When Al-Qaeda themselves claimed responsibility, even with overwhelming evidence aside? Why were so many people still reluctant, I was researching about this stuff and was shocked to see people who I respect a lot believe in this

  • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    184
    ·
    10 months ago

    Because Bush and company did everything they could to protect the Saudis and the Bin Laden family, and then made massive fortunes attacking Iraq which had nothing to do with the attack.

    At best, the Bush administration were opportunistic war-profiteers who abused the situation for their own gain.

    That doesn’t validate any of the absurd theories about demolitions or RC planes.

  • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    128
    ·
    10 months ago

    It’s easier to believe the people in charge are secretly in control of everything than to believe they’re barely in control of anything.

    • tiramichu@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      69
      ·
      10 months ago

      This.

      Conspiracy theories are comforting because they are more pleasant to believe than the truth, which is that we’re all aboard a ship going full steam ahead with nobody at the rudder.

    • Apepollo11@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      19
      ·
      10 months ago

      Also, at the time, in the west, Al Qaida were a largely unknown terrorist cell operating in far-away third-world countries. It seemed incredible that such a devastating attack could be carried out on US soil by a small group most people had never heard of.

    • acceptable_pumpkin@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      10 months ago

      And yet, this all powerful government couldn’t even fake finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to “validate” their invasion reasons.

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        10 months ago

        Government incompetence is the main reason I didn’t go down the conspiracy rabbit hole. They’re too stupid to pull most shit off without tripping over their own dicks.

  • hightrix@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    85
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    I didn’t actually believe this, but it was fun to entertain the idea.

    Here’s why. At the time, there were a bunch of very odd coincidences. I’ll do my best to remember the best of them.

    • The CIA/NSA (one of the “secret” agencies) put out a budget report showing a large amount of money that was not trackable, in the billions.
    • Coincidentally, the section of the pentagon hit by the “plane” was reportedly where financial records were stored.
    • By “plane”, I mean object. If you watch the 1 video that got out (all other videos were confiscated) from the nearby gas station, the thing that hits the pentagon does not look like a plane but instead a missile.

    Next!

    • reportedly, the owner of the twin towers took out a massive insurance policy against the buildings the day or week before 9/11 (I forget exact timing)
    • also, the building was covered in asbestos, the cost to remove was in the billions, and the cost to keep the building occupied always also increasing

    Next!

    • building 7 (I think that’s the right one) collapsed under what appeared to be demolishing conditions
    • building 7 was never hit by a plane or anything else, it just dropped like it was purposefully demolished

    Edit: forgot one!

    • the towers were obviously hit by planes, we have plenty of video evidence of this. The controversy is around how the towers actually fell. This is where the “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams” meme comes from.

    There are more, but it’s been 20 years and my memory is hazy.

    Overall, there were some oddities around the whole event that, when allowing yourself to think completely outside of reality, make sense as to why it was an inside job.

    Finally, personally I believe the Saudis did it in cooperation with Bin Laden and their goal was to bankrupt America. They did a pretty good job, from their perspective.

    • Bipta@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      39
      ·
      10 months ago

      I can’t vouch for the veracity of most of your content but I wanted to add that building 7 was also announced to have collapsed before it actually did.

      • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        54
        ·
        10 months ago

        I can’t vouch for the veracity of most of your content but I wanted to add that building 7 was also announced to have collapsed before it actually did.

        Yep. There was also the quotes from Rudi Guilani where he said something along the lines of “Pull Building 7”, where pull is demolitions parlance to set off the charges. This was like a day of audio snippet. Its also basically impossible to find the original footage that isn’t pure conspiracy drivel, but I remember it from the time when all of this was happening. There was so much going on in the wake of 9-11, with the country pretty much instantaneously jumping into war mode, being immediately handed a narrative around al-Qaeda with no investigation into the causes or veracity of the government claims around al-Qaeda.

        The push back on questioning the narrative was surreal. Like, you would be drawn and quartered publicly for doing so. The ‘feeling’ at the time was that the investigation into what actually happened and how felt like a complete sham that the government didn’t really want to do because so many people weren’t accepting the party narrative.

        Also, keep in mind the context. There was a strong anti-war sentiment in 2003 going into the invasion of Iraq. The “9-11 was an inside job crowd” found themselves running with the anti-war crowd as general anti-institutionalists. This was when Alex Jones was just finding his footing and definitely wasn’t quite fully right wing. He was more accurately (at the time, in historical context) anti-establishment. The modern right-wing movement hadn’t fully formed, although it found its roots in this historical period (the Tea party would also come out of this period).

