Noam Chomsky claims that science dismisses theories of controlled demolition of the WTC 1,2 & 7.

100 acres of 4 inch thick concrete turned to powder in 10 seconds!
And again 100 acres of 4 inch thick concrete turned to powder in 10 seconds!

Twice in an hours time.

The world was not watching buildings just collapse.
The world was watching a very controlled demolition of those buildings.

The physical laws conservation of momentum was not in effect that day? Who broke that law?

It is time for Mr. Chomsky to retire; he certainly is not keeping an open mind to the obvious clues to such an horrendous crime. He certainly exhibits a strong denial in order to defend the Cheney Bush Crime Syndicate.

I wish Mr. Chomsky, who I admire greatly, could explain why building 7 fell--not just why it fell (yeah yeah fire, damage) but why it fell straight down, onto its footprint. Why is this evidence so weak? It'd be great if the US gov actually investigated it. If you're looking at the evidence clearly, without the predjudice of "that secret could never have been kept," then it seems to me you gotta conclude it was an inside job. It certainly does matter, but not as much as what the neo-cons are gonna do next, so whatever.

Despite what he says, Chomsky seems to be completely uniformed concerning "conspiracy theories" on 9/11 by the "Left."

Unless 9/11 was committed by one person acting alone, it was a conspiracy. Pick the conspiracy you most believe. Some of what the government is telling us may be true. Much of it seems not to be. The only way to put this to rest would be to have a full, honest investigation. That's not likely.

Unknown to Chomsky, despite all his apparent emails from the left, many of the people disputing the official facts on 9/11 are scientists and pretty right-leaning.

In the end Chomsky says it doesn't matter who was behind killing J.F.K. — it could have been a jealous husband. And he doesn't think it matters who was behind 9/11.

I guess that means Chomsky is nilhist, because if those things don't matter, then nothing does. Open all the jails. No crime should be investigated or punished.

I really got the feeling Chomsky loves talking, never wants to stop, even when he doesn't know what he's talking about and has nothing to say.

Many government insiders have come forward and proclaimed it was an inside job. You can find them and hundreds of other ex military, FBI and CIA officers, gov office holders, architects and engineers, airline pilots, university professors and journalists--go to
linked text
These voices are silenced by our traitorus media outside the internet. It took a lot of courage to speak out in public on this issue. I am sure many are suffering professionally because
they did. Chomsky obviously does not want to suffer for his country.

While it may seem a bit harsh, who does care? After close to a million killed in retribution for an attack that killed a couple thousand people, why are so many (like those who have commented previously) so distracted, so obsessed, so convinced that they know the secrets about something they cannot change?

Even if it were true that the government killed over 2000 of its own citizens... even if our intelligence agencies killed a president.... IT DOESN'T MATTER?

Wow... I never had all that much love for Chomsky to begin with... but that right there just blows all respect I might ever have had for the man.

A Jealous husband theory? Nice.
The mafia? Yeah... its not like they EVER had anything to do with the CIA, Noam. Its not like Hoover said there was no organized crime in the US and hung out with the mafia when they were doing their gambling and whoring in Hot Springs, Ar. And its CERTAINLY not like Hoover ever had a grudge against the Kennedy family. After all.. its not like Hoover was the one who caught JFK on tape fooling around with a woman who was also a Russian opperative... which is what got him onto PT109. The evidence is overwhelming? No, Noam.. its not.

Look, maybe both were utterly explainable.. either way, Noam is still wholly wrong for thinking it doesn't matter. He even contradicts himself. If it didn't matter they wouldn't end up in front of firing squads if found out!

I asked Chomsky in person why he was so skeptical, here's the gist of his response:

The 9/11 truth movement is a distraction from the "real" crimes taking place. There aren't any scientists (except Steven Jones whom I pointed out at the time 2 years ago, now there are many more) who agree with the truthers. Building 7? He would "have to study civil [sic] engineering for two years to understand how and why it fell." You can't just go by what you read on the internet, he told me.

All very disimissive and condescending, and utterly wrong about everything. His legacy is now pretty well tapped-out--from champion of the left anti-imperialist crowd to its worst enemy. Chomsky's reluctance to accept the truth about 9/11 is key to understanding who the real perpetrators were. In other words, it is instructive to understand whom Chomsky is protecting and why. Prepare for some shocks along the way!

who to believe? it's easiest, in the america that exists today, to believe the worst, expect deception. we've been given nothing that would afford believing better of anyone anymore. that is the end result, regardless of the cause.

Chomsky is the best and brightest of the left. Not believing that our government did 9/11 does not change that. I don't believe it either and wish people would focus on what we know they didn't do and what we know they did do. They did nothing after receiving many warnings and lied about that. They DID lie us into a war that has killed thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. While I believe that a government that would lie to start a war is capable of anything and would kill as many as needed to justify that war, I don't think they HAD to do 9/11, just allow it to happen. Which is what they did.

Why so obtuse? If you don't know enough about Civil Engineering to make a valid Analysis of why Building 7 and the Twin Towers collapsed in free fall just like a thermite planned destruction would do, then just don't act like if you had that education you would 'explain it to us all'.
After being impressed with his excellent book "Hegemony or Survival", the stubbornness against the 9-11 Truthers exhibited by Chomsky and Bill Maher doesn't make sense, unless the Zionist Overlords/ Bankers/ Military Industrial Elite Fascist Masters have them on a short leash, too.

I challenge you to put this video, or a transcript, as a lead story on Alternet.

No matter how much you cover your ears and ignore the obvious, change or ignore the subject, too many of us know for a fact, that 9/11 did not happen the way the official conspiracy theory of the Zelikow commission would have us believe.

Nobody could keep a secret? Is that so, Noam? Like the Manhattan project, right Noam? Nobody working on the Manhattan project could have kept a secret, right Noam?

Oh, and those on the left are making money off their books and video materials, Noam? I guess they should just give their work away, like you, right? Making money impugns their credibility, right? Given that assessment, Noam Chomsky’s credibility is shot to hell.

Those who have voiced objection to the official conspiracy theory --as defended by Alternet, including you Joshua Holland, and expressed their objections in print or video, haven't made the tiniest fraction that weapons manufacturers, or the MSM have in generating, promoting and defending the official 9/11 conspiracy lie. But the profits of Goliath are legitimate. Not so for David. Right Noam?

When it comes to an understanding of the causes of 9/11, Chomsky is full of it. He's way out of his depth. His defense of the Bush administration, or elements within the United States government infrastructure against charges of possible complicity in 9/11 is without merit, and revolting.

Chomsky is a collaborator, a Trojan Horse, and moral coward. and he knows it, poor man. He and other defenders of the state, protest just a bit too much. You ignore too much. There is no element of the official 9/11 myth you question. You admit no chink in the armor. You know that by giving a quarter, the house of cards will tumble down and you'll be swinging like the contractors in Fallujah. Willful blindness. Interesting.

Keep toeing the party line, Joshua, and your job is secure. You will enjoy your retirement and your grandchildren in a bucolic setting. Step out of line though, and you are history. There will be no atonement. Got it?

It's a cold and vicious world out there. And you know it. So does Chomsky.

...c'mon, folks, you all are right. and everyone's theory has it flaws or its hidden angst. you just follow different paths and there cannot be enough ways to find the truth. let everyone follow his way and most of all - stay in contact and keep first things first: we not only don't want things getting worse - we wan't them to get better. and THIS can only be achieved by being tolerant with all them other ways of truthfinding. yesss: it IS important to find out who done it. and yesss: it IS even more important, to create new ideas. better exchange, ways to meet and act..... and getting the news to the many many who haven't time and breath to argue the latest details of 9/11 on this worlds blogs. howgh.

Fed you, intellectually that is.

It's quite painful to me to watch some of the comments posted by people here. Chomsky was writing about the West's imperial crimes before most of us here could even fathom such a notion as "US" and "Empire" in the same thought. One of the greatest minds the left (left, not "liberal") has ever produced is being spit on now because he has the audacity to not buy into a theory that's been dismissed and disproved more times than anyone should care to count.

What about Building 7, Noam?! How does your science explain that one away, Noam!? Yes, Noam, tell us how the building which had practically the entirety of its south side burnt to a crisp, tell us how it could possibly collapse?!

The evangelism of the "9/11 Truth" crowd truly does border on religious obsession. But, as Chomsky is fully aware, it is not by any means a new occurrence, which is the tragedy in all this. These are the people who believe that if only they could prove "the government did it" that it would change everything. Somehow, the illegal invasion of a sovereign state, hundreds of thousands of dead, domestic wire tapping, torture, rampant corruption--none of this is enough--but exposing a cover up! Yeah, that'd be the ticket!

