9/11 - Why ?

[Loki]

What's a forum without a 9/11 thread eh ?

Apologies if the OP ends up being a little over the place. So feel free to agree disagree and add your own two penneth to the melting pot. There are just something that do not make any sense to me on this whole sorry mess.

So to start with, the eternal question why ??? I was watching a programme on Discovery last week about when the Pentagon got hit. This was more to do with the structure of the building and how the design stopped a lot more damage from occurring. What struck me though if the would be terrorists did their homework like we are led to believe they did, they would have realised that it even the largest plane impact would have done very little by way of damage. Like throwing a stone through the window of a five story house if you will. Now I don't wish to detract from those people who lost their lives on the hijacked plane as it was an un-necessary loss but in the larger scheme of things it wasn't a massive loss of life. So why do it. They knew it was a fortified building. They must have known that the damage and disruption would be minimum

It's easy to let this degenerate into a a muslim bash but that aside surely the actions of the terrorists have brought more sorrow to the people in the Middle East. Their actions were more symbolic than anything else as America still stands on its own two feet. In the bigger scheme of things, their economy hasn't been damaged. Their millitary might goes without question as they must have realised retribution would have been swift and punishing. What is it they think they could change by their actions.

This in turn has fuelled the perpetual war on terrorism with ever changing definitions and boundaries. So the Americans or the free people of the world on one side and the fundamentalists on the other side

You can buy into all of the conspiracy theories that are baggaged with it about it being an inside job and the Americans having prior intelligence of the attacks. Again it begs the question why would they allow it to happen. Is it because it gave them free license to start a war that could never end to control the oil

I don't think that all is to be believed on the issue of why it happened, why it was allowed to happen and the consequences of it happening. I am completely undecided what the terrorists hoped to achieved and more importantly if the Americans had any part in allowing the attacks to happen.

I would be interested in what other people think on this subject

[dirtydog]

This would be better in Speaker's Corner perhaps, as it is a serious thread.

I don't know quite what happened. I am prepared to believe that hijackers did take over the planes and the damage we saw on television was inflicted by them, as per the official line of events.

I suspect that people in the US government knew that it was going to happen and let it happen - there is much evidence for this.

I know for 100% certain, because it is there for all to see and there is no doubt about it, that Bush and the US government USED 9/11 for their own ends, to push their military and political agenda and as a pretext to invade the Middle East; a pretext they themselves stated that they needed, prior to 9/11. This is all a matter of official public record, not a conspiracy theory, and they themselves made and make no secret of it.

[Loki]

It's not about oil.
The towers were hit by two airliners that'd been hijacked by a dozen or so terrorists using pen-knives.
The pentagon was hit by a plane.

That's about as complex as it gets.

Im not suggesting its about Oil, although some commentaries have suggested that is one of the reasons behind the war in Afghanistan and Iraq is as a direct consequence of 9/11.

My question is why the two airliners flew into the the WTC, what was the reason for it and what did it achieve from their cause whatever that maybe

[dirtydog]

Im not suggesting its about Oil, although some commentaries have suggested that is one of the reasons behind the war in Afghanistan and Iraq is as a direct consequence of 9/11.

My question is why the two airliners flew into the the WTC, what was the reason for it and what did it achieve from their cause whatever that maybe

It had to be something big...


"New Pearl Harbor"

Section V of Rebuilding America's Defenses, entitled "Creating Tomorrow's Dominant Force", includes the sentence: "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor" (51).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century

(that was written in 2000 IIRC)

[Loki]

Snip.....

I was in 2 minds about it being GD or SC and am happy for it to goto SC. It is one of the more important issues of our time as in part it helping fuel the flames of indifference on a daily basis. More importantly it puts a question mark over the people who we elect with the very best intentions to protect us from all enemies foreign and domestic

[dirtydog]

Something headline-grabbing.
Publicity is what they want. Thank god they chose such an early time to crash those planes as the death toll would've been much higher.

