Althouse: If the 9/11 conspiracy theory were true...

August 10, 2006

If the 9/11 conspiracy theory were true...

...why wouldn't the government have found a way to silence the persons who began to uncover it?

IN THE COMMENTS: The question is answered... conspiracy-theory style.

48 comments:

Robert Fovell said...: If the 9/11 conspiracy were true, Oliver Stone would have referenced it in his new movie. It's in his blood; how could he have avoided it?

Unless, of course, "They" have gotten to Stone.

Oh my God, "They're" everywhere....

(Cue "Twilight Zonew" music.); 8/10/06, 12:26 PM
Icepick said...: Ann, if they silenced everyone who had evidence, then people would get suspicious that no one was peddling a conspiracy theory. So they need to allow some of this to go on, just so everything seems normal.; 8/10/06, 12:36 PM
SippicanCottage said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/10/06, 12:57 PM
tiggeril said...: Quick! Look over there! Jews!; 8/10/06, 1:05 PM
KCFleming said...: Funny, funny take-down.

And if Barrett were actually correct, he'd already be in a plastic bag in a dumpster behind a Wal-Mart in Idaho, with nobody looking for him.; 8/10/06, 1:11 PM
tiggeril said...: No, no, no. Does no one remember the warehouse of bees in the X-Files movie?

COVERED IN BEES!; 8/10/06, 1:20 PM
The Drill SGT said...: No Folks,

as a card carrying (level 3)member of the "clean team" who has inoperable cancer (JK here, but play along) I'm prepared to divulge the evil that my team has been doing for the last 5 years in eliminating potential WTC leakers.

What the public thought were chemical weapons disposal plants around the country are really crematoria. You see we snatch possible leakers, and stash them in what the public thinks are chemical weapons bunkers in Alabama, Utah, etc. Then we interrogate and ultimately process them through the plant. The results are used in concrete mix. Our operation has nearly been exposed several times, the most recent being when there was an INTERNET article on "dangerous Leakers" found in a VX bunker at Aniston Army Depot. Fortunately, the "leaks" were contained and immediately disposed of.; 8/10/06, 1:25 PM
Unknown said...: I've heard this argument before, and I agree with others on this thread. It seems to me that it would be far easier and more effective to discredit those uncovering the conspiracy than it is to kill them quietly and discreetly.; 8/10/06, 1:36 PM
Dave TN said...: My argument against a 9/11 conspiracy (at least carried out by the Bush clan) is the reaction of Bush and other high ranking officials that day. If they carried out this elaborate plan for the attack, why did Bush sit around dazed and confused in the classroom for 10 minutes after it started and then fly around to various unnamed military bases all day? Why not have Bush spring to action immediately and order the shooting down of a jet just before it plunged into the Capitol? Wouldn't that make him a hero for life?

Similarly, if they went to so much trouble to purposely mislead the public on WMD in Iraq, why didn't they take the extra step to go ahead and plant some during the invasion to validate their position? It seems in all that confusion they could have had some black-ops types fill a couple of bunkers with nerve gas or something.

Alas, I fear that bad intelligence gathering is the problem - not sinister conspiricies.; 8/10/06, 2:07 PM
Ron said...: I call Shotgun on being "The Smoking Man" in the 9/11 conspiracy!

"I could kill you anytime I want...but not today."; 8/10/06, 2:21 PM
Tibore said...: The problem with conspiracy fantasists is that, among their many delusions, they believe that many people outside the government are in on things. In this thread at Screw Loose Change, a link is provided to a lively discussion thread - a very long one - on the James Randi Educational Forum website where a conspiracy fantasist makes assertations like

"...the planes were a cover for the fact that the building were built to be demolished and scheduled for 9-11." (my emphasis)

and, regarding the construction of the towers:

"The steel rebar inside the concrete was coated with a small, engineered amount of C4. Parafin plugs were cast on the inside of the core to fill inspection ports on the rebar. the presence of the ports were in the documentary I saw in 1990."

Direct link for first comment: here

For second: here

So in short, 9/11 is a conspiracy dating back to the construction of the towers (early 70's) involving God knows how many people that worked on them.

