Could you be persuaded to change your mind?

Originally posted by Griff

Originally posted by seanm
Was there an 8-year pause during the Clinton administration?

You obviously don't know how the government works huh?

Yup, I sure do.

Do you think the people who make up Bush's admin were not working in the government in one form or another?

Not only do I agree, I think LOTS of those are career government servants.

Or do you think everyone in DC gets fired every 4 years?

I think your only point is that lots of government employees must have known about a plot. Multitudes. A flood of humanity.

If there was one.

Originally posted by Malichai
If Bin Laden himself stood up on world wide TV and stated that he was responsible, then laid out how it all happened, I still wouldn't believe it. It would only prove to me that he is part of it, or computer graphics have advanced further than expected.

And no, I don't believe it was the Government. Certainly there were people in the government involved, but this goes much higher.

ZIONISM did 911.

Uh oh.... the Zionism card again.

reply to post by seanm

Remember, there is no "official version." We are talking about evidence.

I've already explained that I use the term 'official version' to refer to the consensual mainstream account. This is by far the easiest way to distinguish between the two sides of this debate. It certainly isn't worth debating in and of itself.

And we're not talking about evidence, we're talking about reports. Few people outside of those who either contributed to or else were involved in compiling those reports have seen the evidence upon which they're based. For all you and I know, evidence of a CD has been found. It just doesn't appear in any reports.

In the case of NIST's report on WTCs 1 & 2, my understanding is that the models used to determine the mechanisms behind the initiation of the global collapses were fundamentally best guesses, however sophisticated and authoritative they might appear.

reply to post by Malichai

ZIONISM did 911.

I winced when I read this. Not because it can't be true, but because, of all the theories one could associate with 9/11, this one provides debunkers with the perfect excuse to demonise us and label us 'Holocaust deniers'.

If ever a theory needed rock solid evidence before being even stated, this was it.

A simple question: what would it take to convince you that the opposite view about 9/11 was correct.

It would take absolute irrefutable proof.I believe 9/11 was an inside job so the U.S. government would have to show me real proof.
The inquiry panel would have to be made up of non-government funded entities/persons and chosen by non partisan academic individuals.
In turn those individuals would have to be chosen by their peers.
Total transparency is what I'm getting at.Unbiased, fully funded with no fat back pockets.

seanm:
Are you really that confident "it would be relatively straightforward to manufacture a great deal of the physical evidence?" What evidence would suggest to you that it would be easy? Can you tick off on a piece of paper all that would be necessary, for instance, to manufacture and plant evidence making it seem that AA77 hit the Pentagon?

1995
Dec. 20, nr. Cali, Colombia: 160 people killed when American Airlines Boeing 757 crashed in Andean Mountains.


www.infoplease.com...

[edit on 17-10-2007 by drannno]

If someone came out and said "There was a 9/11 conspiracy theory. The government did it. I was the one who planted the bombs/made the airplane holograms/fired the missile/etc." then I might believe that :-)

Originally posted by TheJenkster
reply to post by coughymachine

 

I'm one of these 'on the fencers' (but I dont ridicule anyone) I've been reading through the posts, views, evidence (its taken some time due to the amount of information to read) I'm not totally convinced about the 'explosives' theory but I am leaning towards Government involvement (or at least knowledge) - but even then I'm not sure (too messy)

If someone can make a compelling case with evidence, then that would probably persuade me.

Better yet, if someone can give me a starting point for research

If circumstantial will suffice, here's a site:
they let it happen
I plug it cause it's my site so I trust it and can answer any questions.

reply to post by Caustic Logic


Which way do you lean CL: OT, LIHOP or MIHOP?

I know one of your blogs is They Let it Happen, but is that actually what you believe?

For my part, I'm leaning towards MIHOP with suffiecient built in degrees of seperation from the actual perpetrators to claim LIHOP as a damage limitation position if any real evidence were ever to come to light... if that makes sense!

Originally posted by coughymachine
reply to post by Caustic Logic

 

Which way do you lean CL: OT, LIHOP or MIHOP?

I know one of your blogs is They Let it Happen, but is that actually what you believe?

For my part, I'm leaning towards MIHOP with suffiecient built in degrees of seperation from the actual perpetrators to claim LIHOP as a damage limitation position if any real evidence were ever to come to light... if that makes sense!

No, it doesn't make sense. As you should know by now, you need to have evidence to support your claims, and you have only presented your "gut feelings."

Fahrenheit 2777
9/11 has generated the mother of all conspiracy theories

www.sciam.com...

