that the collapse of the twin towers is best explained as controlled demolition, sped by a thousand pounds of high-grade thermite.

Jones has been placed on paid leave while the Mormon-church-owned school investigates his claims, it was announced Friday.

The physicist published his views two weeks ago in the book "9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out."

Former Reagan aide Barbara Honegger is a senior military-affairs journalist at the Naval Postgraduate School in California. She's convinced, based on her freelance research, that a bomb went off about six minutes before an airplane hit the Pentagon — or didn't hit it, as some believe the case may be.

Then there's Morgan O. Reynolds, appointed by George W. Bush as chief economist at the Labor Department. He left in 2002 and doesn't think much of his former boss.

"Who did it? Elements of our government and M-16 and the Mossad. The government's case is a laugh-out-loud proposition. They used patsies and lies and subterfuge and there's no way that Bush and Cheney could have invaded Iraq without the help of 9/11," Reynolds asserts.

They are cantankerous and sometimes distrust each other — who knows where the double agents lurk? But unreasonable questions resonate with the reasonable. Colleen Kelly's brother, a salesman, had breakfast at the Windows on the World restaurant on Sept. 11. After he died she founded September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows to oppose the Iraq war. She lives in the Bronx and gives a gingerly embrace to the conspiracy crowd.

"Sometimes I listen to them and I think that's sooooo outlandish and bizarre," she says. "But that day had such disastrous geopolitical consequences. If David Ray Griffin asks uncomfortable questions and points out painful discrepancies, good for him."

Griffin's book, "The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11," sold more than 100,000 copies and became a movement founding stone. Last year he traveled through New England, giving speeches. One evening in West Hartford, Conn., 400 mostly middle-aged and upper-middle-class doctors and lawyers, teachers and social workers sat waiting.

Griffin took the podium and laid down his ideas with calm and cool. He concluded:

"It is already possible to know beyond a reasonable doubt one very important thing: The destruction of the World Trade Center was an inside job, orchestrated by domestic terrorists. The welfare of our republic and perhaps even the survival of our civilization depend on getting the truth about 9/11 exposed."

Chip Berlet, senior analyst at Political Research Associates, a Boston-based left-leaning think tank, is no fan of the 9/11 Commission. He believes a serious investigation should have led to indictments and the firing of incompetent generals and civilian officials.

"They don't do their homework; it's a kind of charlatanism," says Berlet. "They say there's no debris on the lawn in front of the Pentagon, but they base their analysis on a photo on the Internet. That's like analyzing an impressionist painting by looking at a postcard.

"I love 'The X-Files' but I don't base my research on it. My vision of hell is having to review these [conspiracy] books over and over again."

In the days after Sept. 11, experts claimed temperatures reached 2,000 degrees on the upper floors. Others claimed steel melted. Nope. What happened, says Eager, the MIT materials-science professor, is that jet fuel sloshed around and beams got rubbery.

"It's not too much to think that you could have some regions at 900 degrees and others at 1,200 degrees, and that will distort the beams."

The truth movement doesn't really care for Eager. A Web site casts a fisheye of suspicion at the professor and his colleagues. "Did the MIT have prior knowledge?" notes one chat room. "This is for sure another speculative topic ... "

Professsor Jones' suspension was reported Friday by The Associated Press. Peter Knight was quoted by McClatchy Newspapers.

Yeah, the futures are looking good. With the shills tales all coming apart it might be a good time to buy a lot of that Kleenex stock.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Lord Acton

He (Gordon Duff) also implies that forcibly removing Obama, a Constitution-hating, on-the-down-low, crackhead Communist, is an attack on America, Mom, and apple pie. I swear these military people are worse than useless. Just look around at the condition of the country and tell me if they have fulfilled their oaths to protect the nation from all enemies foreign and domestic.
OsamaBinGoldstein posted on 2010-05-25 9:39:59 ET (2 images) Reply Trace

"One of the least understood strategies of the world revolution now moving rapidly toward its goal is the use of mind control as a major means of obtaining the consent of the people who will be subjects of the New World Order." K.M. Heaton, The National Educator

Oh, the delights of irony. Poor buckie is caught upon the horns of dilemma, but that's OK as usual he'll blow it off. ;-)

it wasn't FL and OI who were using the most vulgar language. why don't you all agree that you're never going to change each other's minds on 9/11 and either bozo each other or go on to other topics?

if that's not possible and the gross ad homs continue, i'll lock down this thread too.

You know, Buck, your perception is so cloudy on so many issues that I really can't agree with you. You are wrong so often on SO many issues, that I feel confident betting you are wrong again.

Meanwhile, you can continue posting those intellectual masterpieces from "How to Post Like Yukon" while you complain about the posts of others. I'm sure nobody will notice.

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ... We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of." Edward Bernays, Father of Public Relations

I refuse to waste my time re-examining a known fact and submitting it here... you know how to use the forum's technical capabilities... convince yourself.

Yes they did... and they lied about their conspiratorial theories based on BS and crap. What is going on, Christine.... is a serious problem on 4um.

The conspiracy theoreticians are being debunked (BEFORE THEIR EYES) with original data and FACTS. And they don't like it... so they lob all kinds of off topic remarcks ... that side-track the discussions.

* If you fullscreen this and watch carefully, at about :48 to :59, you can easily see the four foot thick core columns disintegrating and/or vaporizing.

Seriously, buck, you are sounding completely delusional. The thread is right there for anybody to read. AGAviator was, and continues to be on this thread, extremely vulgar.

