The point about the buildings not needing to fall was always my favorite objection.
I do like one 9/11 theory, that flight 93 might have been shot down.
Here’s a piece on it from Stuart Buck (occasional OB contributor) on the idea, dating back to Oct ’01.
Add to this Rumsfeld’s odd slip that the terrorists “shot down” the plane over Pennsylvania (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6Xoxaf1Al0) and I think p=.5 that that plane was shot down and the authorities took advantage of the calls that were made to put forth a more palatable scenario.
See, now that is at least plausible (on the surface, I know nothing of details). I can very easily see a responsible military officer making that call and deciding to keep it a secret.
There were lots of unexplained bits about Flight 93, including the many local residents who saw a fighter plane immediately before/after the crash. See this video, and don’t miss the interview with John Fleegle at about 2:30 (and especially 4:30), and then the interview with Susan McIlwain at 5:08 through about 7:00: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM9CXo29syo
Yes, it’s by and large a conspiracy-minded video from unreliable sources, but the interviews with local residents were real, and there’s no good reason to ignore what these people say.
The interviews with local residents were done on video. You’d prefer a written transcript to being able to assess the residents’ believability for yourself?
And I’m not a conspiracy minded person at all; every other conspiracy re: 9/11 is absolutely idiotic, but Eliezer is right in noting that if someone did try to shoot down Flight 93 (as would have been readily feasible given the timeline), it would be more politically palatable to say that the heroic passengers did it all themselves.
At least in retrospect, it would have been beneficial for Bush to be able to show he was capable of ordering planes shot down. But that may not have occurred to the administration until much later.
Another oddity, besides the debris from Flight 93 found miles away, the second airplane that local residents saw before the crash, the lights flickering in local business and homes, etc: The C-130 -- described by one Pentagon witness as looking like a “Navy electronic warfare aircraft”—that admittedly was on the scene of both the Pentagon crash and the Flight 93 crash. http://www.unansweredquestions.org/timeline/2002/minneapolisstartribune091102.html
Alone this doesn’t prove anything, but isn’t it odd that on a day when all of these supersonic F-16s supposedly can’t reach any of the hijacked aircraft in time, a single C-130 comes across two of them? I.e., the C-130 just happens to cross paths with the Pentagon plane, and then rather than landing and getting the heck out of the way, it just continues on a pre-existing flight path (as if nothing had happened) that just accidentally happens to intercept the flight path of a second hijacked aircraft?
The really big problem with that theory is that one can hear sounds of struggle and the terrorists saying, “Is that it? I mean, shall we pull it down?” just before the plane entered a steep dive into the ground. If the plane had been shot down, the terrorists wouldn’t have reacted in the same way, and the flight path from that point on would have been significantly more erratic.
Is there reason to think someone would feel the need to cover that up? Shooting down the plane seems like the kind of decision most Americans would be fine with.
Do also consider the fact that even if the story of flight 93 occurred exactly according to the official story, the heroic passengers saved zero lives. Jets had been scrambled. Shoot down orders had been given. The flight was not going to hit its target.
Yes, the passengers may have been heroes in the sense that they did not “freeze up” and tried to save themselves or (possibly) others.
Yet the most popular story presented by the press and government, and lodged in the public consciousness, is that the passengers prevented a final strike.
Realistically, they may have prevented a fighter pilot from having to commit an act that could have scarred him emotionally.
So, yes, I am confident the event was “spun.” The question is to what degree.
I don’t really know, but I suspect that many would be horrified by the deliberate use of American military force against American civilians, no matter how good the argument for it. (Arguably, it would actually be use of force against the terrorists with inevitable civilian casualties, but I suspect many wouldn’t see it that way, and many who did would still be horrified.) And all a cover-up requires is that someone judge the same way (or just think it likely enough), justified or not.
The point about the buildings not needing to fall was always my favorite objection.
I do like one 9/11 theory, that flight 93 might have been shot down. Here’s a piece on it from Stuart Buck (occasional OB contributor) on the idea, dating back to Oct ’01.
http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/1001/1001flight93.htm
Add to this Rumsfeld’s odd slip that the terrorists “shot down” the plane over Pennsylvania (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6Xoxaf1Al0) and I think p=.5 that that plane was shot down and the authorities took advantage of the calls that were made to put forth a more palatable scenario.
See, now that is at least plausible (on the surface, I know nothing of details). I can very easily see a responsible military officer making that call and deciding to keep it a secret.
There were lots of unexplained bits about Flight 93, including the many local residents who saw a fighter plane immediately before/after the crash. See this video, and don’t miss the interview with John Fleegle at about 2:30 (and especially 4:30), and then the interview with Susan McIlwain at 5:08 through about 7:00: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM9CXo29syo
Yes, it’s by and large a conspiracy-minded video from unreliable sources, but the interviews with local residents were real, and there’s no good reason to ignore what these people say.
Why is it that conspiracy-minded types always link to videos instead of written sources?
The interviews with local residents were done on video. You’d prefer a written transcript to being able to assess the residents’ believability for yourself?
And I’m not a conspiracy minded person at all; every other conspiracy re: 9/11 is absolutely idiotic, but Eliezer is right in noting that if someone did try to shoot down Flight 93 (as would have been readily feasible given the timeline), it would be more politically palatable to say that the heroic passengers did it all themselves.
Not trying to imply that you were; just noting that it’s kind of a pain.
At least in retrospect, it would have been beneficial for Bush to be able to show he was capable of ordering planes shot down. But that may not have occurred to the administration until much later.
Another oddity, besides the debris from Flight 93 found miles away, the second airplane that local residents saw before the crash, the lights flickering in local business and homes, etc: The C-130 -- described by one Pentagon witness as looking like a “Navy electronic warfare aircraft”—that admittedly was on the scene of both the Pentagon crash and the Flight 93 crash. http://www.unansweredquestions.org/timeline/2002/minneapolisstartribune091102.html
Alone this doesn’t prove anything, but isn’t it odd that on a day when all of these supersonic F-16s supposedly can’t reach any of the hijacked aircraft in time, a single C-130 comes across two of them? I.e., the C-130 just happens to cross paths with the Pentagon plane, and then rather than landing and getting the heck out of the way, it just continues on a pre-existing flight path (as if nothing had happened) that just accidentally happens to intercept the flight path of a second hijacked aircraft?
The really big problem with that theory is that one can hear sounds of struggle and the terrorists saying, “Is that it? I mean, shall we pull it down?” just before the plane entered a steep dive into the ground. If the plane had been shot down, the terrorists wouldn’t have reacted in the same way, and the flight path from that point on would have been significantly more erratic.
Is there reason to think someone would feel the need to cover that up? Shooting down the plane seems like the kind of decision most Americans would be fine with.
Do also consider the fact that even if the story of flight 93 occurred exactly according to the official story, the heroic passengers saved zero lives. Jets had been scrambled. Shoot down orders had been given. The flight was not going to hit its target.
Yes, the passengers may have been heroes in the sense that they did not “freeze up” and tried to save themselves or (possibly) others.
Yet the most popular story presented by the press and government, and lodged in the public consciousness, is that the passengers prevented a final strike.
Realistically, they may have prevented a fighter pilot from having to commit an act that could have scarred him emotionally.
So, yes, I am confident the event was “spun.” The question is to what degree.
I don’t really know, but I suspect that many would be horrified by the deliberate use of American military force against American civilians, no matter how good the argument for it. (Arguably, it would actually be use of force against the terrorists with inevitable civilian casualties, but I suspect many wouldn’t see it that way, and many who did would still be horrified.) And all a cover-up requires is that someone judge the same way (or just think it likely enough), justified or not.