        So just broadly consider the different vectors operating on public perception at the time. We were basically instantly construction a “Going to War is the Solution” narrative within hours of 9-11 happening, and the narrative around that construction was found to be fully formed as soon as it emerged, almost as if the institutions of the US government and its surrounding media had been prepared for this exact moment. Push back against this was effectively an instantaneous scarlett letter and there basically was none in US mainstream media*. There was a strong push back against any kind of independent investigation into the events leading up to the event. We got reports from the CIA and FBI, but considering the context, like, if those are the parties in question, do you believe them? Then you had the Saudi Bush family connections, the fact that we were basically going to war with Afghanistan when we knew it was the Saudis that did 9-11, which was like a pretty big red flag. Then there were the reports that globally, many governments warned about this happening to US intelligence agencies, but it seemed like they just kind of let it happen. Which is really where the conspiracy was focused. These days it gets too wrapped up in ‘inside job’ etc, but the general scheme was more about 9-11 being allowed to happen as an excuse for a Bush invasion into the middle east. This wasn’t a conspiracy that was built in hindsight, the speculation was built in real time (before the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq), and then go figure, Bush invades the middle east, and specifically, goes after Iraq. This basically fully validates the theory, and to put a cherry on top, the evidence on Iraq was all just… fraudulent. So if you limit the scope of the theory to 9-11 was ‘allowed’ to occur to justify a military industrial complex incursion into the middle east, its kind-of like “well yeah duh” because thats exactly what happened.

        Wild fukin time and wild bit of history. Important to keep context in mind, and to have sources of information about the past which aren’t ‘edited’ to reflect newthink.

        *Democracy Now did exist by this time (finding its establishment after the Seattle WTO protests). If you want to really understand what was going on at the time, this would be the media source I would recommend.

          • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            11
            ·
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it.

            I’m a scientist, so I do ‘write’ professionally, but its a very different kind of writing than I do here, and I would say that they are entirely seperate (excepting my discussion sections where I afford a bit more liberty to style, although I tend to be more focused on methods in my publications, where I don’t give myself as much liberty).

            I attribute my writing style to years of participating in forums and threaded discussion boards, starting in the early 90s. I try to use quotes from who I’m replying to, hyper links, bold and italics for emphasis, but to use a conversational/ editorial style. When I was coming up on the internet, I truly believed that the internet allowed for the democratization of ideas, in that, on the internet you have no appeal to authority on your credentials or name or background. The only weight you can provide is rhetoric and whatever evidence you can scuff up, and because of that, the best ideas should find their way to the top. Boy was I wrong, but I still believe in the virtue of good ideas, and that belief is part of my motivation for being involved in places like (formerly) reddit or (currently) lemmy.

            • Snot Flickerman
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              10 months ago

              As a scientist, how did you feel at the time about the railroading of scientist Bruce Ivins for the Anthrax scare?

        • machinin@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          10 months ago

          Before the Bush election, Cheney and Rumsfeild belonged to a think tank called a New American Century that created the plan to invade Iraq in order to create a government friendly to the US.

          One author even said that America would need a new Pearl Harbor to regain its military strength.

          • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            10 months ago

            I mean, this shit writes itself. If history were a work of political fiction, it would be called out as tropish, too on the nose and goofy to sustain disbelief.

        • phillaholic@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          10 months ago

          The push back on questioning the narrative was surreal.

          The vast majority of the time, the pushback was low effort “asking questions” based on fundamental misunderstanding of the subject matter or entirely pulled our of their asses.

          • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            10
            ·
            10 months ago

            Bro say what you will about the baselessness of it, but 9-11 conspiracy theorists were anything but low effort. People made documentaries, traveled to track down steel, built media enterprises off the back of it.

            • phillaholic@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              6
              ·
              10 months ago

              Time consuming sure; But doubling down on their own fundamental misunderstandings and preconceived notions isn’t what I would classify as real effort.

      • sanpedropeddler@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        10 months ago

        Countless incorrect things were announced. Everyone was collectively panicking. That’s odd, but it doesn’t necessarily mean anything considering the building was already visibly damaged.

      • Rakonat@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        10 months ago

        The building had been on fire for hours at that point with no water pressure to run the sprinklers or allow firefighters to effectively combat it. It was decided to stop efforts to save the building as it was presumed the integrity of the structure was damaged beyond repair.

        As for the reporters announcing it collapsing early, its doubtful that it was anything but one of many mistakes reporters made live on air hours into an exhausting day of chaos. Maybe that had been told the building was going to collapse at any minute or maybe they had been told efforts to stop collapse had ceased and an assumption was made by the crew on the ground it had already fell. As I recall it was the BBC that said it fell before it actually did, so the idea of a foreign news outlet being in on a false flag conspiracy is just too ridiculous to be believable over something such as an exhausted reporter misspeaking in the middle of an emotionally overwhelming day.

    • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      23
      ·
      10 months ago

      A building fire started by jet fuel absolutely can melt steel beams, and the collapse of building 7 occurred exactly as you would expect from a building fire, which happened because the fire in the other buildings was blown across by the wind and explosions. None of the building collapse videos look like a demolition.

      If the government wanted to execute an attack on Americans, why not just fund the terrorists and ignore warnings? Let the jihadists crash planes into buuldings. Setting hidden, controlled demolition charges and trying to make it look like a collapse is harder than finding some terrorists willing to die for their cause and teaching them to fly.

      It is conceivable to me that members of the intelligence community, the military-industrial complex, and/or the government ignored warnings and allowed the attacks to happen for their own benefit. I would prefer to think it wasn’t true, but I must concede that it would explain many inconsistencies.

      It is theoretically possible, but implausible to me, that those same people would coordinate the attacks and support the terrorists to ensure that the attacks would happen as a false flag operation. This is an extraordinary claim with almost no evidence.

      It is not in any way possible that the government demolished any of the buildings attacked on purpose and then covered up all evidence of the demolition. There would need to be too many people involved, too many videos altered or destroyed, and too much evidence planted after the fact. It is demonstrably false.

      • blazera@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        15
        ·
        10 months ago

        and the collapse of building 7 occurred exactly as you would expect from a building fire

        It wasnt the first skyscraper fire, but it was the first and still only skyscraper to collapse from a fire. So no i wouldnt say its expected at all.

      • hightrix@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        10 months ago

        As I said with the very first statement, I don’t believe any of this.

        why not just fund the terrorists and ignore warnings?

        This is exactly what many tinfoil hatters thought and probably still think.

    • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      18
      ·
      10 months ago

      The main one for me was that NORAD, for the first time ever, was “stress testing” their system and running every flight sim they had, so when things went down, they had no idea what was real and what wasn’t.

      The order to do so, for the first time, unprovoked, unnecessarily and unneededly came from Dick Cheney himself, who didn’t even have the authority to order the Pentagon to do ANYTHING but his orders were followed regardless.

      That’s a pretty big discrepancy. It’s really hard for me to rule that one out

      Building 7 is a big leap of faith to hurdle.

      The twin towers themselves collapsing in a controlled manner, that doesn’t happen without blowing individual floors. Buildings in war zones don’t fall down vertically, they’ll partially collapse or fall over, not straight down - that ONLY happens with controlled demolition.

      That’s a big leap of faith.

      Like almost everyone else, I was glued to the TV all day on 9/11. I remember when the Pentagon footage was aired on TV. It was played ONCE. That was a missile. It was clear as day. Beyond that, if it was an airplane, where’s the fucking wreckage? Cuz that would be the first plane crash in all of history that left zero wreckage.

      That’s a big leap of faith.

      It requires to many leaps of faith to believe the given story. Idk the whole of what happened, but I know we weren’t told it.

      The Patriot Act was introduced 5 weeks after the attack. 342 pages, no contradictions in the whole thing. Introduced, passed, and signed into law in 4 days. 5 weeks isn’t enough time to read 350 pages of legalese, let alone write it. It was ready to go

      Add to all the sus, America’s government post WW2, at least, has not warranted any trust from the public. The CIA has done a LOT of fucked up, illegal shit to us. The Bay of Tomkin was a false flag fucking lie to the people. The incessant lie of Neoliberalism telling us that GDP is up! But everyone’s quality of life is being striped away faster than our rights. Citizens United is bullshit, 2000 election was bullshit, Iraq and Afghanistan were both bullshit, qualified immunity and civil asset forfeiture are fucking repressive FASCIST bullshit and yea, you know, I don’t think the people calling the shots have our best interests in mind, how could you?

      • phillaholic@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        12
        ·
        10 months ago

        “_______ doesn’t happen without _______” all all bullshit based on nothing. NIST has published their findings. They had 200 Experts, 125 of which came from the private sector investigate how the towers came down, and there is absolutely no evidence what so ever that they were brought down in a controlled manner. I even remember watching a documentary that interviewed the owner or engineer of one of the US’s top demolition companies that easily pokes holes in the idea that a major skyscraper with people, furniture, etc could be brought down like that at all. It’s total nonsense. NIST has a FAQ page

          • phillaholic@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            10 months ago

            Sure, one guy looks at a video for twenty seconds and that counters 200 experts spending months researching and simulating it and those opinions are equal. If it were clear, you’d have thousands of experts claiming it. In reality, you have one guy willing to tarnish his reputation by making an impulse statement after seeing none of the facts.