You've been side tracking ad nauseum with he said, she said, poor victim, bitching, complaining, insulting, sniveling and sand box tirades.

when he wakes up in the morning he uses the quarter found in his teeth as proof some one loves him.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Lord Acton

lol.......I would post that hillarious clip from Tommy Boy, but, alas, you know of my embedding woes. : )

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Lord Acton

That thread you shut down at over one thousand posts was because ... FL did not come clean about himself (AND THE popcorn RABBLE_ROUSERS) after he begged and taunted AG for about 100 posts concerning an off-topic consideration.

AG and I both and a few others (from time to time) tried to bring the thread back to the subject matter based on the article posted. Time and again... we were berated with insults, plagerized silly animated gifs and back stabbing unbecoming of the thread topic.

Of course I finally got pissed off at 1200+ posts ... FL and his silly pals backed offed and repeatedly lied about FL's demands from post#527 to over post#900 ... wherein I had to PROVE that Hanjour was credentialed.

And after that... it was deny, play, deny, play..... and denigrate what I had thought was an outstanding subject to portray the silly issue of the conspiracy.

Look it all up yourself... to include when you remarcked to me "you were pwned."

there you go using words AGovshill and bucky won't understand, again. their school girl tears will be a deluge which in past cases have washed away entire threads. with the amount tooth gnashing they've done they will have but bony gums by tomorrow.

I don't know how replying to a post about "your boyfriend" with words like "circlejerk" or "fuckwit" is is any worse, than the original snide homoerotic remark that starts the exchange.

On this thread, Post #23 starts the gaybanter. My response is Post #26. Post #27 follows up on Post #23 looking for an opening. My response is on Post #28, saying I'm noting for the record who starts these things.

When I started posting on this subject a month ago, I made my position perfectly clear. There is a 911 connection with parts of the US MIC and Israel, but it goes through Saudia Arabia, Cairo, and Pakistan as well as Washington and Tel Aviv.

And it's a far greater and more supportable position that those US MIC/Israel elements had some willing accomplices and only needed to look the other way to let their other side cohorts do the work both sides wanted to happen, for different reasons.

Of course that isn't good anough for the 911 fanatics. They need to accuse everybody who doesn't subscribe to their theories 100% as being on the government side.

I also continue to note with every post that Noam Chomsky states the 911 CT's take discourse into unproductive territories, which is why they're not seriously suppressed by the PTB. Of course the reflex response of the CT's is to trash Chomsky.

Several people claiming to have bozoed buck and myself, nevertheless continue posting to his or my remarks on threads, either by claiming to look at replies to either of us whom they say they've bozoed, or looking at threads without logging in. People who say they'be bozoed someone should not be making any replies either direct or indirect. Anything else is lying and cheating.

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One of the major consequences of the 9/11 movement has been to draw enormous amounts of energy and effort away from activism directed to real and ongoing crimes of state, and their institutional background, crimes that are far more serious than blowing up the WTC would be, if there were any credibility to that thesis. That is, I suspect, why the 9/11 movement is treated far more tolerantly by centers of power than is the norm for serious critical and activist work....Noam Chomsky

that is until he draws the connection between the quarter and his jiz dribbling bung.

I would hope that everyone concerned realizes that the endless posting on the same subject is slowly dragging 4um down.

You are correct not my 4um but for my friends here, please show a little more respect for the rest of us.

they are vulgar. as i wrote on the other thread, the discussion has degenerated. if you all want to continue the exercise in futility, that's fine with me, but please do it without the vulgarity.

We have a serious disconnect... some of us want to believe in the TWOOFER_FAERIE™ and some of us want to believe in FACTS so as to enjoin the nation whole again.

The 9/11 conspiracy theories remove our capability to change this nation. But one thing I know... whether anyone has seen it or cares, AG and I have some of the lowest index scores of being on 4um .. which means that opinions are considered..... when a grain of truth or falsehood is stated.

well said. i don't wish to stifle good debate, but when it breaks down into nothing but insult after insult, that's not constructive.

Why don't you pick on FL and O_I as a result? They have stymied free and consistent debate with Bullshit and subterfuge... lying their asses all the way to thread pandemonium.

"From the thread history, it's very clear you "FUCKWITS, FUCKTARDS, and stupid fucks" start the name calling, then snivel and whine when you get repaid in kind. As for you personally, Circle Jerk Fag Hag, you have long ago forefeited any privileges being female by your own disrespect for others.

Your role as a group cheerleader for a group of cowardly jerkoffs who hide behind banning filters, then take sneak peeks by looking at replies, makes you someone deserving of the type of rants Mel Gibson serves up to Oksana.

Stop throwing stones you hypocrite. The difference between the other post and yours is that the other poster was JOKING while you are totally serious in your vulgar tirades.

bucky doesn't need proof he has government supplied talking points that to him and the other goofenheimer of the liar movement is all the evidence one should require.

Cyni, People are free to block the thread and/or any posters they don't like. Picture how many posts there would be if not for the 9/11 posts.

i addressed my post to ALL, buck. i wouldn't characterize what they've written as lies. it's their own interpretation of evidence. as i said, you are never going to change each other's minds. i'm not going to go round and round with you on this. everyone, please, just do as i've requested and cease the vulgarity.

No FACTS, no EVIDENCE, no WITNESSES ... just pure gossip, BS and innuendo/poppycock as usual .. and you probably wonder why I rarely (if ever) reply to you.

"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." ~ William Colby, Director, CIA 1973–1976

Nothing in the State, everything outside the State, everything against the State - Jan Lester, Escape From Leviathan

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it." - Frederic Bastiat

Would you consider that the endless posting and language is driving people away?

I come here frequently in the day, full page of same content, same few posters, I go elsewhere. I have been down this road before, have seen a good forum destroyed, by a handful of posters. I would disagree with you on this.

Your post wasn't to "ALL" at 181 it was to Cynicom. I replied to you @182 and now ... I am to blame ...