there was a documentary I watched last nite on the history channel about 9-11 conspiracies. What do you guys think about that stuff? Things like that Loose Change documentary?

I personally think it's bogus, this whole thing about the New World Order to me is pretty stupid.
I didn't like how these conspiracy theorists disrespected the victims families attending the anniversary kept disrespectingthem by yelling at them also.
The only thing I see is the Bush administration was warned, and could have done more to prevent it, but didn't. I see them being warned that Al-Qaeda was going to attack us in a major way, but didn't do much.
Ither than that, I do believe to the fullest that Osama Bin-Laden and Al-Qaeda are fully responsible for this.
For them to say the buildings came down with a pre planned demolition is ridiculous.
Nobody has that kind of power or organize a way to pre-plant demolition explosives into the biggest building in united states.

My brother was superintendent of ironworkers when the skeleton of those twin towers was erected. He subscribes to the idea that one or two planes could not have caused them to collapse, but he's ninety-one and has a personal bias. It does seem ridiculous to me that any conspiracy involving planted explosives could have coincidentally happened at the time of airline hijackings aimed at the towers. The simple facts are always hard for conspiracy theorists to accept.

I just don't like how they think their ideology is the only way, and if you go against them they just yell yell yell. They won't even listen.
Whats really stupid of them is when they said that the phone calls from flight 93 were faked.
If you've been around someone long enough, especially married to them, you'll know their voice.

I don't know man. While I agree with some conspiracies in the government, there is a beter way to push the issue rather than yelling at the victims families and showing just the most unreprisable disrespect to them.
There is a better and classier way to get you point across if you have a problem.

Unfortunately, people like this are often incapably of getting their point across clearly and respectfully and that makes them unbelievable, even if they do have valid theories.

Any idea why W.T.C 7 fell down?

'...while building 7 wasn't hit by an airliner, it was hit by the large perimeter columns of the Tower collapse. It was 400 ft away but the towers were more than 1300 ft tall. As the tower peeled open, it easily tilted over to reach building 7.' www.debunking911.com

If there had been conspirators trying (for some unfathomable reason) to ensure that it looked like airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center collapsed it even though they didn't, why would they have gone to the extra effort of demolishing neighbouring buildings only to cast doubt on their own scheme?

There is, of course, the 'conspiracy conspiracy'; by perpetuating the self-evidently silly 9/11 conspiracy theory, "they" are able to discredit by association other thoughts - such as on how Bush & Co used 9/11 to launch their Iraq invasion, despite the lack of connection.

Mankind is the animal that likes to explain things, and argue that one invented explanation is Truth, while the other is a demonic lie. We do it all the time. That's why there are thousands of religions.

well said Babthrower. You know you're one of the smartest people I know!

Generally speaking, people believe what they want to believe, while dismissing what they don't wish to accept. This is basic human nature, no matter how much evidence there is. People tend to pick and choose whatever they want. Whatever helps them sleep at night.

But the facts are overwhelming in this case. "Loose Change" and "Fahrenheit 9-11" are full of such facts which are contrary to the Government's official story, and raise a good deal of valid questions which cannot simply be dismissed as "stupid" or "crazy". Of course, our friends on the far right have developed the habit of 'pretending the elephant is not in the room' into a regular art form.

show me the facts behind Loose Change.
Show me the facts behind Farheinheiht 9/11.
where are all these facts. I would like to see how people could have wired up the twin towers in two weeks. I would love to see how the supposed fake phone calls from flight 93 happened.

I guess Elvis is alive running a doughnut shop in Corpus Christi, and JFK was killed by Aliens trying to steal his brains....

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The only thing I see is the Bush administration was warned, and could have done more to prevent it, but didn't. I see them being warned that Al-Qaeda was going to attack us in a major way, but didn't do much.

Your correct, but that was historical information. Osama declared war on us back in 1998 (I think it was). What was the administration supposed to do, shut down all airports, roads, highways, railroads, ship movements, schools etc. The info they had, was not actionable, and garnered from up to 4 years back. Even Clark said if the Bush administration would have done everything he said, it wouldn't have prevented 9/11.

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Ither than that, I do believe to the fullest that Osama Bin-Laden and Al-Qaeda are fully responsible for this.
For them to say the buildings came down with a pre planned demolition is ridiculous.
Nobody has that kind of power or organize a way to pre-plant demolition explosives into the biggest building in united states.

People make money on keeping the "Conspiracies" going. People buy their books, donated monies to their websites, get paid for speaking engagements.

In any investigation, there are a number of things which must be established when building a case, to qualify as evidence. Among them at the top is motive.

For example, when a woman's body is found shot dead somewhere, who is the very first suspect on their list? The answer being their spouse, or their significant other. Then, upon further investigation, they discover that the woman had a Life Insurance policy worth Billions of dollars; all of which goes to her husband in the event of her death. Then, they discover that the husband was cheating on his wife, and according to his girlfriend, had significant interests in wanting to further expand their relationship, but felt that he was trapped in his marriage. Now, they have sufficient evidence to arrest the husband for probable cause, and brought in for questioning.

Upon being brought in for questioning, it is reported by the husband that he believes a jealous acquainatance is the murderer. After further investigation, it is discovered that the day after the murder, the husband had placed that very acquaintance on a plane and flown to another country at the husband's expense.

Now, who do you think the cops are going to be looking at? Seriously, though, it's really only common sense, isn't it?