      • Wolf_359@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        Donald Trump’s presidency pretty much removed any doubt I had about the official 9/11 story.

        He proved that our government is full of regular idiots who are just barely able to work together. Of course the 3 letter agencies have a lot of power and fancy technology, but if the CIA or NSA was seriously that in control of this country, Trump would have never happened. He is a bumbling moron who did a ton of damage to this country and nobody lifted a finger apparently? Damaging alliances, burning undercover assets, etc.

        Our Congress can’t work together long enough to pass basic bills. No way the Patriot act was planned with a false flag in mind.

        The 9/11 conspiracy is just way too big and would need way too many participants to keep it under wraps like that.

        Plus, every big disaster has conspiracy theories. If you believe all of them, you’re pretty much saying bad things never happen without the overlords planning them. 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, JFK assassination, RFK assassination, Pearl Harbor, and every other major event have had massive conspiracy theories and claims that they were inside jobs.

        Yeah, the official story has holes but reality is messy. It was a big attack involving/affecting a lot of agencies, corporations, and people. It’s pretty much guaranteed that out of the measly 365 days in a year, a lot of these groups and individuals would be doing their “once a year” inspections, misremember details in their panic, deal with other terrorist attacks, intersect with ongoing crimes that were being committed separately, etc.

        Seriously, a plane crashed into one of the biggest and wealthiest business centers in the world. The conspiracy theories write themselves no matter how clear the evidence is. Of course one of those companies has ties to foreign governments, obviously one of the CEOs is commiting fraud, one of the employees is bound to have worked for the government in a sensitive role. Imagine the ties you could find on one of the planes alone. Every plane in the sky right now has a politician’s relative, a political activist, a criminal, a foreign diplomat, high-ranking military, or all of the above. All of these things would spark a great conspiracy theory. Imagine the things you could find if you wanted to blame Boeing. Start looking into details about every employee they have and connect some dots. It’s easy.

        • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          10 months ago

          Oh I agree, you dig for dirt, you’ll find it, guarenteed. Whether or not it’s actually connected and not happenstance, that’s a different story.

          You only need you and 23 other people in a room to find two people with the same birthday. Coincidence is much more common than we think, just like true random doesn’t feel like random to us, and if something doesnt make sense, the brain can basically retcon on the spot and you’ll believe it as dogma to your core.

          It’s important to be aware of and to acknowledge our limitations, for sure. Crazy important.

          But let’s keep playing. Take my comment and strike out everything about the buildings falling and I’m still calling it sus.

          Were we just that unlucky that the first ever stress test of NORAD happened to coincide? Maybe, it’s a possibility, an extremely small one. 1/18687 to be exact. Not very probable.

          How about the missile into the Pentagon that was broadcast on live TV? The gas station footage was broadcast not the actual live event. Story goes reporters found a single camera that hadn’t already been seized and was pointing in the right direction.

          So I’m a poli sci guy. Where normal people flow sports teams or celebrities, I follow politics. Global politics as well as domestic, both federal and my state. It’s just what I do. Easily I’ve read 50+ articles a day since 1997. EASILY. That day was the first day for me at a new tree service, and I was the first guy to arrive at the arborists house before we rolled out and I delivered the news of the attack. Guys started showing up, we had the news flipped on and BAM 2nd Impact. Work was called off that day, after that. The Pentagon news came about 2 hours later, we were all still sitting in the arborists living room, just watching when the footage played, so 5 sets of eyes saw it and I said bullshit that’s a plane. 2 guys were ex military, they went off, about wreckage, how small the impact is. I can not forget that memory, besides the 2nd tower falling, the Pentagon lie, a quick oopsies they hoped ppl would forget if they just lied loud enough and fast enough, that redacting in real time, really set the dark tone that was to come. It wasn’t that we were just attacked. Some part of it was opportunistic.

          2001 was basically the stone ages compared to now. The Internet was still geocities, a/s/l chatrooms. All your base had JUST belonged to us. It would’ve taken a whole lot less individuals to conduct something in an unmonitored world.

          I don’t claim to know what happened, I just knew we’re being lied too. There’s no theory, just calling bullshit for what it is.

      • TheRealKuni@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        if it was an airplane, where’s the fucking wreckage? Cuz that would be the first plane crash in all of history that left zero wreckage.

        There was plenty of wreckage. There were no big chunks of fuselage or wings or engines, but that isn’t uncommon with extreme accidents. A plane at high speed slamming into the ground, a cliff, or a heavily reinforced building, is going to disintegrate into pretty small pieces, making investigations difficult. And indeed there are photos of small chunks of plane wreckage found at the Pentagon on 9/11.

