Was 9-11 A Conspiracy by The Government?

[SeeMyu]

Personally, 9-11 has effected my family and many family friends. but to hear from people around the internet that they think 9-11 was a conspiracy by the government..just really upsets me..
they think this because a split second before the plane hits, a light flashes on the tower.. :|
and the fact that most news broadcasters "knew what was going to happen"..

Here's one of the videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7cvjBViV7g
and another one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-0Ms7mId34

I just don't understand why these people think this when we have proof the planes were hijacked from all the phone calls from the planes.

So what do you think? was it a conspiracy? or was it a terrorist attack?

[Undercovers_Agent]

I dunno, the flaming bodies falling from the buildings from Worth street 10 blocks away looked pretty real.

I have to laugh at all the idiots that say it was a conspiracy, THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL a government operation could go on on that scale without a hitch like it did that day.

[Nekowolf]

Short answer:

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Most conspiracies are COMPLETE. BULLSHIT. Do they happen? Yes. But most of the time, it's more likely they're conspiracies of espionage or political abuse (such as covering up bribery, illegal political donations, etc; things of that nature).

9-11 wasn't a government conspiracy. It was sheer government incompetence by the Bush Administration.

[Robodl95]

It was sheer government incompetence by the Bush Administration.
Bush wasn't even president for a year, I get that he's not well liked but how do you blame 9/11 on him?

I think these conspiracy theories are so stupid, they're the same kind of people who deny the existence of the Holocaust.

[~Dee~]

It was a terrorist attack, plain and simple.

There were videos where people claim a UFO was involved, they could see the devil in the smoke clouds....for crying out loud, what is wrong with some people!
No Government Conspiracy that I can see, don't listen to the nutters out there who twist things around to their own liking.

I don't understand why some of the people can't accept that it was a terrorist attack, are their so complacent to think that the US is so powerful that nobody would dare attack them!

Well...they were wrong.

[Nekowolf]

@Robodl95

Because the report was given to him. Intel was gathered, a report was written saying bin Laden was going to attack the US, it was submitted to him, and he just tossed it aside.

Edit: I should express I don't blame him for causing 9/11, don't get me wrong. But, something more could have possibly been done if the threat was taken more seriously.

Edit 2: I should have made that more clear; it's my bad for misspeaking.

[SuicidiaParasidia]

i think it's giving the government a bit too much credit to say they could orchestrate such a grand operation. it would require a level of competence that just isn't there. mind you, these are the same people who if THEY mess up and give you too much money, and you don't correct their mistake, they charge YOU for it.

[rcranger9]

these conspiracy theorists are the same people who think we haven't actually made it to the moon yet. there would be absolutely no point in killing thousands of your own citizens.

[Volvenom]

I always like a good laugh :)

Seriously those people who think their government can do something like that need to move somewhere more transparent. Like some small island in the Pacific Ocean. Only nature to worry about. Even nature can be a real hazard to deal with.

[Johnny_Bravo]

I think it was. I've seen many ducomentations about it. The steel the buildings were made of could take heats about 5000 Degrees Celcius, and flames, even if there was oil withe fire, it was around 3000 Degrees Celcius, and both buildings collapsed perfectly without hitting other buildings?
And Bush didn't really care about it..
It's true that it's stupid to kill thousands of people. But I'm not sure whether it was Bin Laden's idea or it was a Governments job..

[Nekowolf]

And I've seen documentaries about alien lizards. But fine, if you take documentaries at their face value, then: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/minutes/q_2907.html

Also:

The damage radius of OTHER BUILDINGS HIT.

http://www.debunking911.com/fig-1-7.jpg

[kattenijin]

I think it was. I've seen many ducomentations about it. The steel the buildings were made of could take heats about 5000 Degrees Celcius, and flames, even if there was oil withe fire, it was around 3000 Degrees Celcius, and both buildings collapsed perfectly without hitting other buildings?


You don't need to melt steel 100% for it to fail. Decreasing performance of steel components by 30% to 50% (well within the fire's temperatures) will cause sufficient weakening of the structure to cause colapse at it's most vulnerable points: rivets, welds, and other connectors. You then have several weakened floors unable to support the weight of the structure above them, and the building collapses. It collapses straight down due to the fact that because of their size, there wasn't sufficient time for inertia to overcome the mass. You also need to realize, that despite being so large, about 93% of the volume of the towers was basically air.

Skyscrapers are designed to support themselves only for about three hours in a fire even if the sprinkler system fails to operate. This time normally would be long enough to evacuate the occupants. The WTC towers lasted for almost two hours (102 minutes)—less than the design life, but only because the fire fuel load was so large. No normal office fire would fill 45,000 square feet of floor space in the seconds in which the WTC fire developed. Usually, the fire would take up to an hour to spread so uniformly across the width and breadth of the building.

