Separating the fact from fiction..

March 18, 2006 9:56 PM

Is there any truth to the 9/11 conspiracy theories?

There seems to be a large number of people convinced that the bush administration was either behind the 9/11 attacks or knew about it beforehand and let it happen on purpose. A friend of mine is absolutely convinced of this and is trying to get me to read a book that makes it "impossible to believe otherwise". He even showed me a video that did seem to suggest it was a missle, rather than a plane, that hit the pentagon. I was curious enough to type in a google search, but was quickly overwhelmed by all the usual suspects -- crazy rants about the apocalypse, essays connecting everything to everyone, blatantly anti-semitic bullshit blaming israel, etc. While I understand that there are probably a lot of very intelligent and acaedmic people doing research who have arrived at these same theories, I am also aware of how easy it is for seemingly intelligent people to be convinced of something they want to believe if it is presented by other intelligent people -- the classic example of this being the institiute for historical review and other holocaust deniers.

So, having not read any of the conspiracy books or done any research, my question is-- how plausible is the case that it was an inside job? I would like to think that this is simply far-left conspiracy nuttery. Do these people think our current administration is really stupid enough to risk a conspiracy involving the murder of three thousand of its own citizens and potential destruction of the economy solely for political advantage-- and at the same time smart enough to actually pull it off? This seems like a stretch to me and, in in my mind, the most logical counter argument is that theres no way the government could have pulled off such a large scale and coordinated attack-- too many people would have had to be in on it. Weve seen how blunderingly incompetent and disunified this administration is over even very simple matters. And lets not forget that there are thousands of people in this country whose actual profession and training is to analyze facts and evidence and tell us truth about what happens-- they are called investigative reporters and there is nothing they would love more than to be able to cover the next watergate. If there is plausibility to the claims, how come there hasnt been any discussion of it in the new york times or washington post or other mainstream and relatively left-leaning news.

Anyways, the main arguments that my friend gave me (im sure there are many more) are that, one, we held back countermeasures and kept fighter jets from intercepting the planes, two, the jet-fueled fire alone was not cause towers to crumble and the way they fell suggests demolition charges and three, the damage and debris of the crash at the pentagon is not consistent with a 757. So is there truth to these claims? and if so, what are the implications?

posted by petsounds to society & culture (80 comments total)

Like any conspiracy theory, I'm sure there is at least some truth to it.
posted by fvox13 at 10:05 PM on March 18, 2006

Some of the theories are completely wacked out.

Some of them are frighteningly reasonable.

None of them are proven.

Here's an example of why it's so difficult to tell, though: One of the theories is that the WTC must have been knocked down some other way - maybe from explosives inside. To me, this sounds totally implausible at first, because of the fact that at first thought - how the hell would anyone ever get explosives into all of the places in the WTC required to get it to collapse like it did?

On the flip side of that coin though - it's insanely improbable that not one, but TWO buildings would collapse within their own footprint just like a preplanned demolition would go according to a lot of people.


Does that improbability mean that it must have been done from the inside? No - not necessarily. But it makes you at least go from "what a total quack theory" to .. "well, even if the theory is wrong, it brings up a rather strange and scary point that nobody's seemed to explain away"...


At the end of the day it's all nothing but theories. Some of them are completely wacked - I really doubt a missile had anything to do with the attacks, for example. Some of them are somewhat frighteningly close to being reasonable. Really, all you can do is read up on them and decide for yourself - just remember to take a lot of the words with the requisite grain of salt.
posted by twiggy at 10:09 PM on March 18, 2006

On the flip side of that coin though - it's insanely improbable that not one, but TWO buildings would collapse within their own footprint just like a preplanned demolition would go according to a lot of people.

You expected the buildings to fall some other way than downwards?
posted by cillit bang at 10:21 PM on March 18, 2006

The thing that keeps me, at least, from really giving any credence to these theories is sort of an Occam's razor kind of thing. Lots of people saw planes hit these buildings, so that's the most probable explanation. I think I'm just not a conspiracy theory kind of person, since looking for complicated explanations is what they do. Plus, I think people are willing to blame a LOT of things on Bush; I think he's a bad president and terrible for the country, but let's not go blaming him for the Holocaust, the Vietnam War, and Watergate.
posted by MadamM at 10:23 PM on March 18, 2006

If there is plausibility to the claims, how come there hasnt been any discussion of it in the new york times or washington post or other mainstream and relatively left-leaning news.

Heh. I once told Greg Palast that my wife asked the same question with regard to the Florida vote shenanigans in 2000, and he just laughed. I don't want to get into an argument about the political leanings of the NYT and WaPo, but they are as much a part of the establishment as the politicians they rely upon to keep them in copy.

I'm of what might be called the 'soft LIHOP' school, in that I believe there was an internal motivation to respond to any attack according to an established agenda, rather than pre-empt it.

The big problem with conspiracy theories is that they place great emphasis on fragments and problematic sources. We all know how many bits of 'information' were floating around over . It's fair to say that some misinformation is still part of the official narrative; other misinformation forms shadow narratives.

Conspiracy theories also appeal to our desire to find a coherent narrative, and preconceived ideas and judgements play a big part. You'll also find people who'll make a case for Iraqi involvement in 9/11 -- Laurie Mylroie is the most famous. I think it's fair to say, though, that historians in 2051 will have a better understanding of what actually happened than we do today.

Anyway, rather than reading 9/11 conspiracy books, I suggest picking up a copy of Foucault's Pendulum.
posted by holgate at 10:32 PM on March 18, 2006

The reason I don't think most of it was a conspiracy was simple: the leadership panicked. Bush and Cheney, if they had preplanned the whole thing, would have wanted to look sternly in control... instead, they looked like frightened children. Bush didn't touch the ground, I don't think, for days.

So I don't think the whole thing was a plot by any means. I remain, however, morally certain that Flight 93 (I think that's the right one) that crashed over Pennsylvania was shot down. I think the "Let's Roll" story was something they grabbed and ran with because it was convenient; I think a missile took that thing down, not the passengers. It was just too convenient on too many levels that it just happened to come down in a rural area, far from population centers.

(and, for what it's worth, I also think they SHOULD HAVE shot down the plane: it was the right decision.)
posted by Malor at 10:40 PM on March 18, 2006

That's a good point I hadn't thought of, Malor. (Mainly because this whole conspiracy business is too ridiculous for me to think about too much...) I wouldn't think the masterminds of a politically-calculated terror strike would have let My Pet Goat happen. Sure, Bush looked strong eventually, but why wasn't he doing that from the outset, if they knew already?