That's what Chomsky is talking about here. That these people refuse, systematically refuse, to operate in reality and in the process do a great disservice to the very people they purport to be enlightening and helping. Anyone who brings up the whole 9/11 "Truth" thing will immediately shut down a serious discussion on economics, politics and all the issues that stem therefrom for the same reason that when you're having a conversation about space exploration and someone says "the moon landing didn't happen" you hit the wall. The wall of mind boggling stupidity.

Oh, but of course, Chomsky is part of the cover up, and so am I, and anyone else who disagrees with you. You know, just like those dying days of the Soviet Union where they figured out sending people to prison camps was just a bit too much. Just send them to an insane asylum -- much more effective.

And, of course, none of the countless hours and pages of work that have been produced in debunking the "truth", form Popular Mechanics onwards, have any credibility whatsoever.

Do us all a favor, stop pretending to have anything to do with the "Left." You don't. You never did, you never will. You have a name, you're the "Truth Movement." Stick with that, please. Leave the left to those of us operating in quantifiable and objective reality, not those of you stumbling about in the thick fog of inanity.

is Dr. Peter Dale Scott, Professor Emeritus of English at the University of California, Berkeley and author of The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America. As Dr. Scott points out, since Iran/Contra "keeping secrets" is close to a moot point -- entities within our government (and without) have become practiced players at doing pretty much whatever they want with little regard for transparent democracy. If they can keep it a secret, great -- if they can't -- hey, isn't American Idol on?

Surprisingly, 9/11 truthers attack Chomsky, calling him a traitor of the left, liar, among other things I don't care to repeat. It is not the fact that some people might believe that 9/11 was a planned attack on the U.S. by the Bush administration that is so difficult to propound; it's the fundamentalism, the naked assertion and belief in an actual conspiracy with limited circumstantial "proof" that makes shudder.

As Chomsky says, even if it is true, so what? SO WHAT? In other words, why does it matter?

It matters because we live in an evil empire! The expansion of the american empire crossed a threshold with the election of Bush and the tragic event of 9/11. These are the issues we should focus our political change agency attentions on.

To prove or dispprove a 9/11 conspiracy would only prove THIS administration as evil, when the real conspiracy of empire building has been a part of american history since our country's inception. What can we do to change that which has spawned evil deeds throughout american history?

I don't think 9/11 conspiracy theorists want change! How many 9/11 truthers have been out campaigning for Dennis Kucinich? If they didn't like what they saw on 9/11; if they don't like the direction the country is going; indeed, if they want someone to change the empire building program into a world community program, why aren't they campaigning for the only candidate who offers that route out of this insanity? Don't get hung up on the pieces. Look at the bigger picture.

In the words of the black Civil Rights leaders of the sixties, "Keep your eyes on the prize!" The minute you take your eyes off the goal of real progressive change for our fleeting democracy, then you are wandering in the desert of the fundamentalist imagination, stuck on one single issue.

peace

wow, real hate building up here - for being part of the 9/11 truth crowd or for NOT being part of it. you lot seem lost in blogs, lost before your screens, lost in having the terrible truth at hand like noone else. must feel terrible.... I pity you, for real. you weighting up arguments, fair enuff. but that CAN'T be all you are planning, can it? join in somewhere for real, DO stuff, create your GROUP as in: havin' a band. situation is by far bad enough with or without definitive truth about 9/11. don't get stuck in being smarter than your next person, friends. the ones doing 911 work should be happy about the ones doing katrina work and those be happy about the ones doing migration work....and so on. there seems a wide open trap once the liberal, the left and the wondering are arguing about bad stuff happening. sometimes it brings the worst out of people, like money's bringing the worst out of other people. is this the other bad news: that horrible events start to separate and alienate people - when in earlier days it had the potential to unify? shouldn't we fight THAT as well? it's a thought.

Some people are really blind.
Chomsky just hit the floor with these statements.

- Where's the plane that's supposed to have hit the Pentagon?
- Where's the plane (UA flight 93) that's supposed to have crashed in Pensylvania?
- Why have some of the "terrorists" identified as being aboard any of the four projectiles/planes been found alive and well AFTER 9/11?
- What about the traces of thermate at WTC?
- What about that video from the BBC in which the reporter is shown, with downtown NY in the background AND building #7 up and well on its foundations, reporting that building #7 has collapsed? The building is there for all to see and still, the reporter announces that it has collapsed.

These and the ones discussed earlier are just a few of the numerous wholes in the official 9/11 story.
WAY too many wholes not to suspect any official wrongs.

Also, what about the infamous Anthrax scare??? This was huge at the time. But it all slipped into a thick fog just after a few weeks. No conclusions whatsoever have been offered by the officials. From Wiki: "Senator Patrick Leahy, one of the recipients of an anthrax letter, publicly stated just before the sixth anniversary of the case that he believes people within the US government know the source of the anthrax powder."
My conclusion is that it was part of the whole operation; too many wholes in the 9/11 events created a situation where one needs to "refocus" the mainstream attention. That's what it was.

Chomsky, like all the others, cannot offer credible answers to such questions. His rhetoric would fit in perfectly with the likes of Fox news and other aligned factions.

Booo! Chomsky.

Having spent the last weeks with my comp. classes discussing and learning the nuances of argumentative writing, we spent much time on the logos or logic of argumentation. In doing so, we discussed, perhaps too briefly, the kinds of logical pitfalls and fallacies we must watch out for in argumentation.
As examples, I have had them analyze Bill O'Reilly's talking points and other punditry, but we also discussed the logic of pre-emption keying in on Rumsfield's use of the post hoc fallacy in his statement deriving an immanent threat from "known unknowns" and "unknown unknown's". Essentially these are the premises for the argument for pre-emptive attack, as they establish a world in which we read into the gaps a threat that has little if any evidence that can be agreed upon. This puts all theories on an equal footing and allows power to act as it pleases.
Intelligent design uses similar logic. Creationism failed in its earlier form because it explicitly made God the creator. The genius(?) of I.D. is that it claims the complexity of life is too great for evolution to account for, and thus, something must have created life, and hey, might that be God? Of course, as Chomsky and others have pointed out, this post hoc logic decrys the unknown and unknowable, as if certainty is always possible, that we are working with a puzzle that just needs to be put together properly, according to the master design.
This same logic is present in much of the 9/11 truth movement's argumentation-- big hole in Pentagon, must have been a cruise missle, I mean we have cruise missles, and have used them before, and... Now this is to simplify one example, but the posters here provide much more detailed examples of how this fallacy plays out. Known unknowns are not implicitly threatening, though they may make us inquire into why those gaps exist.
I agree whole-heartedly with JMTulip above. Chomsky, author of "What Uncle Same Really Wants" and other works, has truly been a guiding light for those who make our profession dispelling the 'truths' of power. I thank him, along with Robert McChesney, Norman Solomon, Amy Goodman, and others for their efforts in exposing so much of what is not conspiracy but actual manipulation. Questioning Chomsky's ethics because he calls the truth movement and JFK assasination a waste of time given the lack of evidence is an illlicit, ad hominem attack, having less basis than the truth movement's argument itself. Of course here I will be told that I just don't see the evidence, that despite being a scholar and instructor of rhetoric, post-colonial theory, and radical environmental philosophy, that I'm part of the conspiracy, or at least complicit.
Ask yourselves honestly what your motivations are in perpetuating the truth movement. Who wouldn't feel more righteous knowing there was a cabal out there we could blame all of our problems on. But, could that energy be put forth more effectively in protesting say, Blackwater's attrocities, the disappearance of billions of dollars in Iraq, gov't complicity in toxifying First Peoples' lands through mining and resource extraction, or many of the other myriad attrocities too often officially sanctioned, that is, one's where actual evidence is ignored?

We saw much of the same sort of thing - a reluctance by some prominent leftists to repudiate the government story - with the JFK assassination. Persons one might expect to lead the call for dissent and for exposing the cover-ups did exactly the opposite.

There is a speech by Michael Parenti ca. 1991 that goes into this. Parts of it could be applied verbatim to 9/11. The JFK Assassination and the Gangster Nature of the State.

I don't believe there is now or ever has been anyone associated with Bush that could have planned and executed 9/11. They have a mandatory belief system that can't stand scrutiny, thus it eliminates those with intelligence. The only intelligent people they have are intellectual whores who are preoccupied with pandering to them, telling them what they want to hear and thus unable to remain in contact with reality. (Can you say Condi Rice?)