So, just ask yourself, who stood the most to gain from 9-11? And, who has gained the most from it? And, what does the evidence tell you? Is there any more evidence to suggest that bin Laden or Saddam Hussein (as both were blamed)was to blame than our own Government is? And, if there is, then why has it not been established as factual in a court of Law? Even the highest court on the planet- the United Nations- said there was insufficient evidence to go to War. Yet, that's exactly what happened. And, who has stood to gain from that action? Who had the power to orchestrate it, execute it, and cover it up? And, finally, who has profited from the Insurance policy worth Billions? And, who has lost?

It's really only common sense, isn't it?

Valor, damn you're good. You're good buddy!
I have no argument with any of your statements.

Finally got around to watching this show. I agree that there are questions about who knew what when, but I don’t believe in a vast conspiracy to knock down the twin towers. It is a shame, though, that so many people who may have valid points or opinions damage themselves by coming across as ranting lunatics.
I liked the “expert response” portion where they disproved the “Loose Change” and other claims point by point, but it’s a shame that the “conspiracy theorists” weren’t able to respond to those responses. I’m interested to see what they would have to say when confronted with explanations.
I would really like to see the “conspiracy theorists” sit down with the “non-conspiracy theorists” and have a reasonable conversation in which they share their ideas and theories and try to work out their differences. Somehow I don’t think either side would win unquestionably, but it would be nice to get coherent arguments rather than the same regurgitated factoids over and over again.

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regurgitated factoids

I love it!!

It is really hard for me to understand how a statement like "Is there any more evidence to suggest that bin Laden or Saddam Hussein (as both were blamed)was to blame than our own Government is? "

The fact that Bin Laden admitted and claimed the attacks on 9-11 means that in general a court of law would not be necessary to deem him responsible. That on each of the flights there were two men that had trained with him... also builds a pretty strong case that really doesn't need trial lawyers.

And the case that the UN didn't get behind was going into Iraq for Weapons of Mass Destruction. Our war with Afghanistan was almost universally thought to be on the side of justice.

I haven't seen this documentary but would like to now. What is THC?

THC = The History Channel


(For the non-Heads in our group, THC is also the main psychoactive substance found in weed.)

According to The History Channel's website, it looks like "The 9/11 Conspiracies: Fact or Fiction" will be broadcast again on Sunday, September 9th from 6-8pm. Double-check your local listings. That might be your last chance to catch it for a while, though, I don't see it scheduled after that.
This is only one of several shows I've seen about this, it's just the most recent. I didn't like it as much as some others, but I can't remember the names of the others, of course. I am interested in reading through one of the books mentioned, though: "Debunking 9/11 myths: why paranoid conspiracy theories can't stand up to the facts" (edited by David Dunbar & Brad Reagan; foreword by John McCain; an in-depth investigation by Popular mechanics) which I hadn't heard of before.

My first reaction was that I really hated the program. I thought it did a real poor job of conveying the information about why the theories are so completely off base. I think that if I was given a budget to produce a similar production that I could find people to explain the mechanics a lot better and perhaps using more visual aids would have been better than just letting the experts present the concepts verbally - these are rather abstract concepts to an audience unfamiliar with the structural mechanics. It wasn't a horrible job but I felt like they focussed a lot of their attention on the people with the theories and should have taken more time with each theory to discount it.

The conspiracy theories are so bad in this case that I just think there could have been more points driven into the ground to stop this nonsense. Instead we have to listen to that kid that made the web documentary make cutesy little comments. That disgusted me because he is talking about motives and here he is sitting on a fortune because of his theories. Who has a motive?

When the guy from Popular Mechanics says "This is one of the issues that I take personally" I thought - How the heck can someone that understands how buildings work not be totally offended by the whole story? It offends me that people are getting bad information and the effort to squash it is so measely.

I was pretty disappointed overall. There are NO valid points on the side of the conspiracists and I felt like that didn't come through loudly enough. I'm happy to help others understand the engineering of buildings if there is confusion... just ask.

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If there had been conspirators trying (for some unfathomable reason) to ensure that it looked like airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center collapsed it even though they didn't, why would they have gone to the extra effort of demolishing neighbouring buildings only to cast doubt on their own scheme?

The conspiracy loves this because there were a lot of government agencies in the WTC 7 building. The simple truth is that the falling towers damaged the structure of the WTC 7 and started a huge fire. There is absolutely no mystery except that the site was exceedingly hard to examine after the collapses. The building had a fire raging in it for 8 hours and had a large area of structural damage.

In architecture and engineering design we design using hour rated walls and structural elements. Some main elements are given 3 hour rating, while most areas in a sprinkled building are 1 or 2 hour rated. That means that the fire separation is meant to allow 1 to 2 hours to put the fire out before major damage is done to the building. 8 hours of a fuel fed fire (there were gasoline tanks in the WTC7) is a very long and devastating fire to a high rise.

A close friend of mine was a structural engineer on the site following the collapse and I have on the ground photos and video of the site a day after. It may never be exactly determined what elements caused the collapse of WTC7, but it isn't a mystery - engineers just like to know precisely and they can't be 100% sure. They are sure that there needn't have been any demolition explosives involved to bring it down in the state it was in. Massive damage is an understatement.

It's like claiming that the death of a 95 year old man with heart failure, kidney failure and diabetes's was a murder because the doctors can't agree which of many possibilities actually killed him.