See other Resistance Articles
Title: A Conspiracy Against Us All
Source:
NRO
URL Source: http://article.nationalreview.com/? ... M0M2ZjOTUwZWU4YWRiMjRlOTVjZGM=
Published: Sep 11, 2006
Author: Andrew Cline
Post Date: 2006-09-16 13:16:49 by It Is A Republic
Keywords: None
Views: 34654
Comments: 428
Five years after 9/11, the truth about what happened that day is more thoroughly documented and widely available than ever. And yet the crackpot conspiracy theories alleging that the Bush administration orchestrated the attacks or allowed them to happen have become more deeply entrenched and broadly accepted than at any time since that terrible day. More than a third (36 percent) of the American public believes it is likely that the Bush administration either perpetrated the 9/11 attacks or deliberately failed to stop them “because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East,” according to a Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll released last month. A Zogby poll in August 2004 found that half of New York City residents believed the Bush administration knew the attacks were coming and “consciously failed to act.” The true believers might be a tiny fringe element, but thanks to the Internet, hack academics, and a passive media, they have succeeded in planting a grain of doubt in the minds of a substantial number of Americans. The Internet is a brilliant vehicle for the dissemination of half-truths — or what only have the appearance of half-truths. Presenting one-sided versions of the story, which usually leave out mountains of available data, and armed with a few snapshots or video clips, conspiracy theorists have crafted page after page of “proof” of their theories. For example, photographs showing dust and smoke shooting out of the towers as they collapse are cited on website after website as proof that the towers were brought down by explosions. The theory is reasonable enough, so long as you ignore all the available evidence — which is exactly what the theorists do. Numerous engineers who’ve studied the towers, and even ones who haven’t, have concluded that the puffs of smoke and debris are the result of air being pressed outward by the force of the top floors falling. It is really rather elementary: The physical space occupied by any office building consists mostly of air; if the top floors fall, where does the air in the floors below go? Out. There is no other option. Yet the theorists claim that this perfectly expected expulsion of air is proof that bombs were used. The most prevalent theory is that the government brought the towers down by controlled demolition. This is what Brigham Young University physics professor Steven Jones, put on leave by BYU last week, believes — once again, despite the preponderance of facts showing otherwise. Jones and his followers believe that the government placed thermite explosives in the buildings and brought them down by detonation. Never mind that thousands of pounds of explosives would somehow have to have been planted throughout the towers — in office space, behind walls, etc. — without anyone noticing. The “proof” of this theory is that the towers came down so quickly: The resistance of the lower floors would have slowed the collapse — unless, that is, the lower floors were exploded. The video evidence clearly refutes this claim. The towers unquestionably collapsed from the top down, not bottom up. The force of the collapsing top floors, combined with the weakened steel below, were enough to bring the towers down remarkably quickly — almost in free fall, in fact. A good example of the flimsiness of the conspiracy theories is the claim that a video shows “molten steel” falling from one of the towers. A jet-fuel fire is not strong enough to melt steel, so the picture “proves” that thermite explosives were used. The National Institutes for Standards and Training found was that the photo really shows melted aluminum from one of the aircraft. The theorists scream that melted aluminum is white, and the metal in question is clearly yellow, case closed. In its pure state, melted aluminum is white, but of course, it wasn’t pure when coming out of the towers. It was mixed with all the other burned debris, which changed its color. The conspiracy theories rely on just that sort of thinking. They approach 9/11 as if it were a controlled scientific experiment: In theory, things are supposed to work in a certain way; because they did not, the official story cannot be true. Conspiracy theorists have little patience for facts of life, such as bureaucratic incompetence, human error, and extreme conditions. They tend to believe that the government functions at peak, even superhuman, levels. Their regard for the government — or at least, for the competence of the government — is particularly strange. The top conspiracy theorist, David Ray Griffin, claims the official story cannot possibly