Putting to Bed 9/11 Conspiracy Theories for Ever

This little programme from a while back, while relatively light-hearted, was a fine study of one set of theories and it's devotees, particularly when Sidney Alford demonstrates the power of a pepper bomb on a London bus (42:17 onwards).

"I don't think that home made bombs would be able to cause the damage, at the level & weight that were in the rucksacks".
His face after the 'demonstration' is a picture.

(There are others in the series, but this was the best, despite wishing you could throttle one or two of the participants from time to time) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tga4hXy8qws

 

There is no way that you could convince a 'Conspiracy Theorist' that he is wrong. He would just say that there was a conspiracy against them Self perpetuation ! Genius !

 

I remember that programme. It was fun watching all the arses turn on any of their members who dared to stop believing.
Think the problem is modern folks refuse to believe terrorism ain't rocket science. My generation had fathers who either fought in WW2 or did National Service after it, and we all grew up listening to tales of how to make home-made bombs. They never suspected for one minute that some of us would actually try it of course, helped by a '70s comic called Warlord which did a feature on the British Auxiliary Units and actually reprinted a page showing how to use items commonly found under the average kitchen sink. The difference is we only did it to amuse ourselves, none of us were twisted enough to try and hurt someone/destroy property.
Hell, the IRA used fertiliser bombs in the early days, and there was a brand of weedkiller which was an absolutely lethal explosive when mixed with sugar. Add the internet to quickly gain "forbidden knowledge", and any retard can be a terrorist if they want to badly enough.

 

Will play.
Watched the recent PBS doc which put the whole event into a timeline, in 4 one hour long segments. Great job in 'splainin' from a to z. The only thing that wasn't answered was the question that the (deleted show, not sure)- FBI (CIA)?- knew of the terrorist cells back in 2000. Show said as of the date of broadcast, there has been no answer to that question
.
Sorry, pretty weak bit- but surely someone here saw the shows and knows what I'm referring to.

Maybe the gov just allowed the event to happen, in order to put draconian laws into place, or create war?...I do not subscribe to that idea. But devils advocate would ask about who would stand to gain from that act of terrorism?...Was there any weird tradings/selling/buying going on before the act, and did anyone gain from insurance payouts?

Also wonder about how the Saudi's were allowed to fly out when everyone else was grounded. If that is true.

And the president didn't look so good during the attacks. In a kids classroom. As soon as the guy whispered into his ear, he should have got up and left.

 

There were (and still are) hundreds of suspected Islamic crazies around. It's easy to say after the fact that this particular bunch were more dangerous, but ahead of time with just bits and pieces of data, it didn't look like much.

As for the Saudi elites flying out - it didn't really happen that way. They did fly out but only AFTER the air freeze was lifted. The tinfoil hat crowd made that into a much bigger deal than it was.

 

If you also recall, Miss Poppy, similar theorists after Pearl Harbour questioned FDR's motivation, saying it was convenient for a man that had stated publically that the U.S. "had to come ashore somewhere", it was suggested that he had prior knowledge and simply let the event run it's course in order to drag isolationist support in America behind the cause of anti-fascism.

There is very little practical evidence for this, and government papers suggest FDR was as suprised as anyone else. Another dimension is FDR's known great weakness for anything to do with the U.S. Navy. It was anathema to suggest that he would let a catastrophe like that befall a service he had spent most of his public life sustaining. Further, any government that carried on in that fashion might as well cash in their chips and de-register the party entirely. Voting support from John Q. Citizen may well dissappear permanently, never to return. Power brokers with money to invest are not going to throw financial weight behind any party that carrys on like that.

All these above considerations also apply to modern administrations, and to the Republican party in particular after 9/11. NO-ONE wants to be seen to be supporting terrorism, theres too much influence and contribution money at stake.

 

Doesn't "Loose Change" qualify as a conspiracy? Certainly Al Quada's efforts constitute one. So I'd argue that there very much were and are 9/11 conspiracies.

 

Thinking FDR would roll over in his grave if he knew what the US (and the world) has become since his day. The CIA has done some terrible stuff I know nothing about.

 

You have know idea. We used to cringe when we'd be assigned to do missions with them. They can't be trusted and they lack honor and loyalty. You're just as expendable to them as the bad guys are.

 

I have often thought that one of the worst things we did to the millitary was have them work too closely with the Spooks. In some ways it was attractive but ....

 

Spooks have always been a part of warfare...even thousands of years ago...it's who runs the show that matters...on a battlefield, the miltary should hold sway....all depends why one is fighting in the first place?

 

Christopher wearily rolls his eyes at the smiling grin of Lw as he bends down over the keys to type a reply.....




YES, Mr smarty pants......My statement should have been, "There are NO 9/11 conspiraceies FROM THE U.S. Republican administration of the day". Lw gets points for semantics and grammatical faces pulled. Well done. Skipper or other moderators, can we organise a reputation point for that? Hello?