[wickedblue]

I think our government is entirely capable of pulling off something of this nature and I wouldn't put it past Bush to conspire to something of this magnitude to panic USians into supporting a war. I am not saying that I believe this is what happened only that I don't doubt it is possible. I think the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.

What we know for fact is that Bush had intel and did nothing to stop it. So whether the government planned it or just allowed it to happen doesn't actually matter to me, they are still at least partially responsible for the loss of lives.

And no I'm not a crazy loon that thinks the moon landing was faked too. I'm a reasonable person that realizes our government is full of liars that will stop short of nothing to make themselves look good while doing despicable things.

All the "crazy" language here ills me.
http://i53.tinypic.com/8wyzif.jpg

[el_flel]

I also don't believe the conspiracy theories. Like SuicidiaParasidia I think it is giving the government too much credit. I also think that if Bush wanted an excuse to go to war then he would found a way that didn't involve killing 3,000 people. I think the conspiracy theory points are really interesting - there's about a billion of them - but I think this is a case of coincidences being presented as something more than they were.

However, I will admit that I do think there is something dodgy about the plane that hit the Pentagon, purely because no plane is visible on the footage of it being hit and you can't see any debris in the footage after it was hit. No doubt there is a reasonable explanation but on the face of it those things are weird.

[Robodl95]

Yeah he did have info (basically that Bin Laden was planning to attack a federal building in NY, nothing else) but how could he have prevented it? Read this please: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1115611/posts if you do not know the who, where, when or how then you cannot prevent an attack. Should he have shut-down airports? Should he have closed all federal buildings in NYC? Should he have invaded? Any of those things would basically kill the economy.

[Volvenom]

Some things people can come up with is just so "fantastic" you just can't believe it's true. You probably blame it on the conspiracy theoretics or what you call them.

Basically I don't think we're capable of coming up whit any structure that big to stand after being hit by a jumbojet. Didn't it stand for 30 minutes or something, I mean the heat in there? Just sending firemen into that building with a jumbojet in it? They must have been panicing.

[Petchy]

..s a conspiracy, THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL a government operation could go on on that scale without a hitch like it did that day.

Want an example of an Operation so complex, timed to the very second, featured undercover work [so much they didn't even know they were doing it?] and secrecy, protection from all sides, and which moved thousands of people all over the world?

The Royal freaking Wedding.


I, personally, think that no, it wasn't some government conspiracy.. though I seriously believe that there are better kept 'secrets' out there, which only a few people in the world know about..
I just can't wait till the day when I go down a wrong ally and end up in Torchwood..

[malfoya]

Has anyone seen "Loose Change"? I was so shocked and a bit amazed the first time I watched it. I remember it was in a lesson at high school, we all though it was yet another "boring documentary". But it was .. not. I have never believed in any of the conspiracies that has gone around, but after watching this version of the 9/11 I was amazed to see how worked through people are when they argue about these things. It shows how some of the terrorist that supposedly was on the planes, wasn't.. and how there's a bomb going off before the planes etc. Also the plane that crashed into Pentagon didn't make any holes in the wall where the wings on the plane are.

.. no matter what people have lost their beloved ones and that's what matters. Al Quaida has taken upon guilt and are a treath to us all, which they have proved by several other attacks around the worls aswell. It's interesting to hear about conspiracies, but it's completely unecessary to make them in the first place. What consolation is it anyway?

[Nekowolf]

I looked up Free Republic. It's a conservative website. Nor does it provide any links or anything. So why then should I trust it?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/17/eveningnews/main589137.shtml

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A2676-2004Apr10&notFound=true

So the question becomes: how much did Bush really look into it? The who, the where, and the rest, it may have well been in investigation. The student pilots were even considered to be suspicious, but thanks to incompetence and a lack of communications, lines that could have been connected, were not. And did his administration really take it seriously? Did they bother looking into it? I think they did not. Could they have found key information and make decisions that may have prevented or at least stalled the attack? Possibly. There had to have already been investigations into what was going on taking place, otherwise, they would not have bothered to write a memo about it.

Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."

Hell, right there could have been an something to look at. Follow the example? How so? I'd say it would have been worthy to look into.

Oh, and lastly: the stuff Bush "would have have to do" is completely bullshit.