That, and the Pentagon attack which hit a largely unoccupied part of the building, also point towards some in the US government knowing about it, and deciding that it would be an acceptable loss, when looking at the bigger picture. 3000 or so deaths versus securing oil and gas for 300 million? And also ensuring that oil continued to be traded in dollars, and not Euros as Saddam wanted? Thus propping up the ailing dollar, which if it was not the de facto oil trading currency would collapse, taking the US economy with it.

[Loki]

Something headline-grabbing.
Publicity is what they want. Thank god they chose such an early time to crash those planes as the death toll would've been much higher.

Again that's one of the things that doesn't make any sense to me. They did it around 09:00 local time which would have been at the peak of the rush hour and most people would have already been in their offices by then

[dirtydog]

The dollar is losing favour in the middle east to the Euro, and it's partly as an act of rebellion towards the US for being there.
A group of rag heads commited these acts and the US govt retaliated.
I just don't buy into all these conspiracy theories.

Iraqis didn't attack America did they. Saudis did.

9/11 *WAS* a conspiracy by definition, ie. two or more people planned it.

If the US government did know about the attacks and let them happen, they would know that most people, like yourself, would never believe it no matter what evidence they were presented with. Those who DID believe it could easily be dismissed as 'conspiracy theorist' nutcases.


"The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists."
- J Edgar Hoover

Or as Goebbels said, the bigger a lie, the easier it is to believe it.

[dirtydog]

Well duh! Politicians used the most important event of the decade to further their goals. You do know waters wet?

Most people seem to deny it... even though it is undeniably true.

[dirtydog]

The logic doesn't even follow, if the evil conspirators were happy to sacrifice tens of thousand of Americans in the towers why would they be worried about a few hundred casualties in the pentagon?

Because they were colleagues and it was less easy to stomach? Because they were seen as more useful to the country than a load of stockbrokers? Who knows.

I recommend this book to you and to all...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crossing-Rubicon-Decline-American-Empire/dp/0865715408/ref=sr_1_3/202-8867406-3658229?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188207941&sr=8-3

[dirtydog]

Sorry but how much oil was in Afhganistan?

This question reveals your ignorance of the subject unfortunately. I never said there was oil in Afghanistan.

[Loki]

That's what they thought, so did you incidentally, but the truth of the matter is that was not the case.

Not at all. I have tried to keep what my opinions are on this out of this thread as I want to try open it up. My only thoughts on this upto now is that we are not seeing the full picture. I am no expert and am happy to accept other theories. What I dont accept is that it is as simple as two planes being flown into the WTC just because of their dislike of America and distaste for the Western way of life. If that is the case then I would say that their efforts are in vain. We are still here and their actions have brought more death and destruction to the Middle East by way of America, and in part the UK's actions, in Afghanistan and Iraq

[dirtydog]

Not at all. I have tried to keep what my opinions are on this out of this thread as I want to try open it up. My only thoughts on this upto now is that we are not seeing the full picture. I am no expert and am happy to accept other theories. What I dont accept is that it is as simple as two planes being flown into the WTC just because of their dislike of America and distaste for the Western way of life. If that is the case then I would say that their efforts are in vain. We are still here and their actions have brought more death and destruction to the Middle East by way of America, and in part the UK's actions, in Afghanistan and Iraq

Exactly.

Who benefited from 9/11?

The Middle East? Of course not. The US government? Yes, they got exactly what they called for in 2000: a new Pearl Harbour, a catalysing event.

[dirtydog]

Colleagues, LOL they were middle managers/bureaucrats all be it of the uniformed variety. Something the US military has a lot of. To put some perspective on the pentagon losses more US service troops commit suicide per year than were lost that day. The US military has 1.4m people on active duty and 850,000 in the reserve/NG. Any loss from an attack on the pentagon which is where the militaries bureaucracy works from not any actual command would be a pin prick. So your reasoning for reduced casualties from the attack on the pentagon is shown to be flawed.
It isn't my reasoning, I plucked it out of my arse. I ended it by saying 'who knows'. Clearly the targets were chosen for their emotional impact and the actual death toll was secondary to that. If 100,000 had died off the cameras in backwater USA, it would not have had remotely the same effect that 9/11 did on the public.


