Actually, what I believe these films, etc. are trying to do is get people to think in America.

In America, people are overwhelmed with the in your face, right wing journalism. I don't know if you've ever spent any time in the US, but to watch TV there is a very different thing than watching it here in Europe - particularly with channels like FOX News. You can get a taste of the fear factor being pushed out if you watch CNN during any crisis. TV news is like the worst of the UK tabloids, only often done in a more respectable format.

Films such as these serve to counteract the propaganda being pushed forward by the mainstream news sources in the United States. An alternative voice. Another way to look at things. They are a necessary tool in order to open up minds and ideas in the US.

And it does matter who did it - and why. Without understanding the problem, you can't fix it any more than one can fix an infection in a human body without knowing the source/type of infection.

__________________

Yes ES I have spent time in the US and I think what you say is a reasonable and valid point to make.

Just as a thought experiment though I wonder what the reaction of the joe blog in the street would be if there was a media ban. If CNN or Fox news were not allowed to scare monger?

Often these films are preaching to the converted. The open minded will be interested and the scared will be too busy watching CNN and going to church.

I also agree with the logic of your last argument but for me the premise is clear. The problem (Lust for political power), the moment of infection (the act that causes the rift between people) the spread of the disease (the media).

Maybe I am not articulating this the right way, I thought Lob's question was that he wanted our interpretation of the film.

"NOTE: whilst you're free to reply to this thread, you should keep it on-topic. What I am saying here is I want your interpretation of what you watched, what you already knew and what you believe."

My opinion still stands, I believe that these films are dangerous, irrespective of the politics and who is involved. It is the spreader of the infection. But Ive said all this in my previous posts. Therefore I feel I have said all I can without deviating from what was asked initially.

Shell, you hit it on the head; my wife complains about her friends in the US, friends she developed over 10 years in the midwest.....friends who are intelligent........and friends who without wavering will support and vote GWB whatever happens.

Moore and these chaps are trying to get people to think and look at the other possibilities of what might have happened - to do this, they have to go to another extreme.

These films are taking the 4th amendment and I don't see them as dangerous. What's dengerous is the lead of a nation being so riddled with undertones and hidden agendas......!

WTC 7 housed a number of government intelligence agencies. WTC1 and WTC2 housed a lot of sophisticated supercomputers that tracked financial transactions. Many such buildings have contingency plans in case of an attack. Some of the ones I've seen have thick metal doors that blocked the entrance of a building in case any attemps are made to storm it. The WTC 7 footage looks more like a self-destruct mechanism, perhaps to prevent sensitive information or technology from falling into enemy hands. It's possible that these mechanisms might have been in place long before 2001.

Yes, it smells like crap. So don't eat it.

The reason FOX News is doing what its doing is because its ratings are high and people watch it. No one is forcing Americans to watch this. Americans choose to watch it because they would like to believe it. This is an important point to understand. I'll try to explain below.

Covering our eyes won’t make it go away. This attitude is a recipe for fascism. There is an opportunity here for people to learn what the world is really like. Pretending it's not there makes you a pawn to it. There's a saying in the Southern U.S. - "There's a special place in hell for those who stay neutral in the face of evil."

After over 40 years, we still don’t know who killed John F. Kennedy.

One of the things GWB can be credited for is how he was able to galvanize the country towards a focal point. Without this, the country could have fallen apart. It's true there is stinking crap on the ground, and it is near where GWB is standing, but we don't really know if he layed it.

The American government, just like many other countries, walk a tightrope of governance and civil unrest. In some ways, its like a powder keg that can explode when outrageous events take place. Imagine a scenario like the riots in France last year, except with guns and explosives.

Not everything that takes place in America is the doing of the government. In fact, just the opposite. Just about everything that takes place is done by private people with private interests. It just so happens that there are some awfully powerful people in America. Many of them are more powerful than many of countries around the world. If you didn't know, private military organizations abound, and many of these private armies are not even under the jurisdiction of any particular country. They are called military contractors, and they are now operating in places like Iraq. Alvin Toffler predicted this over 10 years ago.