"The mistaken belief that a handful of unexplained anomalies can undermine a well-established theory lies at the heart of all conspiratorial thinking (as well as creationism, Holocaust denial and the various crank theories of physics). All the "evidence" for a 9/11 conspiracy falls under the rubric of this fallacy. Such notions are easily refuted by noting that scientific theories are not built on single facts alone but on a convergence of evidence assembled from multiple lines of inquiry."

Bingo! Evidence wins hands down.




[edit on 18-10-2007 by seanm]

reply to post by seanm


Maybe you're reading my post and thinking to yourself, "this guy believes the towers were CD'd; he believes WTC-7 was CD'd; he believes no plane hit the Pentagon; he believes Flight 93 didn't land at Shanksville; and he believes the war games that took place on 9/11 were a deliberate ploy to create a 'fog or war' confusion. He believes all of this without any substantive evidence."

Well, you'd be wrong. I don't believe any of those things, though I am open to exploring any idea.

I can accept bin Laden and KSM masterminded the operation. I can accept that 19 or more hijackers were sent to the US to train for the operation. I can accept that they boarded the four planes in question and crashed them as described in the 'official' version of events. I can accept that the towers collapsed as described by NIST. In short, I can accept pretty much everything you believe in. However, I see sufficient problems in each of these theories to keep me interested in alternative explanations - as you should if you were being honest.

But none of the above excludes the possibility that elements within the US - I won't attempt to list them - were ultimately behind the plot.

The US has a history of acting through others to achieve its goals. It acted through Gladio to repel the post-War Communist expansion into Europe, committing attacks against civilians and blaming the Communists. It acted through pro-western elements in Iran to overthrow Mossadeq, often committing acts of terrism under the guise of the Communists. It enticed the Soviets into a war with Afghanistan and for over a decade, recruited, funded, trained and armed radical Islamic mujahideen insurgents, using vehicles set up by Osama bin Laden in the process.

On each occassion, there was a degree of separation between the US orchestrators and those directly responsible for executing those operations.

As far as 9/11 is concerned, we have motive, precedent and opportunity. We can also see a well-established historical partnership between the US and those specifically alleged to have carried out the attacks.

ETA

Just by the way, the US is using Islamic agents linked to both the Taliban and al Qaeda (and has been for some time now) in and around Iran for the express purpose of destabilising the country and provoking it.

This demonstrates a likely contemporary link between the US governing administration and al Qaeda. The degree of seperation in this case is Jundullah, a militant Islamist group based in Baluchestan.

[edit on 18-10-2007 by coughymachine]

Originally posted by coughymachine
reply to post by seanm

 

But none of the above excludes the possibility that elements within the US - I won't attempt to list them - were ultimately behind the plot.

You miss the point. I can't repeat any more forcefully than I have: you need the evidence.

Speculation, "could have", other past events, are all irrelevant in the end. Bring the evidence to the table.

Those of us (a majority) who respect the truth no matter where it leads need evidence. That's why we are true skeptics and that's why we press 9/11 Truthers to show us the beef.

reply to post by seanm


seanm

Two things:

1. You have had direct access to very little if any of the evidence upon which you base your beliefs about what happened and who was responsible. Your belief is founded largely in the reports of the 9/11 Commission - who have even admitted that some of the evidence developed by the government was false - and NIST, whose report is the product of a computer simultation (that has never been subjected to independent scrutiny), which was essentially 'forced' into replicating the observed events.

Ultimately your belief is founded upon your faith in a world view that dictates that elements within your government wouldn't commit such an atrocity. Ironically, if this event had occured in a Middle Eastern country or even Russia, I bet you'd have no trouble whatsoever believing conspiracy theories that argued the domestic governments themselves were involved in some way.

2. My 'theory' is founded upon a whole stack of evidence supporting the claim that the US government has acted through foreign agents (albeit abroad, not at home) in order to achieve its political goals. Whilst none of the evidence points to direct US involvement in the recruitment of agents to perpetrate the attacks of 9/11, there is evidence to support the claim that they have dealt with the organisation that are accused of executing them, and that these relationships are still current.

There is also evidence to suggest that the man who wired $100,000 to Mohamed Atta was having breakfast in New York with three US politicians on the morning of 9/11. Fortunately, the Commission found that the issue of who funded the operation and how was of little relevance.

You also have to remember that my thoery can accomodate all the things you believe happened, notwithstanding my scepticism about some of the findings. I can accept NIST's explanation of the collapses, for example, and the fact that Flight 77 did hit the Pentagon, etc.

Further, when I say 'elements within the government', what I'm really talking about is a relatively small number of homegrown people within the government, one or more government agencies, or else in positions that give them the ability to influence.

