Charlie Sheen, Meet Your New Comrades! (9/11 Conspiracy Freaks Edition)

Via Arts & Letters Daily comes this New York mag article that makes it clear that Charlie Sheen--clearly the Lionel Barrymore of the Estevez acting dynasty--has lots of company in questioning whether 9/11 ever happened (in fact, did the World Trade Center even ever exist before it was supposedly destroyed? look at old maps of Manhattan and you won't even see the Twin Towers listed!).

New York's "The Ground Zero Grassy Knoll" helps you determine your "HOP level"--do you think the feds "let it happen on purpose" or "made it happen on purpose"--and introduces you to Father Frank Morales, a whackjob Catholic priest who makes child-molesting clergy seem normal and who is fond of repeating the dark truth that "Bush and bin Laden have the same banker."

Whole story--including a handy-dandy summary of the major conspiracy theories (e.g. Mossad did it; oilmen did it; Bush and Cheney did it; shrinks did it)--here.

Comments

[Stephen Macklin]

Personally I think it was Tom Cruise and the Scientologists.

[albo]

Personally I think it was Tom Cruise and the Scientologists.

actually, the scientologists think the psychiatrists did it.

you can't argue against the theorists, because that means you're one of the unthinking sheeple who accept the official explanation. that's the key here. these people will accept any alternative theory, no matter how incredible, just to avoid accepting an explanation by the administration or the government.

[a-ha!]

Father Frank Morales, a whackjob Catholic priest who makes child-molesting clergy seem normal

Hmmm... a whackjob Catholic who believes the government did 9/11... have we finally discovered crimethink's secret identity?

[M'Tuklavier]

Gawd, I thought of the whole Bush-was-part-of-it/did-it/whatever conspiracy thing the very same evening after the attacks.

I also remeber reading stuff about Bush and Bin Laden having been at Harvard at the same time (not the same time as the attacks though :). *L*

Then there was the report of a UFO over the capital that day or the day after...and everyone was seeing cropdusters spraying anthrax over everybody...and...

...and I briefly thought the towers fell from the bottom the first time I saw them go down and thought "was there a bomb in the parking structure?" And then figured it fell from the top down because of the fire.

It's not hard to have crazy thoughts go through my head at first but I surely thought that stuff should have been exhausted by a year afterwards at most.

Always craving attention, they are. No doubt because of rampant movie "piracy".

[James Anderson Merritt]

Conspiracies are real, and are as old as mankind. But not everything happens because of a conspiracy, and not all conspiracy theories hold water. Where can we see conspiracy theories considered and ELIMINATED by appeal to facts and logic? The scientific study of conspiracy theories should winnow the field by systematically debunking those theories that are contradicted by facts, logic, and common sense, leaving us with candidates that could be true, which we should investigate, in hopes of finding evidence to corroborate or contradict them.

Dismissing all "conspiracy theories" as "whacked out" is as silly as jumping to the conclusion that a conspiracy "must have been" behind any particular event. Can we travel the middle road and perhaps find some truth?

[crimethink]

Nick Gillespie,

So, mentioning once that someone told you that Bush and bin Laden have the same bank counts as being "fond of repeating" it, and makes you weirder than a child molester?

[John]

Aren't Bin Laden and Bush both members of the trialateral commission? If not, I am sure their banker probably is.

[Dan T.]

Here's my conspiracy theory: 19 guys with boxcutters using funds from various shady Middle Eastern men hatch a plan that nobody in the US defense establishment had ever even considered by hijacking airplanes and flying them into buildings. This conspiracy involves thousands of individuals throughout the world and the governments of at least two countries.

Yes, it's nutty, but the government endorses this theory and they never lie.

[steve]

If anyone with any amount of knowlege of how things work in this country, and this world, can look at what happened and really study the evidence and NOT think that there was at least some U.S complicancy,they have got there head up Toby Keiths red white and blue arse. The facts are that this government has lied and covered up so much for so long that it is almost impossible to know the true history of this nation. Anyone know about the CIA coup in Iran in 1953? no! not until 3 years ago! So any half wit that thinks this rogue state we live in is innocent of horrendous crimes in the past and present (legal torture) needs to do just a small amount of research to see that the world we live in is full of deceipt and cover-ups.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

You can't blame Charley Sheen, he has bad genes.