"Because the CIA memo mentions only bin Laden by name, Bush would have had to round-up any and all of his potential followers inside the U.S., i.e., every Muslim in America, and throw them into internment camps - just like FDR did with Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor." - or investigate key people who seem suspicious, such as the two pilots that were being investigated at the time. You do not need an inquisition to uncover a radical network; you look for key connections, actions, communications, etc.

"Since reporters have been able to sneak any number of weapons past airport screeners even with post-9/11 security measures in place, President Bush would have had to close all America's airports to completely eliminate the possibility of hijackings." - Or, if investigation lead to the possibility of airplanes being used, he could have warned airliners to beef up security in looking for suspects instead of forcing them to close it down. Plus, I'd like to know specifically which cases this person means. If I do not know what the circumstances or situations are of how these reporters supposedly sneak past weapons, I cannot make any criticisms or comments.

"In order to protect against another Millennium plot bombing attack - which the memo explicitly refers to - Bush would have had to order that all shopping malls, schools, museums, movie theaters, train stations, large office buildings and other potential high value targets be closed till further notice." - that assumes knowledge that may not have been had at the time. And the "explicit" reference was primarily this line: "The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of bin Laden's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the U.S." The person said the memo never mentions the "how" and yet, assumes that this is part of the "how" that was never mentioned. They essentially contradicted themselves.

"Because Millennium-plot bomber Ahmed Ressam tried to sneak across the Canadian border, Bush would have had to seal both the Canadian and Mexican border until the war on terrorism was won." First of all, again, it's a contradiction in that it assumes a "how" was known. Nor is that true. Sealing off the border would probably have still been ineffective anyway (that's what, uhm, sneaking is about).

"In order to assure the elimination of the bin Laden threat, Bush would have had to launch a pre-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan. If the master terrorist ran to Pakistan, the U.S. would need to invade that country as well." Funny, considering that's exactly what happened. But, that's irrelevant as it was after the post was made. Anyway, how would an invasion have solved anything? You would have had to have captured or killed bin Laden. But even then, they may have had contingency plans, things could have been far too set into motion for an invasion to be effective, etc.

The person who wrote that post was not thinking very intelligently. They are basically using extremes to prove a point.

And for everyone's benefit; here is the memo: Transcript: Bin Laden determined to strike in US (http://articles.cnn.com/2004-04-10/politics/august6.memo_1_bin-conduct-terrorist-attacks-abu-zubaydah?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS)

[Undercovers_Agent]

I think it was. I've seen many ducomentations about it. The steel the buildings were made of could take heats about 5000 Degrees Celcius, and flames, even if there was oil withe fire, it was around 3000 Degrees Celcius, and both buildings collapsed perfectly without hitting other buildings?
And Bush didn't really care about it..
It's true that it's stupid to kill thousands of people. But I'm not sure whether it was Bin Laden's idea or it was a Governments job..

lolwut?

I have a nice screencap somewhere from 4chan of someone who used an argument similar. Here it is...

http://i28.servimg.com/u/f28/16/08/63/27/91110.png

[Robodl95]

@ Neko, I think that we can basically conclude that we really have no idea. Unless the intel briefing is online somewhere (don't think it is) then no one can be sure what the government knew/didn't. I still think it's unlikely that Bush could have known the exact date, place and means of attack but that's just my opinion. All I'm trying to say is that you don't have any proof that Bush could have stopped the attacks.

[Undercovers_Agent]

=
However, I will admit that I do think there is something dodgy about the plane that hit the Pentagon, purely because no plane is visible on the footage of it being hit and you can't see any debris in the footage after it was hit. No doubt there is a reasonable explanation but on the face of it those things are weird.

I've heard both of them.

First off ma'am back in 2001 CCTV used better quality pictures, but because of technology still pictures were taken and then made into a slide show. I think the lapse was every 1-3 secconds. A plane traveling near the speed of sound isn't going to be picked up by this.

Second, through my understanding of structural engineering, you won't find much debris because of the plane construction (Light aluminum, and plexiglass and titanium) and the building structure (Reinforced concrete ment to take naval rounds I believe) and a stone facade. Think what happens to a plane at that velocity and made of light weight materials craashing into a concrete and stone wall.

Look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Al_Flight_1862

That is what happens when the plane hits mid height and through a building half as thick, looks consistant to me.

[Nekowolf]

@Robodl95

Well, I never said he would, or that it was a sure thing; just that it may have been a possibility.

[kattenijin]

Mahna Mahna
Do doo be-do-do
Mahna Mahna
Do do-do do
Mahna Mahna
Do doo be-do-do be-do-do be-do-do be-do-do-doodle do do do-doo do!

[Mistermook]

So what do you think? was it a conspiracy? or was it a terrorist attack?