Is it going to say anything remotely relevant to the real world or is it all Skull and Bones based conspiracy?

It does, and it is full of documentary evidence with the requisite sources for everything it says.

[Loki]

Yes

Wheres that from Sleepy ?

[JimmyEatWorms]

Thanks for that Sleepy.

I would argue then that invading Iraq puely for oil, as some suggest, would be poor business sense.

Not really when you consider that the majority of military spending costs aren't actually leaving the US economy. It's money being taken from the tax payer and given to the major share holders of the defence indutry corporations like Halliburton and The Carlyle Group...many of whom are part of the administration that started this war in the first place. Some people are making a hell of a lot of money out of the invasion of iraq...at the expense of the american tax payer.

[dirtydog]

I often wonder for every Dollar in Iraqi oil revenue the US takes, how much do they spend in rebuilding and military operations ?

I would guess that the costs far outweigh what they make.

:confused:

You don't understand.

It isn't about making money, it's about keeping your economy and way of life from going down the toilet. If the oil isn't available it doesn't matter how much money you print, you're fucked.

If oil wasn't traded in dollars the US would be fucked. People who don't understand this don't grasp basic economics.

[dirtydog]

Thanks for that Sleepy.

I would argue then that invading Iraq puely for oil, as some suggest, would be poor business sense.

See above post. It isn't about money per se.

[dirtydog]

I mean put simply, supposing you had a pocket full of cash and you were starving, and the only shop selling food was controlled by your enemies - who needed the food for themselves and refused to sell to you. It wouldn't matter how much cash you had, would it?

[anarchist]

"it's about oil" is always a good way to see who hasn't thought about the issue.

It IS about oil, although it's not ALL about oil (perhaps 90%!), and it's not about stealing oil.

[anarchist]

Sorry but how much oil was in Afhganistan?

I'm sure you know that you don't have to actually HAVE oil to be of vital significance for security of oil (or gas) supplies.

[anarchist]

The arab world provides only 10% ish of US oil imports.

Which is irrelevant for reason I've mentioned before, i.e. that the less oil that hits the market the less there is available for the US (and other western countries), and hence the higher the price (and the lower the security).

All of these points have been publicly stated by American government and Department of Energy officials so hardly a conspiracy theory.

[dirtydog]

All of these points have been publicly stated by American government and Department of Energy officials so hardly a conspiracy theory.

I know - sleepy thinks I am making these wild conspiracy theories up but they have said it all publicly - they don't make a secret of it.

[anarchist]

So the Taliban were going to threaten ME oil suplies were they? How? Why?
Who said they were threatening ME oil supplies?

[anarchist]

You inferred it a couple of posts above.
I said Afghanistan was vital, strategically, for security of oil and gas supplies, which it is (or will be).

[Treefrog]

Only in the insane imaginations of the tin foil hat brigade./QUOTE]
Brilliantly thought out and well reasoned counter there.
[QUOTE]There is no evidence for any collusion or conspiracy on behalf of the US government. At best the agencies had fragments with which is hindsight could have been pieced together and might have supplied enough of a warning to enable the agencies to prevent the outrage.
You call reports from Israeli, French and German, possibly other, intelligence agencies stating that an attack was planned, that it was to be implemented in the autumn of '01 and that airliners were to be used as flying bombs no evidence?

And tell me - all these 'theories' that everything just so happened to stack up at the right time and in the right place - the lack of defences around the WTC, the interceptors which are always on standby, the only buildings which allegedly would collapse from a piddling little bit of short-lived fire, the total disappearance of a 140 ton airliner (including the titanium turbine rotors) into a 16' diameter hole and through nine feet of steel reinforced (recently upgraded don't forget) concrete - are they really more credible than allowing an attack which furthered the US geopolitical agenda to occur?

I don't think so personally.
I think that the official explanations for the events of that day are far more full of holes than the generally accepted unofficial ones.
Controlled demolitions are something that fascinated me before that date and I'd watched many of them including a couple live. And my first thought as WTC1 started to collapse was "That's a controlled demolition!"


