Conspiracy Theory: No Truth About 9/11

September 11, 2001, was a tragic day for the United States. Tragedy struck when an airplane carrying 10,000 gallons of jet fuel hit the northern tower of the World Trade Center. Then, as if the day could get any worse, at 9:03, the south tower was also hit by a commercial airplane. On this day, 2,600 people died at the World Trade Center. This day was said to come as a “shock, not a surprise” to the United States government. As early as 1993, an Islamic extremist group tried to destroy the building with a truck bomb. Throughout the 90s, there were more attacks from Islamic extremist groups, from “Black Hawk Down” to the infamous attempted sinking of the USS Cole. Although the attacks on 9/11 were much more organized, it wasn’t surprising whom they came from (Kean, 2004).

9/11 Conspiracy: Debunking the Myths

The Islamic extremist group known as Al Qaeda was created in the 1980s after the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda was originally a group of volunteers to assist in a jihad in Afghanistan, but it clearly evolved into something more. Through the teachings of Osama Bin Laden, he spread the word of the greatness of Islam and the need to restore its power once more. Bin Laden held animosity toward the U.S. because of their presence in the holiest site of the Islamic faith: Saudi Arabia. Through this ideology, Bin Laden created a lethal organization capable of recruiting, training, and executing plans. In his time, Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda began to form a close alliance with the Taliban (Kean, 2004).

On the morning of 9/11, nineteen hijackers managed to get through airport security, knowing the ins and outs. As the terrorists boarded the planes, they executed a plan and hijacked both flight 11 and flight 175. In a report by the United States Government, they admit to never giving a shoot-down order or coming to the defense at all (Kean, 2004). Many aspects of the events that occurred on 9/11 just don’t add up. There is no plausible way that Al Qaeda acted alone; the United States must have been involved.

Unanswered Questions

In December 2000, what seemed to be ordinary maintenance was requested on the elevator shafts in both towers of the World Trade Center, and fire construction on the same floors that were impacted by the planes less than a year later. The contractor for this project was none other than Tom Leppord, a personal friend of George W. Bush and Carlos Gutierrez, Secretary of Commerce, who would later become the leader of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, also known as NIST. NIST was responsible for writing the legal document on how and why the building fell, and how to better prepare buildings for the future. In recent history, the largest fire to hit a building was on February 23, 1999; it was 38 stories high, had eight floors with open fires, and it took eighteen hours, yet the building never fell. On September 11th, however, something was very different. The south tower collapsed in less than an hour after being hit, and the north tower collapsed only thirty minutes later (Loose Change, 2005). This leads one to wonder how this could be possible. In the NIST report, there is nothing stating exactly how the building collapsed (Gutierrez, 2005). Shortly after all of this testing was done, the wreckage was shipped quickly overseas, never to be seen again (Loose Change, 2005).

In other reports, a woman living very close to the towers took samples of dust she had collected and sent them to her friend at BYU. Dr. Steven F. Jones found chips in the dust that contained a combination of aluminum and iron oxide, composing thermite, a substance typically found in modern-day bombs. This finding could be the only explanation for why the building fell as fast as it did. When the building fell, it fell at near free fall, with molten metal exceeding 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Fire alone cannot generate enough heat to make metal that hot. Almost immediately before the building collapsed, the lobby area began to fill with smoke. In the report by NIST, they also did not conduct testing for anything explosive (Loose Change, 2005).

The Role of Al Qaeda

Before 9/11, Al Qaeda was unable to even fulfill the smallest plan. When the time came to determine who was behind it all, the United States conveniently discovered a tape where Bin Laden confessed to the crime he committed. This tape was then reviewed by Dr. Abdel El M. Husseni, who said, “I have carefully examined the Pentagon's translation. The translation is very problematic. At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of Bin Laden, it is not identical with the original Arabic.” On September 16, 2001, however, Bin Laden told a different story, saying he had absolutely nothing to do with the events of 9/11 (Loose Change, 2005).

Conclusion

Without the help of the United States, Al Qaeda could not have fulfilled this plan on their own. Through the weakening of the core of the building, it was able to fall faster, and with the help of a bomb, it would take a shorter time to fall. With Al Qaeda caught red-handed on tape, no blame could be placed on the United States. Unfortunately, there is no way to prove this anymore, as all evidence has been shipped overseas or destroyed. Through this plan, the United States was able to justify an invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, killing many people, in more ways than one.

References:

• Kean, T. H., & Hamilton, L. H. (2004). The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
• Gutierrez, C. (2005). NIST and the World Trade Center: An Overview of the Investigation. National Institute of Standards and Technology.
• Loose Change (2005). Loose Change: A Documentary on 9/11. Directed by Dylan Avery.