9-11/anomalies/debate

About

This page is for structured debate on the issue of 9/11 anomalies.

The majority of objections in the mainstream media take the form of straw man attacks on imagined positions not generally endorsed by those who question the official story; the imagined positions most popularly targeted for criticism are documented here.

Debate

There are substantial anomalies surrounding the events of 9/11 which have not been (and need to be) properly investigated.

There are substantial anomalies surrounding the events of 9/11.

In a major disaster, it's perfectly normal for evidence to be destroyed or ignored; non-explanations and ignoring of significant evidence are standard operating procedure. ([1])

This is not an argument against a proper investigation, but rather an assertion that proper investigations are rare.

If someone conceals or removes evidence from a crime scene, that is itself a crime that should be investigated.

If there were a conspiracy, government inaction given foreknowledge of the attacks seems orders of magnitude more likely than any sort of controlled demolition, even for WTC7. ([2])

This is a naked assertion.

There are a number of extremely unlikely elements in the official story as well, including:

Groups of foreign hijackers took control of 4 different planes using only box-cutters and piloted 3 of them into targets in two of the most heavily-guarded airspaces in the world, without even an attempt at interception.

No heads rolled as a consequence of this gross security failure.

One plane executed an extremely difficult hairpin turn in order to fly into the most heavily-protected side of the Pentagon?

No less than three steel-framed buildings completely collapsed from fire and limited mechanical damage, for the first time in history, all on the same day.

Those three buildings did not just fall to the ground towards the side most heavily damaged but instead seemed to explode straight downward and outward into microscopic dust particles, leaving almost nothing (aside from the steel girders) larger than a finger, long after the impacts and when the fires were clearly dying down.

Authorities claimed that this was totally what you would expect to happen, even though the buildings were designed to handle such an impact.

The airplane impacts resulted in pools of molten steel in the wreckage (and seen pouring out of WTC2 before collapse), when jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel.

Other Arguments

• 9-11/anomalies/2007-04-04 new articles: collection of stuff to go through
• 2011-01-02 Thread: 9/11 Conspiracy Theory - Thermate - Debunked argues that the thermate chemical traces found could have come from other ("natural") sources
• 2007-09-29 The Goals: Discredit, Divide and Conquer: those who don't want the story to be popularly accepted (call them "anti-truthers") are now painting the 9/11 Truth movement as anti-semitic, in order to maneuver sincere non-anti-semitic members into carefully avoiding mention of any connections to Israel or Zionism. This would explain the extremely anti-semitic text posted alongside some otherwise very useful videos on YouTube and elsewhere.
• 2007-05-24 The Loony Left's 9/11 by Peter Hannaford: one long argument by ridicule, with a bit of straw man and a side order of tone-policing. Mentions Alexander Cockburn.
• 2006-09-10 The 9/11 Conspiracy Nuts by Alexander Cockburn
  • 2006-12-12 Cockups Are Worse Than Conspiracies by Alexander Cockburn takes some of the ideas (and text) from the earlier article and launches into criticism of conspiracy theories in general
• 2006-10-24 THE LOW POST: Murrah Redux by Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone: "9/11 Truth is a bald regurgitation of a silly tale we heard ten years ago"
• 2006-09-26 THE LOW POST: I, Left Gatekeeper by Matt Taibbi: "Why the "9/11 Truth" movement makes the "Left Behind" sci-fi series read like Shakespeare"
  • refers to the left gatekeeper phenomenon
  • labeling the "Left Behind" religious fantasy series as "sci-fi" is excessively charitable; they are religious fantasy, or possibly Biblical fanfic
  • lays out many objections which should be addressed
• 2006-09-12 THE LOW POST: Why Ask Why? by Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone: "Five years after 9/11, the question remains unanswered"
• 2006-09-07 White House Targets Conspiracy Theorists As Terrorist Recruiters: George W. Bush implies that "conspiracy theories" about 9/11 are themselves a conspiracy to support terrorism
• 2005-02-03 Debunking the 9/11 Myths: Special Report: This article in Popular Mechanics is commonly pointed to as having settled the matter for any sensible, rational person; it does no such thing, having been refuted in detail. (These points should be added to the structured debate above.)

Projects

• Debunking 9/11 Conspiracy Theories and Controlled Demolition

Related

• 2010/01/29 [L..T] Rebutting (Again!) the 9/11 Truthers “The belief that a handful of unexplained anomalies can undermine a well-established theory lies at the heart of all conspiratorial thinking (that includes, in addition to Holocaust denial, creationism and crank theories of physics), and is easily refuted by noting that beliefs and theories are not built on single facts alone, but on a convergence of evidence from multiple lines of inquiry. All of the "evidence" for a 9/11 conspiracy falls under the rubric of this fallacy.”
• 2005/09/12 [L..T] WTC7 Collapse: The Real Story (not tinfoil) “I see a semi-regular appearance of the idea that the WTC7 building (part of the WTC complex but not one of the Twin Towers) collapsed due to deliberate demolition rather than due to damage from the Twin Tower collapses. This is pretty implausible so I did some internet research to find out why so many people believe it and what actually happened.”
• 2005/02/03 [L..T] Debunking the 9/11 Myths: Special Report sub-headline::Popular Mechanics examines the evidence and consults the experts to refute the most persistent conspiracy theories of September 11.