HOWEVER - that is not the plot in the book: a scheming, high ranking administraton Intelligence insider - former CIA insider, deliberately does not interfere with but monitors intelligence from multiple sources that together indicate an attack (almost exactly like 9/11) is looming. Rationale for allowing it to go ahead? His allegiance to the idiology of the current, unpopular president - whose dogma needs the PR boost of an attack on American soil. The book was published perhaps five years before it actually happened on 9/11. Though I believed what I thought was the worst about Bush and his thugs, at first I was incredulous that an American would put dogma ahead of our National safety and American lives. In the six years since 9/11, events have conspired to reveal my naiveté and added overwhelming burdens to my efforts to resist cynicism.

incredible...
..."when logic and proportion
have fallen sloppy dead
and the white knight is talking backwards.." JAirplane

logic has to prevail against emotion here. is it pointless to question why no steel-framed building has ever collapsed and pulverized in under 10 seconds, ever, yet 3 did that in a matter of hours on 9/11?

why could he not have said (logically) that there appear to be some inconsistencies that need followup?

this bullshit about reinvestigation of 9/11 as a waste of time - unbelievable coming from this man!

he is either someone other than he has purported to be, or he is under threat of life, or perhaps just fear of "reputation".

the white knight has lost his shimmer.

Chomsky's remarks about 9/11 are bafflingly, frustratingly stupid and evasive. It's hard to believe he made them. But it's merely further evidence that we're always on shaky grounds when we make men into Gods. Like Ralph Nader, and now, Bill Maher, these are men with special talents in specialized areas. But, venture out of their areas of professionalism, and we shouldn't be surprised if, under pressure, they stumble embarrassingly.

The Manhattan Project is a good example of hundreds of people being able to keep a secret, and here's another: The Federal Witness Protection Program has within it more than 17,000 people hiding from bad guys. Do any of them, any of 17,000 talk? No. Why? They'd die if they did. Compared to this, a conspiracy surrounding the Bush administration's role in 9/11 would be chicken-feed.

Oh, yeah, by the way: I've worked with dozens of special effects technicians, people who know explosives and the behavior of collapsing structures, and any of them who has seen the collapses of WTC 1, 2 & 7 know those collapses for what they were: controlled demolitions. I could go on with more reasons, including the lack of sufficient kinetic energy in the upper structures to support a complete collapse of WTC 1 & 2; but just let me say that the laws of physics never lie – unlike politicians, idealogues with agendas, and possibly pundits who've been "persuaded," and/or lack the knowledge for which they speak. Noam Chomsky seems to fit at least the latter catagory.

Also keep in mind that if the Saudi Arabian conspirators could keep the secret of their impending attack from the NSA, CIA, and FBI, people who WERE LOOKING for terrorist threats, how much more difficult would it have been for the government to keep its involvement secret? After all, no one would think to look there, would they?

Frankly, I wish people would stop arguing in speculations about the interpersonal aspects of a conspiracy, what people might or might not be capable of, and look at the physical evidence – ALL the physical evidence. Do so, and the answer becomes crystal clear.

Though an awful lot of things about that dreadful day don't add up well, my skepticism about 9/11 conspiracy theories remains strong, for the same reason Chomsky cited.

Here's the thing we have to keep in mind. Not everyone in government or in corporations is corrupted; not everyone has the singular objective of propelling our nation towards fascism at any cost.

For that reason, secrets are very hard to keep. Torture couldn't be kept secret, despite the best attempts of the administration to bury it in the deep. Blackwater's murders - the same. The crown jewel of administration secrets, spying on Americans through the telecoms, couldn't be kept under wraps.

A conspiracy to inflict 9/11 on the US by its own administration would involve too many people. I think it would come out.

I sometimes wonder if 911 conspiracy folks are really right-wing trolls set out to discredit the Left. Look, the opinions of even some scientists, engineers, etc., that 911 could not have happened the way it did are not enough. The USA government, is guilty of torture and murder, and even overthrowing other governments, but we know about it and it is no big secret. It is also quite plausible and in-line with much of the history of how the US has operated. As for 911, first of all, their are plenty of people in the world who hate the USA. America's unconditional support of Israel and friendly tyrant Arab governments (like Egypt and Saudi Arabia) has made sure of that. So, there is no shortage of those who want to strike out against the USA. And, America's invasion of Iraq and wars of conquest has only strengthened their cause. But, this 911 conspiracy stuff, enough already! Look, the planes hit the WTC, everybody saw that. What the USA is likely covering up is more things like how the Saudis are connected to it and things like that, but, the USA government planning and carrying it out, just consider that Bush would never even have the competency for that. As for the 911 conspiracy theorists, we need to focus on things like the illegal war in Iraq and the corporate control of American government and social-economic policies. Otherwise, I am afraid, we just get thrown in with the "kook crowd," along with the Moonies, UFO'ers and others on the fringes. Not helpful to our cause.

This video was made in 2004 in Hungary. He may think differently by now.

Mr. Chomsky either lacks interest, or simply likes to talk. Like Bill Maher, he either can't get his head around it, can't say "Project Northwoods" (google it), is utterly naive, or is deliberately aiding the cover-up.

There was nothing authoritative in this rambling discussion.

Follow the money, follow the motive. Who gained, who benefited.

For a detailed, well-written study, read "The New Pearl Harbor" by David Ray Griffin.

.....by the naysayers on this thread are quite something to behold. The self righteous use of illdirected sarcasm is pompous and ignorant.

I don't agree with Gretavo's views on Chomsky's motives, I disagree with Chomsky's view.

The totality of the 9/11 truth movement, from where I sit is about finding out the truth. What could be more rightminded and intelligent?

That there are competing theories and some limited hangouts and some nuts and even some deliberate disinformation does not justify the sometimes ugly use of language and racism to smear those who seek the truth.

Smearing people to shut a debate down is a sure sign of lack of rational argument or ability/intellect.

I note many of the usual supsects are using their tried and tested rhetorical techniques to do so. It is entirely dishonest and unedifying. The motives may be pure but the suspicion will remain, always.

The finger pointers are some of the most base tribal minded hypocrites I've read.

Add the compustable comments together, all intended to rekindle the issue, while saving his own butt is brilliant. Hope this makes MSM, don't you?

Noam Chomsky is unsurpassed when it comes to analysing US imperialism, but when it comes to the oligarchs who actually run the show in the US not only does he not analyse them he does not even see them. He steadfastly refuses to recognise his "enemy". NC reminds me of a biologist who painstakingly studies the body of an animal but totally ignores the head.

The truth behind 9/11 for many on the left is quite simple... it's too hot to handle. It means facing the real enemy within America... the elites who are the Zionist/international bankers.

No nation on this earth gained more from 9/11 than the state of Israel. The USA will be the ultimate loser in the long term as Israel, homegrown Zionists, and international bankers drag it into war after war.

Bush had no idea about 9/11. Like most Presidents he is a patsy serving the interests of the hidden oligarchs. He is a WASP and as such he is on the second tier of the Pyramid... he doesn't get to know about these little secrets, but he will defend that which he does not know, for that is his purpose. To do anything contrary to his purpose could earn him a bullet in the head. Just ask JFK, a brave man who wanted the government of the US to print its own money as opposed to the Federal Reserve. He also wanted the Dimona nuclear plant in Israel to undergo regular inspections.

Does anyone have a link to a transcript of the Q&A so I can read it?

I think the reason Chomsky said investigation about what really happened is a waste of time is that no one will be able to tell whether the investigation is truly independent. How will we know the investigators haven't been bought off as well as everyone else who denies the conspiracy theory?

So please don't write him off so fast. I'm not writing off most people who are asking questions. I want to know the truth as much as you do. I'll bet Chomsky does, too. He may just think that "We can't get there from here." Any helpful evidence has likely been destroyed already. He wants us to move on to areas where we actually stand a chance of succeeding.

People who want to know what happened are not loonies. I think there are a number of people who have been planted by the GOP to sound like raging maniacs, spewing false factoids, in order to make ALL questioners appear to be kooks. Then we get into these pissing contests of people calling each other idiots, and accusing others of "not understanding basic physics!" Sounds to me like the old ploy of "divide and conquer," mastered by that evil genius, Karl Rove. Everyone, please stop playing into his hand. No true progressive is an idiot. We are the rationalists. They are using the fact that we allow (actually love) debate against us. They (the right wing ideologues) are much more unified because they don't allow dissenting opinions.

The only fact I'm sure of is that we don't know all the facts, and probably never will.

Sure, Bush is too clueless to pull any of this off. But with enough money, you can buy brilliant minds.

Chomsky apparently plays duck and cover for a crypto-Fascist system he apparently pretends to critique on this issue.

As to this quote by an Alternet writer who comments on this thread:

“Typical truther -- you seem to have reversed where the burden of proof lies. I'm not peddling anything -- you're the one peddling whatever theories you have.”