Conspiracy of terrorists who, exploiting a gaping hole in air security, managed to finally destroy the targets they had previously launched an attack on.

Anything else is too crazy or too stupid to take seriously, as any other explanation defies physics, credulity, or both. It's right up there with birthers and vampire hunters.

[lorenrose1013]

I was there when it happened, not actually at the WTC, but in SoHo near my apartment. I watched a plane pass overhead. I was only three though, so I didn't know what was happening. But I did watch those videos at the beginning. To me, it could have been one of two things:

1. As the pressure built, the weaker points blew up (not a very sound theory, but I hope you know what I mean)
2. The terrorism had been carefully planned, with Bin Laden placing bombs at key points in the building, setting them off as the towers were hit.

I am more partial to theory number two, because I highly doubt someone trying to blow up a building would rely only on a plane hi-jacking. They would want some kind of back-up, in case the plane didn't hit with enough impact or something. But it bothers me that people will blame it on the government. More lives were ruined than just those who died in the towers. A good family friend died of cancer because of chemicals he was exposed to in the clean-up crews.

I really don't think our country would inflict this upon ourselves, and the conspiracy theories are pure idiocy.

[smorbie1]

Most conspiracy theories are fueled by hatred of the president at the time. I remember 9/11 vividly and it was what it was, a terrorist attack. But there are people who want to believe it was a conspiracy because they hated Bush and wanted to find a way to blame him for attack. All of the "science" in the theories has been explained, but the truthers just won't accept it. They hold on to their story regardless of the facts.

[Mistermook]

No, I've met too many people who were just undereducated and/or stupid who really didn't have any grudge against any President in specific, but who always think there are the wrong plots afoot in the US than actual plots that are afoot. These sorts of conspiracy theorists are fairly non-partisan - it's black helicopters under Clinton one night and earthquake rayguns under Bush another, but it could just as easily be "secret meetings with Bigfoot in the Nixon White House" for all that it's really politically motivated. I don't know what these people do in the absence of government, but I suspect it involves rich people or "different" people. You know, like the Jews and black people. It's about fundamentally distrusting the world around you, and not having enough of a clue to comfort yourself with (or in extreme cases sometimes I suspect actual mental illnesses.)

[RoseCity]

People had plenty of reason to question the government's role in 9/11 based on the government's handling of the events leading up to 9/11. Read this timeline (http://www.wanttoknow.info/9-11cover-up10pg) taken from mainstream news sources - it's pretty mind-boggling. You could come to the conclusion that it was just the worst example of incompetence run wild in history, but if you come to a different conclusion I don't think it would mean that you're 'stupid' and 'undereducated' or 'mentally ill'.

[Mistermook]

Except the mainstream media is trying to sell advertising time, and in the best of times it's got a wonderfully shallow, often completely boneheaded idea of what government work is actually like. At worst it's just making shit up, ala Fox News.

You might as well ask why the media didn't know about the attack beforehand. After all, there's tens of thousands of journalists out there in the world. Every single one of them is looking to make a story. Where were they? They had people in the field interviewing Bin Laden. They were having conversations with the guy. They knew about the first bombing, and everyone who flew had an opportunity to have sit down and make a complaint about the procedures for hijackings - if it's so simple that it should have been apparent what would happen, why weren't we all shouting about the obvious danger?

And the answer is, the world is complicated. Most of the time important things just pass us by, no matter who pays our bills, and even people who are looking for the out of the ordinary miss things or don't miss them but put them off, or a hundred other reasons why stuff doesn't get done. If you're reasonably old enough you're bound to have some instance in your life of something happening that you know you shouldn't have let happen but you did, and if in hindsight you realized that it's great but it still happened. Or maybe you're proposing that you're perfect, in which case something like that hasn't happened yet. And hey, it's nice when your mistakes don't allow people to die, but then most of us don't live lives of consequence, do we?

[smorbie1]

What has Fox news got to do with anything? And what have they made up?

