Featured image by Keylay Tukor
Confronting 9/11 for the Sake of Healing
The events of September 11th, 2001 have never been adequately explained. After the initial shock, having witnessed something never-before-seen, few people were objective about what they saw and desperate for a clear explanation, they clung to the hastily-produced reports and television specials that followed. After some public pressure, in 2002 President George W. Bush ordered an investigation into the events of that day. The final 9/11 Commission Report wasn’t complete until 2004. This is when the shock started to wear off and the public started to ask questions.
By 2006, a majority of Americans felt that they were being deceived on some level as faults in the official report were made more apparent. The “truther” movement burned throughout President Bush’s second term and waned as Obama returned things to the status quo. Polls still show a majority of conflicted Americans today. When a large portion of the public remember this day as the day that they were deceived, then the social fabric will only tear apart. Persistent terrorism in the middle east has left Americans beleaguered and confused. Even more, there is a new generation emerging who don’t remember anything but the world in its aftermath.
I have a different idea of what it means to “never forget” because I’m not satisfied with the explanation, and I won’t forget to question the answers. Americans cannot heal nor trust until they know. Anyone you ask can remember where they stood at the moment it happened. But if you ask anyone how it happened, you are very likely to hear a confused answer. People remember the horrific imagery, but nothing about the final verdict, the definite actors, or the bizarre collapse of the third building, Tower 7.
This vacuum of information has led to a proliferation of wild theories and has extended distrust in the American government globally, especially after the first half of the Bush Administration, when two wars were waged against underestimated foes — stability in Iraq and Afghanistan remains unsettled by violent insurgencies from jihadists — while spying powers and torture policies were domestically implemented, and now the Obama Administration’s war against ISIS.
The aftermath of September 11th led to those invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan, pouring fuel into the rhetoric now fired up in Russia and Iran against America, which blames instability in the middle east on American occupation and covert military operations. It is now widely accepted that we have sunk into a second cold war while a proxy war is fought in Syria.
Killing Osama Bin Laden didn’t heal America’s wounds. It did not provide sufficient closure. Observers criticized the way the news was transmitted, leaving doubts in the hearts of those who firmly distrust America’s military. Some say he was dead long ago, or that he was safely disappeared. The operation definitely built political capital for Obama as we watched him spend it on the campaign trail in 2012 with claims that terrorism was under control.
This wound is still sensitive. Bringing it up in conversation at all is a social no-no. It is self-imposed censorship. We fail to be so enraged as to demand change. We fail to be objective about the matter. This allows everything to worsen from it. Fourteen years is a long time and it is not too soon; we need to be able to stomach this. So I want to round up some of the conspiracy theories and deliver the most worthy of your attention.
Structural Integrity of the Towers
Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth is a non-profit corporation with the purpose of investigating the structural failure of the World Trade Center towers, which collapsed from an unprecedented jet fuel fire, according to the 9/11 Commission Report. They present the most compelling case against the official story and the most credible group of critics.
They claim the official story does not scientifically explain the structural failure, because it denied evidence. The official explanation makes key assumptions that are unnecessary in light of the evidence, leading to an incomplete summary. Hundreds of signatories joined this group initially, and it has grown to 2,351 demanding a credible explanation for failures in the investigation, and of course, to be acknowledged for their own theories.
With extensive training, experience, and opportunity for peer review, they assert that the buildings were set up in a planned demolition, using highly sophisticated systems, with military-grade explosives (namely thermite) which could only be planned in a covert way, by people who had total access to the buildings. The group does not venture into the territory of who did it, or why it was done. They focus entirely on the extraordinary way that these buildings fell.
There happened to be a total modernization of the elevator system carried out by Ace Elevator Company at the towers. This contract gave them access to all the structural points in the core of the building where explosives would need to be planted to carry out a perfect freefall demolition. This company was never investigated nor mentioned in official reports, remarkably, and dissolved in 2006.
Every detail is laid out in their inaugural two-hour lecture, Blueprint for Truth, which was made available on DVD in 2008 and now can be seen for free on Youtube.
The Airplanes
Another group of analysts refute the physics of the plane impacts. Pilots for 9/11 Truth have dozens of members from all over the world. Similar to the engineers, they have produced technical investigations. They also released a DVD which is now on Youtube for free called 9/11 Intercepted.