be true is because “such incompetence by FAA officials is not believable.” The support of “academics” such as Griffin has lent much credence to the conspiracy mongers, but how credible are these academics? Last Wednesday Britain’s Daily Mail published a story claiming: “The 9/11 terrorist attack on America which left almost 3,000 people dead was an ‘inside job,’ according to a group of leading academics.” But the group in question, Scholars for 9/11 Truth, of which Griffin is the most prominent member, is in no sense a “group of leading academics.” It is a collection of like-minded crackpot theorists who happen to have some connection to academia. Scholars for 9/11 Truth claims about 300 total members, 76 of whom have “academic affiliations,” according to its founder, retired University of Minnesota-Duluth philosophy professor James H. Fetzer. He told this to my newspaper, the New Hampshire Union Leader, last month when one of our reporters discovered that a University of New Hampshire professor was a member and wanted to teach a class on 9/11. The UNH professor, William Woodward, teaches psychology — not engineering or physics — is a Quaker pacifist previously arrested for demonstrating at the office of U.S. Senator Judd Gregg, and has a long history of left-wing activism. When asked by a reporter to explain his theory that the planes were not hijacked airliners, Woodward admitted that he could not account for the missing passengers who boarded their flights and never returned. Nonetheless, he was convinced that he was right — because the official 9/11 report left too much unexplained, he said. That is how it usually is in the world of conspiracy theorists. It seems that they all claim the official story cannot be true because it has too many holes, yet goes on to posit a theory with holes large enough to, well, fly a jumbo jet through. Some members of Scholars for 9/11 Truth are or were legitimate academics of good standing at reputable institutions. Yet, of the 76 Fetzer identifies as having “academic affiliations,” there are many with questionable credentials. A partial list includes a “visiting professor of English” at Kyungpook National University in Daegu, South Korea; an assistant professor of English literature at Dogus University in Istanbul; someone whose qualifications are listed only as “Radiology, Medical hypnosis”; another whose qualifications are “French language and culture”; someone who teaches at Tunxis Community College in Farmington, Conn.; another listed as “architect, communicator”; one professor of “English and theater” at the University of Guelph (that’s in Ontario); and one listed as “author, researcher 9/11, JFK, more.” These are some of the “leading academics” promoting the view that the government did 9/11. One author with an article posted on the Scholars for 9/11 Truth website goes by the name “Scooby Doo.” Of the 76 full members of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, only four are listed as having backgrounds in physics, three in engineering; the other 69 “scholars” are mostly in the humanities and social sciences. Not quite what you’d expect when you hear that a group of “leading academics” supports the theory that the government was behind the attack. What do the vast majority of actual engineers and investigators who’ve studied the attacks conclude? Not unexpectedly, that the towers and the Pentagon were attacked by airliners hijacked by radical Islamic extremists, and the towers collapsed as a result of the aircraft collisions and fires. Every major investigation, from the 9/11 Commission to a panel of experts assembled by Popular Mechanics magazine to the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), has come to the same conclusion. And yet more and more people continue to believe the handful of conspiracy nuts. Why? The Internet bears some responsibility, of course. But the amateur speculation so prevalent there can be cancelled out to a large degree by top-notch investigative reporting, which is what the big media are supposed to do. In this, however, the media have been less than thorough, and, to a large extent, the 9/11 conspiracy theories have spread because the mainstream media have failed in their duty to get to the truth of the matter. Popular Mechanics did an excellent job refuting the conspiracy theorists, as has the NIST. But their work has been little explored by the mainstream press. On top of that, media outlets have tended to do puff pieces on the conspiracy theorists rather than expose their shoddy research. Too many reports on the conspiracy nuts treat them as if their ideas are to be given the same consideration as the facts. The conspiracy theorists are given the standard J-school “fairness treatment.” Get a quote from Person A and another from Person B, present both sides evenly, and leave it at that. The Washington Post did exactly that in its piece on