9/11 Conspiracy Theories

There is no shortage of works describing the events of 911. They can almost all be divided into two very distinct camps. One camp believes that the U.S. government was the driving force behind the terrorist attacks that occurred that day. The other camp believes that the perpetrators of 911 were Islamo Fascists. I myself have been in both camps. However, the more I have studied 911 the clearer it is to me that there are significant problems with the arguments of both camps and that a new set of theories regarding the events of 911 is needed.

I call the first group the Truth Movement. I call the second group the Official Story. In the Truth Movement I would include works such as The 9-11 Loose Change video, and Forbidden Truth. In the Official Story group I would include works such as the US 911 Report and Popular Mechanics’ Debunking 9/11 Myths. Of course neither group is completely homogenous in their beliefs, however, there are some core conclusions shared by most members of each group.

The core conclusions of the Truth Movement are:

1. The guiding force behind the 911 attacks was not Al Queda or some other Islamic terrorist group. It was a complex, coordinated false flag operation coordinated by a clandestine group within the US government possibly with the help of foreign governments.
   
2. Many if not at all of the facts reported by the Official Story group are false. For example, the towers were not brought down as a result of the collision and after effects of the hijacked planes but rather a controlled demolition set up before hand, or the Pentagon was not hit by a hijacked plane but rather by a missile, or a hijacked plane never crashed into the Pennsylvania wilderness and the cell phone calls from passengers alleged to be on that flight were fabricated.
   
3. There are an incredible number of unresolved questions and inconsistencies in the Official Story. One or two of these would not amount to much, however the large number of questions and the gravity of the issues unexplained can only indicate some type of conspiracy initiated by the US Government and/or rogue elements from the government, industry, and friendly powers such as Israel or Saudi Arabia.
   

The core conclusions of the Official Story group are:

1. The guiding force behind the 911 attacks was Al Queda.
   
2. All of the essential facts reported by the 911 Report are true.
   
3. There are some unresolved questions and inconsistencies in the Official Story. However, this is not all that surprising given the fact that the US has never experienced an attack like 911 and that the government has classified some 911 documents for security reasons. The unresolved questions and inconsistencies can be explained by human error and the fog of war.
   

Both sides have their adherents on the left and right. The US Government and most right wing authors side with the Official Story. However, there are some far right groups that are proponents of the Truth Movement. These groups are often anti-semites who see a large involvement from Israel in the conspiracy. On the left the same people who believe in assassination and other conspiracies are the main advocates of the Truth Movement. They are usually fairly isolated from and even hostile toward others on the left, including even the far left such as Noam Chomsky. I think its unfortunate that there is such a divide between left wing intellectuals. The left needs to focus on fighting the criminals who are destroying this country and the world, not each other. Regardless of which story is true the Bush administration and their Neoconservative gurus were responsible for 9/11. Either through negligence or complicity.

I don’t fit into either camp. I believe there is a middle ground defined as follows:

1. We don’t have enough information to tell for sure exactly who commited the attacks of 911 nor exactly how they did it. It seems likely that Al Queda was involved to some extent.
   
2. Many of the conclusions developed by the Official Story group are incomplete or false. Examples include why did WTC Building 7 collapse, who made the large number of put calls against airline stock, why were there several training excercises going on in US air space on 9/11, and who perpetrated the anthrax attacks that followed?
   
3. There are an incredible number of unresolved questions and inconsistencies in the Official Story. This is a serious issue because it means we still don’t know for sure who launched the attacks nor how they did it. We have never held anyone in the US government accountable for the lapse in security nor have we ever convicted anyone in a court of law.