But maybe that's just what Karl Rove wants us to think!
posted by SuperNova at 10:51 PM on March 18, 2006

Yeah... no... not so much. These theories use crappy photos and bad science to discount the experiences of the thousands of people that had direct experience of the events.

"It's insanely improbable that not one, but TWO buildings would collapse within their own footprint" -- Is it? I certainly don't have enough knowledge/information to make that call. I mean, I only have two data points for planes flying into skyscrapers (Tower 1 and Tower 2), and both of those sure did.

For these types of things, Snopes is always a good starting point.
posted by cosmonaught at 10:55 PM on March 18, 2006

No.
posted by LarryC at 10:56 PM on March 18, 2006

Unlike the JFK assasination, which more plausibly was conspiritorial (Soviets, mafia, Johnson, you name it they had a motive), there was no real motive behind a 9/11 conspiracy. The government was awash with the surpluses of the go-go 90s, Bush had demonstrated himself as a rather laid-back leader, he demonstrated no real need for a power grab or a legacy-gaining action. If there was a conspiracy it was between Al-Qaeada and a middle-eastern government or something less sexy than the CIA or other American organization.

Conspiracies often make since in retrospect (see: JFK assasinatino) and usually result in agenda driven action, such as the Zimmernan Telegram. 9/11 tanked Western economies and got rid of a very, very poor country and a country isolated by a dictator. Regardless of political affiliation you must believe that Iraq and Afghanistan were incredibly insignificant players on the global scale.

We all saw 9/11 happen, literally as it did. it's been so thoroughly investigated that i don't think any entity, super-power or not, could hide all evidence. Everything conspiracy related relies on too many postulates that do not have falsibility attached to them.
posted by geoff. at 10:58 PM on March 18, 2006

Malor wins.

I think you have the most content explanation I've heard regarding all of this. It's a terribly difficult series of events for our government to coordinate with not nearly as much payoff as we'd all love to believe. What, Halliburton is making some bank in Iraq, therefore Cheney must have masterminded September 11th?

That's not to say some intelligence might have been disregarded or ignored, but seriously? 19 men with box cutters? It's almost too simple. It relied on plenty of other systems to break down (intelligence, TSA/airport security, passengers on the planes/leadership on the planes) to be a plot anyone other than those accused would have bothered coming up with.

I haven't heard any true justification behind a conspiracy of this nature. Was it in Bush's best interest to destroy the economy, spur the bubble's burst and have to work uphill? Sure, it acted as an impetus into Iraq and Afghanistan but since when are we so naive to think that he wouldn't have dug himself any other route he could've found to go head first into that conflict? I watched the video, too, and certain elements are very convincing, but that's what makes a great conspiracy theory, after all. Occam's razor indeed.
posted by disillusioned at 10:59 PM on March 18, 2006

one, we held back countermeasures and kept fighter jets from intercepting the planes,

What fighters? You can't just scramble a fighter -- flying a high-performance military aircraft is not like driving a car. You can only scramble a fighter that's been specially prepared to be scrambled -- that has been fueled, armed, preflighted, and checked out eight ways from Sunday.

IIRC, and I'm certainly not going to go look it up again, there were either two or four fighters on alert in the entire eastern seaboard. And that not because of any conspiracy, but because keeping armed and fueled planes sitting around is not a smart thing to do as there are many things that can go wrong (ask McCain or the people who died on the Forrestal).

two, the jet-fueled fire alone was not cause towers to crumble and the way they fell suggests demolition charges

Which do you think is more likely:

(1) We don't have a very thorough understanding of what happens when extremely large buildings of unusual construction collapse, so they might behave suprisingly.
(2) Crack gangs of commando demolitionists spent weeks preparing the buildings for implosion and nobody noticed, and the pilots on the airliners managed to hit at exactly the right points and angles to disguise it.
(3) Cracks gangs of invisible commando demolitionists high on super-crack swarmed the buildings after the collisions and did several weeks worth of work in the time between the collisions and collapses.

and three, the damage and debris of the crash at the pentagon is not consistent with a 757

How the hell does anyone know what's consistent with flying a 757 into a reinforced-concrete building? It's only been done once. Or, if your friend were right, only been done never.

In any case, lots of people actually watched it happen. Are they all in on the conspiracy, which must extend not just from high officials and terrorists but also to carefully placed random passersby who'd been infiltrated into DC society for years and years just so that they could tell the correct lies on the day?

I would like to think that this is simply far-left conspiracy nuttery

My sense is that the real whackjobs on the subject tend to be right-wing, for what it's worth.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:59 PM on March 18, 2006 [1 favorite]

As far as these things go, people need to understand the difference between circumstantial evidence and proof. If you "can no longer believe otherwise" than that Bush planned this, I have to ask what you've heard. If all you've heard is how much he stood to gain politically, and how he's manipulated the situation shamelssly to great advantage, that's no kind of proof.

it's insanely improbable that not one, but TWO buildings would collapse within their own footprint just like a preplanned demolition

Is this an informed opinion? My uninformed logic has no problem with this. It would take a lot of force to move the building sideways. Alternatively, upon collapse, one side of the lower levels would have to withstand the collapse better than the other, driving the upper levels outward as they fell. Why should one side of the same building be stronger than the other?

I just don't think it's logical to think that buildings want to fall down sideways, and you have to try REALLY hard to get them to fall straight down. I doubt either of us really knows what we're talking about, though. In absence of knowledge, don't jump to conclusions.

Once you learn a little about how much of the structural integrity of the WTC was in the outer casing, it makes a lot more sense how the planes were able to take them down by piercing the outer wall. Planted explosives inside? Not really necessary. The "outer cage" building technique was one of the things that allowed the WTC to be built so high. But it was optimized for height, and very poorly optimized for durability to an outer surface attack.

The WTV towers suffered more damage on one side than the other, and in fact the collapses were not perfectly clean "within footprint" drops. There was a small lateral difference, probably due to the plane having torn through one side more completely.
posted by scarabic at 11:00 PM on March 18, 2006

Nope, unless you'r crazy.
posted by justgary at 11:01 PM on March 18, 2006

I think a missile took that thing down, not the passengers.

