Just a little quibble here, mostly because im sick to death of seeing this misrepresented:
bolding mine. I realise for simplicity sake some people just use this to make a point, but I would like to remind everyone who keeps throwing this out there that what the survey showed was that 71% of the people SURVEYED belived Saddam was behind 911. How that got to be 71% of ALL Americans, im not sure.
I would love to know the survey demographics used on this…and where exactly they called geographicaly, or exactly what size pool are we pulling from…100people…10, 5? Anyho…back to your regularly scheduled conspiracy theory
Check out this site. It has tons of pictures of the Pentagon impact. Judging by these pictures, it does not appear that a full size Boeing jet could have inflicted the damage. Among other arguments, there is no damage to the Pentagon lawn (suprising since the aircraft supposedly ‘bounced’ before impact), the hole and impact site appears to be drastically too small for a full size jet.
You seem to forget a rather important point… there are eye-witnesses to that attack as well. First off, the plane struck more than one light standard as it came in, damaging at least one car:
There is at least one account I read online (wish I could recall who, but it was in response to the French book) that slammed it because he watched the plane crash, and it was clearly a plane.
I have a freind that works for the DEA near the Pentagon who has spoken with several people who witnessed the plane strike from their office window.
There are a couple other things to note: A 757 is a large plane, but not as large as the 767’s that hit the WTC. The Pentegon walls are thick, something like 3 feet, and that section hit had been recently renovated specifically to guard against terrorism.
The plan may have struck the ground, but it didn’t plow into it. Perhaps a few small bits broke off, but the plane had only a short distance to go, and was traveling more than a couple hundred miles an hour. Most of the fragments would do the same. However, in looking for the photos above, I located another photo that does show at least one piece of aluminum aircraft skin taken very shortly after the disaster, since the roof had yet to collapse.
Seems the only complaint coming from this site is that the wings and tail didn’t leave a large enough hole. What the site neglects, though, is that the outer wall of the pentagon is 2 feet of steel-reinforced concreete, further reinforced by a lattice of steel tubes, and with an inner liner of kevlar-style fabric. It’s built like a huge bunker, a good deal tougher than the outer shell of the WTC, and the plane impacted the strongest section. It’s believed that the wings broke with the force of the impact (At least one person, a pilot, claimed to have witnessed the wings snapping forward), though looking at these pictures, it looks like they hardly had to. The tips are very light and probably wouldn’t cause much damage to such a well fortified structure. Same for the tail, assuming that it was still entering straight at that point. In fact, the same thing was observed with the WTC impacts, where the holes appeared a little smaller than one would expect an airliner to be able to pass through, despite all the videos from dozens of different organizations and private citizens that show just that happening.
And again, if we’re to believe this site, we’re left with the question of what plane did crash into the pentagon and why… And where did Flight 77 go? Not to mention, how did parts of the aircraft, as well as luggage, people, and possesions, get from Flight 77 into the pentagon if it was never there?
akrako1, on the last page you complained that nobody was responding to your red herrings about remote control technology, unsupported allegations that the hijackers were poor pilots (you’ve never said what a “military-style bank” is, BTW), and other conspiracy theories.
Well, folks did respond. And they shot you down.
But when folks like Stephe96 and Eirik bring up the fact that people made phone calls from the hijacked planes to people on the ground, you respond with links to crank websites with pointless diagrams of the attack on the Pentagon.
If you do not buy the government line, how do you explain the numerous phone calls from the hijacked aircraft to people on the ground? How could these people be wrong about their reports of a hijacking?
Ok, ** akrako1 **, I agreed that you most certainly can remote control a big jet, I linked to a Nova program about this and I saw the test video (as did thousands of others). You also brought up the points:
Now I glossed over the fact that you didn’t demonstrate where this info comes from, I just agreed that it was interesting. You seem to be indicating that this is some sort of government conspiracy. Well, if it is, would you please be kind enough to enlighten us poor fools as to what ** exactly** the government is conspiring to do? this is what I wanted to know back on page one, but you conveniently ignored me. Further as has been pointed out all over this thread, this * conspiracy * would take one hell of an organized effort, sorry pal – the U.S. government could hardly organize a fricken pot luck dinner, let alone pull something like this off and all the while keeping it under wraps. So I await an answer, and make it a good one, no linking to www. Nut_jobs_R_us.com in support of your answer – if you (or anyone else who is on the other side of the debate for that matter) have one.
At some point, to even engage in a debate with that thankfully small percentage of people out there capable of believing that “No airliner hit the Pentagon”, or “We didn’t walk on the moon” or “The contrails in the sky are the result of the government’s aerial poisonings” extends to those “arguments” a dignity that they don’t deserve; more credibility than they otherwise would merit.
No linking to nut_jobs_R_us as proof please. All the trash on your link ** vanilla ** has been pretty well debunked in this thread (as far as I am concerned any way) – my favorite is the “Where are the wings then, huh, HUH!” theory, get a grip, go to the library and get your self some copies of aircraft test crashes, and you will quickly learn that when an inherently light structure (oh, lets say…an airplane wing) is thrust against an inherently dense structure (Oh, lets say a concrete and steel double re enforced wall) at 400+ MPH, the lighter structure tends to get pretty well pulverized, the denser and heavier fuselage kept on going, as though a tube had poked a hole in the building. You do not need to be a structural engineer or even a conspiracy theorist to see this – DUH.
Oh yeah, and I’ll ask you the same question, lets just flush logic right down the toilet here and *suppose * it was a conspiracy and all the stuff you (and your links) say were true. WHY? What was the point? What was our Govt. To gain from all this?
akroko, I want you to look at a couple of things objectively here for a moment:
You’ve got a pile of evidence that you think points to a conspiracy.
We’ve got a pile of evidence that we think points away from a conspiracy.
