Attended a 2012 presentation by Sheik Khalid Yasin, a pro-Sharia radical who supports Islamic terrorism
Denounced the 2003 arrest of former Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian
Alam has openly speculated about Jewish involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Most notably, on February 19, 2009 he made a post on a Topix.com discussion forum, asking: "Was 9/11 a conspiracy?" The post, which contained several spelling and grammatical errors, linked to a 9/11 conspiracy video titled Loose Change and continued:
"Now, I can say this much which is a big yes from my own understanding and own judgement. But there is always other side of the coin. Few question to my readers,
 Why 9/11 was a official holidy for all jewish people worked in the the WTC [World Trade Center]?
 Who can tell me how many of the Jewish people died on the 9/11 tragedy? 
Finally, who can tell me why there was a closed-end security and dog squad was implaced at the lower level of the WTC just a block before the 9/11?"
Later that same month, Alam attended an American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) event titled "One Year Later: Besieged Gaza—Still Standing Tall." AMP events commonly feature extremist, anti-Semitic rhetoric.
Alam is also on record denouncing the 2003 arrest of former Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader Sami Al-Arian. In a 2009 address to the Islamic Society of Greater Kansas City, for instance, Alam lamented that Al-Arian had been "falsely accused and victimized by [the] war on terror"—even though the latter had already pled guilty to terrorism-related charges by that time.
Notably, a number of Alam's colleagues at MDPAAC are supporters of Viva Palestina, an Islamist organization with close ties to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Since the attacks, a variety of conspiracy theories have been put forward in Web sites, books, and films. Many groups and individuals advocating 9/11 conspiracy theories identify as part of the
9/11 Truth movement.[SUP]
[32][/SUP][SUP]
[33][/SUP][SUP]
[34][/SUP] Within six hours of the attack, a suggestion appeared on an Internet chat room suggesting that the collapse of the towers looked like an act of controlled demolition. "If, in a few days, not one official has mentioned anything about the controlled demolition part," the author wrote, "I think we have a REALLY serious problem."[SUP]
[35][/SUP] The first theories that emerged focused primarily on various perceived anomalies in the publicly available evidence, and proponents later developed more specific theories about an alleged plot.[SUP]
[12][/SUP] One false allegation that was widely circulated by e-mail and on the Web is that not a single Jew had been killed in the attack and that therefore the attacks must have been the work of the
Mossad, not Islamic terrorists.[SUP]
[12][/SUP]
The first elaborated theories appeared in Europe. One week after the attacks, the "inside job" theory was the subject of a thesis by a researcher from the
French National Centre for Scientific Research published in
Le Monde. Other theories sprang from the far corners of the globe within weeks.[SUP]
[36][/SUP] Six months after the attacks,
Thierry Meyssan's 9/11 exposé
L'Effroyable Imposture topped the French bestseller list. Its publication in English (as
9/11: The Big Lie) received little attention, but it remains one of the principal sources for "trutherism".[SUP]
[37][/SUP] 2003 saw the publication of
The CIA and September 11 by former German state minister
Andreas von Bülow and
Operation 9/11 by the German journalist Gerhard Wisnewski; both books are published by
Mathias Bröckers, who was at the time an editor at the German newspaper
Die Tageszeitung.[SUP]
[12][/SUP]
While these theories were popular in Europe, they were treated by the U.S. media with either bafflement or amusement, and they were dismissed by the U.S. government as the product of
anti-Americanism.[SUP]
[38][/SUP][SUP]
[39][/SUP] In an address to the United Nations on November 10, 2001,
United States President George W. Bush denounced the emergence of "outrageous conspiracy theories [...] that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists, themselves, away from the guilty."[SUP]
[40][/SUP]
The 9/11 conspiracy theories started out mostly in the political left but have broadened into what
New York Magazine describes as "
terra incognita where left and right meet, fusing
sixties countercultural distrust with the
don’t-tread-on-me variety".[SUP]
[41][/SUP]
By 2004, conspiracy theories about the September 11 attacks began to gain ground in the United States. One explanation is that the rise in popularity stemmed more from growing criticism of the
Iraq War and the newly re-elected president
George W. Bush than from any discovery of new or more compelling evidence or an improvement in the technical quality of the presentation of the theories.[SUP]
[12][/SUP]
Knight Ridder news theorized that revelations that
weapons of mass destruction did not exist in Iraq, the belated release of the
President's Daily Brief of August 6, 2001, and reports that
NORAD had lied to the
9/11 Commission, may have fueled the conspiracy theories.[SUP]
[12][/SUP]
Between 2004 and the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks in 2006, mainstream coverage of the conspiracy theories increased.[SUP]
[12][/SUP] The U.S. government issued a formal analysis by the
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of the collapse of the World Trade Center.[SUP]
[42][/SUP] To address the growing publicity of the theories, the
State Department revised a webpage in 2006 to debunk them.[SUP]
[43][/SUP] A 2006 national security strategy paper declared that terrorism springs from "subcultures of conspiracy and misinformation," and that "terrorists recruit more effectively from populations whose information about the world is contaminated by falsehoods and corrupted by conspiracy theories. The distortions keep alive grievances and filter out facts that would challenge popular prejudices and self-serving propaganda."[SUP]
[44][/SUP] Al-Qaeda has repeatedly claimed responsibility for the attacks, with chief deputy
Ayman al-Zawahiri accusing
Shia Iran and
Hezbollah of denigrating
Sunni successes in hurting America by intentionally starting rumors that
Israel carried out the attacks.[SUP]
[45][/SUP][SUP]
[46][/SUP][SUP]
[47][/SUP][SUP]
[48][/SUP][SUP]
[49][/SUP][SUP]
[50][/SUP]
Some of the conspiracy theories about the September 11 attacks do not involve representational strategies typical of many conspiracy theories that establish a clear dichotomy between good and evil, or guilty and innocent; instead, they call up gradations of negligence and complicity.[SUP]
[12][/SUP] Matthias Bröckers, an early proponent of such theories, dismisses the official account of the September 11 attacks as being itself a conspiracy theory that seeks "to reduce complexity, disentangle what is confusing," and "explain the inexplicable".[SUP]
[12][/SUP]
Just before the fifth anniversary of the attacks, mainstream news outlets released a flurry of articles on the growth of 9/11 conspiracy theories,[SUP]
[51][/SUP] with an article in
Time stating that "[t]his is not a fringe phenomenon. It is a mainstream political reality."[SUP]
[13][/SUP][SUP]
[52][/SUP] Several
surveys have included questions about beliefs related to the September 11 attacks. An August 2007
Zogby poll commissioned by 911Truth.org[SUP]
[53][/SUP] found that 63.6% of Americans believe that Arab fundamentalists were responsible for 9/11 while 26.4% believed that "certain elements in the U.S. government knew the attacks were coming but consciously let them proceed for various political, military and economic reasons" and 4.8% believe that "certain U.S. Government elements actively planned or assisted some aspects of the attacks".[SUP]
[54][/SUP] In 2008, 9/11 conspiracy theories topped a "greatest conspiracy theory” list compiled by
The Daily Telegraph. The list was ranked by following and traction.[SUP]
[55][/SUP][SUP]
[56][/SUP] A study conducted by journalist Elizabeth Woodworth for the
Center for Research on Globalization concludes that the increased presence in mainstream media reflected an improved professional approach within the 9/11 Truth movement.[SUP]
[57][/SUP]
In 2010, the "International Center for 9/11 Studies," a private organization that is said to be sympathetic to conspiracy theories,[SUP]
[58][/SUP] successfully sued for the release of videos collected by NIST of the attacks and aftermath.[SUP]
[58][/SUP][SUP]
[59][/SUP][SUP]
[60][/SUP] According to the German daily
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the videos which were published shortly before the ninth anniversary of the attacks provide "new food for conspiracy theorists." Many of the videos show images of
7 World Trade Center, a skyscraper in the vicinity of the WTC towers that also
collapsed on September 11, 2001.[SUP]
[59][/SUP] Eyewitnesses have repeatedly reported explosions happening before the collapse of both of the towers, while experts consider these theories to be unreasonable.[SUP]
[58][/SUP]
9/11 truth figures
Steven E. Jones and Mike Berger have further added that the
death of Osama bin Laden[SUP]
[61][/SUP] did not change their questions about the attacks, nor provide closure.[SUP]
[62][/SUP]
Since Bush left office, the overall number of believers in 9/11 conspiracy theories has dipped while the number of people who believe in the most "radical" theories has held fairly steady.[SUP]
[63][/SUP]
[h=2]Types of conspiracy[/h]The most prominent conspiracy theories can be broadly divided into two main forms:
- LIHOP ("Let it happen on purpose") – suggests that key individuals within the government had at least some foreknowledge of the attacks and deliberately ignored them or actively weakened America's defenses to ensure the hijacked flights were not intercepted.[SUP][5][/SUP][SUP][13][/SUP][SUP][14][/SUP]
- MIHOP ("Make/Made it happen on purpose") – that key individuals within the government planned the attacks and collaborated with, or framed, al-Qaeda in carrying them out. There is a range of opinions about how this might have been achieved.[SUP][5][/SUP][SUP][13][/SUP][SUP][14][/SUP]
[h=3]Causes to be determined[/h]Other critics of the accepted account of the September 11 attacks are not proposing specific theories, but try to demonstrate that the U.S. government's account of the events is wrong. This, according to them, would lead to a general call for a new official investigation into the events of September 11, 2001. According to Jonathan Kay, managing editor for comment at the Canadian newspaper
National Post[SUP]
[64][/SUP] and author of the
Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America's Growing Conspiracist Underground,[SUP]
[65][/SUP] "They feel their job is to show everybody that the official theory of 9/11 is wrong. And then, when everybody is convinced, then the population will rise up and demand a new investigation with government resources, and that investigation will tell us what actually happened."[SUP]
[66][/SUP]
[h=2]Theories[/h][h=3]Foreknowledge[/h]Main article:
September 11 attacks advance-knowledge debate
See also:
U.S. military response during the September 11 attacks and
United States government operations and exercises on September 11, 2001
It has been claimed that action or inaction by U.S. officials with foreknowledge was intended to ensure that the attacks took place successfully. For example,
Michael Meacher, former British environment minister and member of
Tony Blair's Cabinet said that the United States knowingly failed to prevent the attacks.[SUP]
[67][/SUP][SUP]
[68][/SUP] Author
David Ray Griffin alleges that the 9/11 conspiracy was considerably larger than the government claims and that the entire 9/11 Commission Report "is constructed in support of one big lie: that the official story about 9/11 is true."[SUP]
[69][/SUP]
[h=4]Suspected insider trading[/h]Just before 9/11 there was an "extraordinary" amount of
put options placed on
United Airlines and
American Airlines stocks. Authorities believed, and some conspiracy theorists continue to maintain, that
trading insiders may have known in advance of the coming events of 9/11 and placed their bets accordingly. An analysis into the possibility of
insider trading on 9/11 concludes that:
A measure of abnormal long put volume was also examined and seen to be at abnormally high levels in the days leading up to the attacks. Consequently, the paper concludes that there is evidence of unusual option market activity in the days leading up to September 11 that is consistent with investors trading on advance knowledge of the attacks.[SUP]
[70][/SUP] —Allen M. Poteshman,
The Journal of Business
On the days leading up to 9/11, two airlines saw a rise in their put to call ratio. These two airlines were United Airlines and American Airlines, the two airlines whose planes were hijacked on 9/11. Between September 6 and 7, the
Chicago Board Options Exchange saw purchases of 4,744 "put" option contracts in UAL versus 396 call options. On September 10, more trading in Chicago saw the purchase of 4,516 put options in American Airlines, the other airline involved in the hijackings. This compares with a mere 748 call options in American purchased that day. No other airline companies saw anomalies in their put to call ratio in the days leading up to the attacks.[SUP]
[71][/SUP] American Airlines however, had just released a major warning about possible losses.[SUP]
[72][/SUP]
Insurance companies saw anomalous trading activities as well.