That's not the official story, AFAIK. The official story, IIRC, is that the passengers started some sort of trouble and the terrorists crashed the plane rather than be caught.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:01 PM on March 18, 2006

Excellent responses... I'll just add that I happenned to pick up the book you mentioned (The New Pearl Harbour) when I was at a friend's. It's not bad; not the most rigourously academic book, but not as obviously nutty as many actual conspiracy theories. I don't think I'd go so far as to believe that there was an active conspiracy, but the book does get you thinking, and for that alone it's worth a look. Twiggy's answer (that some are wacked out, and some reasonable) illustrates that the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle... and that certain powers might have taken advantage of a situation to push forth a certain agenda.
posted by rmm at 11:10 PM on March 18, 2006

The only one that seems somewhat credible to me is:

Flight 93 was shot down. This one wouldn't bother me at all given the day's events (seems a smart idea, really), but I'm sure a bunch of fools would get their panties in a bunch, so I could imagine it getting covered up.

Oh, and I guess I also like the theory that President Bush remained seated for 7 minutes, so the world wouldn't see the erection he got when he found out we'd been hit by terrorists. Okay, I don't believe that one, but at least it's amusing.

The controlled demolition theories are hooey, as are the "missile not a plane" theories.

The "Jews were all warned" theories are obviously BS.

I don't buy into the "Bush let it happen" theories either, on the basis that I always rank incompetance higher than malice.
posted by I Love Tacos at 11:22 PM on March 18, 2006

Oh, and if you want to see articles about the WTC's collapse, find an engineer who works on skyscrapers, and ask them for some journal articles. There were a bunch.

The collapse was quite thoroughly analyzed by professionals, who came up with the wild and crazy theory that the fire eventually heated the steel enough that it was too weak to hold, and then the building pancaked.
posted by I Love Tacos at 11:25 PM on March 18, 2006

Great responses, thanks. After posting here I found that wikipedia has some really good overviews of the whole thing, including this wonderful little bit: "The Church of Scientology claims that the 9/11 hijackers were brainwashed by psychiatrists who were the real masterminds behind the attacks [79], despite the fact that none of the hijackers were ever known to have visited psychiatrists." I knew it! You're either with us.. or you're with the psychiatrists
posted by petsounds at 11:31 PM on March 18, 2006

The conspiracy theories are all bunk.

Conspiracy theories are not new. They are not a product of the Internet, nor of modern times. I'm sure sectors of the Roman republic were blaming the Visigoths for the assassination of Ceasar. I'm sure the Ug tribe was blaming the Thog tribe's magician when the drought happened.

Conspiracy theory is just man's attempt to provide an understandable framework for things they don't understand. It's somehow easier to grasp that CIA operatives planted explosives. We understand secrets and hidden agendas. It's counter-intuitive, but those concepts are easier to swallow than the idea that one man with a rifle, or a few guys with boxcutters, can literally change the world.

Boxcutters? That's it? I make it through the Cold War and nuclear chess, and the whole world comes tumbling down ... because of boxcutters? No ... there must be more. There has to be.
posted by frogan at 11:40 PM on March 18, 2006

The World Trade Center towers behaved differently than other buildings because they were built differently than other buildings. See PBS's Why the Towers Fell.

The "missile hit the Pentagon" theories are stupid. On the same day, many people saw a the plane hit the second World Trade Center tower on live TV. Why would you shoot a missile into the Pentagon when you flew planes into the World Trade Center towers on the same day?

American Airlines is missing a real airplane, and there were 64 people on Flight 77, which hit (or "hit") the Pentagon. If a missile hit the Pentagon, where is the plane, and where are the people?

I've heard the theories that drone planes hit the World Trade Center towers. Where are the real planes? What happened to the people? Where they ditched at sea? Is the government that bungled Hurricane Katrina capable of pulling that off?

I don't think Flight 93 was shot down. The black box recordings show that the hijackers crashed the plane when the passengers were trying to storm the cockpit.

The government invited conspiracy theories by not being upfront about what happened; for example, immediately capitalizing on "Let's Roll" and lying about Air Force One being a target. I think this is due more to panic or to politicizing the issue than it is due to complicity, though.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:07 AM on March 19, 2006

Is the government that bungled Hurricane Katrina capable of pulling that off?

i've always had the impression that something was a bit shady about all this 9/11 business... but reading that comment has cleared everything up.
posted by a. at 3:09 AM on March 19, 2006

There's definitely some hard to explain things about 9-11. The one that most puzzles me is why the Windsor Towers in Madrid was able to burn for like a week without collapsing, while the Twin Towers collapsed in just several hours.
posted by sic at 3:35 AM on March 19, 2006

The Windsor Tower was of a completely different construction and a fucking plane hadn't crashed into it.
posted by cillit bang at 3:50 AM on March 19, 2006

The reason I don't think most of it was a conspiracy was simple: the leadership panicked. Bush and Cheney, if they had preplanned the whole thing, would have wanted to look sternly in control... instead, they looked like frightened children. Bush didn't touch the ground, I don't think, for days.


This trenchant comment bears repeating.

Also, anyone interested in conspiracies needs to read the excellent 911 Commission report first. It's actually very readable.

Having worked around federal officials, I can tell you that the biggest hole in all these conspiracy theories is the notion that officials are smart and capable enough to carry off a giant plot and keep it secret.
posted by CunningLinguist at 5:08 AM on March 19, 2006

Also, as to the shootdown of Flight 93, see if you can find anyone who thinks that shooting it down would have been the wrong thing to do.

A tough decision? Yes. Wrong? No.

If Bush had gone on TV that afternoon and said `we were forced to shoot down the final hijacked plane', I don't think there would have been many people objecting to the fact. Grieving at the loss, but not in disagreement after seeing the intentions of the hijackers.
posted by tomble at 5:13 AM on March 19, 2006

If you want something to wonder about, try to figure out why building seven collapsed at the World Trade Center. No airplane hit it, no building fell on it, but it went down hard.
posted by Ken McE at 5:27 AM on March 19, 2006

The political leadership of the USA probably didn't have any direct involvement with 9/11, but over the past few decades they have heavily contributed to creating an environment where this sort of thing could happen. Watch the Power of Nightmares (3 part BBC mini series freely available at archive.org) for a lot better explanation than I could ever offer.
posted by blue_beetle at 7:04 AM on March 19, 2006

Also: Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
posted by blue_beetle at 7:06 AM on March 19, 2006

If you want something to wonder about, try to figure out why building seven collapsed at the World Trade Center. No airplane hit it, no building fell on it, but it went down hard.

