I haven’t started many threads that are friendly to George W. Bush, but this is going to be an exception. Let me say up front, that regardless of how negative my thoughts on Bush Jr., I don’t believe he had any knowledge before the fact that 9/11 was going to happen.

This subject has come up on another thread, the one about Bush’s incompetence, but it’s getting that thread off topic. So, I decided to start this one.

One of our newer members, Lawnmower Man believes that Bush knew before hand that 9/11 was going to happen.

If you want to read what he has said on this subject, I will refer you to his posts on this thread:

http://www.americasdebate.com/forums/index...80&#entry183901

Meanwhile here's a small sample.



Questions for debate

1. Do you agree with Lawnmower Man that George W. Bush knew before the fact that 9/11 was going to happen.

2. If one accepts this conspiracy theory, are they accusing Bush of treason?

1. Do you agree with Lawnmower Man that George W. Bush knew before the fact that 9/11 was going to happen.
If you don't mind black helicopters landing in your back yard, I suggest taking a look here and here before rendering judgement. The information isn't perfect, which is to be expected, but I think it's well-researched in both cases. Take it for what it is, but I just ask you to ask lots of questions. If something doesn't make sense, go with your gut and challenge the assumptions. If you don't find a satisfactory answer, wonder aloud why there seem to be so many satisfactory answers missing.

It doesnt take much conspiracy theory to see a President of the US ignore a plane slamming into a major US landmark and go on with plans to visit with a kindergarden class, seemingly unphased ( and ridiculous). This fact, wholly ignored by citizens shows just how low we have sunk in lack of critical thinking. ESPECIALLY after the title to his August PDB was 'Osama Bin Laden Determined to Attack the United States'. No warning bells, whistles, red flags? Perhaps because he never read it.

It doesnt take much conspiracy theory to see Bush's reaction to the news of the second hit on the second tower, where he looks not in the least suprised, not even looking for a millisecond to aknowledge the messenger, and sits for 7 minutes in a complete daze.

There are 2 solutions here, complicity or mind-numbing incompetance. Choose your poison. I would go with incompetance, and therefore.....why is he still President? Perhaps the public is just as simple and dazed, or really do care more about gay marriage.

There are many professionals in engineering, building contruction, aircraft technology as well as those who were on the scene coming out about the 'official story' of 911 not being feasible. Its no longer just a field of wierdos that think there is something wrong and many of the victims families and groups of concerned citizens are not appeased by the 911 Commission's report which ignored many of their pressing questions.

I think Wikipedia does a good job of sorting out the crazy theories from the more realistic unanswered questions, and there is an interesting article on Bush's timeline and who knew what/ when that morning linked here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_Conspiracy

I think it's obvious that Bush knew terrorists would hijack planes and fly them into significant structures, but no way he either LIHOP (let it happen on purpose) or MIHOP (made it happen on purpose). Bush is far too incompetant to pull off a grand conspiracy such as this and get away with it.

The simple answer is that muslim extremists that hate us (I know - a fairly redundant term) commandeered airplanes and killed lots of people. They did what they are best at - getting themsleves and innocents killed in the name of Allah.

I'd say complicity isn't an explanation at all in that case. If Bush had known, he'd have practiced his "proper" response prior to the fact, and we would never have debated 'My pet goat'. He would have looked the perfect leader. His lack of preparation and sitting in a daze are precisely what could be expected by genuine shock.

For what it's worth, that was my reaction as well. I didn't see the footage for several days (as I had no television at the time and lived overseas). When my father-in-law called to tell me about the first attack, he said "A plane hit the world trade center", and my initial reaction was "Wow, the pilots must have been sleeping or something". Such things have happened (most recently with the Greek air crash). Planes are downed by slumbering oxygen-deprived pilots. A plane in Miami (in the everglades) many years ago ran into the ground when the landing gear didn't release. THey had to manually adjust it, and weren't paying attention. At any rate, that was my exact natural reaction when I first heard the news over the phone, and I had thought for years we were due for a terrorist attack. It isn't that outlandish.

1. Do you agree with Lawnmower Man that George W. Bush knew before the fact that 9/11 was going to happen.

I'm unsure in the same way that I'm unsure that:

John Kennedy was shot by multiple gunners.

The government knew about plans to attack Pearl Harbor but intentionally let it happen.

I'm on some sort of black list for employment.

The evidence is there that the President should have known about the terrorists in our midst, that they were learning to fly but not to land, and that OBL was out to do something big. Yep, and the evidence is there that this administration is very inept at running the government: Katrina et al.

When you have doubt about a situation, it's human nature to give the benefit of the doubt. So most people don't buy conspiracy theories, although they buy books about them and wonder or go to movies about them and wonder, such as The DaVinci Code.

I do see how we might be manipulated regularly, and in fact am certain about various poorly covered manipulations. Most recently are the speeches that President Bush is doing to garner support for the war in Iraq. Poppypoo. He's garnering support for himself so he can help Republicans retain both houses of Congress.

As far as me being on some sort of black list, I can't believe that and keep on trying. There has to be a parallel in this, something like people can't believe their government is so bad and keep on living. My sympathies to them.

2. If one accepts this conspiracy theory, are they accusing Bush of treason?

Sure, but so what. It's just Bush-bashing, right? Just more noise from the far left that's easily dismissed. Besides, what difference does it make? The milk has been spilt and GWB can't be reelected.

Another beside: Just saw the news report about the White House aid accused of retail fraud. Wow. I don't think conspiracy theories matter any longer. This administration is imploding all on its own.

This has already happened in Colorado, where the corruption in the Republican party became too vivid to ignore any longer, and now we're run by Demos, except for the governor, and he's out this year on term limitations. I guess he's worn out a dozen or so pens on vetos, hand cramps like in the Seinfeld check signing episode.

It's terrible, reality. People hate it and would just as soon watch fake reality on television.

1. Do you agree with Lawnmower Man that George W. Bush knew before the fact that 9/11 was going to happen.

I shook hands with John Kennedy in Fort Worth a few hours before his assassination in Dallas. We've had untold conspiracy theories ever since. More than forty-two years later, conspiracies theories about Kennedy still arise and we may never know what happened.

I'm weary of conspiracy theories in general, including this one conerning Bush.

2. If one accepts this conspiracy theory, are they accusing Bush of treason?

If someone could actually prove that Bush knew before the fact, what happened on 9/11 or that he was involved in it's planning and execution, then how could he not be guilty of treason?

Well, you can carry that analysis to an arbitrary depth, and say that he had to fake surprise. Second-guessing has no end.


That's fine for you and me, because we don't have all the answers, or even most of them. However, Standard Operating Procedure is that when a plane is hijacked, or suspected of hijacking (such as its transponder being turned off, it changes course, and you lose radio contact with the cockpit), the Secret Service and NORAD are notified. Even the mainstream media report that the Boston tower did indeed get through to the Secret Service. The SS weren't watching CNN when they found out. And if they need a rocket scientist to tell them that hijacking + plane crash into building == terrorism, then it should be a fairly trivial matter to kill the President. The only logical conclusion you can draw is that the SS knew that the first crash was a terrorist act, and that Bush later claimed that he thought it was an accident. That's as bad as when Cheney lied by saying the President needed to give authorization to shoot down airliners. That's not the case. That authorization could have come from the NMCC or NORAD as well. It's all part of the spin to divert blame.