Citigroup Inc., which has estimated that its
Travelers Insurance unit may pay $500 million in claims from the World Trade Center attack, had about 45 times the normal volume during three trading days before the attack for options that profit if the stock falls below $40. Citigroup shares fell $1.25 in late trading to $38.09.
Morgan Stanley, which occupied 22 floors at the World Trade Center, experienced bigger-than-normal pre-attack trading of options that profit when stock prices fall. Other companies that were directly affected by the tragedy had similar jumps.[SUP]
[73][/SUP]
Raytheon, a defense contractor, had an anomalously high number of call options trading on September 10. A Raytheon option that makes money if shares are more than $25 each had 232 options contracts traded on the day before the attacks, almost six times the total number of trades that had occurred before that day.[SUP]
[citation needed][/SUP]
The initial options were bought through at least two
brokerage firms, including
NFS, a subsidiary of
Fidelity Investments, and
TD Waterhouse. It was estimated that the trader or traders would have realized a five million dollar profit. The
Securities and Exchange Commission launched an
insider trading investigation in which
Osama bin Laden was a suspect after receiving information from at least one Wall Street Firm.[SUP]
[74][/SUP]
[h=4]Air defense stand down theory[/h]A common claim among conspiracy theorists is that the
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) issued a stand down order or deliberately scrambled fighters late to allow the hijacked airplanes to reach their targets without interference. According to this theory, NORAD had the capability of locating and intercepting planes on 9/11, and its failure to do so indicates a government conspiracy to allow the attacks to occur.[SUP]
[72][/SUP] The Web site emperors-clothes.com argues that the U.S. military failed to do their job. StandDown.net's Mark R. Elsis says, "There is only one explanation for this .... Our Air Force was ordered to Stand Down on 9/11."[SUP]
[3][/SUP][SUP]
[75][/SUP]
In September 2001, NORAD generals said they learned of the hijackings in time to scramble fighter jets. Later, the U.S. government released tapes claiming to show the
Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) did not tell the military about the hijackings until three of the four planes had crashed, a fact that would indicate that the FAA repeatedly lied to other U.S. government agencies.[SUP]
[76][/SUP]
Phil Molé of
Skeptic magazine has explained that it is neither quick nor easy to locate and intercept a plane behaving erratically, and that the hijackers turned off or disabled the onboard radar transponders. Without these transponder signals to identify the airplanes, the hijacked airplanes would have been only blips among 4,500 other blips on NORAD’s radar screens, making them very difficult to track.[SUP]
[72][/SUP][SUP]
[3][/SUP]
According to
Popular Mechanics, only 14 fighter jets were on alert in the contiguous 48 states on 9/11. There was no automated method for the civilian air traffic controllers to alert NORAD.[SUP]
[3][/SUP] A passenger airline had not been hijacked in the U.S. since 1979.[SUP]
[77][/SUP] "They had to pick up the phone and literally dial us," says Maj. Douglas Martin, public affairs officer for NORAD. According to
Popular Mechanics, only one civilian plane was
intercepted in the decade prior to 9/11, which took one hour and 22 minutes.[SUP]
[3][/SUP][SUP]
[dubious – discuss][/SUP]
Rules in effect at that time, and on 9/11, barred supersonic flight on intercepts. Before 9/11, all other NORAD interceptions were limited to offshore
Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ). "Until 9/11 there was no domestic ADIZ," says FAA spokesman Bill Schumann. After 9/11, the FAA and NORAD increased cooperation. They set up hotlines between command centers while NORAD increased its fighter coverage and installed radar to watch airspace over the continent.[SUP]
[3][/SUP]
According to
The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden, a book about the attacks published in 2011, the longest warning NORAD received of the hijackings was some eight minutes for American Airlines Flight 11, the first flight hijacked. The FAA alerted NORAD to the hijacked Flight 175 at just about the same time it was crashing into the World Trade Center's South Tower. The FAA notified NORAD of the missing – not hijacked – Flight 77 three minutes before it struck the Pentagon. NORAD received no warning of the hijack of United Flight 93 until three minutes after it had crashed in Pennsylvania.[SUP]
[78][/SUP]
[h=4]Israeli agents[/h]See also:
September 11 attacks advance-knowledge conspiracy theories: Israel
It has been claimed that
Israeli agents may have had foreknowledge of the attacks. Four hours after the attack, the FBI arrested five Israelis who had been filming the smoking skyline from the roof of a white van in the parking lot of an apartment building, for "puzzling behavior". The Israelis were videotaping the events, and one bystander said they acted in a suspicious manner: "They were like happy, you know ... They didn't look shocked to me. I thought it was very strange."[SUP]
[79][/SUP][SUP]
[80][/SUP][SUP]
[81][/SUP] While
The Forward, a New York
Jewish news magazine, reported that the FBI concluded that two of the men were Israeli intelligence operatives, a spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in the United States said that they had not been involved in any intelligence operation in the United States.[SUP]
[79][/SUP] The FBI eventually concluded that the five Israelis had no foreknowledge of the attacks.[SUP]
[82][/SUP]
[h=3]World Trade Center[/h]See also:
World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories
Criticism of the reports published by
NIST on the destruction of the World Trade Center buildings plays a central role in theories about an alleged controlled demolition. The picture shows the simulated exterior buckling of
7 WTC during the collapse.
The plane crashes and resulting fires caused the
collapse of the World Trade Center.
Controlled demolition conspiracy theories say the collapse of the North Tower, South Tower, or of
7 World Trade Center was caused by explosives installed in the buildings in advance.
Demolition theory proponents, such as
Brigham Young University physicist
Steven E. Jones, architect
Richard Gage, software engineer
Jim Hoffman, and theologian
David Ray Griffin, argue that the aircraft impacts and resulting fires could not have weakened the buildings sufficiently to initiate a catastrophic collapse, and that the buildings would not have collapsed completely, nor at the speeds that they did, without additional energy involved to weaken their structures.
In the article "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe", which appeared in the
Open Chemical Physics Journal, authors Niels Harrit of the
University of Copenhagen's Department of Chemistry, Jeffrey Farrer of
Brigham Young University's Department of Physics and Astronomy, Steven E. Jones, and others state that
thermite and
nano-thermite composites in the dust and debris were found following the collapse of the three buildings, which they conclude to be proof that explosives brought down the buildings. The article contained no scientific rebuttal and the editor in chief of the publication subsequently resigned.[SUP]
[83][/SUP][SUP]
[84][/SUP][SUP]
[85][/SUP][SUP]
[86][/SUP]
Jones has not explained how the amount of explosive needed to do this could have been positioned in the two buildings without drawing attention, but mentioned efforts to research the buildings' maintenance activity in the weeks prior to the event. Federal investigators at the National Institute of Standards and Technology state that enormous quantities of thermite would have to be applied to the structural columns to damage them, but Jones disputed this, saying that he and others were investigating "superthermite".[SUP]
[84][/SUP] Brent Blanchard, author of "A History of Explosive Demolition in America",[SUP]
[87][/SUP] who corresponded with Jones, states that questions about the viability of Jones' theories remain unanswered, such as the fact that no demolition personnel noticed any telltale signs of thermite during the eight months of debris removal following the towers' collapse. Blanchard also said that a verifiable chain of possession needs to be established for the tested beams, which did not occur with the beams Jones tested, raising questions of whether the metal pieces tested could have been cut away from the debris pile with acetylene torches, shears, or other potentially contaminated equipment while on site, or exposed to trace amounts of thermite or other compounds while being handled, while in storage, or while being transferred from Ground Zero to memorial sites.[SUP]
[88][/SUP]
Excavating equipment was cooled by water spray due to concerns about melting from underground fires.
