# Give me your 9/11 conspiracy theories! And/or their debunking **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 20, 2009, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041 "2009-05-20T03:24:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 46
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/901 "2009-06-30T16:36:17Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > Went to a friend’s house to watch a basketball game a couple of weeks ago. A guy there wanted to talk about the Kennedy conspiracy. Although my friend tried to wave me off we got into it. He begged me to walk next door to go to his garage, because he actually built a model of Dealey Plaza! A frink’n model! At that point I realized that nothing was going to change his mind. That sounds kinda cool, actually. Did he put miniature video cameras in the sixth-floor window and on the grassy knoll? For that matter, has he ever played _JFK Reloaded_? Biggest problem I have with the idea of a grassy knoll shooter has always been that there were at least a dozen people who would have unmistakably heard the shot, since they were 20-40 feet away. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/902 "2009-06-30T16:49:28Z")
C’mon. guys. One silly Conspiracy event per thread. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/903 "2009-06-30T16:54:33Z")
The problem with JFK reloaded is that you were scored by how closely you replicated Oswald’s shots. That’s pretty tough. But killing Kennedy himself was simple. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/904 "2009-06-30T16:55:10Z")
Damn…I was going to start talking about Roswell, since I have to be there next week… -XT ---
**Author:** ![psikeyhackr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/97f17d/32.png) [@psikeyhackr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psikeyhackr)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/905 "2009-06-30T16:59:24Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > The main problem dealing with CTers such as **Psikeyhackr** , is that they have invested some much emotion and time in their pursuit of the truth as they have come to believe it, that they just aren’t objective anymore. > > He’s researched what the building is made of. He’s built toothpick models. He’s made videos of the toothpicks. Are they accurate? Hell no. Does it matter? Nope. Where did I say they were **ACCURATE**? Why do they contain frames asking the tons of steel and tons of concrete on every level of the WTC? The Impact model can sway by more than 100% of its width at the top. No real skyscraper can do that. But it does demonstrate the effect of mass distribution on how such a structure sways. So if someone does more than just type on the internet on a subject that sent America off to war and got tens of thousands of Iraqis killed then they must have EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS. :smack: It is the people that accept that planes weighing less than 200 tons can destroy buildings weighing more than 400,000 tons in less than 2 hours and not even ask about the distribution of mass that are believers. How do you do physics without accurate data? Where is info on the weight of the horizontal beams connecting the core columns? Where does the NIST specify the total for the concrete in the towers? You people are really good at fighting ignorance here. LOL psik ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/906 "2009-06-30T17:11:55Z")
[QUOTE=psikeyhackr] You people are really good at fighting ignorance here. [/QUOTE] Some ignorance is so monumental that it simply can’t be fought…simply endured or ignored. lol. roflmao. slatfatf. :p:D:):eek::(… -XT ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/907 "2009-06-30T17:19:44Z")
How can a bullet massing only 10 grams destroy a person massing 100 kilograms? Think, people! ---
**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/908 "2009-06-30T17:32:06Z")
> [@psikeyhackr](#): > > Where did I say they were **ACCURATE**? Why do they contain frames asking the tons of steel and tons of concrete on every level of the WTC? > > How do you do physics without accurate data? Where is info on the weight of the horizontal beams connecting the core columns? Where does the NIST specify the total for the concrete in the towers? I suggest your request for accurate data is fundamentally irrelevant, as both your modeling and the conclusions drawn therefrom are inaccurate. > [@zut](#): > > Humor me for a moment: suppose you had an exact weight distribution for every floor of the World Trade Center. What, exactly, do you think you could do with the data? How would it be more valuable than boundary cases where the weight distribution is over- or under-estimated? More importantly, how would you demonstrate that any simplified calculation or model you make is relevant to the collapse of the World Trade Center? ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/909 "2009-06-30T18:00:04Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I’m not sure what you want “debunked.” > > The two are not analogous. > > Afghanistan was an unstable, rogue state that was harboring a terrorist who had been involved in, at minmum, four separate attacks on the U.S., the most recent, (at the time of the invasion), being a direct attack on U.S. civilian and military sites inside the U.S., proper. Even if the Taliban was not capable of handing bin Laden over to the U.S., they were adamant that the U.S. was not to try to find him within the Afghanistan borders. > > Iraq was a stable, if brutal, nation that was presenting no threat to the U.S. and was wholly contained, preventing any further aggression against its neighbors. Unfortunately, the U.S. president harbored a personal grudge against the Iraqi regime