Now, that JREF thread doesn't exactly cover Professor Althouse's theme here: That logic dictates the government would've silenced people who've discovered the conspiracy. But in a way, that still illuminates the errors of the fantasists, because it's a very pertinent question that most of them ignore, excuse, or make glib explanations for. The answers to that question don't fit the narrative the fantasists compose.

Or it's a hook for further fantasy. Either way, the question "wouldn't the government have found a way to silence the people?" is a valid one to put to such fools.

----

Slightly off topic here --> Just as a warning to everyone, that thread I linked is l-o-o-o-o-o-ng, and in places, painful (if intentional and flagrant disregard for logic can be interpreted as "painful"; kudos to those regular members that refused to let weak arguments go but also managed to not be openly abusive). Most of it doesn't deal with the assertations I linked above, but with back and forth over photos, posters complaining about the fantasist dodging questions (he does - left, right, center, and sideways), and other weak pieces of photographic and hyperlinked evidence he provides. I think it's an interesting read, but I gotta warn everyone that it's definitely an endurance test. 58 pages of posts... it felt like it was going to go on forever.; 8/10/06, 2:33 PM
KCFleming said...: And so far, no one has noticed that I was standing behind the fence on the grassy knoll outside the WTC. Me, Fidel, Josef, and Mao.

Has anybody here seen my old friend Pol Pot?
Can you tell me where he's gone?; 8/10/06, 2:33 PM
Dave TN said...: Tibore,

If you want more insight into the convoluted logic of conspiracy theorists, you can have lots of fun at Democratic Undergrounds 911 board:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=125; 8/10/06, 3:03 PM
bill said...: As long as we're having some conspiracy fun, here's two clips from Bill Hicks, profanity removed. Needless to say, Bill Hicks came down with "cancer" and died. Coincidence? I think not.

There's a handful of people running everything. That's true. It's proveable...I'm not a conspiracy nut...it's proveable. A handful, a very small elite run and own these corporations, which includes the mainstream media. I have this feeling whoever is elected president...no matter what the promises were on the campaign trail--blah, blah, blah. When you win you go into this smoky room with the 12 industrialist capitalist scum*** who got you in there. And you're in this smoky room, this little film screen comes down, and a big guy with a cigar (puff puff) Roll the Film (puff puff)...

And it's a shot of the Kennedy assassination from an angle you've never seen before. That looks suspiciously off the grassy knoll. And the screen goes up and the lights come on, and they go to the new president: "Any questions?"

*************
They're all the same. I'll show in politics in America. Here it is right here.

I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.
I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.

Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding both puppets.

Shut up! Go back to bed America, your government is in control. Here's Love Connection; watch this and get fat and stupid. By the way, keep drinking beer you morons.; 8/10/06, 3:08 PM
Harkonnendog said...: They aren't dead because of you, Ann Althouse. You have fallen into the trap the Jews in the LEO satellites set by using this very argument.

Oh no... they've decided not to let me publicize THIS argument. They are trying to kill me! I'm running around with my laptop (thank God I'm in a good hotspot) avoiding their laser blaster shots as I type! Ow! My shoulder is singed! Ow! Owee!

Arghhhhhhhhhh........; 8/10/06, 3:26 PM
Harkonnendog said...: Um... could someone call 911 for me?

I'm not dead. I'm just terribly burned.

I'm in quite a lot of pain, actually.

They're back. Nevermind.

Arrrrghhh......; 8/10/06, 3:29 PM
El Presidente said...: Pogo: I was drinking a Cuba Libre with Desi Arnaz on the afternoon of November 22, 1963.; 8/10/06, 3:31 PM
bill said...: Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum:

Not that the incredulous person doesn't believe in anything. It's just that he doesn't believe everything. Or he believes in one thing at a time. He believes a second thing only if it somehow follows from the first thing. He is nearsighted and methodical, avoiding wide horizons. If two things don't fit, but you believe both of them, thinking that somewhere, hidden, there must be a third thing that connects them, that's credulity.; 8/10/06, 3:32 PM
Lonesome Payne said...: That Bill Hicks thing is a perfect example of one of our tragedies these days: that "alternative" pop culture, counterculture, doesn't know how not to be counter. And they're very good at it, sometimes.

