Who did it and how?

Also general conspiracy theories thread

    • No_Values [none/use name]
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      4 years ago

      Osama mocking Bushes ‘They attack us because they are jealous of our freedom’ line: "Before I begin, I say to you that security is an indispensable pillar of human life and that free men do not forfeit their security, contrary to Bush’s claim that we hate freedom. If so, then let him explain to us why we don’t strike for example - Sweden?

      fucking succdem

  • SerLava [he/him]
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    edit-2
    4 years ago

    who did it

    Lots of good theories out there over who ultimately directed it or let it happen, whether it was incompetence or malice on the part of US intelligence, and who was involved

    and how

    airplanes. fucking airplanes. air planes. the airplanes hit the buildings

        • Septbear [love/loves]
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          edit-2
          4 years ago

          Guess my calculator just rounded it up. Oh well no one uses month before day but america and that empire is crumbling so who cares.

      • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]
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        4 years ago

        It means you're not thinking hard enough about what result it gives you.

        • Septbear [love/loves]
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          4 years ago

          I'm not really one for numerology. If I were meant to I woudld not have had a bunch of abusive maths teachers.

          • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]
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            4 years ago

            This is regrettably the reason why most people turn off of math.

            I guess what I'm saying is don't trust your calculator 99.9(recurring) % of the time.

    • pooh [she/her]
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      4 years ago

      I don’t subscribe to most 9/11 conspiracies, but this one seems very plausible to me, and I think Al Qaeda may have also been helped by the Saudis for this same reason.

  • Lerios [hy/hym]
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    4 years ago

    me, by accident. sorry, won't happen again :oh-shit:

  • Gamer_time [he/him]
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    edit-2
    4 years ago

    So there's this guy named Jim, great guy, known him for a long time. But one day we were just hanging out in the park when he tells me that he's been thinking of doing a "prank" somewhere in New York, Of course, I ask him what he means by a "prank", so he goes on this long rant about the twin towers, airplanes, nano-thermite, a secret service elevator for explosives, the president, traveling to meet this guy from a construction firm in Saudi Arabia, the same guy being a fall guy for him, crazy shit. Before we part ways, he lets me in on that the prank will take place in September 2001.

    Come 2001, September, every day I got up and looked out my window, straight at the world trade center, wondering just what the hell Jim was up to and if he actually was gonna go through with it. On the 11th, I wake up and look out my window as I had done every day before, then there was a knock on my door, it was Jim. He was holding a camcorder and told me to watch the window, we went back to look and... the bastard did it. Jim, the madman just pulled the biggest prank in world history, his grin was the largest I've ever seen it, filming away. He told me that he was gonna find somewhere on the Internet to upload the footage to, I wonder if he ever actually did, he woulda made a great Youtuber.

  • Nakoichi [they/them]
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    4 years ago

    Personally, I like the theory that JFK was killed by a drunk Secret Service agent with shitty trigger discipline and that Oswald was just supposed to fire near him in a false flag designed to give the letter agencies more authority and legitimacy.

  • Ericthescruffy [he/him]
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    edit-2
    4 years ago

    Al-Queda did it, more or less the way the official account says they did.

    I've gotten much more open minded towards the conspiracy mindset, but I still think the shock doctrine is the real answer to everything and that the idea that our government could do any of this "by design" gives the chuckleheads running it far too much credit.

    The most plausible "conspiracy" around 9/11 is the idea that it was allowed to happen...but there's no smoking gun and I still think its far more likely that our glorious leaders are all a bunch of demonic overlords who sit around in a dark smoke filed room and like to pretend like they run the world but really are just winging it and making shit up like everyone else. They just know how to take advantage of a crisis their horrific system inevitably makes.

    I still completely discount the idea that the whole thing was a top to bottom CIA op just because as many inconsistencies or questionable things you may find in the official account....even more things don't line up when you approach it from that angle. My question I still have never heard a solid answer for is this: Given the trajectory Bush took the 9/11 reaction in and what we know he was always itching to do before hand....if the whole thing was entirely orchestrated by the CIA why didn't they fabricate some shit to tie 9/11 to Iraq and Saddam? Seems like a bit of an oversight no?