I have no knowledge one way or the other as to whether Bush or anyone else in government had foreknowledge, but all I want to point out is that there's no particular reason to dismiss the idea as outlandish. Power corrupts, we know that. The desire for power is itself a very powerful force. A person in power may seem like a regular old guy, but that in no way indicates that he's not inclined to do things in the pursuit of power that could shock the conscience, especially if there's a certain distance between him and the act, so that he's not faced with the immediate horror of it right then and there. And there are always a thousand ways he can rationalize it to himself as being for the "greater good" or whatever.

For a somewhat different, but related, phenomenon, just look at the ethnic wars in the Balkans following the breakup of Communist rule there. People who'd been living as neighbors for decades, and who were very neighborly in every sense, all of the sudden became blood enemies because they were of different ethnic groups. There was something deep-seated in their culture that was ingrained to them all their lives - slowly, subtly, probably imperceptibly, but in the end, highly effectively.

Such is the way also with people acting in the pursuit of power. They'll come across as normal people to nearly everyone who interacts with them, but their "mission" will often take precedence over it. You could go back to Nazi Germany and find many SS officers who had committed (or ordered) brutal crimes, but you'd never know they were monsters if you met them for dinner. A lot of them may have come across as quite affable.

Now I should also emphasize that not everyone in power "turns to the dark side" like this, and I'm not accusing President Bush of doing anything improper on 9/11. It's entirely possible that he and his administration were innocent of anything to do with the attacks on that day (of course one can talk about whether there were certain ill-advised policies that may or may not have contributed to it one way or another, or whether or not counterterrorism efforts were conducted competently, but those are separate from what I'm talking about). My only point is that just looking at the way things may "seem" is not, in itself, a reliable guide for dismissing the idea altogether. People in power, though they may well be innocent, need to be regarded with a certain level of suspicion at all times.

Of course, Bush wouldn't have pulled it off or either masterminded it. He just had to keep his mouth shut at the right times, which he seems more than capable of. The CIA has the resources to manage the terrorists and ensure cooperation within the US, and many people forget that Bush 41 was head of the CIA for many years before becoming President.


There's reason to believe that most or all of the 9/11 hijackers were bad pilots. Due to the talkback button being pressed intermittently on Flight 11, it seems they let the pilot do most of the flying. Terrorists are good at setting off roadside bombs and detonating suicide vests (though not perfect, since they fail at that with some regularity). They can even shoot assault rifles, if too much marksmanship isn't required. They aren't so good at flying 757s, simulators or no. It beggars belief that one could bring down a 757 at the altitude required to hit the Pentagon at ground level from the side. Most commercial airline pilots would be hard-pressed to pull off that maneuver under ideal circumstances, let alone during a hijacking, and they have years to decades of training. I think you give the terrorists more credit than they deserve.

Broad Generalization, Opinion with no Corroboration #1



What people are you talking about? How many people? Do you mean those on this board? Are some so young that they never knew? What relevance does Bush Sr. have to this discussion?

Broad Generalization, Opinion with no Corroboration #2

Terrorists are good at setting off roadside bombs and detonating suicide vests (though not perfect, since they fail at that with some regularity). They can even shoot assault rifles, if too much marksmanship isn't required.

Broad Generalization, Opinion with no Corroboration #3



Most? Are there some who could? On what information do you base this opinion?

---------------------------------------------------------------------

This sounds like information one might have gleaned from a Tom Clancy novel. If not, where?

This actually isn't a bad point, but my standard response to this theory still holds. If the administration were capable of such a thing, they'd have both the motive and the means to keep anyone from talking about it. The simple fact that you are still replying to this thread therefore indicates fairly conclusively that your theory is incorrect. If it were true, you would have been found and terminated by now. At the very least, the closer you got to supporting this notion, the more your life would be in great danger. This also leads me to conclude that anyone who truly believed such a theory would be very circumspect about who they discussed it with...and would certainly avoid public forums. So, while it might be fun debate, the fact that people are actually allowed to have it, I think, makes the discussion moot.

See, this is the problem. Sure, I suppose there are some questions about 9/11, but most of what the conspiracy theorists (and I group you among them) put up this is simply blatantly untrue.





See, the straight up factual error in this single paragraph are startling. It is whats known as a factual slide, when you start with one fact (or close) and then assume the rest, or present followup statements as if they were fact.

-Firstly, it is standard proceedure to alert the NORAD sector station in the event of a hijacking, or an event which presents strong evidence of being a hijacking.

That does NOT include losing contact with the cockpit (on its own) it CERTANLY does not include aircraft changing course. Do you know how many aircraft over the US were off course the morning of 9/11? Twnty Nine. Commercial aircraft change course based on pilot decision ALL THE TIME, usually to avoid weather or turbulence. generally these changes are logged with ATC, but in the case of minor changes they are often not.

Furthermore, though it is SOP to alert NORAD, it is NOT SOP for them to suddenly scrammlble fighters. Firstly, as we have discussed, the US maintains no minute-ready combat aircraft in its interior during DefCon 5. Pilots need to be recalled, aircraft need to be fueled and armed and readied. That includes both fighter and even more so for AWACS aircraft. Even once the scramble order is given, and it was not given immediatly, we are talking an indeterminate but long amount of time before you can get them airborne and vectored. And by the way, vectored where? You can't just send them up and have them hover. As we discussed, on AB a F-16 runs out of fuel in 15 minutes

-Secondly, as you may recall, the mainstream media initially reported the first hit an accident, it was all over the news. It would not be the first time, two aircraft have accidentally hit the Empire State building over the years after all. Now that changed pretty quickly, probably before the second tower was hit, but lets not change the facts of the original events as they occurred.

-Thirdly: I LOVE the casual way people refer to shooting down passenger liners as though "Well, duh". You had better be DAMN sure you know what is going on before you give the order to shoot down a civilian liner full of US civilian passengers. You may recall Russia made that mistake once. Also, you should be EXTRA sure before you order the shooting down of a passenger liner over built-up civilian areas, where the death toll betweent he two will be in the thousands. You also need to know where the liner is and where it is going, and direct these aircraft to it ASAP. As I said, Twenty nine aircraft were off course the morning of 9/11, so they all need to be confirmed, and reconfirmed, and those you cannot get in touch with need to be rechecked. Whats that, 10 minutes?

And as for the Dali-esque claim of RAMMING the liners with unarmed jets... I mean seriously...



After the sliding facts we have the E-Fact. This is a statement somebody posted on the web once, and got passed arounduntil it was assumed to be fact, without anyone ver verifying it. In this case, it is 100% wrong.

A someone who has their pilots license, allow me to tell you: flying a commercial airliner is EASY. These aircraft are designed to keep a straight and level course even without anyone at the helm. Small changes in direction can be done automatically through instrumentation, you do not need to shift the stick manually. Altitude changes are done by setting a dial and having the aircraft do it itself. When we include that you feel the need to arbitrarily decide these men MUST have all ben crappy pilots just because they were terrorists (wha?) then you have the creation of an absolutely untrue E-fact.

Flying these aircraft into the side of the WTC would have been trivial for a traind pilot, and not all that much harder for an unskilled one. The WTC is wider than most airfield landing strips, and people seem to be able to target them easily enough (both automatically and manually) about, what 20,000 times a day every day around the planet?



