Matt Cooper and the 9/11 Litmus Test

[seabhcan]

I love that phrase "a throwdown", as if the CIA have been training their operatives for years in honing their "throwdown" skills. Terms like that seem to lend more authority and credibility to what is simply being claimed as the planting of evidence.

The problem is people are tired of continually refuting these daft conspiracies. They don't bother anymore, so the theories are left to fester away on their own. Occasionally though, you get a glimpse of the conspiracy mindset, in the mainstream media.

Most recently, was Mohammed Al Fayed. Ruth Dudley Edwards wrote a good piece for the Telegraph which was syndicated in last Sundays Indo. Fayed has always sounded like a whinger and complainer extra-ordinaire. His failure to be accepted by the British establishment, has left a legacy of bitterness, which made it easy for him to slip into this mode of thinking. He is basically blaming the same establishment for the deaths of his son Dodi, and Diana. But the implication of what he is saying, is that the British intelligence services are being directed not by the British parliament, and government, but by Prince Philip and his son Charles! It led to bizarre scenes at the inquest, when both Fayed's lawyer, and the former head of MI6 were put in the embarrassing position of having to make and answer this specific allegation!

The whole conspiracy mindset in my opinion, seems to stem from a childish need for simple answers, and at the same time, a naivety about how the world actually works. Fayed has his own problems as well, including obviously an understandable level of grief for his dead son.

The above post shows the problem very clearly. People think that if one conspiracy exists, then they all must be true. And if any conspiracy theory is bogus, then they all are. Its a falacy.

Just because Diana had a car crash doesn't mean that every claim by the US government is always true.

Remember that it used to be a 'conspiracy theory' to suggest that there were no WMD or that the Gulf of Tonkin incident (which led to the Vietnam war) was staged - but then the Freedom of Information act gave us the documents to prove it. Yet, Elvis is dead, and there are no UFOs.

I don't propose an alternate theory about 9/11. We don't know what happened. But not knowing shouldn't make us suspend our critical faculties when it comes to the official theory - its also nonsense.

[michael1965]

I love that phrase "a throwdown", as if the CIA have been training their operatives for years in honing their "throwdown" skills. Terms like that seem to lend more authority and credibility to what is simply being claimed as the planting of evidence.

The problem is people are tired of continually refuting these daft conspiracies. They don't bother anymore, so the theories are left to fester away on their own. Occasionally though, you get a glimpse of the conspiracy mindset, in the mainstream media.

Most recently, was Mohammed Al Fayed. Ruth Dudley Edwards wrote a good piece for the Telegraph which was syndicated in last Sundays Indo. Fayed has always sounded like a whinger and complainer extra-ordinaire. His failure to be accepted by the British establishment, has left a legacy of bitterness, which made it easy for him to slip into this mode of thinking. He is basically blaming the same establishment for the deaths of his son Dodi, and Diana. But the implication of what he is saying, is that the British intelligence services are being directed not by the British parliament, and government, but by Prince Philip and his son Charles! It led to bizarre scenes at the inquest, when both Fayed's lawyer, and the former head of MI6 were put in the embarrassing position of having to make and answer this specific allegation!

The whole conspiracy mindset in my opinion, seems to stem from a childish need for simple answers, and at the same time, a naivety about how the world actually works. Fayed has his own problems as well, including obviously an understandable level of grief for his dead son.

The above post shows the problem very clearly. People think that if one conspiracy exists, then they all must be true. And if any conspiracy theory is bogus, then they all are. Its a falacy.

No, because I only cited two conspiracy theories. I never mentioned WMDs in Iraq or the Gulf of Tonkin. So, I'm not saying anything about other so-called conspiracy theories. I'm just drawing parallels between the two I mentioned.

I don't propose an alternate theory about 9/11. We don't know what happened. But not knowing shouldn't make us suspend our critical faculties when it comes to the official theory - its also nonsense.

No, that's not good enough. If you think that a passport couldn't survive the disaster, then you need some kind of argument as to why, or at the very least, a plausible motivation for why someone would want to plant it among the wreckage (and an explanation for how they would have done it).

If you can't then most people will just accept these details as "strange but probably true".

[seabhcan]

No, that's not good enough. If you think that a passport couldn't survive the disaster, then you need some kind of argument as to why, or at the very least, a plausible motivation for why someone would want to plant it among the wreckage (and an explanation for how they would have done it).

If you can't then most people will just accept these details as "strange but probably true".

Thats not how theories work. If a theory is falsified by conflicting evidence, then the theory is thrown out, even if there is no other theory to replace it.

If a paper passport couldn't have survived an explosion which destroyed a metal plane, then the theory that it did is rejected.

As soon as it becomes clear that a theory cannot explain the observed data then it is rejected as useless.

[seabhcan]

Remember, that besides the magically indestructive passport, we were initially told all kinds of things survived.

The BBC reported that "There have been unconfirmed reports that rescue teams have found the body of one of the terrorists involved in the attacks - and the body of an air stewardess with her hands tied behind her back." They later flushed that one down the memory hole.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1541079.stm

[the klingon]

Seabhcan,
I think it was argued rightly or wrongly that the passport could have survived the crash.
This link has some info:
http://www.911myths.com/html/passport_recovered.html
It's possible I suppose the blast wave blew/shredded the clothes off the bodies and the passport was travelling at the front of this.

[gentleben]

Gulf of Tonkin was rigged so 911 could have been too? What nonsense.

How on earth could you arrange for two planes to fly into the WTC kill thousands of people blame someone else and get away with it? Nobody has that power. Nobody.

[zuton]

. passport surviving? even if possible how likely is it? bear in mind that the carpeting didn't survive -and how convenient that it backs up the official account.

[seabhcan]

Seabhcan,
I think it was argued rightly or wrongly that the passport could have survived the crash.
This link has some info:
http://www.911myths.com/html/passport_recovered.html
It's possible I suppose the blast wave blew/shredded the clothes off the bodies and the passport was travelling at the front of this.

There were hundreds of people on those flights. Did anyone else's passport survive?

[seabhcan]

Gulf of Tonkin was rigged so 911 could have been too? What nonsense.

How on earth could you arrange for two planes to fly into the WTC kill thousands of people blame someone else and get away with it? Nobody has that power. Nobody.

My point is exactly that one theory being true or false has no connection to others.

what power? We don't know the motivation of the hijackers, who hired them or who they thought hired them. It is possible that they had been misled.

However, what happened is a secondary question to determining what didn't happen. The official theory is at least partly incorrect.

We now even have an architect of the WTC saying that the plane impacts along couldn't account for the building collapse. And that even ignores the fate of WTC7, which is completely unexplained even by the official theory.

WTC7 was huge. 3 times taller than the tallest building in Ireland, and it fell to the ground in 10 seconds for no known reason. They have been studying it for 7 years and still don't have a clue why it fell. Its not even mentioned in the Commission report.

[david]

A quote from another website made me chuckle:

I have difficulties accepting that clandestine government organizations would lack the competence to pull the 9/11 stunt, while a bunch of bearded guys in a cave in Afghanistan would HAVE the competence. Just can't make ends meet on this one.