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Today I will be talking about the conspiracy theories surrounding the terror attack against
the United States in 2001. There is one statement that everyone can agree
on: On September 11, 2001, two planes crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre
in Manhattan. A short time later, both fell. Another plane was flown into the Pentagon,
and a fourth crashed into a Pennsylvanian field. Nearly every other detail of the terrorist
attacks - from why the towers fell to the actual number of planes hijacked to the blame
for the events has been heavily disputed since 2001.
I will cover five main points: 'What happened,' 'Conspiracy Theories,' 'Evidence countering
the conspiracy theories,' 'Why people believe in conspiracy theories,' and 'My opinion.'
9/11 was a terrorist attack on the US, which the 9/11 commission concluded was perpetrated
by al-Qaeda, a global militant Islamist organization formed in the late 80s. Nineteen terrorists,
split into four groups each containing a trained pilot, embarked on a suicide mission to hijack
one commercial jet and fly and crash them into US landmarks.
American Airlines Flight 11 left Logan Airport, Boston at 8am en route to Los Angeles, with
11 crew members, 76 passengers, and 5 hijackers. The hijackers took over the plane and flew
it into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre at 8:45 am.
United Airlines Flight 175 left Logan Airport, Boston at 8:15 am en route to Los Angeles
with 9 crew members, 51 passengers, and 5 hijackers. The hijackers gained control and
flew the plane into the World Trade Centre's South Tower at 9 am.
American Airlines flight 77 left Washington Dulles International Airport at 8:20 am en
route to Los Angeles with 6 crew members, 53 passengers, and 5 hijackers. The hijackers
flew the plane into the Pentagon at 9:40 am. United Airlines Flight 93 left Newark International
Airport at 8:40 am on the way to San Francisco, with 7 crew members, 33 passengers, and 4
hijackers. When the passengers realised what was happening, they revolted against the hijackers.
The plane crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania at 10 am. The hijackers are believed
to have intended to fly the plane into the White house or US Capitol building.
After the events, al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attacks. They are believed to have
targeted the Twin Towers because they represented America's economic power, the Pentagon, military
strength, and the White House or Capitol Building, global political reach.
Conspiracy theorists, or truthers, don't believe the official account of who is to blame. They
think the US government either 'made it happen' (planned and executed the attacks then blamed
al-Qaeda), or 'let it happen' (discovered what was going to happen and either allowed
it to happen or actively weakened America's defences). They claim that the government's
motive to do this was to go to war with Middle Eastern countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan
for their oil, while announcing it was because said countries allowed terrorists to train
there. In a 2008 global poll of 16,000 people in
17 countries, including countries from North America, Asia, Europe , and Africa, nearly
half said al-Qaeda was responsible for the attacks, 15% the US government, 7% said Israel,
7% said other, and a quarter said 'Don't know'. A separate survey by Ohio University of 1,000
US adults found that over a third believe in conspiracy theories.
Various conspiracy websites present lots of evidence that they believe prove a conspiracy.
There is lots of evidence that lots of people have put on lots of websites. The following
is just a sample. Newsone.com points out that the air defence
could've shot down the planes but didn't; witnesses reported hearing explosions in the
Twin Towers before leaving; the Pentagon's impact hole was a lot smaller that a commercial
jet; Flight 77 hit an area of the Pentagon vacant due to renovations; the terrorists
passports somehow survived the crash; cell phone coverage isn't available as high as
planes fly so the people on Flight 93 couldn't have made phone calls; and that aluminium
planes couldn't punch through the solid steel Twin Towers.
9/11truth.org says that the way Flight 93's debris was scattered indicates it was shot
down; the black boxes found at Ground Zero (the Twin Towers collapse site) mysteriously
disappeared, and that in the past countries have attacked their own citizens as an excuse
for war. Since the 9/11 conspiracy theories started
appearing, there has been people debunking them and setting them straight. There are
also lots of these, so I won't list all of them.
The classic magazine Popular Mechanics explains some of the theories using their background
mechanical knowledge. They explain the claim that as the lobbies were visibly damaged before
the towers collapsed, bombs must have gone off on the first floor, by saying that "burning
fuel traveling down the elevator shafts would have disrupted the elevator systems and caused
extensive damage to the lobbies." The claim that the burning fuel couldn't have melted
the steel and caused the building to collapse was countered by saying that "for the towers
to collapse, their steel frames didn't need to melt, they just had to lose some of their
structural strength—and that required exposure to much less heat." This proves that a cooler
kerosene fire could have caused the collapse. Another wide-spread claim is that a satellite-guided
missile, not a plane, punched a hole in the Pentagon, because the hole was much smaller
than the Boeing 757 that was supposed to have crashed into it. They counter this by saying
that a "crashing jet doesn't punch a cartoon-like outline of itself into a reinforced concrete
building." A CBS New article on the tenth anniversary
of the attacks points out that if the government had tried to pull off anything like that,
it almost certainly would have been leaked. Why do people believe that the US government
would purposely attack their own citizens, just for a little money? One reason is money
for their own pockets. There have been millions of books and DVDs about them sold all over
the world. Ilan Shrira writes in Psychology Today: "Conspiracy
theories help us cope with distressing events and make sense out of them... assure us that
bad things don't just happen randomly [and] tell us that someone out there is accountable,
however unwitting or secretly or incomprehensibly, so it's possible to stop these people and
punish them[.]" He also notes that the sheer amount of information
that gets shoved down people's throats, via the media and social networks, means that
people are bound to find coincidences and patters where none might exist. The mass media
that covers these sorts of events also mean that these conspiracy theories are circulated
to a wider audience, so more people are indoctrinated with these ideas.
Before I started researching this topic and just knew the basics, I thought it was possible,
or maybe even probable that the US government had planned and implemented 9/11, or more
likely just found out and let it happen. When I had finished my research, however,
especially after reading evidence debunking the myths and realising that the evidence
against a conspiracy is much sounder and more logical than that for a conspiracy, I realised
that it was actually much more probable that is was just a terrorist attack, nothing more.
Alex Jones, well-known conspiracy theorist, tweeted this 30 minutes after the event. This
further boosts my opinion because it shows that he's saying it's a conspiracy theory
almost because he can. In conclusion: four planes were hijacked and
crashed. People notice inconsistencies, and discover a motive for the US government to
go against its own people. People reason against these theories. People explain why people
make these theories. I don't believe these theories. But in the end, four and a half
thousand lives were lost because of one group who didn't like what America stood for. We
can play the blame game all day long, but it doesn't bring back those innocent people
to their families.