Speaking of conspiracy theory, a client sent me this link.

[wingnutx]

Anyone know about the CIA coup in Iran in 1953? no! not until 3 years ago!

The first hit in google for "Iran CIA" is an article from 2000 in the NYT about this very subject.

Just because you did not know about it until 3 years ago does not mean that it was not common knowledge.

Inadvertantly or not, that's a tremendous strawman.

[Dan]

Reason SUCKS!!

I used to subscribe, but after this hack job by Nick Gillespie, I will never pick up that piece of sh*t mag again.

I don't pretend to believe I know what happened on 9-11. All I know is the official story just is not believable. It is kind of like when I was in 4th grade and asked my Catholic School teacher about questioning the Bible. Her response was you just need to believe. OK, NICK,
you are a believer, but maybe you should change the name of your magazine to BELIEVER rather than REASON. My retort was where would we be today if George Washington had not questioned King George. I was put in the corner with the plant for the remainder of the day. I never returned to that class, and have never returned to Catholicism. One wonders though given the present situation if we might not have been better off without all the Georges including the criminal who claims to be the leader of the "so-called" free world.

[John]

Wingnutx,

Maybe I am misremembering, but I seem to remember a lot of people in the 1980s saying that the U.S. was responsible for the mess in Iran because it spnsored the coup that created the Shah's government by sponsoring the 1953 coup.

[wingnutx]

John,

I remember the same thing. I was replying to Steve, who asserts otherwise.

[steve]

Sorry if I was off by a few years, it was inadvertent but it was not known what went on in 53 until recently. In the 80's there was plenty of talk about the mess in Iran, but this story did not officially come out until very recently. The fact of the matter is that this administration and previous ones have purposefully misled us into situations tthat are NO GOOD! The current Bush crime family just happens to be the worst of the bunch!

[Stephen Macklin]

Aluminum Foil is in in aisle 6. They the new Reynolds non-stick.

[Jeff]

First off, I don't believe the wacko conspiracy shit. On the other hand, I disbelieve it a lot less forcefully than I did on 9/11/01. Since then, we have learned just how quickly and completely the event was co-opted by the Bush White House to justify every goddam thing under the sun, including the Iraq war. We have seen how half-hearted the effort in Afghanistan was, to the point of allowing UBL himself escape when he was literally run to ground. Not conclusive of anything other than opportunism and incompetence, I agree. But we also know for certain now that flat-out lies by the intelligence and defense establishment regarding the Gulf of Tonkin incident-- which did not happen at all-- constituted the springboard for Vietnam. We know now that the military drew up plans for terrorist attacks on US soil to justify a war against Castro, but never carried them out. At this point, even if I don't buy the conspiracy theories about 9/11, I can't say they are any crazier than the various official versions of various critical events in recent history. And that is frightening as hell.

[sulla]

Stephen M:
Actually, I just read an item in Popular Science that a tin foil hat actually increases the reception of certain radio frequencies that are reserved for government use. So it appears that the idea of using a tin-foil hat is in fact a government conspiracy.

[mediageek]

I think the conspiracy theorists just make up all these cockamamie stories to distract everyone from the fact that they were responsible for 9|11.

[Ed]

Who let the dogs out?

[Anonopotomous]

Father Frank Morales, a whackjob Catholic priest who makes child-molesting clergy seem normal and who is fond of repeating the dark truth that "Bush and bin Laden have the same banker."

Nick, I think you're a great writer, and I love your stuff, so I won't do a Dan-style freak out. I have a couple of greivances with this post.

1. Can you and the MSM please stop involuntarily spitting out the term "child-molesting" every time you have to say "Catholic priest"?

