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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: 35168
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.
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#33. To: It Is A Republic, robin (#0)
an obvious paid JEW on the NR staff spewing his propaganda bullshit.
Andrew Cline
***LEAP***
"I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. Government will lead the American people, and the West in general, into an unbearable hell and choking life.
-- Osama bin Laden
"A prohibition law strikes at the very principles upon which our govt was founded."
- Lincoln
All our liberties are due to men who, when their conscience has compelled them, have broken the laws of the land.
--William K Clifford
#34. To: Jethro Tull (#28)
I shall give my money to anyone I want without your interference, thank you. BTW, how is all that SPAM, still eating it 'eh?
#35. To: Jethro Tull (#25)
Explain your health problems as you play upon the Internet all day. Oh sure, you are God's gift to humanity as you squirt off a few rhetorical posts towards me. Yet, whom is paying your medical costs keeping you alive from your listless lifestyle? Oh, you are a great party member, comrade.
I live by a simple code.
#36. To: buckeroo (#34)
I suggest shock treatments for those mood swings, also medication can help to organize your thoughts.
I shall give my money to anyone I want without your interference, thank you.
#37. To: buckeroo, Minerva (#35)
Explain your health problems as you play upon the Internet all day.
Chronic piles. Oh sure, you are God's gift to humanity as you
squirt off a few rhetorical posts towards me. I find your choice of the
word squirt odd. MINERVA!!! Your input is needed. Yet, whom is
paying your medical costs keeping you alive from your listless lifestyle?
Whom? You and your fellow tax paying sheeple. Thanks. Oh, you are
a great party member, comrade. Thank-you.
#38. To: Jethro Tull (#36)
Why not answer my questions, directly? Is it because you are attempting to deflect your own epitaph which is a lie?
#39. To: buckeroo (#38)
And which question is that?
#40. To: Jethro Tull (#37)
Looks to me, that you are acting defensive about yourself. Why is that, JT? Are you also pissing on yourself as you attempt to defend yourself while knowing you can not? What happened to you JT? Are you just a minor player not capable of addressing anything more than your own silly web-chat and then when confronting me, tremble upon your own knees, in public? 'Eh piss_boy?
#41. To: buckeroo (#40) (Edited)
Bucky...I've seen a pic of you. There is no question in my mind that I could one-punch you into complete submission. Now, you know who I am, where I live and if you have the balls, you'll agree to meet me. I'd love the opportunity to explain to you in person my income stream, my past career(s) and my future. Whatta ya' say, you Zionist supporting, Jew enabling POS?
Are you just a minor player not capable of addressing anything more than your own silly web-chat and then when confronting me, tremble upon your own knees, in public?
#42. To: Jethro Tull (#41)
So fucking what. Hey dickless wonder ex-cop, even you had the capability to beat my ass behind my back, I have the capability to rape you in public as I am right now in public. Can you stop me? No. Why is that? Because you are attracted to me you liar. You can't get off your knees to see the world around yourself. So lets explore your wealth right now. Lets see you play, player.
Bucky...I've seen a pic of you.
There is no question in my mind that I could one-punch you into complete submission.
I'd love the opportunity to explain to you in person my income stream, my past careers(s) and my future.
#43. To: buckeroo, Minerva, an Ebonics translator (#42)
Translation please. Anyone?
Hey dickless wonder ex-cop, even you had the capability to beat my ass behind my back, I have the capability to rape you in public as I am right now in public.
#44. To: buckeroo (#42)
Bucky. Have you ever noticed that it's YOU who engages ME. Always. Why is that?
Can you stop me? No. Why is that? Because you are attracted to me you liar.
#45. To: Jethro Tull (#44)
I despise government worker bees that say they believe in America.
#46. To: buckeroo (#34)
Are you and Goldi doing it?
#47. To: Jethro Tull (#43)
Be careful. Don't bend over to pick up coins you find on the ground. The Asshat could have left them there as bait.
I have the capability to rape you in public .....
