[Gregster]

From the article:

It’s been three years since the start of U.S. military operations in Iraq, and while supporters and detractors of the war continue to debate the causes of and solutions to that conflict, one fact is almost indisputable: the long, bloody journey in Iraq began on Sept. 11, 2001.

I say almost indisputable because, in the world of the 9/11 truth movement, everything from photographic evidence to offhand statements and individual words are up for debate.

Actually, it is indisputable unless someone can make a case that absent the 9/11 attacks, Bush would have had the political impetus needed to dispatch a huge chunk of our forces to Iraq to topple the Hussein regime over flouting UN regulations.

Anyway, anything is up for debate if you want it to be.

But, as they say, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. We’ve got plenty of reason to be suspicious. Most recently, President George W. Bush has been stumping in support of his executive power to spy on American citizens...

Something which people within his own party oppose, and which has been a minor scandal for his administration.

...and the Bush administration’s claims that Iraq was hoarding stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction has so far turned out to be false

You'd think that for an administration with the cunning and deftness to pull off a staged airliner attack while firing a missile at the Pentagon and keeping while maintaining plausible deniability about its own involvement would have no problems making some WMD evidence turn up.

Then there are the Pentagon Papers, Watergate and the Iran-Contra affair, just some of the plots the government has come (somewhat) clean about.

None of which rise to the level of the alleged 9/11 plot in severity or complexity and which were all exposed.

And since the 1970s, it’s been well known that the CIA used to assassinate foreign political leaders in order to sway policy.

Something which is no longer done due to Congressional oversight. Yet somehow, clandestine agencies can pull off 9/11 and avoid detection.

Though he was a “Johnny-come-lately” to the 9/11 research field, theologian David Ray Griffin has become one of the central figures of the movement.

As an expert in religion, he's wholly qualified to analyze forensic data about plane crashes and collapsing buildings.

Critics have said Griffin’s theological background doesn’t exactly make him an expert on federal emergency response plans, geopolitics and terrorism. But to Griffin, it’s no great leap to go from studying God to studying the hidden connection between Bush and bin Laden.

Which would explain why the New Testament is so often used to plan covert operations.

“I’m an Air Force brat. My father flew interceptors … I grew up around NORAD, I lived with that stuff,” Ruppert said during a phone interview. “I know and knew the Air Force air defense system is much, much better than that. I knew the only way a second plane could have hit the tower was if someone wanted it to.”

I'm an Army brat. My father was a logistician who managed transport assets. I grew up around the Military Traffic Management Command, and as an adult tested their booking software. I know something about logistics are handled, and thus declare that the logistical problems of Operation Iraqi Freedom were a deliberate attempt by the government to make the war last longer and be more exciting.

Ruppert is one of the big names among 9/11 researchers. His 2004 book “Crossing the Rubicon” is a massive tome that links the Bush/Cheney cabal to everything from the CIA’s alleged drug trade activities during the Iran-Contra scandal to the imminent peak oil crisis. In the book, he plainly states that Dick Cheney masterminded the attacks and says that the 9/11 plot was all part of a plan for the United States to secure the remaining oil deposits in Iraq in order to stave off the looming energy crisis.

Of course, because a horribly costly and politically unpopular open-ended war is so much easier than just voting to lift sanctions on Iraq and buying the stuff cheaply, or drilling in Alaska. Assuming we can't just buy it from other sources, considering that we get more oil from Canada and Mexico than from any Middle Eastern country.

He was also struck by how fast the government released detailed information about the 19 hijackers.

“I was very put off with the utter convenience of the evidence (appearing),” he said. “It was like Santa Claus dropping presents from his sleigh. We’ve seen that pattern before.”

Yeah, because commercial airline passenger manifests are a real bitch to get ahold of, especially if you're a government agency exercising executive authority in the midst of a national crisis. Anyway, the conspiracy crowd likes to point to the fact that apparantly, many of the guys fingered for the hijacking have turned up alive; if the government got info on them so stunningly quick, is it difficult to surmise that the swiftness with which the info was obtained allowed for sloppy research that misidentified some of the men on the plane?

