# 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:** 7
**Author:** ![NYC\_Chic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f0a364/32.png) [@NYC\_Chic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NYC_Chic)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/121 "2009-05-22T19:57:54Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > You continually oversimplify things, like the fact that the boxes were part of planes that crashed into buildings at high speed and were then trapped in fires that burned for hours before the buildings collapsed on them. > > That wouldn’t explain anything. The fires burned for **two** hours. So the boxes were constructed then really to provide information about crashes that happen at low speeds? They just kind of disintegrate otherwise? And I thought they gave like a homing signal. I wonder if the intense heat from the jet fuel didn’t disable the homing signal in the two hour fires that powderized the black boxes and the steel supports of the building. Causing the towers to peel open and reach around WTC 5 to Tower 7. Which caused the blazing fires that caused the mechanical tower to on top of it to collapse and then the middle to buckle in as it slid down in its own foot print. The planes came in at what floors again? How many stories from the top in each case? You guys have convinced me. Now it all makes sense :smack:. No, seriously. I’m going to a party tonight and I have to go get pretty:cool:. ---
**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:** [May 22, 2009, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/122 "2009-05-22T20:43:06Z")
[QUOTE=NYC\_Chic] You guys have convinced me. Now it all makes sense [/QUOTE] I think we all realized long ago that you and others captivated with the supposed conspiracy (which ever CT it happens to be) are immune to convincing. No amount of data or logic is going to get through. The hope here is that someone following along who hasn’t made their mind up and who is actually willing to read the mountain of evidence against the CT (and who doesn’t use a YouTube video and their own uncertain understanding of what they are seeing as the basis for their assertions…well, that and their feelings of course). YOU are most likely a lost cause…but perhaps someone else will benefit from the effort (and the efforts of countless other 'dopes in myriad old threads on this same, tired subject). > [@](#): > > Did anybody see the towers “peel open”? Can they send me a link to that footage? Try opening up some of the links in the cites already given you, ehe? The thing is, you might not want to simply watch the videos…well, unless you are a structural engineer with access to frame by frame analysis tools with digital enhancement. Because frankly just watching the footage and making determinations based solely on that is, well, rather silly, if you aren’t. ARE you a structural engineer with access to the necessary equipment? Based on your posts so far I’m guessing the answer is ‘no’, but it’s always polite to ask. > [@](#): > > Poetry Hound? You old fiend. I thought it was you! Nope…sorry. Nearly all of my other online persona’s on previous message boards have ‘XT’ in them somewhere. The one exception was ‘Occam’ that I used. At any rate, I think I’m done here. I’ve seen too many of these played out not to know what the end result of THIS one will be. You will continue to ignore the mountain of cites given you, while making silly and ignorant comments that just show how little you know about the subject. You will continue to ask for cites and then debunk the debunking based on your own feelings and intuition, or what you saw on a grainy YouTube video. And it will go around and around until the thread finally winds down to one or two 'dopers who will continue to try, in the face of insurmountable ignorance, to beat their heads bloody against the wall of your intransigence. -XT ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/123 "2009-05-22T21:22:05Z")
> [@NYC\_Chic](#): > > “\*There was? Can you provide documentation for this exercise?” > \* > > BOSTON CENTER: Hi. Boston Center T.M.U. [Traffic Management Unit], we have a problem here. We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York, and we need you guys to, we need someone to scramble some F-16s or something up there, help us out. > POWELL: Is this real-world or exercise? > BOSTON CENTER: No, this is not an exercise, not a test. Let me remind you of your own words: “There was somehow a coincidental training exercise going on the same day where planes were supposed to be crashed into the Towers as part of the exercise.” You have not at all shown that there was an exercise that involved simulated planes being flown into the Twin Towers. That’s a big FAIL. Yes, there was a military exercise going on, involving Soviet bombers or maybe a hijacked plane to Cuba. This was a coincidence, but not an astounding coincidence, because when we’re not at war, our military does exercises all the time. So what was the effect of this exercise? It didn’t confuse anyone - very early in the day, the people asked, were told it was not an exercise, and that was it. The fact that there had been an exercise did not slow down any responses that day. In fact, it made sure that NORAD was staffed up, with their best people in the room. If you were wanting to slow down NORAD, you wouldn’t schedule an activity that put all the best people at their working positions ready to go. > [@NYC\_Chic](#): > > They started shipping off the steel the NEXT day. They started shipping it over to Staten Island, where it was carefully sorted through. > [@NYC\_Chic](#): > > The 9/11 commision report doesn’t mention what happened to Tower 7… Why should they? The Commission’s job was to investigate how our intelligence let a group of terrorists attack us from the inside. WTC7 was not attacked by terrorists. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/124 "2009-05-22T23:18:05Z")