In other words, I'm not arguing that Bush and his entire administration sat down with all the heads of every governmet agency and said, "Hey guys, I've had this cool idea. Go out, share it with all your people and come back to me with a plan."


[edit on 19-10-2007 by coughymachine]

Originally posted by coughymachine
reply to post by seanm

 

seanm

Two things:

1. You have had direct access to very little if any of the evidence upon which you base your beliefs about what happened and who was responsible. Your belief is founded largely in the reports of the 9/11 Commission - who have even admitted that some of the evidence developed by the government was false - and NIST, whose report is the product of a computer simultation (that has never been subjected to independent scrutiny), which was essentially 'forced' into replicating the observed events.

You're grasping at straws.

1. You, I, and everyone else have access to exactly the same evidence, even though we do not have access to all 2.5 million documents.

2. I repeat something you continue to deny: the 9/11 Commission is not NIST, FEMA, and ASCE. Those investigations stand on their own, independent of the 9/11 Commission. If the 9/11 Commission never existed, you still would have to address those reports. You won't.

3. NIST's computer simulations do not negate their findings. The evidence and physical tests affirm the conclusion.

Ultimately your belief is founded upon your faith in a world view that dictates that elements within your government wouldn't commit such an atrocity.

Strawman and pure nonsense. You can't continue to evade your responsibility by claiming that belief in the preponderance of evidence, the evidence you wish everyone to believe is magically irrelevant, is dictated by any other factors. The government is and has been capable of many things, but none of us go around making such logical fallacies as you do. You cannot continue to evade bringing us evidence for your claims.

Ironically, if this event had occured in a Middle Eastern country or even Russia, I bet you'd have no trouble whatsoever believing conspiracy theories that argued the domestic governments themselves were involved in some way.

Begging the question. Look it up.

2. My 'theory' is founded upon a whole stack of evidence supporting the claim that the US government has acted through foreign agents (albeit abroad, not at home) in order to achieve its political goals. Whilst none of the evidence points to direct US involvement in the recruitment of agents to perpetrate the attacks of 9/11, there is evidence to support the claim that they have dealt with the organisation that are accused of executing them, and that these relationships are still current.

Yet you won't bring any evidence to the table that the government was behind 9/11.

There is also evidence to suggest that the man who wired $100,000 to Mohamed Atta was having breakfast in New York with three US politicians on the morning of 9/11. Fortunately, the Commission found that the issue of who funded the operation and how was of little relevance.

You also have to remember that my thoery can accomodate all the things you believe happened, notwithstanding my scepticism about some of the findings. I can accept NIST's explanation of the collapses, for example, and the fact that Flight 77 did hit the Pentagon, etc.

Further, when I say 'elements within the government', what I'm really talking about is a relatively small number of homegrown people within the government, one or more government agencies, or else in positions that give them the ability to influence.

In other words, I'm not arguing that Bush and his entire administration sat down with all the heads of every governmet agency and said, "Hey guys, I've had this cool idea. Go out, share it with all your people and come back to me with a plan."

You want me to "embrace" your theory at the expense of rejecting the preponderance of evidence and by accepting certain premises which are either invalid or irrelevant. You've done so by resorting to strawman arguments and question begging.

reply to post by seanm

1. You, I, and everyone else have access to exactly the same evidence, even though we do not have access to all 2.5 million documents.

What evidence have you, I and everyone else had access to? How do you know it's genuine? How do you know there is no conflicting evidence developed but not made available to the bodies investigating the attacks?

2. I repeat something you continue to deny: the 9/11 Commission is not NIST, FEMA, and ASCE. Those investigations stand on their own, independent of the 9/11 Commission. If the 9/11 Commission never existed, you still would have to address those reports. You won't.

We're getting near the end of our exchange, since we both evidently feel we're repeating ourselves to no avail.

The 9/11 Commission Report is based in part on lies. Let me re-word that for clarity: some of the evidence developed and provided to the 9/11 Commission was false. Further, the agencies upon which its report relies are government agencies and, therefore, have a vested interest.

That said, I don't need to 'address those reports' if I don't disagree with them, do I? And you'll recall that, where I've set out my theory, I've allowed for all of the 'official' findings.

3. NIST's computer simulations do not negate their findings. The evidence and physical tests affirm the conclusion.

NIST's computer simulations were produced by a process that no independent observer has scrutinised. Notwithstanding that, NIST has admitted it dismissed certain propositions because they would not have led to a global collapse. It further admitted that in order to bring the models it retained to the point of initiating a global collapse, some of the data was adjusted.