If you know any military people, you know that in ordr to be a ranking military man (or woman) you need to have been in a while. That mean you have served through several administrations. That means, like your oath, that your loyallty is, as it should be, to the state and the nation, rather than a transient administration that 50% of the pilots probably didn't even vote for. Conspiracy theories (especially silly ones) like to see the military as a monolithic bloc of automotons, but it is people, well trained regular people with an abiding loyalty to their country.

So do you SERIOUSLY think that if ordered to stand down by the Bush Jr administration in the fact of a terrorist attack, these men and women would have had lunch and organised a picnic with the missus on the weekend?

You seem capable of assuming the Bush administration and the CIA are all capable of high treason and mass-murder, why do you instantly assume 100% complicity in the high treason and mass murder, of every member of the US air-force, NORAD (including its Canadian contingents and Canadian air force, who were heavily involved in the 9/11 and post 9/11 events) and associated civilains and base personel?

I was responding to a post which stated that anyone who didn't find the president's behavior suspicious that day lack's critical reasoning skills. So, yes, I agree we could "second guess" forever, couldn't we? Sort of makes the point.



NORAD is not notified every time a transponder goes off, nor is it notified every time a plane goes a bit off course. Transponders go off and/or malfunction very very often, and it would be inconceivably expensive to impliment that type of plan. When a transponder goes out, it is considered an "emergency" because of the potential for a mid-air collision, that doesn't mean "notify NORAD of a hijacking".

Here is an example of what I mean:** As of 9:42 am, 11Sept2001, there were 4,452 aircraft being tracked by the Air Traffic Control system. Of those, 11 of them that had some sort of anamoly which concerned the ATC controllers like the loss of radio contact, loss of transponder, etc. Of those, 3 hit buildings, one a field in Pennsylvania, but 7 of them landed safely. That is one moment of time on the day of 911. How many military escort planes do think we have? Have you ever seen a fighter jet next to your passenger plane rocking its wings? Because chances are, if you fly often, you've been in a plane that has a bad transponder or radio, or is a bit off course. It simply isn't feasible for NORAD to be contacted every time there is an anamoly.

There are thousands of quotes taken out of context on conspiracy sites that lead the readers to believe this is the case. Before 911, the procedure was for the FAA to contact the national military command center whenever there was a confirmed problem (which still isn't, incidentally, every time a transponder goes). They, in turn, went to NORAD to see if assets were available. Then the Secretary of Defense would need to grant approval to intercept a hijacked airplane, which had before 911 been considered a law enforcement issue. Law enforcement issues are not usually the jurisdiction of the military (posse comitatus and all that).

I should add, there was one area in which NORAD jets would scramble pretty quickly if traversed under fishy circumstances (which is the way these things get spliced and taken out of context in conspiracy sites). That was the ADIZ. It stands for the Air Defense Identification Zone, and NORAD was responsible for its defense. Rules are imposed to identify and track all aircraft penetrating or operating within the ADIZ.

I think it’s important to also place some context on the purpose of NORAD, and its capabilities right before 9/11. Its mission involved tracking and monitoring enemy aircraft entering the borders of the United States and Canada. There was much debate during the cutbacks of the ‘90s to even eliminate it entirely. The day of 9/11 there were a total of only 14 aircraft on alert throughout the entire continental United States (spread out through 7 different locations). It was basically considered a cold-war relic.

I concur Mrs. P.

I am one of the few people here who was an adult when Kennedy was assassinated. The conspiracy theories have been rampant ever since and are still going on.

One only has so much intellectual time and energy available, though it varies from person. If anyone doubts this, think how many books you have lined up on your "to read" list. Right now I'm finishing Doris Kearns Goodwin's book on Lincoln, after that I plan to read David McCullough's exhaustive work on Truman. Then Taylor Branch's three volume set on the King years and H. W. Brands' new book on Andrew Jackson.

The point of all this is not to bleed over into the "What are You Reading" thread, but to illustrate that we must set priorities based on

1. available time

and

2. interest.

From my perspective, conspiracy theories fail the test of both elements.

BTW: If there's enough interest and we're "lucky," Oliver Stone may make a movie about Bush and 9/11.

I can hardly wait.

I had to vote Yes by way of the wording of the question.

My personal theory is that Bush, and others in the administration knew that something was going to happen.

It's no secret that Bush, his family and many in his administration have very long standing ties to various people in the middle east, and by that I mean powerful people who can make things happen in the sly. Combine this with what we know about PNAC's desire for a modern "Pearl Harbor" and I've concluded that the order for something to happen - subvertly or overtly - was given by someone in the administration. I don't believe that they knew the details, or even the scale and scope of what the attack was going to be, but I do believe that message communicated out to whatever contact(s) were involved was that something "big" was needed to happen. I think this also proved true during the 2004 presidential campaign. Seems like whenever the heat was on Bush "something" happened that changed the headlines of the papers and the T.V. news.

I think they have a well established network of who to call to get the word out that something else needs to be the headline of the American press. Likewise I think they know who to call when they need something to happen so that they can have support to push forward on some item of their overall agenda.

You have a right to vote as you wish, but I think the context of the question is pretty obvious. When people say 9/11, they usually mean the two planes slamming into the World Trade Center, another into the Pentagon and a fourth that crashed in Pennsylvania.

If you want to ignore the context and make this a question on generic terrorism, fine. Bush may have known, or should have known, that such attacks were possible, even probable, within he United States. Use of the date 9/11 means did he specifically know in advance that events would unfold as they did that day.

You may be the only person who read the quetion this way. Congratulations on being creative.

I agree with ChargedDust.

The point being made, is that they had SPECIFIC information about planes being flown into buildings. Did you not see Fahrenheit 911? Condi Rice received those memos just prior to the attacks.

Did Bush know about the specifics of 911? I'm guessing no. Did he know something like this was very probable or even likely, I say yes. IS THERE A DIFFERENCE, really?

If you really think this is out of the realm of reality you don't know enough history. Similar things have happened in the past to get the American people behind a war. And I agree about manipulating the media. Even the head of Homeland Security admitted the administration manipulated the Terror Status to take focus off of Bush in the elections.

The bold evidence is out there that the PNAC wanted to invade Iraq. THere is a ton of evidence that the oil companies, all of Bush's supporters BTW, were fearing peak oil and pointed to Iraq as the "last destination" and a key country to control for the future of America's well being (i.e. oil companies well being).

And in fact, the PNAC stated prior to 9/11 that they needed a Pearl Harbor to get Americans behind their efforts. Well they got one.

I wouldn't be surprised if Bush knew all the details, er, all his handlers knew (see Rove, Cheney, etc.).

But it is my belief that they let the attacks happen. They saw evidence that suggested an eminent attack and let it happen.

Again, why did we invade Iraq? Why are we still there? Why are there so many more troops in Iraq than in Afghanistan where the terrorists are? Oil.Oil.Oil.

Why did 3,000 people die on 9/11? To invade Iraq.

There a lot of people discussing these theories. If the administration were to go after them, it would take a lot of effort and probably arouse considerable suspicion that could get out of control. I'm sure they'd consider it better to just let the accusers talk, because so few people will be willing to believe them. And should their theories start to pick up any amount of currency, it would be so much easier to dismiss them all as crackpots.