That kind of take on the world is so seductive and makes the believer feel so smart. Hideous stuff at bottom, though, as much as Bill Hicks is revered.; 8/10/06, 3:32 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: why wouldn't the government have found a way to silence the persons who began to uncover it?

They tried, but then the tin-foil hat was invented to foil the mind rays.; 8/10/06, 3:45 PM
Spacemonkey said...: Maybe.b; 8/10/06, 3:48 PM
Anthony said...: If the 9/11 conspiracy were true, Oliver Stone would have referenced it in his new movie.

Just look more closely when you watch it. I'd bet good money there's at least one scene where a few yarmulkes are sneaking out of the Towers before the planes hit.; 8/10/06, 3:52 PM
Laura Reynolds said...: "why wouldn't the government have found a way to silence the persons who began to uncover it?"

Why if I'm so smart am I still working this job? That takes up all my "why" time; 8/10/06, 3:55 PM
Michael said...: Oliver Stone has long been a government agent. Look how the standing of Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories went after JFK-- before it came out, most people felt there was something to them; afterwards, they were dismissed as "straight out of an Oliver Stone movie." Brilliant!

"So in short, 9/11 is a conspiracy dating back to the construction of the towers (early 70's) involving God knows how many people that worked on them."

Yes, and remember that the architect of the WTC worked on many projects in Saudi Arabia built by Binladen Construction. That's how deep it goes!; 8/10/06, 4:02 PM
Tibore said...: Dave TN,

DU? Ickchh... bleeech.. barf... can't stand being there.

I do give that forum credit for having some sane members who decry idiocy. But by and large, too many of their members are trying to create a Kos-clone site, minus the rationality (*nudge, wink*).

Freeman Hunt,
Those morons... don't they read anything anymore??!! Tinfoil headgear "may in fact enhance the government's invasive abilities. We speculate that the government may in fact have started the helmet craze for this reason."

http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/

Jeez, they are sooo behind in their groupthink! I swear, the quality of conspiracy fantasists is so low nowadays, not like times past... they gotta work on their quality control, I'm tellin' ya, these kids just don't measure up...; 8/10/06, 4:09 PM
Matt said...: There is a saying, I believe attributed to Napoleon (who knows if that's true):

"Never attribute to conspiracy that which can be adequately explained by incompetence"

Considering the moonbats' opinion of Bu$HitlerChimp's (or however they say it) competence, how did they come to believe in his capability of a) planning 9/11 in such a way as to frame someone else, b) having no one notice before 9/11, and c) not leaving sufficient evidence to be exposed to the general public? Have they ever heard the phrase "No plan survives encounter with the enemy?"; 8/10/06, 4:10 PM
AST said...: Yesterday I saw a show on History Channel about TWA Flight 800 and the charges that it was hit by a missile or small plane. A number of otherwise competent and sane people argued that the FBI was covering up the truth. What was never addressed was "Why would they do that?"

What amuses me is that so many liberals are caught up in these theories. You'd think that if you can't or don't trust the government, you wouldn't support so many big government programs and laws giving government more control over our lives. For example, consider the vast social security conspiracy, the environmentalist conspiracy to end private property rights, and the New Deal conspiracy.; 8/10/06, 4:33 PM
exhelodrvr1 said...: The total absence of any evidence of conspiracy is itself evidence!; 8/10/06, 4:39 PM
Finn Alexander Kristiansen said...: I read this in a little black book I found in a local massage parlor:

"Why don't we silence people who begin to discover the truth?

Why bother, when the truth sounds so crazy. We often pick the wildest method to accomplish our goal, knowing that if it's discovered, who will believe? Our man in the White House could have offed Kennedy, but why make it simple? Keep it complicated and when you get caught, who can make heads or tails (or tales, ha!)."

Here is an example:

We decide we want to make a lot of money, and use oil. We know good and well that people will watch the holdings of Cheney or Bush or any number of our associates (including some of our Democratic friends in the Carlyle Group, Blackstone Group, and SAC up in Connecticut). We make sure that we don't show any positions that will profit on the rise of oil prices.

