How they've evolved. It may be 1. 0 years since the attacks in the US on 1. September, but conspiracy theories have not faded over time, says Mike Rudin. Numerous official reports have been published since the Twin Towers fell, but just when a piece of evidence casts doubt on one theory, the focus then shifts to the next . Here are five of the most prominent 9/1.
Another version of the film, Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup. 9/11 Conspiracy Theory' May 17 2006 'Loose Change Review: 'Goofball Shockumentary ' '.Failure to intercept the hijacked planes. The question: Why did the world's most powerful air force fail to intercept any of the four hijacked planes? Conspiracy theorists say: The then US Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the military to stand down and not to intercept the planes. Image caption. Fighter jets failed to intercept the hijacked planes. Official reports say: This was a highly unusual multiple hijacking with violence on board, and where the transponder, which identifies the plane, was turned off or changed. What is more, a routine military training exercise happened to be taking place that day at US air defence command. Air traffic controller Colin Scoggins was in constant contact with the military and did not see any lack of response. The 9/11 Conspiracy Theory Documentary 9/11 conspiracy theories. 9/11 Conspiracy Documentary: The 9/11 Conspiracy Theory Documentary 9/11. The 9/11 conspiracy theorist who changed his. Alex Jones posted a film in which he claimed he. Veitch has a simpler theory. There was confusion and a lack of communication between the civilian air traffic control (FAA) and the military. The military's equipment was also outdated and designed to look out over the ocean to deal with a Cold War threat. Collapse of the Twin Towers. The question: Why did the Twin Towers collapse so quickly, within their own footprint, after fires on a few floors that lasted only for an hour or two? Conspiracy theorists say: The Twin Towers were destroyed by controlled demolitions. Theories relate to the rapid collapse (about 1. World Trade Center 2 or 1. World Trade Center 1), reports of the sounds of explosions shortly before the collapse, and the violent ejections that could be seen at some windows many floors below the collapse. Image caption. Five new skyscrapers are being built on the World Trade Center site. Official reports say: An extensive inquiry by the National Institute of Standards and Technology concluded that the planes severed and damaged support columns and dislodged fire- proofing. Around 1. 0,0. 00 gallons of jet fuel were spewed over many floors starting widespread fires. Temperatures of up to 1,0. C caused the floors to sag and the perimeter columns to bend, causing the sounds of . The massive weight of the floors dropped, creating a dynamic load far in excess of what the columns were designed for. Debris was forced out of the windows as the floors above collapsed. Controlled demolition is nearly always carried out from the bottom floors up, yet this collapse started at the top. No evidence has ever been found of explosive charges despite the extensive hand searches and there is no evidence of any pre- cutting of columns or walls, which is routinely carried out in a controlled demolition. Attack on the Pentagon. The question: How could an amateur pilot fly a commercial plane in a complicated manoeuvre and crash it into the headquarters of the world's most powerful military, 7. Image caption. A memorial in the grounds of the Pentagon marks the deaths of those who died when Flight 7. Conspiracy theorists say: A commercial Boeing 7. But since evidence has increasingly shown that the American Airlines Flight 7. It is argued it was not under the control of al- Qaeda but the Pentagon itself. Official reports say: Airplane wreckage, including the black boxes, were recovered from the scene and they were catalogued by the FBI. Although some early video did not show much wreckage, there is a good deal of video and still photography which shows plane wreckage and evidence of the flight path, such as broken lamp posts. The remains of crew and passengers on the plane were found and positively identified by DNA. Witnesses also saw the plane strike the Pentagon. The fourth plane - United Airlines flight 9. The question: Why was the crash site at Shanksville, Pennsylvania, so small and why was the aircraft debris not visible? Conspiracy theorists argue: United Airlines flight 9. Image caption. Forty- four people died when Flight 9. Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Official reports say: There are clear photographs showing aircraft wreckage and the cockpit voice recorder, which showed there had been a passenger revolt and the hijackers had deliberately crashed the plane. In fact the wind had blown light debris such as paper and insulation just over a mile. Another theory was based on a misquote from the local coroner, Wally Miller, who said he stopped being a coroner after about 2. What he also said was that he quickly realised it was a plane crash and there would have to be a large funeral service for the many victims. In addition, the military never gave orders to the air force to shoot the commercial airliner down. Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7. The question: How could a skyscraper, which was not hit by a plane, collapse so quickly and symmetrically, when no other steel- framed skyscraper has collapsed because of fire? Image caption. Offices for civil emergencies, the CIA and the Secret Service were based in World Trade Center Building 7. Conspiracy theorists say: The World Trade Center Building 7 was destroyed by a controlled demolition using both explosives and incendiaries. Initially the focus was on the phrase . But in fact he was talking about pulling firefighters back. It is argued only explosives could make it collapse so quickly and symmetrically. Some scientists, who are sceptical of the official account, have examined four dust samples from Ground Zero and claim to have found thermitic material which reacts violently when heated up. They claim tonnes of thermite and conventional explosives were rigged inside, not just WTC7, but also the Twin Towers. Find out more. The Conspiracy Files: 9/1. Ten Years On will be broadcast on Monday 2. August 2. 