Conspiracy Theory: 9/11 Attacks

Not since the John F. Kennedy assassination has a national tragedy so heavily imprinted American minds as have the events on 9/11/2001 — or given rise to so many explanations different from the official one.

World Trade Center, Sept. 11, 2001
Credit: npr.org

Videos and photographs of the two planes striking the World Trade Center towers are famous around the world, but the sheer profusion of documentary evidence has only provided more fodder for conspiracy theories.

(Source for much of the information below is Wikipedia.)

A May 2006 Zogby poll found that 42% of Americans believed the government and the 9/11 commission "concealed or refused to investigate critical evidence that contradicts their official explanation of the September 11th attacks."

This topic is too large to be fully covered in one post. Many theories have been debunked; some conspiracy buffs play loose with the facts. A web search on the subject will produce enough reading material to keep you busy for weeks.

Most prominent conspiracy theories

• Planning and execution attributed to parties other than, or in addition to, al-Qaeda, or claim there was advance knowledge of the attacks among high-level government officials.

Government investigations and independent scientific reviews have found no evidence, but proponents claim there are inconsistencies in the official conclusions, or evidence was overlooked.

• The collapse of the Twin Towers and 7 World Trade Center were the result of a controlled demolition rather than structural failure due to impact and fire.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the technology magazine Popular Mechanics have investigated and rejected these claims. The civil engineering community accepts that the impacts of jet aircraft at high speeds in combination with subsequent fires, not controlled demolition, led to the collapse of the Twin Towers. This also was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission, chaired by Governor Thomas Kean.

The Pentagon, Washington, D.C.
Credit

• The U.S. administration deliberately chose not to shoot down a plane that was heading for the Pentagon, while others contend that no plane hit the Pentagon at all, claiming that the Pentagon was hit by a missile launched by elements from inside the U.S. government or that a commercial airliner was allowed to do so. Possible motives claimed by conspiracy theorists for such actions include justifying the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as well as interests in the Mideast, such as pipeline plans launched in the early 1990s by oil companies.

The evidence refuting the missile claims includes airplane debris including Flight 77's black boxes, the nose cone, landing gear, an airplane tire, and an intact cockpit seat found at the crash site. The remains of passengers from Flight 77 were indeed found at the Pentagon crash site and their identities confirmed by DNA analysis. Many eyewitnesses saw the plane strike the Pentagon. Further, Flight 77 passengers made phone calls reporting that their airplane had been hijacked. Some conspiracy theories say the phone calls the passengers made were fabricated by voice morphing, the passengers' bodies disposed of, and a missile fired at the Pentagon.

Popular Conspiracy Motives

Pax Americana -- A group of US neo-conservatives called the Project for a New American Century, which included Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, were set on US world dominance and orchestrated the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to hit Iraq, Afghanistan and later Iran..

Invasions -- Conspiracy theorists have questioned whether The Oil Factor and 9/11 provided the United States and the United Kingdom with a reason to launch a war they had wanted for some time, and suggest that this gives them a strong motive for either carrying out the attacks, or allowing them to take place.

New World Order -- 9/11 was initiated by a disparate variety of banking, corporate, globalization, and military interests for the purpose of creating a globalist government. Such New World Order conspiracy theories predate 9/11.

Ah, there are many others. I have barely scratched the surface. 

Just one source here for more reading about 9/11 conspiracy theories.

What are your thoughts/beliefs about this tragic day?

Tomorrow we observe the 12th anniversary of the attacks. Everyone will be remembering exactly where they were when they heard the news. What were you doing and what were your first thoughts?

Next post in this series: Secret Societies Control the World