Jones also said that molten steel found in the rubble was evidence of explosives, as an ordinary airplane fire would not generate enough heat to produce this, citing photographs of red debris being removed by construction equipment, but Blanchard said that if there had been any molten steel in the rubble any excavation equipment encountering it would have been immediately damaged.[SUP]
[84][/SUP] Other sampling of the pulverized dust by
United States Geological Survey and RJ Lee did not report any evidence of thermite or explosives. It has been theorized the "thermite material" found was primer paint.[SUP]
[89][/SUP] Dave Thomas of
Skeptical Inquirer magazine, noting that the residue in question was claimed to be thermitic because of its iron oxide and aluminum composition, pointed out that these substances are found in many items common to the towers. Thomas said that in order to cut through a vertical steel beam, special high-temperature containment must be added to prevent the molten iron from dropping down, and that the thermite reaction is too slow for it to be practically used in building demolition. Thomas pointed out that when
Jesse Ventura hired
New Mexico Tech to conduct a demonstration showing nanothermite slicing through a large steel beam, the nanothermite produced copious flame and smoke but no damage to the beam, even though it was in a horizontal, and therefore optimal position.[SUP]
[90][/SUP]
The
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) concluded the accepted version was more than sufficient to explain the collapse of the buildings. NIST and many scientists refuse to debate conspiracy theorists because they feel it would give these theories unwarranted credibility.[SUP]
[91][/SUP] Specialists in structural mechanics and structural engineering accept the model of a fire-induced, gravity-driven collapse of the World Trade Center buildings without the use of explosives.[SUP]
[92][/SUP][SUP]
[93][/SUP][SUP]
[94][/SUP] As a result, NIST said that it did not perform any test for the residue of explosive compounds of any kind in the debris.[SUP]
[42][/SUP]
Soon after the day of the attacks, major media sources published that the towers had collapsed due to melted steel.[SUP]
[95][/SUP][SUP]
[96][/SUP] Knowledge that the burning temperatures of jet fuel would not melt the steel support structure of the WTC contributed to the belief among skeptics that the towers would not have collapsed without external interference (something other than the planes). NIST does not claim that the steel was melted, but rather that the weakened steel, together with the damage caused by the planes' impacts, caused the collapses.[SUP]
[42][/SUP] NIST reported that a simulation model based on the assumption that combustible vapors burned immediately upon mixing with the incoming oxygen showed that "at any given location, the duration of [gas] temperatures near 1,000 °C was about 15 to 20 [minutes]. The rest of the time, the calculated temperatures were 500 °C or below."[SUP]
[97][/SUP]
[h=3]The Pentagon[/h]
Security camera footage of Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon.[SUP]
[98][/SUP]
The Pentagon, after collapse of the damaged section.
Airplane
debris scattered near the Pentagon on the day of the attack.
According to some conspiracy theories, the U.S. administration deliberately chose not to shoot down a plane that was heading for the Pentagon,[SUP]
[99][/SUP] while others contend that no plane hit the Pentagon at all.[SUP]
[100][/SUP] Others reject claims that anything other than Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, but do believe that the World Trade Center towers were destroyed by
controlled demolition, such as
Jim Hoffman, whose website, 911review.com, cites key errors of the "no Boeing" claims.[SUP]
[101][/SUP]
Political activist
Thierry Meyssan and filmmaker
Dylan Avery claim that
American Airlines Flight 77 did not crash into
the Pentagon. Instead, they argue that the Pentagon was hit by a missile launched by elements from inside the U.S. government. Reopen911.org says that the holes in the Pentagon walls were far too small to have been made by a Boeing 757: "How does a plane 125 ft. wide and 155 ft. long fit into a hole which is only 60 ft. across?" Meyssan’s book,
L’Effroyable Imposture (published in English as
9/11: The Big Lie) became an instant bestseller in France and is available in more than a dozen languages. When released, the book was heavily criticized by both the mainstream French and American press, and later, from within the
9/11 Truth movement by researchers such as Hoffman[SUP]
[102][/SUP] and websites such as oilempire.us.[SUP]
[103][/SUP] The French newspaper
Liberation called the book "a tissue of wild and irresponsible allegations, entirely without foundation."[SUP]
[104][/SUP][SUP]
[105][/SUP][SUP]
[106][/SUP]
In response to the conspiracy theorists claim of a missile hitting the Pentagon, Mete Sozen,[SUP]
[107][/SUP] a professor of civil engineering at
Purdue University argues that: "A crashing jet doesn't punch a cartoon-like outline of itself into a reinforced concrete building. When Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, one wing hit the ground and the other was sheared off by the Pentagon's load-bearing columns."[SUP]
[104][/SUP][SUP]
[108][/SUP] According to
ArchitectureWeek, the reason the Pentagon took relatively little damage from the impact was because Wedge One had recently been renovated.[SUP]
[109][/SUP] (This was part of a renovation program which had been begun in the 1980s, and Wedge One was the first of five to be renovated.[SUP]
[110][/SUP])
Evidence contradicting some conspiracy theorists' claim of a missile's hitting the Pentagon have been described by researchers within the 9/11 Truth Movement, such as Jim Hoffman, in his essay "The Pentagon Attack: What the Physical Evidence Shows",[SUP]
[111][/SUP] and by others broadly refuting the role of other conspiracies in the attacks. The evidence refuting missile claims includes airplane debris including Flight 77's
black boxes,[SUP]
[112][/SUP] the nose cone, landing gear,[SUP]
[113][/SUP] an airplane tire,[SUP]
[114][/SUP] and an intact cockpit seat[SUP]
[115][/SUP] were observed at the crash site. The remains of passengers from Flight 77 were indeed found at the Pentagon crash site and their identities confirmed by
DNA analysis.[SUP]
[116][/SUP] Many eyewitnesses saw the plane strike the Pentagon. Further, Flight 77 passengers made phone calls reporting that their airplane had been hijacked. For example, passenger Renee May called her mother to tell her that the plane had been hijacked and that the passengers had been herded to the back of the plane. Another passenger named
Barbara Olson called her husband (U.S. Solicitor General
Theodore Olson) and said that the flight had been hijacked, and that the hijackers had
knives and
box cutters.[SUP]
[9][/SUP][SUP]
[104][/SUP][SUP]
[117][/SUP][SUP]
[118][/SUP] Some conspiracy theories say the phone calls the passengers made were fabricated by voice morphing, the passengers' bodies disposed of, and a missile fired at the Pentagon.[SUP]
[119][/SUP][SUP]
[120][/SUP][SUP]
[121][/SUP]
The public interest group
Judicial Watch filed a
Freedom of Information Act request on December 15, 2004 to force the government to release video recordings from the Sheraton National Hotel, the Nexcomm/Citgo gas station, Pentagon security cameras and the Virginia Department of Transportation. On May 16, 2006, the government released the Pentagon security camera videos to Judicial Watch.[SUP]
[122][/SUP][SUP]
[123][/SUP] Judicial Watch reports that the video shows American Airlines flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon.[SUP]
[123][/SUP] The image of American Airlines Flight 77 which appears in the videos has been described as "[a] white blob" and "a white streak" (by the BBC),[SUP]
[124][/SUP] "a thin white blur" (by The
Associated Press),[SUP]
[125][/SUP] and "a silver speck low to the ground" (in
The Washington Post).[SUP]
[126][/SUP] A sequence of five frames from one of the videos already appeared in the media in 2002.[SUP]
[127][/SUP] Some conspiracy theorists believe the new video does not answer their questions.[SUP]
[128][/SUP]
[h=3]Flight 93[/h]
Flight 93 crash site
The fourth plane hijacked on 9/11,
United Airlines Flight 93, crashed in an open field near
Shanksville,
Pennsylvania, after the passengers revolted. Out of the four planes hijacked on that day,
Flight 93 was the only one not to reach its target.[SUP]
[129][/SUP]
One of the popular conspiracy theories surrounding this event is that Flight 93 was actually shot down by a U.S. fighter jet.