01. 1 at 2. BST on BBC Two. Or catch up later via i. Player. Official reports say: A three- year investigation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology concluded that the building collapsed because of uncontrolled fires, started by the collapse of the nearby North Tower, and which burnt for seven hours. The mains water feeding the emergency sprinkler system was severed. No evidence has ever been found of explosive charges and there are no recordings of a series of very loud explosions that would have been expected with controlled demolition. Furthermore, there is an alternative explanation for the . It's calculated 1,2. World Trade Center and most minerals are present in the dust (not necessarily in a large quantity). More extensive sampling of the dust has not found any evidence of thermite or explosives, says a report from the US Geological Survey and another from RJ Lee. Here's Why 9/1. 1 Conspiracy Theories Still Thrive In America. WASHINGTON - - It was a sunny and clear Tuesday morning in Knoxville, Tennessee. Sitting in the kitchen of my girlfriend's apartment, I was eating a bowl of cereal - - Honey Nut Cheerios, I still remember - - and browsing the web before making the 1. I was looking for news about the big game, a top 1. SEC matchup between the Tennessee Volunteers and the Florida Gators. I was a junior at the University of Tennessee, and just 1. I'd broken my wrist during the season opener. It required surgery, so I was going to be sidelined for the next six to eight weeks. Once on the Internet, I caught my first glimpse of the North Tower on fire, with smoke billowing from the top floors. I remember taking a moment to say a prayer for everyone affected. Then, right before my eyes, a plane flew into another building, the South Tower. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. But I didn't know exactly what this meant for my country. A 2. 0- year- old college kid consumed with school and the football season, I never thought much about what was going on outside my own world. Terrorists had attacked our nation, but I was sure the government would hunt down those responsible. Even years later, while playing in the NFL, I figured al Qaeda would soon be destroyed and the nation would move on. After all, who could challenge the superiority of America's badass military? Fast forward to 2. A week or so after losing Super Bowl XLII that February as a member of the New England Patriots, I had a long stretch of time on my hands. To take my mind off what I could've done differently in the game - - was there a block I missed somewhere? A young senator from Illinois by the name of Barack Obama had been making international headlines, winning the Iowa caucuses and the South Carolina primary. I was pleased to see someone of color running for the nation's highest office. Although he was affable, well educated and an exceptional orator, I never imagined he had a chance to actually win - - until he actually started winning. I wanted to learn more about his background. So I turned to You. Tube. An unguided journey through the bowels of You. Tube can lead to some awfully strange places, as it did for me that day. Somewhere amid my research of Obama, I stumbled across a few videos claiming that individuals within the United States government had conspired with Osama bin Laden decades ago. My first thought about a bin Laden alliance was, yeah right, but I clicked on the link anyway, out of curiosity. It turned out the claim was true - - and thus began my journey down the rabbit hole. I was surprised to learn the CIA had assisted the Mujahedeen leading up to and during their fight to repel the 1. Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. So had bin Laden - - he sent funds and fighters. My common sense had told me I was crazy to think my country had any connection to militants who would later engage in terror activities around the world, including against the U. S. There began my distrust both of the government and of my own common sense regarding the events of 9/1. If I'd been so wrong about the alliance with bin Laden, what else was I wrong about? What else was the government hiding? This, for me at least, is how the door opened. My journey into and out of conspiracy land, however embarrassing it was for me when a recent pile- on began - -- - is useful to think about, because I am by no means alone. And we ignore or ridicule conspiracy thinking at our peril. Conspiracy theories are not a recent phenomenon in America, said history professor Robert Goldberg, director of the Tanner Humanities Center and co- director of the Middle East Center at the University of Utah, but they have changed in one fundamental way: Before the second half of the 2. Jews, Catholics, Communists. Today's conspiracies focus on insiders - - the government, Wall Street and the military. There is an art to building a credible conspiracy theory, and as Goldberg explained, . Seeing is believing, and people tend to believe something more if they've seen it with their own eyes. The narrator's ability to dive into complex physics or aerodynamics issues, and break them down in simple terms, brings an additional legitimacy to the overall project. There's no person or worldview that is immune from it. Another important element in spreading conspiracy theories is to raise questions, in