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The 9/11 Faith Movement

Many Americans believe 9/11 was a conspiracy by the U.S. government

By Terry J. Allen

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Americans love a conspiracy. According to a May 17 Zogby poll, 42 percent believe the U.S. government and the 9/11 Commission are covering up what really happened on Sept. 11, 2001.

There is something comforting about a world where someone is in charge—either for good (think gods) or evil (think Bush insiders plotting 9/11). Many people prefer to believe a Procrustean conspiracy rather than accept the alternative: Life can be random, viciously unjust and meaningless; tragedy and joy alike flow from complex combinations of good and bad intentions, careful plotting, random happenstance and bumbling incompetence.

Conspiracy hypotheses often consist of a vast pile of circumstantial evidence shaped into a seemingly coherent whole with the strong glue of faith. Debunk one or even many allegations and the pile still stands, impressive in its bulk and ideological coherence. If size were all, it would convince Pyrrho himself.

Scientific theories, on the other hand, depend on interlocking chains of evidence: The integrity of the whole relies on the soundness of each link. Break any one and the theory founders.

The 9/11 conspiracy is a classic example of a faith-based pile hypothesis. Its proponents cite a mountain of evidence to conclude that the U.S. government perpetrated the 9/11 attacks for its own traitorous ends, chiefly staging “a new Pearl Harbor” to rally support for an invasion of Iraq.

I spent months as a researcher conducting a fact-by-fact dissection of a few key aspects of this hypothesis. I approached the project knowing that U.S. cabals had previously concocted casus belli to drive public support for war: the Gulf of Tonkin for Vietnam, incubator babies for the first Gulf War. And clearly from its early days, the Bush administration had lusted for war with Iraq.

But the hypothesis that it planned and executed the 9/11 attacks is just not supported by a chain of evidence, nor do the facts support the conspiracists’ key charge that World Trade Center buildings were destroyed by pre-positioned explosives.

Structural engineers found the destruction consistent with fires caused by the jet liner strike; that temperatures need not actually melt the steel but that expansion and other fire-related stresses would account for compromised architectural integrity.

When David Ray Griffin, a theologian by trade, said it was “physically impossible by laws of physics” for the planes alone to have brought down the towers, I asked what engineers had confirmed that. “I haven’t talked to any because they would be too afraid to tell the truth,” he said. “How would you be able to protect your family if you were to accuse the government?” he asked, accusing the government.

Many conspiracists offer the collapse of WTC Building 7 as the strongest evidence for the kind of controlled demolition that would prove a plot. Although not hit by planes, it was damaged by debris, and suffered fires eventually fueled by up to 42,000 gallons of diesel fuel stored near ground level. Griffin cited as evidence of government complicity that the building’s sprinkler system should have, but didn’t, put out the fires. But the theologian did not know and had not considered that the collapse of the towers had broken the area’s water main.

Another conspiracist, Alex Jones, writes on his Web site, “Larry Silverstein, the owner of the WTC complex, admitted … that he and the NYFD decided to ‘pull’ WTC 7.” (Leave aside how unlikely it would be for the government to include Silverstein in a treasonous conspiracy, or that the NYFD was in on it, too.)

Silverstein’s actual quote: “I remember getting a call from the fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were going to be able to contain the fire, and I said, ‘We’ve had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.’ And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse.”

Jones continues: “The word ‘pull’ is industry jargon for taking a building down with explosives.” In fact, a Lexis Nexis search for a three-year period fails to find one American reference to “pull a building” without the preposition “down” when referring to intentional destruction. An alternative explanation would be that given the lack of water and the number of injured and missing firefighters, the NYFD decided to pull workers from Building 7 to concentrate on search and rescue at the fallen towers.

In the end, this kind of undermining of individual “facts,” although relatively easy, is irrelevant for those who base their beliefs on piles rather than chains of evidence.

But the work should be done. Pile conspiracies can be dangerous. Those who deny that HIV is responsible for AIDS, for example, have contributed to unnecessary infections and deaths.