So absent anything like honest media or government – that now apparently serve as bulk Fascist instruments – are we to believe “burden of proof” falls to ordinary Americans? How interesting…

Lack of real public criticism of the official Washington narrative on 9/11 automatically caves to the official government 9/11 conspiracy theory. So by default, illegitimate “theories” are what corporate monopoly media has been “peddling” since 9/11.

By the way, a national cover-up at 9/11 does not comprise “theories”.

However, support for an official DC 9/11 conspiracy “Commission” story directed by neo-con Philip Zeliko (author of the U.S. 2002 preemptive strike doctrine) certainly does make for faith-based “theories”.

A massive 9/11 Israeli spy scandal and Washington cover-up operation along with the “State Secrets Privilege” shutting down of FBI whistle blower Sibel Edmonds (who showed documented proof of government foreknowledge on events at 9/11 to the 9/11 “Commission”) is also objective evidence of government cover-up.

I’ll reprise what I’ve said on another 9/11 theme thread…


The fact many truly independent so-called “Truthers” now claim DC “inside job” complicity at 9/11 can hardly be condemned given the vast and paranoid nature of the national criminal cover-up at issue.

To repeat: a proven national 9/11 cover-up ALONE is a de facto government crime of global magnitude. It is a clear indictment of everything America was built on.

At the end of the day what Fascist puppet Washington with its corporate media poodle and the American public can all agree on is one thing:

“9/11 changed everything”.

It remains the bloody mantra repeated ad nauseam by both political parties out of bad theater DC from monopoly corporate media on the path to bogus war.
Bottom line: a proven criminal 9/11 cover-up is the all-purpose lynchpin directly responsible for a murderous Big Oil “war on terror” abroad and eradication of American democracy at home. All of it paid for at public cost for private greed – the very M.O. and blood money raison d'etre of Fascism.

By now, to suggest otherwise is far worse than naïve.

Chomsky is a Left Gatekeeper, but he's right about one thing. 9/11 was not perpetrated by Bush. Bush is a puppet. It goes far beyond this administration. I used to consider myself a liberal, I thought Clinton was the greatest ever. But then I learned some things about him, too. Now, I'm neither Left nor Right- I just want my freedom. 9/11 was part of a much bigger plan to take away our freedoms. Just look at the laws that have been enacted in its wake. How do you protect freedom by curtailing it? Do you think Hillary or Obama is going to make it all better? They are globalists too and don't give a rats a** about the sovreignty of this country or any other. Please people, learn some history. Learn about Hitler, the Reichstag, and the propaganda he used. Compare it with whats happening today. Folks need to get out of the false left/right paradigm and band together, before its too late. United we stand, Divided we fall.

Noam Chomsky makes a lot of sense. Even if it were planned which is highly unlikely, why does it matter? The effect is the same. The JFK analogy is fantastic, who give a @#$! who killed JFK, does it matter, his life was equal to the life of any Iraqi being killed today. The Bush administration is laughing at the ridiculous 9/11 conspiracy theorists, they could not have planned a better diversion, keep following the sheep!

You heard what the man said, 9/11 is a huge industry!

I was once an honest working-class stiff. I had complete confident in my government,
and totally trusted rich people. I knew, they loved me and cared about me.

Then, one day, i caught the conspiracy bug and went wacko!
I went off the deep end and joined a 9/11 Truth movement in my hometown.

Look at me now! I own a huge mansion on the Mediterranean.
My yearly income is up in the six figures.
I met the man of my dreams, got married and had 2.1 kids.

And this didn't happen just to me. All the people in my 9/11 Truth group now own second homes and take extended vacations.

How did that happen? Let see now, here's the math. To date, our 9/11 truth group has shelled out an enormous sum of money. OUT OF OUR OWN POCKETS!

1) Telephone/cable company for internet connection and phone service
2) computer hardware companies and software developers
3) Gas companies for every time we've had drive to our general meetings, committee meetings and scheduled events. ( Gas ain't CHEAP up here!)
4) Department stores for office supplies, blank DVD's, banner making supplies, etc,.
5) Printing Shops for banners, T-Shirts, posters. The list goes on.

Not to mention the hundreds of people hours spent on organizing educational events such as lectures.


Life sucks and Chmosky is not board.…Oh well, he had a good run, wouldn't you say?

... is the comparatively few right wing trolls on this thread.

This confirms my very own conspiracy theory, that Joshua Holland is actually Conservasaurus. I base this fact on my observation that you seldomly see both of them commenting on the same blog entry. OBVIOUSLY Joshua is too lazy to clear the cookies off his browser more than once a day.

Anyone who believes otherwise can only be A: retarded, B: a government agent, or C: Ukranian.

I even wrote a nice little blog about it. See Psychological Warfare: Understanding COINTELPRO and the 911 Truth Movement

Hey, check this out, there is no reason why Noam and you can't be right about this. It may have been an inside job, you may be right. But right now what needs to happen is the energy you are putting into getting the message out about 9/11 needs to get put into reforming a corrupt system.

Let's assume for a second that you are right. The Bushies did it. There is proof. It gets out to the entire world. The Bushies get set up before a firing squad.

Now what?

Now that you have your Truth Out! What have you done to prepare for what comes afterwards to make sure the conditions for it don't happen again? What are you doing besides talking shit about a brilliant man like Chomsky or disrupting Bill Mahr's TV show? What are you doing to make this a world you want to live in?

The 9/11 truth movement is understandable, but wrong. Frustration with this government is justified, but crying wolf about how those towers came down isn't going to do shit.

So play it smart. Let's just say that you are right and Noam is too. That means it is time for you to go out there and make a difference so that when the truth comes out, we'll all be ready for it.

On the contrary, I say let's have a full and open discussion, free of hidden agendas, with everyone's testimony made available to public scrutiny.

Let's hear NORAD explain the various drills and exercises that were being conducted that morning. Let's hear from the air traffic controllers. Let's hear Dave Frasca explain why he sat on reports from FBI field operatives who warned, months in advance, that something was brewing.

Let's hear ALL about PROMIS software, and its progeny. I'm sure that has more than a little relevance for Specter and Leahy, who are investigating the domestic spying mess.
Let's hear Rodriguez and Indira Singh, on P-Tech. And let's hear about those pesky put-options one more time, with feeling.

Careful what you hope for. You just might get it.

Unbelievable that Alternet would post this as some kind of positive thing.

"I mean even if it [US GOVERNMENT COMPLICITY IN THE 9/11 ATTACKS] were true, which is extremely unlikely, who cares? I mean it doesn't have any significance."

Noam Chomsky should never be taken seriously again after this gibberish. Have the blind followers lost their minds?

Is there anyone in their right frame of mind who agrees with the above quote?

Chomsky has disgraced himself in a way that no opponent could have done to him.

"Did they plan it in any way or know about it? This seems to me extremely unlikely."

That is, of course, unless you look at the evidence.

"It's almost certain that it woud have leaked." "So something would have leaked out, very likely."

Chomsky has nothing to say about Sibel Edmonds, Richard Wright, or any of the other whistleblowers, up to and including Senator Bob Graham ("foreign governments assisted the hijackers") and Senator Max Cleland ("not going to be part of another warren commission").

It did leak. It was known by many people before the fact. High level pentagon oficials cancelled travel plans on 9/10. The mayor of San Francisco was warned not to fly. Many other leaks are known if you bother to look.

"So the evidence that's been produced in my opinion is essentially worthless."

Chomsky's analysis is utterly without merit, and that's not like him. He's usually very involved in details, details, details. I submit this is evidence that he is compromised and not a trustworthy source.

"And the belief that it could have been done is so, you know, has such low credibilty that I don't really think it's serious."

That is the corporate/state party line, Noam. And we are fighting them tooth and nail.

The following response was written for ignorant analyses like that of Noam Chomsky:

Nafeez M. Ahmed,
9/11 "Conspiracies" and the Defactualisation of Analysis
How Ideologues on the Left and Right Theorise Vacuously to Support Baseless Supposition

Chomsky has nothing of value to say about 9/11. He has no response to Ahmed. He has no credibilty.

Some cursory research will show that Chomsky is also full of shit on the Kennedy assassination (a topic for which he also puts his foot in his mouth in the above video).

Absolutely disgraceful, Chomsky and Alternet. When does the other side get a video promoted on this site?

Crimes of the State

This same principle has been stated above, but hopefully this analogy will help clear things up:

When Elliot Ness and his gang of anti-bootlegging FBI agents moved into Chicago to clean it up in the late 20s, they set their sites on one man primarily: Al Capone. According to reports, Capone was involved in everything from racketeering to prositution to murder. Thorough investigation, however, continued to produce nothing. It seemed that Ness and his men kept getting reports of what Capone might have done or was alleged to have done, but hard evidence continually failed to materialize (this was due to Capone's men strong-arming people out of testifying against him as well as tampering with evidence, but that's irrelevant to this analogy).

