2006-12-02 - 2:19 p.m.

Hello all,

As I have been in a bit of a debating mood (I recently started attending the Socrates Caf�, where issues such as the objectivity of beauty and the desire for freedom are debated in a bookstore basement here in Providence), I feel drawn to at least open up a response to my dear friend Pappazon, who believes 9/11 (or at least the Twin Towers part) was an inside job.

I do not believe this theory, and though I have not spent as much time investigating, I think the premise of 9/11 truth theories make them irrational, as well as virtually impossible. In fact this Guardian article does a much better job than I would of reviewing the evidence behind the conspiracies (and the Guardian is not fond of Bush in the least). But I�ll say a few things too.

The overriding problem is that these theories are not an alternative theory, but an additional theory that adds unnecessary complexity to what we know is true. I would compare them to seeing someone drive a car into a tree, setting the car on fire, and then claiming that someone must have rigged the car with explosives set to go off the moment the car hit the tree. There would be no reason to rig the car with explosives, and it would be silly to do so if you knew the car was going to hit the tree anyway.

But the main problem I have with these theories is that they are illogical. We know for a fact that the two jets hit the two towers of the World Trade Center, as well as (depending on your particular conspiracy theory) the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. Would this not have been enough for the U.S. to launch its War on Terror? Would they really have needed to add yet another layer of explosives to make the towers come down, and add an infinite amount of unnecessary risk to the careers (and lives, since being caught would surely carry the death penalty) for whatever marginal psychological difference it would make to have the towers come down, rather than just be hit with jets? I don�t think I need to get into the government's track record with coverups, from Monica Lewinsky to Iran-Contra to Watergate. Watergate was a minor burglary and it brought down the president. Do you really think the president or his staff would risk everything, with a high probability of being exposed, just to add a final flourish to what would already have been the biggest terrorist attack in history?

I�ve heard the same things about the Pentagon; for a while there was a theory going around that stated that there was no photographic evidence of the wreckage of the plane, so it must have been hit by a missile. Then I saw the photographs of the flight wreckage, though I am sure there are still theories out there that the Pentagon was hit by a missile and the plane and its passengers just mysteriously vanished into thin air.

With an event as big and unprecedented as this there will always be varying eyewitness accounts, differing views on the physics of it all, little pieces of debris found in unexpected places, whatever. The fact is that nothing like this had ever happened before. Overriding it all is the fact that We saw the planes hit the buildings. That, and the general incompetence of our government (the super-duper CIA included), is enough for me to find any conspiracy theory illogical.

What are the odds that the media (MSM and blogs) have uncovered so many other less consequential �conspiracies,� from secret prisons to the presidential briefings warning Bush about Bin Laden, without ever finding a single insider to speak of a conspiracy theory? Was Richard Clarke in on it? George Tenet? Any of the CIA people who became disgruntled when Porter Goss took over? The CIA, who would have had to conduct this thing, is not an airtight collection of geniuses who would never snitch. They do, and have, many times since 9/11.

What I don�t find impossible is that there could have been people in the world who knew about it beforehand, leading to this �short selling� in the stock market. However, to my mind the 9/11 commission seems to successfully refute the claims.

Unfortunately, there will never be a rest to this because there will always be new theories to put forward�I found too many to mention in a few minutes of research�to which theorists can just say, �this needs to be looked into.� With all the sources of information in the world, you will always be able to find something that appears to support a conspiracy theory. And since there is no way to prove a negative, we will never be able to say that Al Quaeda is definitively the sole culprit.

However, I do think some interesting art can be made using 9/11 and the conspiracy theories as a starting point.

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