And the 9/11 conspiracy hypotheses distract from the growing chain of evidence documenting how the Bush administration actually manipulated this country to war on a train of lies riding tracks of fear—cynically using the bodies of the 9/11 victims as fuel.

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Terry J. Allen, an In These Times senior editor, has written the magazine's monthly investigative health and science column since 2005.

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    This is the hollowest bit of propaganda, with so many holes in it’s feeble argument that for once everybody is going to stay on topic as we shred this piece of printed presstitution.  Your mixing up and twisting of other people’s claims and the completely uncontextual presentation of same makes you look like a SHILL and nothing else.  You either know nothing and are copying some other thinly disguised hit pieces or you know what you are doing in which case one wonders why instead of just using shills to repeat the lies the US admin doesn’t fabricate some more evidence and be done with it.  Maybe they have been caught out with the other fabrications too often so they dare not?  I’d say mainly they count on enough complete idiots continuing to buy the lies and not finding access to the facts.  Thanks to rags like ITT, the chances that it’s readers at least will find the facts is being seriously hampered thanks to their sellout.

    The official story is a conspiracy theory actually, since it lacks proof and it is therefore subject to being judged on all the same evidence as any other theory.  The evidence which could most easily prove the truth was destroyed in record time, and the rest is being kept secret.

    The simple fact is that 42% of Americans have woken up to the truth and that number is growing daily.  More and more people from Scientists, Engineers, ex administration people and leaders of countries are realising the fact that 911 was self inflicted, and that the guilty parties are no further away than the White House.

    You Terry Allen are so completely wrong about nearly everything you wrote it is almost surreal.  Actually Americans don’t love a conspiracy theory, the cognitive dissonance involved in having to face up to the truth in this case is what keeps the truth from being even more widely accepted, but the flow of converts is always in one direction and that isn’t going to change.

    Rather than a series of circumstantial matters the evidence for demolition charges runs the full gamut from theory, history, witnesses, video footage which is clearly showing the squibs effect to the scientific findings which not only point to the theoretical likelihood of explosives demolition, recent testing of some WTC steel samples showed traces of the chemicals which proove it was Thermate used to destroy the buildings.

    Meanwhile the government conspiracy theory has nothing going for it.  You are completely wrong when you say that the official explanation is supported by engineers.  Only a few and they are all connected to the offical liars, have agreed while most engineers say only that the official explanation is lacking in many details.  There are instead engineers and scientists who have clearly detailed why it is not possible for the fires and planes to have brought down the buildings, and despite the massive ad-hominem attacks such people are made to suffer whenever they speak out, exactly why more don’t, NOBODY has ever actually tackled the hard science behind these claims.


    Not only is science an impassable barrier for the official conspiracy theory, so too is history since no buiding ever collapsed into its own footprint without carefully set-up demolition charges, I happen to be an explosives expert by the way.  I can assure you there isn’t a demo expert in the world who buys the official theory, it isn’t going to happen either.  The buildings fell at the rate of gravity almost, and this isn’t possible unless all structural resistance was eliminated, in one go.  No pancaking theory can explain this, it is just a CON job and I can only feel contempt for anyone stupid or cowardly enough to convince themselves otherwise.

    It should be mentioned that there is an unclaimed one million dollar reward on offer to anyone who can prove that the official story is even possible.  Funny that if it is such a solid bit of theory that nobody can actually model such a collapse I’d say. 

    Not only does the official theory, for it is not a fact, not proven, merely a theory, not explain how a building which had been designed to withstand multiple airliner impacts fell after one jet only, it doesn’t in any way cover how WTC-7 fell in exactly the same way, into its own footprint due to nothing but a small and intermittent fire.  Watch the video, no raging fires in any of the buildings as the offical theory tries to tell us.  What do you think all that black smoke means?  COLD FIRES!

    We are expected to suspend disbelief and accept that for the first time in history and against all odds, not one, not two, but three entire Skyscrapers fell into their own footprints on the same day. 

    Now that is what I call FAITH!

    The official conspiracy theory lacks any real evidence, what there is has been kept secret and even the fake 911 commission didn’t get access.  Now if the proof was in the massive amount of witheld evidence, perhaps it is about time it was shown to somebody since the world is becoming increasingly suspicious?