the conspiracy theorists last Friday. What ever the merits of that approach, it doesn’t work in this case. None of the conspiracy theories can stand up to scrutiny; that they have stood up at all is mostly because the mainstream press has not given them any real scrutiny. The academics tend to be treated with the respect any other academic would get, and because they are professors the stories are made to read just like any other dispute between professors. But in reality, the scholars peddling the 9/11 theories are practicing almost entirely outside of their realm of expertise (e.g., Griffin, the theologian) and are an ultra-tiny minority dismissed as crackpots by the vast majority of the academic world, not to mention the world of engineering. As a result, five years after nearly 3,000 innocent people were slaughtered by radical Islamic terrorists, and just as the War on Terror enters an important new phase in which President Bush has vowed to take on both al Qaeda and its allies, and Iran and its puppets, a third of the American people reportedly think the enemy is not the jihadists, who are trying to destroy us, but our own government, which is trying to defend us against the real threat. This is a serious development. If people don’t understand who the real enemy is, if they doubt the very basis upon which our response to 9/11 was initiated, they are not going to support our necessary war against those who are trying to destroy us. One may have his doubts about the Iraq war; and the Bush administration, in its justification and execution, has earned a great deal of the skepticism about that conflict. But the War on Terror is another matter entirely. The skepticism about that has not been earned; it has been manufactured. We cannot allow the truth of what happened on 9/11 to be clouded by the conspiracy nuts. America cannot afford to lose the will to fight this war.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
Comments (1-313) not displayed.
.
.
.
#314. To: Morgana le Fay (#310)
I read somewhere that buckeroo was hispanic and only recently arrived in the country. The difference in cultures could explain a lot. I will go look for the source now.
Maybe he'll bring one next time.
If we were really at war, the borders would be closed.
he is always trying to push our buttons and play with our heads.
how do you get government grants? i am sick of my work and would rather sponge off buckeroo and his ilk.
Morgana...we're talking about the Liberace of the internet(s). He wants to play with more than heads.
buuuuck..i tell you to look and see that Minerva's not an old lady and now i'm vouching for member's backgrounds? hey, i vouched for you too then when i said you were kinda cute after you showed me your picture in your cowboy hat. :P
So, you put him the miserable failure category. Check.
If we were really at war, the borders would be closed.
make buckeroo post his picture on his home page.
I found one.
If we were really at war, the borders would be closed.
i want him to post one he chooses. that is more revealing.
He has to post it himself. If someone gets a picture without his permission we can't really make fun of it. He'll just accuse us of invading his privacy. It's better to twist his arm until he puts one up himself. Then it can be fair game.
we don't really want a picture of buckeroo per se, we want one that we can make fun of without people coming down on us.
i want him to post one he chooses. that is more revealing. Then I probably have the one you want.
If we were really at war, the borders would be closed.
When should we start the clock?
If we were really at war, the borders would be closed.
Makes sense to me.
If we were really at war, the borders would be closed.
I have no idea what It Is A Republic means. Prompted by his comment, I have reconsidered my posting, and it is still my considered opinion.
Katrina was America's Chernobyl.
ask him if you can post the picture. if he says yes then we can make fun of his picture. if he says no then we can make fun of him for being a chicken shit.
No. He is not the boss.
If we were really at war, the borders would be closed.
OK, I'll try to post it again.
my pictuure is on my home page. i just put it on like any other picture. zipporah, christine, pandora and minerva all have their pictures up too.
OK, it does post, it just doesn't show in preview.
are you in jail in that picture? i see bars and stone walls.
That is the back door to the Portland Saturday Market building off of Burnside Street in Portland, Oregon where I used to work. I am holding a bicycle I am about to get on and ride home. This was taken after working overnight Friday night to Saturday morning; a 12 hour shift. There are two collapsibles behind me inside the building they rent to people new to selling at the market. The Iron gate keeps guys from peeing right at the backdoor. That is skid row up there after all.
