Letters to the Editor
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What the hell, I'll chime in...
First off, not the greatest editorial decision having Manjoo write this article. Many readers here obviously are skeptical of his objectivity. But then again, perhaps that's the reason y'all assigned him this piece -- controversy sure do drive up hits, eh?
Anyway, time for my confession:
Hi, my name is [swilldog], and I'm a 911 conspiracist.
"Hi, [swilldog]!"
Now, I'm not a deep down the rabbit hole kind of guy. I doubt there were controlled demolitions, I don't think there were drones, I'm pretty sure a plane hit the Pentagon, yadda yadda yadda.
I do find it highly suspicious that there were no fighter jets in the entire continental US available to be scrambled in time to avert this disaster -- if they could scramble an F-16 to check out Payne Stewart's Learjet, certainly our government could find a way to get a jet or two in the air to protect the Pentagon and the WTC. I do suspect flight 93 was shot down.
I find Bush's disappearing act during the crisis highly suspect.
I also am troubled by this admission from Bob Kerrey:
"There are ample reasons to suspect that there may be some alternative to what we outlined in our version," Kerrey said. The commission had limited time and limited resources to pursue its investigation, and its access to key documents and witnesses was fettered by the administration. "I didn't read a single PDB," Kerrey said, referring to the president's daily intelligence briefing reports. "We didn't have access to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed," the mastermind of the plot. "We accepted a compromise, submitting our questions to him through the CIA. Now, that's not the best way to go about getting your questions answered. So I'm 100 percent certain that [bin Laden] directed that attack, but am I completely comfortable saying there was no direct Saudi involvement, or that Saddam Hussein wasn't involved in some fashion, or that the Iranians weren't involved? I'm pretty close to 100 percent certain, but I'd be more comfortable if we'd interviewed Khalid Shaikh Mohammed."
My deepest suspicions: The neocon's wet dream of a "Pearl Harbor event" led to a smallish cabal at the top to allow the events of 911 to occur. That Osama bin Laden is not a patsie, but not the guy at the very top. I suspect that the 911 Commission was handcuffed in its investigative power to protect the Bush Administration and their friends -- likely prominent Saudis, in particular. I definitely wonder if Pakistani Intelligence was deeply involved.
At the very least there had to have been an insider here that led the attackers to know that the day to attack was a day where we had basically zero defense against this kind of attack. The odds of the attack coincidently happening on the day of far-flung military exercises are astronomical. No way 19 zealots, no matter how well prepared, could have pulled that off alone.
All this to eventually justify our illegal war in Iraq. Which I suspect happened in order seize control of strategic oil reserves and keep them off the market to stave off the inevitable ascension of the Chinese as the supreme superpower on Earth.
Maybe that's tinfoil hat stuff. Dunno. But certainly not any harder a pill to swallow than all the implausibilities in the official story.