Um, how about two buildings three times the size of it getting hit by jetairliners and fucking collapsing about 100 feet away from it, into the huge underlying subway infrastructure below?

but i'm sure you're convinced the moon landing was faked too
posted by poppo at 7:08 AM on March 19, 2006

sorry for the anger in that comment. but, as someone who worked daily in both buildings 1 and 7 until the fall of 2000, I can tell you that standing in that courtyard and looking up at the 1 and 2 buildings was shocking. they were huge, and building 7 collapsing at the end of the day is nothing to wonder at conspiratorially.
posted by poppo at 7:21 AM on March 19, 2006

About the theory that the heads of our government acted like ninnies on 9/11, thus there was no conspiracy, that would assume that the heads of our government were in on the conspiracy.

About the idea that all conspiracy theories are wrong, is it then true that there was no conspiracy among the 19 hijackers to crash planes into various American landmarks?

There were conspiracies afoot on 9/11. The questions that are being asked have to do with who was in on them, who might have known about them without being in on them, and whether or not anyone who could have stopped them did not.

Personally, I think that there are shadowy figures whose motives are not entirely clear. See also BCCI. I have no idea, in this case, what they knew or when they knew it. They tend to be pretty secretive about that kind of stuff. If they have a motive, it seems that it is usually money. So if I wanted to find out, I might asked who profited. Some of the rumors of shady financial dealings that day would lead me to believe that someone besides the hijackers knew. But I don't think it was GW, or even necessarily any of his henchpeople.

That's my take.
posted by jefeweiss at 7:41 AM on March 19, 2006

Re: flight 93, there's another thread about that. Also there was a thread on metachat about the WTC.

Frogan explained very well where these ideas come from. I don't think it makes any sense at all to believe the conspiracy theories in this case; the events simply make more sense in the messy, unromantic way they seem to have happened.
posted by mdn at 7:48 AM on March 19, 2006

This is an excellent discussion; one of the best I've read when this subject comes up.

I don't have much to add except to note that Michael Ruppert -- one of the King Crazies on the drone planes hit the WTCs/ missile hit the Pentagon -- is now all hot and bothered over peak oil. Caveat lector.

I think the truth in the conspiracy theories has nothing to do with what happened on September 11, but rather everything to do with the fears and anxieties of certain groups. Xenophobe_ROU is correct: The 9/11 conspiracy crowd is a natural outgrowth not of the black-shirted anti-globalisation crowd from Seattle, but rather the black helicopter, Michigan militia crazies from Ruby Ridge. They are scared of the future (and the present); scared of the outside world; scared of the cultural and social changes explicit in globalisation.
posted by docgonzo at 7:55 AM on March 19, 2006

I love the polarisation that happens in my head when conspiracy theories are raised.

If you firmly believe that there was *no* conspiracy, of any kind or nature, then you deserve to be ignorant in your bliss;

If you firmly believe there *was* a conspiracy, of any kind or nature, then you must be paranoid and/or delusional.

That there will always be more to a story than we, Joe Q Public, are told, has to be a given - simpy because of the manner of information control and media dissemination.

Does that mean it is a conspiracy though? Not in my opinion, no - Who shot JFK? Was that a conspiracy? Not per se I would argue, but finding the guilty? Definitely.

" There seems to be a large number of people convinced that the bush administration was either behind the 9/11 attacks or knew about it beforehand and let it happen on purpose "

That is not conspiracy; that is Government doing what they do.

However; the fabric surrounding the events is the conspiracy - without question.

(Of course they knew it was going to happen; just as 'they' know what other things are going to happen - the people of the UK knew without question that at any time, anywhere, the IRA were going to detonate a bomb somewhere that was going to cause serious damage)

'Letting it happen on purpose' suggests that they knew the specifics - and that, to me, is where it all falls down, so to speak - how many people knew? In what position of power?

The fabric has holes in it: big enough to drive the proverbial truck through.

It's just not so simple as to be defining though - This absolutely must be read - regardless of the side you take - as it raises some obvious questions that just don't have answers, or explanations - witness the expulsion of debris pictures on slide 41 - "Demolition Squibs"

Were they "Behind the attack?" Seems a more pertinent question to the matter than they "allowed it to happen"

Why? Who cares? Does having a reason for it make it any more believeable (or less) or acceptable (or heinious)?

Who's going to do anything about it?

Why destroy the single most important icon(s) of the Western worlds commercialism?

Why not assasinate a president instead? Cheaper, easier; no-less fury-engaging?

Why not systematically blow people and places up and wage proper guerilla war? Cheaper, easier, more effective?

Why have there been no more events?

The large part of conspiracy theory is its' need to substantiate itself in order to have gravitas. Merely raising the questions is *not* enough - there needs to be a really good 'because... ' attached to them.

IMHO, if there are enough 'because...' 's then the adage there is 'No smoke without fire' kicks into effect - and there will always be enough substantion due to our nature.

This very action of nature is self-fulfilling prophecy; but the most important aspect of it all is that we challenge and ask and provoke and explore the reasons and justifications offered to us until we are happy to accept them, or make a choice that we are satified living with.

What I find amazing is that there are truly *some* questions that scream out for answers - such as there not being ANY video of the incident at the Pentagon - that there is no answer as to the cause of the explosion at street level in the Towers; why Bin Laden is STILL at large?

The reasons for the attacks according to the US Government is because they were consistent with the mission statement of al-Queda.

What's that statement?
" The motivation for this campaign was set out in a 1998 fatwa issued by ...>snip< ...br>
The fatwa lists three so-called "crimes and sins committed by the Americans":

U.S. occupation of the Arabian Peninsula.
U.S. aggression against the Iraqi people.
U.S. support of Israel.

The fatwa states that the United States:

Plunders the resources of the Arabian Peninsula.

Dictates policy to the rulers of those countries.

Supports abusive regimes and monarchies in the Middle East, thereby oppressing their people.

Has military bases and installations upon the Arabian Peninsula, which violates the Muslim holy land, in order to threaten neighboring Muslim countries.

Intends thereby to create disunion between Muslim states, thus weakening them as a political force.