Finally, Ness got the break he was looking for. When Al Capone went to Atlanta's federal prison in May of 1932, it wasn't for the killings he probably ordered, or the speakeasies he probably ran. It was for the tax evasion that Ness could prove Capone had committed.

9/11 truthers, you might be right in some form. There might be enough logical inconsistencies in the media's narrative of that day to produce some amount of scepticism. All of that is irrelevant. It does not matter if the towers fell due to controlled demolition. It does not matter what caused the collapse of WTC 7. It does not matter because you cannot prove what did happen, and the government is not going to help you, no matter how loud you shout outside of its doors. You are left in the cold while those in power committing much more mundane atrocities continue about their business. This, needless to say, is not a strong position for you.

What you can prove is that Halliburton is profiting from the Iraq war at unprecedented levels. What you can prove (assuming certain testimonies shake out the way they should) is that Bush was involved in the Gonzales attorney firings scandal. What you can prove is that the President's use of signing statements is unconstitutional and, therefore, impeachable.

It is time for you to think hard about what your goal in all this is. If your goal is to get someone to believe your pet theory about what "probably happened" or what "physics dictates should have happened," then keep at it. But be warned: it does not matter how right you are, because you have no smoking gun to speak of (otherwise, more people would believe and Bush and Cheney would be out of office).

If, on the other hand, your goal is to get Bush and Cheney impeached, then for the love of our democratic system, stop. Stop focusing your energies on 9/11 and instead focus this considerable amount of will on any number of the other scandals that the Bush Administration has perpetrated, all of which are more provable than your theory.

Again, I'm not saying you are wrong. I am saying, along with Mr. Chomsky, that it doesn't matter if you are right. Chomsky's point, which I am trying to illuminate, is that we have limited resources for citizen investigation, and that focusing on 9/11 conspiracy when sure proof exists of crimes that would get Bush and Cheney just as impeached marginalizes everyone who is working towards your goal from other angles.

Capone didn't get busted for racketeering, he got busted for tax evasion. He got busted for tax evasion because of the existence of sure proof, and he ended up just as in jail as he would have in the former case. Help us by focusing on what you know you can prove to the satisfaction of those around you.

911truthiness form letter part 1

Provocateurs like to channel the 9/11 truth movement whenever they can - it makes for a few good laughs. Here's the quote from Matt Taibbi:

"Rudy's attack against Ron Paul in the debate was a classic example of that kind of politics, a Rovian masterstroke. The wizened Paul, a grandfather seventeen times over who is running for the Republican nomination at least 100 years too late, was making a simple isolationist argument, suggesting that our lengthy involvement in Middle Eastern affairs -- in particular our bombing of Iraq in the 1990s -- was part of the terrorists' rationale in attacking us."

"Though a controversial statement for a Republican politician to make, it was hardly refutable from a factual standpoint -- after all, Osama bin Laden himself cited America's treatment of Iraq in his 1996 declaration of war. Giuliani surely knew this, but he jumped all over Paul anyway, demanding that Paul take his comment back. "I don't think I've ever heard that before," he hissed, "and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th.""

Let's explain the propaganda technique being used by the 911truthiness movement: it's called transferance.

The last thing Rove wants the public to understand is that 9/11 was blowback - an effect of US intervention in the Middle East and Afghanistan over the past four decades (and longer) - and that Bush Sr. and many members of the current administration, such as Elliot Abrams, are directly responsible - OBL got his start in the US funded covert war in Afghanistan, and he got his money by blackmailing the Saudi Royals who are like family to GW Bush.

So, what he did was to set up an astroturf group - the 9/11 Truth Movement - to create a ridiculous stuffed toy that politicians like Rudy could bash at every opportunity. The 9/11 truth movement is like a burning rubber tire that can be hung around the neck of any person who raises the issues behind the war for oil in the Middle East.

An amazing number of people bought into this bull - The film, "Loose Change" was no more the product of an 'independent activist' than was Al Gore's Penguin Army" was (it was a film put out by DCI Group).

Leftists seem to want to pretend that COINTELPRO never existed - yet Cheney and Rumsfeld were in the White House when COINTELPRO was in full force.

I just want to say for the RECORD.

IT DOES MATTER!

Regicide, DOES MATTER!
mass murder, DOES MATTER!
fraud, DOES MATTER!
demolitions, DOES MATTER!
Palestine, DOES MATTER!
international war crimes, DOES MATTER!
police state, DOES MATTER!

ambivalence is to corruption,
what Mircle Grow is to a garden

your losing alot of credibility with people who would otherwise listen. Take a play out of the conservative play book and keep it simple.

We all know why we are in Iraq rite?........OIL and this could be why conservatives want us there. Listen I don't agree with what conservatives have done to get us to occupy the last remaining oil but look what happened to carter when he tried to make us sustainable. Its political suicide to tell people to consume less.

I don't doubt what I have heard about the money changers but its too much for the average person to digest all at once, hell it was too much for me, you have to dedicate alot of time and energy and when you have kids and a job, well its just too much.

Why has no one talked about peak oil? You can not talk about 9/11 truth and not see a connection with peak oil. For god's sake man, we are less than five years away from the cliff of peak oil and we will not get them prosecuted by then. No one is going to care after that and bush will likey flee to south america where he has bought land over a very large aquifir.

Everyone knows this is about oil and its not hard for them to understand a false flag Iin order to occupy it. Listen, I know it was criminal, but why do you think conservatives think history will prove them correct? Two words....PEAK OIL. This is why no democrat, (except kucinich) well take us out of Iraq and if Kucinich does he will be ran out of town like carter when we can't feed ourselves.

Truthers, you are heroic and I admire you but you must see the military strategic need to control the last remaining oil. If you give conservatives a motive that just might be in our interest you will get alot of other people to listen.

This is a resource war and a false flag was committed to get us to support it. That is the cold hard truth and you will see it in less than five years, the facts are as numerous as yours if not more.

I have never believed that 9/11 was an inside job.

There is nothing that requires it to have been. The mendacity of the elite, the ineptitude, the fixation on filling the pockets of cronies with money is all that is required for this disaster. I completely believe that Bush, the CIA, the FBI, and others were malfeasant in ignoring warning signs. I completely believe that they covered their asses, then got down to the business of looking busy and exploiting the political advantages. What did they care? There was more money for their defense companies in "missile defense".

Just like Katrina, however, it showed how poorly we'd been secured. And for all the compromises to freedom and insane oil wars in the name of 9/11, are we any safer? Are our ports more secure? Not really.

Do you suppose it was a conspiracy for a Cessna to land in Red Square when the Soviet Union was around? What that shows is that a superpower is not necessarily all-knowing or alert.

The 9/11 truth movement assumes that there must have been a massive conspiracy, in my opinion, because it does not understand the ramifications of the huge disparity of wealth and power in our country. Class warfare is real. It isn't organized in a big conspiracy, but the elite will leave their underlings to face what comes without the protection they spend great sums on for themselves, every time.

The 9/11 truth movement is a waste of time at best. Pushing for impeachment over the very real and well-documented lies and crimes we have at hand is our responsibility at hand.

It's impossible to prove or disprove a conspiracy one way or the other. There are so many serious issues that need our activism, from the environment, to stopping a war with Iran.

Because of who he is, it's easy to imagine that Bush was responsible for 9/11. The real challenge is concentrating on what can be done now to this country and the world a better place.

While acknowledging that he may be out-of-step with many of his colleagues on the left, Chomsky talks about why he doesn't believe that 9/11 was an "inside job."

Wow, I read this and thought certainly the left is not full of people who believe 9/11 was an 'inside job'. Then I read the comments. The left who often attacks religion as irrational, then comes down on the side of complete whackoness.

The left has enough problems getting a hearing in our conservative dominated country, without discrediting itself with nonsense.

Chomsky knows that if he departs from the MSM/AIPAC party line he will never see his face on TV and he will probably lose his job. "What does it matter? Live the lie!" That's their party line. Our country is not surviving this profound corruption. Our government is already severly broken and disfunctional; many who know the facts have alreaady spoken out and they are completely ignored.

it is true that a whole lot of circumstances surrounding 9/11 are shrouded in mystry.the surprisingly rapid crumbling of the Twin(2)Towers actually hit by the aircrafts were presumably caused by the offending hits and no other cause.but the 3 other buildings in the neighbourhood that collapsed offer little rational explanation. i have the highest regards for the honesty and integrity of prof. Noam Chomsky. however, the only justification he has advanced for his scepticism about the event being an inside job is that by now,after lapse of so much time,the truth,if otherwise, would have leaked.and we would have by now known of it and its consequences. well, that is something we cannot debate.

