Eight years have now passed since the attacks of 911, and for these eight years I have steered clear from the debate about what exactly happened on 911. Mostly, I defined myself as a ‘911 agnostic’, meaning literally that I had no knowledge of what took place that day. However, being an agnostic does not mean not thinking about a topic. I watched every single ‘truther’ movie out there, read quite a few books on this topic, compared and contrasted the ‘truther’ and ‘debunker’ arguments and stances. Now, eight years later, a number of aspects of this debate have become clear in my mind and I would like to share with you some of my thoughts.

From the very beginning one thing did strike me: the systematic vilification of those who doubted the official version of the events on 911 by not only the corporate media and their talking heads, but even a lot of people in the blogosphere. ‘911 kooks’ was the most frequently used term to refer to the ‘truthers’. From the outset I was shocked by that. Why should those who ask question be vilified in such a manner? Does the US government not have a well-known history of false flag operations? Was the CIA not involved at every single step of the creation and growth of what became later known as al-Qaeda? If there any doubt at all that the folks in power on 911 are evil to the very core and more than capable of killing not thousands, but millions of innocent people to achieve their goals? Last, but not least, who benefited most from 911 if not the US Imperial High Command and the Israel Lobby?

The answers are rather obvious, aren’t they?

But then why were ‘truthers’ vilified? I suppose that the fact that there are real crackpots and kooks among the 911 Truth movement did not help. Some of these guys are, indeed, raving lunatics and plainly idiots. And having the likes of Alex Jones screaming all sorts of things on the streets of NY with his megaphone did little to help the image of the 911 Truth movement (Alex Jones is the kind of guy I just love to hate. Everything about him offends me, his tone, his behavior and, worst of all, his voice). This is all true, but none of this is in any way a logical reply to the issues which were raised by the ‘truthers’. I mean – if a person says ‘how could WTC7 collapse in free fall’ it is just not enough to answer ‘Alex Jones is a lunatic!!!!’. Even though the latter might be true, this is hardly an adequate reply. Yet this kind of ‘argument’ is mostly what I saw from the alternative blogosphere.

The other thing which amazed me is that from day 1, the Dubya administration did pretty much everything it could to prevent a real investigation from 911. Why would they? The logical thing to do for them would have been to make a huge and open investigation looking into every single aspect of the 911 attacks with maniacal care. After all, if a bunch of Saudis armed with cutters lead by a small group of people sitting in a cave in Afghanistan really did commit these acts, as the government says they did, why not maximize the outrage of the public opinion by keeping an endless flows of details about this operation coming in day after day after day into the public domain?

But no – every single step taken to investigate these events was at best a farce and at worst a pathetic attempt to bury the truth forever. Let’s just take one simple example: there was enough debris left on 911 to send samples to every single laboratory on the planet. Yet, all of it was removed at warp speed and, of all things, sent to China! (keep in mind that legally speaking the debris from WTC1, WTC2 and WTC7 represented evidence on a crime scene). Now how can the politicos in Washington complain when the ‘truthers’ allege that traces of thermate were found in the 911 dust? Hey – had they kept the stuff they could easily, rapidly and painlessly disprove such allegations! But they kept nothing (or if they did, they are hiding the stuff).

Not only that, but the government’s story changed time after time after time. This is as true for the list of alleged hijackers as it is in the case of the mechanisms which brought down the buildings. With that type of constantly changing stories, it is no wonder that people start asking questions, I would say.

Yet another kind of response to the Truth movement was what the Papist call the ‘argument of authority’. It goes like this ‘if Ron Paul does not question 911, neither will I’. Frankly, this is kind of dumb, in particular in the case of a politician who, no matter how courageous and honest, simply cannot afford to say anything and everything he thinks. Yet, a lot of people did exactly that, and not only Ron Paul supporters – exactly the same argument was made with Noam Chomsky’s name. I personally have a great deal of respect for both Ron Paul and Noam Chomsky, but that respect does not translate into a mindless and unconditional support for everything they say or, in this case, do *not* say.

Another thing which got me thinking is the amazingly dishonest arguments used by ‘debunkers’. Only yesterday evening I read the following thing on a debunker website: “the truthers say that a cruise missile hit the Pentagon, yet they also says that the way the light poles were cut down is suspicious – but how could a cruise missile cut down these poles? Obviously, an aircraft did this!“

This kind of “argument” is fundamentally un-scientific. The scientific method consists of making an observation, asking a question, form a hypothesis, conduct an experiment and then either accept or reject the hypothesis; in the latter case a new hypothesis has to be made taking into account the outcome of the experiment. In the case of 911, it is the government who presented us with a hypothesis (the official version) and this hypothesis did not fit the observed facts at all. What the truthers primarily did is to challenge this hypothesis. But the ‘debunkers’ instead of re-working their initial hypothesis immediately challenged the ‘truthers’ to present a more solid explanation. This is not logical or scientific at all.

In reality, of course, the ‘truthers’ did force many revisions of the official version. It’s just that the government and the debunkers will never admit to it. That, and the fact that some of what has been observed is, not matter what the ‘debunkers’ say, very hard, if not impossible, to explain.

Consider this: the ‘debunkers ‘ love to call the ‘truthers’ ‘conspiracy theorists’. Yet these very same ‘debunkers’ fully buy into the official government version(s) which, as it happens, is nothing but a big conspiracy theory (and a utterly incredible one, I would add). How are the real ‘kooks’ here – they folks who question the official theory or those who fully buy into it, even when it changes over and over again?!

I realize that all of the above is little more than my personal, subjective, impressions and musings. True. And I don’t claim to have the answers. In that sense, I am still a ‘911 agnostic’ I suppose. But one thing I do know is that 911 was never properly investigated or, even much less so, adequately explained. Therefore, the 911 Truth Movement demand for a new, independent, and fully transparent investigation is absolutely legitimate and to reject it is fundamentally un-democratic. If millions of dollars can be spend by the US taxpayer to investigate Clinton’s sexual actuvities with Monica Lewinsky, then the death of 3000 Americans surely deserves a real and independent investigation, no?!

The other thing which strikes me a indisputable is that the 911 Truth movement cannot be reduced to a bunch of ‘kooks’, ‘conspiracy theorists’ or ‘loonies’. This the likes of Alex Jones make you sick, then please watch the following video and ask yourself whether these guys are ‘kooks’ too:

If you can dismiss it all (not just some stuff here and there, no I mean dismiss it *all*) as kookery – good for you! I personally most definitely cannot.

Then try this one:


(there are some glitches at the end of this video – please keep watching)

Are these guys also just ‘kooks’? You know – they might be. But if they are, then these ‘kooks’ sure are doing a world-class job investigating what happened that day. More relevantly, they are doing the *government’s* job and that is where the real outrage is!

I still don’t have a clear idea of what happened that day. While there is no doubt in my mind that the official version is absolute bullshit, at least as currently presented by the ‘debunkers’, I don’t insist on any one version of the events. But I definitely agree with Sherlock Holmes’ view that “When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth“.

I suppose that this makes me a ‘truther’ too.

The Saker

PS: for a typically obnoxious and condescending vilification of the 911 Truth, movement check out this recent video by National Geographic, complete with all the bells and whistles including David Aaronovich. The video will show you all the tools used by the corporate media to silence doubters and truthers.