to believe some if not all of the 9/11 conspiracy theories

[mrsunreasonable]

NOTE: This is not meant to be offensive and if you suffered as a result of 9/11 you have my deepest sympathies it was a terrible event however it was caused.

Having watched a few documentaries on the conspiracy theories I am partially if not completely convinced all was not as it seemed. The fact that many witnesses that saw/heard things that didn't tie in with the official version have since died in suspicious circumstances doesn't help!

"not so much of a leap to observe that they may have used the attacks as "a new Pearl Harbor" "

There are, of course, conspiracy theorists who claim that the US had prior warning of Pearl Harbour and yet did nothing. In this, as in 9/11, they start from an implausible premise (that the US government has large numbers of employees who have no moral or practical difficulty colluding in the slaughter of US citizens) and extend it past its already broken breaking point.

The problem is that there are plenty of nutters who do believe that the Federal government is bent on killing its own citizens in industrial quantity, which you can similarly see in the more deranged objections to the current Healthcare plans. So for them, it's not much of a stretch to believe that senior figures in the US military are cold-eyed killers of their own troops and their own civilians.

Tokyo : you're so abusive! Calm yourself.

I don't believe the 9/11 theories but I don't think that any government has any problem with the deaths of civilians and servicemen except how they present.

"I don't think that any government has any problem with the deaths of civilians"

Really? No problem at all? You mean all government employees are potential murderers?

Actually maybe the Dutch do. Maybe the Scandi countries do. "Any government" is a bit strong.

But ours, the US federal government, the Russians, many developing countries.. not really.

I think they don't care: they always see a greater good at the end which would justify collateral damage.

Could you let me know which departments in UK government are the ones where the murderers work, so I can avoid them?

Yes, you're saying something rather different, you're setting up a straw man -- that every individual who works for a government organisation is ready to murder.

That's just a straw argument. You must know that.

Why are you like this? Were you abandoned as a child or something?

You appear to believe that "governments" have an existence apart from "people". In order for a government to kill people, or indeed be indifferent to their death at other's hands, requires a chain of command, and you are assuming that it is easy to find such groups in government organisations. All the evidence is that you can't, and that whenever a government body behaves badly, or even in a way which could be construed as badly, it leaks almost instantly (Pentagon Papers, My Lai, Clive Ponting, Sarah Tisdall, Katherine Gun). That's because most people in government are neither immoral nor amoral, and actually work to do the right thing. Which can sometimes be messy and contingent, but your assertion that government is indifferent to death implies that a large number of government employees are likewise indifferent, and I don't think that's true.

I'm not the one who believes that a significant number of government employees are indifferent to the death of their fellow citizens. That's a depth of cynicism that means that mewling about people being a bit rude to you is pretty pathetic.

Well my conspiracy theory is that to some extend wacky theories are a red herring, a distraction from the depth and breadth of the cock-up and its subsequent exploitation.

what about the government in the Soviet Union and their NKVD henchmen? Solzhenitsyn showed us what they were capable of.

There is quite a lot of evidence Tokyo. It's because people feel there is a greater good at the end of it, and the end justifies the means.

There's evidence of it in government and the corporate world. I think you are naive. Some parts of government are hermetically sealed. It's a shame to say it, but anyone who reads the papers from cover to cover and believes they know what is governin going on is deluded.

I'm quoting someone important there but I can't for the life of me remember who.

Your life and my life do not matter a bean, not a bean, to your government or my government.

Tokyo has a very good point on the people front - you see the same thing in fraud. Most people who are successful fraudsters operate alone. Once you have more than three people involved in a fraud the chances of going undetected fall massively because it increases the chances of

• bragging to other people
• incompetence
• communication between the parties being intercepted
• falling out and subsequent revenge between the partners
• someone (usually a junior partner)feels guilty and confesses.

The chances of lots of people within a government colluding in 9/11 and no-one either confessing or accidentally letting the cat out of the bag are miniscule to the point of not being credible.

'I'm not the one who believes that a significant number of government employees are indifferent to the death of their fellow citizens. That's a depth of cynicism that means that mewling about people being a bit rude to you is pretty pathetic.'

tokyo - I think you need to accept that not everyone thinks the same way you do or has the same views. There is nothing 'pathetic' about it and you have no right to tell people what they should think. It's entirely reasonable to be annoyed about personal attacks - nobody who is concerned about conspiracy theories has posted with malicious intent as far as I can see.

It's quite possible to put your views across eloquently and with reason without insulting those who don't agree with you / question things that you don't. And those who do so add a helpful perspective to the debate.

I do not like the sentiment behind some of the conspiracy theories (which I have taken time to look into a little) - and some of them do indeed appear racist to me - but not the ones discussed on this thread as as far as I can see.

I think that people look at the lies about weapons of mass destruction and then think - 'well where do the lies end?'

Appletrees: Have you found that having a squealy tantrum as a way of getting people to stop laughing at ludicrous bullshit ever works? I mean ever? 'Bwaaaah! Eeryone';s being meeeeeaaaaaaan!' is not actually a convincing way to back up one's argument, you know.

Tokyonambu, do you really believe that we have moved on that much from the death camps that people at all level couldn't be manipulated to do evil? Is the world and society at large now rid of evil because people could not possibly condone it?
And that crucial and sensitive informations are held by so many people that it would need a large scale conspiracy to take a risk and play it?

Oh I missed that mewling reference.

I'm not mewling but I am cynical. You've been really rude and abusive to others and now you've started on me. God knows why you feel the need.

But you're also dead soft if you believe in universal altruism.

"Tokyonambu, do you really believe that we have moved on that much from the death camps that people at all level couldn't be manipulated to do evil?"

In vaguely democratic countries? Yes, I do. Indeed, not even "moved on" - I don't believe vaguely democratic countries have ever engaged in the mass murder of their own citizens, certainly not since the mid-nineteenth century. Could you point me to the exception? Without the circular argument of 9/11, of course.

Asserting that the governments of mature democracies are no better than the dictatorships of Mao, Stalin and Hitler shows you have a very low opinion of your fellow citizens.

I haven't got an argument by the way: I don't believe in the 9/11 conspiracy theories.

The only case I've made (until this last bit) is that people are being rude and abusive without cause. So saying people are mean is kinda part of that.

I have got an argument now though. But I'm still not interested enough to get worked up to fury and abuse about it.

"But you're also dead soft if you believe in universal altruism."

There's a huge distance between people not being altruistic and people actually becoming passive executioners, never mind active ones.

"but I am cynical." Believing all governments to be equivalently malicious isn't cynicism, it's simply finding a different herd to be part of.

To be honest I think you're dead soft even if you believe in the universal good intentions of our great leaders.

It's not about fellow citizens, it's about people in power. The citizens followed orders in the Soviet Union and in Nazi Germany.

Tokyonambu, without going too far down in history, what have civilians and forces died for in Iraq?