2. I'm not sure if this is what you were saying, but anyone who has lived through being molested would probably not consider the act of questioning an official explanation of our government worse than molesting a child.

I believe an apology and/or clarification is in order. Not because you need to censor yourself for the sake of PC, but because I'm pretty sure that you did not intend to convey either of these messages.

[B.P.]

I read about the CIA coup in Iran when I was in high school in the mid-1980's. Wasn't that the one Kermit Roosevelt was involved in?

[MainstreamMan]

I watched the planes fly into the first tower from blocks away.
I watched the towers fall from (several more) blocks away.
They fell because of the fire.
There were no explosions (except for the planes).

A conspiracy theory has to explain the facts, not imagined events.

Our ability to find patterns in randomness will allow us to "reason" our way to unreasonable conclusions.

Add in a good dose of emotion, and you've got a consipracy theory.

I recently saw a new lengthy examination of the Zapruder film that proclaims it a fake... these things don't go away.

[science]

"In 1979, in Los Angeles Time, Kermit Roosevelt, who claimed to be a member of CIA in 1953 revealed his roll in the 1953 coup. He made the involvment of CIA ..."

From a google search.

[darrel]

how about the fact that the U.S spent 40 million investigating Clintons B.J and only 600,000 on investigating 9/11?

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

believe an apology and/or clarification is in order. Not because you need to censor yourself for the sake of PC, but because I'm pretty sure that you did not intend to convey either of these messages.

I want an apology from the conspiracy wack-jobs for offending logic.

[darrel]

what is logic to you? an unorganized group, comprised of american trained terrorists flying planes into buildings using box cutters? where are the photos of a plane hitting the pentagon? why did wtc building 7 collapse? why did the lease holder larry silverstein admit on pbs that he gave the order to "pull" the building? why did dozens of firefighters say there were multiple explosions?

[Fred]

The conspiracy theorists have been out in force lately - see this thread on Metafilter. The best part of that was that one of the conspiracy-believers is running for state senate in idaho as a Democrat.

[Stephen Macklin]

"how about the fact that the U.S spent 40 million investigating Clintons B.J and only 600,000 on investigating 9/11?"

And how much did they spend investigating who leaked the name a non-covert CIA employee to the media - with nothing other than a peripheral indictment?

[Erika]

The more the Bush administration lies to us, and the more those lies are exposed. The more people will believe these kind of conspiracy theories. The reasoning is, if Bush was willing to lie to us to get us into a war, what won't he lie to us about?

[willy]

Dunno - how much have they spent on the non-Plame story? And who are they? Assuming it's a bunch, wouldn't that kind of support the idea that our government has a tendency to overspend on non-issues while giving the appearance of sweeping more serious fare under the rug?

So in 1979 and through the '80s there was more common knowledge about the 1953 boneheaded overreaching. Agreed. I knew it, too. Prior to that, might it be safe to reason that conjecture was limited to tin foil hat wearers? It only took 26 years for the truth to come out. Progress.

Not willing to fully believe the conspiracy here, mainly because it would hurt what little soul I have, but also not willing to discount the fact that there are some very effective people working at all levels of our government capable of dirty pool, if not preferring it to fair play. To think not is to think they don't exist and are incompetent down to the last one. And if they are so grossly incompetent, that seems like a perfect window for complicity in terrible deeds. The stupid need help at succeeding. "They" kept trying to teach us that in school, too.

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

what is logic to you? an unorganized group, comprised of american trained terrorists flying planes into buildings using box cutters? where are the photos of a plane hitting the pentagon? why did wtc building 7 collapse? why did the lease holder larry silverstein admit on pbs that he gave the order to "pull" the building? why did dozens of firefighters say there were multiple explosions?

Snopes - it's your friend. Now move along kiddo.

[darrel]

Snopes - it's your friend. Now move along kiddo.
What does that mean???