and Iraq happened to figure prominetly in the pipedreams of a few neo-cons whose grasp of history was warped by their wishful thinking. (I hope you guys don’t feel like I’m hijacking your conversation with psykeyhakr if I inject my off-topic comments.) That is a good answer. Let me try to be more specific about what I meant by analagous. If I chose the wrong word, sorry. Iraq invasion: Not necessary to sieze WMD’s. Not necessary to fight terrorism. Consensus is that it wasn’t necessary at all, though given that, more competent execution would have brought better results. Afghanistan invasion: Not necessary to fight terrorism. Consensus (I estimate) is that the Afghan invasion is generally accepted, though given that, more competent execution would have brought better results. The significant analogy to me is that both wars were unnecessary to accomplish their stated objectives. Don’t read that as some kind of expression of religious faith. If you think the Afghanistan invasion was truly necessary, is it because they were ‘harboring’ terrorists? Include anything else in the ‘necessary invasion’ theory? I’ll listen and take it seriously. To me it looks like it could be this: events on the ground (911, terrorists in the Hindu Kush) were abstracted into the Bush Doctrine (we will make no distinction between terrorists and those who harbor them). With the distinctions removed, a military strategy was placed on the ground which referred to much, much more than terrorism. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/910 "2009-06-30T18:09:18Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > There are close to 900 responses to your thread here, the vast majority directed to your direct questions. Are you cognizant of the time and effort that has been put into helping YOU understand? I’ve been here for years and I’ve rarely seen this amount of time and effort to fight one person’s ignorance. > > Frankly, you ask questions about issues that most consider non-issues by most, such as why the U. S. went into Afghanistan. I think you need to take some time and ask yourself why you’ve received ‘graduate level’ education on these issues and seem no closer to a basic understanding of the issues than when you began. > > Put another way, what can we possibly provide you that will help you understand that you haven’t been provided already? I’m not sure the vast majority of posts here are direct answers to my questions. But that’s ok, it’s a public forum and all. I appreciate the answers I do get. Some information I’d like to see: -A map of Afghanistan and Pakistan with the locations of the terrorist training camps highlighted. How many camps are controlled by Bin Laden? How do we know he controls them? The total number of mujahideen camps was over 4000 in some articles I read. Surely most of them were what passes for Afghan military infrastructure. So now the entire Afghan military is a terrorist and a target? -Maps describing the history of US military actions in Afghanistan since the invasion. Maybe show groups like the Northern Alliance as a different color, just a clever little suggestion on my part. The first thing we did was hit Kabul right? Are there any terrorist training camps in Kabul? And, a good response to my conjecture that submitting to US demands (as executed) would have been an act of self-destruction on the part of the Taliban. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/911 "2009-06-30T18:18:52Z")
Good grief. [QUOTE=Try2B Comprehensive] Afghanistan invasion: Not necessary to fight terrorism. [/QUOTE] I don’t know how many times you’ve been told this (and yet keep circling back to this same stupid point) but let me try in all caps: THAT’S WHERE THE FUCKING TERRORISTS WHO ATTACKED US WERE!! Did that help? I threw and explicative in too, just in case that helped. > [@](#): > > The significant analogy to me is that both wars were unnecessary to accomplish their stated objectives. The stated objective was to take the fight to the terrorist organization who had attacked the US (in the case of Afghanistan) and to destroy a nation who were supporting those terrorists. I’d say we did a pretty fair job of accomplishing those objectives, at least initially. How you still figure (after having it explained to you, oh, 50 times now) how Afghanistan was an unnecessary war is beyond me. > [@](#): > > I’ll listen and take it seriously. No…you won’t. Because past history in this thread indicates that you are incapable of listening OR taking any view but your own on this subject seriously. You asked this question a half a dozen times at least and have received a half a dozen (at least) various responses already. Either you don’t understand the answers you’ve already been given or you are not asking in good faith, instead just keeping this aspect of the discussion going for gods know what reason. > [@](#): > > To me it looks like it could be this: events on the ground (911, terrorists in the Hindu Kush) were abstracted into the Bush Doctrine (we will make no distinction between terrorists and those who harbor them). With the distinctions removed, a military strategy was placed on the ground which referred to much, much more than terrorism. Sure…I mean, it couldn’t possibly be that AQ staged a major attack on the US and, being based out of Afghanistan we simply decided that we should, you know, do something about that. Naw…no way could it be that simple. I’m sure that the fact that the Taliban were supporting AQ, providing them with logistics and a safe haven, were politically and religiously on the same play book, had been associated since the Soviet invasion, etc etc didn’t factor in at all either, ehe? It was all just a coincidence…well, that and Bush wanting a pipeline. Or something. -XT ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/912 "2009-06-30T18:19:02Z")