As soon as 9/11 took place, the first thing people asked is "Why the hell are we paying our government when they cannot even protect us? This should not happen!". Along with this, there was tremendous pressure on the part of the government to provide an answer. One thing they could not afford to do was to investigate who did it for months and months without taking any action. And herein steps Mr. GWB.

For many many years, groups in the Middle East had been chanting "Death to America", and their chants were getting louder and louder. They had already bombed two embassies in Africa and the USS Cole. They had already made direct threats and pledged to take action on American soil. Throughout this time, neo-conservative think tanks were already at work on how to socially and politically engineer the region. Iraq and Afghanistan were already in the cross-hatch before 9/11, and the guns were already loaded. For GWB, whose job it was to find out who in the politcal spectrum to go to in this situation, the answer was obvious. Enter the Neo-conservatives. With emotions as high as it was, anyone to the right of left-wing radicals lined up behind the man with the plan.

During this time of flag waving, it wasn't a very opportune time for anyone to come up and say "Oh, wait a minute, what were those explosions in the building?", or "Do you think we're after the wrong guys?". The ones who tried this were told to shut up and stay with the program. Very few people were interested in investigation, afterall, it could cost one their job. There's a new book out by Thomsa Keane that details all the bureacratic roadblocks he encountered at every turn as Chairman of the 911 Commission.

After the hundreds of billions of dollars and the thousands of lives extinguished, do you think they would be interested in going back to determine if they had gotten it all wrong? I think they would put up a hell of a resistance. At the moment, they are not even willing to release a memo to the 911 Commission. Furthermore, it's not really how Americans tend to deal with a "setback" in a plan. Instead, this is how they probably think of it: "Okay, we screwed up! So what can we make of this? Are there any opportunities we can redeem in this crisis?".

The Neo-conservatives are an interesting bunch. A major theme of their politics is radical capitalism. Most of them studied under Leo Strauss, a German born Jew who was the Political Science Professor at the University of Chicago. He is credited as the intellectual source of neo-conservatism. Many of GBW's cabinet members were his students. Interesting thing about Leo Straus is his endorsement of some of Socrates' philosophy on politics. Among them, the concept of the Noble Lie. If you google "Leo Stauss Noble Lie neoconservative", it might just make you say "Aha!"

As for the American public, in as much as possible, they simply would like to just get on with their lives. There is a huge mortgage to pay, children going off to college, huge credit card debts, and dreams they have yet to realize. They are perfectly willing to farm out the security issues to the professionals. They are apparantly willing to surrender to a lot just to keep things rolling and keep entertainment coming. Throw in a celebrity scandal, serial killer or child molester once in a while for distraction. But most of all, get the job done. Oh, don't forget the Superbowl and beer.

As for lies, yes there are plenty. But whether the liars are the same ones who brought down WTC, we may never know. How can we? They have plausible deniability. I get the impression that whoever masterminded this does not stay in the public eye.

Oops. Sorry, the Noble Lie should be credited to Plato, not Socrates. It's in Republic, pt. 4.

I've been doing some more thinking on this, trying to tie the loose ends together, as well as some more research through some of the info on wikipedia. The wikipedia info is useful because it lists the sources from the film so you can check stuff yourself. It also contains links to other things such as the video of molten metal flowing out of the side of the building which I can't remember from the film.

The mystery to me was how to build a plausible scenario and try to make my mind up one way or the other regarding whether explosives were used in the twin towers. It seems that many structural engineers have pondered the question of how the towers fell since Sep 11. It also seems that there isn't much agreement among them as to how or why the towers could have fallen. To be honest I can't make up my mind either way - there is compelling evidence on both sides.

But there's one thing I can be fairly sure about - nobody could have predicted that planes hitting the buildings were intended to bring about collapse. I've often heard this quoted in the media - that the intention of the terrorists was to bring down the towers - I don't accept that for a second. How could the terrorists (or the conspirators) have known that this would happen?

All the theories about the collapse have been made to explain an event that already happened. If you'd asked the same experts to study the question before the event I'm sure they would have rated the collapse scenario as unlikely. But with the benefit of hindsight they are able to come up with a theory as to why it happened.

So if we take the position that the collapse of the towers was an unexpected result, it becomes a little easier to explain this as a conspiracy. I'd just like to go into my take on a few of the other parts.