    • PM_me_your_vagina_thanks@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      10 months ago

      Building 7 had one of the towers fucking fall on it, was seen bulging massively before collapsing, and it was pretty obvious what was going to happen, hence people getting confused and saying it had already collapsed.

    • otp@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      10 months ago

      the towers were obviously hit by planes, we have plenty of video evidence of this. The controversy is around how the towers actually fell. This is where the “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams” meme comes from.

      Of course, the meme is a parody of anyone who thinks that’s a legitimate argument. You don’t need to liquify a material for it to lose its structural integrity.

        • otp@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          10 months ago

          Yes, people believed “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams”, but the meme is a parody of people who believed it.

          Sometimes parodies are just literal reflections.

    • M500@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      10 months ago

      Weren’t the towers completely closed just prior to the incident?

  • ElleChaise@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    73
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    Because the FBI gave the terrorists all the training, weapons, and about $2bn in cold hard cash money that lead to them being able to commit the act. Because “jet fuel doesn’t melt steel beams”, although it does weaken steel beams. Because engineering and demolition experts came out and said the whole thing seemed coordinated exactly in the way in which they coordinate tear-downs for a living. Because the terrorists who on the same day planned to blow up the George Washington Bridge got sent home on a plane and were never spoken about publicly again. Because it was obvious Saidi Arabia had a hand in it, which later became confirmed fact, and we’re buddy buddy with Saudi, so somebody had to have known something was going to happen but didn’t sufficiently try to stop it on our side of the water. Because the Bin Laden family and the Bush family have a weird amount of connections. Be cause conspiracy theory culture was seen as more typical/harmless, and less of a thing for Nazi terrorists like today. Because the FBI had Bin Laden dead to rights in 1998 and had a bedside conversation with him instead of taking the opportunity to kill him while he was on dialysis. Because the 40 years that preceded 9/11 were lousy with proven incidence where our leadership, specifically the FBI & CIA in conjunction with corrupted presidents, in which American citizens were coerced, sabotaged, drugged, tortured, and killed, and all the leaders had to say about it was ‘whoopsy doopsy, so sowwy’

    • marcos@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      23
      ·
      10 months ago

      the whole thing seemed coordinated exactly in the way in which they coordinate tear-downs for a living

      Oh, yeah, there’s that. The buildings had a very unusual¹ structure that tends to naturally collapse on a similar way as controlled demolition. It’s extremely unlikely for normal buildings to go down that way, so it did raise some suspicion.

      1 - Unusual for buildings in general, but common for buildings of that size.

  • spittingimage@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    63
    ·
    10 months ago

    I think it’s because people would rather believe the world is secretly controlled by some truly awful people than acknowledge no-one’s steering the bus.

    • platypus_plumba@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      26
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      I think it is because of the bizarre way the towers collapsed. Just like a controlled demolition looks like. The way the WTC7, that did not get hit by any plane, also collapsed. Supposedly because it caught on fire too.

      I think this is really the cause of suspicion, it was just pretty bizarre. A lot of people came forward to explain that a fire couldn’t brind such a massive structure down.

      Also, the US is known for doing weird shit behind everyone’s backs. The CIA is constantly doing shit like taking governments down or causing a drug crisis in black neighborhoods. You gotta admit the US agencies are sneaky in general, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if they were actually responsible for the twin towers. There’s no evidence but I’m pretty sure the CIA was somehow involved with the Nord Stream pipeline

      • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        16
        ·
        10 months ago

        Also a lot of people came forward to explain that a fire couldn’t brind such a massive structure down.

        And yet One Meridian Plaza was a skyscraper built in the same era as 7 World Trade Center that had a fire so bad that caused the building to be condemned due to structural damage caused by the fire. The only reason One Meridian Plaza didn’t completely collapse during the fire was because there were fire sprinklers on some of the floors and the fire got up to a floor that had them.

        So now Lower Manhattan had lost water pressure, making the fire sprinkler system worthless. You also had a lot of the people who would be responsible for fighting the fire pancaked in debris nearby. This was the first skyscraper of its size in a over a decade allowed to burn.

        But a controlled demolition is a lot more comforting of a thought that the complete failure of disaster response.

          • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            10 months ago

            Also, in the WTC7 collapse video, you can see the rooftop penthouse collapse into the building a few seconds before the building collapses. This was the floors collapsing as the inner columns failed which left the building as an empty shell that had no lateral support. Controlled demolitions don’t look or act like that.

        • platypus_plumba@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          10 months ago

          I’m not saying it is a conspiracy, I was just explaining why people think it is.

