Sad little hit piece: 'The Blog House: But the truth behind 9/11 is so less interesting'

A single airliner -- a "magic plane," if you will -- was responsible for all of the carnage on Sept. 11, 2001.
Tim O'Brien
Star Tribune
Aug. 19, 2006

A single airliner -- a "magic plane," if you will -- was responsible for all of the carnage on Sept. 11, 2001.

It first struck the north tower of the World Trade Center, flew through the building, circled for 17 minutes before striking the second tower. It headed down the Eastern seaboard where it struck the Pentagon, took off again, landed at a secret Air Force installation, reloaded with clones -- yes, clones! -- and headed off to its final crash site in Pennsylvania.

A truly shocking scenario.

Here's another.

The federal government had prior knowledge of the impending 9/11 attacks -- either as an active participant or a willing victim. Yet it did nothing to stop them because they allowed it "to launch an open-ended, perpetual 'war on terror,' actually a war against any and all enemies the US government may designate. The case of Iraq shows that the target countries of this war need have nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11."

The attacks were favored by the military-industrial complex because of the "trillions of dollars in spending priorities [that] were predictably shifted from 'butter' to 'guns' in the years after September 11th, unleashing a new wave of growth and profiteering in the war and security industries."

The former scenario was a story in the satirical newspaper the Onion. The latter is a theory from the website 911Truth (1), and more than a third of Americans believe it is true or possibly true.

According to a recent Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll, 36 percent of Americans believe it is somewhat likely or very likely that the federal government either was an active participant in the 9/11 attacks or had prior warning of them.

And these views aren't just being conjured by the guy who gets into arguments with the Mary Tyler Moore statue on the Nicollet Mall. There is some serious wattage behind these arguments. A University of Wisconsin professor. A physicist at Brigham Young University. A retired philosophy professor from the University of Minnesota-Duluth. Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney. Actor Charlie Sheen. (OK, there's some not-so-serious wattage as well.)

Much of this paranoia and distrust has been fostered on the Internet. Google "9/11 conspiracy," and you get more than 1.4 million hits.

Driving much of the interest has been the film and website "Loose Change" (2). The film's director was first interested in making a potboiler about a government conspiracy surrounding Sept. 11, but his research persuaded him that his premise wasn't fictional. The documentary he made has found a devoted following through DVD sales and the website.

The blogosphere is fertile ground for conspiracy theories. Did you know Hillary Clinton murdered Vince Foster? That former Commerce Secretary Ron Brown was shot in the head and then his plane sabotaged to make it look as if he died in a plane crash? That Al-Qaida agents blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City? And that's not even mentioning the myriad theories surrounding the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

Among the more popular theories about 9/11, according to the debunking site Snopes.com (3):

• FEMA workers were dispatched to New York City on the evening of Sept. 10, proving the government had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks.

• No taxis were to be found at the World Trade Center on the morning of 9/11.

• A cruise missile caused the damage to the Pentagon.

• Jews who worked at the World Trade Center received phone calls telling them not to show up for work on Sept. 11.

• The collapse of the towers was caused by explosives planted in the buildings.

It might be intriguing if any of it contained a speck of truth. Snopes and Popular Mechanics (4) thoroughly debunk these and other theories.

But websites like LetsRoll911 (5) won't give up that easily. A poll on its front page this week asked readers if they "believe that the U.S. Government was complicit in 911, and Guilty of the Crime of 911?" Among the options: "Yes, I have no Doubt in my Mind, the U.S. is Guilty."Yes, I think there is High Probability that 'elements of the US government' committed 9/11."No, 911 was carried out by Usama and his 19 Cave Dwelling Templar Terrorists."

In a way, the need for a grand conspiracy is understandable, almost poignant. After almost 43 years, many people still can't believe that a single troubled loner was able to kill JFK. It defies logic that such a little man could have had such a great impact.

And, in a way, it would almost be reassuring that this insanity was caused by a grand conspiracy that reached the highest levels of government, rather than one concocted somewhere in a cave.

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SEE FOR YOURSELF HOW TO FIND THE BLOGS ONLINE

1 911Truth • 911Truth.org

2 Loose Change • loosechange911.blogspot.com

3 Snopes • snopes.com

4 Popular Mechanics • popularmechanics.com

5 LetsRoll911 • letsroll911.org












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