[Rick Barton]

How about: The Mossad did it and Bush and Cheney knew about it. I know of no direct evidence for this but the Israeli government certainly had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks:

http://www.antiwar.com/israeli-files.php

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0595296823/reasonmagazinea-20/

[dagsdgio]

a good site is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-11_domestic_conspiracy
wikipedia usually avoids hysteria

there are so many discrepencies that it deserves honest consideration.

did you know the towers are the only steel buildings to ever collapse due to fire (before or since)? and they only burned for like an hour.

[Scott Ledger]

watch and learn my scared little children

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5137581991288263801

truth always prevails

[Andy White]

Why did WTC 7 collapse? You guys on here attack the messenger and ignore the message. We offer tons of proof to back up our claims and you offer none. The collapse of WTC 7 has still not been explained by the government beyond

"The specifics of the fires in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain unknown at this time. Although the total diesel fuel on the premises contained massive potential energy, the best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence. Further research, investigation, and analyses are needed to resolve this issue." (FEMA, 2002, chapter 5;)

9/11 Evidence to the Contrary

http://911research.wtc7.net/index.html

http://www.st911.org/

http://janedoe0911.tripod.com/

http://www.911revisited.com/video.html

http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html

You guys attack because you are scared if you actually look at the evidence you might be wrong.

[Isaac Bartram]

did you know the towers are the only steel buildings to ever collapse due to fire (before or since)? and they only burned for like an hour.

Wrong. Steel buildings collapse due to fire all the time. The idea in designing the fireproofing is to delay collapse until the building can be evacuated. If you had said that no high rise steel building had collapsed before that would be correct.

But then no high rise steel building had ever been subjected to such an intense fire acompanied by such a severe impact. Most fires involve only the combustable material in the building, not the full fuel load of a jumbo jet.

The WTC also had a unique design. The framing was arranged quite differently from conventional towers to allow for wide column-free spaces.

The problem with most conspiracy theories (like most urban legends) is that they rely on a combination of completely false information and unwarranted or irrelevant conclusions drawn from cherry-picked facts.

[Sal Orr]

The deniers posting here remind me of homophobics, agressively attacking anything at all that raises doubt in their minds of their own masculinity in order to avoid the potentially painful experience of realizing that just maybe they have a feminine side like everyone else.

Labelling all who ask for truth about 911 as "conspiracy theorists" and ridiculing them is your childish way of avoiding the terrifying reality - that there is just no way that the US government explanation of 911 is true.

I too was angry at the "terrorists" after 911. I accepted the government story for years. I am certainly not a democrat. But after seeing the irrefutable evidence I had to admit 911 had to be an inside job.

I am not a conspiracy theorist. I never devoted time to that stuff before. I am a university educated average guy. But then again, I never believed a lone gunman killed Kennedy. And I would be surprised if any readers of REASON beleive that either. Does that make you all conspiracy theorists? No, it just makes us all apathetic. We all know the US government covered up the truth about the Kennedy assassination, but what can we do? that's the way it goes...baa-baa-baa...

It is not up to us to theorize what the conspiracy was, but when we realize the government is LYING we must demand justice.

I challenge the deniers to watch one of the many videos on 911 available for viewing on the internet for free (google video, youtube, etc.). If for anything, do it for some laughs while ridiculing those "silly conspiracy theorists"

Once you see the evidence you will face a real choice in your life - are you going to remain a sheep in the heard or are you going to be a patriot and demand truth and justice.

[eric]

9/11 WTC Explosions the government will not acknowledge:

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/wtcshake.mpg
(12 seconds before WTC1 collapse, the tripod shakes, debris falls off the right side of the building)

It corroborates with this from the video 911 Eyewitness:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3498980438587461603&q=911+eyewitness
(Time frame 52:50 - 55:10 , 4 explosions can be heard roughly 12 seconds before WTC1 collapse + white smoke rising from the streets)

The above 911 Eyewitness film was shown in Japan, 50 international journalists were almost in unanimous agreement that controlled demolition brought down the towers.
Tokyo, Japan event: http://www.fccj.or.jp/modules/eCal/display-event.php?id=2014
article: http://www.911eyewitness.com/truth/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=27