If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and tastes like a duck are you seriously going to expect me to believe it's chicken when you use an argument like "the insane imaginations of the tin foil hat brigade"?

[oosha]

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and tastes like a duck are you seriously going to expect me to believe it's chicken when you use an argument like "the insane imaginations of the tin foil hat brigade"?

I'm undecided about the whole thing but there seems to be a lot of vested interests that would make keeping things quite good business, whether they could pull something like that off is another matter.


the total disappearance of a 140 ton airliner (including the titanium turbine rotors) into a 16' diameter hole and through nine feet of steel reinforced (recently upgraded don't forget) concrete

Are you forgetting that Harley saw it?

[Starkweather]

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and tastes like a duck are you seriously going to expect me to believe it's chicken when you use an argument like "the insane imaginations of the tin foil hat brigade"?

The more I read of treefrog, the more I like him

[Starkweather]

So if they were controlled demolitions, how was it that 5,000 odd staff didn't notice the explosives required inside the building?

[Visage]

So if they were controlled demolitions, how was it that 5,000 odd staff didn't notice the explosives required inside the building?

A lot of them were Jewish.

[anarchist]

A lot of them were Jewish.
They LOOKED Jewish, but shape-shifting lizards can adopt many forms...

[Vici]

They LOOKED Jewish, but shape-shifting lizards can adopt many forms...

Gypsy tears help.

[Treefrog]

Are you forgetting that Harley saw it?
Nope, I asked him on t'other side if the reason why he couldn't state how he was able to verify the official explanation was because he was giving Rumsfeld a Lewinsky at the time ;)

It wasn't a total disappearance. There are several photos that clearly show plenty of aircraft debris. However, you'll never encounter the said photos on any conspiracy documentary or website as they're often labelled as fake or simply ignored.
The only photos I've seen show a small piece of débris with part of a curved letter (c,e or similar) on, which is far less than I'd expect from similar aircraft vs immovable object collisions. If you can remember where you saw them I'd be grateful :)

The trouble with the collapses was that they were fairly uniform at face value. Whereas in the fact, only one of the towers fell in a uniform fashion. One tower (WTC 1 or 2) I forget, collapsed slightly askew. That's contrary to what a controlled demolition typically looks like. WTC7 also didn't collapse in a true uniform fashion. It collapsed in two separate stages, 10 seconds apart. There are plenty of videos out there showing the true collapse of WTC, whereas CTs often simply cite footage that doesn't show it properly, or they cut the footage to simply show the second and final collapse of the building.
Again, on this score I'm basing my belief on things like the footage shot by reporters and that of the documentary crew that were with the Fire Dept. Including the reports on the fires in WTC 1 by the firemen saying that they should be able to put out the fire with two lines (hoses.) While WTC 1 & 2 fell almost uniformly (one slightly askew), how likely is it that a building, especially a tall and slim one, will fall so uniformly, neatly and conveniently when - as you point out below - it takes a lot of skill and knowledge to make a building fall like that. The footage I've seen of WTC 7 shows the building crumple almost uniformly from the kink in the roofline to falling into its own footprint. I can't remember seeing the finished heap of rubble though - I don't know whether it wasn't shown or whether I just don't remember seeing it.

You also have to think of the huge undertaking of a task that size to bring down 2 skyscrapers and another smaller tower. Even with a huge demolition crew and a prepped building it would take months, never mind doing it in secret.
Now that's quite a telling point. On balance of probability who is more likely to have the manpower, technical knowledge, access to building schematics, large quantities of high powered explosives and the ability to enter the building prior to 11th September unhindered and unsuspected? Foreign terrorists or US agents?