[RoseCity]

You might as well ask why the media didn't know about the attack beforehand. After all, there's tens of thousands of journalists out there in the world. Every single one of them is looking to make a story. Where were they? They had people in the field interviewing Bin Laden. They were having conversations with the guy. They knew about the first bombing, and everyone who flew had an opportunity to have sit down and make a complaint about the procedures for hijackings - if it's so simple that it should have been apparent what would happen, why weren't we all shouting about the obvious danger?
I'm not sure why I might as well ask why the media didn't know about the attack beforehand. Is it the news media's job to monitor terrorist activity, collect intelligence, inform the US government of the exact day, time and method of an attack? There were reports of an imminent attack in the media - I remember hearing on NPR in August 2001 a story about a BBC reporter who interviewed some fundamentalist bigwig in Pakistan/Afghanistan (maybe it was al-Zawahiri but I can't find the information now) who said that a big attack was going to go down within the next month - he was open and arrogant about it - and I wondered at the time why he was telling this to a reporter.
I'm not following the last point - are you saying that if we're going to hold the government accountable, we also have to hold airline passengers because they didn't complain about airline security? If the FBI wasn't going to listen to its own operatives, if the FAA wasn't going to listen to people trying to tell them about Muslim men taking flight lessons, I strongly doubt that complaints about airline security would've been listened to.
The glaring point that I see in the timeline is not that mistakes were made, but that people who were trying to do their jobs and prevent this attack, were actively prevented from doing that or ignored. For example:
July 10, 2001: A Phoenix FBI agent sends a memorandum warning about Middle Eastern men taking flight lessons. He suspects bin Laden's followers and recommends a national program to check visas of suspicious flight-school students. The memo is sent to two FBI counter-terrorism offices, but no action is taken. [New York Times, 5/21/02] Vice President Cheney says in May 2002 that he opposes releasing this memo to congressional leaders or to the media and public. [CNN, 5/20/02]
Or:Aug 24, 2001: Frustrated with lack of response from FBI headquarters about detained suspect Moussaoui, the Minnesota FBI begins working with the CIA. The CIA sends alerts calling him a "suspect 747 airline suicide hijacker." Three days later an FBI Minnesota supervisor says he is trying to make sure that Moussaoui does not "take control of a plane and fly it into the World Trade Center." [Senate Intelligence Committee, 10/17/02] FBI headquarters chastises Minnesota FBI for notifying the CIA. [Time, 5/21/02] FBI Director Mueller will later say "there was nothing the agency could have done to anticipate and prevent the [9/11] attacks." [Senate Intelligence Committee, 9/18/02, more]
And the answer is, the world is complicated. Most of the time important things just pass us by, no matter who pays our bills, and even people who are looking for the out of the ordinary miss things or don't miss them but put them off, or a hundred other reasons why stuff doesn't get done.
Okay, if this were an example of people missing things (missing things that were told to them over and over and over) or putting off things, then there should have been no problem investigating what went wrong. But that's not what happened.
Jan 24, 2002: Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle claims that on this day Cheney calls him and urges that no 9/11 inquiry be made. He is repeatedly pressured thereafter. [CNN, 1/29/02, Newsweek, 2/4/02, more] Or should there not have been any investigation because it would just make people in the CIA and FBI and executive branch feel bad about themselves?

Or maybe you're proposing that you're perfect, in which case something like that hasn't happened yet. And hey, it's nice when your mistakes don't allow people to die, but then most of us don't live lives of consequence, do we?
Yes, I'm sure that's it - I'm proposing that I'm perfect because, hey, that's the only way I'd have any right to question what the US government does.

Except the mainstream media is trying to sell advertising time, and in the best of times it's got a wonderfully shallow, often completely boneheaded idea of what government work is actually like. At worst it's just making shit up, ala Fox News.
How would any of the reporting collected in that timeline have sold advertising time - it's disturbing stuff that demands clarification, but those questions when asked are not answered.
Edit: Maybe some of the things that happened were coincidence; maybe some were errors. Maybe there was some incorrect reporting. But there is an overwhelming preponderance of evidence which at least indicates the possibility of misconduct, and exempts people who don't believe the official stories from the Crazy label.

[Sunbee]

Well, there's some evidence that FDR knew that the Japanese were planning to attack before Pearl Harbor. That doesn't, in my opinion, make Pearl Harbor a US government conspiracy. So neither does the US government knowing that Al Qaeda was planning to attack before 9/11. Heck, everyone knew they were planning to attack at some point, they'd attacked before and made it quite clear they intended to do so again. They just hadn't been particularly successful in their attacks. Our homegrown terrorists were much more deadly. As a country, we were thinking about McVeigh and Kaczynski and how to prevent another of that sort of terrorist, both of whom killed more Americans than Al Qaeda had until 9/11.
Could the government have been more proactive and prevented the 9/11 bombings? Maybe. Probably not, though. Most people wouldn't have accepted the TSA and it's actions prior to 9/11. Most people wouldn't have supported the sort of wire tapping that's considered normal these days. Americans considered that sort of behavior by a government to be Soviet in nature and the Soviets were just about the devil incarnate to most Americans. Everyone of voting age had grown up during or before the Cold War. When I wanted to study Russian (I wanted to be an astronaut) my mom wouldn't let me learn such an evil language.
People weren't complaining about the risks of hijacking because everyone knew that hijacked airplanes were held for ransom. That was what had always happened to American based airplanes that were hijacked. The passengers were not in any danger--unless you considered having your travel schedule disrupted a danger. Sure, you'd have to put down in some tropical third world country for a while, but you'd get to your destination a day or two late, that's all. That's why the passengers on the first three flights didn't attack the hijackers, but thanks to cell phones the people on the fourth plane knew things had changed.
No one should have been surprised that someone flew airplanes into buildings: it was an American author who came up with the idea in the first place: Tom Clancy. (Or maybe he didn't come up with it, but he certainly published it.) That was how his character Jack Ryan ended up as president: Clancy had his suicidal pilot hit a joint session of Congress while the President was addressing it about Ryan's confirmation as VP. Any of us who were Clancy fans had the idea in our minds that someone could do that. Bet it made him sick when it happened, but it wasn't a surprise, or shouldn't have been, that someone did.