And, since no one knows what damage occured within the buildings as a result of the plane impacts, the whole damn thing is no more than a best guess anyway.

And this is the quality of the evidence you're shoving down my throat? It may be the best you have but it's a million miles away from being conclusive.

But, I repeat yet again, if my theory is right, I don't even need to prove NIST wrong.

Yet you won't bring any evidence to the table that the government was behind 9/11.

That's true; I accept my theory is based on circumstantial evidence at best.

But again, you posture as though you have all the evidence. You don't. I challenge you to prove me wrong.

Since you keep batting on about NIST (as though this has any impact on my theory), I challenge you to produce hard evidence showing specifically which columns were severed when Flight 11 slammed into WTC2. I don't want best guesses - I want hard, incontravertible evidence.

I'll treat any evasion or fluffling around as an admission that you cannot answer the question (and that it cannot be answered, period); and that you therefore accept that one of the fundamental elements of NIST's collapse hypothesis is pure guesswork. In other words, as evidence goes, it stinks.

You want me to "embrace" your theory at the expense of rejecting the preponderance of evidence and by accepting certain premises which are either invalid or irrelevant. You've done so by resorting to strawman arguments and question begging.

Actually, I'm not interested in having you embrace any theory. You should simply be honest enough to accept that what you hang your hat on is flawed.

I don't have to reject any of the evidence you're wedded to, let alone your mythical 'preponderance of evidence', in order to continue to explore my ideas.

Originally posted by seanm

Originally posted by Malichai
If Bin Laden himself stood up on world wide TV and stated that he was responsible, then laid out how it all happened, I still wouldn't believe it. It would only prove to me that he is part of it, or computer graphics have advanced further than expected.

And no, I don't believe it was the Government. Certainly there were people in the government involved, but this goes much higher.

ZIONISM did 911.

Uh oh.... the Zionism card again.

Ummm... that's what we were told by the government. So, you are second guessing the government also? Welcome to our side.

It was stated that they attacked us because of our freedoms, our presence in the Middle East and our support to Isreal. Our support of Isreal is in fact Zionism.

So yes, let's play Zionism poker.

Originally posted by coughymachine
reply to post by Malichai

 

ZIONISM did 911.

I winced when I read this. Not because it can't be true, but because, of all the theories one could associate with 9/11, this one provides debunkers with the perfect excuse to demonise us and label us 'Holocaust deniers'.

If ever a theory needed rock solid evidence before being even stated, this was it.

Why is Zionism attributted to hollocaust denial? Zionism is the support for a State of Isreal. That is all. It has nothing to do with the hollocaust, it has nothing to do with being anti-semitic. It has everything to do with the Muslims are pissed off that we stole their land and gave it to the Jews. Which is a main reason why the Middle East hates us. So, in effect, Zionism did do 9/11 whether someone believes in the official story or not.

Originally posted by coughymachine
If ever a theory needed rock solid evidence before being even stated, this was it.

Why? Because we're talking about Jews? Why is it so taboo to talk about Isreal and the plethora of bad things it does? The ends justify the means? No. I'm part Native American. My people were devistated in this country. I was told not to mention that I was American Indian even growing up in the 70's and 80's. But, yet, it's so taboo to talk about Zionism and the Jews.

BTW, I mean no disrespect for the Jewish people's plight. I have many Jewish friends.

Originally posted by seanm
Those of us (a majority) who respect the truth no matter where it leads need evidence. That's why we are true skeptics and that's why we press 9/11 Truthers to show us the beef.

This is total BS on your part. Sorry to have to say it. If this were true, you'd be in here with us questioning the official story just as much as you badger "truthers". I call BS because you have proven that it is so.

Show me the beef that proves the official account is 100% correct first and then we'll tear down conspiracy theories together. Until then, you are blowing smoke out your arse when you say you are looking for the truth.

Of course, all just my opinion.

reply to post by Griff


Griff

I don't equate theories about Zionist involvement in 9/11 to Holocaust denial; the debunkers do, and they do it pretty effectively.

It's like Bush talking about 9/11 and Saddam in the same breath, and somehow convincing millions of Americans that there was a connection between the two.

All I was really saying was, that from my perspective, unless you've got some real nailed-on evidence about Zionist involvement in 9/11, any discussions about the topic are likely to descend into farce.

The bottom line is that most alternative theories have an inherent but often unstated element of 'the Zionists did it' anyway, since a great many of those who drafted what has become America's foreign policy document (Rebuilding America's Defenses) are Zionists; and many of them went on to become key policy-makers in the Bush administration.

The deported Israeli's claim that "we were sent to document the event" may have added a little fuel to the fire too.