    One funny thing has only recently emerged, is that the FBI admits it has absolutely NO EVIDENCE of Bin Laden’s involvement.  None at all.  That is a fact.  No evidence of Bin Laden’s involvement.  The only evidience of hijackers on the day is from cell phone calls which have since shown could not have been made from those planes at the altitudes.  The chances of any of them were very slim, and at least the ones from flight 93, were impossible!

    I by the way I am not an American, and outside of the USA the numbers of people who KNOW that 911 was a false flag attack is even higher.  Like there our numbers are increasing too, a sure sign of impending realisation of truth rather than delusions.  If the alternative theory of what happened on 911 was not based upon a solid foundation, then logic predicates the theory would belong to a peripheral group and their numbers would not be growing, more likely dwindling at ths time.

    Our numbers are growing and the type of everyday people as well as many highly respected people who are joining us is the smoking gun which shows that the truth is not with you, but with us.

    Last but not least. 

    For any who are approaching this with an open mind, do take note of the sort of pathetic, and emotional and faith based crap which will be posted by any who dare to try and support the offical conspiracy theory.  Take note of how they will just keep on running on the spot, dodging fact after fact by referring to co-incidences, inventing ad-hock theories or stretching existing ones to the limit to try and explain fact after fact.  Notice how they cannot actually explain all facts, and these they will completely ignore if they don’t simply call them lies, never mind they are verifiable facts and demand an explanation.  They have nothing but cobbled together theories that more and more intelligent and educated people are realising are absolute rubbish.  As the case for Bush Junta involvment and controlled demolitions is systematically built in an unbroken chain of evidence, much of it witnesses as well as scientific and video, you will see over and over that everything which is known is entirely consistent with both these ideas and many individual facts of themselvs are capable of demolishing the official lies on their own.  Frankly one particular witness does this all by himself.  One scientific theory, the law of gravity, pretty well demolishes the official lies.  But I am asking you to do as the Mr Allen suggests, look at the whole train of evidence, comapre it all with the two competing theories and see where you are left.

    If after doing this you still somehow find yourself somehow maintaining your belief in the oficial conspiracy theory, of what happened on 911, rest assured that a few other feeble minded individuals will be there to greet you and assure you all you need is faith..

    No complete unbroken line of evidence nor science can be made for the official theory. 
    This is a challenge I Rabbit make to any. Whereas we have exactly this, an unbroken line of scientific and other evidence which imply that the Bushling Junta (or its controllers) were in on it and they used explosives.

    Prove me wrong!

    ............................................................................. ................................................................................ .....

    This is the rabbit from the future.  It is now several weeks later and about 500 posts have passed.  Thanks to the desperate efforts of a well known Bush administration shill the updated version of Professor Steven Jones’ report has just been brought to my attention.  The shill concerned who you will meet if you continue down this thread, made a serious error in bringing up this link for I may not otherwise have thought to do so.  It is so utterly convincing, including numerous peer reviewed studies and basically all you need to know to be able to find the truth.

    If it is truth you seek, you need go no further than this one link.  By all means research all you like, and make up your own mind.  But don’t miss this, it is the last word and nobody is going to be able to deny the truth having studied it.

    In honour of the FRUIT BAT, Natalie the undead, Rabbit presents .
    the truth about the WTC collapses, based upon scientific analysis and peer reviewed studies.

    Posted by Rabbit on Jul 11, 2006 at 12:19 PM

    One minor point Terry Allen, Faith is a belief held without the benefit of evidence or proof.  Those of us who have gone to the trouble to look at all that is known about 911, are able to come to a conclusion which is based on actual evidence.

    Those who accept the offical fairy tale, which is absurd even upon its face do so based upon one reason and that is faith that the government bodies who put together the reports are telling the truth.  The evidence of what happened on 911 actually points well and truly away from the official theory and that is a measurable fact as this thread is going to demonstrate over the next few days I predict.  This is why we have been describing those who do blindly accept the ridiculous assertions by the administration, as the Faith based brigade and I suggest that your attempt to hijack the term is not only ironic and innacurate, but it is actually more than a little sleazy.