Supports Israel, and wishes to divert international attention from (and tacitly maintain) the occupation of Palestine. "
posted by DrtyBlvd at 8:22 AM on March 19, 2006

Neglected to add at the end of that ratehr long post:

The implications are that it served a greater purpose. The real question should be, to what end?
posted by DrtyBlvd at 8:27 AM on March 19, 2006

There was a conspiracy -- a group of dudes conspired to fly a bunch of airplanes into prominent us buildings.
posted by ph00dz at 8:34 AM on March 19, 2006

Okay so we can ignore the conspiracy theories, but I do think it's alarming that a plane was allowed to cut its radio transponder and fly for 40 minutes towards the DC area and then crash into the pentagon. Youd like to think we have *somethng* (surface to air missles, flak, etc) to protect what is the effective nerve and operational center of our millitary. You'd think of all places, and with all our money, the Department of Defense would at least get an air defense system in place. But maybe im expecting too much of my government
posted by petsounds at 8:37 AM on March 19, 2006

Is there any truth to the 9/11 conspiracy theories?

See Popular Mechanics' March 2005 9/11: Debunking The Myths (MetaFilter thread)

The 9/11 Commission Report is definitely worth reading, and I recommend supplementing it with Richard Posner's The 9/11 Report: A Dissent in the New York Times, Elizabeth Drew's Pinning the Blame in the New York Review of Books, and Benjamin DeMott's Whitewash as Public Service in Harper's.

witness the expulsion of debris pictures on slide 41 - 'Demolition Squibs'

I looked at the "demolition squibs" page, and the video [.mpeg] and photo they link to don't support their claim, which is debunked here.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:44 AM on March 19, 2006

Malor
It was just too convenient on too many levels that it just happened to come down in a rural area, far from population centers.

Have you ever looked out the window when you've flown? :)

There's WAY more empty ground down there than population centers.
posted by The Deej at 8:50 AM on March 19, 2006

Jeff Wells has questions
posted by hortense at 8:52 AM on March 19, 2006

I'm not an engineer, or someone other remotely qualified to judge the likelihood of the towers collapsing the way they did, or any of that, so I have no idea how plausible certain of the alternate theories are about 9/11. I found the 9/11 Commission Report to be the most believable explanation, and it's still fascinating reading (they explain the whole readiness-of-fighter-jets thing in there).

But, I remember my mom gave me a few years ago a translation (into Serbian, maybe there's an English version out there) of some book by a French guy called Thierry Messan called "9/11, the frightening deception" which had some variants on the usual conspiracy theories. If I remember correctly, he claimed that the towers collapsing was due to the planes- but that for the planes to both hit the towers, at all, would have been a highly challenging maneuver for any pilots, much less with the rudimentary training received by the hijackers- therefore, there had to have been some sort of homing device (?) in the towers. I think he's also on the missile-hit-the-pentagon bandwagon, but I can't remember on what justification, again because of the alleged difficulty of piloting a plane into a relatively short building.

But anyway, I didn't find that aspect of the book very compelling, but really the most interesting thing was that at the back, he enclosed several pages of declassified DoD documents from the fifties and sixties, and one of them described a fairly detailed plan to take a plane, filled with fake people (i.e, have names and backstories for fake identities that could be released to the media, not anyone actually on the plane aside from the pilot) and have it go down into the water off Cuba (with the pilot autoejecting, or whatever). Then, they'd have an excuse to antagonize Cuba and accuse them of shooting it down, etc etc. The whole thing seemed incredibly farfetched and ridiculous, and obviously they didn't go through with it, but just the fact that it had been seriously considered astonished me.
posted by Oobidaius at 8:57 AM on March 19, 2006

Oobidauius: that was Operation Northwoods. The Wikipedia article has a link to a PDF of the memo. It is a useful document to keep on hand to show to the people who claim that "our government would never do such a thing."
posted by IshmaelGraves at 9:07 AM on March 19, 2006

As far as the flight "that fought back" goes i can promise you that it was shot down.

During the whole thing i happened to be sitting at a radar in baltimore Co (at Raytheon in Towson) watching the whole thing unfold. There were two planes in that area. One of them was identifying with an IFF that we make. They dont put our IFF's in civ planes.

/tired of the liess
posted by I_am_jesus at 9:21 AM on March 19, 2006

More than 90% of the U.S. is rural by land area. This is the primary reason why tornado hits on major U.S. cities are relatively rare. Your average thunderstorm spends more time over farmland and national forest than areas with high-density populations.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:37 AM on March 19, 2006

it's insanely improbable that not one, but TWO buildings would collapse within their own footprint just like a preplanned demolition

You have two identical buildings suffering very similar damage. The first falls straight down. Would you expect the secong building to behave similarly, or differently?
posted by raider at 9:38 AM on March 19, 2006

And um, is it just me, or did the WTC towers not fully fall into their own footprint. I always thought that one of the primary design goals for imploding buildings was to fold it in on its self to minimize the scattering of debris.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:57 AM on March 19, 2006

I looked at the "demolition squibs" page, and the video [.mpeg] and photo they link to don't support their claim, which is debunked here.

"Squib" evidence is visible in frames 3,6,7,8 & 9 from original link

Popular Mechanics (!) Who'da'thought it? The 'debunking' you mention fails to address the frame evidence above.
posted by DrtyBlvd at 10:04 AM on March 19, 2006

What the shit? The debunking clearly states that the puffs of crap squirting out of the building are consistent with compressed air from the collapse. How does that not address the frame evidence?

And, jeeee-zus, how big must the "squibs" (by which I assume they mean shaped-charge cutters) have been to have shot visible clouds of debris and gas somewhere near 100 feet?

Why the hell would the supposed conspirators have wanted to shoot huge clouds of crap out of the building? They could have simply used regular cutting charges sufficient to cut the columns, and not the gigantic monster overkill charges implied by the frames. Or they could have simply arranged their preplaced charges to fire inwards or laterally along the face, hiding them from view.

I mean, I am not a terrorist. I am not a conspirator. My building-destruction skills are, essentially, zero. And **I** know better than to do what you say the actual no-shit conspirators did. The only way that these puffs of crap are consistent with shaped-charges are if the conspirators wanted to provide visible evidence. That the puffs of crap were just pushed out by air compression seems a lot more likely than that ninja squads of explosive demolitionists set up the building to implode, and no one noticed, but that they did it in an unnecessarily dumb way in order to get caught.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:04 AM on March 19, 2006

1. There are people who would benefit from a "pearl harbor like event". People who want to spend more money on the military, put the US on a war footing, and plunder resources around the globe and become fantastically wealthy.

