Loose Change: September 11 Government Conspiracy?
Let me just start by saying no. There was quite a lot of hack-work involved and many of their key points don't hold up. However, it does point out some interesting discrepancies that should be investigated. The points made about Flight 93 (the one that crashed in Pennsylvania) are especially noteworthy.
I'm going to focus on the World Trade Center and motive arguments because their Pentagon and Flight 93 arguments are actually relatively solid, at least as far as my knowledge of things is concerned. But that more likely means that I just don't know what I should about the relevant facts.
But, anyway...the WTC. The argument they presented is either that the planes were flown into the building by government agents or that they were radio-controlled drones. They did not specify which. Regardless, the center of their argument is that there was a series of controlled explosions in the towers that brought them down. One of the central bases for this argument was a number of eyewitness and media accounts describing "secondary explosions." I think we can dismiss the media reports out of hand (Gore wins Florida! Gore wins th- oh wait, we were too quick, nevermind...) as mindless chatter to fill time. The eyewitness accounts can either be acknowledged or ignored, but it should be noted that the film makers were not going to include accounts that did not support their arguments.
Secondly, the arguments about controlled explosions. There was no evidence (as far as I was concerned) for this. The films they have in which they pointed out "explosions" are real enough; it is the explosions that are fake. Anyone not looking specifically for the explosions will see that they are just dust plumes from the collapse and look nothing like the explosions in the films of demolitions they showed just moments earlier. But they frame the plumes and call them explosions, and one certainly is being led to believe that.
Another common theme through the film was the suspicious movements of security-type personnel around the timeframe mentioned. Security in the WTC was brought off 12-hour shifts just before the attacks; what they dont dwell on is that the personnel had been working overtime shifts during that time and the system was being normalized, not reduced. They also pointed to the preponderance of training manuevers going on with Air Force jets on September 11 (as opposed to them being on guard duty) as evidence the government was controlling this. They don't mention that the military is always running exercises. And the quote that "14 aircraft were left to defend the entire United States" is complete shit. There were more than that many aircraft at Bradley IAP on that day.
Motive-wise, it also does a poor job of establishing connections. First off, they bring up Larry Silverstein, who bought the WTCs for $3.2B in July 2001 and took out an insurance policy against terrorism for $3.5B; after the attacks he tried to collect double since "two planes each constituted a seperate terrorist attack." First off, this sounds like some sort of "International Jewish Banker" conspiracy thing, since I doubt that the government would go through all this so Mr. Silverstein could make a few billion. Secondly, the fact that he took out a policy against terrorism specifically was cited as damning evidence in the film. Glossed over was the fact that less than 10 years earlier the WTC had been bombed, so terrorism was certainly a major worry. Finally, he lost the lawsuit and only got $2.2B in the insurance settlement, a net loss from the purchase. If the government went to all that trouble to destroy the WTCs in the first place, wouldn't they make sure their man at least won the court case?
Next is some loose ends about Osama Bin Laden. His letter denying involvement in the attacks was cited as evidence he didn't do it (not evidence that he was desperately trying to avoid having the United States nuke him) and the reason why we "framed" him is never made clear. They mention Afghanistan and Iraq, but don't cite connections. And let us not forget that we invaded Oil Land/Iraq without the help of September 11. We said Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction, and that was good enough for most people. So don't bring up the myriad of oil baron ties in the administration.
Oh, and some of the highjackers are still alive. It isn't possible that these are just people who share the same name as the highjackers.
That said, there are some serious issues about Flight 93 that were raised, most especially the cell phone failure rates from 32,000 feet, which preclude the possibility of outgoing cell phone calls that were supposedly made. This is the same site referenced in the film. I'm not saying the flight/crash was faked, but it is possible that the whole "highjackers get highjacked by patriotic Americans" story is something worth investigating deeper.
Oh, and they insinuate that the passengers on Flight 93 (which was actually flown to Cleveland and landed!) were all executed. That was interesting.
But yeah, that's the story.
Tuesday Edit:
Thought of a few more points I didn't cover in the post above. The whole thing about how no buildings ever collapsed from fire damage and then showing pictures of other skyscrapers burning and not falling, for instance. What wasn't mentioned is that the WTC was built entirely differently than those other buildings. It was supported by the outer walls, while the interior core provided no structural support. All the others were more traditional core-supported structures. If something is supported by the walls, having a huge hole punched through those walls probably is not good for structural intergrity. And they kept talking about how the steel wouldn't melt if it was burned by jet fuel. This may or may not be true; however, they did talk about molten iron found in the basement of the structure a month later, which makes me wonder why it couldn't have melted during the attacks.