As it is, conspiracy theories about the Oklahoma City bombing currently have much more traction among a wider range of people than conspiracy theories about 9/11, and yet the people promoting those theories are completely unmolested. It's just so much easier to treat them dismissively than to try and actually go after them.


And yet, you posted this thread. Sorry, but I just couldn't help but appreciate the irony here.

Yes, there really is a difference. If Bush had some knowledge that something "like" this would happen and did northing, then he's guilty of gross negligence . If he knew specifically what was going to happen on 9/11 (the specific question, BTW) then I think he's guilty of treason.

You mention Fahrenheit 911. One of the most memorable moments was the "deer in the headlights" stare that indicated a stunned Bush. My personal opinion is that Bush is perpetually stunned.



Sorry to rain on your parade, Blackstone, but there is no irony. starting a thread takes a minimal amount of time. I haven't and don't plan on spending much time chasing conspiracy theories. Chase is a good word, because, at least in my estimation, the whole obsession with conspiracy sets people in motion to dogs chasing their own tails. Will the tip of the tail still be barely out of reach forty years from now?

I didn't start this thread and more importantly the poll to perpetuate conspiracy theories, but to get the discussion off the Bush competence thread, which I consider more timely and important than this one.

Try reading the introduction again.

But is it neglegence if there is intent? Would it not be treason if he did nothing because he had an agenda regardless of the details he knew?

Neglegence for a doctor would be failing to give the proper treatment causing death. But neglegence for a doctor would not be withholding treatment for the purpose of murder.

I think Bush did nothing because he needed a Pearl Harbor. He was derilict of duty, but he did so with intent.

Obviously he would be a co-conspirator if he knew of the specifics, but in this case he's just a willing participant in what happened.

Again I ask, why did he invade Iraq? If the terrorists were such a threat why does he treat it so lightly, see "I don't care about Osama", etc.

The people behind Bush NEEDED 9/11 for multiple reasons. They let it happen. They knew about it and let it happen.

Actually the word is spelled "negligence." I mistyped it in the post you quoted before I had time to correct it.

When all else fails, reach for a dictionary. From the New Oxford American Dictionary, 2005:



I don't think negligence implies intent. To me, Bush has been more like Nero "fiddling while Rome burned." This could be interpreted as malfeasance in office or not "faithfully executing" his office. This could be gounds for impeachment and removal, but not treason unless there is intent.

I won't argue that Bush hasn't benefited politically from 9/11, but I don't think he had anything to do with planning or executing the events of that day. On the other hand, he and his administration have ridden that horse straight into the ground. Fortunately people aren't Buying it anymore.

This conspiracy theory hasn't and isn't going anywhere. Like theories about the Kennedy assassination, it may be around forty years from now. Like continued contoversy over Kennedy's murder, it won't mean anything. Nada. There are many more productive issues on which to attack Bush. Iraq policy is one example, possibly the example.

Since this whole conspiracy noltion has gained little traction, Karl Rove, in his own special, diabolical way, might welcome it as a grand diversion. As a Democrat, I don't think accusing Bush of having prior knowledge of 9/11 would be a wise tactic. Nor would it be a wise tactic for non-Democratic Bush critics.

I can just imagine Aquilla writing "go ahead and try it." On this one he'd be right.

Since this thread is so clearly opinions, I'll add mine.

I'm of the opinion that I ought to buy stock in Reynolds and Alcoa, because if 1/3rd of the people answering the poll either agree or don't know, there will never be a shortage of tin-foil requirements for hats.

I have to give credit to Verm, although we disagree vehemently on many things, he's not out checking the grassy knoll at the Pentagon for explosives that Bush personally planted.

Did Bush (and Clinton for that matter) receive intelligence that AQ wanted to strike us? Certainly, although after prior bombings here and elsewhere, it didn't take a scientist at JPL to figure that out.

And they might use aircraft? Easy, just ground all civilian planes, Buses? Halt public transit, that will stop em!, (not to mention the economy).

As he paused for seconds when he found out about it? Gasp!
You can't have it both ways on this one, if he knew it was going to happen, why would he be surprized?

Hey, its no secret I don't like Bush Jr. at all, but I prefer to criticise him for things that are sane. Bush Jr is a very moral person. Now I happen to think his 'morals' are whacked-out and absurdly extreme neo-conservative, and not really all that 'moral' to my mind, but regardless of that, he has his own moral code. I cannot stand the man, but I think if he saw real threat of an imminent attack on the US, he would absolutely move heaven and earth (and step all over basic civil liberties) in order to prevent it.

Just cause you ardently dislike a man does not mean you cannot recognise his qualities, however few they may be.

Heck, I think Michael jackson is a lunatic, child-molesting, pedophile surgery addict, but I still think 'Thriller' is awesome.



I will happily argue that Bush Jr. is incompetent or not too bright, but for any of this to have even a shred of reasonableness to it, you would have to presume that he is absolute pure evil incarnate. And he's not.


Oh, and by the way, you would also have to assume that about every senior staff at the Pentagon, the CIA, the FBI, The US military, NORAD (including the Canadians) and every pilot on duty that day.


Yeah... THAT's reasonable.

What are you basing this conclusion on? The fact that a leader might be willing to curtail civil liberties does not necessarily mean that he's doing it for the right reason.


That's casting the net too wide. If there was a conspiracy, there would have been no need for any of the pilots to be in on it. And even most of the senior staff at the other agencies you mention would only have needed to receive instructions from their higher-ups. If each individual official only received instructions for carrying out just a piece of the plan, and was told that it was necessary for one purpose or another while being kept in the dark as to the overall gist of of the entire plan, then it still could have been pulled off.

People who work in these agencies are obliged not to talk about top secret orders they receive, and generally will not do so unless there's clear evidence that it's being done for a criminal purpose. But if each of them is only seeing a piece of it (think of the parable of the three blind men and the elephant), then they would be highly unlikely to disclose it.

Now I'm not saying that anything like this actually happened. But it's not accurate to say that it's impossible for something like it to happen.

If his moral code=evil, to me that is still open for debate.
Sometimes moral code +incompetance= evil, that is for sure. We have many examples throughout history.

Vermillion, I always look to you as the voice of reason. You have made me realize the error of my thinking and adjust it to reality more than once.
Still I cant get beyond an August 1st PDB that says 'Osama bin Laden determined ect-etc". Not only that but several CIA people suspected a renewed attack on WTC, one CIA officer who (forcibly) left the CIA went to work at WTC as a security, always suspecting there would be another attack there.
With a known first strike/ or percieved 'accident' on a major US landmark, a continued visit to a kindergarden class by the President seems bizarre considering the circumstances.(?) While I am in agreement with you that this can be played off as personal Bush incompetance, what about the rest of the cabal? Condi Rice who delivered the PDB? Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, the CIA, didnt anyone get it? Or was Bush purposely left out of the loop?
That morning a phone call would have said, 'We have a situation'..' 'as the President, get ready'/cancell! because we have people dying in the WTC from a plane crashing into it, (realistic) or 'Its not a problem, go on and read to kindergardeners, its no big deal', a mere accident ( involving lives burning to death), not your problem, act as if you know nothing!. But Bush, being Bush, could not act as if he knew nothing, he said chuckling, 'he thought it was a bad pilot error'. Bad pilot error or not, you dont go on to read to children after a major US catastrophe as President!