    EDIT: Oh, just as a sidenote though since this is a general conspiracy thread, Epstein 100% didn't kill himself.

    • TankieTanuki [he/him]
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      4 years ago

      but there’s no smoking gun

      IMO this qualifies.

      if the whole thing was entirely orchestrated by the CIA why didn’t they fabricate some shit to tie 9/11 to Iraq and Saddam? Seems like a bit of an oversight no?

      This bugged me for a long time too. Why not make some of the hijackers Iraqi? I tried to synthesize this with the evidence above and thought of a few possible reasons. I think 9/11 wasn't primarily about Iraq, but about increasing fears of terrorism and Muslims broadly, as part of Gladio B, in order to justify a broad array of actions for decades to come. There is also evidence that it was a Mossad op with possibly minimal CIA involvement. Or maybe they used Saudi hijackers because it was convenient since the US has a close relationship with Saudi Arabia and they had plenty of operatives available.

      • Ericthescruffy [he/him]
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        4 years ago

        IMO this qualifies.

        That doesn't address the point I was making since I was talking about the "they let it happen" narrative....but eitherway I gotta say as a gut reaction that looks like a dicey source and I find any controlled demolition claims pretty laughable

        This bugged me for a long time too. Why not make some of the hijackers Iraqi? I tried to synthesize this with the evidence above and thought of a few possible reasons. I think 9/11 wasn’t primarily about Iraq, but about increasing fears of terrorism and Muslims broadly, as part of Gladio B, in order to justify a broad array of actions for decades to come. There is also evidence that it was a Mossad op with possibly minimal CIA involvement. Or maybe they used Saudi hijackers because it was convenient since the US has a close relationship with Saudi Arabia and they had plenty of operatives available.

        See: this is what I'm talking about. Even if you want to make the dubious claim that the nationalities didn't matter since they were just trying to engender a more general fear of muslims and terrorism abroad....that notion is completely undermined by the fact that the majority of the hijackers were from saudi arabia and the united states and the entire media did damn near everything they could to avoid addressing that inconvenient truth.

        Occam's razor still tells me that its far more likely they cherry picked and maximized convenient facts and downplayed inconvenient parts in order to maximize their ability to take advantage of the situation rather then inventing it out of whole cloth.

        • TankieTanuki [he/him]
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          edit-2
          4 years ago

          That doesn’t address the point I was making since I was talking about the “they let it happen” narrative

          I realize you were talking about a smoking gun for a different theory, but I couldn't help but introduce what I think is the most important piece of evidence in this whole saga.

          I gotta say as a gut reaction that looks like a dicey source and I find any controlled demolition claims pretty laughable

          Gut reactions can be helpful discriminators in some situations, but they are no replacement for in-depth critical examination, and they can sometimes be psychological defense mechanisms.

          The source is a pretty detailed and comprehensive scientific paper. It's an open journal which means no peer review, so you have to study it and judge the quality of the evidence for yourself (homework, bleh!). I have some expertise in the field and I read the whole thing looking for obvious oversights and I was honestly shocked at how strong the evidence was.

          Here's why it was compelling to me: nanothermite consists of nanometer scale particles of iron oxide and elemental (reduced) aluminum that have been intimately mixed together to allow a tiny gap between each and every particle. The only way to create this is to mix them together in a liquid suspension and then add a gelling agent to solidify the mixture and lock the particles in position, ready for ignition. It's extremely difficult to create because of the scales involved, so it requires a military-grade lab. It's not something that could be accidentally created in an explosion.

          The authors found tiny magnetic chips (about 0.1 to 1mm across) in the debris, which looked like paint chips. They cracked them open to examine a clean part on their inside. They took photographs of it with an electron microscope, and used X-ray spectroscopy to analyze the chemical composition and they found that the red layer of the chips were made of spheres of iron oxide about 50 nm across and rectangular plates of reduced aluminum 100 nm long that had been mixed together and suspended in a solid organic matrix.