We send out our people to ask questions like, "Tell me in detail how Bush profits personally from rising oil, aside from the nebulous "helping out friends" argument". And usually, when pressed for detail, the average American knows nothing, and can only parrot what he has heard in Michael Moore films (who, by the way, also works with us).

So get this. The whole world is in an uproar as prices rise. BUT, they cannot pin anything specific on us in terms of profits.

Eventually, the troubles in the Middle East settle down... oh and look, Castro grows sick at the same time that huge oil reserves are found around Cuba.. and, hmmm, the Fed is cutting interest rates after 17 straight raises.

The tide turns. Oil supply rises, prices begin to slip. Our man in Bahrain, or maybe Cayman, or anywhere, has already set up a mass of futures and options positons in the world markets to capitalize on FALLING, not rising, oil. We do the opposite of what people expect, and reap our profits later, and in a method people are not expecting. Hence, we are setting upward bets on airliness, and short (down)positions on oil. Long (upward)positions on FedEx and UPS, and short positions on refiners.

The wheel turns. Prices drop on oil and we make money as it drops, and the population is too euphoric to realize we were short oil, and that we engineered an artificially high price in the first place.

We can claim, "Hey look, we were not betting for upward oil prices during the war, or after the war, we hate oil as much as you" and the American will buy it, generally ignorant of economics and finaces.

You see? We keep it complicated so that, if discovered, the truth looks absurd. Or, we do the opposite, knowing attention is short."

I read that, and turned to my masseuse and said, "Wow, that did not have a happy ending at all."; 8/10/06, 4:50 PM
jeffmacguy said...: Soylet Green is PEOPLE!; 8/10/06, 4:54 PM
Pat Patterson said...: But the 9/11 conspiracy theories must be true. After all,(pauses dramatically) everyone that opened Tutankhamen's tomb in 1923 is dead. Just like the curse predicted. And I've still got the quarters the Tooth Fairy left for me when I was little.; 8/10/06, 5:01 PM
SaysMeow said...: At the final 9/11 planning meeting held in the White House on July 18, 2001, Bush asked "Is everyone ready?" Conspirator Tommy Thompson, head of HHS, raised his hand and said "George, I don't have anything to do ." Rove exclaimed angrily "Damn it, Tommy, you're supposed to be making anthrax and smallpox! If you need more than that, you can kill off anyone who threatens to expose our little conspiracy. Now sit down and shut up!"

Tommy went at it with a will, but his only power base is the Medicare bureaucracy. They've been planning to start the "silencing" for 5 years now, but the paperwork is fouled up. No one knows whether box 11-C on the Hit Form Requisition is supposed to say "accidental" or "employment-related". Hitman hiring is confidently expected to begin in 2007, if Congress approves funding.

(Tommy T. was the former governor of WISCONSIN. Did anyone put you up to this debunking, Professor Althouse???); 8/10/06, 5:09 PM
M. Simon said...: The way to discredit the truth is to get Oliver Stone to make a movie about it.

The government got to him when he was a grunt in 'Nam. He has been on the payroll ever since.

Michael Moore? Tell me how he became a millionaire? Government payoffs.

The government is using the media very effectively to lump the truth tellers in with the conspiracy mongers. A very old trick.

Magic Word: diaaakos

Now I know something is up.; 8/10/06, 5:49 PM
M. Simon said...: Man they are reading my yhoughts in real time.

But they can't spell worth a damn.

Magic Word: bmkoju; 8/10/06, 5:52 PM
Anthony said...: Confession: I came clean about my own involvement in Hiding The Truth™ about a month ago.; 8/10/06, 6:02 PM
Assistant Village Idiot said...: Elephants paint their toenails red to hide in packages of M&M's.

Hey, wait a minute. Elephants are the symbol of the Republican party...

I'd better review those jokes for secret messages.

magic word: assoe. Hey!; 8/10/06, 7:01 PM
sonicfrog said...: I just tried to make a comment a few minutes ago....

and the machine sssaid I couldn't cause....

blogspot was down for maintainance....

but now I can comment....

even though the machine said i couldn't....

oh my god I think they're tapping the line.... watching me...

mommy....; 8/10/06, 7:04 PM
SippicanCottage said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/10/06, 7:04 PM
sonicfrog said...: Quick! Look over there! Jews!