[RoseCity]

Well, there's some evidence that FDR knew that the Japanese were planning to attack before Pearl Harbor. That doesn't, in my opinion, make Pearl Harbor a US government conspiracy. So neither does the US government knowing that Al Qaeda was planning to attack before 9/11.

Well, we know that some of them knew enough to know to stay off commercial airliners that day. 'Sept 10, 2001: A particularly urgent warning may have been received the night before the attacks, causing some top Pentagon brass to cancel a trip. "Why that same information was not available to the 266 people who died aboard the four hijacked commercial aircraft may become a hot topic on the Hill." [Newsweek, 9/13/01] "A group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns." [Newsweek, 9/24/01, more]' Also: 'July 26, 2001: Attorney General Ashcroft stops flying commercial airlines due to a threat assessment. [CBS, 7/26/01] He later walks out of his office rather than answer questions about this. [AP, 5/16/02, more]'
Guess it ended up not being a very hot topic on the Hill.

Most people wouldn't have supported the sort of wire tapping that's considered normal these days. Americans considered that sort of behavior by a government to be Soviet in nature and the Soviets were just about the devil incarnate to most Americans.
Maybe there wasn't internal surveillance, but there was international surveillance.
'Nov 1999: The head of Australia's security services admits the Echelon global surveillance system exists. The US still denies it exists. BBC describes Echelon's power as "astounding." Every international telephone call, fax, e-mail, or radio transmission can be listened to by powerful computers capable of voice recognition. They home in on key words, or patterns of messages. [BBC, 11/3/99]'

[Mistermook]

How about you make up a list of all these people you're sure knew about an attack beforehand. Then we'll expand your conspiracy to their staffs, who had to have known too. Then we'll explore how many people had to have known because of those people knowing, and the people who surely had to know because they all were part of the data collection. And then we'll include those people in those staffs who came on later, or as part of changing administrations, or firings and promotions, and so on.

Then, once we've figured out how many hundreds or thousands of people you're proposing are really in on this conspiracy, we should compare those to the lists of the people who died or who were injured in the Pentagon and in the World Trade Centers. Because none of those people on the list should known anything about those guys, they should have absolutely no friends and colleagues involved, no possibilities for guilty consciences involved in this massive coverup of your conspiracy, an event that killed thousands of people. Those people involved must be cold SOBs from top to bottom, sitting on one side of the Pentagon while letting the Navy side get taken out by an airplane, right?

How do they keep people from talking in this conspiracy? Is there money changing hands? You know anything about large numbers of people involved just...disappearing maybe? Hey, maybe we've got advanced brainwashing techniques to go along with our super computer that runs Echelon? If we knew all about this, surely other governments' intelligence communities had all this overwhelming evidence that clearly showed what was going to happen too, right? Or is all of Europe just a bunch of fumbling idiots? Complicit in the conspiracy? What about the people who are absolutely not our allies? The US has trade relations with China, but it's common knowledge that we're critical of their human rights violations. Are the Chinese letting us drag them through the mud in the press and sitting on this mountain of data that some writer for the AP or whatever clearly shows is the undeniable evidence of an active conspiracy to cover up how we let thousands of people die? What are they getting out of that? That's probably another conspiracy, right? What are we giving the Chinese? An earthquake ray? Bigfoot?

[RoseCity]

Should I even bother? Yeah, why not.
How about you make up a list of all these people you're sure knew about an attack beforehand. Then we'll expand your conspiracy to their staffs, who had to have known too. Then we'll explore how many people had to have known because of those people knowing, and the people who surely had to know because they all were part of the data collection. And then we'll include those people in those staffs who came on later, or as part of changing administrations, or firings and promotions, and so on.