Chomsky is irrelevant. What should be evident from the sheer number of responses to this subject is that a helluva lot of good people have very divergent views about 9/11 physical evidence. All else aside, the events created a NYC crime scene but it was not cordoned off and vital evidence was removed from the scene and transported immediately via boats to China. NYPD did nothing. Firemen entered buildings literally under collapse and reported "detonations" that rendered the venue a death trap. Absenteeism at the Twin Towers that day was radically beyond normal. Skip to DC and the evidence was whisked away before anyone could inspect it. Video cams were confiscated. First responders with no axe to grind called it bizarre and unprecedented at any crime or disaster scene. Whoever supposedly died on any involved "airplane" is a mystery....it is a matter of "national security" to not reveal their identitites or origins. No public funerals for the dead "heroes" and no explanation for the naming of perpetrators within hours of the occurrences while it is claimed that it was all a big surprise. Bullshit! Turn up the volume and demand disclsure and accountability. Piss on structural engineering, any lucid individual can see that the buildings were imploded and that wasn't at the hand of some Saudi assholes learning how to fly to attack NYC....and for what fucking reason might be a good starting point?

day after day, you have my condolences.

"Among other things he believes that some aspect of the plan would have leaked..."
Since we pretty much know the whole story from the videos and eyewitnesses, then why on earth would we need the 'story to be leaked'?

"...and too many events on that day were too elaborate to have been planned to perfection..."
They were not planned to perfection, hence the reason we all know the truth.

"...and therefore would not have been worth the risk for the Bush Administration..."
Yet, since all reasonable people with open minds know the truth and since 9/11 has proven to be a huge pay-off for the Bush administration, then obviously it *WAS* worth the risk!

It's extremely sad to see how many well intentioned people are willing to buy into total nonsense.

9/11 Truthers are no different that White Supremacists. For their own sad psychological reasons, Truthers have bought into an ideology that, in order to be true, requires the complete dehumanization of a group of people.

I may disagree and even dislike Bush and many of the architects of the Iraq war, but they are no more capable of perpetrating 9/11 on their own people than any of your neighbors would be -- who also vote Republican and support the war.

This is so sad, because it completely explains why terrorism, Genocide and 9/11 can happen. It's because people, just like the Truthers, are so willing, so needing, to believe and explain the world, to simplify the narrative, by painting the "other" as monsters. Why live in the complex real world of hard choices, when you can live is a simple fantasy world of good verses evil.

Those who bought into the American-is-evil ideology perpetuated 9/11 and now, people who believe a Cabal was behind it are perpetuating a similar ideology of evil.

Yes, the people who really committed 9/11 see Americans the same way that Truthers now see the Bush administration.

And yes, the terrorists believe in and have arguments they think as equally compelling as those 9/11 Truthers think their arguments are.

Guess what, every hate group in history has thought their evidence was as true as Truthers think their evidence is true -- but guess what, it wasn't, it was only their all-to-human need to dehumanize the "other."

You people are not solving the problem. You are the problem.

It's great- everyone wants the same thing and yet we bicker with each other--quarlleing over who is the biggest activist and which group is affecting change. Unbeleivable! The War-mongerers--the Republicans, the people with the BUsh bumper stickers--these people stand united--in ignorance--but they all believe the same things and behave the same way. They are united. Ignorance is bliss! Stop bickering! Every one these groups share the same objective, and each group is playing its part, an effective role. Better to attack on all sides with a veiw of the battlefield than one small force squeezed through a bottleneck canyon.

Just like the abused child who will deny to the police and authority figures that they are being abused and turn up dead days later at the hands of their own parents, 9-11 truth deniers see their government as parental authority control figure, as they were taught from infancy on by misled parents and miserable school systems and teachers hell bent on creating confomity and fostering patriotism at all possible cost. Except for what must have been a brief period in the 70's, this "norm" is what makes people unable to see the obvious and quite horrific truth.

Many Jewish people secretly harbor their own darkest fears that Mossad and Israel were somehow involved, and that plays into their denial as well. They need have no fear; Mossad has had unrefutable proof from the very beginning that BushCheneyCo, at the very least, brought down the WTC towers through the use of thermite planted by Marvin Bush's "security" team (composed of Blackwater and other mercenaries BUT NO MOSSAD) in the weeks leading up to 9-11 ALL BY THEMSELVES. Mossad documented the Bush team every step of the way once their MANY DOCUMENTED warnings about 9-11 fell on apparently deaf ears and they realized that it was to be a false flag operation. They then documented it every step of the way to absolve themselves. It also made handy blackmail knowledge, and they haven't been above using it against the Bush Adminstration either. But more about that later.

The argument that 9-11 truth gets in the way of prosecuting the more OBVIOUS crimes and warcrimes of the Bush Adminstration is also quite fallacious on its face; NO ONE is going after the Bush Adminstration for "tax evasion" (to use the "Al Capone" analogy as some have on here) let alone anything larger. To deny their ulitmate crime of planning, implementing, and carrying out murderous treason against the American People in favor of "the chance" of prosecuting them for lesser more obvious crimes is to espouse THEIR exact strategy for survival.

No, once Mossad and Israel figure out that they're the final patsies on the 9-11 list and that BushCheneyCo have already been planting, fostering, and backing TONS of "Jews did 9-11" "theories" on the net since the day it happened to obstruct and bury the real truth, that their own rogue CIA department under Poppy Bush and his cronies and their hired contractors (who were ALL murdered in Iraq) were solely responsible for 9-11, they will be forced to release those videotapes to the world.

And pray that they do it too BEFORE the US tries to nuke Iran and is met with full out nuclear retaliation from China and Russia COMBINED, and a final message to BOTH Mossad and Israel: You DON'T want to be living in a world without the US just to be rid of Iran. It won't be worth it, trust me on this.

RELEASE THOSE DAMN TAPES. NOW. Before Cheney suicides the US.

Deal with Iran later. You know Goddamn well that Iran would never nuke you even if they had the SAME NUMBER of nukes as you do, for it would mean certain suicide against the US.

But go pre-emptive, use the US to do it, and reap the whirlwind.

Do you think that all Jewish people are being blamed for 9/11? That's what I think you're saying with this remark. Are you yourself a "Jewish Person," or are you a "Zionist?" That's rhetorical, of course, but one is definitely a subset of the other (with some overlap of "Zionists" into the "Christian" set.) Personally, I'd rather be known as a "Jewish Person" than a member of the "Zionist" set which includes "Jews" and "Christians" in a pact of a special kind of brutal craziness.

This is not about "Jewish People." It's about finding out what really happened on 9/11, the event which has caused unimagined cruelty and death (thanks to the ignorance and fearfulness of the American public and its reluctance to question authority.) Anyone who thinks that 9/11 is separate from all that's happened since is wearing blinders.

Can anyone who isn't protecting some murderous ideal seriously believe the Bush Administration's conspiracy theory that attempts to backseat any discussion about 9/11?

I think someone has gotten to Chomsky.

Both building supervisors tell a different story of the collapse than the official version. Go to william911.com and check out their version.

It must be drill weekend for the tin-hat brigade. Thanks Alternet for forcing me to endure the hate comments I'm about to get.
First of all I think most of you are so blinded by your hatred for Bush that you would believe anything as long as he is the villian. Would you all believe this if Bill Clinton was in office on 9/11?
I love it when someone writes nonsense in a blog and everyone else quotes it as scientific fact.
1. No administration would be able to keep a secret of this magnitude especially this one.
2. You do not use thermite to bring down a building.
3. The buildings DID NOT fall into their own "footprint". THE PILE OF RUBBLE WAS 40 FUCKING STORIES TALL! YES 40! Not to mention how wide it was!
4 When you do bring down a building there needs to be charges all the way up. Charges big enough that they would have been seen exploding. None were. Not to mention all the people that would have been need to plant said charges without being seen.

I could go on and on but lets talk about vapor trails, Roswell or big foot instead.

I'm one of the minority Alternet readers (looking at the trend reflected in the bulk of the comments) who is not a "9/11 Truther". I appreciated your comments, and also your concluding remarks, where you make a distinction between the "left" and "9/11 Truthers".

I believe the fanaticism of the "truthers" does serve the Right Wing evil-doers, taking attention and energy away from real crimes that should be investigated (torture, spying).

I'm embarrassed by the number of times I've attended a talk given by a liberal, progressive candidate and had someone in the audience bring up the controlled demolition issue.

Our 9/11 Truth group organized a talk with William Rodriguez who worked as a janitor at the WTC buildings for twenty years.

He told us several times, that he and others who were in the basement level of building 2 on the morning of 9/11 HEARD a huge explosion take place somewhere below them....

then they heard a series of smaller explosions, then no more than 7 seconds later, they heard another huge explosion take place somewhere far, far above their heads, which cracked the walls.

