Apparently reading for comprehension is not your strong suit.

I wrote that the sites to which the brave Anonymous linked did not exist before my developing the theory which I related.

How you managed to confabulate that into "there were no conspiracist websites before 9/11/2001" I have no idea.

As someone who has no degree and indeed barely graduated from HS, I am often amazed and astounded by how ignorant many degreed and apparently "well educated" people are beyond their particular field of expertise.

It's really a question of curiosity, many "intelligent" people simply lack curiosity and have no desire to further their knowledge beyond that strictly necessary for the pursuit of lucre. These people get home, plop down in front of the glass teat and absorb mindless, distracting "entertainment", whether it be sitcoms, soap operas, sports or whatever.

On the other hand there are people who on paper are less "intelligent" who nonetheless have the burning drive of curiosity.

There is a Persian aphorism which goes like this: "He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool, shun him. He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep, wake him. He who knows not and knows that he knows not is simple, teach him. He who knows and knows that he knows is wise, follow him."

We have an awful lot of apparently educated people in the US who know not that they know not. A confederacy of dunces, if you will.

We all know that conspiracies never happen..

After all, there are no laws against conspiratorial actions and if conspiracies ever happened there would be laws against such.

I find it most revealing that no one has come up with a reasonable explanation for the lack of reaction by the Secret Service at Booker elementary on the morning of 9/11/2001.

All explanations proffered so far depend entirely upon hindsight.

Perhaps *you* have a reasonable explanation?

I won't be holding my breath.

Sometimes a lack of reaction is the most revealing reaction of all.

My wife's brother in law is a physician and very intelligent.

Outside of medicine I routinely trounce him whenever we have a discussion/debate because he simply lacks the knowledge to do an adequate job of defending his troglodyte opinions.

It chaps his 'nads big time to get bounced by someone who lacks even an undergraduate degree and is basically a dirty fuckin' hippie.

Now I can say pretty much whatever I please around him and it's great fun to watch him steam and stew yet refrain from responding to my provocative and sometimes outrageous commentary. The veins pop out on his forehead but he keeps his lip zipped.

Doctor Bill (as I call him) knows from painful experience that he is entering a gun fight with a rubber knife.

That is the sort of person to whom I was referring in my previous post.

And there is no one there to hear it, does it still make a sound?

The fact of the matter is that 80+% of the American population will never hear of the NIE release.

Of those that do hear, only a small minority will care enough and/or understand enough for it to make any difference.

The MSM will not skip a beat in the war drum pounding. Just as the pounding on the "drug war" drums never skips a beat in the MSM despite 70+ years of abject failure.

Attacking Iran is simply another "success that hasn't happened yet".

Oh yes, I remember all too well.. And it makes my blood boil still.

"Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal." ~Robert Heinlein.

When the NIE makes the local TV "news" in a big way then perhaps the average American might take notice.

The chances of that happening are roughly equal to those of hitting a pitched fastball with a BB shot from a gun while blindfolded.

At considerable risk of sounding even more like a broken record than I have in the past I must point out that the "drug war" is one of the focal points of our deteriorating social structure.

Our prisons are full beyond the scope of any other nation on the planet, thanks in large measure to the drug war. Our police are becoming more and more militarized, again primarily thanks to the drug war.

The War On (some) Drugs was conceived and has continued as a means of bigoted and racial oppression. Anyone of reasonable intelligence who is aware of the facts of the matter knows full well that prohibition of recreational drugs of any sort automatically and inexorably leads to black markets and the concomitant violence associated with such markets.

Our political class, both Democrat and Republican, almost to a man is in support of a failed policy which without question they know to be not only failed but based entirely upon fantasy and has now gone on for over seventy years with absolutely no prospect of ever changing in any fundamental manner.

This country started down the slippery slope toward autocratic oppression many decades ago and recent events have simply accelerated that slide.

Arbeit macht frei..

And what percentage of the American public watches CNN International?

I would be astounded if it were as high as 5% and suspect it is far lower than that.

The Army and Marine Corps are certainly in a world of hurt.

However, the Navy and the Air Force remain relatively unscathed and more than capable of sustaining a major air attack against Iran.

A "boots on the ground" attack against Iran is utterly impossible at this juncture but air bombardment is a distinct possibility.

then it's pretty hard to believe that it's not reaching the rest of the country's reading public.

There's the rub, the percentage of Americans who read is rather low and steadily dropping.

Joe and Jane Sixpack get their news from the "if it bleeds it leads" local "news" broadcast.