David Ray Griffin and
Alex Jones say that large parts of the plane including the main body of the engine landed miles away from the main wreckage site, too far away for an ordinary plane crash. Jones says that planes usually leave a small debris field when they crash, and that this is not compatible with reports of wreckage found farther away from the main crash site. A posting on Rense.com claimed that the main body of the engine was found miles away from the main wreckage site with damage comparable to that which a heat-seeking missile would do to an airliner.[SUP]
[104][/SUP][SUP]
[129][/SUP][SUP]
[130][/SUP]
According to some theories, the plane had to be shot down by the government because passengers had found out about the alleged plot.[SUP]
[75][/SUP]
According to Phil Molé of
Skeptic magazine, "[this] claim rests largely on unsupported assertions that the main body of the engine and other large parts of the plane turned up miles from the main wreckage site, too far away to have resulted from an ordinary crash. This claim is incorrect, because the engine was found only 300 yards from the main crash site, and its location was consistent with the direction in which the plane had been traveling."[SUP]
[131][/SUP] Michael K. Hynes, an airline accident expert who investigated the crash of
TWA Flight 800 in 1996, says that, at very high velocities of 500 mph or more, it would only take a few seconds to move or tumble across the ground for 300 yards.[SUP]
[104][/SUP][SUP]
[131][/SUP]
Reports of wreckage discovered at Indian Lake by local residents are accurate. CNN reported that investigators found debris from the crash at least eight miles away from the crash site, including in
New Baltimore.[SUP]
[132][/SUP] However, according to CNN, this debris was all very light material that the wind would have easily blown away, and a
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article from September 14, 2001 describes the material as "mostly papers", "strands of charred insulation", and an "endorsed paycheck". The same article quotes FBI agent Bill Crowley that, "Lighter, smaller debris probably shot into the air on the heat of a fireball that witnesses said shot several hundred feet into the air after the jetliner crashed. Then, it probably rode a wind that was blowing southeast at about 9 m.p.h."[SUP]
[133][/SUP] Also, the distance between the crash site and Indian Lake was misreported in some accounts. According to the BBC, "In a straight line, Indian Lake is just over a mile from the crash site. The road between the two locations takes a roundabout route of 6.9 miles—accounting for the erroneous reports."[SUP]
[129][/SUP]
Some conspiracy theorists believe a small white jet seen flying over the crash area may have fired a missile to shoot down Flight 93.[SUP]
[134][/SUP][SUP]
[dubious – discuss][/SUP] However, government agencies such as the FBI assert this small plane was a
Dassault Falcon business jet asked to descend to an altitude of around 1,500 ft to survey the impact.[SUP]
[135][/SUP] Ben Sliney, who was the FAA operation manager on September 11, 2001, says no military aircraft were near Flight 93.[SUP]
[136][/SUP]
Some internet videos, such as
Loose Change, speculate that Flight 93 safely landed in
Ohio, and a substituted plane was involved in the crash in Pennsylvania.[SUP]
[137][/SUP] Often cited is a preliminary news report that Flight 93 landed at a
Cleveland airport;[SUP]
[138][/SUP] it was later learned that Delta Flight 1989 was the plane confused with Flight 93, and the report was retracted as inaccurate. Several websites within the 9/11 Truth Movement dispute this claim, citing the wreckage at the scene, eyewitness testimony, and the difficulty of secretly substituting one plane for another, and claim that such "hoax theories... appear calculated to alienate victims' survivors and the larger public from the 9/11 truth movement".[SUP]
[130][/SUP][SUP]
[139][/SUP] The editor of the article has since written a
rebuttal to the claims.[SUP]
[140][/SUP]
Valencia McClatchey, a local woman who took the only photograph of the mushroom cloud from the impact of Flight 93 seconds after it hit the ground, says she has been harassed over the telephone and in person by conspiracy theorists, who claim she faked the photo. The FBI, the Somerset County authorities, the Smithsonian, and the National Park Service’s Flight 93 National Memorial staff have all examined the photograph as well as the film negatives and they consider the photo to be authentic.[SUP]
[141][/SUP]
While some conspiracy theorists have claimed that passengers of Flight 93 and/or
Flight 77, were murdered or that they were relocated, with the intent that they never be found,[SUP]
[75][/SUP] others within the 9/11 Truth Movement, such as
Jim Hoffman[SUP]
[142][/SUP] and
Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice, refute such claims.
[h=3]Hijackers[/h]See also:
Hijackers in the September 11 attacks and
Blocked al-Qaeda investigations
During the initial confusion surrounding the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the
BBC published the names and identities of what they believed to be some of the hijackers.[SUP]
[143][/SUP] Some of the people named were later discovered to be alive, a fact that was seized upon by 9/11 conspiracy theorists as proof that the hijackings were faked.[SUP]
[143][/SUP][SUP]
[144][/SUP][SUP]
[145][/SUP] The BBC explained that the initial confusion may have arisen because the names they reported back in 2001 were common Arabic and Islamic names.[SUP]
[143][/SUP] In response to a request from the BBC, the FBI said that it was confident to have identified all nineteen hijackers, and that none of the other inquiries had raised the issue of doubt about their identities.[SUP]
[143][/SUP]
The New York Times also acknowledged these as cases of mistaken identity.[SUP]
[146][/SUP]
According to John Bradley, the former managing editor of
Arab News in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the only public information about the hijackers was a list of names issued by the FBI on September 14, 2001. When the FBI released photographs four days after the cited reports on September 27, the mistaken identities were quickly resolved. According to Bradley, "all of this is attributable to the chaos that prevailed during the first few days following the attack. What we're dealing with are coincidentally identical names." In Saudi Arabia, says Bradley, the names of two of the allegedly surviving attackers,
Said al-Ghamdi and
Walid al-Shari, are "as common as John Smith in the United States or Great Britain."[SUP]
[144][/SUP]
According to Thomas Kean, chair of the 9/11 Commission, "Sixteen of the nineteen shouldn't have gotten into the United States in any way at all because there was something wrong with their visas, something wrong with their passports. They should simply have been stopped at the border. That was sixteen of the nineteen. Obviously, if even half of those people had been stopped, there never would have been a plot."[SUP]
[147][/SUP]
Khalid al Mihdhar and Nawaf al Hazmi had both been identified as al-Qaeda agents by the CIA, but that information was not shared with the FBI or U.S. Immigration, so both men were able to legally enter the U.S. to prepare for the 9/11 attacks.[SUP]
[148][/SUP]
[h=3]Foreign governments[/h]See also:
Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations and
Foreign government foreknowledge
There are allegations that individuals within the Pakistani
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) may have played an important role in
financing the attacks. There are also claims that other foreign intelligence agencies, such as the Israeli
Mossad, had foreknowledge of the attacks, and that Saudi Arabia may have played a role in financing the attacks. General
Hamid Gul, a former head of ISI, believes the attacks were an “inside job” originating in the United States, perpetrated by Israel or
neo-conservatives.[SUP]
[149][/SUP]
Francesco Cossiga, former President of Italy from 1985 until his 1992 resignation over
Operation Gladio, said that it is common knowledge among the Italian center-left that the 9/11 attacks were a joint operation of the CIA and the Mossad.[SUP]
[150][/SUP] Subsequent reports indicated that he did not actually believe this.[SUP]
[151][/SUP][SUP]
[152][/SUP]
[h=4]Israel[/h]See also:
9/11 advance-knowledge debate: Israel
A conspiracy theory documented by the
Anti-Defamation League,
Thom Burnett and others is that the state of
Israel was involved in the attacks, and may have planned them. A variety of motives are suggested, including: to cause the United States to attack enemies of Israel; to divert public attention away from Israel's treatment of
Palestinians; to help
Zionists take control of world affairs; and to persuade Americans to support Israel. Variants of the theory contend that the attack was organized by
Ariel Sharon,
Mossad, or the government of Israel.[SUP]
[153][/SUP][SUP]
[154][/SUP]
Kevin Barrett a former lecturer at the
University of Wisconsin is a leading advocate for the theory that Mossad orchestrated the attacks.[SUP]
[155][/SUP]
Some proponents of this believe that Jewish employees were forewarned by Israeli intelligence to skip work on September 11, resulting in no Jewish deaths at the World Trade Center. According to Cinnamon Stillwell, some 9/11 conspiracy theorists put this number as high as 4,000 Jewish people skipping work.[SUP]
[156][/SUP] This was first reported on September 17 by the
Lebanese Hezbollah-owned satellite television channel
Al-Manar and is believed to be based on the September 12 edition of the
The Jerusalem Post that said "The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem has so far received the names of 4,000 Israelis believed to have been in the areas of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon at the time of the attacks."[SUP]
[157][/SUP]
The number of Jews who died in the attacks is variously estimated at between 270 and 400.[SUP]
[157][/SUP][SUP]
[158][/SUP][SUP]
[159][/SUP][SUP]
[160][/SUP] The lower figure tracks closely with the percentage of Jews living in the New York area and partial surveys of the victims' listed religion. The U.S. State Department has published a partial list of 76 in response to claims that fewer Jews/Israelis died in the WTC attacks than should have been present at the time.[SUP]
[157][/SUP][SUP]
[161][/SUP] Five Israeli citizens died in the attack.[SUP]
[162][/SUP]
[h=5]Antisemitism in conspiracy theories[/h]In 2003, the
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) published a report attacking "hateful conspiracy theories" that the 9/11 attacks were carried about by Israelis and Jews, saying they had the potential to "rationalize and fuel global
anti-Semitism." It found that such theories were widely accepted in the
Arab and Muslim world, as well as in Europe and the United States.
The ADL's report found that "The Big Lie has united American
far-right extremists and
white supremacists and elements within the Arab and Muslim world". It asserted that many of the theories were modern manifestation of the 19th century
Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which purported to map out a Jewish conspiracy for world domination.[SUP]
[154][/SUP][SUP]
[163][/SUP] The ADL has characterized the
Jeff Rense website as carrying anti-Semitic materials, such as "American Jews staged the 9/11 terrorist attacks for their own financial gain and to induce the American people to endorse wars of aggression and
genocide on the nations of the Middle East and the theft of their resources for the benefit of Israel".[SUP]
[164][/SUP]
Pedro A. Sanjuan, a former
United Nations diplomat, alleged that antisemitic 9/11 conspiracy theories were quite common at high levels of the UN following 9/11.[SUP]
[165][/SUP]
[h=4]Saudi Arabia[/h]British investigative journalists
Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan claimed in their 2011 book
The Eleventh Hour that the
Saudi Royal Family provided material and financial support to the hijackers and that the Bush Administration covered this up as well as their own incompetence. The authors claim the
9/11 Truth movement helped this coverup by deflecting attention away from these actions.[SUP]
[166][/SUP] In September 2011 a "Lloyd's insurance syndicate" began legal action against Saudi Arabia demanding the repayment of £136m it paid out to victims of the 9/11 attacks. A number of prominent Saudi charities and banks as well as a leading member of the al-Saud royal family were accused of being "agents and alter egos" for the Saudi state that "knowingly" provided funding to Al Queda and encouraged anti Western sentiment.[SUP]
[167][/SUP]
[h=3]No-planes theory[/h]
The "no plane theory," promoted by Internet videos like 911 Taboo,[SUP]
[168][/SUP] claim that this shot of the second impact, taken from a news helicopter, depicts a video composite of a
Boeing 767 accidentally appearing from behind a
Layer Mask.