    In honour of the FRUIT BAT, Natalie the undead, Rabbit presents .
    the truth about the WTC collapses, based upon scientific analysis and peer reviewed studies.

    Posted by Rabbit on Jul 11, 2006 at 12:39 PM

    Sirs,

    http://www.911blogger.com/2006/07/challenge-to-in-these-times-magazine.html

    “...I want to challenge the Editors, Publishers, Publishing Consortium, and Board of Directors of “In These Times” to ask their readers whether or not they should publish my review of “The Hidden History of 9-11-2001” within the covers of “In These Times” magazine as a rebuttal to Allen’s piece. “In These Times” should use the “Weekly Poll” feature on their website, to see if their readership wants to hear the counterpoint, and should screen the poll for repeating IP addresses to reduce a fraudulent tally…”

    The gauntlet is cast, and the challenge will follow with a paper copy and an email. I can be reached at this email address:
    reprehensor.911blogger(at)gmail.com

    Thank you,
    Allan Giles

    Posted by reprehensor on Jul 11, 2006 at 2:46 PM

    Allan Giles

    Rabbit is entirely supportive of this idea.  Don’t hold your breath though.  ITT regularly runs these pathetic and weak hitpieces on 911 truth.  This is specifically why I cannot ever trust the rag. It is just a left wing gatekeeper and the serious truths like what happened on 911 are not in their interest to publish.

    They are merely a presstitute and as such a shame and insult upon their founder.

    Anyway Allan Giles the rabbit shall pass the word around and you will get more support, besides which this pathetic and false hit piece of Terry Allen’s is going to be completely devastated by myself and others before we are finished. 

    What a foolish turkey this Terry Allen is, the claim of spending months researching is laughable. 

    Anyone could find more than enough solid evidence, virtually prove the US admin was complicit and especially that explosives were used in those buildings on 911.  This they could do in a day!

    A week would give enough irrefutable facts under the belt to allow anyone to thoroughly debunk the official theory and of course to demolish this base hit piece.

    Personally I have been researching 911, for four years now.  Anyone who claims to have done any research on 911, by actually reading what has been written by the people this Shill Terry Allen mentions and checking their facts, and who yet claims scepticism, is a liar or suffering from cognitive dissonance together with a reasoning malfunction.

    If one tries to research the official story, it is incredible how little evidence exists to support it and virtually all of it is under serious question. NONE of it proves anything except peripheral points and the story of the nineteen hijackers is itself even apparent fantasy.  A sort of “Laural and Hardy” type play on the fringe of the real events.  Actors and poor ones at that.  Nothing which could suggest a credible scenario that whoever these people were they actually were even on any of the planes.  The magic passport which survived the supposedly superhot fires, which burned everything, except this one passport which lands miraculously at the feet of a policeman, for one.  Not that it proves or disproves anything, except that the incredible co-incidence lends an air of fitted evidence.  No credible chance that any of them could have pulled off even a fraction of what occurred.

    Hopefully this truth challenged person will dare to answer his critics, and if he does I suggest he come well armed with real facts and not his spurious claims about an imaginary mastermind in a cave and nineteen mad jihadists. Of course there are no real facts which make a case for the fairy tale and certainly thgere is NOTHING which disproves the “observed fact” that explosives were used on the buildings.  Nothing disproves our alternative theory Mr Allen, I hope you get that. 

    You come along with a single bit of evidence that explosives were not used and I’ll be glad to admit I’m wrong.  Also you come along with asingle bit of evidence thatBin Laden was involved and we will be impressed.  The FBI might be glad of it too, since they’ve got nothing.

    How could this ninny claim to have spent months researching and yet not know that there is nothing to link Bin Laden?  How could he not realise the number of witnesses to the explosions?  How could he not understand Gravity, or melting/sssoftening points even of steel?  The claims that the fires might have gotten hot enough at their theoretical highest point to have softened the steel, doesn’t take into account the enormous volume of steel involved and that the steel columns would have dissipated the heat too well for a mere fire of such short duration to have had any effect.  Also though steel can be weakened by enough heat, the fires had been dying down long since when the collpases occurred and the steel would have had ample time to return to its original strength even if it had been raised significantly.

