I realize that this may not have a factual answer. If so, O gracious Mods, please feel free to move it.
I was listening to Air America Radio on Wednesday night, specifically “The Majority Report” with Jeanine Garofalo and Sam Seder. They had a gentleman on who had all sorts of conspiracy theories about who was responsible for what happened on Sep 11, 2001.
While I know that there are kooks out there who will believe almost anything, I was kind of surprised to hear Jeanine Garofalo state that she pretty much agreed with this fellow (that it wasn’t done by Muslim fundamentalists). She pretty much went on to accuse Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney of masterminding the whole thing. The final kicker to me came when she said “and they’ve had thirty years to plan” for the event. She rattled off a whole list of names of Republicans working in the administration (oddly enough, George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush were not among them) and demanded that they all be interrogated under polygraph for what they know about the events of that day.
My question is: is this belief really common among the left that it is showing up on the left’s “mainstream media” or is Jeanine Garofalo just really “out there” and not representative of the left in this country?
Please limit the discussion to the beliefs of people in this country and not venture into who really was responsible for the events of Sep 11, 2001.
The belief that anyone other than Al-Qaeda masterminded the attacks is a minority viewpoint. I know roughly the same number of people who believe the administration was behind the attacks as believe Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks. For what it’s worth, both numbers are “one.” I entertained several conspiracy theories in the beginning – Israel, the administration, and Iran (but not Iraq) – but the more our government got involved the more I was convinced there was no cover-up going on.
I work in the US Government, and my co-workers are an amazing mixture of fabulously competent idealists who won’t budge an inch on integrity issues, and utterly clueless incompetents who wouldn’t participate in a cover-up unless the person ordering them to do so had filled out all three copies of the DD-1278m, “Cover-Up Initiation Procedure Checklist and Safety Briefing for Government Employees”.
This is probably headed for IMHO or GD, but the acceptance of this type of conpiracy theory is variable. The basic theme seems to be: Until 9/11, W. was very shakily in charge; afterwards, his approval ratings shot up astronomically and his programs were accepted without question. Therefore, the Bush Administration had more to gain from 9/11 than Al Quaeda. Therefore, the Bush Administration must have planned and carried out the execution of 3,000 Americans for political gain.
To some people on the left, this is a comforting explanation. Better to believe that some nefarious forces forced the American people to support their enemies than to face the idea that the counry swung to the right. So belief in this conspiracy is a person-by-person thing, rather than a group-by-group or mainstream-vs-fringe separation.
The whole “someone besides Al Qaeda attacked the US” conspiracy has been disproved to the satisfaction of pretty much the entire globe. I’m a cynical kind of guy that spends a lot of time on the left of issues. I’m satisfied with the official answer, and don’t know anyone who honestly does belive it. (Although, IIRC, ** Airman Doors** works with a guy who does.) I never thought Janeane Garolfalo was one of those tinfoil hatters, though. She always struck me as a fairly rational liberal. Are you sure she wasn’t making fun of the guest? Or maybe she was channelling George Norri?
It’s a fringe minority. I’d say the most liberals (if there’s any precise way of defining the term) do not think anything about 9/11 was connected to anyone other than Bin Laden. There are connections between the Bush and Bin Laden families, but no one (not even Michael Moore) as asserted that this has any affect on 9/11 (just Bush’s response to it).
It’s only the nutcase fringe who’s willing to find a conspiracy here. There is an unspoken belief that the groups that benefit from an action must be the ones behind it, but there are too many counterexamples.
(strange :dubious: )
Anyway. I believe the Islamic fundies probably did do it, planned and funded by a rogue member of a family with ties to the Bush family. But I had my suspicions at the time.
I don’t listen to her show that often, so I could be wrong, but she sounded dead serious to me. Sam Seder was taking a more rational, skeptical approach - but she sounded like she was ready to pin this on Rumsfeld and Cheney.
There are a few weird inconsistencies. When they realized that America was under attack, why wasn’t the president removed IMMEDIATELY and placed somewhere alot safer/less public?