He found out later, the second big explosion was the airplane hitting the building, but could not account for the first big explosion or the series of smaller explosions.

He only knew from sure that they were not caused by gas furnaces, as the building code did not allow for them to be installed in the first place.

ps: why hasn't this articles made the TOP 10 list?

Who is Noam protecting?

Chomsky demonstrates that he has the worst qualities of far-leftism... that being that he doesn't actually oppose the tyrany of government in some instances.. he just wants his side to be the one with its finger on the trigger, thinking that its only the right motivation not the right action that makes something good or bad.

Anyone who wants to examine the evidence can link to this website - 9/11 Research

We are being distracted from the real questions... I wanted to hear his answer to the first one about whether the US is now an oligarchy.

NONE of us KNOW just how it happened, the regime/MSM stories are so absurd as to spawn alternative stories forever.
We DO Know much of what we're told is a pack of lies. We have yet to get the truth out of them on ANYTHING.
WOULD they have done it if they could?
You be your sweet patootie.
Just LOOK at their HISTORY.

First, AlterNet ignored the 9/11 issue along with every other media outlet and the movement grew anyway.

Then, AlterNet joined the other "progressive" media outlets and ridiculed the growing 9/11 truth movement, still to no avail.

AlterNet then tried to openly fight 9/11 truth with poorly written pieces by alleged "progressives" and their feeble attempts to "counter" the truth with ignorance of the facts and fallacious logic fell flat and the movement continues to expand toward the tipping point.

Now, AlterNet trots out this ancient video of the iconic Chomsky with his pathetically ill-informed attempt to dismiss the 9/11 issue (back to ridicule, I see) and the movement continues to expand.

Is AlterNet desperate to create traffic?

(you had another, less provocative, 9/11 related article last week)

Is AlterNet carefully exposing all the fallacious arguments against 9/11 truth and slowly swinging its editorial opinion around so as to come into line with the looming 9/11 truth majority and thus attempt to regain credibility?

Or is AlterNet simply trotting out a revered icon in a last ditch attempt to stave off the inevitable and reinforce its minority hardline belief?

(no surprise here, the "right" is doing the same thing)

I'm sure you'll let me know if I've missed any possibilities.

In the wake of the "Maher incident" is AlterNet concerned that it will be stormed and occupied by truthers? (joke)

Perhaps AlterNet has yet to institute the media guidelines from the recent memo that history now begins on September 12, 2001 (back to ignoring all those pesky questions). Better get with it or you might lose that precious foundation money.

I hope that you and yours are well.

The truth shall set us free. Love is the only way forward.

Like O.J. Simpson, maybe Cheney and the Mossad can publish a book on how they "might' have done it. Like OJ or Al Capone (mentioned in an earlier Post), I hope these NeoConArtists get busted for one of their other lesser myriad Crimes, but don't bet on it.
On the other hand, more and more high level people are speaking out against this, the SINGULAR WORST CRIME EVER COMMITED AGAINST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE IN HISTORY!
Coming to a Nuclear Theatre near you, courtesy of your "NEW WORLD ORDER"!

For just one second, let's not concentrate on complex issues like steel melting and demolition methods, cuz face it, none of us are experts at that so it's easy to be fooled. Instead answer this one question:

If Bush, Cheney etc. planned and carried out 9-11, why didn't they blame Saddam Hussein for it? Why bring in Osama?

If they had control over 9-11, and their goal was to go into Iraq, Osama never would have been mentioned. They would have stood up and immediately said Saddam did this!!!! and they would have started the war they wanted immediately.

Now I am the first one to question authority but you also have the question the logic of the alternative theories.

See, for example, neurolingo.gnn.tv

This is pretty standard practice over the past few decades. Whether it's UFOs or whatever, the story is the same. Some poeple are credulous and swallow whatever nonsense they are told, as long as it comes from a 'credible source', i.e. someone they admire or look up to. "Daddy said it so it must be true" is the mentality there.

Take a few articles that actually raise this issue:
9-11 AND THE NEW PEARL HARBOR: Aw Shut Up Already, Will Ya?

"However, it is equally irresponsible to accept official complicity in the attacks as a foregone conclusion, and twist every fact to fit it. The mini-industry which has sprung up around 9-11 "conspiracy theory"—as well as the activist campaign that serves as its unpaid advertising department—has merely replicated the dogmatism of the "official version." Worse, the endemic sloppiness of the self-styled "researchers" is delegitimizing the entire project of critiquing the "official version." The ostentatiously named "Truth movement" is not clearing the air, but muddying the water."

That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? If you can't challenge a fact, tie a lot of falsehoods to that fact in the hope of sinking it permanently. Or,as Churchill said, "The truth is so important that it must be protected with an armada of lies."

Here's another article that describes this:
Rushkoff on 9/11 conspiracy theories

"By looking under the rug for what isn’t even there, we neglect the horror show that is in plain view. In the process, we make it even easier for the criminals running our government to perpetuate their illegal, unethical and un-American activities.

In fact, the most logical conclusion I can draw from the existing evidence is that 9-11 theorists are themselves covert government operatives, dedicated to confusing the public, distracting activists from their tasks, equating all dissent with the lunatic fringe, and provoking the counterculture’s misplaced belief in the competency of its foes.

That’s the real conspiracy."

I agree with Noam Chomsky. Certainly Bush/Cheney milked 9/11 for all it was worth and then some in order to achieve their vicious goals. Bus it is too easy for them to manufacture a disaster/crisis/catastrophe in plain sight, so they don't have do all these clandestine plots. Bush/Cheney are currently manufacturing a disaster/crisis/ catastrophe in Iran to further reduce freedom in the world and the US and also to steal more oil from a "backward" nation. They are doing this right out in plain sight, and no one can stop them.

... while the house is burning down around them.

I find it a shame that someone as venerable as Noam Chomsky should weigh in on this slagfest. I dare say such a thing should be far beneath him. That's about as far as my criticism of him will go though. His message is pretty much bang on.

To co-opt one of my favorite sayings, the "truth" movement would be great, if it wasn't for all the truthers. Some of you guys should go work in PR. Judging by the way you evaluate favorable science as irrefutable and anything else as collusive, treasonous, irrelevant, and obscuring, I'm willing to bet Ketchum would be willing to open a few spots for you. There's one problem with the whole "truth" thing though, beyond its self-appointment as the only possibility (swift boat veterans anyone?). The "truth" is only slightly more provable than God. All you've got is shady actions, weird coincindences, infinitisimally little hard evidence, a lot of negative rhetoric, and some astounding pattern recognition skills.

While you spend all this effort looking for what you think started this global mess, however, you're neglecting to address it in a practical way first. You could find Shrub's signature on the "Attack WTC" memo tomorrow complete with happy face doodles, but it won't change a damn thing. You'll unload one corrupt head of state and install another from the pool of corrupt head of state wannabes who'll work harder not to get caught while continuing the same litany of atrocities across the globe. Meanwhile the world cooks, the middle east burns, the economy collapses, the constitution disappears, and the corporations take over.

It's time to prioritize here, people. Deal with the big picture. If you're lucky, you'll still have enough freedom to ask about WTC 7 after.

on FAA screens, live-fly exercises the morning of the attacks, P-Tech...look into any of them and, in the context of the Kean Report, tell us you sleep comfortably and secure.

White propaganda is defined as "telling the truth loudly." Gray propaganda is defined as "lying loudly." In both cases the source identifies him/herself as the source, or the association is fairly clear. (I'll ignore the subliminal racism involved in the white/black designation, however).

Black propaganda is, as defined by Wikipedia, ". . .false material where the source is disguised. It is propaganda that purports to be from a source on one side of a conflict, but is actually from the opposing side. It is typically used to vilify, embarrass or misrepresent the enemy."

The "enemy", in the minds of the perpetrators of the 911 truthiness movement, is the anti-war, anti-Bush, pro-democracy, pro-peace crowd.

Examples: British psyops in Germany during WWII
"If the organisation of a genuine German resistance was unachievable, SOE reasoned, then the next best solution was to create the illusion of the existence of a well-equipped anti-Nazi movement preparing itself, with British assistance, for a coup d'état. It was on this basis that SOE formulated Operation Periwig in collaboration with PWE and SIS. "The basic idea of Periwig was to think of German resistance in much the same way as Voltaire thought of God; if German resistance did not exist, it was necessary to invent it", one commentator suggested. [1] Periwig's aspiration was to fool the German Security Service into fruitless activity in hunting down non-existent resistance groups with the resultant strain on their resources causing administrative chaos."