    I have been a welder for years and I can assure you if Kerosene fires coule be made hot enough to melt of even soften steel, then we would have been saving a lot of money and doing just that, because OXY acetylene and Oxygen which is normally used, is expensive.  Also why do demolitions companies go to so much trouble setting up the explosives necessary for controlled demolitions and charge massive fees for it, if a bit of a fire on the top floors can do the trick, so well in fact as to drop three perfect demos in one day?

    Uh uh.  The 911 explosive demolitions of the three WTCs were the very best demolition jobs I’ve ever seen, and while I curse the people who did it to hell, as a professional I have to admit that they were exquisite pieces of work and I doubt many people in the world could have managed it.  We do of course have a good idea of who actually did it, and yes, they are very closely involved with the clean-up too.

    The reverse demolitions of the first two buildings were interesting, but not unknown, and to make the story fit at least for the moviegoing public, it had to be in reverse.  Never mind the squibs can be seen running in reverse too.

    Of course those who have seen lots of bangs and crashes in the movies and who don’t understand the science or physics involved could be convinced of the official lies.

    On the other hand, people who know a bit, who have been involved in the production of special effects for the movies even, cannot help but recognise a professional pyrotechnicians involvement in the actual plane crashes too.  They were not natural plane crashes, something substantial went bang thus dispersing and igniting the fuel on impact.  This also left very little Jet Fuel to fuel the fires and the fact that those fires were not fed by fuel but mostly by office furniture, carpets etc is obvious from the massive columns of black smoke.  In fact an accurate estimate can be made of the fireballs upon impact and this would also show most of the fuel was burnt in a few seconds.

    The Ms Allen Shill actually mentions above that

    “Scientific theories, on the other hand, depend on interlocking chains of evidence: The integrity of the whole relies on the soundness of each link. Break any one and the theory founders.”

    I think that is hilariously funny.  There is no scientific theory about the collapses using fire alone which can account for the events.  The science is entirely speculative and relies on the suspension of the laws of physics on several fronts and the ignoring of an entire central core structural detail.  The design of the WTC which was studied by FEMA and the NIST report was actually fake and critical details were missing to enable the weak theory to look a bit better.  When the faults in the plans was shown, no revisiting of the theories ever happened. 

    Meanwhile the theory of explosve demolition is supported by all the evidence, and history,  It is supported by the science, and you cannot deny it you stupid little man, because these sort of collapses can be and are observed to occur in precisely the same way every time a Skyscraper is demolished by explosives.  The witnesses testified to the explosives, the explosives effects are seen during the collapse and the pulverised concrete due to explosives is obvious on the remains of the buildings.  To suggest that anything else is true is hollow denial.  Everything about the collapses was consistent with explosives and that is a fact.  The alternative official theory on the other hand is entirely theoretical and based as said on incomplete information.  The official theory has NO historcial eveidence which suggests it is even possible and so far nobody has been able to create a physical model which would duplicate something we are supposed to believe happened three times in a row on one day in september 2001.  That million dollar reward for doing so is still waiting for any engineer who can prove such bunkum!

    Nothing occurred in those collpases which was not consistent with the contention that they were explosive demolitions.  NOTHING! and I dare anyone to suggest otherwise.

    That really does leave your official fairy tale as being the one which lacks anything but fanciful speculation while the theory that explosives were used, is supported by all that interlocking evidence. It relies for credibility upon the entire history of human skyscraper buildings, accidents, fires, bombs as well as the history of building demolitions.

    Why were the bomb sniffing dogs pulled out from the WTCs in the days leading up to 911?

    Ms Allen

    The term Pull it, is a term used in Demolition circles though in Oz we might say drop it instead.  The dictionary entry the stupid Mr Allen uses to suggest it isn’t so, is ridiculous.  Its industry slang silly one! Jargon!  You won’t find it in a dictionary.  Just ask a demolition expert.