> [@NYC\_Chic](#): > > The fires burned for **two** hours. At temperatures of up to 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,800 F), with plenty of fuel, after smashing into a building at hundreds of miles per hour, followed by the building collapsing on top of them. [I know, it just sounds crazy!] [That’s from here, and you should probably read this anyway.](http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm) > [@](#): > > The planes came in at what floors again? How many stories from the top in each case? The first plane hit at about floor 93 and the second at around 81, out of 110 floors. I know, it’s amazing to think the boxes could have been damaged by the crash, extreme fire, 20 to 30 tower floors falling on them, and then a drop of hundreds of feet. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/125 "2009-05-22T23:59:02Z")
First, what the fuck is supposed to be in these black boxes that is going to prove **NYC\_Chic** ’s case? A photo of George Bush giving Bin Laden a blow job and a gross of box cutters? I have a feeling the only data we would receive from them is a) plane go 500 mph, blow up and b) Aaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!! What the fuck would that prove? ---
**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:** [May 23, 2009, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/126 "2009-05-23T05:38:13Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Wolfowitz wrote a term paper “explaining” that the U.S. needed a more responsible ally in the region and that Iraq, with a nearly modern infrastructure, a somewhat secular government, and lots of oil, was the ideal candidate to be that new ally. He then proposed that Hussein was such a horrible tyrant that overthrowing him would cause us to be welcomed as liberators and ensure that the Iraqi people would desire to become our best friends in the region. His comparison was based on a rather remarkable ignorance of how the Germans responded to our invasion in the Spring of 1945 accompanied by an utter ignorance of the history and beliefs of the Iraqi people. Based on his term paper, a number of men who were later invited by G W Bush to become important members of his administration wrote an essay expressing the idea that the U.S. should make it formal policy to try to bring Wolfowitz’s odd ideas to fruition. During the campaign for the 2000 presidentail election, G W Bush noted on multiple occasions that we should “do something” about Iraq. > > Then, the WTC/Pentagon attacks occured and, without a shred of evidence, the administration began talking about the need to “stop Iraq” in light of those attacks. > > Conspiracy? Nah. Just delusional nutjobs with too much power carrying out pipe dreams. By ‘pipe dreams’, do you mean oil pipes, or something else 😉 The best thing about a thread like this is that it creates an atmosphere of maximum skepticism- ideally, only the truth can survive. So far, the idea that the invasion of Iraq was predicated on bullshit has survived, no? And the concept that oil was a motive has also survived, and in fact flourished, at least in my view. Pipes across Afghanistan, buried patents for electric car batteries, etc. But not a conspiracy? Though in the public eye, ‘they’ seem to have worked together in secret to invade Iraq, and seized on the post-911 atmosphere to advance that agenda. Merely delusional? It is so difficult for me to accept that the government is mad… as bad as a conspiracy theory actually. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2009, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/127 "2009-05-23T05:53:55Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > So far, the idea that the invasion of Iraq was predicated on bullshit has survived, no? I’ll grant that it was predicated on bullshit; I happen to think that Bush actually believed his administration’s bullshit. They wanted real bad to believe that Saddam had WMDs, so they accepted uncritically any reports that he did, and didn’t use proper skepticism. > [@](#): > > And the concept that oil was a motive has also survived, and in fact flourished, at least in my view. **A** motive, sure. Not **the** motive, but I can’t imagine anyone arguing that we’d be messing with Iraq if they didn’t have the oil. > [@](#): > > Pipes across Afghanistan, There’s a pipe across Afghanistan?!? > [@](#): > > …buried patents for electric car batteries, etc. Buried patents? What are you talking about now? The car company who built a better battery would have the equivalent of a license to print money. Why would they bury that? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2009, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/128 "2009-05-23T06:46:32Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > There’s a pipe across Afghanistan?!? The [proposal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Afghanistan_Pipeline) has stalled since we took over Afghanistan. The Taliban apparently controls the area it would run through. > [@CurtC](#): > > Buried patents? What are you talking about now? The car company who built a better battery would have the equivalent of a license to print money. Why would they bury that? Not that I know that anyone did in this case, but I understand it’s not that unusual for a company to research something just so they can patent it, sit on the patent and deny the technology from their competitors. Yes, they might make more money in the long run by using it, but in the short run they’d have to spend money on retooling factories and such. That sort of thing is why I think we need some sort of use-it-or-lose-it provision for patents. Note that this by nature can’t be secret however. ---
**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:** [May 23, 2009, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/129 "2009-05-23T06:48:54Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > I’ll grant that it was predicated on bullshit; I happen to think that Bush actually believed his administration’s bullshit. They wanted real bad to believe that Saddam had WMDs, so they accepted uncritically any