9/11 Conspiracy Theories

CNN's Reliable Sources ended its program this morning with the results of a poll suggesting that many Americans believe that the U.S. government was active or complicit in perpetrating the attacks on 9/11.

[Update: here's the excerpt, now that the transcript is available:

KURTZ: I want to put up some pretty eye-opening poll figures from a Scripps Howard survey about 9/11 conspiracies. Thirty-six percent of those surveyed suspect the U.S. promoted or acquiesced in the 9/11 attacks; 16 percent believe explosives, not airplanes, toppled the World Trade Center; 12 percent believe it was a cruise missile that hit the Pentagon.]

One of the slickest productions of the conspiracy theorists is the video "Loose Change" (see the main website here). In its various editions, it has been viewed over a million times. If you choose to view it, then you should also take a look at a viewer guide put together by some others seeking to debunk the conspiracy theories. There are other sites to visit that debunk the conspiracy theories: 911Myths.com and 9-11 Research are two that I have found particularly helpful (the latter also includes a viewer guide to "Loose Change").

Here is the way the last site describes what it is doing:

Young filmmakers Dylan Avery, Korey Rowe and Jason Bermas created the film Loose Change, which challenges the central dogma of the official story of 9/11. Loose Change covers a great deal of material, moving from one point to another in rapid succession. It presents a long list of claims supporting the conclusion that 9/11 was engineered by insiders, but does so with a mixture of strong and flawed arguments.

[...]

Because of its flaws, the film is an easy target for debunkers defending the official story that the attack was the work of Islamic fundamentalists. One example is the the very detailed debunking of the entire video entitled 9-11 Loose Change Second Edition Viewer Guide: And debunking of various 9/11 conspiracy theories. Unfortunately, many people -- perhaps a vast majority of Americans -- are likely to dismiss the film's vitally important conclusions because of the many errors it makes along the way. Not surprisingly, Loose Change is being exploited by apologists for the official story to reinforce the stereotype that has long been used to by the mainstream to media to bludgeon the 9/11 Truth Movement: that all challenges to the official story are the product of irrational "conspiracy theorists."

That last sentence is critical.