« Twitter. The world's live search engine for Iran election. | tpmgary's Blog | Health care questions I've never heard journalists ask your Senator. »
How many are willing to give this documentary a chance?
I don't subscribe to any conspiracy theories about 9/11 and that is why I'm recommending this documentary from the families who fought to create the 9/11 truth commission.
I've always believed in giving every reasonable person a fair hearing when it comes to the events that led up to and followed the worst terrorist attack on American soil.
I'd be really interested to hear what people think about our current presence in the Middle East after seeing this.
Advertisement
9/11 truthers are unhinged.
I'll watch if you can assure me that none of the following is included in it. Since these claims have already been debunked in detail here:
http://www.debunking911.com/quick.htm
And many many other websites as well.
That is not to say that the neocons wouldn't have loved to be able to pull something like this off. But the truth is, they didn't. They were just not that smart.
That is why Dick Cheney wanted to tie Saddam to Osama and Al Qaeda. If they really had planned this it would have been a whole lot neater.
June 16, 2009 3:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some people hear "9/11" documentary and dismiss it outright, thinking "they're all the same", without giving it a fair viewing.
I don't choose to think that way.
June 16, 2009 4:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry Gar, I didn't mean to dump on your post. And I think it is great that you are open minded. However there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary on the whole 9/11 conspiracy thing, and the truthers will go to any lengths to delude themselves.
But you are right, there are things that most of us dismiss outright without giving it a chance. So I will give it a view and let you know what I think at least. :)
June 16, 2009 6:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good, thanks mageduley:)
June 16, 2009 7:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I watched the documentary and checked out the "debunking" site. Little of what is discussed in the debunking site relates to the issues and questions brought up by the documentary. The one place where they over lap is in the folder the web site calls the "real conspiracy".
There are a lot of unanswered questions and clear evidence that people in the Bush administration lied about many things. One doesn't have to believe that an evil cabal orchestrated the whole thing for their benefit to be unsatisfied with the answers provided so far.
June 16, 2009 9:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
thanks moat, thanks for taking the time to actually view the documentary I posted.
June 16, 2009 10:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yo, clueless conspirabunker:
1. The "gum'mint did it" conspirabunk was originally floated -- by the far-right lunatic fringe -- about Pearl Harbor. Multiple investigations and research found no evidence for that conspirabunk.
2. It was repackaged -- by the far-right lunatic fringe -- after the OK City bombing.
3. It was repackaged again -- by the far-right lunatic fringe -- and thorwn at 9/11. In this instance leftiests swallow that nonsenese.
I'll make it real easy for you:
There would be no need for the gum'mint to do it: ALL IT WOULD NEED DO WOULD BE TO ALLOW IT TO HAPPEN.
June 16, 2009 7:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, JN. There's always the possibility that you might be as right as you think you are.
June 16, 2009 7:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
We KNOW they got warnings. We KNOW they IGNORED the warnings. The result was the SUCCESS of the attack.
Either it was ALLOWED, or they had their pants around their ankles. But actually DOING it, especially as the conspirabunkers insist, is utter nonsense.
June 16, 2009 9:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, JN. You've made your opinion about me, as well as the subject of 9/11, very clear.
June 16, 2009 9:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
tpmgary,
Leaving aside the conspirabunker comment, J Nagarya is addressing that part of the documentary that asks why certain things were allowed to happen. Of course, when you let a crime "happen", you do become an accessory.
His distinction may be one with out a difference.
June 16, 2009 10:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, I am simply saying that it's really easy to ALLOW it to happen as compared with going through all the UNNECESSARY machinations the conspirabunkers fantasize.
That view is unpopular with conspiorabunkers, who are mostly concerned with indulging in infotainment, some with the hope of making money out of it.
And of course it's a distinction WITH a difference: negligence is a lesser degree offense than is premeditated murder.
The problem with conspirabunkers, and those who believe their junk, is a careless "fuzziness" about precision, especially in the use of language.