          They also took the chips and put them in a calorimeter to measure their exortherms, and confirmed that they had the same explosive properties as laboratory nanothermite, so there's no doubt about its destructive ability. It was literally undetonated chips of nanothermite, and they found them in each of the four locations that were sampled, and in a relative quantity that would correspond to several tons in all of the debris.

          that notion is completely undermined by the fact that the majority of the hijackers were from saudi arabia and the united states and the entire media did damn near everything they could to avoid addressing that inconvenient truth.

          I said that 9/11 was to engender a fear of Muslims. The media did not avoid addressing the fact that they were Muslim. If anything, it was played up. Their nationalities were played down.

          • Ericthescruffy [he/him]
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            edit-2
            4 years ago

            It’s an open journal which means no peer review, so you have to study it and judge the quality of the evidence for yourself (homework, bleh!). I have some expertise in the field and I read the whole thing looking for obvious oversights and I was honestly shocked at how strong the evidence was.

            Well I have no expertise whatsoever and am not qualified to do my own research on this...so I'm gonna have to just disregard on the grounds that its not peer reviewed. Sorry not sorry.

            I said that 9/11 was to engender a fear of Muslims. The media did not avoid addressing the fact that they were Muslim. If anything, it was played up. Their nationalities were played down.

            Yes, and that's exactly my point. Their nationalities were an inconvenience to the narrative they wanted to tell so the media had to ignore it. If it was a CIA operation in the first place why would that be an issue? If you genuinely believe that 9/11 was executed to that extent under the control of the intelligence communities I find it pretty dubious that they wouldn't find or fabricate some Iraqi plants given everything else they had to do. Again...however many holes 9/11 conspiracy theories may fill they inevitably necessitate the creation of a ton more.

            • TankieTanuki [he/him]
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              edit-2
              4 years ago

              Well I have no expertise whatsoever and am not qualified to do my own research on this…so I’m gonna have to just disregard on the grounds that its not peer reviewed. Sorry not sorry.

              I understand, comrade. Your skepticism is warranted; I'd do the same thing in your shoes. Just keep in mind that the evidence exists, and maybe show it to someone whose opinion you trust someday. That's all I ask.

              Yes, and that’s exactly my point. Their nationalities were an inconvenience to the narrative they wanted to tell so the media had to ignore it. If it was a CIA operation in the first place why would that be an issue?

              Ah I see what you mean. Yeah, I agree that is a stumbling block to the CIA theory, or at least a part that doesn't yet make sense.

              However It's less relevant if it turns out that the Mossad was the primary actor. I wonder how relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia are.

            • TankieTanuki [he/him]
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              edit-2
              4 years ago

              Wait---my assumption was wrong. The journal is peer-reviewed; it's just a lower-tier journal. Marginalization is expected for third rail topics.

      • SadSoulja [love/loves]
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        4 years ago

        Most hijackers were Saudi citizens because that’s who most Al-Qaeda recruits were, it was funded by a wealthy Saudi guy who supported Al-Qaeda and OBL himself was obviously from an extremely wealthy Saudi family. But he was kind of a black sheep and had to get creative to get funding at times (aka ask around for donations from rich people he would have connections with from his upbringing/social class).

        The FBI and CIA knew Al-Qaeda was planning something like 9/11 to some degree but they didn’t share info efficiently and there were thousands of similar or reared leads to investigate so they mostly just fucked up or were too slow, but there was an FBI agent named John McNeil I think who knew a lot. The Lawrence Wright book The Looming Tower covers it pretty extensively, highly recommend that if you’re interested in the topic.

        Now for the Mossad connection, it’s definitely true that they were surveilling mosques in the tristate area (for legitimate reasons clearly) and very likely were monitoring the activity of at least some of the hijackers through their front companies like that moving company. The official story of the “dancing Israelis” thing is that a moving van with 5 employees were supposed to be moving someone down to Florida that morning but decided to photograph the New York skyline instead and at least 2 of them were confirmed to be Mossad, also they all were deported back to Israel within 2 months. Back in Israel they went on a talk show and said their job was to “document the event” lmao and oh yeah when they were pulled over that day (with a ton of cash) the driver of the van said "We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem." This sounds too outlandish to be true but most of this is covered in this ABC News article:

        https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=123885&page=1

        I think Mossad more or less knew what was going to happen or had a very good idea and probably warned our intelligence agencies, but also may have just let it happen because as the New York Times reported Benjamin Netanyahu saying on 9/11 itself “it’s very good” that it happened lmao Netanyahu comes out and says 9/11 ruled for Israel every few years or so:

        https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/its-very-good-recalling-benjamin-netanyahus-words-day-911-attacks