German psyops in Europe during WWII:
"German black propaganda usually took advantage of European racism and anti-Communism. For example, on the night of April 27, 1944 German aircraft under cover of darkness (and possibly carrying fake Royal Air Force markings) dropped propaganda leaflets on occupied Denmark. These leaflets used the title of Frihedsposten, a genuine Danish underground newspaper, and claimed that the "hour of liberation" was approaching. They instructed Danes to accept "occupation by Russian or specially trained American Negro soldiers" until the first disorders resulting from military operations is over."

Getting back to the U.S. and the Cointelpro-Watergate era:
"During the 1972 U.S. presidential election, Donald H. Segretti, a political operative for President Nixon's reelection campaign, released a faked letter, on Senator Edmund Muskie's letterhead, falsely alleging that Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, against whom Muskie was running for the Democratic Party's nomination, had had an illegitimate child with a seventeen-year-old. Muskie, who had been considered the frontrunner, lost the nomination to George McGovern, and Nixon was reelected. The letter was part of a campaign of so-called "dirty tricks", directed by Segretti, and uncovered as part of the Watergate Scandal. Segretti, went to prison in 1974, after pleading guilty to three misdemeanor counts of distributing illegal campaign literature."

The 911 Truth Movement is just another example of this general strategy.

Or are there a LOT MORE THINKING PEOPLE weighing in on the 911 tragedy? If so, this is definitely a good thing. What does an average citizen like me actually KNOW about what happened? First of course it happened and caused wholesale death and destruction-with more death due to exposure to the poisons at Ground Zero to follow. Second, that a REAL investigation into this hideous crime was never carried out. Reflect on that one for a while, folks. Third, only after repeated demands from many quarters over a long time was the bush stone wall breached, and a sham "inquiry" by bushie stooges conducted, with the absurd conclusions pointing directly to a massive coverup. Don't believe that one? Read the summary of the 911 commission "report", then see what you think. Fourth, that 911 was used repeadly to steal our Constitutional guarantees one by one and create a ficticious monster, who's never been caught and may even be dead, but is still useful for propogating a mountain of lies aimed at the brutal destruction and occupation of a helpless Iraq just so the bushies could "justify" the theft of their oil. These are all known facts, and not "theories", which, by the way are descriptions based on facts, and not wild guesses as so many people seem to think.

One must understand past events in order to function effectively in the present and create a just and peaceful future, would you not agree?

If your neighbor were a serial killer would you not want them to be investigated, tried and, if found guilty, removed from the general population so that they could not continue to kill (and maybe even kill you or someone you care about)?

First of all it is important to understand that the government story of 9/11 is also a "conspiracy theory" that claims that bin Laden directed 19 hijackers armed with box cutters and who were able to defeat the most expensive and sophisticated military on the face of the planet. When closely examined it becomes clear that there is "no hard evidence" to substantiate this claim, as even the FBI now admits. Thus, alternative theories are required; and, in order for them to be valid they must account for all the evidence. Setting aside the complete abrogation of the laws of physics (in the case of WTC 1,2 and 7) we have the completely unexplained absence of NORAD air defenses for 100 minutes on that terrible day (even Lee Hamilton and Thomas Kean admit the NORAD officials lied to them) which indicates complicity by some elements within the U.S. government/military.

We can agree that there is a vast difference between a foreign "terrorist" attack and a staged "false flag" event at least partially perpetrated by a small group of people within our own government, can't we?

Thus, the first level of 9/11 truth is realizing that the U.S. government story of the events is not only not true, but cannot be true as it is not supported by the preponderance of evidence.

The second level of 9/11 truth is accepting that it could not have happened without some level of government facilitation (recall that WTC 7 contained the second largest CIA office in the world and thus was a highly secure building. Note above NORAD anomaly as well).

The third level of 9/11 truth is discovering, through intensive research and application of logic, that the Democratic party elite is equally complicit in the events of 9/11/01 as well as the ongoing cover-up. [The Clinton Administration's use of "al Qaeda" elements in Chechnya, Bosnia and Kosovo is well documented and the current congressional Democrats complete refusal to investigate any aspect related to 9/11 (esp. Norman Mineta's testimony before the 9/11 Commission, NORAD stand down, put options) clearly indicates their acquiescence if not outright complicity] Thus, 9/11 truth is non-partisan and draws people from every political philosophy, except authoritarianism.

The fourth level of 9/11 truth is the spiritual awakening that occurs when one realizes the immense potential for real (positive) change that becomes possible when enough people understand the truth of 9/11 and the small group of international financial elites who have been perpetrating crimes against humanity and engineering conflict for centuries, including the 9/11 event.

Thus, 9/11 truth is the sword that will slay the beast which perpetrated the criminal invasions and perpetuates the genocidal occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, and is presently planning the annihilation of Iran.

To put it simply: 9/11 truth ends war.

Is this not worth our time and energy?

Thousands of us are out in public on the eleventh day of every month (if not more often) working to expose the truth and end the 9/11 wars, I'm sure that there is a group near you. Go to truthaction.org to find out more.

Please feel free to ask me any questions you may have regarding the events of 9/11/01 and background to said events.

Be the change you wish to see in the world. - Gandhi

The truth shall set us free. Love is the only way forward.

it certainly seems to have been foretold, and the Bush administration may even have welcomed the signs that 9/11 was coming.

It would be even more horrific to find out that the whack jobs that have taken the US from one of the most admired countries in the world to the most hated and feared also engineered its demise. But just the facts, without any speculation whatsoever, indicate complicity by default.

The Clinton administration specifically informed the incoming president and his minions of the dangers presented by al Qaida. National security under Clinton was actually a priority (and I don't especially like either Clinton, but I have to give credit where it's due), and there are many incidents recounted to bear this out. When Bush came into office, funds were cut for anti-terrorism, al Qaida was put on the back burner, the burner was turned off, and other priorities were addressed.

The Presidential Daily Briefing on the imminent attacks, the intelligence that indicated terrorist activity, and a host of other indicators were scorned. The result was a bonanza for the fearmongers and war profiteers.

It does not matter to me whether or not the administration was actively involved in the attacks of 9/11. I have no doubt that they realized it, or something like it, was coming, and they chose to ignore it knowing full well that it was the catalyst they needed to ignite their invasion of Iraq, use fear tactics to gain the trust of the American people to keep them safe, and to go on their worldwide rampage of destruction.

For example, he's using a lot of "peace and love and truth" language, and then he slips in "they put bombs in the WTC!".

This is black propaganda in action - right out of the manual. First, associate yourself with the target group by portraying yourself as "one of them." This is an important first step.

Second, once you feel you are accepted as "part of the group," introduce your selected disinformation. Be careful at this point, as you do not want to be rejected by the group. Select claims that a certain percentage of the group will accept. Use other confederates who have also infiltrated the target group as a "chorus of support." Point to "independent third parties" as evidence of further support.

If you can get other members of the group to start repeating your disinformation, than you have succeeded in your black propaganda operation. Congratulations!

Quite aside from the issues of physics and black propaganda and whatever else is muddying the waters here, let's ask one very critical question: who, in their right mind, thinks that there is anyone in the current maladministration who is capable of (a) planning this, (b) executing it perfectly, and (c) keeping the "conspiracy" hidden for as long as it took to complete (a) and (b).

I would say that it has been demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that this maladministration is metaphorically incapable of tying its own shoelaces. However, the "truthinessers" want us to believe that the most daring terrorist attack in history was planned and executed -- and covered up -- flawlessly, by these very same people.

That is pure, unadulterated nonsense. I worked in government for over 8 years, in the Office of the Mayor (NYC), and I can say uneqivocally that (a) there is no government agency, or even rogue group of government employees, capable of doing this, and (b) at some point, someone would have spilled the beans, either intentionally (whistleblower) or inadvertently (incompetent conspiracy participant).

There are two very simple maxims to observe here:

-- (1) Occam's Razor: All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the right one.

-- (2) Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

The "truthinessers" conspiracy theories fail on both counts.

Reading this thread is like watching return of the living dead. But instead of the zombies saying "brains, brains", the zombies here just say "conspiracy, conspiracy". Are you people for real? So a large group of people (think about how many people it would take to place explosives inside BOTH buildings and I will even throw in #7 for the freaks) pulled off this huge plan and no one knows? Did they hire Atta, bring him and his buddies to the states, train them and give them their boarding passes?
And don't even try the Pentagon bullshit that it was not a plane that hit it. The hole is small because a plane's fuselage is much stronger to a lateral force than the wings. Oh, and when did they start putting landing gear on missiles?
You are all just like the people who say we did not go to the moon, yet refuse to go to Mt. Wilson in Texas to ask them how the laser beam they send to the moon every day gets reflected back. What a ship of fools.