LOL

Great! Tiggeril has gone all Drunken Mel Gibson on us!!!; 8/10/06, 7:05 PM
Ed said...: "They tried, but then the tin-foil hat was invented to foil the mind rays."

Has anyone bought actual *tin* foil lately? All I can find is that aluminum crap, which amplifies the CIA's mind control satellite signals...; 8/10/06, 9:22 PM
Chennaul said...: Sipp-

Hitler eats beef jerky? Gads now I've heard it all...

Tiggeril-ummmm-Ninth Protocol is ,errh, more politically correct.

sonicfrog-

Remember when you promised to nuke a thread? "We" know all you had was-

Wet Cake.; 8/10/06, 11:02 PM
Brian said...: The leftist wackos have 2 choices: Accept reality and fight back, or ignore it so they can get back to the important business of spreading out government largesse to their favored groups. They choose the latter because it is quicker, easier, and costs nothing.; 8/11/06, 12:03 AM
Tibore said...: "Has anyone bought actual *tin* foil lately? All I can find is that aluminum crap, which amplifies the CIA's mind control satellite signals..."

I can't find any foil, just that Saran Wrap crap. Man, I'm tellin' ya, when the mind control waves hit, it melts that stuff right into your hair. Anyone know what kind of hell it is to run a fine tooth comb through your hair with that junk melted in?

Word Verif: obysaupx... Holy crap, it's got the word "Obey" in it... they got to the Word Verificaion program, man, they're everywhere!...; 8/11/06, 8:07 AM
paul a'barge said...: "Holy crap, it's got the word "Obey" in it"

No it doesn't.; 8/11/06, 9:32 AM
paul a'barge said...: Ron, nice Rickenbacker!

Saysmeow, you made me spit my cheerios into my nose.; 8/11/06, 9:37 AM
the Curmudgeon said...: The government does silence conspiracy theorists, mostly by ridicule and denigration. If they were to actually take them out and kill them, people would say "Hey wait a minute - people are disappearing and/or dying. What's up here??" No, the best way to silence people is to brainwash the majority into thinking there is no version of events other than the "official" version. Everyone else is a wack job.; 4/29/07, 6:31 AM
Unknown said...: It seems most reasonable to me that 9/11 was our leaders' chastisement by ETs. Capt. John Smith, Chief Seattle and others sensibly preferred the occasional hut-burning, to extermination. Likewise with ET's high command.

Pres. Clinton tried to "triangulate" the ETs. Pres. Bush 43 tried to get tough with them, and negotiations broke down. The government had some time to prepare their coverup plan. Such things must be covered up because spy services don't think the public can handle the truth and tend to hoard information in any case. The government generally wants to preserve the illusion that it has a monopoly of force. Serious inquiry into ET matters long has been shouted down by government-orchestrated chanting of "tinfoil hat" and similar slogans. At a deeper level, there is disinformation and staged atrocities such as "half-cats" and "abductions", to cover up the actual ET situation.

Clearly ETs used superweapons on the WTC: scorched distant cars, shrinkwrap-like filing cabinets, etc. WTC 7 was done by us to entomb sensitive materials, but WTC1/2 were collapsed by the ETs.; 5/16/07, 10:01 PM
Jeremy Vaeni said...: Joseph C. I hope that's a joke because either way it is. (And I know of people who DO believe that by the way!)

Still, not all conspiracy theories about 9/11 are equal and to dismiss them all out of hand because only loons believe conspiracies, well guess what? Guess where that conventional wisdom came from? It came from the establishment's response to Oliver Stone's JFK movie. So if you want to sound like a republican parrot, kids, keep squawking. Meanwhile, some of us want the facts wherever they fall. If that means the conspiracy was between guys with box cutters, fine. If it means Bush Co did it, fine. (But certainly let there be an independent investigation of this.
Hasn't happened.

Why? Why is that acceptable to any of you?; 10/24/07, 11:11 AM