Come on! Not you, nor I , nor anyone would have responded in this way! Unless you are NOT REALLY MORALLY or Intellectually intact- or you were ADVISED TO STAY WITH THE PLAN.

To me, but I may just be the dumbass in this group, I would have (as President) been more vigilant and cancelled the kinders and been watching what happened next, worried for the nation, or IN THE LEAST for the people in the towers, that Accident or Not, there would be fires, people would be trapped, a major incident was happening and there would possibly be some deaths. A catastrophe HAD happened already, before Bush went into that class. Someone must have told him to continue, that is was being handled. So, during one of the greatest tragedies in American history, Bush was reading to kindergardeners. Im sure he did not want to be at this place, in history.
While I think Micheal Moore a spinner, sometimes I think his take on this may be valid, that Bush really wondered in those 7 minutes- who had screwed him and certainely wondered WHY he was in a kinder-class in that moment.

For Mrs P, you did not have a Presidential Briefing on August 1st. I did not have one either, but when my phone rang the morning of Sept 11 and someone said "a plane has hit the WTC", I, the worst patriot in america, who did not even remember what WTC was... did not go back to sleep thinking it was just an accident that I would deal with later. I got my sleepy butt up and stayed at the television until more than midday watching EVERY MINUTE.

How is it that the President felt otherwise? He HAD a briefing. The threat WAS imminent and known.

Vermillion, how do you reconcile Bush knowing that an attack is imminent (one month previous) and that morning- considering an it an accident ? and even if believing it an accident... going onto a baloney event-a class of children?

I could explain this as being duped, only. That means someone had to keep him duped, because as you say, hes a moral man. SOMEONE told him to stay with the plan, not to worry about all those people being burned to death or scrambling to fire escapes in an 'accident' in the WTC. That as President, he was not needed?
Only Bush could be capable of such manipulative handling, perhaps as in Katrina where he sung some songs, raised some funds, and took his sweet time to react, fully knowing that it was possible the levies would be breached.

You say he's a moral man? That he would do anything to prevent? I think not and he has proven it. He is never around when the excrement hits the ventilator.

Now, what other President do we know that has ever or would ever be so slow?
Is this a a realistic assessment of a Presidents incapacity to comprehend reality as we know it, or just another Bush bash? Its certainely not conspiracy theory. But I wonder who pulls the strings on Bush, who advises him so unbelievably WRONGLY, every time.

1. Do you agree with Lawnmower Man that George W. Bush knew before the fact that 9/11 was going to happen.

I voted "not sure" because it is something that is not easily proven. I witnessed how hard it was 1) for a 9/11 Commission to be formed over Bush's objections, and 2) for said 9/11 Commission to get Bush to come testify, under the conditions that he not be under oath and that Cheney be with him to "hold his hand" during the testimony.

Since 9/11/2001, this administration seems to want to know everything and disclose nothing to the American people. Sorry, but "trust me" just doesn't make it when an administration has so much to hide, like refusing habeas corpus to American citizens at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib prison abuse, secret CIA prisons in foreign countries, and the Chief Executive himself bypassing the FISA court to authorize secret wiretaps on American citizens. Not to mention, of course, all those phantom "WMD's" that our troops were supposed to find which, with allegations of Saddam Hussein harboring terrorists, were the reasons cited for going to war. (And don't get me started on yellowcake uranium...)

There are 28 pages that were removed from the 9/11 Commission Report before it was published. Yeah, yeah--a "matter of national security". Whose security?

This administration wants the whole country, indeed the world, to believe that two steel girder reinforced towers built to withstand plane crashes could turn into clouds of powdery, falling rubble from burning jet fuel (witness the billows of black smoke which proved inefficient combustion), a.k.a. the "pancake theory". I believe it was Columbia University that had a seismology report recording two "spikes" that occurred after, not during, the time that the planes made impact with the towers. (What, other than explosions, would have caused these seismic events? Was God in cahoots with the terrorists?)

A jetliner reportedly crashed into part of the Pentagon (the wing which, incidentally, was undergoing renovations at the time), and yet there were only TWO small pieces of aircraft found at the site, and there were no photographs or videotapes of any bodies of passengers shown being removed from the wreckage. And as far as complete destruction? It was far from complete. In the only photograph circulated at the time, there is a damaged automobile in the foreground which can still be identified as a Volkswagen.

The other plane which crashed into a field in Pennsylvania first was said to have crashed as passengers tried to wrest control from hijackers, only the wreckage was in such small pieces that the explanation did not make sense. Then a report came that the Air Force shot down the plane (hence the plane was blown to smithereens), but there was such an outcry that that story was quashed.

President Bush said that he had seen "two" plane crashes into the WTC towers, then he was corrected. On the video footage he is seen being told by Andy Card about the second crash, and he just sits in the classroom reading with the class "The Pet Goat" as though somebody else is responsible for reacting to the situation.

Like Artemise, I was riveted to the television screen as soon as I heard the news. Why wasn't the President?

I don't know what to think about this President and his administration. Their behavior is downright peculiar in many circumstances. Incompetence, deviousness, both? But in this particular climate of secretiveness, good luck figuring out the truth.

2. If one accepts this conspiracy theory, are they accusing Bush of treason?

I'm not sure if Bush was complicit in the events of 9/11, but if I thought that Bush was behind it, I would consider him most certainly a traitor and not a hero, regardless of the eventual outcome of the U.S. waging a "global war on terrorism" and particularly on Iraq. As it is, I do not feel that his administration was completely blindsided by this turn of events, and they certainly did their best to further their political goals.

Edited to add:
That's pretty much how I feel about the possibility of a conspiracy.

Questions for debate

1. Do you agree with Lawnmower Man that George W. Bush knew before the fact that 9/11 was going to happen.

Well, there was that famous memo in a Presidential briefing dated August 6, 2001 that was somehow leaked or released, something to the effect of:

Bin Laden determined to strike in US.

The real question I guess is one of whether he read it, it was read to him, or everyone in his cabinet felt it was too silly to take any action on. It seems to be common knowledge that this President does not like to read anything, and the story of his briefing before Katrina is that he listened, but saw no reason to ask questions when he was warned that the levees in New Orleans would likely fail. It seems probable that if he listened to someone warn him of an impending air attack, he may not have asked any questions at that time either. (Especially as it was pre 9/11 and he might not have yet realized that he really was the President.) At any rate, that warning apparently reached The White House at least 40 days before the attack.

2. If one accepts this conspiracy theory, are they accusing Bush of treason?

Perhaps, or perhaps just Gross Negligence.



I was going to provide a link to some photos that were taken as the towers were collapsing, but the file that I kept with the photo and the link was apparently deleted... It showed 12 foot sections of steel blowing straight out from one of the towers. (The photographer died taking the pictures.) According to the caption on the photo, the beams had been 36 feet in length. If they snapped into three equal lengths, it would infer that each beam had 2 weakest points. That they were not bent is inconsistent with the pancake theory. That the buildings both reportedly collapsed in 8 - 10 seconds is very inconsistent with their height and the laws of gravity. That also is not consistent with the theory that the towers collapsed under their own weight, pancaking floor after floor as they went down. I did a search for Controlled Demolition to see how much time it takes to bring down a building with explosives. What I learned was that "Controlled Demolitions" is a corporation that was awarded a no bid contract to clean up the Twin Towers site and the Pentagon damage. They also seem to be the center of a number of conspiracy theories as the only company with the technology to bring the towers down.