#48. To: Minerva (#47)
He said squirt.
#49. To: buckeroo, Jethro Tull (#42)
25 paces, Gentlemen?
#50. To: Jethro Tull (#48) (Edited)
Funny uncle types use that word.
He said squirt.
#51. To: hammerdown (#49) (Edited)
Thanks hammer, but asshat can't shoot worth a damn. He does need killing tho.
#52. To: Jethro Tull (#43) (Edited)
Anyone? Alkeehol keeelz. rofl!
Translation please.
If we were really at war, the borders would be closed.
#53. To: Jethro Tull (#48)
Does he wear cowboy hats or any of that other Brokeback stuff?
He said squirt.
#54. To: jessejane (#52)
hehehehehe
#55. To: Minerva (#53)
those leather chaps
#56. To: hammerdown (#49)
Three paces should do nicely.
#57. To: Jethro Tull (#44)
Incredible. You actually have afforded a faux persona to help you. yet, you don't answer my questions. Why don't you want want to play with me? Is your argument all about the fact you can stroke yourself?
#58. To: Jethro Tull (#51)
hahahaha. he wouldn't be buck if he wasn't a pain in the ass.
#59. To: hammerdown (#49)
It is my intention to kill Jethro Tull this evening. He needs a gravestone. And I am going to give it to him.
#60. To: lodwick (#56)
I see. Why waste all that time, No Drama.
#61. To: Jethro Tull (#55)
Like this?????? those leather chaps
#62. To: buckeroo (#59)
right through the internets?
And I am going to give it to him.
#63. To: buckeroo (#59)
Why do you come over here and start fights?
It is my intention to kill Jethro Tull this evening. He needs a gravestone. And I am going to give it to him.
#64. To: ALL, It Is A Repederast (#0)
The Internet is a brilliant vehicle for the dissemination of half-truths — or what only have the appearance of half-truths. The Internet bears some responsibility, of course. Ahhhh yes, another story blaming all the country's problems on the eeeevil internet. Gotta keep pushing that idea. Methinks this next make-believe election is going to be such a joke, J-O-A-K joke, that someone needs to get the flow of information restricted to only government approved sources to prevent a civil war. Betcha the next "terrorist event" is going to deeply involve the internet somehow, causing it to be severely restricted. Any takers on that bet?
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.
cage goes into salsa, shark's in the salsa. Our shark! - Dakmar Quint
#65. To: buckeroo (#57)
Your overt sexual overtures disgust me.
Why don't you want want to play with me?
#66. To: Minerva (#61)
Yes, that's what he wears.
#67. To: hammerdown (#62)
Right through JT's own staggering concepts of fucking around with me. JT is nothing more than another government grubber begging for more taxation to support his believe as an armed guard for the desperate political parties. He is a cameleon; another POS, unworthy of personal freedoms and consideration about our US Constitution as he enacts the LAW based upon buying into government retirement programs.
#68. To: buckeroo (#67)
This from a man who contributes to the Jewess and her war agenda?
#69. To: Esso (#64)
i'll take your bet, btw. :P
It Is A Repederast
#70. To: Esso (#64)
I agree. Without the internet Bush would be king right now.
Betcha the next "terrorist event" is going to deeply involve the internet somehow, causing it to be severely restricted. Any takers on that bet?
#71. To: Jethro Tull (#65)
Playing a pink panty waist asshole as you are performing .... I could careless about sex. But I see you attempting all kinds of methods to play with me. Yet, you are a retired bum-fuck cop from NYC. And you think that you can play all day long because you are entitled somehow. How do you have an awkward mind and and moreover how do you look yourself in the face while fucking America because you ate donuts for saving America.
Your overt sexual overtures disgust me.
#72. To: buckeroo (#71)
Have you ever considered switching to pot?
Yet, you are a retired bum-fuck cop from NYC. And you think that you can play all day long because you are entitled somehow. How do you have an awkward mind and and moreover how do you look yourself in the face while fucking America because you ate donuts for saving America.
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