I believe that the most likely scenario for the pentagon was a remote controlled military jet (of the type mentioned in the film). Possibly the crash site was also pre-rigged with explosives in order to make the impact appear larger than it really was (i.e. larger aircraft). Some pentagon people said they could smell jet fuel, others said explosives. Maybe it was both?

I think number 7 world trade center was pre-rigged with explosives - even the NIST report really failed to come up with a good explanation for this one. I think the intention was to turn number 7 into another of the terrible things that happened that day - to build a pattern of attacks. Perhaps it was intended that a truck drove through the entrance and detonated explosives, or the story is that terrorists had planted a bomb in the basement. However, after the twin towers went down there wasn't really much need for a third building to go down, and since it was overshadowed by what happened nobody noticed anyway. It may have been prudent to take it down anyway, since leaving explosives in place may have been unwise for the detailed investigations which would surely follow.

One of the biggest counter arguments to a conspiracy theory is the enormous loss of life. But what if the towers were not supposed to or expected to fall? Loss of life would have been much lower - low enough to be acceptable as a self-wound for the people who planned this? If we also consider the fact that the planes may not have been carrying the passengers (or not as many) as we have been told they did, then the number of casualties would have been lower still.

So how would it have been done? Probably the most likely way would be if the conspirators simply provided financial and technical assistance to the terrorists for the central parts of the plot (two planes for the WTC). This has always been the preferred method of "intervention" when meddling in the affairs of other countries - so it would probably be the method of choice for such an operation on home soil. Less chance of anything pointing back to the conspirators. I think that if terrorists were involved then their participation would have been strictly limited to the two planes that went into the WTC buildings. I think they had nothing to do with any of the other events of that day.

That's my take on it - anyone else had any thoughts on "putting it all together"?

The original explanation I heard was that the twin towers was unique in design. In order to build on such a scale, the outer shell of the building had to provide most of the support. When terrorists first attempted to blow it up in 1993, they detonated a bomb at the base of the center core. All it did was cause a lot of smoke. But in the 2001 attack, the heat from the jet fuel separated the outer shell from the building, causing it to peel like a banana. I haven't heard this explanation from anyone lately. If true, could this have been studied in advance?


In the 'states, when law enforcement is doing surveillance on perpetrators, they typically do not move in until after an actual crime has been committed. If they did, the perpetrators would often only be charged with a much lighter crime, like "intent". And if the plot would only have been foiled, then this regime would not be following through on its current agenda. There is plenty of evidence that there was awareness of a plot, and this kind of attack must have been in the realm of possibilities. They may have allowed the plot to unfold not knowing the gravity of the results. This in itself would be a big cause of embarrassment for the government, and expose it's intelligence structure.

One thing that is clear in my mind is that this regime needed a pretext as big as this event for them to execute their plan of global domination. They know the American public is fickle and reactive, requiring a dramatic and theatrical storyline to be moved. What strikes me about the events now taking place is that it has the touch of a written novel. Apparently, people are so turned off by it now. We will soon either see this episode come to a close, or a more dramatic dose of shock is in the works.

I just saw another article today about Dr. Steven Jones/BYU Physics Professor.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=476951

It mentions a 10,000 page report from the State Department rebutting various collapse theories. If anyone happens to see this report, I'd enjoy skimming through it.

This is a useful page to start at - the wikipedia entry on the collapse of the world trade center. It contains references to the various reports.

Interesting discussion I am undecided on all this and kind of in the middle as I don't have enough "accurate" information to come to a decisive conclusion (none of us have). Yes I have see all documentaries/ propoganda from each and every side. Iread material from left, right, east and west.

What I know and see is that there are extreme left folks with their own agenda and then their are extreme right folks with theirs...both are kind of blinded with their pre-conceived notion of how the world operates. I find them both full of double standards

Add to the mix Islamists who want to dominate the world in their own twisted way...