Nico Haupt and former chief economist within the Labor Department under the Bush administration,
Morgan Reynolds, argue that no planes were used in the attacks. Reynolds claims it is physically impossible that the Boeing planes of Flights 11 and 175 could have penetrated the steel frames of the Towers, and that
digital compositing was used to depict the plane crashes in both news reports and subsequent amateur video.[SUP]
[169][/SUP] "There were no planes, there were no hijackers," Reynolds insists. "I know, I know, I'm out of the mainstream, but that's the way it is." According to
David Shayler, "The only explanation is that they were missiles surrounded by holograms made to look like planes," he says. "Watch footage frame by frame and you will see a cigar-shaped missile hitting the World Trade Center." Truth movement veterans have repeatedly refuted the "no-plane" claims.[SUP]
[75][/SUP][SUP]
[169][/SUP][SUP]
[170][/SUP] Discussion of no-plane theories has been banned from certain conspiracy theory websites and advocates have sometimes been threatened with violence by posters at other conspiracy theory websites.[SUP]
[171][/SUP]
[h=2]Cover-up allegations[/h]Conspiracy theorists say they detect a pattern of behavior on the part of officials investigating the September 11 attack meant to suppress the emergence of evidence that might contradict the accepted account.[SUP]
[172][/SUP][SUP]
[173][/SUP][SUP]
[citation needed][/SUP] Paul Zarembka, in his book,
The Hidden History of 9/11, states that the debris from ground zero was removed without a proper forensic investigation.[SUP]
[174][/SUP][SUP]
[175][/SUP]
[h=3]Cockpit recorders[/h]According to the 9/11 Commission Report, the
cockpit voice recorders (CVR) or
flight data recorders (FDR), or "black boxes", from
Flights 11 and
175 were not recovered from the remains of the WTC attack; however, two men, Michael Bellone and Nicholas DeMasi, who worked extensively in the wreckage of the World Trade Center, said in the book
Behind-The-Scenes: Ground Zero[SUP]
[176][/SUP] that they helped federal agents find three of the four "black boxes" from the jetliners:[SUP]
[177][/SUP][SUP]
[178][/SUP]
At one point, I was assigned to take Federal Agents around the site to search for the black boxes from the planes. We were getting ready to go out. My ATV was parked at the top of the stairs at the Brooks Brothers entrance area. We loaded up about a million dollars worth of equipment and strapped it into the ATV. There were a total of four black boxes. We found three.[SUP]
[179][/SUP]
The
cockpit voice recorder from
Flight 77 was heavily damaged from the impact and resulting fire.
According to the 9/11 Commission Report, both black boxes from Flight 77 and both black boxes from Flight 93 were recovered. However, the CVR from Flight 77 was said to be too damaged to yield any data. On April 18, 2002, the FBI allowed the families of victims from Flight 93 to listen to the voice recordings.[SUP]
[180][/SUP] In April 2006, a transcript of the CVR was released as part of the
Zacarias Moussaoui trial.[SUP]
[181][/SUP]
[h=3]Bin Laden tapes[/h]Main article:
Videos of Osama bin Laden
A series of interviews, audio and videotapes were released in the years following the 9/11 attacks that have were reported to be from Osama bin Laden. In the first of these the speaker denied responsibility for the attacks.[SUP]
[182][/SUP]
In a tape released in December 2001 known as 'the
Jalalabad tape', the speaker is alleged to have foreknowledge of the attacks. The
Central Intelligence Agency claimed the tape was probably from
Osama bin Laden. [SUP]
[citation needed][/SUP] Some observers, especially people in the
Muslim world, doubted the authenticity of the tape.[SUP]
[183][/SUP] On December 20, 2001, German TV channel "
Das Erste" broadcast an analysis of the White House's translation of the videotape. On the program
Monitor, two independent translators and an expert on
Oriental Studies found the White House's translation to be both inaccurate and manipulative, stating, "At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic", and that the words used that indicate foreknowledge can not be heard at all in the original. Prof. Gernot Rotter, professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies at the Asia-Africa Institute at the
University of Hamburg, said "The American translators who listened to the tapes and transcribed them apparently wrote a lot of things in that they wanted to hear but that cannot be heard on the tape no matter how many times you listen to it."[SUP]
[184][/SUP] Some members of
Scholars for 9/11 Truth believe that the man in this videotape is not Osama bin Laden at all, citing differences in weight and facial features, along with his wearing of a gold ring, which is forbidden by Muslim law, and writing with his right hand although bin Laden was left-handed.[SUP]
[185][/SUP]
In an audiotape released in November 2007, Bin Laden claimed responsibility for the attacks and denied the
Taliban and the
Afghan government or people had any prior knowledge of the attacks.[SUP]
[186][/SUP][SUP]
[187][/SUP][SUP]
[188][/SUP] In an interview with al-Jazeera,
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and
Ramzi bin al-Shibh, two al-Qaeda masterminds of the attacks, also confessed their involvement in the attacks.[SUP]
[189][/SUP]
[h=3]Hide CIA recruitment efforts[/h]
Richard Clarke who headed the government's anti terrorism efforts in 2001 theorized the CIA director
George Tenet ordered the agency to withhold information about
Nawaf al-Hazmi and
Khalid al-Mihdhar from the rest of the government in an effort to cover up the agency's recruitment of the two. George Tenet released a statement denying the agency deliberately withheld information about the pair and noted that Clark himself said he had no proof.[SUP]
[190][/SUP]
[h=2]Motives[/h][h=3]Pax Americana[/h]Main article:
Pax Americana
In 2006, members of the group
Scholars for 9/11 Truth argued that a group of US neo-conservatives called the
Project for a New American Century (PNAC), which included
Paul Wolfowitz,
Dick Cheney and
Donald Rumsfeld, set on US world dominance and orchestrated the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to hit Iraq, Afghanistan and later Iran.[SUP]
[191][/SUP] In September 2000 the PNAC released a strategic treatise entitled
Rebuilding America's Defences.
David Ray Griffin in his 2004 book
The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11 argued that the treatise may have been the blueprint for 9/11 attacks. Specifically the language in the paper that read "the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor" was describing an alleged motive.[SUP]
[192][/SUP][SUP]
[193][/SUP][SUP]
[194][/SUP]
The Defense Planning Guidance of 1992, was drafted by
Paul Wolfowitz on behalf of then
Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. This was described as "a blueprint for permanent American global
hegemony" by
Andrew Bacevich in his book
American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy.[SUP]
[195][/SUP]
Matt Taibbi argued in his book
The Great Derangement that conspiracy theorists have taken what is written in the paper "completely out of context", and that the "transformation" referenced in the paper is explicitly said to be a decades-long process to turn the
Cold War-era military into a "new, modern military" which could deal with more localized conflicts.[SUP]
[196][/SUP] He said that, for this to be evidence of motive, either those responsible would have decided to openly state their objectives, or would have read the paper in 2000 and quickly laid the groundwork for the 9/11 attacks using it as inspiration.[SUP]
[196][/SUP]
[h=3]Invasions[/h]Conspiracy theorists have questioned whether
The Oil Factor and 9/11 provided the United States and the United Kingdom with a reason to launch a war they had wanted for some time, and suggest that this gives them a strong motive for either carrying out the attacks, or allowing them to take place. For instance,
Andreas von Bülow, a former research minister in the German government, has argued that 9/11 was staged to justify the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.[SUP]
[197][/SUP] Former
Malaysian premiere
Mahathir Mohamad was quoted as saying that there was "strong evidence" that the attacks were faked so the United States could go to war against Muslims.[SUP]
[198][/SUP]
[h=3]New World Order[/h]Main article:
New World Order (conspiracy theory)
Alex Jones and other personalities hold that 9/11 was initiated by a disparate variety of banking, corporate, globalization, and military interests for the purpose of creating a globalist government. Such
New World Order conspiracy theories predate 9/11.[SUP]
[63][/SUP]
[h=2]Suggested historical precedents[/h]Conspiracy theorists often point to
Operation Northwoods as a model for the 9/11 attacks, theorizing the attacks were carried out by the U.S. government as a
false flag operation and then blamed on Islamic extremists.[SUP]
[12][/SUP][SUP]
[199][/SUP][SUP]
[200][/SUP][SUP]
[201][/SUP] Operation Northwoods was an unimplemented, apparently rejected, plan approved by the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962. One proposal in the plan suggested that covert operatives commit multiple acts of terrorism in U.S. cities and blame Cuba thus providing a pretext for invasion.[SUP]
[202][/SUP]
Time magazine contrasted events which inspired past conspiracy theories with those that inspire 9/11 conspiracy theories such as the
assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Time called the public assassination of Kennedy a "private, intimate affair" when compared with the attack on the World Trade Center, which was witnessed by millions of people and documented by hundreds of videographers; and said, "there is no event so plain and clear that a determined human being can't find ambiguity in it."[SUP]
[52][/SUP]
[h=2]Proponents[/h]Main article:
9/11 Truth movement
Many individuals and organizations that support or discuss 9/11 conspiracy theories consider themselves to be part of the 9/11 Truth movement.