    Perhaps you’d care to explain what Silverstein meant by saying they decided to “pull it”, and don’t try claiming he meant that they should pull the firemen out of there.  In fact all the firemen were out of the building at that time, and there was nobody to pull out.  That spin was tried once long agao, but researchers soon shot it down on those grounds.

    The re-insurance of the Silverstein buildings just before 911, especially against terror attacks is just an interesting co-incidence among many I guess.  The put options which were placed on the two airlines just before 911 was also another of those co-incidences. But I expect that Mr Allen is a Co-incidence theorist, so we shall ignore the many co-incidences which suggested foreknowledge.  J

    Just because we have so much more solid evidence, we don’t need useless speculation Ms Allen.

    Now I repeat.  Science, Physics and chemistry supports the contention that explosives were used.  It does and there is no getting away from that. One doesn’t need to invent radical new theories of pancake collapses and magical steel which somehow weakens at ridiculously low temperatures and somehow stays weak permanently to explain what it would take to bring down those buildings.  One need look no further than how we always drop such buildings in the demolitions industry, in which case the three WTCs were very well executed explosive demolitions, or implosions.  Entirely normal looking and with all the tell tale blasts of squibs and ejected debris for hundreds of feet.

    Science is not the friend of the Faith based brigade, those who believe the official story which lacks any credible science or evidence.  The only thing left when evidence or proof is lacking is faith of course.  By reverse argument nobody has a need to convince themselves without evidence that a massive crime has been committed by their own government upon themselves.  Certainly not more than a handful of crazies anyway.  Well, 42% of the USA may be crazies, but they are not the 42% and growing who accept the shocking but unavoidable truth that things are really rotten in the United States of Avarice.

    Lets face it guys one day you are claiming your government could never have done such a thing, the next you are trying to explain wars against countries who actually never did a thing to you.  Then you are left justifying offical torture polices and now you even have to tell yourselves that warrantless searches, secret detention and wholesale spying on the public are a good thing.

    Is there a pattern in this somewhere?  It sure seems so to this rabbit.

    Where is it all going to end people?  Do you not realise that what with having to pretend that the USA is exempt from international law, defending Murders of civilians and systematic rapes and torture on suspicion only, what do you think you will be having to swallow next I wonder?  Where is it all going to end people?

    In honour of the FRUIT BAT, Natalie the undead, Rabbit presents .
    the truth about the WTC collapses, based upon scientific analysis and peer reviewed studies.

    Posted by Rabbit on Jul 11, 2006 at 3:03 PM

    Dear Ms. Allen,
    I read with interest your article “The 9/11 faith
    movement.” I agree with your assessment that
    “Scientific theories, on the other hand, depend on
    interlocking chains of evidence: The integrity of the
    whole relies on the soundness of each link. Break any
    one and the theory founders.” However, applied to the
    “official conspiracy theory,” the theory put forth by
    the government also breaks. We don’t have all of the
    information to be able to say what really happened up
    to and including September 11th, but there are several
    links in the official theory that also cause it to
    founder. Consider Building 11. There is no scientific
    theory which explains it’s collapse other than the
    pre-positioning of explosives. It fell in EXACTLY the
    manner of controlled demolition. First the center
    frame gave way causing a kink in the roof, then squibbs
    of debris flew from the windows, then it neatly fell
    into it’s footprint at nearly the speed of free fall,
    pulling it’s walls in towards it’s center. No steel
    framed structure has ever collapsed into it’s
    footprint without being demolished. I challenge anyone
    to find one. This event alone, aside from any other,
    places the official theory in mortal jeapordy.
    Researchers attempting to explain it may be unable to
    ascribe motive, but, following Occam’s Razor,
    controlled demolition is the most productive theory to
    pursue. I admire the efforts of those who follow your
    advice and apply the scientific method to their
    inquires. I encourage you to continue your research.

    Posted by huiler on Jul 11, 2006 at 6:12 PM
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Appeared in the July 2006 Issue
Also by Terry J. Allen
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