        I think the American intelligence agencies were expecting something more like a USS Cole bombing or embassy bombing to happen next, 9/11 really was fucking insane and I really don’t think most people who worked at the FBI or CIA wanted it to happen.. but much like many Israeli leaders openly stated themselves, a lot of powerful neocons here were also certainly thrilled it did. And obviously they got fucking rich in the aftermath with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. But I think even just like an embassy bombing in the US or some other Western country would’ve been enough to drum up support for those wars and they would have preferred something cleaner like that to get things started. I don’t think our intelligence agencies or our state dept or executive branch of government have ever been close to as competent as they would have needed to be to literally orchestrate the event themselves, also there would be too many people who would put the foot down at that. Plus we’d already spent decades creating thousands of well-armed radical people like OBL all around the world since the inception of the CIA so it was just a matter of time that came back to bite us in the ass lol

        -Soulja

        • TankieTanuki [he/him]
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          4 years ago

          I heard the moving van they were in had a painting of the twin towers on its side that said "9/11". Like you said, it sounds too outlandish to be true.

          I don’t think our intelligence agencies or our state dept or executive branch of government have ever been close to as competent as they would have needed to be to literally orchestrate the event themselves, also there would be too many people who would put the foot down at that.

          What got me to think differently was the realization that somebody was, by necessity, competent enough and willing to carry it out. It was either 20+ Al Qaeda guys, or a few dozen intelligence guys. If a rag tag group could pull it off without question, but not the most well-funded and established intelligence agencies in the world, does that really make sense? I think the ruling class is more competent than they like to let on when it comes to doing crime to maintain their status. They appear incompetent when they do stuff they don't give a shit about, like passing healthcare. NORAD had a good success rate intercepting hijacked airplanes, but on the morning of 9/11 they were doing drills.

          An FBI translator named Sibel Edmonds uncovered evidence that the US was communicating with OBL as late as 2002.

          • SadSoulja [love/loves]
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            edit-2
            4 years ago

            Interesting page. What I mean is that if they were in on it it would be more like the CIA giving OBL funding and playbooks/training on how to carry something like that out, not planned demolition or even anything that would have directly involved Bush or even most of the people in his administration (the major exception being the state dept lifers and Cheney). We certainly did fund him in the 80s to fuck with Russia in Afghanistan, the accounts of those operations are legitimately funny in The Looming Tower—they were like shooting off CIA-provided rockets or spray and praying mountains then running back to their hiding spots but it was very amateurish, very Bad News Bears esque. Osama may have just been pissed the CIA left him out to dry after the USSR collapsed and there was no conflict for him in the Middle East to play hero in. This is an interesting read:

            https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna3340101

            I just don’t think it’s inconceivable that you can cause that sort of havoc if you have 19 men willing to die for your cause. Extremely unlikely they’d be able to kill 3,000 people but they also got lucky the towers collapsed and it’s honestly a miracle that more didn’t die. And I’m not sure what NORAD could have even done, I bet whoever was in charge was partially relieved he didn’t have to make the call to shoot down the 2 planes that hit the towers... that would have been one of the hardest decisions to make of all time. They would’ve had to shoot them down over a populated area since their flight path put them above some of the most densely populated areas of the country the whole time and it happened very quickly. Plus the hijackers themselves were claiming they were going to land the plane somewhere which is what hijackers typically had done prior to 9/11. I think once they had control of the planes it was already way too late.

            I’d have to look at the timeline again but it wouldn’t be the craziest thing if flight 93 had been shot down and that was covered up (I’m not even sure if that’s a conspiracy) but again we have phone calls from people on the plane and cockpit transmission that make the passengers stormed the cockpit so they nosedived story much more plausible. And whoever did shoot it down and everyone else who knew about it would have had to keep that quiet this whole time. It seems counterintuitive but getting 19 incels to commit jihad for a charismatic leader like OBL actually makes much more sense than dozens of feds coordinating a plan to kill their neighbors to enrich guys like Dick Cheney.