If I'm allowed to say this, you are all very good-looking ladies. Or should I say "wymmyn"? :P
Hey Mike. That's a great pic of you, but a word to the wise. Bucky is going to be all over you like white on rice.
minerva used to model in the art department at ucsb. there are many paintings of her still in the area. one was in the Santa Barbara public library for a while.
this is probably correct. that is why i just show a portion of my face now. i did have a full view photo up but there are just too many weirdos.
And you (again if I can say this without getting the "black candle" treatment :P) look like a much prettier version of Joni Mitchell...and I already thought she was pretty! (But if you're like Minerva, you'll just pretend you're too young to know who Joni Mitchell is... :P)
And quite a face it is, Morgana. Are you free next weekend?
I'm sorry Mike, but I just don't find you attractive---you need a better 'do... :P
joni mitchell hangs out in a cafe on abbot kinney in venice. i forget the name, but is it at the corner of the street that runs back into the gang infested area. i think it is called harry's. she always sits in a table in back alone. sometimes she is also in the rose cafe in santa monica on sunday morning. my friend sylvianne lives in venice and we see her all the time. joni mitchell has a house on grand canal.
Her lover (well, at one time...) Dave Crosby brought her out to LA, I think... Before that, IIRC, she was trying her luck in the "folk music" scene in NY, and I'm certain she still has a place there, IIRC in the Dakota of John Lennon assassination notoriety... Lived in or near Venice when I first moved to LA (my son was born in Santa Monica Hospital). It's vibrant and exciting, but my ex and I decided it just wasn't the place to raise kids---not "breeder friendly".... ;)
david crosby used to live in santa barbara. we would see him in the breakfast place on state street and about ortega. he looked terrible in those days. he needed a liver transplant. i guess he got it because he started looking better and people said it was because of his transplant.
my friend sylvianne has a house on grand canal and i was her roomate for about a year before I came here. we had a lot of fun. the old boat house for the gondolas was nearby and about once a week they either had an art opening or some other function there. we would also go to the directors guild up on sunset for movie previews. there was always a party afterward. we knew a very striking woman who did nothing but throw big parties in other people's houses. she charged people $20 to get in and made her living that way. we would go to the trubador and the house of blues on sunset for music. i could run to the venice pier from our house and then run all the way up under the santa monica pier every evening. did you ever see the big roller on the beach next to the santa monica pier? it is a sculpture and when it rolls it stamps out a miniature city in the sand on the beach.
I know that place---Danish theme right? Pastries, good omelettes, etc. Crosby was looking like a nauseous walrus for a while. He's a walking advertisement for "Everything in moderation." Unfortunately rock star status is not conducive to moderation in anything. I'm glad though that the transplant seems to have worked---I do want him as a living example...
it was a straight omlet place. just greasy breakfasts with hashbrowns. everyone would go there. you had to sit outside on benches waiting to get in on sunday. it was kitty corner from the old sea plane factory where all the art studios were. just before the dip under the freeway.
West LA in general is a hell of a fun place if you're young, good-looking and unattached. Expensive though: about 15 years ago a guy in the LA office of my firm complained: "There's only one word for what $1 million will get you on the Westside, and that's DUMP!!" did you ever see the big roller on the beach next to the santa monica pier? it is a sculpture and when it rolls it stamps out a miniature city in the sand on the beach. I vaguely recall it. What I remember most vividly about the old Pier in Santa Monica were the Asian guys trying to fish off of it! :P
OK, I think I know that place too. One time I went there with the kids when they were much younger and my daughter had the fresh fruit plate---she talked about it for years after that. She's now a confirmed vegetarian---real "California girl"... :P
That was last summer, my hair is actually longer now. But at age 52, I don't care about games concerning about who finds me attractive or not. And I have a feeling it will just get worse the older I get. ;-)
Well, you don't know what *I* look like... So.. count your blessings... ;)
Looks like you finally ran off Liberace. Haven't seen him since this morning.
Comments (355 - 428) not displayed.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#315. To: Morgana le Fay (#310)
play mind games with us
#316. To: jessejane (#315)
#317. To: Minerva (#314)
#318. To: Morgana le Fay (#316)
and play with our heads.