2. There are terrorists who want to attack the United States.

3. Black hat operations are done by allowing someone else (often your enemy) to do something dirty which ultimately benefits you.

4. It only takes a few little helpful hints, pushes in the right direction, etc. to help your patsy move in the right direction.

5. It only takes a very small group of people to either deliver helpful information/people/resources to the patsy.

6. People at the top never need or want to know how things work, they are there to reap the rewards.
posted by cell divide at 11:29 AM on March 19, 2006

"See Popular Mechanics' March 2005 9/11: Debunking The Myths"

The Chief Editor on this piece was Ben Chertoff who is the cousin of Michael Chertoff, the new Secretery of Homeland Security. From the Popular Mechanics page with the article:

"REPORTING: Benjamin Chertoff, Davin Coburn, Michael Connery, David Enders, Kevin Haynes, Kristin Roth, Tracy Saelinger, Erik Sofge and the editors of POPULAR MECHANICS.
PHOTOGRAPHY RESEARCH: Sarah Shatz.
SOURCES: For a list of experts consulted during the preparation of this article, click here."
posted by sharksandwich at 11:36 AM on March 19, 2006

What cell divide says.

That this WTC attack was allowed to happen is something I can readily believe. That it was encouraged to happen by feeding the right sorts of information to al Queda is something I could be led to believe.

That the collapse of WTC 1 & 2 was forced: that I can not believe. That the collapse was expected: that I can not believe.

That there have been endless post-attack coverups, that I do believe. There was inadequate in-situ investigation of the disaster area, an unlikely series of improbable evidence (the passport? give me a break!), and a whole bunch of loose threads.

If the conspiracy theorists want to be effective they have to at least be quasi-rational.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:46 AM on March 19, 2006

The Chief Editor on this piece was Ben Chertoff who is the cousin of Michael Chertoff

So? Should one be judged based on their cousins? And even if a family connection did provide the author with some inside access, wouldnt that be a beneficial thing considering the article he was trying to write? If you are trying to refute a research article maybe you should address the facts and arguments within rather make vague family cover-up/curruption accusations about the author.
posted by petsounds at 11:49 AM on March 19, 2006

There is one good conspiracy-ish theory (PDF) I've read, which argues that molten aluminum (from the fuselages and building cladding) explodes when it comes into contact with concrete and/or drywall, and the explosions weakened the towers.
posted by cillit bang at 12:20 PM on March 19, 2006

Oobidaius: "...but that for the planes to both hit the towers, at all, would have been a highly challenging maneuver for any pilots..."

I have a copy of MS Flight Sim that was made before the attacks. (Keep in mind that MS Flight Sim is considered an accurate enough simulation that it's used in some flight schools, and counts towards simulator hours.)

The first time I heard this claim, I put myself in a large passenger jet, and warped it to the altitude and direction listed in one of the news sites' maps of the flight path taken.

It was a leisurely flight towards NYC, and I was easily able to steer my plane directly into one of the towers.
posted by CrayDrygu at 1:11 PM on March 19, 2006

Yeah, to argue that maneuvering into the towers is "challenging for any pilot" is silly...

The towers were probably at least as wide as a runway and planes seem to land without incident thousands of times a day...


As far as the demolition of the towers - maybe the sheer weight of the stuff on top that was falling down caused a perfect collapse, but generally demolitions do not go so well unless well planned out. What normally happens is there's more stress/broken material on one side, so that part collapses first - putting more weight on that portion of the building below the part collapsing, and causing a sideways effect.

Would the buildings topple over sideways as one big structure? Hell no, of course not. However, buildings generally do not fall perfectly straight down.


That said - I STILL don't believe that anything other than the planes hitting the WTC towers happened. I don't believe it was any sort of conspiracy theory or rigging - maybe it was the unique way the towers were built that they fell that way.

I'm just saying that anyone who has done some reading or watched discovery channel shows about the demolition of buildings knows that pulling a demolition off within the footprint of the building in question is exceedingly difficult - therefore, I can understand how it raises some eyebrows with the conspiracy theorists.
posted by twiggy at 1:55 PM on March 19, 2006

As far as the flight "that fought back" goes i can promise you that it was shot down.

During the whole thing i happened to be sitting at a radar in baltimore Co (at Raytheon in Towson) watching the whole thing unfold. There were two planes in that area. One of them was identifying with an IFF that we make. They dont put our IFF's in civ planes.

I've got no problem believing there was a military plane in the area, and if it was in fact shot down I'd not even really have a problem with that, given the circumstances, but the presence of a military plane is not evidence that it was shot down.
posted by kindall at 3:28 PM on March 19, 2006

Minor point: the towers did not collapse neatly, or straight down, as if they were "pulled down" by demolitions experts. If you look at some of the video footage and photographs taken from relatively close positions as the towers fell, you can see that the top portions of the towers (above the entry points for the planes) toppled over to one side.

Something's fishy about the Flight 93 crash. For the Al Qaeda pilots to decide to bring the plane down in the middle of nowhere , it meant they had to come to the conclusion that they would not complete their mission of hitting whatever target they were headed for in Washington, D.C. Given their training and their fanatical commitment to their cause, I find it hard to believe that they would give up just because people were trying to get into the cockpit. Unless that was part of their training, too—if the passengers decide they don't like being hijacked, plow the thing into the ground.
posted by emelenjr at 5:00 PM on March 19, 2006

"It's insanely improbable that not one, but TWO buildings would collapse within their own footprint"

This claim would have some validity, if it weren't for the fact that they were effectively two instances of exactly the same building...

If they had fallen differently from each other, that would be interesting.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 8:03 PM on March 19, 2006

Could someone explain the timings of WTC7? My current judgement is "a little odd, that"
posted by holloway at 8:03 PM on March 19, 2006

Damnit... didn't want to read the whole thread and just searched for "wtc 7" and "wtc7" but not "wtc seven".

I guess then the next question is was it intentionally levelled that evening, or was it a fire, or what? There are conflicting from the building manager and the FEMA report.
posted by holloway at 8:13 PM on March 19, 2006

I talked a bit about the collapse of WTC7 here.
posted by event at 8:46 PM on March 19, 2006

PBS/NOVA's Why the Towers Fell includes computer animations (QuickTime/Real).