As far as knowing about an attack beforehand, many people knew - how could they not have? There were warnings all summer. How would I know how many of them knew? I don't see how it matters. The point is that there was information about a possible attack using commercial airplanes, but they didn't see fit to share that info with the American people to at least give them the option to avoid commercial airlines if at all possible. And if they felt that as Condoleezza Rice said in that May 2002 press conference that there wasn't enough specific information to justify disrupting civilian aviation, then why would they not have bothered to drastically increase security measures at airports. I'm not sure why hundreds or thousands of people would have to know about the attack intelligence - I suppose it would depend on their security clearances. Even within the Top Secret clearance, there are special program clearances and compartmented information clearances.

Then, once we've figured out how many hundreds or thousands of people you're proposing are really in on this conspiracy, we should compare those to the lists of the people who died or who were injured in the Pentagon and in the World Trade Centers. Because none of those people on the list should known anything about those guys, they should have absolutely no friends and colleagues involved, no possibilities for guilty consciences involved in this massive coverup of your conspiracy, an event that killed thousands of people. Those people involved must be cold SOBs from top to bottom, sitting on one side of the Pentagon while letting the Navy side get taken out by an airplane, right?
I don't think it's farfetched to posit that the people who knew about the many warnings would tell themselves that letting U.S. citizens know would disrupt civilian aviation - as Condoleezza Rice later told reporters without any seeming feelings of guilt. Human beings can justify anything - look at the invasion of Iraq, a country that had less to do with 9/11 than the U.S. itself had. Does anyone in the Defense Department stay awake nights feeling guilty about the 92,000+ (I'll go with the conservative estimate) dead Iraqi civilians? How in the hell would I know?

Hmm, a lot of questions here and I suppose they are asked as a smackdown.
How do they keep people from talking in this conspiracy? Is there money changing hands? You know anything about large numbers of people involved just...disappearing maybe? Hey, maybe we've got advanced brainwashing techniques to go along with our super computer that runs Echelon? If we knew all about this, surely other governments' intelligence communities had all this overwhelming evidence that clearly showed what was going to happen too, right? Or is all of Europe just a bunch of fumbling idiots? Complicit in the conspiracy?
First of all, conspiracy is your word, not mine. My point is that there are unanswered questions and evidence of wrongdoing. As to keeping people from spilling the beans, you do know what happens to government whistleblowers, right? Here are a few links, but a Google search will turn up more.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/25/national/main3203792.shtml?tag=mncol;lst;4
http://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2008/04/articles/whistleblowers-government-empl/retaliation-against-faa-whistleblowers-highlight-the-need-for-legislative-action/
http://www.whistleblower.org/blog/31-2010/1128-nsa-whistleblowers-on-60-minutes-911-could-have-been-prevented

What about the people who are absolutely not our allies? The US has trade relations with China, but it's common knowledge that we're critical of their human rights violations. Are the Chinese letting us drag them through the mud in the press and sitting on this mountain of data that some writer for the AP or whatever clearly shows is the undeniable evidence of an active conspiracy to cover up how we let thousands of people die?
Uh, the stories cited in the timeline, if that's what you're referring to, were reported by reliable, mainstream media sources - BBC, NY Times, The Guardian, Time, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal. I don't remember saying that they constitute 'undeniable evidence of an active conspiracy', but that they raise many troubling, unanswered questions. As I said previously and I guess I have to repeat, my aim was to show that people who have questions about 9/11 that have not been answered don't deserve to have their intelligence and sanity called into question. Or maybe you consider the BBC, NY Times, WSJ, etc are part of the ranks of the 'mentally ill'.
I'm not sure what China has to do with any of this, but as far as the U.s. criticizing their human rights violations, their response has been to push back.
http://wocview.wordpress.com/2011/04/23/chinese-report-criticizes-u-s-on-human-rights-issues/

What are they getting out of that? That's probably another conspiracy, right? What are we giving the Chinese? An earthquake ray? Bigfoot?
I've tried to think of what to say about this, but I can't, so I'll just quote the guidelines - 'The Debate Room is supposed to be an opportunity for everyone to come together and discuss things civilly and intelligently, making points, presenting evidence, and listening to what others have to say in a polite and respectful manner, even if you don't agree with them.'

[Kisatsu]

I think our government is entirely capable of pulling off something of this nature and I wouldn't put it past Bush to conspire to something of this magnitude to panic USians into supporting a war. I am not saying that I believe this is what happened only that I don't doubt it is possible. I think the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.
]

This. It is perfectly possible, then it's also possible it was 'just' a terrorist attack.
What I don't understand is that some say it 'upsets' them that few think it's a conspiracy instead of a terrorist attack. The outcome is the same, isn't it equally bad? Wether the US Government ( or..you know.. ILLUMINATI) planned it or Bin Laden.. People died. It was awful no matter what way you look at it.