I also learned that the WTC had been built using asbestos.

I learned that New York Mayor Rudolf Giuliani had a multimillion dollar investment in the World Trade Centers.

I learned that the second tower hit was the first to collapse, and that the first building to be hit remained standing nearly twice as long.

I have lost a lot of my memory, but when I was working; I had to calibrate explosimeters, instruments designed to check for explosive gas air mixtures. As a result, I recieved a lot of training in the nature of explosions. I also used to respond to fires and explosions with the company fire dept. at the end of my career.

The official explanation seems to be one of there was an initial explosion, followed by a delayed secondary explosion which brought each building down. Secondary explosions, according to my training, are usually dust explosions. Dust explosions usually occur in coal mines, flour mills, and similar environments. The initial explosion knocks dust into the air, which ignites when it hits the initial explosion in an explosive air/dust mixture. The delay is usually observed on seismographs in a fraction of a second.

Burning jet fuel in a contained building would use up the available Oxygen, reducing the possibility of providing enough Oxygen for an explosive mixture. The longer the fire lasted, the less chance there should have been of a secondary explosion.

I would personally like to see a University (or perhaps some NASA scientists, or MSA investigators) look at what evidence still exists in the form of newsreels, etc. and try to prove or disprove the possibility that these buildings collapsed from being hit by jet planes.

I'm uncertain if there should be charges filed of treason, but if it can't be shown that these buildings could be brought down in this fashion, then someone should open a murder investigation.

After all, if we ever bring Bin Laden to trial alive, he might try to defend himself by saying, "Here's the engineering that I did. It went better than I expected. I trust my knowledge as an engineer, so something else brought those buildings down."

Wait , wait wait, I just Luuuv the fact that all 4 black boxes were supposedly destroyed, but a passport of an alleged hijacker was found intact in the WTC rubble.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/200...s/17011253.html
http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/disinfo/...s/abc_hunt.html

At least 4 ( common media), often published 8, of the nineteen alleged hijackers were found alive and not even in the country. The FBI has never updated its list.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1559151.stm

Korans and flight manuals, in rented cars, found by inpectors:




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizers_of...1,_2001_attacks

Somehow, in this "War on Terrorism" , with quotes from the administration about opression, dictatorships, and spreading democracy; I personally am a bit sickened by the literal holding hands with the monopolic dictators and human rights abusers of Saudi Arabia and UAE.
Where do we see Iraq or Iran here? What I do see is a big payoff.
Now count me out when it comes to conspiracies. Are eurasia and east asia now our allies, despite that they harbour and support terrorism against us and Isreal, lets say, despite that the terrorists gained acess to the US under their visas? They are our allies? How?

In some aspect the conspiracy holds up. We are now trying pay them off for the attack. ( Dubai Ports) George Bush threatens a veto, vehement above all vetos, he never vetoed anything. It smacks of a payoff that he just cant get around, that was expected to go without scrutiny.

Please, someone explain this double speak to me, I really need to know.

Here's a link House Report

1/3 of the failures in proximity to impact were bolt failures, about 1/3 zipper failure of welds, and the remaining third "other". Also this was not by any stretch a controlled demolition, it was a catastrophic failure.



GASP! oh, wait a minute, So what???? The implication is GW put it there? As for why it didn't protect the steel for the 3 or 4 hour fire ratings, that's simple too. The temperature curves used in the testing of insulating methodologies were written back in 1918. They assume a gradual increase to 1550 degrees over the course of an hour. In the WTC case it was virtually instantaneous.





And if you look at the impacts, understand the construction, and have a fundamental understanding of mechanics it's almost predictable.





Where? I've never seen that floated in any reputable report.

I would personally like to see a University (or perhaps some NASA scientists, or MSA investigators) look at what evidence still exists in the form of newsreels, etc. and try to prove or disprove the possibility that these buildings collapsed from being hit by jet planes.

How about this one MIT

Yes, that’s fine beforehand, but as soon as the attacks happen, and the Pilots realise they had been told to stand down in sectors where aircraft-turned bombs were being used, to assume these men who have sworn to defend the country from all enemies foreign and domestic, and whose loyalty lies not to an administration but a nation, would all just go "eh, whatever" and get on with their lives is silly. I believe the legal term is 'accessory after the fact'.




Far too many people, people with no specific connection to the administration, would have had to have been involved to 'turn off' the US and NORAD defence. All the people who see it being turned off and ask questions, all the people who are being turned off: once 9/11 happens, they would all have to be complete idiots not to know what just happened...




Firstly, thank you for your very kind words Artemise...

With regards to the 7 minutes, I don't know: To me it makes perfect sense for a man who is a combination of stunned, and not terribly good at making snap decisions without his handlers. He is enough of a politician to know he could not go batty with the cameras rolling, and my guess is he seriously had no idea what to do, and was waiting for somebody to tell him.

And as for the 'others', presuming they were in on it then widens the circle of people, including some of their advisors and so on, who have to be essentially pure evil to allow this horrendous attack on US soil killing POTENTIALLY tens of thousands of Americans. Now the circle, including those who become aware immediately after the fact as described above, is what... 200, maybe 300 people?



Look, I don't deny there are questions about 9/11. But the brutal reality is that in order for ANY of these conspiracy theories to be plausible, we need a LOT of people at the top echelons of power to literally be bad comic-book villains, twirling waxy moustaches and cackling while people throw themselves from a burning building.

Real people are not that kind of evil, they do not accept horror of that magnitude in order to score cheap political points. Real people are not Professor Moriarty, or the Master, or Snidley Whiplash, of whatever fictional evil-genius you may want to pick. And even if you do happen to find someone who is literally Machiavelli's the Prince and Doctor Evil rolled into one, you will not find an administration full of them. Conspiracy theories don't work because people are human, who react in human ways. They are bad at keeping secrets, and good at being complicated.

Real Pilots, and their superiors are not mindless thugs, they are people who have taken an oath to do exactly the opposite of what everyone who believes in this theory presumes they would automatically do.

I mean for heaven’s sake, Lawnmower man believes these men would have willingly RAMMED a passenger liner with their unarmed jet, YET IN THE SAME BREATH believes they would all be willing accomplices to this atrocity?


Bush may be incompetent, he may be slow, he may be foolish, he may have a twisted ideology, but he is not pure Evil, he is not the Emperor waiting for Karl Rove's son to rise to power, kill his father and take his place at Bush's side.

He is not that because nobody is like that. Even the primarch of evil, Adolph Hitler was essentially a clever opportunist, taking advantage of circumstance rather than sitting in a dark room laughing maniacally while plotting out his evil schemes.



The 9/11 mass conspiracy theory is impossible because the world is not Gotham City, Mars does not need women, and people are, at the end of the day, people.




LASTLY, if you ignore ALL that, and presume that Bush Jr, and ALL his cronies and all those who needed to be involved to make this work ARE evil men or blank-faced Cylons following orders...