And then there was the gold. There was a big part about gold. They never say who was taking it or why. The best insinuation I could get out of it was that the government took it to spend in Iraq. Which is absurd, since they're rather just spend money they don't have.
I'm going to focus on the World Trade Center and motive arguments because their Pentagon and Flight 93 arguments are actually relatively solid, at least as far as my knowledge of things is concerned. But that more likely means that I just don't know what I should about the relevant facts.
But, anyway...the WTC. The argument they presented is either that the planes were flown into the building by government agents or that they were radio-controlled drones. They did not specify which. Regardless, the center of their argument is that there was a series of controlled explosions in the towers that brought them down. One of the central bases for this argument was a number of eyewitness and media accounts describing "secondary explosions." I think we can dismiss the media reports out of hand (Gore wins Florida! Gore wins th- oh wait, we were too quick, nevermind...) as mindless chatter to fill time. The eyewitness accounts can either be acknowledged or ignored, but it should be noted that the film makers were not going to include accounts that did not support their arguments.
Secondly, the arguments about controlled explosions. There was no evidence (as far as I was concerned) for this. The films they have in which they pointed out "explosions" are real enough; it is the explosions that are fake. Anyone not looking specifically for the explosions will see that they are just dust plumes from the collapse and look nothing like the explosions in the films of demolitions they showed just moments earlier. But they frame the plumes and call them explosions, and one certainly is being led to believe that.
Another common theme through the film was the suspicious movements of security-type personnel around the timeframe mentioned. Security in the WTC was brought off 12-hour shifts just before the attacks; what they dont dwell on is that the personnel had been working overtime shifts during that time and the system was being normalized, not reduced. They also pointed to the preponderance of training manuevers going on with Air Force jets on September 11 (as opposed to them being on guard duty) as evidence the government was controlling this. They don't mention that the military is always running exercises. And the quote that "14 aircraft were left to defend the entire United States" is complete shit. There were more than that many aircraft at Bradley IAP on that day.
Motive-wise, it also does a poor job of establishing connections. First off, they bring up Larry Silverstein, who bought the WTCs for $3.2B in July 2001 and took out an insurance policy against terrorism for $3.5B; after the attacks he tried to collect double since "two planes each constituted a seperate terrorist attack." First off, this sounds like some sort of "International Jewish Banker" conspiracy thing, since I doubt that the government would go through all this so Mr. Silverstein could make a few billion. Secondly, the fact that he took out a policy against terrorism specifically was cited as damning evidence in the film. Glossed over was the fact that less than 10 years earlier the WTC had been bombed, so terrorism was certainly a major worry. Finally, he lost the lawsuit and only got $2.2B in the insurance settlement, a net loss from the purchase. If the government went to all that trouble to destroy the WTCs in the first place, wouldn't they make sure their man at least won the court case?
Next is some loose ends about Osama Bin Laden. His letter denying involvement in the attacks was cited as evidence he didn't do it (not evidence that he was desperately trying to avoid having the United States nuke him) and the reason why we "framed" him is never made clear. They mention Afghanistan and Iraq, but don't cite connections. And let us not forget that we invaded Oil Land/Iraq without the help of September 11. We said Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction, and that was good enough for most people. So don't bring up the myriad of oil baron ties in the administration.
Oh, and some of the highjackers are still alive. It isn't possible that these are just people who share the same name as the highjackers.
That said, there are some serious issues about Flight 93 that were raised, most especially the cell phone failure rates from 32,000 feet, which preclude the possibility of outgoing cell phone calls that were supposedly made. This is the same site referenced in the film. I'm not saying the flight/crash was faked, but it is possible that the whole "highjackers get highjacked by patriotic Americans" story is something worth investigating deeper.
Oh, and they insinuate that the passengers on Flight 93 (which was actually flown to Cleveland and landed!) were all executed. That was interesting.
But yeah, that's the story.
Tuesday Edit:
Thought of a few more points I didn't cover in the post above. The whole thing about how no buildings ever collapsed from fire damage and then showing pictures of other skyscrapers burning and not falling, for instance. What wasn't mentioned is that the WTC was built entirely differently than those other buildings. It was supported by the outer walls, while the interior core provided no structural support. All the others were more traditional core-supported structures. If something is supported by the walls, having a huge hole punched through those walls probably is not good for structural intergrity. And they kept talking about how the steel wouldn't melt if it was burned by jet fuel. This may or may not be true; however, they did talk about molten iron found in the basement of the structure a month later, which makes me wonder why it couldn't have melted during the attacks.
And then there was the gold. There was a big part about gold. They never say who was taking it or why. The best insinuation I could get out of it was that the government took it to spend in Iraq. Which is absurd, since they're rather just spend money they don't have.
posted by Jimmy at 2:15 AM
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