            Love the discussion and either way the cover up/obfuscation and response was fucking criminal.

            Edit: and when i say Bush probably didn’t know it’s not because he would’ve put the foot down or anything, I think he’s just too stupid to have in the loop on executing this thing. I think Bush being naive was huge in helping the real players like Cheney and Rove get the balling rolling on Iraq. Having Bush seem sincere and genuine with his reactions helped make the propaganda more effective

            -Soulja

  • RandyLahey [he/him]
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    4 years ago

    sorry, i tripped and accidentally spilled some extra melty jet fuel on some steel beams when i was up there

    fortunately george bush was a real pal and agreed to help cover for me with a couple of planes

  • zxcvbnm [he/him]
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    4 years ago

    Watergate was a stitch up job. CIA Bay of Pigs veterans got caught on purpose. They made the tape on the door obvious and they even put it back after a security guard removed it the first time. Deep state was not happy with Nixon's detente and China relations.

    • Steely_Gaige [none/use name]
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      4 years ago

      Yeah, the CIA ending the presidency of Nixon and JFK are the "conspiracies" I'm most convinced of.

    • YungTheorist [he/him]
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      edit-2
      4 years ago

      They purposefully targeted Nixon for being an isolationist. One of the worst propaganda tricks ever pulled off by the United States was tying fascism to isolationism, forever turning generations of children onto the idea that the US is right for intervening in foreign matters.

      • Sunn_Owns [none/use name]
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        4 years ago

        Nixon shut out much of the joints chiefs and ran foreign policy through Kissinger and the NSC. Nixon also wanted to thaw relations with the USSR and saw himself as a kind of global statesman capable of negotiating peace. The blood sucking reactionaries definitely had plenty of reason to oppose Nixon.

        • YungTheorist [he/him]
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          4 years ago

          Nixon was a really weird guy because he was trying to warm relations with China while at the same time bombing the shit out of people

          • Sunn_Owns [none/use name]
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            4 years ago

            What no theory does to a MFer. I'm in the middle of Nixonland right now, great read.

              • Sunn_Owns [none/use name]
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                4 years ago

                It's the second of four books by Rick Perlstein tracing the beginnings of the modern day US conservative movement. Starts with Barry Goldwater, then a bit on JFK/LBJ, then Nixon, a bit on Carter, and stops at Reagan.

                The main takeaway is the reactionary forces in the US have always been there and will always be there, and are directly linked to the absurdly wealthy. Perlstein adds a lot of color by using quotes from the NYT/WaPo and popular culture to make the era breathe. It's well done.

  • Mardoniush [she/her]
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    4 years ago

    Salvadore Allende, having survived the coup and disguised himself as the minor son of a Saudi Construction firm, taking his long-awaited revenge.

  • YungTheorist [he/him]
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    edit-2
    4 years ago

    Probably allowed to happen by the CIA. Nothing much else besides that. The events occurred as they needed to occur. Most conspiracy theories on the subject are kinda crank and don’t really make sense to me. They seem to be more focused on the how rather than the why. I think that a lot of it is “there’s no way planes could bring down the towers” as if the US wouldn’t go to war and take any opportunity they could to kill brown people if the towers had remained standing

    • ennuid [he/him]
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      4 years ago

      If you want any convincing, the TrueAnon series on the subject goes extremely deep on the why.

      But in terms of consequence it didn't really matter if it was allowed or not.

      • YungTheorist [he/him]
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        4 years ago

        I understand the why for either side. Osama Bin Laden wanted to make a statement and get revenge on the US, and the CIA wanted to depose an Anti colonialist leader in Iraq

        • ennuid [he/him]
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          4 years ago

          I'd say we wanted much more than that: an indefinite military occupation of an entire region and the patriot act immediately spring to mind.

          • YungTheorist [he/him]
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            4 years ago

            Yes. The patriot act is a beginning to the kind of state in which authoritarianism occurs for the wrong reasons.