Don't you think they would have done a better job? I mean seriously, if you are going to have a conspiracy, why make almost all the attackers Saudi? Might want to stick an Iraqi in there, makes the subsequent invasion a bit more plausible. Why, for all the 'invented genius' of the plot, was there no link at all to Iraq? If that was the point of letting the attack happen, it sure failed.

And if you knew it was coming, I would be sitting in the basement for HOURS practicing my reaction: leaping boldly to action, reciting a stirring speech about the perfidy of the enemy, striding purposefully but with the glisten of a tear in my eye: the public would have eaten that up.

If you presume they are capable of organising the attacks, setting explosives in the buildings, getting air corps to stand down and remain silent, and all the rest... then did they come up with a plan that really did NOT fill any of the objectives people here ascribe to it?
-There was no reason for war with Iraq;
-It didn't make the President or the administration look good;
-It pointed the primary finger at a necessary ally in the Middle East rather than any actual enemy;

And so on... Give me 10 minutes and a pencil and paper and I could come up with an attack on the US that would be 50x less complicated to arrange but would accomplish all Bush Jr's objectives 50x better....

Nope, I dont buy it Vermillion, because it has been considered before in Operation Northwoods in the 1960's. Google it.
You may be one of those that just dont believe in 'our' governments potential for evil, yet we know about Lenin, Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini. Nevermind lesser gods, Franco, Pinochet , Peron, Washington, Lincoln and Nixon.



Like the Reichstag fire as an example? Like all of Nazi Germany? I would never suspect you to be that naiive, in fact this is a first. Have you fallen in love or something akin? Tell your theories to the people kidnapped by the KGB in the middle of the night or those who were ordered onto trains in Germany, on their way to extermination camps, all the while told they were going to 'work' camps. They certainely did not expect that conspiracy theories worked in order to get them put away for life or exterminated. I am sure every Russian that got sent away 'believed', even while they were breaking rocks in a maximun security prison, in the absolute purity of government.( surely!) What of the ones in France? Were they just dumb to their fate? How about Franco? Was he not Dr. Evil? and did not his administration fully adhere to him for decades? What are you talking about? What you are saying has NEVER been done, au contraire mon cheri, but government has ALWAYS been the backbreaker of the people and their desire to live in peace.
Tell it to Jose Padilla who has not seen a lawyer or anyone in his family for 5 years. Or anyone in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, who may or may not be guilty yet are encarcerated without due process, and very likely tortured under new US doctrine.
Tell this non-conspiracy story to Iraqis, who have been U.S. pawns for more than 30 years, living now without basic needs well below pre-war status, which was already a pitiful way of life with sanctions, and that it was NOT a conspiracy, to tell US citizens that they would be blown up by Saddams mushroom cloud over NYC?

Oh, our leaders are not evil. They are businessmen. And they are evil, and they will do what it takes, using you and me and anyone.


As for Yogurt: you wanted a University standpoint: http://911review.com/articles/griffin/nyc1.html

This is Brigham Young U.
http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html

It may not be NASA, but here you have some technicalities and much more.

And it never happened, and we know about it. I have a hard enough time with the planning of these things, but as I have already stated, the execution is even more impossible.





Wow, wow, wow, slow down there Artemise.

Firstly, let me be clear, I think you have misunderstood me. I never said people are not evil, of course they are, you listed a very nice catalogue of evil people yourself there.

What I said is that people are not the kind of scheming evil genius that we read about in fiction.

Yes what about the Reichstag? Its now pretty clear the Nazis had no hand in burning it down, it was done by a dutch Communist, but the Nazis leapt on the opportunity.

What about the Holocaust? The Holocaust as accepted by universal convention by historians in the field was not an event planned from 1933. It was a series of circumstances, literally the Nazis ended up with that decision, they did not plan it. Does that make them any less evil for conceiving and executing it, with some zeal I might add? No of course not.


You seem to have assumed I am arguing evil does not exist. It most certainly does exist, and we see examples of it all over the place. Not only do I not deny it, I would argue it vehemently. What I do deny, is the idea that a nation like the US could plan such a grandiose, spectacular, impressive and complicated operation, which did very little to advance their actual goals. What I do deny is that the hundreds of people necessarily involved in the planning and execution of such a scheme would all be blind willing participants in High Treason and Mass Murder without a thought.

Do you know what evil people do? They kill people, they torture them, they blow them up, they do simple functional evil things.

They do not design massive drill devices to tunnel stolen Russian nukes down to deep-earth fault lines to cause world-wide earthquakes. I see no logic or reason behind the idea that Bush Jr either made this happen or allowed this specific attack to happen, nor behind the idea that the hundreds of people around him simply went along with sch a horrific idea with blind obedience.

Besides, you listed Hitler, Stalin, Mao as examples of true evil. They are. And you know what? I can't stand Bush jr, I think he is one of the worst things to happen to the USA in modern memory. But he is no Hitler Stalin and Mao. He is not that kind of evil, and MORE IMPORTANTLY, he does not rule in a structure where orders of grandiose evil, even if he gave them, would be followed without automatically question.




I don't know. I don't know if the decision to go to war on false pretenses was a deliberate decision to fabricate lies, or wheither it was an excess of zeal, abundence of credulity, and desire to not look too hard at the facts because on the face they supported his case.




Well, for all my ardent dislike of the current administration, I am not willing to step up and label them 'evil'. Thats a very heavy word to use to describe somebody. They have taken evil acts, no question, and evil has been done under their watch and in their name as well. One of them recently even shot a guy in the face. But 'Evil' is a word I save for people like Hussein himself.

And Bush Jr, for all his many failings (and there are many) is no Saddam Hussein.

I wasn't aware of allegations that any pilots were told to stand down. The main allegations were that the orders for them to take off were delayed. And they certainly weren't going to take off on their own initiative, regardless of how critical the situation might have seemed.

The other allegation is that the administration knew of the attacks beforehand (or even coordinated them), but did nothing to prevent the terrorists from even being able to get off the ground (figuratively and literally speaking) to begin with. And again, it would not necessarily have had to involve more than just the people at the very top, if the people at the next level down were only getting pieces of the overall picture.

The first link was written by a theology professor. I'm not sure what makes him especially qualified in this area. The next was written by a physics professor, true enough. There are of course hundreds of physicists, scientists and engineers who have offered contradictory evidence (including on this very forum in the other thread).

There is also the reasonablility test. Why not just detonate the explosives and call it a terrorist attack rather than trying to create a situation where a passenger plane would fly into a building so the explosives would be simultaneously detonated? Why not create the situation to make a stronger case against Iraq? A president capable of enabling such a scheme could certainly plant a WMD or two as well….

Furthermore, why do this with four different planes? Isn’t that a bit overkill (no pun intended)? Such tactics would be more effective if at least one or two of the planes had been intercepted, and looked like saviors and heros, rather than being totally unprepared for that potentiality. There are much better ways to obtain power without crippling the economy and airline industry.

If you throw out the reasonablility test and all contradictory evidence, you could provide a rationale for almost anything. There is evidence that you were very likely never born. The odds for your conception were less than one in one hundred million (the number of sperm per ejaculation). There is lots of evidence that you are alive, but that should be disregarded because the above facts indicate that would be a fantastic coincidence.

One possible explanation would be to make us seem more vulnerable - the proverbial box-cutter that brought down the Towers. That would provide far more opportunities for restricting civil liberties than if someone had placed explosives at strategic locations (which, in addition, would also have raised plenty more questions among the public).