Done right, the Afghanistan invasion would have been a direct blow against terrorism. While the Taliban controlled Afghanistan and protected bin Laden, he was free to communicate with whomever he wished, however he wished, with no restrictions on his movements or associations. Taking bin Laden would have removed a key leader from al Qaida as well as removing, (or, at least, hindering), his financial support from the group. We actually had world opinion on our side. Done right, we could have urged a new generation of Muslim youth to look on us as supporters of democracy and religious freedom. Removing the Taliban and helping to support the creation of a new, free government in Afghanistan would have reduced the number of volunteers who would have joined various terrorist cells to attack us in the future. (This, of course, presupposes that we were not so idiotic as to blunder into Iraq, perpetuating and enhancing our image as a colonialist power and a corrupt society, inciting more terrorist volunters.) It would not have caused Wahabbism to dry up and blow away, but it could have been a significant event in changing world attitudes–both of Muslims and non-Muslims–toward cultural relations between the Muslim world and the rest of the world. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/913 "2009-06-30T18:19:16Z")
**Psi** , it is patently obvious that the buildings were not brought down by the planes impact. It is also patently obvious that the buildings were brought down by the _fires_ caused by the planes impact. Why are you asking us to prove something that didn’t happen? BTW, how you doin’ on [that search](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11292511&postcount=895)? ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/914 "2009-06-30T18:25:43Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Damn…I was going to start talking about Roswell, since I have to be there next week… I drove through Roswell last week. The two things I’ve always noticed about Roswell are that there are alien references everywhere, from the western wear store to the coffee house to Burger King, and there seem to be more cigarette stores there than anywhere I’ve ever seen. They even have a drive-through cigarette store, and last week there was a line of cars for it in the middle of a workday. What’s up with that?!? Oh, and what does everyone think about whether there’s really a law that says you have to pay income tax? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/915 "2009-06-30T18:28:34Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] Done right, the Afghanistan invasion would have been a direct blow against terrorism [/QUOTE] Even done in the half assed and shitty way, it was a direct blow against AQ and the Taliban. It totally disrupted their C&C from a global perspective and tossed them back to disparate local groups with no coordination or central theme. Yeah…it COULD have been better. It SHOULD have been better. But it wasn’t a wasted effort, or unnecessary. It was quite necessary…in fact, contrary to whatever the hell Try2B Comprehensive is trying to get at, we should have given it a HIGHER priority and put more into the invasion. Perhaps then we would have gotten that magic pipeline out of the deal as well… -XT ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/916 "2009-06-30T18:30:41Z")
[QUOTE=CurtC] I drove through Roswell last week. The two things I’ve always noticed about Roswell are that there are alien references everywhere, from the western wear store to the coffee house to Burger King, and there seem to be more cigarette stores there than anywhere I’ve ever seen. They even have a drive-through cigarette store, and last week there was a line of cars for it in the middle of a workday. What’s up with that?!? [/QUOTE] Alien Ale baby…and I love the museum and the McDonald’s with the big flying saucer. Did you notice all the signs for Fat Man’s beef jerky too? I love that stuff! I don’t know what’s up with the cigarette thing…I never noticed that. I think it has to do with the aliens though… -XT ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/917 "2009-06-30T18:58:25Z")
> [@psikeyhackr](#): > > It is the people that accept that planes weighing less than 200 tons can destroy buildings weighing more than 400,000 tons in less than 2 hours and not even ask about the distribution of mass that are believers. This is such an absurd non-sequitur as to really call into question how serious you are. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/918 "2009-06-30T19:01:54Z")
I read somewhere that Controlled Demolition, Inc. “claims” to have “imploded” a building that must have weighed thousands of tons, using only a few pounds of some “material” called “C4.” How ludicrous is that?!? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/919 "2009-06-30T19:08:24Z")
Yeah…but how much does that ‘C4’ stuff weigh, ehe? I mean…it’s got to weigh somewhere around 400,000 tons, right? And it probably takes WAY more than 2 hours to destroy such a large building as well… -XT ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/920 "2009-06-30T19:43:32Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > This is such an absurd non-sequitur as to really call into question how serious you are. Tragically, it’s not an “absurd non-sequitor”… it’s been the thrust of his entire argument so far. (paraphrased) “Buildings are heavy. Planes are light. These planes didn’t bring down the building on impact (they only moved 14 inches or so), so something _must_ have. What? NOBODY KNOWS AND NOBODY IS TELLING!!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041.md?page=45) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041.md?page=47)