What has been the goal of the 9/11 conspiracists? They ask questions, yes, but they never answer them. They never put forward an overall scenario of the alleged conspiracy. They say that’s not up to them. So who is it up to? Whom do they expect to answer their questions? When answers are put forward, they are dismissed as fabrications or they simply rebound with another question. Like most cultic persuasions they excitedly invoke important converts to their faith and the “1500 architects and engineers in the USA” who say the NIST official report is not thorough and needs another investigation. It’s a tiny proportion of the overall members of their profession. At least 80 per cent of faculty economists in the US believe stoutly in long-discredited theories that have blighted the lives of millions around the world for decades. Their numbers don’t equate with intelligence, let along conclusive analysis.
The 9/11 conspiracists seize on coincidences and force them into sequences they deem to be logical and significant. Their treatment of eyewitness testimony and forensic evidence is whimsical. Apparent anomalies that seem to nourish their theories are brandished excitedly; testimony that undermines their theories–like witnesses of a large plane hitting the Pentagon — is dismissed.
If you want an excellent demolition of most of the stupid 9-11 conspiracy theories, then you should follow the link to read this excellent article.
Do I believe there was a cover-up after 9-11? Yes. And I think its that cover-up that gives some sense of a willingness to believe the more insane 9-11 theories.
The cover-up involved the Bush administration. The first reaction of every politically aware person in the Bush White House on the morning of 9-11 had to have been that they had just screwed up on a massive scale and were in big trouble. They had spent the first nine months acting like they had gotten there on such a thin margin, the famous 5 to 4, that they thus needed to steal all that could be stolen today because there might not be a tomorrow. On the morning of 9-11, they were not a secure Presidency. Many Americans thought they had stolen the election, and they didn't have a great deal of public support. On top of this wobbly foundation, they had just massively screwed up and allowed a major terrorist attack on the United States during their watch.
The Bushies had come into the White House with an intense hatred of everything Clinton. Their standard operating proceedure was to do the opposite of whatever the Clintons had been doing. This included terrorism. Richard Clarke, the holdover anti-terror chief from the Clinton years was desperately trying to warn them about the threat from Al-Qaida. But Al-Qaida and terrorism was the Clinton thing, and the Bushies had little or no interest.
Over at the Pentagon, the big emphasis had been on stealing tens of billions of tax payer dollars and wasting it on the boondoggle of Star Wars. This was Rumsfeld's priority during the first nine months as shown in his public speeches. He'd been an advocate of missile defense while out of government, and now it was time to repay all those defense contractors that had paid to put him on the boards of their organizations and paid him speaking fees over the years with the billions of boondoggle dollars in the Star Wars plans.
In other words,the Bushies had screwed up and let America's guard down at the exact time that an enemy was growing and planning on attacking us. Plus, as they started to look into it, they had to find early on that FBI agents and intelligence analysts were finding signs of the attack and issuing warnings that would put the Bush administration in a very bad light. Someone as politically astute as Karl Rove would know that America would react strongly and emotionally to 9-11.
Later on, after Katrina and FEMA and other Bushy disasters, America became used to this sort of Bushy incompetence. I'm sure that Karl Rove and the other political types in the White House were scared to death of the consequences of this sort of incompetence being pinned on the Bush White House concerning 9-11. They certainly knew that the Bush Administration was already shaky, and if they had been blamed for letting 9-11 happen because of their own incompetence and inability to focus on anything other than stealing money for their defense contractor friends, then their political futures would all be very short indeed. With a big part of the nation already believing that they had stolen the last election, they had little room for error.
This then was the 9-11 cover-up. The Bush White House absolutely didn't want people to know that Bush had been getting briefings warning of an attack a month before and had done nothing about it. They absolutely didn't want people to know that FBI agents in the field had been sending in warning reports about suspicious people learning to fly airplanes and that those had been ignored. The Bush White House didn't want people to know that intelligence agencies weren't talking to each other, so the people who were tagged as dangerous terrorists were being allowed into the country.
And, in the best tradition of all political BS artists dating back to at least Goebbels, they thought the best defense was a good offense. So, they went on the attack. Somehow, by noon on 9-11 the intelligence agencies that couldn't see the attack coming knew for certain that Bin Laden was responsible. Bush was going to lead a campaign of vengeance to establish himself as a national hero instead being the incompetent petty politician who'd let America's guard down. Insiders report that Bush and Rumsfeld wanted to try to spin 9-11 into the Iraq war they both wanted, but didn't think that could be done. So, they instead spun it into the Afghan war that is still killing Americans and burning up tens of billions of your tax dollars today.
Was there a 9-11 cover up? You bet there was. It just didn't involve the US government blowing up any American buildings, and it didn't involve any secret demolition charges. The cover up was the standard sort of Cover-Your-Ass that you'd expect from politicians who just realized that they had screwed up and allowed America to suffer the worst terror attack in its history. The cover up still continues today as those responsible for this failure to defend America instead portray themselves as the heroes of the day.