          But let’s assume they did place the explosives, they wouldn’t have to be in the place of impact, they would be located in many places, just like a controlled demolition.

          Again, not saying that’s what happened, just saying that the US is constantly doing sneaky stuff under the covers, which is why most conspiracies don’t seem far fetched.

          Do you really think it is insane to believe the US made up the moon landing as a propaganda campaign against Russia? I believe we went to the moon, but if they came up with official documents saying we didn’t, I would be like “welp, US doing US things I guess”

          • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            10 months ago

            Do you really think it is insane to believe the US made up the moon landing as a propaganda campaign against Russia?

            Which moon landing? All of them? There was more than one. And yes I think it is very nearly insane given how much evidence we have.

            • platypus_plumba@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              10 months ago

              If you want to take this to a philosophical extreme so you understand my argument, is it possible to ever know anything with certainty?

              What do you call evidence? Photos, videos, testimony… Do I personally trust in that evidence? Yes, it would be very unlikely to be fake, but many unlikely conspiracies have surfaced in the past.

    • EatATaco@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      10 months ago

      This explains most conspiracy theories: it’s easier to believe that the bad in the world is caused by some evil cabal than it is to accept that it’s just chaotic and crazy shit happens. It’s no surprise that most conspiracy theorists are also religious and believe there is some fight between the devil and god playing out. It’s a small leap from one position based on faith to the other.

  • bamfic@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    58
    ·
    10 months ago

    Because there was some legit sketchy shit:

    1. Bush was warned at least a month in advance that an attack was coming. He deliberately did nothing. This was documented publicly in a Senate hearing afterwards. We don’t know whether he did nothing because of incompetence or malice, and we don’t know who else knew in advance as well, but either way, at least he and the people who briefed him knew.

    2. The dirty secret of skyscrapers is that they’re mostly made of nothing. They’re almost entirely air. It takes precious little to weaken them and bring them down. The Bin Laden family was in the construction business and they knew this fact very well.

    3. As others have noted in the thread, Bin Laden and the Muhjadeen had been funded, trained, and armed by the USA. They were our creation.

    Usually when people are suspicious, they’re right to be suspicious. They’re not always right about what to be suspicious about.

    • remotelove@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      27
      ·
      10 months ago

      It takes precious little to weaken them and bring them down.

      I would argue that an airliner filled with tons of fuel is not “little”. That was a lot of mass moving really fast into the towers. Even then, it took a while for the structures to become weak enough to collapse. Given the circumstances, it was amazing the towers lasted as long as they did after they were hit.

      Your core description is correct though: There really isn’t much to skyscrapers.

    • madcaesar@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      24
      ·
      10 months ago

      I’m confused by this comment, what exactly is sketchy?

      W is/was an incompetent fool that didn’t feel the threat was worth acting upon. Instead of imagining some 4D conspiracy its much easier to see and understand that him and his administration were inept.

      There have been numerous documentaries and analysis about skyscrapers and planes and the conclusion was that the towers actually performed ABOVE average. People don’t seem to understand the power involved in a fucking jerliner slamming into a building.

      Bin Laden was trained and armed to fight the Russians, which he did. He then decided to turn on us because he always was always a lunatic.

      Again, nothing about 9/11 is mysterious to me and I don’t get the conspiracy thinking.

      • hex_m_hell@slrpnk.net
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        10 months ago

        A lot of people grew up being used to a safe county. The idea that the government didn’t actually keep people safe, and that leaders could be so insanely incompetent, was so shocking it was easier to believe in crazy conspiracy theories.

        It’s pretty easy to believe in an incompetent government after 9/11, but W came after Clinton and Bush Sr. The first Bush was the head of the CIA. He was evil, but highly competent. Clinton was clearly a world leader, also highly competent. Before that you had Reagan, who was Machiavellian as fuck running secret wars around the world. You had decades of these people looking like they were playing geopolitical 4d chess, then you had this clown who was playing checkers with pidgins. Then you had this incredible shock of the biggest attack on the US since Perl Harbor. It broke a lot of people’s brains.

    • otp@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      10 months ago

      Usually the conspiracy theories are along the lines of…

      1. Of course Bush did nothing, it was him who ordered the attacks.
      2. The skyscrapers weren’t attacked, they were demolished
      3. Bin Laden (and anyone outside the US) was nothing but a scapegoat.

      The sketchy shit makes a lot more sense than the conspiracy theories about demolitions and no planes (just projectors, lmao)

  • Dr. Coomer@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    24
    ·
    10 months ago

    Because the FBI lost 2.3 trillion the day before 9/11 (though note that this was brought up way before 9/11, but was restated the day before), and mixed with things like ruby ridge incident, Waco incident, and other things has lead people to be distrustful of the FBI, and I honestly can’t blame them.