Also footage from Loose Change 2nd Edition (time frame 51:30 - 53:40)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8260059923762628848&q=loose+change+2nd+edition

MIT engineer: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1822764959599063248

FEMA and NIST have been unable to offer a plausible explanation for WTC7's collapse. WTC7 was intentionally omitted from the 911 Commission Report. This is why:
http://st12.startlogic.com/~xenonpup/video%20archive/wtc-7_collapse.mpa

Bombs were found in the buildings, and numerous explosions occured before the towers collapsed. Of course, you won't hear about that in the official 911 Commission Report 😉

USA Today reported the FBI believed bombs brought the towers down
http://terrorize.dk/911/comments/911.wtc.truck.bombs.fbi.jack.kelley.rm

CNN reported secondary devices
http://media.putfile.com/911-WTC-Reporter-Secondary-Explosions-CNN-News

NBC also reported secondary devices
http://media.putfile.com/911-WTC-Police-Found-Explosives-Rick-Sanchez

Videos of witnesses reporting explosions before the towers collapsed
http://www.mypetgoat.tv/video/Bomb_Montage.WMV

http://plaguepuppy.net/public_html/video%20archive/floor26th_firefighter_high_quality.wmv

Fire fighter: "here we go again"

Another fire fighter: "Bomb in the building, start clearing out"
Background voices: "secondary device..."

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4574366633014832928&q=9%2F11+bomb

Recently uploaded video on google with footage of a presentation given at the University of Wisconsin, along with another presentation that includes a MIT researcher (Debunking the official collapse theories given by our government), news interview with a BYU professor, and Morgan Reynolds. The 9/11 Commission Report denied the existence of the 47 central steel columns in the towers! The 9/11 Commission Report also fails to mention WTC 7.

Video link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1951610169657809939&q=11+revisited

Fire fighter quotes:

"I know I was with an officer from Ladder 146, a Lieutenant Evangelista, who ultimately called me up a couple of days later just to find out how I was. We both for whatever reason -- again, I don't know how valid this is with everything that was going on at that particular point in time, but for some reason I thought that when I looked in the direction of the Trade Center before it came down, before No. 2 came down, that I saw low-leve] flashes. In my conversation with Lieutenant Evangelista, never mentioning this to him, he questioned me and asked me if I saw low-level flashes in front of the building, and I agreed with him because I thought -- at that time I didn't know what it was. I mean, it could have been as a result of the building collapsing, things exploding, but I saw a flash flash flash and then it looked like the building came down."

"No, the lower level of the building. You know like when they demolish a building, how when they blow up a building, when it falls down? That's what I thought I saw. And I didn't broach the topic to him, but he asked me. He said I don't know if I'm crazy, but I just wanted to ask you because you were standing right next to me. He said did you see anything by the building? And I said what do you mean by see anything? He said did yc.u see any flashes? I said, yes, well, I thought it was just me. He said no, I saw them, too.

I don't know if that means anything. I mean, I equate it to the building cowing down and pushing things down, it could have been electrical explosions, it could have been whatever. But it's just strange that two people sort of say the same thing and neither one of us talked to each other about it. I mean, I don't know this guy from a hole in the wall. I was just standing next to him. i never met the man before in my lite. He knew who was I guess by my name on my coat and he called me up, you know, how are you doing? How's everything? And, oh, by the way did you... It was just a little strange"

source: http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/Gregory_Stephen.txt

**********************************************************************************************

Captain Karin Deshore, Batallion 46:

"Somewhere around the middle of the World Trade Center, there was this orange and red flash coming out. Initially it was just one flash. Then this flash just kept popping all the way around the building and that building had started to explode. The popping sound, and with each popping sound it was initially an orange and then red flash came out of the building and then it would just go all around the building on both sides as far as I could see. These popping sounds and the explosions were getting bigger, both going up and down and then all around the building.

I went inside and I told everybody that the other building or there was an explosion occurring up there and I said I think we have another major explosion...

