14 incredible facts about 9/11

[Lauren Johnson]

I think 9/11 is psychologically difficult for many Americans to look at honestly. Right after it happened, though I had some suspicions, I was basically in the Blowback camp (Chomsky, Chalmers Johnson, etc.) A nice safe place for the Left to be. We can blame American foreign policy, but accept the official story and not be dismissed as "conspiracy theorists."

As I learned more, I found myself drifting in to the "Let it Happen" camp. Maybe "let it happen and aided it with explosives." It took many years before I had the epiphany (thanks to Webster Tarpley's book) that this position made no sense. No one inside the government/military is going to rely on a bunch of Arab hijackers who've never flown an airliner, students/scholars (and an architect) who have no paramilitary/special forces backgrounds - who might not be reliable enough to get to the airport on time, let alone seize control of the planes and carry out the whole operation. Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs aren't going to be sitting in the Pentagon that morning thinking, "Hope that guy doesn't crash into my office. Hope they don't plow into the roof and destroy the whole building!" Cheney isn't going to sit in his office thinking, "Well, our informants said they're going to hit the Pentagon, but what if they're wrong? What if that was a secondary target, and the primary target is the White House?" They aren't going to plant explosives in the WTC if they can't be certain that the Arabs won't lose control of the planes and crash them into the river.

No, the plotters would require complete control over the operation - as much as possible, anyway - to minimize screw-ups: an elaborate simulated terror attack (with real casualties), pre-planted explosives, remotely piloted drones, and manipulated Arab patsies who did nothing more than create witnesses and get photographed a few times.

Describes my progression perfectly. I remember when I "informed" my daughter that the 9/11 story might be false, she said: "Jeez, Dad. Duh! It's about time." Kind of embarrassing.