The question I'd first ask here is if the physicist's analysis is sound. If it doesn't make the Occam's Razor cut, then it can be dispensed with. Otherwise, to paraphrase a point you made further down in your post, it doesn't matter how unlikely it might seem; if no one's able to explain it other than by detonations, then that possibility should not be ignored.


I think a common mistake made by people arguing against conspiracy theories is in assuming that the conspirators would have to be virtually omnipotent in order to pull any of it off. That's not necessarily so. If such a conspiracy actually did take place, then it's likely that the conspirators were only powerful enough to do what they actually did. Planting explosives in buildings in your own country undetected, however difficult that may be, is going to be child's play compared to the logistics of planting weapons of mass destruction in a foreign country subject to the autocratic control of one of your enemies, in the middle of a region of the world that for the most part doesn't exactly see eye-to-eye with us.

Lawenmower man above referred to Pilots being told to stand down. This is of course another problem with conspiracy theories about 9/11, there are as many of them as hairs on my head, and many of these theoriests don't really care which one happened, so long as SOME big conspiracy happened.

However, even to your point, if orders for them to take off were delayed long enough to make a difference (which they would not have, as I showed at the start of this thread Jets could not possibly have been armed, fueled and scrambled fast enough to make a difference) do you not think somebody would have their head taken off? A Pilot sitting on the tarmac ready to go shoot down terrorists is unaccountably delayed half an hour, and there is no outcry? It does not show up in the 9/11 comission? Nobody raises holy hell about it?



Again, not really the case. Bush did not do his own investigationg, it was done by some likely large team of field agents, Humint and Sigint people and analysts, before being presented to their superiors, before being presented to the Joint Chiefs before being presented to the President. By the time the intel of an impending attack even REACHES the President probably half a hundred people at minimum know about it. Further, the CIA does not get presidential permission for everyaction they take in the field. They were probably organising to intervene in the attack as soon as they heard about it. There would need to have been specific orders to back off, stand down, going back down the chain.




I think you missed the point there. This has nothing to do with planting WMD. The issue is, if this whole unbelievably and uncessarily complex job was arranged so that there could be a pretext for invading Iraq, then why did 9/11 give no pretext for invading Iraq? It is the height of foolishness to assume that it is possible for Bush Jr and his staff to have goneto such lengths to produce such a staggeringly complex plan to kill US citizens, and FORGOTTEN to actually have this plan advance their cause at all? How about if, instead of almost all being Saudi, most... or hey, ONE of the hijackers was Iraqi? Why not create in this massive plan some evidence which would actually link the plan to the objective?


It's like saying the US arranged and planed the Pearl harbour attacks in order to give them a justification for war with Brazil... but forgot to actually implicate Brazil at all.


What we have here is an insanely complicated plot, which HAD to involve hundreds of people, which the logistics of are nearly impossible: for example:

-Terrorists could never have piloted an aircraft into the buildings that accurately, so theorists say. BUT, a CIA guy using REMOTE CONTROL, could pilot the plane SO accurately that not only did he hit the building, he hit it at the EXACT floors where pre-planted explosives had been laid. Pre-planted explosives by the way, that survived intact being hit with a passenger jet loaded with jet fuel. Riiiiight.


And on top of this impossible plot with hundreds of actors, the whole plan actually did nothing to link to the objectives of the administration?

I love how Conspiracy theorists assume that the administration is capable of such staggering omniscient genius, and such Charlie-Brownish blundering stupidity at exactly the same time...

Well, the physicist is suggesting that aluminum based preset explosives melted iron at the point of airplane contact. Another explanation could be that the aluminum from the airplane ignited and melted metal at the point of contact. Which explanation would Occam's razor satisfy?


Edited to add: I've been perusing this professor's handiwork, and I must say it's interesting his own quoted expert sources don't even back his reasoning. Here is an interesting read, which completely contradicts the professor's hypothesis, from one of his ostensible sources: Dr Frank Gayle.

IN fact, the deception of this professor's work is unbelieveable when scrutinized. He is using quotes from newspaper and magazine sources that outright contradict each other as well, and offering those as "proof" of his hypothesis. Some sources are quoted speaking of the molten metal (all before the metal could be analyzed, except visually), then he uses another source which says the fire wasn't hot enough to melt steel because no melted steel was found, puts them together and indicates the equivalent of, "See! How did the steel melt if the fire wasn't hot enough because steel didn't melt?" The first third of this report (I didn't read further) doesn't even pass a layperson's scrutiny, nor is it supported by his own footnoted links.

This is an amazing psychological experiment. Basically, to buy this you have to believe that the cited experts are all lying in their total analysis, but certain comments taken out of context from them are the "real truth". This is true of every single 911 conspiracy piece I've ever read, as well as this physicist's analysis.

I don't believe in any conspiracy stuff that we actually hear about- because human nature means that 2 people and a secret- well, you don't have a secret much after that!

Whenever you get more than the core of any set of planners in a mix- secrets will just leak out- there is no way to stop it.

Like the "we shot down the TWA flight" theory- riiiighhht- okay- 1000 men on that ship, and not one of them will go to an authority to tell his/her tale?

This administration is impossibly corrupt and inept- NOT impossibly machivalian and sneaky and good at what they do.

How does the saying go? Never give credit to evil when incompetence will do? OR some such?

I'll post quickly what I think. After reading The New Pearl Harbor by David Ray Griffin (ok, only half read so far, I'll finish in the next day or two) I've had a major change in my thinking. The amount of contradictory evidence presented from witnesses, the government, governmental documents, and many other areas leaves many many questions.

Why was the Pentagon plane apparently destroyed completely from the fire that ensued (obviously hot enough to burn aluminum and steel) yet the victims on the flight were identified by their finerprints?

Why was Bush not immediately whisked out of the school by the Secerate Service? Is their job not to protect the president at all costs, and especially when there is an obvious attack? He was in a publicized location for a photo-op, one would think that since he is the most important person in America he would be a target.

Why were some of the terrorists, who were on the FBI watch list, allowed to stay in the US and attend Flight Training School?

Why was Air Force One not protected when it took of from Sarasota even though Karl Rove and Cheney stated it was a terrorist target?

And those are just a few (and some of the less intense) questions raised by the book. I would seriously recommend it to anyone interested. Everything is well researched and explained in a very logical, easy to follow argument that is based on logic and not emotionalism or anything else.


1. Do you agree with Lawnmower Man that George W. Bush knew before the fact that 9/11 was going to happen.

This is a stretch, but I think it's definitely possible that he knew something was going to happen, maybe not exactly what and where.

2. If one accepts this conspiracy theory, are they accusing Bush of treason?


Well, if he had any foreknowledge of any type of event and gave orders to stand-down or anything else then yes. But you have to assume that we were aiding enemies for it to be treason; 9/11 helped catalyze a vast number of programs and military actions.

I don't know, and maybe don't want to, the extent to which there is foul play. As to whether or not it's good old incompetence or direct knowledge and planning I do not know (but after reading through many of the areas needed for incompetence and intelligence failures it becomes staggering that Bush and Co., the FBI, NORAD, NMCC, etc. manage to dress, feed, and breath without reminders).

I now feel that there are too many inconsistencies in the official explanation for it to be true, but I don'