I am always at how skeptical people are never skeptical about information that supports their position.
After almost any major unexpected event, we find that the various intellegence agencies had in their possession some pieces of information that, when put together with other information and correctly interpreted, make at least some reference to the event, if not an actual warning.
The problem is that it is not usually apparent before the fact how these disparate pieces of information should be connected and interpreted, or, indeed, how they differ from a thousand other similar but unrelated pieces of information.
When we look at the data with benefit of 20/20 hindsight, it may well be obvious, but it is a bit of a stretch to call every example an “intelligence failure”
Note that this is a general principle, and is not specific to the events of 9/11.
It’s not a question of the right wing or left wing believing this sort of thing. You have have to have have your tin foilhat very securely in the centre before believing that GWB master minded 9/11. It’s right up there with beieving that FDR masterminded Pearl Harbour or LBJ masterminded the assassination of JFK.
I mentioned this because, at the time, I heard some conspiracy theories on this one. Heck, I heard conspiracy theories about the large Turkish earthquake (US naval ships in the area were “testing” an earthquake triggering device). Mainly these have been forwarded to me from Muslim friends. I don’t bother to try and engage debate, since I’m not sure why I get sent these.
Anyway, my curiousity was whether anyone had probed for al Qaeda links to the Egypt Air disaster after 9/11, for example, to see if anyone on board had connections to al Qaeda or associations with anyone known/believed to be involved with 9/11. I particularly remember the claim that it was highly improbable for a Muslim to commit suicide.
Jurph, this is the BEST argument I have seen against conspiracy theories of all kinds!
I work with several members of that second group!
Nothing to do with the airlines, but with people involved in the attacks. There’s already been one trial of Mounir el Motassadeq, allegedly part of the Hamburg cell which was instrumental in the attacks, which was overturned and is awaiting retrial. We certainly can’t rule out other conspirators being tried. And yes, the trial of Bin Laden would be a possiblity.
I very much doubt that there hasn’t been a detailed examination of this (and it’s not as if nobody knew about Al Qaeda prior to 2001, anyway). But if no evidence whatsoever was found, then what should the CIA or anyone else do? Publish a volume entitled “The lack of evidence for connections between an independent plane crash and 9/11”?. It’s not their job to prove that unrelated incidents are unrelated, and it’s not their job to battle conspiracy nuts. And I don’t see why suicide is relevant to disproving a terrorist link - the obvious ‘normal’ explanation of the prayer is that some mechanical failure caused the plane to fall out of the sky, hence the pilot’s terrified prayer.
[QUOTE=GorillaManTWA 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.[/QUOTE]
I was convinced for a while that it got hit by a small meteor. Witnesses reported seeing a trail of smoke before the explosion and it happened during one of the meteor peaks (Pliedades?). I even went as far as calculating the odds of a plane being hit over a 10 yr period. It was surprisingly high because there are so many planes in the sky.
End of hijack. I listened to that show as well and was really disappointed with Jeneanne.
Sadly, this number is quite high nationwide.
Nice generalization.
I’d never heard this theory before, but two seconds on Google turned up these opposing arguments, from two experts in meteors.
I consider myself pretty left of the herd and I certainly don’t like Bush.
However, this idea that Bush and his gang were in on the 911 attacks is pure tinfoil cramp. The evidence usually cited is dreamland stuff and the necessary size and competency of conspirators to pull it off have no example in history.
From the article:
One of them was probably mine. I sent a letter to one of the NY Times reporters and got a very nice response in return. The most interesting thing in the response was that eye-witnesses are notoriously unreliable.
1/10 is close to the number that I came up with
I think a more common belief is that the response to 9/11 was planned in advance… and that 9/11 itself was just a convenient pretext for another couple of oil wars. Presumably, whatever was in the plans for justifying securing various industrial projects in the Middle East became unnecessary with 9/11.
Jeanene Garofolo has gotten so worked up in her righteous indignation about the right that she’s lost all perspective. (And what it is about comedians [Garofolo, Stewart, Carlin, Klein, et. al.] that make them think they’re qualified to assess the motives and/or actions of politicians?) I wouldn’t take seriously anything Garofolo said unless I could verify it myself. Her opinion to me is less than worthless.
zev, did Garafolo REALLY seem to believe it or was it more like a “hell I wouldn’t be surprised if…”?
It’s one thing to think they had more info on the possibility of such an attack, but rather silly to think that the administration purposely allowed the attack to happen. Again, you are suffering from 20/20 hindsight. There would have been no way of knowing that such an attack would help rather than sink the adminstation.
I’ve seen JG interviewed quite a few times and it sure doesn’t fit her profile to buy into such a wild conspirace theory.
Sorry Zev, I know you’re only interested in what Americans believe, but I have to respond to this:
Actually, I know a number of people in Britain and Ireland who think someone else (Israel or the US Government) was involved. I would go so far as to say it’s not uncommon, and increasingly less uncommon, among the left in these countries.
I think more people believe that the Bush Administration did nothing to prevent the 9/11 attacks than they believe that the Administration planned it. E.g., they got the warning signs, then decided to see if anything would pan out that they could use as a “Pearl Harbor-type event” to justify advancing their neoconservative agenda.
It sounds kooky until you read those “Project for a New American Century” papers talking about how the US needed another Pearl Harbor for them to get their plans in motion…
I dunno, I think this untampered photograph proves otherwise.
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The people who believe that 9-11 was an American-concocted consipiracy will likely sign up for the notion that the results of this last election was also due to a right-wing conspiracy. These people have to suspend all rational thought to believe what they believe. Occam’s razor is definitely not in their vocabulary.