[el_flel]

If it were the US government (which I don't think it is) I think it would be more awful because of the fact that they purposely caused so much devestation to their own country in order to give themselves a reason to go to war and cause more devestation over there. Obviously it's horrific whoever caused it, but if it's someone doing it to their own turf, that seems worse to me.

[tomomi1922]

Death and destructions are awful, no doubt about it. But take a look at the Iraqi body count that US brought to their country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War : from the smallest estimate of 98,170 to the largest of 1,033,000 Iraqi casualties. Pick a number, and even divide it by half, it still far exceeds 9/11 casualties. Maybe it happened in somewhere else other than US soil, or those aren't US citizens, so probably we shouldn't care about, and they probably don't deserve to live. But as US was saddened and brought down in tears because of some 3000 casualties, and I by no mean say it is not sad, imagine how 98,170 casualties (lowest estimate) sound to the people of Iraq?

But wait, the cause of US is good? We went in to capture a false weapon of mass destruction. And later on, we re-wrote their constitution, reformed their government (to US standard, not saying it is good or bad, but US standard nonetheless), and certainly enjoyed a bonus of the country's riches in oil. Call it help, call it war profiteering, call it for the oil, call it crusading, ... 98,170 lives? Sure we didn't mean it, it was collateral damage, but we must achieve victory, we must achieve our goal. Well said.

However, whatever US' goal maybe, the collateral damage is in the hundred of thousands, also at the expense of US economy (check the financial cost of the war). Meanwhile Bin Laden attempted to achieve his objective with collateral damage of 3000 lives. So who is the more ... , or should I say less evil in this case? I am not saying he won't do more or less damage if he has the mean. But their little army has zero chance of facing US military might, their economical power is not a fraction of China to even threaten US one bit, basically terrorism is their only weapon, like it or not.

9/11 event has little relation to Iraq war, I know. But that is what makes it more despicable. Revenge? Blood to blood? An eye for an eye? The entire US nation was ready to make whoever did 9/11 pay back. But ... Iraq? For 3000 casualties, and by no mean it is a small number, US wanted payback. Now if it is 100,000 casualties, what would Iraqi do? Welcome US with their open arms? What would us Americans do if some strong nations invaded US soil with some "justified reason", whatever it may be, and caused 100,000s of casualties, should they honestly expect us to bow down? If this means anything, it forever more gives justifications to retaliation toward US. And since they don't have any army that can stand toe to toe against US military might, then guess what? Terrorism is the only weapon they have.

If US government continues on this path, the next terrorist act is not a matter of If, but when. Citizens of America cannot be oblivious to this.

[Ledgo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_OIXfkXEj0

Anyways, I don't think I can believe in a conspiracy. I would rather focus on more fruitful conspiracies, such as JFK. Just saying.

[CmarNYC]

COULD it have been a conspiracy? Sure. It's also possible that Nazis riding dinosaurs will take over the Earth tomorrow. Just because you can't absolutely prove that something didn't happen doesn't make it worth anything resembling serious discussion.

Whether Bush/the government should or could have prevented it is another matter. Maybe, maybe not. However, hindsight is a wonderful thing and waving a set of probably vague facts pulled out of the mass of intel the CIA and FBI and whoever else had to deal with is not entirely fair. I have no trouble at all believing that the government's performance was less than perfect, and that there were efforts to prevent inquiries or cover up whatever evidence there was, but this doesn't necessarily mean anything beyond the degree of incompetence and CYA that exists in any large bureaucracy, especially the US government.

For example, we know for a fact al-Qaeda or its affiliates are going to attack at some point in revenge for Bin Laden's death. We know they may move on a date close to the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, and we know they're likely to go after another financial or government center or a major transportation hub in a large city. We know how they've operated in the past. We have information which is about equivalent to the intel before 9/11 - so exactly what is the government and Obama supposed to do about it?

What I don't understand is that some say it 'upsets' them that few think it's a conspiracy instead of a terrorist attack. The outcome is the same, isn't it equally bad? Wether the US Government ( or..you know.. ILLUMINATI) planned it or Bin Laden.. People died. It was awful no matter what way you look at it.

Personally, as an American, I would be extremely upset if I thought my government had done something so utterly horrific, not to mention so completely stupid and useless, and even more if I thought it was done to justify an even more horrific war.