which much dot- connecting is implied, and let the viewers or listeners draw their own conclusions. Contrast the respect with which many conspiracy theorists treat their audience with the government's posture, which is to offer as little information as possible. Whatever I read in the media afterward, I viewed through the prism of . If you've ever debated a climate- change denier, you've seen this phenomenon firsthand.). Conspiracy theories thrive on this: ? Why do we need so much secrecy? There must be something that the government isn't telling us. Smith Goes to Washington. Then the post- 9/1. Iraq was a complete fiasco, in which hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were losing their lives and millions were being displaced, while contractors like Blackwater (now Academi) and Halliburton (where Dick Cheney had been CEO) saw profits soar. I figured something more must be going on. Even beyond the Hollywood influence, I was particularly primed to believe what I was hearing. For many within the African- American community, it is almost commonplace to believe, for instance, that the federal government has been and/or is flooding neighborhoods with guns and drugs that fuel violence within the black community. During the civil rights era of the 1. FBI's covert project COINTELPRO (with assistance from local law enforcement), numerous peaceful activists and groups (including beloved figures like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Edgar Hoover, falsely convinced that these groups were a danger to national security as fronts for Communists or co- conspirators with Communists, ordered infiltration, psychological warfare and harassment. Over years, this government hostility led to multiple deaths and wrongful incarcerations and no doubt further undermined trust in the federal government. Activist Fred Hampton was flat- out assassinated. J. Edgar Hoover's own conspiracy theories helped to foster generations of conspiracy theories in others. Investigative reporter Gary Webb, depicted in the recent film . While those wholesalers escaped prosecution throughout the U. S.- backed Contra war, hundreds of thousands of young black men were locked away for minor drug offenses. Many in the African- American community point to the Tuskegee experiment as further proof that the federal government has contempt for black people. In a 4. 0- year- long study, . Knowing that leads to additional . In fact, Goldberg said, one- third of Americans overall share this belief about the origins of AIDS. But specifically within the African- American community, as I understood it and as Goldberg explained it, the logic is . And if more than one- third of Americans distrust the government enough to believe that it had something to do with the worst terrorist attack on our soil, that's something the government - - and the media - - ought to do more than poke fun at. Goldberg pointed to Americans' evolving answer to one particular poll question since the 1. And you can see it through Vietnam, you can see it through Watergate, you could see it through the 1. Americans trust the government to do what is right all or most of the time. When people learn of actual government conspiracies (such as the National Security Agency's spying), they tend to become distrustful of the government in general. It was partly the accumulation of it all that made me start doubting where I was headed. To listen to Alex Jones, everything is a conspiracy, every tragedy a false flag, every explanation a coverup. I began to wonder. Followers of Alex Jones hear about endless conspiracies - - everything from fake moon landings to a totalitarian world government. I think the moment the conspiracists finally lost me came when they started proclaiming that President Obama was the Antichrist, essentially sent to America, presumably from Kenya, by an evil cabal to destroy U. S. Obama has done plenty that I've disagreed with, as my Twitter feed will attest, but the Antichrist? As my doubts about the conspiracy theorists grew, a close friend of mine, Amy Palcic, urged me to rethink 9/1. You. Tube videos and Alex Jones. During the early stages of the NFL lockout in 2. I had extra time on my hands and did a lot of reading, principally The Shadow Factory: The Ultra- Secret NSA From 9/1. Eavesdropping on America, by James Bamford. What I gained was a much clearer lens through which to view everything I'd been learning. I came to realize how inconsistent some of the conspiracy talk was. If the goal was to invade Iraq, why frame a terrorist hiding in Afghanistan using Egyptian and Saudi foot soldiers? In the fall of 2. I was watching a game and, with a punt looming on 4th down and 1. I tweeted out the score, assuming the returner would catch the punt and the half would be over, following a kneel- down play. But the punt was muffed, the Patriots recovered the ball inside the Broncos' 4. I quipped on Twitter that I was similar to a BBC reporter who, the conspiracists say, reported the collapse of a building on 9/1. The tweet was used to claim that my thinking hadn't, in fact, evolved. But by then, I had been dismissing the . Even those of us who have moved on from conspiracy theorizing may sometimes default to the language and ideas that animate that culture. Still, my quick comment would become part of a Twitter storm nearly a year later. The more I read Bamford's book, the more I began to see what had really happened that tragic day. We were attacked by terrorists, and there were multiple institutional failures within the federal government. Bush White House was at the very least unimaginative and deaf to warnings about terrorist attacks on U.
0 Commentaires
Laisser une réponse. |
AuteurÉcrivez quelque chose sur vous. Pas besoin d'en rajouter, mentionnez juste l'essentiel. Archives
Septembre 2017
Catégories |