There’s almost no one on Planet Earth I hate more than 9/11 Truthers… it’s not just that they’re ignorant, though certainly they are that, it’s the way they combine their ignorance with a bizarre sort of smugness and then wear the entirte disgusting mash-up on their sleeves like a badge of honor. They are completely incurious about the World around them, and they’re proud of it.
But what’s worse than their ignorance is the way that, when challenged on their bullshit, they retreat into the coward’s stance of “hey man, I’m only asking questions.” No you’re not… you’re making assertions, you just don’t have the balls to say what they are out loud. The rest of us know what happened on 9/11 and we’ve given you all the evidence that leads us to believe what we believe. 9/11 Truthers refuse to do that. They won’t tell you what they think really happened, and they won’t provide evidence to back up any of their assertions. That’s cowardice of the worst sort because it rubs salt in the wounds of anyone still greiving over the tragedy of that day.
Most of the time you can simply ignore them, but once a year on 9/11 they crawl out from under their rocks, like the roaches they are and begin spamming social media sites with ridiculous memes like this one:
My favorite part of this meme is the way it’s formulated. Truthers like to pretend as if they are imparting to the World some forbidden truth that the Government is preventing us sheeple from knowing. They are America’s persecuted Revolutionaries, and if you don’t believe it, just ask them. And yet even though these memes flood social media every year, I have yet to hear of a single story of a 9/11 Truther being arrested and thrown into the gulag for spreading these “forbidden truths.”
But OK, let’s play their game on their field and address these questions we’re not allowed to ask one-by-one.
- How did 2 planes make three buildings fall? This is the easiest one… the two planes crashed into two buildings. The resulting impact and fire so weakened the structural steel of the Twin Towers that they collapsed. Each of the World Trade Center towers contained 250,000 tons of steel and concrete, which fell 1,000 feet and landed on the third building right across the street. That building also suffered catastrophic damage and eventually collapsed. The end.
- Why is there no footage of the plane that hit the Pentagon? This one is my favorite, because the “fact” at the heart of the question is undeniably wrong. There actually IS footage of Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon. It’s not high def streaming quality video, it was 2001 and the security camera that caught the plane was only snapping one image every few seconds to save bandwidth, but the video does exist. So this assertion is false on it’s face, but let’s go the extra mile. As to why there is only one video… well gee, I can’t imagine why the United States Military would want to limit the number of cameras surveiling its largest and most important official office building. All that said, this is the most obvious case where the Truthers are not merely “asking questions.” This is an assertion… they are suggesting, again in a cowardly way that doesn’t require them to say it out loud, that American Airlines Flight 77 did not crash into the Pentagon. OK, if it did not, then where is it? They won’t say. Here’s the thing, if you don’t like being called a coward, here’s something you can do to prove me wrong…. go and find Ted Olson and tell him where his wife is. Just be ready when you do, because he’ll probably punch you in the face. And the rest of us will cheer.
- Why did the planes “vaporize” at the Pentagon and Pennsylvania? I love the scare quotes around “vaporize.” But the simple answer is “because… physics.” Planes don’t weight very much, they are designed to be as light as possible so that they can, y’know, fly through the air… Even at 500 miles per hour and fully loaded, a 767 is no match for the most robustly contructed building on the Planet, nor is a 767 a match for solid ground. I realize that the average person is used to looking at photos of plane crash sites where large pieces of the plane are clearly visible. But here’s the thing, in almost every plane crash that has ever occured, the pilots were trying to prevent the crash. In both the case of The Pentagon and Shanksville, the “pilots” were at full throttle and nose down. They weren’t trying to save their planes, they were trying to cause as much damage as possible. As a result, the debris fields looks nothing like what we are used to seeing when planes crash. The most analogous crash that I can think of off the top of my head occurred in 2015 when a Germanwings pilot intentionally flew his Airbus A-320 into the Alps. We’ve all seen the footage of the crash site. There is almost nothing there to let you know that the debris once belonged to an airplane. By contrast, and this is the part that always makes me smile, in almost every photograph we have of the Pentagon crash site on the day of the attacks you can clearly see one of the 767’s engines sitting on the lawn.
- Why didn’t NORAD respond? I have no idea what this means… How do we know NORAD “didn’t respond”? What would consitute a “response”? If the Commander of NORAD had called the White House to say “Sir, NORAD stands ready to offer any assitance that might be needed…” wouldn’t that be a response? And while we’re on the subject, what would NORAD’s responsibilities be during an unconventional terrorist attack that used hijacked passenger jets as missiles? I don’t know, and if the Truthers know, they won’t say… they simply assert that NORAD “didn’t respond”… whatever that means. Here’s the thing though, we know the skies above America were flooded with fighter jets with orders to shoot down passenger jets that wouldn’t respond to orders. Who ordered that? Was it NORAD? Should it have been? Why does it matter? I have no doubt that NORAD, and every other Miltary organization in America was on high alert that day, beyond that I’m not sure what more NORAD could have been doing… since their primary goal is detecting and defending against nuclear attack, should I assume the Truthers are arguing that NORAD should have nuked New York and DC?
- How did three steel frame buildings collpase for the first time in history on the same day? This is another tactic of the 9/11 Truther… presenting some fact pattern as an unbelievable coincidence that could never have occurred without the presence of a vast conspiracy. But the answer to the question is quite simple. Three steel frame buildings collpased on the same day because three steel frame buildings were attacked on the same day (two directly, and one indirectly). If Al Qaeda had attacked ten steel frame buildings with fully loaded airplanes, then ten steel frame buildings would have collapsed on the same day. There is nothing weird or nefarious about the number of buildings or the timing of the collapses. The number and the fact that they all collapsed on the same day is simply a function of how Al Qaeda decided to attack us on 9/11. It really is as simple as that.
- How did fire melt steel? OK so this one isn’t actually on the list, but since it’s a favorite “Hey brah, I’m only asking questions” question of your average slope-browed 9/11 Truther, I’ve decided to tackle it here. Actually, I’m going to let this Blacksmith tackle it for me, because he does it better than I ever could.
The sad part of all this is that the Truthers are completely impervious to evidence. It’s worth noting that there have been several new editions of LOOSE CHANGE released over the years… not because the filmmakers are continuously uncovering new evidence that further bolsters their conclusions, but because they keep getting ruthlessly dragged for their stupidity and are constantly having to go back in and re-edit the movie to remove the most obviously ignorant sequences.
And yet the new editions keep on coming and no one involved ever seems to step back and wonder “hey, is it possible we’ve gotten this wrong?” So I realize I’m wasting my time here, but it makes me feel better, and on the 20th anniversary of 9/11, I guess that’s about the best we can hope for.