They also exhibit no demolition symptoms other than that they fell quickly and ONE of the towers fell noticeably uniform. However, that's also a pretty big symptom of a pancake collapse due to a 767 ploughing into several floors. ;)

They weren't controlled demolitions.
Now that I'll have to disagree with. Falling uniformly is a hallmark of a properly executed controlled demolition, the idea being to minimise collateral damage to surrounding buildings. It can easily go wrong as the photos that were posted somewhere of a construction in Dubai(?) showed. What happened there was that a controlled demo of a neighbouring building went slightly off, a huge chunk of concrete smashed through the retaining wall of where a construction crew were excavating footings for a new hi-rise, flooding it and drowning a few hundred thousand quids worth of bulldozers and cranes. So my view is that two buildings falling neatly into their own footprint and another one that's only slightly off are more likely to be due to controlled demolition than any other explanation that I've heard so far.

AFAIK, those are the only examples of a 767 plouging into any building, so to say that it is symptomatic of its own behaviour is a circular argument. Also WTC 7 wasn't hit by a plane, nor by large chunks of débris (check its location on the ground plan of the complex), nor did it have quantities of aviation fuel burning in there. The construction of the building was also very different to that of WTC 1 & 2. The framework was triangulated heavy steel girders, built to withstand massive attacks as you might expect from the number of different Gov't agencies who had offices there.

On balance, I think they were.

[ChemicalKicks]

Sorry folks, I'm late into this one.

Heres a link (http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-5267640865741878159)

Its all about oil, it is a stand up but its a good watch, gives some motives for the war in IRAQ {indirectly}. Not really related to the thread that muc but some of you may find it funny

[ChemicalKicks]

If that was the show he toured with Mark Thomas, i saw that live.
Unbelievably good!

Not sure but Ive watched it a few times and it hits the comedy and factual spot.:thumbsup:

[dirtydog]

Some more inconvenient truths for the conspiracists:
How does that prove that the official version of events is correct?

[anarchist]

How does that prove that the official version of events is correct?

Because Bin Laden never lies... ;)

[dirtydog]

Because Bin Laden never lies... ;)

Even if Bin Laden is speaking the truth, it doesn't prove that the official version of events is correct either. For example Bin Laden could be working with someone in the US government (he did used to be a CIA asset and the Bush family is known to have strong ties with the Bin Laden family so it isn't exactly beyond the realms of possibility), or some in the US government may have had advance knowledge of the attacks but allowed them to happen, and possibly arranged certain events to facilitate them.

[dirtydog]

Yes and I've posted about it in the past - oh did you buy that book btw? I'm guessing not.

I don't want to go over it all again - like dmpoole on the other forum, nothing anyone says or presents as evidence would ever change your opinion because the idea of anything other than the official version of events does not compute for you.

[anarchist]

Except for the inconvenient fact he didn't

Even our former foreign secretary admitted it...



Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan.

[anarchist]

So Robin Cook at best was summarising and at worst doing his usual stab a knife in his former colleagues backs.
Another quote from Bergen...



The United States wanted to be able to deny that the CIA was funding the Afghan war, so its support was funneled through Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI). ISI in turn made the decisions about which Afghan factions to arm and train, tending to favor the most Islamist and pro-Pakistan. The Afghan Arabs generally fought alongside those factions, which is how the charge arose that they were creatures of the CIA.

If true it does go some way to refuting the theory that the CIA funded Bin Laden, but it doesn't do much to help the reputation of the US and the way they secretly support wars (and indirectly terrorists) while publicly denying the fact.

[anarchist]

I don't believe that the fact that the US/UK and other western powers helped the Mujahideen with money, equipment and training whilst they were engaged against the Soviets is in dispute by anyone.

I'm sure most people know about it now yes, but it was obviously not supposed to be publicly known at the time. The US/UK claim to be fundamentally opposed to terrorism and hence have to keep such operations quiet wherever possible.

[Denny Crane]

I think the real question is, why, for one day of the year, do we adopt the American date format? 9/11 and September 11. It is 11/9 and the 11th of September people.

That's a dig at the world btw :visage:

[anarchist]

It was known at the time.

But the man you quoted in that wiki article states that the CIA channelled money through ISI in order to hide the fact that they were funding the Mujahadeen.

Just found this too...



The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention.




According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.