  • Supervivens@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    21
    ·
    10 months ago

    I mean prob because although it wasn’t done directly by the gov they had plenty of warning and did nothing.

    • Kissaki@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      10 months ago

      What do you mean by they had plenty of warning? Do you consider the government, FBI, and CIA to be one entity?

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        12
        ·
        10 months ago

        Normally the agencies coordinate.

        Cheney changed that when Bush was elected, and had everything go thru him. It was his decision what another agency and even the president was told.

        The pieces were all there, but Cheney was literally the only person who saw all the pieces before it happened.

        And he never said anything.

        Maybe he was incompetent, maybe he was evil enough to let it happen.

        But lots of people call Dick Cheney evil, no one calls him incompetent

    • vzq
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      edit-2
      3 months ago

      deleted by creator

  • trainsaresexy@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    20
    ·
    10 months ago

    Because two planes hit two buildings (and the other one) and like 3-4 buildings imploded. It didn’t look real.

    Im guessing engineers didn’t plan for planes to strike the building which is why they crumbled.

    That was literally it. It was so odd a situation to our daily lives that parts of it didn’t seem real.

    • frostwhitewolf@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      10 months ago

      They actually did design the buildings to survive such incidents, which is one of the many reasons that makes it all a bit fishy

      • Rakonat@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        10 months ago

        They designed the buildings to implode because on the 60s and 70s there was a worry that buildings would topple over onto neighbouring buildings if damaged or compromised, and was a legitimate concern as architects were putting forth designs using less reinforcement because they didn’t need as much half a century earlier to build things like the empire state building thanks to better building techniques and materials.

        They did exactly what they were designed to do when their integrity was compromised to the point to failure, which is impressive feet. Just ask any engineer what happens when a small but dense and fast moving object slams into the end of a second class lever.

      • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        10 months ago

        The buildings were designed to withstand a small or medium sized aircraft at a relatively low speed with low fuel, similar to the incident with the Empire State Building. It’s not uncommon for other buildings to be built to similar standards, so I don’t see how this would be fishy. It’s a pair of skyscrapers, the threat of a plane hitting them accidentally during bad weather was a possibility. They were not designed to withstand a modern airliner travelling at an incredibly high speed with a full load of fuel. The fact they survived as long as they did is miraculous.

  • DepthCharge@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    Operation Northwoods

    Wtc7 a building not hit by a plane collapsed. With there being a video of the leaseholder saying they brought it down on purpose because it was badly damaged. Controlled demolition takes weeks of planning.

    Plus the BBC reported on wtc7 collapsing too early, the building was still visible in reporters background

    It is the only day in history that 3 steel buildings collapsed because of fire

    Firefighters reported explosions going off in the basement just before the plane hit the building

    Reports of pools of melting iron which allegedly can only be caused by thermite. Thermite would also be the reason why there was so much dust

    The Pentagon; no good footage of the plane hitting. All the camera footage of surrounding business have been confiscated

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

    https://www.facebook.com/rallyforjustice/videos/wtc-owner-larry-silverstein-gave-order-to-pull-building-7/1313503455744806/&ved=2ahUKEwjgpeCxsqqEAxXs9wIHHRVgDdcQo7QBegQICBAB&usg=AOvVaw2RmpBAKFmsL8MRumJ8Un3H

    https://benthamopen.com/DOWNLOAD-PDF/TOCPJ-2-7/&ved=2ahUKEwi7xo3QsaqEAxUJ7AIHHYKSCZgQFnoECC0QAQ&usg=AOvVaw0-5vVgUAuvoyabZ6icDfJ_

    • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      10 months ago

      Reports of pools of melting iron which allegedly can only be caused by thermite.

      You can only melt iron with thermite? What?!

      Thermite would also be the reason why there was so much dust

      Yeah, why else would there be dust…around a gigantic building that collapsed.

    • conciselyverbose@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      10 months ago

      “Controlled demolitions take weeks of planning” because under normal circumstances, the risk of waiting is not that high. That doesn’t mean that subject matter experts aren’t capable of making an intelligent plan in a short period when a building is catastrophically damaged in heavily populated area where waiting can very easily result in more damage and more risk of casualties.

      As for “melting iron”, if you’re talking eyewitnesses before the demolition, they have no idea what was melted. If you’re talking after, no shit they used demolition-grade explosives. It was a fucking skyscraper in the middle of a massively populated city that wasn’t stable. It had to come down.

  • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    I drove away from the WTC on the morning of 2001-09-11. I watched from a safe distance as the towers fell. It was a surreal day I shared with like 10 million people as we watched the smoke and fires and falling structures, willing with every ounce of our being that our loved ones due to be in the area at the time - and one in the building interviewing upstairs - ended up far away at the right time. The universe delivered, and we luckily lost no dear friends that day, but it was tense while some of them were in the proverbial wind.

    I still - I’m ashamed to admit - think something was SUPER-fishy about the pentagon strike. I believe it when they say the parts don’t add up, and I believe them when they say the surveillance tapes from a local gas station were taken, and I debated the significance of the lamp-posts being taken down in the days before where they magically didn’t get hit by the incoming plane. And I’m pretty sure the plane following that pennsylvania crash was doing more than watching.

    Do I think the planes hit the towers? Yep. Do I think the jet fuel weakened the structure until it popped? Yep. But I can’t resolve the rumour that the basement was empty on that day of all days. I heard the stories that the tail numbers were spotted elsewhere and I briefly gave it some thought until I just went “nah, fuck that” and tossed that idea.

    I don’t think there’s gonna be an alternate explanation to cover the weird concerns I have, and I can live with that; but I’m not gonna forget it.

    That’s the way it is.

      • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        10 months ago

        Rebuttal: There were six frames showing the impact from a security camera, which were released after a FOIA request.[51] Furthermore, photographic evidence of wreckage on the scene and eyewitness accounts of plane wreckage and damage are consistent with a plane crash.[52] Essentially, the problem for no-planers is that the plane didn’t just hit the outside of the Pentagon, but actually penetrated some distance into the structure, some of which even collapsed on top of the plane. Numerous witnesses saw it approach, the plane’s wings took out several street lights on a nearby roadway on the way in, and plane components were scattered all over the Pentagon lawn.

        Also, while inconclusive (and “personal commentary”), a photo was presented on a 9/11 truther website which claimed that the “round” debris observed possibly was not the wheel of the alleged jetliner. But it clearly was, albeit stripped of its outer edge.

        Why would anyone expect a high-resolution video camera to be pointed at where the plane hit? The intrinsic improbability of such a circumstance would make it direct evidence of a conspiracy, and no self-respecting conspiracy would allow evidence of its existence to remain.

        The Pentagon is a reinforced concrete building with blast-resistant windows. It was struck by an aluminum-skinned commercial aircraft that had already lost a wing before hitting the building: such an aircraft is mostly empty space, with voids in the wings for fuel and the fuselage for passengers; only the floor of the passenger compartment, the undercarriage, and the engine cores are particularly solid objects. The damage is consistent with this scenario: nobody but truthers would seriously expect a cartoony plane-shaped hole.[53]

        Rebuttal from https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/9/11, which also debunks most other 9/11 truther nonsense.

  • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    10 months ago

    I think you need to reassess these people you respect a lot. Belief in 9-11 conspiracy theories is not common.

        • mods_are_assholes@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          10 months ago

          I think the weaponization of ignorance is a more nuanced subject than a binary choice.

          There is no merit in pushing significantly disproven ‘theories’ like flat earthism.

            • mods_are_assholes@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              10 months ago

              Funny you mention that, there is a Flat Earth society that was started as a joke with members just arguing for fun.

              They were mostly all replaced by true believers by the late 90s, I got to watch it happen.

              And it plays out the same way in so many ‘ironic stupidity’ forums.

  • marcos@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago
    • It was done by a group propped up by the CIA.

    • Immediately after the attack the US gov did nothing but watch Bin Laden go from a known position into unreachable hideout. Then immediately started an illegal attack that took years to get authorized.

    • Just after this, the US started a huge war, with plenty of indiscriminate civilian killing against one of the largest enemies of the people behind Al-Qaeda, and started exercises for a war against another one of their other top 3 enemies.

    • The US intelligence organizations got several warnings, didn’t act on any of them.

    And I’m pretty sure there are more issues, I didn’t follow it closely. During all that time the media was lying about everything. So, if you have to believe something that is not the official information, I’d guess it’s not hard to go overbroad and decide the US gov took the building down by themselves.

    • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      10 months ago

      It was done by a group propped up by the CIA.

      That doesn’t really narrow it down. Langley has its fingers in a lot of pies.

      Immediately after the attack the US gov did nothing but watch Bin Laden go from a known position into unreachable hideout. Then immediately started an illegal attack that took years to get authorized.

      Hanlon’s Razor means this is likely because the US government was stupid, rather than malicious

      • marcos@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        10 months ago

        because the US government was stupid

        It was maliciousness, but a completely different kind of maliciousness than the people on the “9/11 was an inside job” train decided it was.

        It made some people lots of money directly, and it got other people the goodwill of some rich bastards. None of what had any relation to 9/11.