9/11, Truthers, The Real Story, and Lingering Doubts

The memory of 9/11 is still fresh or nearly so to many of us. More than the actual damage and casualties, I think we remember the sense of dread, the expectation that more was coming. It was a true "the sky is falling" feeling. Looking back, the actual number of human losses and the amount of destruction was bad, but not unprecedented by war or natural disaster. But that September morning will live on for its power to draw strong reactions from people.

This past week, The National Geographic Channel aired a special called 911: Science and Conspiracy, which I finally got around to watching today. I've been bothered by many parts of the official story for a very long time, and will confess flirting with the "truther" movement. I even wrote a post about it early in this blog's history, which I most recently revised and reposted here: 9/11 Conspiracy Theories, Redux. My personal views on 9/11 have evolved even further along since then.

Having since been exposed to the "birther" and "deather" craziness this year, I've seen the commonalities and pitfalls of conspiracy theories, and what the key problems are with any theorist. As I see it, conspiracy theorists undo themselves when they try too hard to come up with alternate narratives to the "official stories." It is all well and good to point out the flaws in any given history. When someone tries to paint an alternate timeline--and especially when they get too wedded to it--that is when it becomes easy to punch holes in their theories.

Equally damaging to any theory is the fact that each one gathers barnacles of crazy. A sensible supposition will get buried under whack-a-doodle nutball debris. And then the whole theory gets labeled as paranoid delusion, even if an element of it is compelling. What's more, it is very easy to be pulled under that pile of debris, and not notice at first. Once you buy the central premise: "We have not been told the truth," and then you hear one reasonable sounding element of a theory, you are on the hook. Sometimes, every further element of the story can set that hook even deeper.

911: Science and Conspiracy is a documentary that seeks to debunk key theories around 9/11. Scientific experiments are conducted that apparently contradict the main core of the Truther movement. Not surprisingly, the interviewed Truthers are not swayed by the experiments. But my problems with the official story of 9/11 is not addressed by the film.

My problem has nothing to do with the planes (real or simulated) or the collapses of buildings (imploded or not). My problem has to do with the fact that our two most strategic cities were attacked by four planes piloted by inexperienced pilots, and three out of four succeeded. Planes were on radar, and were known to be hijacked at various points. Nobody and nothing intercepted them. And outside of a few sources, we have almost no public released record of the events. The first plane to hit the World Trade Center was accidentally captured by a documentarian. The second plane had more views, since television news crews were trained on the first incident. But the Pentagon plane? We have one set of fuzzy, inconclusive shots from a gas station or something. Why?

I am unconvinced that the Pentagon has such crappy surveillance of its property. And I'm unconvinced that our government would be powerless to stop at least one of these planes. So my level of "trutherness" is pretty reasonable, I think. No missing planes, no huge number of accomplices. I just think that yes our government at the time contained enough evil to allow or to participate in such a thing.