So here these explosions are getting bigger and louder and bigger and louder and I told everybody if this building totally explodes, still unaware that the other tower had collapsed, I'm going in the water."

source: http://www.sfgate.com/gate/pictures/2005/09/10/ga_karin_deshore.pdf

****************************************************************************************************

Firefighter Louie Cacchioli, who was quoted earlier, testified in 2004 to members of the Commission's staff. But, he reported, they were so unreceptive that he ended up walking out in anger. "I felt like I was being put on trial in a court room," said Cacchioli. "They were trying to twist my words and make the story fit only what they wanted to hear. All I wanted to do was tell the truth and when they wouldn't let me do that, I walked out."58

That Cacchioli's experience was not atypical is suggested by janitor William Rodriguez, whose testimony was also quoted earlier. Although Rodriguez was invited to the White House as a National Hero for his rescue efforts on 9/11, he was, he said, treated quite differently by the Commission: "I met with the 9/11 Commission behind closed doors and they essentially discounted everything I said regarding the use of explosives to bring down the north tower."59

When reading The 9/11 Commission Report, one will not find the name of Cacchioli, or Rodriguez, or anyone else reporting explosions in the towers. It would appear that the Commission deliberately withheld this information, as it apparently did with regard to Able Danger60 and many other things that should have been included in "the fullest possible account of the events surrounding 9/11."61

The definitive report about the collapse of the towers was to have been provided by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). According to Rodriguez, however, this investigative body was equally uninterested in his testimony: "I contacted NIST . . . four times without a response. Finally, [at a public hearing] I asked them before they came up with their conclusion . . . if they ever considered my statements or the statements of any of the other survivors who heard the explosions. They just stared at me with blank faces."62

In light of this report of NIST's response, it is not surprising to find that its final report, which in the course of supporting the official story about the collapses ignores many vital issues,63 makes no mention of reports of explosions and other phenomena suggestive of controlled demolition.

source: http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20060118104223192

[deano]

Would an American administartion ever take part inn activities that would lead to the deaths of innocent civillians?

No! Never!

And anyone who says that "Yes, history teaches us that they have and would" is obviouslya tin hat waering child molester.

[Stan da American]

I love Bush. I voted for him twice.

The terrists were very clever. They knew we had the worste air defenses in the western world.

They hate our freedoms.

I hate lefties. I hate Hollywood, it is full of gahys.

I am a Right-Wing American so I AM RIGHT and anyone who says anything I don't want to haer is a nutjob.

Sheen is a traitor

Prey for Bush and Rumsfeld, they are the two most honest guys in the world.
Cheney is honest too.

And the media are honest.

Remember: 911 only happened because we had the worse air defenses in the western world and the terrists knew this (perhaps some lefties tole them?)

We will win this war on terror.

Put all the lefties in Guantanamo bay and make them listen to Norm Chomski all day while we proper Americans eat apple pie and prey to God.

Yehaaaaa.

[Andy White]

Isaac Bartram Said:

"Wrong. Steel buildings collapse due to fire all the time."

Can you prove this? A source maybe?

"But then no high rise steel building had ever been subjected to such an intense fire acompanied by such a severe impact. Most fires involve only the combustable material in the building, not the full fuel load of a jumbo jet."

How does this explain the collapse of WTC 7? Remember it wasn't hit by a plane and only had a few small fires.

"The problem with most conspiracy theories (like most urban legends) is that they rely on a combination of completely false information and unwarranted or irrelevant conclusions drawn from cherry-picked facts."

What completely false information are we relying on? Are you just making a blanket generalization or did you do research only to find false information that we base our beliefs on? Are you saying the fire fighters were liars? Where is your proof? We have plenty but you do have to click some links and do some reading. Don't say our information is false if you haven't looked and it and cannot back up your statements. I don't mean to come accross in a hostile deminor so please don't take it that way. Just approach what we are saying with an open mind. Theres good reason millions of people believe this.

Heres a good video with lots of FDNY testimonials.

9/11 Revisted

And heres a video of a MIT structural engineer question the pancake explanation.

MIT Engineer breaks down WTC controlled demolition