It illustrates the difference between how most skyscrapers are built and how the Twin Towers were built. Instead of having columns spaced evenly across every floor like traditional skyscrapers, the World Trade Center towers only had columns in the central core and along the exterior walls. (Saying other skyscrapers behaved differently is beside the point, since they were built differently.) Most of the inside was hollow or non-load-bearing walls.

The floors were supported by insulated steel trusses that joined the central core to the outer walls. When the planes hit, the impact blew the insulation off of the trusses, and the fire weakened the steel. Plus, the planes broke the exterior support columns and may have damaged the central core when they hit. Once the trusses started to give (QuickTime/Real), the floors collapsed. This graphic explains it pretty well.

This graphic and this one and this computer animation (QuickTime/Real) show the size of one of the planes compared to one of the towers. It looks like it would have been easy to hit the towers.

See also: FEMA report; the National Institute of Standards and Technology final report, released after a three-year study; World Trade Center: Some Engineering Aspects from the University of Sydney's Civil Engineering department.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:40 PM on March 19, 2006

will the pancakers please explain why none of the 47 columns of reinforced structural steel in the building's core remained standing after the pancaking?

why all the concrete was turned to dust?

why this pancaking could take place at freefall speed? surely the intact portions of the structure would have slowed it down some, no? or does steel and concrete fall through air at the same rate it falls through intact structural steel and concrete?

how, if it was merely pancaking that cause the collapse, did giant chunks of exterior structural steel get blown as far as 600 feet away from the building?

why there were dozens of witnesses who heard (and in fact audio/video evidence that still exists(!)) loud explosions occuring just prior to the building's collapse?

why the south tower, very clearly less damaged structurally and from fire than the north tower, was the first to fall?

finally, can anyone, anywhere cite some real evidence why wtc7 fell?

please?
posted by Hat Maui at 4:13 PM on March 20, 2006

will the pancakers please explain

Start here. Afterward, you can get back to us.

Now, will you please explain to the class why you feel it's necessary for others to prove a negative?

Notice that in the conspiracy theory field, everything is couched in terms of proving a negative (e.g. prove to me that it wasn't a controlled demolition ... prove to me that it wasn't the CIA ... prove to me that it's not the gnomes in my closet ... )

This is logically impossible. There are always more gnomes ... I mean, theories ... for the conspiracy types to point to.

"But what about WTC7?"
"It fell because two 100-story towers fell right next to it. Nothing more. Nothing romantic. Nothing secret."
"But you can't prove that it wasn't the CIA!"
"(sigh)."

Lather, rinse, repeat.
posted by frogan at 4:42 PM on March 20, 2006

i wasn't asking for you to prove a negative.

i was asking for an explanation.

there has to be one, right? what is it?

your characterization of my questions is incorrect. i'm not asking you to prove it wasn't controlled demolition. i'm asking you to explain the evidence that points away from the official explanation.

pointing to anamolies is not asking you to prove a negative.

It fell because two 100-story towers fell right next to it

well, then why didn't WTC 5 fall? it was a 10-story building inbetween WTC 2 and WTC 7. but somehow, although it was closer to WTC 2, it didn't collapse.

got any ideas why?

or anything other than calling me a conspiracy theorist? i'm suggesting that i don't buy your explanation, so supply me with some evidence for its truth (aside from the 9/11 commission report, please. we're having this discussion because there are so many holes in the official story, so citing it doesn't much help resolve anything).
posted by Hat Maui at 5:03 PM on March 20, 2006

i'm asking you to explain the evidence that points away from the official explanation.

So again, and now in much clearer terms, you're demanding that someone prove a negative. You're demanding that someone explain how this "evidence" is not true.

Nobody can do that for you, as you can always find more gnomes in the closet.

"How do you know it wasn't the work of evil people?"
"Because there's no hard evidence."
"How do you know that the hard evidence wasn't hidden by the evil people?"
"Because there's no hard evidence of that, either."
"How do you know they're not invisible evil people?"
"Check, please!"

This is why conspiracy theories are so appealing. Even when there's an answer, there isn't an answer.

People said they heard shots from the grassy knoll -- how do you know it wasn't the Mafia? There's no stars in the Moon photographs -- how do you know it wasn't faked on a sound stage? People see lights in the desert skies near Vegas -- how do you know it's not space aliens?

There's "evidence" for all of those theories, too. But once you lower the evidence bar to the point where anything is plausible, then no one can help you.

Heck, I can look outside my window right now and see lights in the sky. I happen to know that they're 737s on approach to the local airport. But I'm sorry, I can't prove that they're not aliens that have disguised their spacecraft as 737s ... so I guess the Truth Really Is Out There.
posted by frogan at 7:47 PM on March 20, 2006

frogan, i dont think its unreasonable to want to find an explanation that covers all the noticed and observable facts. this is sort of how scientific inquiry works. if there were, for example, people and videos that showed loud explosions and what looked like squib charges on stories far below the fire before the building fell-- you would indeed want to find a way to have your official explanation cover these observed phenomena. what is unreasonable, and a bit of a logical fallacy, is to attack someone as a conspiracy type and gnome believer instead of addressing the questions they raise
posted by petsounds at 10:09 PM on March 20, 2006

Regarding WTC7, see my post here. The story from the least batshit sources in the least contentious way I could create.
posted by rollbiz at 10:34 PM on March 20, 2006

frogan, i dont think its unreasonable to want to find an explanation that covers all the noticed and observable facts.

That's not what we have here, though. This is not an honest search for any truth at all. What this is, is unreasonable is misinterpretations of evidence, followed by assertions, followed by cockamamie, imperious demands that are logically impossible to deal with.

In other words, the hallmark of conspiracy theory neuroses.

Here, we'll talk for a minute about one of the assertions above:

how ... did giant chunks of exterior structural steel get blown as far as 600 feet away from the building?

Let's set aside for a moment the question of whether such a thing truly existed. Maybe it did. I'll take their word for it. Now, how big is a "giant chunk?" Is that the size of a Volkswagen? Let's say it's roughly half that size in bulk, and not quite as heavy (because it's just framework, right?). So, where did it come from? What part of which building? And 600 feet? 600 feet from what? Where are we starting with the tape measure?

Now, right here you have an assertion with three giant holes in it. On it's face, you can't accept this as evidence of anything, really. If you will accept it, I know some Nigerian oil ministers that would like to talk to you about Viagra. Really, the conversation should stop right there...

