Posted on 08/16/2006 3:02:58 AM PDT by ajolympian2004
(New book from Popular Mechanics just released August 15, 2006)
Introduction
The first conspiracy theories about 9/11 began to emerge while the wreckage was still smoldering. As evidence accumulated that conclusively linked the hijackings to Al Qaeda, some self-proclaimed skeptics searched for alternative explanations. Many seemed driven to find a way to blame the United States for somehow abetting, or even orchestrating, the tragedy.
In the years since the attacks, these assertions have grown progressively more lurid and pervasive. If you search the phrase “9/11 conspiracy” on the Internet, you will discover more than 800,000 Web pages. A few skeptics make a responsible effort to sift through the mountain of available information, but a vast majority ignore all but a few stray details they think support their theories. In fact, many conspiracy advocates demonstrate a double standard. They distrust the mainstream media coverage and government sponsored investigations of 9/11, yet they cherry-pick from those same sources to promote their extreme notions: that the hijacked planes weren’t commercial jets, but military aircraft, cruise missiles, or remote-control drones; that the World Trade Center buildings were professionally demolished; that American air defenses were deliberately shut down; and more.
Increasingly, such beliefs are migrating from the fringes and into the mainstream. French author Thierry Meyssan’s The Big Lie, which argues that the U.S. military used one of its own guided missiles to attack the Pentagon, was a bestseller in France, and his claims have been widely repeated in European and Middle Eastern media. When Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote to President George W. Bush in May 2006, his rambling missive included broad hints that the American government was involved in organizing the attacks. Allegations of American complicity in 9/11 have become standard fare on talk radio, and among both radical left- and radical right-wing groups. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, a Democrat from Georgia, has held a Capitol Hill hearing on the topic. Celebrities have gotten into the act as well. “Why did Bush knock down the towers?” rapper Jadakiss asked in his 2004 hit “Why?” And, in an interview with conspiracy-oriented talk-show host Alex Jones, actor Charlie Sheen embraced a variety of popular conspiracy theories.
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion,” Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York was fond of saying. “He is not entitled to his own facts.” Sooner or later, even the wildest 9/11 theories rely on factual claims. And facts can be checked.
Popular Mechanics became involved in investigating 9/11 conspiracy theories in the fall of 2004, after an advertisement ran in the New York Times for the book Painful Questions by Eric Hufschmid, demanding that the 9/11 investigation be reopened. Hufschmid’s book includes a number of tangible claims regarding 9/11. It states, for example, that because jet fuel does not burn hot enough to melt steel, the fires in the World Trade Center towers could not have caused their collapse. And it claims ample evidence exists to show that demolition-style explosives were prepositioned in the buildings.
As editors of a magazine devoted to science and technology, we saw these claims as significant. Was there hard evidence to support them? And, if so, what would be the implications for our understanding of 9/11? At the very least, we thought, someone should look into these allegations. If there were even a hint of truth to these or similar claims, then the conspiracy theorists had a point: There should be a deeper investigation.
Parts 2, 3 and 4 here -
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/3491861.html?page=1&c=y
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Book blog site - (summary, book excerpts, etc.)
http://www.popularmechanics.com/blog/911mythsblog
Forward by John McCain -
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/3491861.html?page=3&c=y
At Amazon -
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/158816635X/sr=8-1/qid=1155720312
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Famous Daniel Moynihan quote (former Senator from New York) -
"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion. He is not entitled to his own facts."
bump
CNN.....Washington Post....DU.
What's the difference any more?
It would take months of work to prepare buildings like the WTC for a controlled demolition. To believe the moonbats, you have to believe that crews of people were going around cutting key structural members with metal saws and torches, setting explosive charges, and wiring up said charges to detonation control devices, for weeks before 9/11, and that no one working in the WTC in all that time ever stopped to ask them what they were doing, or even noticed that something was going on.
I guess that's where Karl Rove's cloaking device comes in - do you suppose he paid someone for the plans for it, or did he steal it from the Romulans himself?
here's a link to the "Loose Change Viewer's Guide", which provides a running commentary on Loose Change.
It documents the errors line-by-line
http://www.ccdominoes.com/lc/LooseChangeGuide.html
Now one of the Loose Change guys says they left some errors in deliberately (like Pee Wee Herman: "I meant to do that")
"We know there are errors in the documentary, and we've actually left them in there so that people discredit us and do the research for themselves -- the B52 (remarked to have flown into the Empire State Building), the use of Wikipedia, things like that. We left them in there so people will want to discredit us and go out and research the events yourself and come up with your own conclusions. That's our whole goal, to make Americans think."
http://alternet.org/story/40476/
kinda hard to take these guys seriously
from the same article:
ROWE: "Loose Change" happened by accident. The whole thing started out as a fictional screenplay about me and Dylan and another friend of ours finding out 9/11 was an inside job. It started out as a comedic action film with us being chased by the FBI and all that. But when Dylan started researching the screenplay, he found out the attacks really were an inside job, so we made it into a documentary.
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So there you have it. They started out wanting to do fiction. Looks like they succeeded.
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