Anyway some random points I will make to throw into this discussion.

a- If GWB and co. attacked WTC then what was the need to attack 2 WTC buildings, building No.7 , Pentagon and failed target in the capital? Would one or two attacks not have been enough to further their agenda?

b- The Islamists did attack the WTC before so it was a definite target for them. What about OBL and co. clearly saying that they planned it and took full responsibility for it?

c- Is OBL GWB's agent?

d- "If" the hijackers were mainly Saudi and as Saudi's are the main financier and exporter of facist intolerant brand of Islam then how on Earth did they get away scot free in all this? Using simple logic I would say Saudi Arabia or Pakistan (nuclear proliferation/WMD) would have been a more relevant target than Iraq. What the hell did Iraq (kind of X-secular country) have to do with 9/11? I still cannot get over the fact that people bought the Iraq WMD argument.

e- I won't be surprised if GWB, Saudi royal family and Dictator Musharraf are bed buddies to the MAX and taking everyone for a ride.

f- Did US really mess up TORA BORA or was it part of the game along with Mushhy? OR is Dictator Mushharaf playing a double game?

I find all of the above groups and ther ideologies DIRTY! They all want their way of thinking to dominate the world. It's like choosing between a group of mass murderers. Can someone slow down earth?..I want OUT!

Hi Bambi. Good post.

Imagine that the towers themselves didn't fall (since this could not have been expected), the casualities would have been less, would it have been enough to push throigh the neocons' agenda? We'll never know. But planning multiple attacks within a short period of time is always a good way to increase fear and give everyone the feeling of "what's next". This would have worked just as well for terrorists as it would for those who stood to gain from it. I don't believe that GWB planted these attacks, but he may have had knowledge of them or given direct or indirect support to those who did carry them out.

It was initially denied by OWL. There was a faked tape showing him admitting it some time later, but I recall that it was quite some time (years) before a more authentic confession came from OBL. The administration needs OBL to admit to it. If he were to deny it, it would undermine their case, but if he did deny it nobody would believe him anyway.[/quote]

Another good question. The fact that the Bush family and the bin Laden family are good friends is no secret. The fact that all remaining bin Ladens were flown out of the country immediately following the attack (contrary to a ban on a total grounding by the FAA) is also no great secret.

The possibility also exists that bin laden received or continues to receive help from the neocons, either to plan or carry out the attacks, or to continue to evade capture. There is also the possibility that he is being helped, but is not aware that this help might be coming from the administration...

I think it is now known far and wide that this was a fraud, I don't think this fact has escaped anyone's attention. The question is: what will people do about it?

Exactly. Why did it take US forces so long to go looking for OBL and why did they make so many mistakes? Since the pretext for invasion was to get OBL (not building an oil pipeline) then surely this could have been given more priority?

The events of the last few days have also been very interesting. On Wednesday Bush suddenly admits [cnn.com] that all those secret prisons in Europe they've been denying were real. Practically at the same time Blair's office "pre-announces" that Blair will make an announcement [cnn.com] about resigning within a year. The two stories compete for attention, and I suspect in the UK the Blair story dominated.

I was wondering just how much mileage the secret prisons story would get, but it seemed to fizzle when the very next day (Thursday) there seemed to be a bigger story that eclipsed it - a tape is released [cnn.com] showing bin Laden talking about the attacks and talking to some the hijackers. Bush cashes in on the opportunity to say that one of the guys in the tape was one of the guys held in the secret prisons he announced the day before (gee, lucky we had those secret prisons then!).

The news over the next few days tended to focus on the bin Laden tape, and there hasn't really been much of a backlash on the prison issue at all.

Call me paranoid - but am I the only one that finds the timing and sequence of these recent events a little strange?

We are also two days away from the 5th anniversary of the attacks. Bush plans to address the nation on the subject. How much traction is the 9/11 conspiracy theory gaining? Is the administration concerned?

Yeah Mark it's all messed up. I will make few more points that get raised by your last post.

Why no more attacks have taken place inside US? They would definitely help the GWB cause (assuming that he had a hand to play in the first place).

Yeah but would that not count out the theory that there were controlled explosions that caused the towers to fall?

Yes that is the most messed up part. I think this world is like a rudderless ship destined to implode

Well one has to ask whether it is necessary to have more attacks on home soil? A rocket requires a big burst of thrust to take off and assuming it is operating without gravity and wind resistance it continues on its course with just minor amounts of thrust required. So is it for the cause of GWB, once the big event happened it needed only minor events to sustain it. These can be achieved by making announcements about "increased chatter" and raising the alert level from time to time without ever revealing anything to the public. If something were revealed to the public, many wouldn't believe it, but the fact is that it doesn't matter anymore.