Poppy is correct. I don't think FDR would recognise america, or the wider world. The CIA are not my favourite organisation. I still think they ought to have been prosecuted and split up for failure to implement Nation security Memo 263, that paced all their responsibilities in the hands of other departments. Implemented by John Kennedy, it's the single most important document to come out of his administration, and they simply ignored it. Yep, they are a law unto themselves. These days, they wouldn't dare publically doing half the shit they used to get away with. The american public won't put up with it anymore. And neither will America's allies. Rumour has it we in australia have lost one of our nationally elected administrations to a CIA plot, that of the Whitlam Primeministerial Dismissal on November 11th, 1974. Closest wev'e come in living memory to an open revolt, as a popularly elected government was replaced by a minority administration elected by no-one. Yes, the Secret service do some shit things.

But we have to have a strong intelligence service. The British taught us that with Enigma and the Collosus. You must have better intelligence before you do anything else in a modern war.

And then the Soviets taught the Brits what a good intelligence service could do. So, with that in mind, the american Secret Service tries to stay one step ahead, as their Brit and Russian teachers have shown them.

 

Christopher47, don't bust me for pointing out semantics, but the Secret Service in the US is different from the CIA.

The U.S. Secret Service has two distinct areas of responsibility:

• Financial Crimes, covering missions such as prevention and investigation of counterfeiting of U.S. currency and U.S. treasury securities, and investigation of major fraud.[3]
• Protection, which entails ensuring the safety of current and former national leaders and their families, such as the President, past presidents, vice presidents, presidential candidates, visiting heads of state, and foreign embassies (per an agreement with the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS) Office of Foreign Missions

 

Indeed they are not just a part of it they can be a critical part. However they operate in a different world from the military with different threats and constraints. In most cases you simply don't want the military even thinking about operating like them. It's also of interest that in both Iraq and Afganistan, at least from what I've read, the most important intell successes came from operations run more like a combination of police work and commando raids rather than anything resembling 007 work. Similarly the greatest failures came from things like the "harsh interegation" efforts which had their roots in the intell agencies.

 

As I'm sure you know, there's more to intelligence than info gathering...remember the fake trees on the WW1 battlefields for example? : )

 

Indeed one of the high points of operations in SWA was the analysis of very disperit sources of information that would lead to actionable intelligence which then produced even more data. Rapid reduction and analysis of that data often lead to more actionable intelligence often within hours or even minutes.

Note that the "commando raids" often bore considerable resembalance to police raids with the major variation being a laser guided bomb or artillery shell often initiated the raid. The latter being thankfully absent from standard police procedures.

 

Not even close. Comparing a Seal, Force Reconaissance, Special Forces, Delta, Aussie SAS, MarSoc, team performing a raid to a SWAT team or Police raid is like comparing Podunk High School's JV football team to the 2013-14 Seahawks. The threat level and capabilities of the targets are much greater. The enemies weapons availability of greater quality, quantity and lethality. If a drug bust goes wrong in LA the LAPD doesn't have to face RPG's, belt fed MG's, hand greenades, nor worry that if they're delayed they'll be surrounded by numerically superior enemy. In the civilian world the police can deploy more force and assets than virtually any potential couter-threat. A military mission in virtually all cases is conducted in a hostile area where you cannot count on backup, where the enemy can respond with additional assets and many times in an area the government "officially" doesn't allow you and if things go south will cut you loose and deny your existance. The quality of the military personnel, their fitness levels, capabilities and lethality is also much greater. The selection pool is much greater, the number accepted much lower. the selection more rigorous, the training many times longer and more intense, the physical training and demands higher and continual even after you're with the operating forces. There is no comparison. Once deployed your skills are used continually and not sporadically as with the police. The best SWAT teams in the country would have a hard time keeping up with an average infantry squad when it comes to raids and door kicking.
Most missions you get in, gather your intell, if you're good never fire a shot, then exfill. You may provide targeting data or laser designate a target for air/drone/artillery strikes.

Where it sucks is when the CIA has needs to utilize military assets for an intelligence gathering or a direct action mission, because those military assets are the most capable at performing the mission. Once you're tasked, you always wonder if they're being used as bait or to build some enemy turncoats bonafides. It has happened many times. I won't go into details, but I have two close friends that had this happen to their teams, one a Force Reconaissance Marine, the other a team member on a Special Forces ODA. When you're in the community you also frequently hear rumors whenever it happens to team.

Tom Clancy was well known for including things in his books that the general populace was not aware of. Read the book or watch the movie, "Clear and Present Danger" for a Hollywood example of what I'm talking about. There's more truth there than the public realizes.

 

Firstly:
"Poppy is correct."...Just wanted to get that out of the way.

Secondly:
"I don't think FDR would recognise america."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F9vRVyV914

Have I made my point?

 

One should not be over-sensitive when the survival of the nation is at stake .What the CIA did and is doing is legal,as no one said that it was illegal : no CIA director has been sent to prison,thus ...

FDR became president 81 years ago,of course he would not recognize the world of today .Washington would not have recognized the US of 1861 and Lincoln would not have recognized the US of 1933.

Besides, the world of today is in a lot of aspects (maybe a majority of aspects) a better world than in 1933.

 

The CIA people can't afford luxuries as honor and loyalty: they have to work with criminals and other pliticians .