All four of the flights from that day are scrutinized. They cite the amazing maneuvers of the hijacker student pilots, who weren’t qualified to pull it off, a viewpoint that a lot of people beyond their circle share. At least one pilot instructor hosted flight simulations of the crash, with a 100% fail rate among students. Moreover, no communications with the hijackers were ever confirmed. A brief audio transmission of the sound of a hijacking was transmitted by radio apparently from AA Flight 11, but its source could not be traced.
Pilots for 9/11 Truth claims to have collected as much official flight data as they could, and their results suggest a number of strange anomalies. They carefully model flight trajectory concerning the Pentagon crash that would remind any conspiracy theorist of the “magic bullet” that killed JFK, where the impossible becomes what-is.
Crucially, they analyzed speed data from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and other government sourced reports. Their finding is that the hijacked aircrafts (Boeing 767) could not withstand its reported velocity at sea level. Animated simulations indicate structural failure of the aircraft before reaching the towers. The planes would have fallen apart due to turbulence before crashing into the towers.
This finding implies that a different aircraft was in use for both of the attacks. Rather than letting that mystery hang, they fly a little too close to the sun by citing known false flag operations designed decades ago. For the unfamiliar, a false flag operation is basically a government framing job, where they commit the crime or at least allow the crime to occur in order to reap the benefits of fear and terror, when people need security the most. A fringe and splintered group of rogue investigators have developed a number of theories from these leaping points.
There Never Was a Plane?
There are troubling details in the frame-by-frame analysis of available videos, which make it look like the projected image of an airliner. The plane sinks into the building like a hot knife in butter. But the plane isn’t that. It’s aluminum slamming into steel and iron at high speed. They suggest it should have shattered against the building and fallen to the ground.
The tower architects whose structural imperative in the 1960’s was to withstand all potential airplane collisions, compared a jet flying through the walls like a pencil at high speed through a screen door; it would just pass through. That’s what we see, the plane flies right through it. But the pencil analogy refers to the the body, not the wings. The delicate wings amazingly slice right into the buildings. But we have no other tests, so it’s all projecting into the darkness.
“No-planers” also point out how quiet the planes were. Boeing 767 noise is omnipresent at sea level, especially when they’re roaring downward at high velocity. Many who saw the explosion said they didn’t see the plane or hear it. Even people who caught the video could not recall the sound. Eye witness accounts often repeat this no sound phenomenon.
There is virtually no videographic evidence of any plane hitting The Pentagon. One video that was confiscated by the FBI and released to the public comes from a Doubletree Hotel surveillance video that shows only an explosion from two angles. Although numerous cameras were on the Pentagon, the CIA released just one official video, and all you can identify is a white streak. News reporters on the scene both heard and provided eyewitness accounts that no plane could be seen or observed in the wreckage.
The same was reported about UA Flight 93, which came down in a Pennsylvania field. Wreckage was said to have atomized in the fire. Witnesses unknown to each other don’t report a commercial airliner, rather, something smaller and swifter.
Suggesting that no planes crashed anywhere is just too difficult. One claim is that a stealth jet — apparently visible in numerous videos of the impact — provided a type of holographic image of a plane in sync with planned explosives. That theory is supported mostly by other conspiracy theories and so, has to be tabled.
Pilots for 9/11 Truth claim that the Boeing 767’s were disappeared and replaced with drones. This notion corroborates their own radar analysis, and they reproduced an animation to demonstrate the flight path of the drone planes. They agree that it would require unmanned military aviation equipment to maneuver the planes the way they did.
All of these connections are still too thin for an indictment against the government as a whole or any one actor. It would be necessary to actually observe those planes from a vantage point nobody had, except for those who were killed. That’s why the conspiracy theorists really come into play with the question of who did it and their motivation.
Whodunnit and Why
The official story, which was used to justify military action in Afghanistan, and then Iraq, was that Osama Bin Laden and his al-Qaida operatives put it all together with a pan-Arab network of jihadists whose sole aim will always be to take down “the American way of life.” This is the story that continues by status quo in the media. The narrative is locked down. Every time a controversial discussion concerning the use of unconstitutional spying and torture comes up, appeals to 9/11 are drawn, with that great promise, “so that it will never happen again.” It embeds fear of foreigners in the public psyche.
Where there is a conspiracy, there are also disinformation agents whose sole purpose is to discredit dissent.
Some say it was the Bush family and their network. Others say he was just negligent, allowing it to happen, but not conspiring. The motivation for him comes down to political capital and oil interests. But if you observe where the petroleum rewards of American conquests in the middle east have gone, it mostly points to China, while domestic drilling has dramatically increased.