As for "troubling questions": they are raised by people who are in grief, grasping at anything which will help assuage the pain, and others with motives other than finding "truth". AGAIN: it would be real simple to simply ALLOW an attack for which one had ADVANCE warning, than to BOTHER doing a stupid-assed "inside job". But that's too damned obvious and simple; and it -- most important -- takes the steam out of the conspirabunkers' horseshit.
June 16, 2009 10:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, I DID understand what you meant. And my point was that the documentary spends most of its time looking at what was ALLOWED to happen.
My other point is that ALLOWING such an attack to happen is just as nefarious as carrying it out. From the point of view of the account presented by the 9/11 Commission, your speculation that there were government agents who ALLOWED the attack to happens means that YOU have a bunk in the "conspirabunker" located right next to those people you have so little regard for.
June 17, 2009 7:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't speculate about any "agents". I'm simply making the simple -- and obvious -- point that ALLOWING it could be done -- and that blows all the intricate horseshit "inside job" out of the water, making the latter UNNECESSARY.
In reality, as contrasted with heads-up-asses conspirabunk, the simplest explanation is usually the correct explanation. And there are two that are possible:
1. That it was ALLOWED to happen. And it wouldn't necessarily take more than one person to do that.
2. The Bushit gang had their pants around their ankles -- weren't paying attention -- because their entire focus was tax cuts, energy policy, and attacking medical marijuana and assisted suicide.
What is STOOPID is the constant anti-gum'mint ravings which have nothing to do with anything except the far-right lunatic fringe, which traditionally hates gov't that isn't run solely by themselves for themselves, and suppressing all points of voew not theirs. By contrast, under our system of laws, We the people are the gov't; it is not some alien/foreign entity/enemy. Even Thomas Jefferson recognized -- and defended -- the nececessity for gov't. Among the litany of complaints against King George III in the Declaration of Independence (which has never been and is not now LAW) is this:
"[George III] has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power [gov't]."
US Con. Art. I. s. 8., c. 15 and 16, and the Second Amendment -- which provisions were not new with the Constitution (the Second Amendment was drawn from the Militia Clauses of four of the existing state constitutions/bills of rights adopted during 1776-77 and 1780) are about REGULATING the militia UNDER the rule of law, not in spite of it. The whole point being to preserve CIVIL gov't by PREVENTING military coup.
WE THE PEOPLE are the gov't. The falsehood that we aren't -- that the gov't is some seaprate entity beyond our control -- encourages exactly that result.
June 18, 2009 7:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
TPMGary, thanks for posting this, and I hope you're effort is able to recruit more open minded people to consider some of the troubling questions raised by these brave 9/11 widows.
June 16, 2009 10:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
You mean, of course, "recruit" others into BELIEVING the horsehsit.
June 16, 2009 10:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
thanks Bill.
June 16, 2009 11:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for recommending this excellent documentary.
This video raises important issues about the Bush-Cheney administration's refusal to acknowledge the many warnings they received from foreign countries prior to 9-11, the fact that the CIA created and supported Bin Laden through the Pakistani ISI (Inteligence Agency) during the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, the fact that the head of the Pakistan ISI sent $100,000 to Mohamed Atta just prior to 9-11, and Bush-Cheney's inexplicable failure to act on intelligence about the location of Bin Laden in Tora Bora just prior to his successful escape into Pakistan.
The video documents a massive cover-up of virtually all the critical facts related to 9-11 in face of the persistent questioning by the families of the Twin-Towers victims.
We know that Bush-Cheney fabricated evidence to support their illegal war on Iraq, including torturing detainees to obtain false connections between Al Qaeda and Iraq. We know they lied to Congress about using tortures and fabricated legal opinions to justify it. Why is there such an ademant refusal to demand an accurate investigation of Bush-Cheney actions surrounding 9-11"?