reports that he did, and didn’t use proper skepticism. > > **A** motive, sure. Not **the** motive, but I can’t imagine anyone arguing that we’d be messing with Iraq if they didn’t have the oil. > There’s a pipe across Afghanistan?!? > > Buried patents? What are you talking about now? The car company who built a better battery would have the equivalent of a license to print money. Why would they bury that? [This website](http://www.ringnebula.com/Oil/Timeline.htm) seemed to substantiate the idea that a string of administrations had sought an oil pipeline across Afghanistan, and that Bush’s efforts were merely the latest. And- you didn’t know that Chevron is sitting on patents for electric car batteries? NiMh to be exact- not as good as the lithium-ion batteries you hear about, but since nickel costs a fraction compared to lithium considering it’s wild abundance (or lithium’s relative scarcity), a workable option for mass-produced electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles. Can I cite later? Please look for it yourself. It is late. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2009, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/130 "2009-05-23T07:02:57Z")
The other day a friend mentioned, “It could not have been a conspiracy, the ruling class had too many chips on the table and the danger of being caught was too high.” ---
**Author:** ![Valgard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7feea3/32.png) [@Valgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valgard)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2009, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/131 "2009-05-23T07:03:49Z")
**NYC\_Chic** , since you mentioned WTC7 here’s my previous thread on it after NIST finished up their analysis of what happened. Please take a look at the summary of that report and the FAQ which answers many common questions. > **[New NIST Report On WTC 7 - Change Anybody's Mind?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=480542)** > > (Inspired by the Flight 800 thread) After a three year study, here’s links to NIST’s report: http://www.nist.gov/public\_affairs/releases/wtc082108.html Executive summary: Fires weakened structural members which collapsed, resulting in... As in all of these threads I think it’s important for people raising technical issues to say what their background is in the related areas. I feel somewhat qualified to comment on structural questions based on my education; I have a BS and MS in structural engineering from one of the top civil engineering schools in the country with an emphasis on steel & concrete construction. I’ve also got some experience with thermite (I throw that in due to the number of people who insist that some or all of the WTC structures were brought down using the stuff) - one of my fellow students did his graduate dissertation on its use in repairing steel rails so we had plenty of it being lit off in our crane bay and I know first-hand what it does. You have expressed your opinion that some or all of the WTC structures were demolished with set charges. May I ask what your background is in structural engineering, construction or demolitions? ---
**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:** [May 23, 2009, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/132 "2009-05-23T15:08:56Z")
> [@](#): > > Buried patents? What are you talking about now? The car company who built a better battery would have the equivalent of a license to print money. Why would they bury that? Ok, here’s a link about [Chevron sitting on battery patents](http://evworld.com/blogs/index.cfm?authorid=281&blogid=729) Why bury it? Because it could undermine the oil industry. ---
**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:** [May 23, 2009, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/133 "2009-05-23T15:18:06Z")
On the other topic, FWIW, this is the best 911 conspiracy video I have seen: [911 Mysteries](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8172271955308136871) -though it will take a while to get through all the links in this thread. Thanks for all the info everyone. The evidence against the demolition theory does seem to be overwhelming IMHO, though there are still some unanswered questions. Specific to the video- how did some of the structural steel get deformed as if by a bomb? Why was the site cleared so fast, seemingly with a shoddy investigation-or is that a misconception? Don’t get me wrong, these are unanswered questions- I can’t buy that it was a demolition in the face of the counter-arguments. ---
**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:** [May 23, 2009, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/134 "2009-05-23T16:05:42Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > I’ll grant that it was predicated on bullshit; I happen to think that Bush actually believed his administration’s bullshit. They wanted real bad to believe that Saddam had WMDs, so they accepted uncritically any reports that he did, and didn’t use proper skepticism. To me it looks like his team just wanted to go to war and built their case around that- they wanted the public to believe it real bad. For example, informant in the yellowcake uranium story was thought to be not credible before the war, and the story considered unreliably flimsy by the intelligence community. Remember, the expert inspectors were all saying ‘There are NO WMDs, and trust us, we’ve looked everywhere’. The WMD theory then is really a conspiracy theory, right? Bush believes that, undetected by the whole world, in Saddam’s garage or something, a nuke is being built! How could someone with so much access to information believe that? But it seems the story served the war motive and so they went with it anyway. Hmmm… do you think what Bush believed pre-war is a question that can be settled at all? ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2009, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/135 "2009-05-23T16:47:54Z")
What are your qualifications? Logic is not one of them. Maybe some training? > [@NYC\_Chic](#): > > Please list the giant holes. The fact that anyone with one bit of knowledge has debunked anything you have said. You have no knowledge of what it would take to set up a controlled detonation. When anyone gives you facts you ignore them. > [@NYC\_Chic](#): > > Reread that and then watch the video of Tower 7 sliding down into its own footprint. > And explain why it buckled into the center and didn’t topple over to the weak side that was allegedly missing 10 stories. I was watching the coverage of 9/11 all day. I saw the coverage of when WTC7 fell. They NEVER mentioned any 10 story crater. Google dailynews and new york post stories about it and you won’t find any mention till Nov 2008 when this explanation debuted. > > Also, do you know that was Guiliani’s bunker? And that it wasn’t evacuated until way later that afternoon? I think the 9/11 timeline says they left there at two-ish. It did not fall down into its own footprint. It fell straight down because of the way that building happened to be made and because of this weird thing called gravity. If you look at the aerial photos of #7 in my cite you will see that even though most of it fell straight down as expected it also toppled so that part of it landed on the surrounding buildings. There are diagrams on that site from qualified people explaining in great detail what happened. You have your feeling that it doesn’t look right. > [@](#): > > He’s been discredited. Now that’s typical. His being discredited thusly explains away that the black boxes have never been found. Early on you put great stock on the fact that someone claimed to have seen the black boxes. When he was pointed out to be a liar, a thief and a fraud you don’t have anything to refute it. I’ll say it again. _ **What could possibly be on the flight data recorder that would be a shocking revelation?** _ > [@](#): > > No, seriously. I’m going to a party tonight and I have to go get pretty I hope you are beautiful. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2009, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/136 "2009-05-23T19:53:24Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > So, in what way has the government “come for you?” > > And what makes you so special, that you can see through all the bullshit? You need to remove your blinkers first. I’d be interested to know how many “official theory” thinkers have religious beliefs, and how many “twoofers” are atheists? It would seem to me that if you can buy the lie of religion, buying some government bullshit should come naturally. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2009, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/137 "2009-05-23T20:03:16Z")
This thread is making my ears bleed. Can anyone explain why it was “necessary” to blow up the towers? Is there anyone out there who actually thinks it wouldn’t have been sufficient to just fly some planes into them and leave it at that? Would the end result have really been different as far as The Wishes Of The Evil Cabal? -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2009, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/138 "2009-05-23T20:16:16Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > You need to remove your blinkers first. > > I’d be interested to know how many “official theory” thinkers have religious beliefs, and how many “twoofers” are atheists? It would seem to me that if you can buy the lie of religion, buying some government bullshit should come naturally. Actually, it seems to _me_ that the critical thinking skills used to come to atheism/rejection of organized religion are the same that can be used to realize what a load of bullshit 9/11 denial is. -Cisco, atheist. Compare to David Ray Griffin, professor of theology, and Steven Jones, Mormon. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2009, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/139 "2009-05-23T21:53:24Z")
The regulars here are not exactly representative of the nation as a whole, but it’s nearly unanimous here that 19 muslim terrorists were responsible for 9/11, and almost everyone here is atheist/agnostic. I think they go together - they’re both the result of good critical thinking skills, like Cisco said. > [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > Specific to the video- how did some of the structural steel get deformed as if by a bomb? I’m not familiar with that - what steel was deformed as if by a bomb? And how do bombs deform steel? I’d think the steel would be ripped out right at the blast location, but otherwise intact. And the image I get from the word “deformed” is what would result from a fire and weight. But a link would be nice. ---
**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:** [May 23, 2009, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041/140 "2009-05-23T22:14:34Z")
[QUOTE=Merijeek] Can anyone explain why it was “necessary” to blow up the towers? Is there anyone out there who actually thinks it wouldn’t have been sufficient to just fly some planes into them and leave it at that? [/QUOTE] Well, I’ve seen several theories (I’m not going to bother looking them up…I try and avoid crazy whenever I can). One of them was that it was Israel (or some other requisite Jewish Cabal, etc etc), and the purpose was to get the US to attack Israel’s (or said Jewish Cabal’s) enemies. Another theory is that it was Bush and the neo-Cons, and the purpose was to give them an excuse to take the US to war in the ME in order to further the PNAC plan. This one is similar to the CT concerning Roosevelt and Pearl Harbor. A sub-theory was that it was Bush et al in conjunction with Big Business™, and while the neo-con agenda was involved it was really all about American Imperial ambitions and stealing the oil in the ME. Then there was the slightly more plausible mutant space chipmunks variant… -XT [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-your-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-or-their-debunking/497041.md?page=8)