Where? The JFK assassination. According to Ruppert, and many other 9/11 researchers, the conspiracy and cover-up of 9/11 used many of the same tricks, including the quick establishment of an official story, continuing media manipulation, and a hasty, perfunctory “investigation.”

And like the JFK assassination, detailed and disciplined analysis of info shows the conspiracy theories around 9/11 are crap supported by wild speculation and junk science. The formerly sealed government files around JFK have been public record for years, and still nobody can come up with a plausible contradiction to the Warren Commission report.

While the tactics are the same, 9/11 is just so much bigger. The official story is a little harder to believe (just how did 19 guys outwit the government, military and FAA?)

Of course, since God knows planes have never, ever been hijacked and rerouted by force in the history of commercial aviation.

,,,the mainstream media is even more hesitant to discuss alternative theories and, lest we forget, the Bush administration was less than welcoming of an official inquiry into the 9/11 attacks.

An inquiry which nonetheless happened and laid quite a bit of blame at Bushs' feet. And the "mainstream media" has not exactly demurred to chronicle every other fuck-up of the Bush administration is great detail.

In 2004, a Zogby poll commissioned by Kubiak and 911truth.org found that 49.3 percent of New York City residents said some of our leaders “knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act.”

Fans of conspiracy theories like to point out that other polls, for instance, show that 70% or more of Americans believe Saddam was behind 9/11 to prove how utterly moronic and easily duped most Americans are (I believe the recently-applied term in the War Room was "dumber than dogshit"). Then they point to polls showing how nearly half of New Yorkers think that 9/11 was a work as proof of how smart and not easily duped Americans are at the same time.

After watching a video that discussed 9/11 anomalies, Jones began to do his own research. Most of the data out there was unscientific, he said, so he was inclined to dismiss the subject. But the more he looked, the more he was convinced something was amiss. It was the destruction of WTC building 7 that first caught Jones’ attention. Though fires had broken out in the 48-story building, WTC 7 had not sustained the kind of damage found in the two towers. No other skyscraper has ever collapsed because of fire damage alone, Jones said, and the way WTC 7 fell (“so rapidly and symmetrically,” he said) can only be explained if the building was brought down with explosives.

Dr. Jones apparently can't be bothered to read the detailed explanation of the WTC 7 collapse which I myself have been able to find after mounting a tireless search that involved sitting on my ass in front of a computer and googling for what seemed like an entire minute but which was, in reality, probably closer to 30 seconds. Then he'd realize why his thesis assumption is crap.

With more and more books and Web sites coming out devoted to the alternative 9/11, it seems like there’s more momentum behind the movement than ever before. Earlier this month, actor Charlie Sheen expressed his doubts about the official 9/11 story during an interview on the Alex Jones radio show (the interview is online at www.infowars.com). Coverage of the movement is also gaining traction in bigger media outlets. In the last two months, The Village Voice and New York Magazine have both run extensive stories on 9/11 truth.

Uhhhh...'scuse me, Mr. Author, but didn't you just say that the media is too sheepish and timid to do exactly what you're now saying is happening?

Some of the more outlandish theories—like French writer Thierry Meyssan’s claim that a cruise missile, not an airplane, hit the Pentagon—are only diluting the waters, Ruppert said. There are other theories, too: that there were no planes at all, only holographic projections of planes (used in conjunction with explosives planted by some shadowy group); or that one of the planes that hit the WTC had some sort of anomalous “pod” attached to it that caused extra damage. But this is all “bullshit,” Ruppert said, and is either intentional disinformation or sheer stupidity.

At least it seems Mr. Ruppert is not entirely divorced from reality. I must now wonder what is feels like to be a conspiracy theorist whose conspiracy theories are considered to be "bullshit" resulting from sheer stupidity by other conspiracy theorists.