Others say Bush and family are great patriots and would never let such a thing happen, and the only answer is that our homeland defense systems were weak. Evidently, they indeed were weak enough to allow three planes to hit three buildings, with plenty of time to intercept them. This argument justified the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and a new era of surveillance and militarized local police departments.
All that matters in the public eye is that Bin Laden confessed as the leader of the movement that coordinated the attacks. For years, one new video after the next was broadcast on television, with him preaching in caves about the evils of America, threatening us. If someone admits guilt, you go after them, that is common sense, and so Americans were ready to buy it.
There should be no doubt that it was a terrorist attack: anyone who conspired the September 11th massacre is a terrorist. There should be no doubt that al-Qaida participated and indeed would be happy to do it again. But anytime you try to explain how they did that, the theory falls short. Therefore, the 9/11 Commission Report, too, is a conspiracy theory among the rest of them.
Increasing speculation has focused on Israel with their intelligence service, Mossad. Three Israeli citizens were in an unmarked white van filled with explosives, allegedly, and were questioned by local police, who responded the morning of September the 11th to a complaint. They were cheering on the destruction from a parking lot nearby. They were questioned and let go. They later turned up on Israeli television discussing the matter. In the short interview, they say their purpose was to “document the event.” One could interpret that out of context.
A very important figure in the whole event is Larry Silverstein, the lifetime leaser of the World Trade Center, which was properly owned by the Port Authority of New York. Legal battles over insurance settlements increased scrutiny of Silverstein’s character, especially as he enjoyed a profit of approximately $1 billion from the terrible events.
In July, 2001, he paid $14 million to acquire a 99-year lease of the World Trade Center. This enabled him to manage the building completely. He argued and won in court that his terrorism insurance package should count two acts, not one, thereby doubling his reward. In a 2002 PBS Documentary, he states that he warned the fire department chief (who later denied it) that it was time “to pull” Tower 7 after fires weakened it. This is an industry term for planned demolition. But the official report, as recently as 2008, has reiterated that the building collapsed from “normal office fires.”
Silverstein is a known Zionist with strong connections to political leaders in Israel, such as Prime Minister Netanyahu. He shares the view with many Israelis that have gone on record to say that 9/11 benefited Israel as it drew the public in their favor. War between Palestine and Israel raged, collapsing peace efforts gradually brokered throughout the Clinton Administration, allowing for more than a decade of unfettered development into Palestinian territory.
On September 10th, 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld appeared on television with a warning about $2.3 trillion dollars of dark money, untraceable outside of CIA headquarters. Although he gave it a benign term, “Pentagon Bureaucracy,” he said that it has become “a matter of life and death.”
No Theory for Old Men
The alleged 9/11 mastermind has been in custody since 2003 and locked down in Guantanamo Bay since at least 2006. His name is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He was first identified in the 9/11 Commission Report, but only in 2007 did he confess, under torture. The accusations are problematic in this case, because it invalidates the confession, legally speaking. The alleged conspirator hasn’t been convicted, leaving the possibility that he isn’t the mastermind, and that the real architect is running loose.
An appropriate theory would need to put Osama Bin Laden, the Bush family, CIA, Mossad, and “Mainstream Media” together in a super-conspiracy, requiring years of planning among specific people in various departments, and loads of money, for the project and for the hush hush. These theories have been constructed. Grasping at as much anecdotal and circumstantial evidence as possible, they have found amazing synchronicity, including the expiration date of Keanu Reeve’s ID card in The Matrix as September 11th, 2001.
The events of 9/11 and the people who have convictions about alternate explanations do think of themselves as the one who have taken “the red pill.” But it is all too easy to be sucked down a rabbit hole of deception by taking the red pill of conspiracists blindly. Where there is a conspiracy, there are also disinformation agents whose sole purpose is to discredit dissent.
If conspiracists are correct, then wouldn’t all evidence obviously have been buried in the buildings themselves? It will probably always remain a mystery, unless there are rampant confessions, and that probably won’t happen. But even if that happened, and our own government was implicated, then it would be a matter of civil war, and there would be dramatically more casualties in that case. If I were President, I would just let sleeping dogs lie.
Please reference the links that I provide below. There is so much more that I’ve read and looked at about this that I couldn’t include here. It really is a matter of discerning sources of disinformation from authentic inquiry. It’s not a subject for the faint of heart, and its implications can be worldview-shattering. It’s important to remember that power systems require a degree of deception to exist.