Let's also consider that if there were elements of an inside job in all of this the environment is now watched much more closely. It's much harder these days to plan and execute such attacks than it was. It would be very risky for an insider to plan something on home soil, just as it is for a terrorist.

Well that's the part where I haven't made up my mind. I made my mind up that there was no 757 at the Pentagon and that number 7 was a controlled explosion, but I can't form an opinion one way or the other as to whether explosives were used in the twin towers. For the moment I am going to assume that they were not used, and my above theory was based on that assumption (see also post #46 on this thread for a more detailed explanation).

You are right - nobody knows all the facts, so all we can do is try to come up with theories. In making my own personal theories I've tried to come up with explanations that are based on the most obvious and the least wild of the various bits of evidence and ideas offered by others. In other words it's not a huge leap of faith to conclude that there was no 757 at the pentagon or that number 7 did not self destruct after being hit by debris from the twin towers.

I was pondering your point a little more about the attacks on home soil comment. The most recent attack on home soil was the July bombings last year and the recently foiled plot for liquid explosives on airliners. While these were not technically "home soil" in a strict US-sense they were on the home soil of an ally of the US and still serve to continue the environment of fear.

Therefore I did some more research into these events to try and understand the motivations behind them - who could have been responsible. We are quick to put an "al qaeda" sticker on every bit of terrorism we see - but who is REALLY responsible? The government, OBL or just some guys who have a chip on their shoulder?

In the case of the recent events (as in the last month and last year) the people involved were unsophisticated, not linked to al quaeda and citizens of the country they attacked.

But because of the fact that the west needs a demon, it is far more comfortable for everyone to pin all the bad that happens on OBL, whether he had anything to do with it or not. Just as Emmanuel Goldstein [wikipedia.org] was the enemy of the state in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, so is OBL required by the US administration to provide a focal point for their own campaign of fear.

The really messed up part is where OBL requires exactly the same thing of the US administration. In order to rally support for his cause he needs the muslim world to feel afraid and persecuted - he can hold up the image of Bush as a demon, and attempt to show that all the wrong in the muslim world is perpetrated by Bush. Just as OBL plays into the hands of Bush, so Bush plays into the hands of OBL. Both men need each other to further their cause and the result is a vicious circle.

One might also note that al quaeda often claim responsibility for attacks that had nothing to do with them (London train bombings for example). But why not? By appearing to be more powerful than they really are, they may motivate others to do the same. A terror attack without taking the risks or the expense of a terror attack? Of course they'll claim responsibility, especially when The Party [wikipedia.org], er..., the Administration is so willing to hand it to them.

Am I getting this wrong ?
Islamist terrorists have killed civilians before and after 9/11, so why the conspirancy theories ?

Quite possibly. Have you seen the film? See Lob Rockster's first post about the guidelines for posting on this thread.

I did, read thru the refutations as well.
the point remains - the film wouldn't get so much publicity if people wouldn't think there is a point to it.

but the end result is the same - The Taliban supported Al Q, and were happy enough to see the towers fall. Or this is also a myth ?

so the film makers point is: Bin Laden planned the thing, executed it, the CIA/MI6/Mossad/Zollamt knew about it but didn't stop them because it would give them more bugdet/reason to test their toys/had nothing better to do ?

sorry - I don't buy it.

I think the main point of the film is not to draw a specific conclusion, but to ask a series of questions and point out some holes in the official story. As for what it all means, that's up to the viewer to decide, which is partly what we have been doing on this thread.

But if you don't buy the point of the film, then you obviously buy the official story, which is of course entirely up to you I'm not ready to buy the official story just yet...

It doesn't work that way for me - even if the official version has some weaknesses, the basic logic still applies.

The who did it, why and how are clear enough.

agreed ?

Not clear enough for me (and I suspect quite a few others on this thread), but like I said - everyone is entitled to their opinion. I'm still researching. If you feel you have enough answers and you are happy with the rebuttals then that's great for you.

So if your were accused of murder, and the police case had "some weaknesses", would you be happy if the jury convicted you? Of course not.

To me, the truth has no weaknesses.