The Shrine

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/06/30/metro. ... index.html

If I were a conspiracy theorist, this would be juicy, juicy material.

This many years after 9/11? If you were a conspiracy theorist, wouldn't that have to happen much closer to 9/11 for it to be a conspiracy?

I think we're beyond theory when it comes to the 9/11 attacks being a conpiracy. Anybody who still thinks it was just the work of angry, freedom-hating Arabs needs to think again.

Blotus wrote:I think we're beyond theory when it comes to the 9/11 attacks being a conpiracy. Anybody who still thinks it was just the work of angry, freedom-hating Arabs needs to think again.

This one needs to be expanded upon

Zeus wrote:This many years after 9/11? If you were a conspiracy theorist, wouldn't that have to happen much closer to 9/11 for it to be a conspiracy?

Who knows? Again, assuming I were a conspiracy theorist (I'm not), one might assume that somebody at the CIA (for example) started getting scared in the Obama era and decided to try to cover their tracks. CIA spooks are human too and probably panic sometimes, and who knows what memos might be inching their way out of the turgid bowel of our government archives.

[quote="Blotus"][/quote]
That's all the explanation you need.

Kupek wrote:

Blotus wrote:

That's all the explanation you need.

Hey, I'm an Arab who thinks that it was Arabs. But I'm open to hearing what other people have to say

I can't say...I wish I could say I completely disbelieved that there was anything shady going on during 9/11, but I can't. I don't necessarily believe anything beyond the stated explanation did happen, but I'm also not willing to say "no, that's how it was".

I certainly think that the 9/11 hijackers were who the government say they were, and that they did what the government said they did. I certainly think they trained with the Taliban under Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Afghanistan, and that Osama bin Laden was behind the attack.

What I'm less sure about is whether or not there was something shady going on with the CIA. They're not particularly known for above-board tactics anyway, and with regard to the Middle East their history is rotten if not incorrigibly criminal. There was the Mossadegh coup in 1948, and the very covert support of Saddam Hussein from 1960 to 1990 while he used the same tactics against Communists and Iranians that we eventually invaded him for the first time for using against the Kurds, among other abuses. We actually supported Saddam in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. There's also really been a paramilitary black-ops war going on in various places, Iraq included, between the CIA and the Iranian theocracy (who as we are now seeing are just as big a bunch of shady assholes as well) for some time.

Do I think the CIA orchestrated flying planes into buildings? No. But it's not beyond me to think that somebody neoconservative, high up in the command structure, might have had better intelligence than what they stated, and simply decided that "for the greater good" they had to allow some sort of massive incoming terrorist attack to actually strike the United States in order to rally support and power for the neoconservative planned RMA (the so-called revolution in military affairs). It wouldn't be the first time that a "to save the village we had to burn the village" mentality had taken root at high levels of our government. The Project for a New American Century - the thinktank/policy project that elevated most neoconservatives to power, there's a list of signatories somewhere - had a line in it that said the the RMA would be difficult to institute unless there was another event the size of Pearl Harbor. That's certainly an unfortunate line for them to have in the document.

I doubt many people were in on it, if they did "let it happen" - not the first time that particular thought has been advanced in the national discussion, but that level of high treason is hard to keep under wraps for long. Still, it just seems suspicious to me that they knew the identities of every hijacker within something like a few hours after the attacks, and other details that I remember reading about that seemed odd which I can't recall at present.

And the attitude of the later war declarations just felt...wrong. I don't know any other way to put it. Feelings aren't facts, but the attitude of the Republicans and Bush in declaring that war almost seemed...self-congratulatory in some ways. Bush was smiling and seemed almost happy, which struck me as the wrong tone for someone to take when his country was about to war - but, that could easily have been his personality, too, since he seemed to see this conflict as some sort of divinely appointed mission to cleanse the Middle East, with himself in the role of the gallant hero.

