9/11 -- Unamercian Activities: Part I, Overview

Part of the inspiration for doing this blog about conspiracy theory was all the hundreds of pages I must have waded through since 2002, which accuse the New World Order of destroying New York's largest building, damaging the Pentagon and killing 3,500 just so some elites can make money, wage war and steal our civil liberties.

Conspiracy theorists don't believe the official story for 11 September 2001, just as they do not believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone to kill John F. Kennedy. We know the official story: 19 Middle Eastern men became radicalized and grew to hate the United States. They trained in al Qaeda camps, came to the U.S. and carefully blended in by being as western as possible. They took flying lessons and then hijacked four planes, with plans to ram them into three national landmarks. United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania, was supposed to have struck the White House or Capitol building. The World Trade Center towers collapsed because their steel beams were weakened by burning airline fuel, and 7 World Traded Center tumbled because fires had been burning in it all day.

National polls have shown at least a third of Americans believe this explanation is false, and that the United States government, possibly with help, actually staged the attacks (an inside job.) A Scripps Howard poll from August 2006 found 36 percent thought it was "somewhat likely" to "very likely" a U.S. plot. A Zogby poll take in May 2006 indicated 42 percent of people felt the government covered up the truth about the terrorist attacks. At least three New York Times polls showed a range from 65 percent in May 2002 to 53 percent in October 2006 of those who believe the feds lied about 9/11.

In future posts I wish to go in depth and include links to various discussions of the conspiracy in this 9/11 series, which I have called Unamerican Activities. In this first entry, a brief overview of conspiracy theorist claims is given.

1. The jets that hit the buildings were flown not by the terrorists identified by the FBI, but using remote control devices on the ground that tapped into the autopilot. Sites discuss the existence of this remote control technology, such as its use in surveillance drone planes, as well as news reports that the terrorists were terrible flight students who could hardly pilot a Cessna, let alone a Boeing 767. This story from October 2001, about a technology called Home Run, was the earliest story I ever read on the remote control theory.

2. The projectiles that struck the buildings were not jets at all, but missiles. This especially applies to the Pentagon. This claim originated most likely with French CT and writer Thierry Meyssan, whose "Hunt the Boeing!" seems to be no longer online (but see a mirror of it here). The page said that only a missile could have hit the Pentagon, due to the size of the hole left after the attack, the lack of aircraft debris and relatively minor damage.

3. A similar claim was made about Flight 93, that whatever crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, was not a jet, but more likely another missile. A site similar to Meyssan's called "Hunt the Boeing II" presents similar claims: a shallow crater left by the jet's crash, lack of debris, smoke from the crash looked more like that from an explosive, and lack of scorched earth that would have been caused by hundreds of gallons of jet fuel. Another claim was that Flight 93 never crashed but was diverted to the Cleveland airport. Another variation is that 93 crashed not because of valiant struggle between passengers and terrorists, but because the military shot the jet down.

4. The towers in the WTC did not collapse due to weakened beams and fires burning out of control, but by controlled demolition. These claims stem from various analyses of photos and especially video and audio. Both main WTC towers 1 and 2, as well as 7 WTC, dropped cleanly and perfectly straight down, just like buildings loaded with explosive charges that are supposed to tumble like this.

Theorists have looked at video and said they could see puffs of smoke and small explosions that are evidence of bomb "squibs" going off in the towers' frameworks to bring the structure down. The 9/11 truth movement also has its share of academics who also have weighed in on the collapse causes, as shown here and here.

The WTC towers were the first ever skyscrapers to collapse due to fire. Site reports, such as this one at Serendipity, show how even the Windsor Building in Madrid, Spain burned for two days and still did not fall.

A quote by Larry Silverstein, owner of the WTC complex's management company, about his order to "pull" 7 WTC has been presented as evidence that he ordered that building to be destroyed. This quote came from a PBS documentary called America Rebuilds that aired late in 2001. You can see Silverstein on this link at YouTube.

5. The U.S had help, by Mossad, the Israeli security agency, the British spy agencies MI5 and MI6, or all of them. One theory of the New World Order is that England wants to still control and influence the U.S. government and foreign policy (maybe they're still angry over 230 years later that we beat them in the American Revolution). The U.S. protection and favorable treatment of Israel suggests to some theorists how America is in league with Israel/Zionists as members of the New World Order...

6. ...And, most of all, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are most to blame. The Bush administration did this to the United States so that all of his and Cheney's friends and business associates could get even richer from war, oil production and huge government contracts (here is where you hear about Cheney and Halliburton, for example). And Bush-Cheney also want to turn the USA into a police state, so as to control us even more heavily because we must be protected from The Enemy.

7. The devil and/or aliens made them do it. There have been claims of UFOs at the World Trade Center site, based on flying debris in video, as well as photos and video of what look like demon faces appearing in the concrete powder clouds that were pushed out as the towers fell or were struck by jets. To some, this is evidence of an evil beyond this world, either from hell or outer space.