June 17, 2009 12:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
You know, that's a pretty concise description of this, Justina. It's been a long time, years perhaps, since I last pondered the subject of 9/11 so I watched the facts unfold in this film with a fresh perspective.
A lot of people have second, third, fourth hand accounts (some 9/11 film makers and critics don't even have that), so it was compelling to listen to those who had a first hand account of the truth commission.
You always hear people say "follow the money".
Sometimes, though, you have to follow the "lack" of money. According to the documentary, 100 million was spent on hearings for the investigation of the Clinton/Lewinsky affair.
By contrast, The Bush administration only authorized 3 million for the 9/11 hearings, then only raised it to 14 million after intense pressure from the public.
Imagine that.
June 17, 2009 7:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
I watched the documentary. It has nothing to do with any conspiracy theories of any kind.
It merely and quite clearly points out that we have not been told the truth about 9/11 and associated issues. I don't see how anyone can really dispute that. We are now engaged in two wars we shouldn't be engaged in because of 9/11. Seems to me we'll never really understand why that is the case unless and until we find out what really happened on 9/11 and why. My own view is that rampant incompetence kills and did so on 9/11. Yet, because of all the dishonesty and obfuscation on the part of the government and media too, we don't have answers to some of the most basic questions about 9/11.
June 17, 2009 2:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Glad you took the time to watch this Oleeb.
It will be interesting to discover how few or how many of the loyal TPMcafe readers will lend me an ear on this one.
Always helps to have support from friends.
June 17, 2009 8:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
I watched it, and I'll add my support.
The documentary is really a criticism of the media -- of its refusal to ask the hard questions due, in Dan Rather's rather over-the-top imaging, to its fear of being "necklaced"; that is, more prosaically, of having the charge of treason (or at the least of a lack of patriotism) hung about its neck.
June 17, 2009 8:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
that's true, Ellen. I forgot that Dan Rather said that. Thanks for adding your comments.
June 17, 2009 10:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hi Gary,
I don't know how long it is but I didn't feel up for watching it today... though I can bookmark your blog and come back to it this weekend. Thx.
June 17, 2009 2:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
that's okay, synch, let me know what you think when you've had time to have a look at it.
June 17, 2009 6:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Two of the best 9/11 documentaries are mostly amatuer video from various POV, strung together in a "You Are There" fashion. Any in this line that have as little as possible, if none at all of commentary, and of politics--are the most reliable.
Any that would be made today has its drawbacks, because it may not be as accurate or as honest as one that was filmed in "the mix." Though I have parted my ways with Bush and his administration long ago, I cannot erase the fond and striking image of certain words of his from that night, and that week, which held (at least) my family and a few co-workers together from fear. I know because I remember. Beyond that, it was all downhill. But a memory like that sometimes tends to be so controversial NOW, many will not admit it.
For honesty's sake, I have to.
But propbably the best, most moving documentary was Burns "New York:The Center of the World" with commentary from people like Pete Hamill, Mario Cuomo, and Guy Tazolli. Though a documentary about New York and its history, 9/11 is a major portion in the last episode, and is as I said done so well, I wept.
Good post and comments.
June 17, 2009 2:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
The documentary puts a lot of ducks into a pretty long row.
The neocon's philosophy requires an enemy and they had stated that another Pearl harbour would be needed to get the necessary public support to implement the policies they wanted. I can believe that they ignored warnings in the expectation that SOMETHING would happen to give them the excuse they wanted so badly.
June 17, 2009 8:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
One of the things I like about the documentary is that it plots a factual timeline and presents information without forwarding a speculative partisan philosophy. Both Democrats and Republicans were on the truth commission. Granted, Republicans were in power.
June 17, 2009 8:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am not a conspiracy theorist. That being said, it is clear that no one in gov't was prepared to tell the whole truth to the American people. The message that can be taken by this documentary is that at a minimum, the government was inept. As Richard Clarke pointed out the government failed us.
Will we ever know the entire truth? I doubt that will happen in my life time.
June 17, 2009 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink