# WTC Conspiracy Theory **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 26, 2004, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtc-conspiracy-theory/252320 "2004-06-26T15:58:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Jeffro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7993a0/32.png) [@Jeffro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeffro)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtc-conspiracy-theory/252320/82 "2004-07-18T21:41:31Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > I have a buddy who believes the same stuff. He listens to a crackpot by the name of [Alex Jones](http://www.infowars.com). Story from that site: ``` Milk and Coffee produced from Blood! ``` ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtc-conspiracy-theory/252320/83 "2004-07-18T22:18:34Z")
It’s worth noting that the popular “Sinister forces within the U.S. government flew commercial airliners into the WTC by remote control in order blame it on terrorists and justify a war which profited private interests” conspiracy had its genesis in the pilot of the _X-Files_ spinoff/conspiracy-spoof series _The Lone Gunmen_, in which sinister forces within the U.S. government attempted to fly a commercial airliner into the WTC by remote control in order to blame it on terrorists and justify a war which would profit private interests. (The show aired early in 2001.) Here’s a [thread discussing the episode](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=251248), with links to transcripts, etc. Not quoted in that thread: > [@](#): > > BYERS: What is Scenario 12D? We know, it’s a wargame scenario, that it has to do with airline counter-terrorism. Why is it important enough to kill for? > > BERTRAM: Because it’s no longer a game. > > BYERS:If some terrorist group wants to act out this scenario, why target _you_ for assassination? > > BERTRAM: Depends on who your terrorists are. > > BYERS: The men who conceived of it in the first place. You’re saying our government plans to commit a terrorist act against a domestic air… > > BERTRAM: There you go, indicting the entire government as usual. A faction, a small faction… > > BYERS: For what possible gain? > > BERTRAM: The Cold War’s over, John. But with no clear enemy to stock pile against, the arms market’s flat. But bring down a fully-loaded 727 into the middle of New York City; you’ll find a dozen tin-pot dictators all over the world, just clammering to take responsibility. And begging to be smart bombed. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtc-conspiracy-theory/252320/84 "2004-07-18T22:56:04Z")
**Larry Mudd** : Yeah, I saw that one. Anyway, I sent a rebuttal to my friend and included the gist of some of the input from this thread. **Valgard** ’s and **Strainger** ’s engineering comments (and the link to the chart) were especially helpful. I just got this reply: > [@](#): > > Thanks for the excellent reply. > > [snip] > > I’ll study it [the link he sent me], and your reply, and see what I think…in any case, thanks again for what at first glance looks like some solid response to that link and the associated links etc. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![hyjyljyj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/0ea827/32.png) [@hyjyljyj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hyjyljyj)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtc-conspiracy-theory/252320/85 "2004-07-19T22:04:44Z")
Ever see a building demolition? They take weeks to carefully place the explosives throughout many floors within the building, and there’s absolutely, positively no way it could be done without anyone finding out. Then when they detonate, you can easily see many small explosions from the outside of the structure, going off in precisely timed sequence, to bring it down. It’s frightening to contemplate sharing the roadways with someone piloting a four-thousand-pound automobile whose mental capacity is such that he actually believes this is how the WTC fell, and that the US gov’t. would do this as an “excuse” to go after Saddam Hussein when we already had other perfectly good reasons to which the whole of the UN Security Council agreed, based on his prior use of WMD, persistent failure to prove their destruction, and suspicious expulsion of UN weapons inspectors when they got close to locating them. Conspiracy theories are similar to religious cults in their ability to fascinate the mentally weak and seduce those enslaved to fanatical political viewpoints, causing them to completely and in some cases permanently suspend rational thought and reasoning ability in favor of what the fervent believers who “really know the score” espouse. No amount of convincing from a logical point of view will likely have any effect on them but to more deeply ingrain their adherence to the conspiracy theory/cult doctrine. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtc-conspiracy-theory/252320/86 "2004-07-19T22:45:16Z")
> [@hyjyljyj](#): > > It’s frightening to contemplate sharing the roadways with someone piloting a four-thousand-pound automobile whose mental capacity is such that he actually believes this is how the WTC fell, and that the US gov’t. would do this as an “excuse” to go after Saddam Hussein when we already had other perfectly good reasons to which the whole of the UN Security Council agreed, based on his prior use of WMD, persistent failure to prove their destruction, and suspicious expulsion of UN weapons inspectors when they got close to locating them. You’re confabulating two things here: tin-foil looniness about the government faking the destruction of the WTC, and [well-documented plans](http://abcnews.go.com/sections/nightline/DailyNews/pnac_030310.html) by the neoconservatives in Washington to exploit a “Pearl Harbor-type event” as an excuse to invade Iraq. As for the “persistent failure to prove their destruction, and suspicious expulsion of UN weapons inspectors when they got close to locating them,” you might want to recheck your history there – as of late 2002 and early 2003, Saddam Hussein was cooperating fully with UN weapons inspectors, which was why most of the UN _didn’t_ support Bush’s war. ---
**Author:** ![hyjyljyj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/0ea827/32.png) [@hyjyljyj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hyjyljyj)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtc-conspiracy-theory/252320/87 "2004-07-19T23:33:28Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > You’re confabulating two things here: tin-foil looniness about the government faking the destruction of the WTC, and [well-documented plans](http://abcnews.go.com/sections/nightline/DailyNews/pnac_030310.html) by the neoconservatives in Washington to exploit a “Pearl Harbor-type event” as an excuse to invade Iraq. > > As for the “persistent failure to prove their destruction, and suspicious expulsion of UN weapons inspectors when they got close to locating them,” you might want to recheck your history there – as of late 2002 and early 2003, Saddam Hussein was cooperating fully with UN weapons inspectors, which was why most of the UN _didn’t_ support Bush’s war. Not ot go off-topic, but that is of course correct. Once the evacuation and/or other sufficient concealment of the incriminating evidence had been completed, then there was nothing to gain by further stalling and nothing to lose by “cooperating” with the inspectors–always on Hussein’s terms and not the UN’s, and always with a large number of vast “presidential palace” sites off limits. He never complied with 1441, never provided the UN proof of the WMD’s destruction process as was required by the Security Council. Not wanting to give backbone to another of their own resolutions by not supporting the coalition’s action (the severe consequences as provided under 1441) is more indicative of the UN’s overall toothlessness than of any sudden soft-hearted acquiescence, turning over a new leaf and voluntary disarming by Hussein, IMO. Back on the topic, even if air-conditioned warehouses full of neatly labeled vials of anthrax and shells full of smallpox and sarin had been found in May 2003 in 36 locations in Iraq highlighted in pink on a map autographed by Saddam Hussein, engineering the destruction of the WTC as an excuse to take out Hussein still doesn’t make sense, since the hijackers used were almost all Saudis, and no connection has yet been convincingly demonstrated between the beleaguered, unjustly imprisoned president of Iraq and the attacks of 9/11. It would have been easy to make it look like Iraq was behind everything if that had been the goal and if in fact the attack hadn’t been what it was, a massive holocaust engineered by hate-filled racist nutcases bent on indiscriminate massacre. ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2004, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtc-conspiracy-theory/252320/88 "2004-07-20T04:31:07Z")
checked out this weird book from the library about this(I know I’m on the list) Its the usual paranoid claptrap. By a Clif Droke. I wonde rif thats his real name even. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtc-conspiracy-theory/252320.md?page=4)