Prominent adherents of the movement include, among others, theologian
David Ray Griffin, physicist
Steven E. Jones, software engineer
Jim Hoffman, architect
Richard Gage, film producer
Dylan Avery, former Governor of Minnesota
Jesse Ventura, former member of the U.S. House of Representatives
Cynthia McKinney,[SUP]
[203][/SUP] actors
Daniel Sunjata,
Ed Asner, and
Charlie Sheen, political science professor Joseph Diaferia and journalist
Thierry Meyssan.[SUP]
[76][/SUP][SUP]
[204][/SUP][SUP]
[205][/SUP] Adherents of the 9/11 Truth movement come from diverse social backgrounds.[SUP]
[206][/SUP][SUP]
[207][/SUP][SUP]
[208][/SUP] The movement draws adherents from people of diverse political beliefs including liberals, conservatives, and libertarians.[SUP]
[208][/SUP][SUP]
[209][/SUP][SUP]
[210][/SUP]
Among the organizations that actively discuss and promote such theories are
Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, a group that focuses on the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings;
9/11 Truth, founded in 2004;
Scholars for 9/11 Truth, founded in 2005, and
Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice, a group that split from
Scholars for 9/11 Truth in 2007 and runs the online publication
Journal of 9/11 Studies;
9/11 Citizens Watch, which was already formed in 2002; and the
Hispanic Victims Group. Several of these groups have collected signatures on petitions asking for further investigation of the September 11 attacks.[SUP]
[211][/SUP][SUP]
[212][/SUP][SUP]
[213][/SUP]
In 2004,
John Buchanan ran for president on a 9/11 Truth platform.[SUP]
[214][/SUP][SUP]
[215][/SUP]
9/11 Conspiracy theory critic
Jonathan Kay asserts that for the most part proponents are not out for financial gain and in some cases have left lucrative careers to become activists.[SUP]
[216][/SUP]
Dr Michael Wood and Dr Karen Douglas
University of Kent psychologists who specialize in conspiracy theories[SUP]
[217][/SUP] examined the comments sections of over 2000 news articles relating to the collapse of World Trade Center 7. They found that proponents of 9/11 conspiracy theories were more likely to try and debunk the mainstream account then promote their own theories and also were more likely to believe in other conspiracy theories. Proponents of the mainstream account tended to argue for that account and showed a greater hostility towered conspiracy theory proponents.[SUP]
[218][/SUP]
[h=3]Dissecting the 9/11 Truth Movement Community[/h]
| An editor has expressed a concern that this SubSection lends undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, controversies or matters relative to the article subject as a whole. Please help to create a more balanced presentation. Discuss and resolve this issue before removing this message. (September 2012) |
According to a 2011 analysis in a
Skeptical Inquirer's article people involved in this movement, which seemingly is a disparate group with very diversified backgrounds, could be classified into three groups. They join the movement for different reasons, loosely self-assemble to fill different roles and are united by their shared mistrust in experts and the establishment (government and reputable sources of knowledge), and conspiratorial stance. Through their engagement, they each find their own fulfillment and satisfaction. Together, they contribute to the persistence, resilience and exaggerated claims of acceptance (in general public) of the movement. These three groups are:[SUP]
[219][/SUP]
- Hard Core: The organizers and active members of the various 9/11 Truth Movement organizations. They produce the information, spot the anomalies and technical inconsistencies, provide the technical base and form the theories. While they claim to be only interested in facts and to use scientific method, they commit the logical fallacy of ‘confirmation bias’ by pre-determining the outcome, then searching for corroborating evidence while ignoring the vast body of peer-reviewed, independent, consensual research which contradict their theories. They supply the physical structure of the movement by organizing events, seminars, discussions, marches and distributing flyers and pamphlets. Their numbers are relatively small but they are tight-knit and highly connected. Their worldview favors ‘super-conspiracy’, a master plan that is behind conspiracies which they believe they are uncovering.[SUP][219][/SUP]
- Critically turned: They are the young students and political activists whose affiliation with the 9/11 Truth Movement often is rooted from their dissatisfaction and anger at the established political and social order. Their sense of justice and idealism propels them to activism against perceived oppression and social injustice. Their penchant to use Internet, especially social media and tech savvy make them the propaganda machine for the movement. They produce YouTube video and films with cool, countercultural content, make good use of pop culture parody and eye-catching graphics. The countercultural street cred of their productions buy them broad appeal and exposure to millions of people.[SUP][219][/SUP]
- Illiterati: They are the movement’s mass membership backbone, a large, diffuse group which give the movement exaggerated claims of popularity and influence. Participation in the 9/11 Truth Movement, to this group of people, is as much a social and recreational pursuit as the quest for truth. Their partaking is mostly through web 2.0 social networking and hits on the YouTube video. Their commentaries often are emotional and they make no pretense to be accurate, balanced or to show genuine intent to find truth. Involvement with the movement that fit their worldview gives them a sense of identity and belonging, which they find more appealing than the facts and evidences of the 9/11 terrorist attack itself.[SUP][219][/SUP]
[h=2]Media reaction[/h]While discussion and coverage of these theories is mainly confined to Internet pages, books, documentary films, and conversation, a number of mainstream news outlets around the world have covered the issue.
The Norwegian version of the July 2006
Le Monde diplomatique sparked interest when they ran, on their own initiative, a three page main story on the 9/11 attacks and summarized the various types of 9/11 conspiracy theories (which were not specifically endorsed by the newspaper, only recensed).[SUP]
[220][/SUP] The
Voltaire Network, which has changed position since the September 11 attacks and whose director,
Thierry Meyssan, became a leading proponent of 9/11 conspiracy theory, explained that although the Norwegian version of
Le Monde diplomatique had allowed it to translate and publish this article on its website, the mother-house, in France, categorically refused it this right, thus displaying an open debate between various national editions.[SUP]
[221][/SUP] In December 2006, the French version published an article by
Alexander Cockburn, co-editor of
CounterPunch, which strongly criticized the alleged endorsement of conspiracy theories by the U.S. left-wing, alleging that it was a sign of "theoretical emptiness."[SUP]
[222][/SUP][SUP]
[223][/SUP]
Also, on the Canadian website for
CBC News: The Fifth Estate, a program titled, "Conspiracy Theories: uncovering the facts behind the myths of Sept. 11, 2001" was broadcast on October 29, 2003, stating that what they found may be more surprising than any theories.[SUP]
[224][/SUP] On November 27, 2009,
The Fifth Estate aired a documentary entitled
The Unofficial Story where several prominent members of the 9/11 Truth Movement made their case.[SUP]
[225][/SUP][SUP]
[226][/SUP]
An article in the September 11, 2006 edition of
Time magazine comments that the major 9/11 conspiracy theories “depend on circumstantial evidence, facts without analysis or documentation, quotes taken out of context and the scattered testimony of traumatized eyewitnesses”, and enjoy continued popularity because “the idea that there is a malevolent controlling force orchestrating global events is, in a perverse way, comforting”. It concludes that “conspiracy theories are part of the process by which Americans deal with traumatic public events” and constitute “an American form of national mourning.”[SUP]
[227][/SUP]
Australian newspaper
The Daily Telegraph published an article titled "The CIA couldn't have organised this..." which said "The same people who are making a mess of Iraq were never so clever or devious that they could stage a complex assault on two narrow towers of steel and glass" and "if there is a nefarious plot in all this bad planning, it is one improvised by a confederacy of dunces". This article mainly attacked a group of scientists led by Professor
Steven E. Jones, now called
Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice. They said "most of them aren't scientists but instructors... at second-rate colleges".[SUP]
[228][/SUP]
The Daily Telegraph also published an article in May 2007 that was highly critical of
Loose Change 2, a movie which presents a 9/11 conspiracy theory.[SUP]
[229][/SUP]
Doug MacEachern in a May 2008 column for
The Arizona Republic wrote that while many "9/11 truthers" are not crackpots that espouse "crackpot conspiracy theories", supporters of the theories fail to take into account both human nature and that nobody has come forward claiming they were participants in the alleged conspiracies.[SUP]
[230][/SUP] This view was seconded by Timothy Giannuzzi, a
Calgary Herald op-ed columnist specializing in foreign policy.[SUP]
[231][/SUP]
On June 7, 2008,
The Financial Times Magazine published a lengthy article on the
9/11 Truth Movement and 9/11 conspiracy theories.[SUP]
[232][/SUP]
Charlie Brooker, a British comedian and multimedia personality, in a July 2008 column published by
The Guardian as part of its "Comment is free" series agreed that 9/11 conspiracy theorists fail to take in account human fallacies and added that believing in these theories gives theorists a sense of belonging to a community that shares privileged information thus giving the theorists a delusional sense of power.[SUP]
[233][/SUP] The commentary generated over 1700 online responses, the largest in the history of the series.[SUP]
[234][/SUP] In a September 2009 piece,
The Guardian were more supportive of 9/11 conspiracy theories however, asking, "when did it become uncool to ask questions? When did questioners become imbeciles?"[SUP]
[235][/SUP]
On September 12, 2008,
Russian State Television broadcast in prime time a documentary made by
Member of the European Parliament Giulietto Chiesa entitled
Zero, sympathetic to those who question the accepted account of the attacks according to Chiesa. According to
Thierry Meyssan in conjunction with the documentary, Russian State Television aired a debate on the subject. The panel consisted of members from several countries including 12 Russians who hold divergent views. The motive of Russian State Television in broadcasting the documentary was questioned by a commentator from
The Other Russia who noted that Russian State Television had a history of broadcasting programs involving
conspiracy theories involving the
United States government.[SUP]
[236][/SUP][SUP]
[237][/SUP][SUP]
[238][/SUP]
Nasir Mahmood in a commentary printed by the
Pakistan Observer wrote favorably about a 9/11 truth lecture and film festival held in California and quoted a Jewish speaker at that festival who said that none of the 19 suspected hijackers had been proven guilty of anything and compared racism against Muslims resulting from what he called false accusations to the racism against Jews in the Nazi era.[SUP]
[239][/SUP]
On November 10, 2008,
ITN broadcast a story summarizing various 9/11 conspiracy theories.[SUP]
[240][/SUP]
The emergence of the
birther movement in 2009 has led to comparisons between that movement and the 9/11 Truth movement, with both movements seen in a very negative light.