But let's say it's a chunk from the 60th floor. Now, while 600 feet sounds impressive, it's only two football fields in length and just a little more than half the height of one of the WTC towers. That's not terribly far, considering the chunk will fall 600 vertical feet as part of a 110 story building collapse. Caused by a jet moving at 500 miles per hour. That's a lot of kinetic energy being tossed around. Might it be possible that the chunk just fell there because the building collapsed? Or that it was blown there by the plane crash that sheared the building laterally? Or that it was just dropped there when the top part of the building keeled over to one side, as seen in the videos? That chunk might just fucking roll 600 feet away with the forces being thrown around. Remember, there were rubble piles 20 stories tall...

Now, here's where the conversation with people gets difficult.

"Might it also be possible that the chunk was blown there, by the force of a lateral explosion? One that was consistent with a demolition charge?"

"Uhh, maybe. But since there's no hard evidence of demolition charges, just a lot of speculation, and plenty of evidence that the building collapsed, I find it difficult to believe it was a demolition charge."

"What, you don't like my idea? Prove me wrong, buster. Prove that it wasn't a demolition charge."

And that's where you pull your hair out. Because you can't reason with people like that. And then they spread their unreason virus to others.

This is not "scientific inquiry." This is the complete fucking opposite of scientific inquiry.

Just think ... 20 years from now, there will STILL be people who will think it was all an evil plot, when the truth is far less romantic and yet far more tragic.

It was just a bunch of guys with boxcutters. They slit the throats of the stewardesses to get the pilots to open the doors. Then they killed the pilots, too. And then they flew the planes into the buildings.

That's it. That's all.
posted by frogan at 12:26 AM on March 21, 2006

so did oswald act alone?

look, stop putting words into my and others' mouths. what i am suggesting is that there are a lot of unresolved (but eminently resolvable) questions that stem from the events of that day.

for instance, if you don't want people speculating that explosive charges were used on the steel, then don't recycle most of it almost immediately after the disaster. put it somewhere where it can be inspected for years to come so as to resolve these very questions.

or here's another: make the massive video and audio archive collected by FEMA and the NIST in their investigations available to everyone. what's wrong with that? if you took the thousands of individual video and audio recordings of the collapse of the towers and created a publicly available archive, then people could study the event to their heart's content.

i for one would be interested in the audio recordings of the firemen as they got to the upper floors. or the recorded interviews with air traffic controllers from that day.

considering the chunk will fall 600 vertical feet as part of a 110 story building collapse. Caused by a jet moving at 500 miles per hour. That's a lot of kinetic energy being tossed around.

this makes it sound like you think the towers collapsed at the moment of impact. i don't think that's what you think, but you should probably be clearer.

but instead of putting words into my mouth, why don't i just explain why i think that's significant? i think that's significant because YOU CAN SEE IT HAPPENING as the towers "collapse". you can see giant shards of structural steel being quite literally ejected away from the mass of the building as it fell.

now as i understand it, gravity is a vertical force, not a lateral one, so i am having a hard time explaining why multi-ton chunks of structural steel were thrown 600 or more feet away from the building's footprint as the result of gravity. as i said, that's not how i understand gravity to work, except in the matrix, maybe.
posted by Hat Maui at 1:35 AM on March 21, 2006

I could sit for weeks on end just reading debates like this on 9/11 conspiracy theories.

By the way, wasn't there a surveillance camera outside of Pentagon that captured the plane? I seem to remember that the object (one would think the plane) looked like a missile in the recording, which would seem to be what started the whole speculation about the Pentagon being hit by a missile rather than a plane.

The debunking of the missile theory as linked to further up is nearly as speculative as the missile theory itself, if you ask me - there's no expert opinion, no hard facts to back it up.

That said, I'm confident that it was in fact a plane that hit the Pentagon.
posted by Haarball at 1:56 AM on March 21, 2006

what i am suggesting is that there are a lot of unresolved (but eminently resolvable) questions that stem from the events of that day.

But that's not what you're doing at all. You're asserting that there's something wrong with the various official reports. Sure, you'd like couch it as being an honest, scientific question. After all, you're not crazy, right?

For every bit of reason, there's unreason. You're challenging science with breathless sensationalism and shadowy assertions about a mysterious "they" that are all-knowing and all-controlling. And you're refusing to accept reason with demands that someone prove a negative.

i think that's significant because YOU CAN SEE IT HAPPENING

Is it not unreasonable to suggest that you're simply misinterpreting what you see? That where others see gravity and air pressure, you see an explosion? Are you so locked into there being a sensational answer that a simple one just isn't sexy enough?

Like I said, no one can reason with you.

Go ahead, take the last word.
posted by frogan at 10:24 AM on March 21, 2006

Hat Maui, the audio recordings of the firefighter transmissions from the building can be found here and here, the complete set of all FDNY and Port Authority repeater recordings can be found here (transcripts here)*Last link is PDF*.
posted by rollbiz at 10:39 AM on March 21, 2006

so i take it you subscribe to the government's whole "who you gonna believe? us or your lying eyes?" routine?

i prefer my lying eyes, thanks.
posted by Hat Maui at 12:23 PM on March 21, 2006

Nice straw man. Thanks for playing.
posted by frogan at 1:07 PM on March 21, 2006

frogan argues from an agenda, and projects that behavior on the one with whom he argues.

There is a preponderance of evidence that something fishy was going on. Exactly who, what, where and when are totally unclear. That's the idea, and that's the problem.

Any sheep can bleat the chorus for the official story. There is no more reason to suppose the official investigation got it all right than to suppose that Bush did it all by himself, without getting caught, after sneaking away from his secret service guards, or that it was a weird plot by space aliens.

I hate the lunatic conspiracy theories. All they do is throw dust into the air to hide the truth. Truth is, it was quite clear, within days, that Bush was the principle beneficiary of the events of 9-11, not Osama bin Missing.

But it's easier to accept the official story and move on.
posted by Goofyy at 4:55 AM on March 22, 2006

Go ahead, take the last word.
posted by Hat Maui at 9:03 AM on March 22, 2006

Why don't we let Charlie Sheen have that one? :)
posted by DrtyBlvd at 4:24 AM on March 24, 2006

Speaking of shooting down planes: Germany first pondered but finally rejected a law that would authorise a preemptive airstrike against a hijacked plane.
posted by LanTao at 1:33 PM on March 25, 2006