The question isn’t “Why the planes”. It’s “Why the explosives.” After all, as you say, the planes already sufficed to imply terrorists, so that’s all that would be needed to incite war or whatever the motive was.
Let me guess: goading the terrorists into hijacking and piloting the jets into the buildings was easy enough, but getting the terrorists to plant sufficient explosives in the structure to demolish straight up (with intentionally lax security) would have been beyond the competence and reach of your conspirators? After all, terrorists like to put explosives somewhere and detonate them; why do the conspirators have to do it and then frame up the terrorists?
Well, as I said in cheesy equation form three comments above you, using planes cements the notion of suicide bombing. If some shady guys plant explosives somewhere, they could’ve been working for anybody, but if the method necessarily involves killing themselves, it has to be the work of somebody crazy.
Additionally, doing this all with just a few pairs of box-cutters is much more fear-inspiring than doing it with explosives. If all it takes to bring down a skyscraper is the will to throw away your life, there’s nothing we can do to save ourselves but retreat into jingoistic paranoia, or so the thinking goes.
As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, many truthers don’t think there really were any hijackers at all, but it’s possible an inside job involved them, not too long ago the CIA was arming and funding the mujahideen, they were a tool of US foreign policy. On september 10th 2001, george hw bush was at a meeting of the carlyle group, together with shafiq bin laden, but that’s probably a meaningless coincidence, it’s not like he’s osama’s brother or anything. He’s only his half-brother.
It’s quite clear that you’re desperate to confirm. Box cutters and airliner hijackings—no, those were not more terrifying to me than the idea that terrorists can plant explosives sufficient to demolish any building I might be in. Consider the likelihood of another box-cutter airliner hijacking succeeding after seeing the consequence (3rd plane arguably proved this). People didn’t fight vs. box-cutters only because they had some hope of hijackers landing the plane safely.
Someone was at a meeting with someone else? So?
CIA doing shady things—generally true, but what does that demonstrate?
You fail because all the details you point out that are somewhat more likely given conspiracy (than no conspiracy) and the observed evidence, are not nearly as impressive as your bias leads you to think, and more tellingly, you think arguing over how impressive they are matters at all, when even a 100-fold difference is still dwarfed by:
1) the details you weren’t motivated to select, which in fact weigh in the opposite direction (the official straightforward story of how the buildings collapsed is likely true); or as a proxy for that, a lack of appreciation for the expected number of cool coincidences about any significant event that draws the attention and imagination of millions of people.
2) your incredibly wrong prior for the leadership of the US wanting planes full of its citizens crashed into buildings, and worse, wanting the economic damage (including deaths) of the full collapse of those buildings.
I’ve attempted to simply reply to people’s questions and objections as they’re made, thus visiting the weaker parts of my position. The evidence for controlled demolition, the starting point of this argument, is far from unimpeachable. I certainly wouldn’t call it a “slam-dunk”, and there are many truthers who think it’s misinformation, as yudkowsky jokingly proposes.
The best evidence of complicity, at least in my opinion, is the behavior of the administration following the attacks. Their efforts to hinder the investigation are a matter of public record, and quite inarguable.
I am sorry for linking to things rather than making my arguments in my own words, but I’m arguing with about a dozen people at this point and I’m spread pretty thin.
The question isn’t “Why the planes”. It’s “Why the explosives.” After all, as you say, the planes already sufficed to imply terrorists, so that’s all that would be needed to incite war or whatever the motive was.
Destroying skyscrapers is a far bigger punch to america’s gut than impotently crunching planes into them.
Let me guess: goading the terrorists into hijacking and piloting the jets into the buildings was easy enough, but getting the terrorists to plant sufficient explosives in the structure to demolish straight up (with intentionally lax security) would have been beyond the competence and reach of your conspirators? After all, terrorists like to put explosives somewhere and detonate them; why do the conspirators have to do it and then frame up the terrorists?
Well, as I said in cheesy equation form three comments above you, using planes cements the notion of suicide bombing. If some shady guys plant explosives somewhere, they could’ve been working for anybody, but if the method necessarily involves killing themselves, it has to be the work of somebody crazy.
Additionally, doing this all with just a few pairs of box-cutters is much more fear-inspiring than doing it with explosives. If all it takes to bring down a skyscraper is the will to throw away your life, there’s nothing we can do to save ourselves but retreat into jingoistic paranoia, or so the thinking goes.
As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, many truthers don’t think there really were any hijackers at all, but it’s possible an inside job involved them, not too long ago the CIA was arming and funding the mujahideen, they were a tool of US foreign policy. On september 10th 2001, george hw bush was at a meeting of the carlyle group, together with shafiq bin laden, but that’s probably a meaningless coincidence, it’s not like he’s osama’s brother or anything. He’s only his half-brother.
It’s quite clear that you’re desperate to confirm. Box cutters and airliner hijackings—no, those were not more terrifying to me than the idea that terrorists can plant explosives sufficient to demolish any building I might be in. Consider the likelihood of another box-cutter airliner hijacking succeeding after seeing the consequence (3rd plane arguably proved this). People didn’t fight vs. box-cutters only because they had some hope of hijackers landing the plane safely.
Someone was at a meeting with someone else? So?
CIA doing shady things—generally true, but what does that demonstrate?
You fail because all the details you point out that are somewhat more likely given conspiracy (than no conspiracy) and the observed evidence, are not nearly as impressive as your bias leads you to think, and more tellingly, you think arguing over how impressive they are matters at all, when even a 100-fold difference is still dwarfed by:
1) the details you weren’t motivated to select, which in fact weigh in the opposite direction (the official straightforward story of how the buildings collapsed is likely true); or as a proxy for that, a lack of appreciation for the expected number of cool coincidences about any significant event that draws the attention and imagination of millions of people.
2) your incredibly wrong prior for the leadership of the US wanting planes full of its citizens crashed into buildings, and worse, wanting the economic damage (including deaths) of the full collapse of those buildings.
I’ve attempted to simply reply to people’s questions and objections as they’re made, thus visiting the weaker parts of my position. The evidence for controlled demolition, the starting point of this argument, is far from unimpeachable. I certainly wouldn’t call it a “slam-dunk”, and there are many truthers who think it’s misinformation, as yudkowsky jokingly proposes.
The best evidence of complicity, at least in my opinion, is the behavior of the administration following the attacks. Their efforts to hinder the investigation are a matter of public record, and quite inarguable.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=111797990720729032&hl=en&emb=1#49m22s
I am sorry for linking to things rather than making my arguments in my own words, but I’m arguing with about a dozen people at this point and I’m spread pretty thin.
As far as I can tell you haven’t actually said whether you yourself actually believe this stuff. Do you?