The pile of evidence you have is much, much smaller than the pile of evidence that we have.
If there IS a conspiracy, which pile of evidence would it be easier for them to fake?
Near as I can tell, it would be MUCH easier for the Conspiracy to fake YOUR evidence than OURS.
What makes you think that you can trust indymedia.org? freedomfiles.org? Isn’t it likelier that THEY are the true conspiracy, trying to hide the facts from you, and you’ve not yet uncovered their sinister motives?
This is what Robert Anton Wilson calls a strange loop. You’re positing a conspiracy so massive that they could easily be faking the very evidence you’re using to point to a conspiracy. If such a powerful conspiracy exists, there’s no reason for you to believe the evidence pointing toward the conspiracy itself; such a conspiracy calls into question the veracity of any evidence out there.
While I was stationed at Carswell Air Force Base, Texas, we had an F-16 go out of contol and impact the ground during a high speed pass. I didn’t see the impact, but I heard the boom and felt the concussion. Anyone who has never seen the aftermath of an airplane crash, at speed, cannot fully appreciate the destructive power of such an event.
Most of the remaining pieces of that aircraft – which weren’t many-- were about the size of a computer keyboard, and many were smaller. I suppose some nutjob, if he or she wanted, could have floated any number of goofy claims of contradictory “evidence”, such as:
“Why aren’t there enough pieces to reconstruct an F-16 from them, hmmm?”
(Umm, maybe some of them were consumed in the huge fireball?)
“How come the gash on the ground where it supposedly hit was only about the size of a small car?”
(Gee, I don’t know. Would it be more “realistic” if it was in the exact size and shape of an F-16, like when a cartoon character runs through a wall and leaves a hole shaped like himself?)
At what point does something simply become self-evident?
Where have you been the last 2 years? The administration has used the 9/11 attacks to justify all their seedy actions. A brief list:
Patriot Act. The biggest reduction in civil liberties in about 200 years. Used by a fanatical right-wind AG to persecute, and deport a minority.
Invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. While I do admit that this was a dismal failure, the intent was there. The Bush cabal, along with Unocol had plans for a pipline thru Afghanistan from the Caspian Sea.
Invasion and occupation of Iraq. The Bush administration blantantly used 9/11 as a pseduo-justification for the invasion. Even though it was established that Iraq has absolutely no connection to Al Queda (at least b4 our war :smack: )
Classical distraction from Bush’s ineptness and ‘stealing’ of the election. Remember 200 & early 2001? News of the day questions Bush’s intelligence and his legitimacy as president. All these arguments vanished in light of the ‘emergency’.
Muzzeling of critics. Creating a climate of fear in the goverment and in the country that associated dissent with ‘aiding terrorists’. Pretty damn anti-democratic if you ask me.
Filling their own pockets (or their pals). Have you noticed how many BILLIONS in Iraq reconstruction has been allocated to Halliburton?
Regarding my quantity of sites (ie the size of your pile vs my pile). I have 100’s of cites I could include. My original point was that all people do not blindly accept the government’s line. I stated their general theories, and gave links to where this information has been printed in mass press. I was not intending to make a case for these theories, until I was attacked for even mentioning them. Call me the devil’s advocate, but when I hear people denying that anyone could possibly not believe the government, I feel the need to speak up. Since this thread wasn’t actually debating the cause of the attacks, I didn’t feel the need to bombard you with cites. But if you want 'em, you only have to go to one site. Try cooperativeresearch.org. I don’t think anyone has actually looked at this link. They have already collected all the information out their, and state the case much more clearly than I ever could. ALL their information has been posted by major media. The ever-so-infallible media that you all believe so readily.
There are specific pages on Foreknowledge, Fighter jets response to the attacks, Bush’s reactions to the attack, and many more. Each of these pages has 100’s of links to major media publications. Try reading a few, and then we can talk…
Then they blew it. They shouldn’t have put a sunset provision into the USA PATRIOT act. They shouldn’t have waited to try to pass PATROIT II. They shouldn’t have announced the plan for the TIA database some ten years before they were going to be able to implement it. And they’d better stage another attack soon, because not only has the USA PATROIT act become enormously unpopular, Bush’s popularity is sinking. If he’s out of office, they won’t be able to implement whatever the rest of their Horrendously Sinister Plan[sup]TM[/sup], whatever it is.
I’m not gonna cite the old PNAC thing, but it seems to me that Bush & co. wanted to try to invade Afghanistan and Iraq anyway. Why go to the trouble of murdering 3,000 people and leaving so much obvious evidence when it was something people probably wouldn’t have strongly opposed anyway with normal PR?
Also: what’s Osama bin Laden’s role in all of this? Is he a patsy? A client? An under-cover CIA agent?
People would have opposed it.
“Hey, we’re going into Afghanistan to kill civilians and for oil, okay?”
public:“okay!”
Osama? He was (or is, if still alive) “sponsored” by the CIA (dont tell me you think they are Good?).
When the need arises, he’ll be trotted out again at the right time(or a video more likely).
None taken, I’m always flattered when people imply I’m ignorant. For the record, I loathe Bush and his entire cartel, and have protested their wars extensively. I’m not sure how you’re linking world government and the Bushies, since Bush has been so dismissive and disrespectful to the U.N., the closest thing to a world government going right now, as well as several notable treaties and world courts. I know what the WTO is and I’m not a fan of that either. I was unaware world currency was an evil threat, nor do I see how it connects to any of this.
Listen, vanilla, I think the PATRIOT act is an atrocity. I think Bush benefitted enormously from September 11th and has used it to try and muzzle the press and so on. But none of that means he’s responsible for it. No evidence I’ve seen thus far leads me to think it’s the case. I absolutely loathe Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al. But that doesn’t mean they’re behind the attacks.