Anyway, do I think "they did it"? No, not really. But, much as it pains me to say this, I would not be entirely caught off guard it turned out that there were a few of the "save the village burn the village" types involved in the investigations and intelligence and keeping a low profile at higher levels somewhere.

I also think that even as awful as 9/11 and the consequences were, and the Iraq War has been, it is part of a larger and more overarching conflict between America and Israel on one side and Israel's neighbors and radical Islamists on the other that has been going on for awhile.

"Jews did 9/11" is obviously crap. What isn't crap is the undue influence AIPAC (the American-Israeli Political Action Committee) has on American foreign and military policy in the Middle East. The American-Israeli alliance has been shady, to say the least...we looked the other way while they bulked up on 500 tons of covert yellowcake in Operation Plumbat in 1968, we let them have nukes that destabilize the region and dangerously tip the balance of power in their favor and don't require them to join the international nuclear agencies, and we let them do a whole lot of lobbying back behind the scenes for our various Middle Eastern "interventions" with there being not a whole lot of publicity.

I think some people with resentments against the state or other groups get a sense of how much influence Israel has in our military policy, but don't really understand how it all works, so instead of going "we should revisit the Israeli military alliance and AIPAC's influence in our lobbying process" they go "Kill the Jew!". Various white supremacist agencies have gotten ahold of that particular sentiment in particular - not that they need an excuse to practice anti-Semitism, but it's still fuel on the fire in some sense. Then that ugly wound breaks open again and the Israelis get scared and hug their nukes even tighter and the conflict just escalates.

Really, it's a pretty tangled mess, and the roots of the conflict go very, very deep. I really wish someone would direct a documentary called "The Tenth Crusade" detailing the alliance between the military-industrial complex, the American religious right, and Israeli hawks and its influence in Middle Eastern war and politics from 1948 to the present. I feel in a lot of ways that's really what it boils down to.

My point was that Blotus' MO these days is to say something that is quick, contrary and often incendiary for a cheap laugh.

Not that I disapprove.

In Israel's defense, what they went through during the 20th century (and a few thousand years before that, really) would be enough to make anybody paranoid and want to keep a few hundred nukes in the bunker. But it's still not helping anyone in the region.

Mental, I'll go along with that to a degree. There's absolutely no doubt of shady shit going on with the CIA/FBI/etc regarding 9/11 (how was Saddam involved again?). Certainly some level of coverup or twisting of facts. But anyone who tries to parlay that into them being a part of the orchestration of the attacks? That's just insanity.

But then again, this shit's been going on for a long time now. 45+ years at least.

Kupek wrote:My point was that Blotus' MO these days is to say something that is quick, contrary and often incendiary for a cheap laugh.

Not that I disapprove.

My comment that 9/11 was an inside job is contrary to Mental's hypothesizing that this guy and his wife could have been killed by a government agency for being privy to it?

Incendiary how? I'm not trying to start an argument.

And for laughs? Now you're just being disgusting. Shame on you. Bad moogle.

Zeus wrote:Mental, I'll go along with that to a degree. There's absolutely no doubt of shady shit going on with the CIA/FBI/etc regarding 9/11 (how was Saddam involved again?). Certainly some level of coverup or twisting of facts. But anyone who tries to parlay that into them being a part of the orchestration of the attacks? That's just insanity.

But then again, this shit's been going on for a long time now. 45+ years at least.

I rather agree. I don't think our government "did 9/11". I do, however, think some people might have looked the other way in their eagerness to get support for the PNAC RMA.

Blotus wrote:My comment that 9/11 was an inside job is contrary to Mental's hypothesizing that this guy and his wife could have been killed by a government agency for being privy to it?

I actually read your comment. When I tried to read Mental's, my brain said "conspiracy theory wall o' text" and skipped over it.

Thanks for the consideration.

I'm not claiming there WAS any kind of conspiracy for sure, only that it wouldn't surprise me if the CIA wasn't entirely being upfront about what it knows about the whole thing, if you want the Reader's Digest version.