Moon landing conspiracy theories have also been compared to the birther and 9/11 conspiracy theories. James Borne, a journalist for
The New York Times who covered the
September 11 Attacks, described his assignment covering a 9/11 truth meeting "Perhaps the most intellectually scary assignment I have had in recent years".[SUP]
[241][/SUP][SUP]
[242][/SUP][SUP]
[243][/SUP][SUP]
[244][/SUP]
On August 31, 2009, the
National Geographic Channel aired the program
9/11 Science and Conspiracy, in which the
Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center tested some of the claims frequently made by those who question the accepted 9/11 account. Specifically, the experiments concluded that burning jet fuel alone can sufficiently raise the temperature of a steel support column to the point of structural failure, that a controlled demolition using conventional techniques would leave clear evidence that was not found at Ground Zero, that using
thermite is not an effective technique to melt a steel column, and that even if thermite chemical signatures were found, it would be impossible to tell if thermite was actually used or if the traces came from the reaction of aircraft aluminum with other substances in the fire. The testing also concluded that the type of hole found at the Pentagon was consistent with the standard scenario, and that damage from a bombing or missile attack would differ from the damage that occurred. In the program, several prominent 9/11 conspiracy theorists viewed rough edits of the experiments, and expressed their disagreement with the findings.[SUP]
[245][/SUP][SUP]
[246][/SUP]
The British left wing magazine
New Statesman listed
David Ray Griffin as the 41st most important person who matters today. The magazine said that Griffin's "books on the subject have lent a sheen of respectability that appeals to people at the highest levels of government". The publication listed 9/11 conspiracy thories as "one of the most pernicious global myths".[SUP]
[247][/SUP] Griffin's book
The New Pearl Harbor Revisited was chosen by Publishers Weekly as a "Pick of the Week" in November 2008.[SUP]
[248][/SUP]
Denver
public television KBDI-TV has aired 9/11 truth documentaries several times. The stations spokesperson claimed airing these documentaries has been a boon for the stations fund raising efforts.[SUP]
[249][/SUP]
Glenn Beck, television and radio host, said of the allegations: "There are limits to debasement of this country, aren't there? I mean, it's one thing to believe that our politicians are capable of being
Bernie Madoff. It's another to think that they are willing to kill 3,000 Americans. Once you cross that line, you're in a whole new territory."[SUP]
[250][/SUP]
In March 2010
The Washington Post editorialized against
Yukihisa Fujita, a prominent Japanese politician who has espoused 9/11 conspiracy theories. They described Fujita as a man "susceptible to the imaginings of the lunatic fringe". It went on to say that the U.S.-Japan alliance would be "severely tested" if Fujita's party continued to tolerate these kinds of comments.[SUP]
[251][/SUP]
For the ninth anniversary of the attacks the Egyptian daily
Al-masry Al-youm published an article questioning the US government story and promoting conspiracy theories. The senior analyst for the semi-official
Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies and a member of Parliament from the
Muslim Brotherhood was quoted.[SUP]
[252][/SUP]
Gordon Farrer, the technology editor for
The Age, theorized in a November 2010 column for the
Sydney Morning Herald that the popularity of 9/11 conspiracy theories was a result of two main factors. One revolved around the personality traits of the theorists themselves (cynical, anxious, belief that they are
free thinkers). The second revolved around the high
internet search ranking 9/11 conspiracy theories receive leading to a false air of authority to the theories. Speaking of the theorists Farrer wrote that "when politicians and media don’t give them voice they feel more threatened, more suspicious, cornered, helpless; and so they go on the attack".[SUP]
[253][/SUP]
Geraldo Rivera, the host of
Geraldo at Large, a news magazine run by
Fox News Channel, expressed openness towards claims that question the causes of the collapse of
7 World Trade Center.[SUP]
[254][/SUP]
Andrew Napolitano, a legal analyst for Fox News and former judge at the
New Jersey Superior Court, voiced support for scepticism about the collapse of the high-rise building, and for Rivera investigating the event.[SUP]
[254][/SUP] Other media, such as
Newsbusters and
Media Matters, criticized the comments made by both journalists.[SUP]
[254][/SUP]
Alex Jones was fired by 70 radio stations when he began espousing 9/11 conspiracy theories, but by 2011 was espousing these and other conspiracy theories on morning TV shows and was the subject of lengthy magazine profiles.[SUP]
[41][/SUP][SUP]
[255][/SUP]
On August 29, 2010 the
BBC Two broadcast a program entitled
The Conspiracy Files: 9/11 – Ten Years On.[SUP]
[89][/SUP]
On September 5, 2011
The Guardian published an article entitled, "9/11 conspiracy theories debunked". The article noted that unlike the collapse of World Trade Centers 1 and 2 a controlled demolition collapses a building from the bottom and explains that the windows popped because of collapsing floors. The article also said there are conspiracy theories that claim that World trade Center 7 was also downed by a controlled demolition, that the Pentagon being hit by a missile, that the hijacked planes were packed with explosives and flown by remote control, that Israel was behind the attacks, that a plane headed for the Pentagon was shot down by a missile, that there was
insider trading by people who had foreknowledge of the attacks were all false.[SUP]
[256][/SUP]
Toure Neblett, who has Tweeted his suspicions about the attack on the Pentagon, is one of the hosts of the
MSNBC program
The Cycle, which debuted on June 25, 2012.[SUP]
[257][/SUP]
[h=3]In popular culture[/h]In June 2005 the popular German public broadcaster
ARD murder mystery program
Tatort ran an episode in which a woman who claims the 9/11 attacks were instigated by the
Bush family for oil and power is targeted by FBI and CIA hitmen after her roommate is found dead. The roommate was trained to be one of the
9/11 hijackers, but was left behind. The episode, viewed by 7 million people, ended with detectives who were investigating the death believing her story and the woman escaping to an unnamed Arab country.[SUP]
[258][/SUP]
In season 10 of the animated show
South Park, the episode "
Mystery of the Urinal Deuce" centers around 9/11 conspiracy theories. After
Eric Cartman, a main character in the show, blames
Kyle Broflovski for causing 9/11, Kyle and his friend
Stan Marsh end up in the White House, where they are told that the government did in fact cause the 9/11 attacks. They escape, and eventually it is revealed that the government wants people to think that they caused 9/11, so that they think the government has more power than it does.[SUP]
[259][/SUP]
A
Rescue Me episode featured a character played by actor
Daniel Sunjata (who is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist) explaining to a French journalist that the 9/11 attacks were a “
neoconservative government effort” to create a new
Pearl Harbor to control oil and increase military spending.[SUP]
[260][/SUP][SUP]
[261][/SUP] According to
Denis Leary, major plot lines in the first 10 episodes of the show's season 5 revolved around reinvestigation and conspiracy theories surrounding the 9/11 attacks.[SUP]
[262][/SUP]
The plot for a comic book entitled
The Big Lie, released in September 2011, revolves around a scientist going back in time to the day of the attacks with the intention of preventing it, in the process finding out that the official story is false.[SUP]
[263][/SUP]
A film entitled
September Morn is scheduled for 2013 release. The film will call for a new investigation into the attacks. Topic matter is reported to include alleged inconsistencies in the widely accepted version of the attacks and hints of a cover up. The film has been written by Howard Cohen and will be directed by BJ Davis.
Ed Asner,
Woody Harrelson,
Martin Sheen,
Daniel Sunjata actors associated with the 9/11 truth movement are members of the film's cast. The film is the first mainstream movie to delve into this area.[SUP]
[264][/SUP][SUP]
[265][/SUP]
The Fox network series
Bones has a character
Jack Hodgins who believed in conspiracy theories. During an episode that aired in November 2012" dealing with the 9/11 attacks Hodkins said. "I have looked into every 9/11 conspiracy. All of them. None of them hold up. Or I should say only one of them does. We were attacked by extremists who hated everything we represent."[SUP]
[266][/SUP]
[h=2]Criticism[/h]Critics of these conspiracy theories say they are a form of
conspiracism common throughout history after a traumatic event in which
conspiracy theories emerge as a mythic form of explanation.[SUP]
[267][/SUP] A related criticism addresses the form of research on which the theories are based. Thomas W. Eagar, an engineering professor at
MIT, suggested they "use the 'reverse scientific method'. They determine what happened, throw out all the data that doesn't fit their conclusion, and then hail their findings as the only possible conclusion." Eagar's criticisms also exemplify a common stance that the theories are best ignored. "I've told people that if the argument gets too mainstream, I'll engage in the debate." According to him, this happened when Steve Jones, a physics professor at
Brigham Young University, took up the issue.[SUP]
[268][/SUP]
Michael Shermer, writing in
Scientific American, said: "The mistaken belief that a handful of unexplained anomalies can undermine a well-established theory lies at the heart of all conspiratorial thinking. All the evidence for a 9/11 conspiracy falls under the rubric of this fallacy. Such notions are easily refuted by noting that scientific theories are not built on single facts alone but on a convergence of evidence assembled from multiple lines of inquiry."[SUP]
[269][/SUP]
Scientific American,[SUP]
[269][/SUP]
Popular Mechanics,[SUP]
[270][/SUP] and
The Skeptic's Dictionary[SUP]
[271][/SUP] have published articles that rebut various 9/11 conspiracy theories.