#319. To: buckeroo (#299)
#320. To: Morgana le Fay (#316)
he is always trying to push our buttons and play with our heads.
#321. To: christine (#319)
#322. To: Morgana le Fay (#321)
#323. To: jessejane (#322)
#324. To: jessejane (#322)
#325. To: jessejane (#322)
(Edited)
I found one.
#326. To: Morgana le Fay (#323)
#327. To: Minerva (#324)
He has to post it himself. If someone gets a picture without his permission we can't really make fun of it. He'll just accuse us of invading his privacy. It's better to twist his arm until he puts one up himself. Then it can be fair game.
#328. To: Morgana le Fay (#325)
we don't really want a picture of buckeroo per se, we want one that we can make fun of without people coming down on us.
#329. To: ..., It Is A Republic (#307)
You know better than that.
#330. To: jessejane (#326)
Then I probably have the one you want.
#331. To: Morgana le Fay (#330)
ask him if you can post the picture. if he says yes then we can make fun of his picture. if he says no then we can make fun of him for being a chicken shit.
#332. To: Morgana le Fay (#330)
(Edited)
#333. To: Ferret Mike (#332)
(Edited)
#334. To: Morgana le Fay (#333)
(Edited)
#335. To: Ferret Mike (#334)
#336. To: Morgana le Fay (#335)
(Edited)
#337. To: Morgana le Fay (#333)
my pictuure is on my home page. i just put it on like any other picture. zipporah, christine, pandora and minerva all have their pictures up too.
#338. To: Ferret Mike (#334)
#339. To: Peetie Wheatstraw (#337)
#340. To: Jethro Tull, Ferret Mike (#338)
That's a great pic of you, but a word to the wise. Bucky is going to be all over you like white on rice.
#341. To: Morgana le Fay (#339)
minerva used to model in the art department at ucsb. there are many paintings of her still in the area. one was in the Santa Barbara public library for a while.
#342. To: Morgana le Fay (#340)
#343. To: Ferret Mike (#336)
#344. To: Peetie Wheatstraw (#341)
#345. To: Morgana le Fay (#344)
joni mitchell hangs out in a cafe on abbot kinney in venice. i forget the name, but is it at the corner of the street that runs back into the gang infested area. i think it is called harry's. she always sits in a table in back alone. sometimes she is also in the rose cafe in santa monica on sunday morning. my friend sylvianne lives in venice and we see her all the time. joni mitchell has a house on grand canal.
#346. To: Peetie Wheatstraw (#345)
#347. To: Peetie Wheatstraw (#345)
Lived in or near Venice when I first moved to LA (my son was born in Santa Monica Hospital). It's vibrant and exciting, but my ex and I decided it just wasn't the place to raise kids---not "breeder friendly".... ;)
#348. To: Morgana le Fay (#346)
david crosby used to live in santa barbara. we would see him in the breakfast place on state street and about ortega. he looked terrible in those days. he needed a liver transplant. i guess he got it because he started looking better and people said it was because of his transplant.
#349. To: Peetie Wheatstraw (#348)
know that place---Danish theme right? Pastries, good omelettes, etc.
#350. To: Morgana le Fay (#347)
we knew a very striking woman who did nothing but throw big parties in other people's houses. she charged people $20 to get in and made her living that way.
#351. To: Morgana le Fay (#349)
it was a straight omlet place. just greasy breakfasts with hashbrowns. everyone would go there. you had to sit outside on benches waiting to get in on sunday. it was kitty corner from the old sea plane factory where all the art studios were. just before the dip under the freeway.
#352. To: Peetie Wheatstraw (#343)
"I'm sorry Mike, but I just don't find you attractive---you need a better 'do... "
#353. To: Ferret Mike (#352)
But at age 52, I don't care about games concerning about who finds me attractive or not.
#354. To: Jethro Tull (#338)
Bucky is going to be all over you like white on rice.
.
.
.