And then there are the tenuous links between the Bush family and the Bin Laden family.
I have a hard time believing that they administration could be solely responsible for something of this magnitude, but there were people in Russian work camps who had no idea that their leader was behind their mistreatment. I guess anything is possible.
On a related note, what information did they find in the airplane’s black boxes?
While I don’t think that GWB would have been re-elected without 9/11, I don’t find credible any source that would say he or his planned it. Most likely just an unfortunate coincidence. And I don’t know of anyone who has seriously contended that anyone other than al Qaeda could have been responsible. The only person I can think of that might believe that is a friend who is a Palestinian in Jordan. Sounds up his alley, although he’d more likely attribute Israel.
I am curious that there wasn’t more talk of the Egypt Air flight that crashed a few years before 9/11 and how the two might have been related. I recall a lot of conspiracy theories about that one. And TWA flight 800, now that I think of it. Wasn’t that the one Pierre Salinger went off about?
Just because something happened that benefitted someone does not always mean that they caused it to happen. I don’t believe that Bush has the competence to orchestrate the events of 9/11 without being detected. In my humble opinion, only fringe lefties would believe such a thing. However, I am cynical enough to believe that if you gave Bush a time machine and sent him back to 9/10/01, he absolutely would not lift a finger to stop the attacks of the next day.
Oh! Oh! As a side note, I listen to Air America radio whenever I’m in my car and I’ve had the opportunity to listen to Janeane grow steadily more and more skeptical of and just completely angrey at this Administration over the last couple of months. This may have something to do with her desire to pin it completely on members of said Administration.
I think that considering them to have masterminded the whole attack is going a bit far, but I absolutely believe that they had more information on the pending attacks than they would like to admit. And if I were in their position and didn’t have a true respect for the lives of my fellow citizens, I can absolutely see what the payoff for conveniently ignoring a pending attack would be.
That attack has single-handedly saved their Administration.
I wonder if there is a PIPA like poll that asks this question to see what percentage of Dems REALLY believe this kind of stuff.
Seriously though, I doubt this is more than a fringe thing, though I don’t really know that much about the person the OP is talking about…I don’t normally listen to Air America.
I consider myself fairly liberal, but also skeptical. While some few people in my group of friends might give a possibility that someone in the administration knew that some terrorist acts might be planned, no one for a second gives any credence to the idea that the administration planned it, or had detailed knowledge ahead of time.
In general, I think most Democrats and/or liberals would discount these notions out of hand.
Because although there’s no doubt detailed plans of what to do with the president in the case of actual war, there doesn’t seem to have been any contingency plans for what to do in such an unexpected situation as occured that morning. It’s good evidence for them not knowing anything about the attack.
TWA 800 is a poor example to try and link to terrorism (although many try) - the problematic wiring which caused the explosion was all too obvious after the event, and every 747 of that age was very quickly modified. If they wanted a coverup, they’d have found a reason that didn’t expose their explanation to in-depth scrutiny by so many aircraft experts across the world. The Egypt Air crash is more plausible - but the simple fact is we’ll never know whether the well-reported prayers from the pilot were those of a would-be martyr or just a terrified Muslim.
As for the 9/11 black boxes, somebody who knows more can explain…but I believe that those from the Pennsylvania crash and from the Pentagon were recovered, while those from the WTC were not (they’re designed to withstand fire, but not on that magnitude). Amusingly, googling this topic flags up conspiracists who don’t believe the Pennsylvania ones were ever found, and also those who believe all 8 were recovered. You can’t win.
Oh, and why the recordings recovered haven’t been made public - it’s still possible that they could be used as evidence in criminal proceedings. Putting them into the public domain could jeopardise their admissibility in court.
Can someone clarify what sort of criminal proceedings may follow the 9/11 attack?
Do you mean like if we find Bin Laden and make him stand trial? Or something against the government or the airlines saying that there weren’t enough precautions taken?