Popular Mechanics has published a book entitled
Debunking 9/11 Myths that expands upon the research first presented in the article.[SUP]
[272][/SUP] In the foreword for the book
Senator John McCain wrote that blaming the U.S. government for the events "mars the memories of all those lost on that day" and "exploits the public's anger and sadness. It shakes Americans' faith in their government at a time when that faith is already near an all-time low. It trafficks in ugly, unfounded accusations of extraordinary evil against fellow Americans."[SUP]
[273][/SUP]
Der Spiegel dismissed 9/11 conspiracy theories as a "panoply of the absurd", stating "as diverse as these theories and their adherents may be, they share a basic thought pattern: great tragedies must have great reasons."[SUP]
[274][/SUP]
Journalist
Matt Taibbi, in his book
The Great Derangement, discusses 9/11 conspiracy theories as symptomatic of what he calls the "derangement" of American society; a disconnection from reality due to widespread "disgust with our political system".[SUP]
[196][/SUP] Drawing a parallel with the
Charismatic Movement, he argues that both "chose to battle bugbears that were completely idiotic, fanciful, and imaginary," instead of taking control of their own lives.[SUP]
[196][/SUP] While critical, Taibbi explains that 9/11 conspiracy theories are different from "
Clinton-era black-helicopter paranoia", and constitute more than "a small, scattered group of nutcases [...] they really were, just as they claim to be, almost everyone you meet."[SUP]
[196][/SUP]
Historian Kenneth J. Dillon argues that 9/11 conspiracy theories represent an overly easy target for skeptics and that their criticisms obfuscate the underlying issue of what actually happened if there was not a conspiracy. He suggests that the answer is criminal negligence on the part of the president and vice president, who were repeatedly warned, followed by a cover-up conspiracy after 9/11.[SUP]
[275][/SUP][SUP]
[undue weight? – discuss][/SUP] This was expanded upon by columnist Matt Mankelow writing for the online edition of the British
Socialist Worker. He concludes that 9/11 truthers while "desperately trying to legitimately question a version of events" end up playing into the hands of the
neoconservatives they are trying to take down by creating a diversion. Mankelow noted that this has irritated many people who are politically left wing.[SUP]
[276][/SUP]
David Aaronovitch, a columnist for
The Times, in his book entitled
Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History that was published in May 2009, claimed that the theories strain credulity.[SUP]
[75][/SUP] Aaronovitch also charged that 9/11 conspiracy theorists have exaggerated the expertise of those supporting their theories, and noted that 9/11 conspiracy theorists including
David Ray Griffin cross cite each other.[SUP]
[277][/SUP]
Harvard Law professor
Cass Sunstein co-authored a 2009 paper which used members of the 9/11 Truth movement and others as an examples of people who suffer from “crippled epistemologies,” to public trust and the political system. He wrote that "They do not merely undermine democratic debate...In extreme cases, they create or fuel violence. If government can dispel such theories, it should do so.”[SUP]
[41][/SUP]
In June 2011 the
Royal Institute of British Architects was criticized for hosting a lecture by
Richard Gage, president of
Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Rick Bell, the director of the
American Institute of Architects New York chapter, who was a witness to the 9/11 attacks, said that “no amount of money” would persuade him to allow the group to talk at his headquarters and said that Gage lacks credibility among the professional community.
Eugine Kohn, former spokesperson for the American Institute of Architects, said Gage's theories were "ridiculous", "There were no explosives planted”, and “The buildings were definitely brought down by the planes". The decision to host the event was also criticized by the former president of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the founding president of the American Institute of Architects United Kingdom chapter. Gage has been warned by the AIA against giving a false impression that he has a relationship with them. A July article in the organizations magazine criticized Gage for continuing to intimate that he has an association with them and claimed there were no architects at an Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth screening held in an American Institute of Architects boardroom [SUP]
[278][/SUP] The Royal Institute of British Architects released a statement saying the perception that the group endorses events held in its buildings is "regrettable", and said they would review policy on "private hire" of its buildings.[SUP]
[279][/SUP] Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan offer scathing criticism of many of the above theories in
The Eleventh Day, their 2011 investigation of the attacks.[SUP]
[280][/SUP]
U.S. representative
Peter T. King, chairmen of the House Homeland Security Committee, said 9/11 conspiracy theorists "trivialize" the "most tragic event to affect the United States" and that "People making these claims are disgraceful, and they should be ashamed of themselves".[SUP]
[281][/SUP]
[h=2]In politics[/h]Former Canadian
Liberal Party leader
Stéphane Dion forced a candidate from
Winnipeg, Lesley Hughes, to terminate her campaign after earlier writings from Hughes surfaced in which Hughes wrote that U.S., German, Russian and Israeli intelligence officials knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance.[SUP]
[282][/SUP][SUP]
[283][/SUP] Earlier,
Peter Kent, Deputy Editor of
Global Television Network News and
Conservative Party candidate in the 2008 Canadian election, had called for Hughes's resignation saying that the 9/11 Truth movement is "one of Canada’s most notorious hatemongering fringe movements" composed of "conspiracy theorists who are notorious for holding anti-Semitic views."[SUP]
[284][/SUP] On June 16, 2009, Hughes sued Kent, the
Canadian Jewish Congress, the
B'nai B'rith of Canada and four senior members of the two organizations alleging the
antisemitic allegations were untrue and defamatory and ruined her career.[SUP]
[285][/SUP] Later another Conservative Party candidate called for the leader of the
New Democratic Party to fire a candidate for her pro 9/11 truth views.[SUP]
[286][/SUP]
Zijad Delic head of Canada's largest Muslim advocacy organization, the
Canadian Islamic Congress is trying to remove 9/11 conspiracy theorists from the board of the organization, in an effort to what he describes as purifying within and totally canadianize the organization.[SUP]
[287][/SUP]
In 2008 calls for the resignation of
Richard Falk, the special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories for the United Nations, were partially based on his support investigating the validity of 9/11 conspiracy theories.[SUP]
[288][/SUP] In 2011 Falk praised a book by David Ray Griffen. Falk was condemned for his remarks by
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and United States ambassador to the United Nations
Susan Rice.[SUP]
[289][/SUP]
In February 2009,
Aymeric Chauprade (
fr), a professor of geopolitics at CID military college in Paris, was fired by French Defence Minister
Hervé Morin for writing a book entitled
Chronicle of the Clash of Civilizations that espoused 9/11 conspiracy theories.[SUP]
[290][/SUP]
In September 2009
Van Jones, an adviser to US President Barack Obama, resigned after his signature on a 2004 petition calling for an investigation into whether government officials deliberately allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur and other controversial statements came to light drawing criticism. Van Jones said he was a victim of a smear campaign, adding that he does not currently, nor ever has agreed with that theory.[SUP]
[291][/SUP]
9/11 conspiracy theorist critic
David Aaronovitch claims the popularity of 9/11 conspiracy theories has hurt the
War on Terror. According to Aaronovitch, because a significant portion of educated Pakistanis believe that
George W. Bush brought the towers down, dealing with the
Taliban is difficult “because they actually don't believe the fundamental premise on which the war against terror was waged”.[SUP]
[292][/SUP]
The 9/11 truth movement became an issue in the 2010 Texas Gubernatorial Republican primary when candidate
Debra Medina replied when asked by
Glenn Beck about US government involvement in the 9/11 attacks: "I think some very good questions have been raised in that regard, there are some very good arguments, and I think the American people have not seen all of the evidence there, so I have not taken a position on that." After being criticized for the remarks by opposing candidates, Medina said that she has never been a 9/11 truth movement member and believes the twin towers were attacked by Muslim terrorists.[SUP]
[293][/SUP][SUP]
[294][/SUP]
On September 23, 2010 Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a speech to the United Nations said that "The majority of the American people, as well as other nations and politicians, believe...some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining U.S. economy and its grips on the Middle East in order also to save the
Zionist regime". The remarks prompted the United States delegation as well as others to walk out.[SUP]
[295][/SUP] U.S. President
Barack Obama criticized Ahmadinejad's remarks before the United Nations General Assembly on the following day, saying, "For him to make a statement like that was inexcusable" and called the remarks "offensive" and "hateful."[SUP]
[296][/SUP] Previously Ahmadinejad had described the 9/11 attacks as a "suspect event"[SUP]
[297][/SUP] and suggested that the Bush Administration was involved in 9/11.[SUP]
[298][/SUP][SUP]
[299][/SUP] The Iranian president repeated his claims in 2011 and was criticized in an article appearing Al Queada's magazine. The article claimed Ahmadinejad was jealous of Al Queada.[SUP]
[300][/SUP]
Egyptian President
Mohamed Morsi has called for a scientific conference to look into the events of 9/11 and speculated that the attacks were an inside job.[SUP]
[301][/SUP]
[h=2]Legal Cases[/h]Army specialist April Gallup filed suit claiming that Vice President
Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials orchestrated the 9/11 attacks and the Pentagon was hit by an attack ordered by Cheney. The suit was dismissed in 2010 by Judge
Denny Chin, who said the claim was "the product of cynical delusion and fantasy". Her lawyers filed an appeal to the
U.S. Court of Appeals which in April 2010 issued a
show cause order why the lawyers and Gallup should not be sanctioned for filing a frivolous lawsuit. Her lawyers asked that the judges on the Court of Appeals recuse themselves because their emotions made them prejudge the case and abuse their power. On October 14, 2011 the judges sanctioned her lawyers $15,000 each for both the frivolous lawsuits and the accusations of prejudice. Gallup was not fined because of her unfamiliarity with the law.[SUP]
[302][/SUP]
I dunno bud. You're the athiest, you tell me. All I want is for people to stop hating eachother. 
