Skeptic Project

Holy shit, John Titor, I remember that.

It's funny how as more and more things are revealed to be false about something, people say that they may have METAPHORICALLY happened.

Kind of like the Bible......

I'm grateful to have found this site. There are some very articulate thinkers.

Ed, what is your take on 911 in general? Do you think Cheney used it to go into Iraq? Do you expect Obama to get us out of that war?

@Aaron,

I think it happened more or less the way the "official story" says it happened. Islamic terrorists hijacked planes, flew them into buildings and passengers fought back in one plane and it crashed into a field.

Yes I do think Cheney used 911 for all kinds of justifications, Bush too. Their actions after 911 is actually one of the reasons why the truthers claims about all this are so ridiculous.

If they went to all this trouble to carry out 911 to make them look GOOD in what they wanted to do, why would they end up acting so incompetently in Iraq? Why would they do everything in their power (apparently) to make themselves look BAD? Why wouldnt they make solid connections to Iraq in their 911 plot so they wouldn't have to admit it had nothing to do with it?

Even ON 911 the way they acted shows they couldn't have carried out 911. In one example truthers actually try and make a conclusion out of the opposite of what the situation really shows. I'm sure you have seen the claim that Bush sitting so long in that classroom on 911 is suspicious. Why didn't he move? Why wasn't he rushed out? Surely this means he knew something! Therefore inside job! ... Well assuming Bush actually did carry out 911 why DIDN'T they act like they knew what they were doing and get the president out of there as quickly as possible? Why WOULD they act (according to truthers) in a guilty way? We have to believe they were so stupid as to forget to do that.

There's so many examples where truthers will simultaneously try and convince you of both the genius and stupidity of these conspirators at the SAME TIME

911 certainly presented opportunities in certain ways, but nothing more than that.

The problem with someone new to this and innocent of how truthers act is that they are unaware that truthers build lies on more lies and on conclusions based on those lies. Thats how something like Loose Change or Zeitgeist is constructed and can be seen as persuasive. People first of all aren't able to believe that ALL of the claims are wrong, surely even if some of them are its something to be concerned about right? That was my understanding for a good while as well. But after a while you check and you go back and watch those same films and you realise its just one lie after the next. For people who haven't done this and don't know how wrong it is they will be the ones most "at risk" of believing it.

Also if you are not familiar with similar movements or groups like Creationists for example, you will have a harder time knowing the difference between who is credible and who isn't. Richard Gage and Steven Jones being engineers and scientists as truthers promote them to be might sound impressive to someone who didn't know better. Truthers (and I'm including the global warming deniers in this), use pretty much all the same tactics as Creationists do in terms of fake or hyped credentials, faked or dishonest petitions, out of context quote-mines and so on. And the way they treat science is EXACTLY the same as Creationists do. They have their own fake peer reviewed journals, EXACTLY like Creationists do. Like Creationists they hate real peer review because they cant get it in a real journal but go crazy promoting a paper that SOUNDS like it did. Because I was very familiar with these tactics I became very skeptical of truthers very quickly after I started realising they did the same things.

As for Obama, I'm not up to speed on that current stuff so you'd have to ask someone else :)

Aaron,

No need to ask me about Creationism.

Just watch all of this series, then watch some more of his followup videos and I am sure you won't be falling for Creationist nonsense for much longer:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=126AFB53A6F002CC&search_query=foundational+falsehood+of+creationism

I used to follow Aron on numerous online debates since 2001, he is the best source IMO for explaining Evolution to lay people and debunking Creationist myths.

But back to 9/11 if you read some more of that thread I linked you to earlier where I talk about PNAC you also might find it interesting. I have had various other long 911 debates on that forum, but that is the longest and has the best material overall IMO. Pentacon trolls do show up near the middle and I bow out for a while until they leave, those are the guys that think a plane flew over the Pentagon. Even a large number of other truthers think they are stupid. They are very stubborn and obnoxious.

There's also my youtube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/TheSkepticalIdealist</p>

Not many videos there and a few spelling errors but still.:) The Richard Gage video is still amusing to me.

DAWWWW SHUCKS.

cranberrysaunce, regarding the "brainwashed," I do think far too many lack critical thinking skills and a passion for life. It's far too easy these days to eat junk food in front of a TV and hate the government because it's the cool thing to do.

cranberrysauce, could their incompetence explain all of the issues surrounding 911? For example, the crashed plane in Pennsylvania, the planting of WMDs in Iraq failing, and other screwups that ended up making Bush look bad. I can envision the situation that transpired as including several mistakes.

"cranberrysauce, could their incompetence explain all of the issues surrounding 911? "

Incompetence in the way that they could never even begin to pull off something like this with any degree of success, not that they did... but only with a few little slip-ups. Imo anyways.

Ed, the only basis I have for mentioning WMD planting is to bring up the logic needed for such a plot. If 911 was an inside job, and Iraq was part of the game plan, then claiming they have WMDs when they don't would be silly. They would end up looking like liars or at least fools for starting a whole war in a country with little reasoning. In order to make Iraq seem critical, they would have to make Saddam look bad. The method they chose was to claim that Saddam had WMDs. A possible screw up on Bush's part could have been the failure to properly plant those weapons. Then again, they could have figured the American citizens are politically dumb and emotionally distraught enough from 911 that it wouldn't matter if they found the WMDs or not.

What I've said is mostly speculation. Separate from 911, the entire idea of invading Iraq hinged on Saddam and his weapons. From what I've read, it seems apparent that oil, and not WMDs, was on Cheney & Co.'s minds. It would've seemed logical for Bush to have WMDs planted so he at least would not look stupid.

After typing all of this, the conspiracy really doesn't add up. You would think Bush, had he been truly as evil as he would have to be to allow for 911 to be an inside job, would have simply lied to Americans and said he found WMDs, no? I would have to think that'd be fairly simple to pull off. Instead, he admitted that none were found, suggesting that perhaps he really was just an incompetent yet somewhat humane president.

Playing devil's advocate, I would three things. First, Bin Laden's in Afghanistan, so we invade there and get access to the oil routes. Next, the terrorists are from Saudi Arabia, so we keep our friend in check, making them look worse to the rest of the world. Third, Bush already had the WMDs and Saddam as motive for Iraq, so involving them in the 911 plot was unnecessary.

Yes, I'm good at theorizing - possibly bad at developing sound theories, but theories none the less. ;)

The PNAC has a future generating Fox News pundits and that's about it.

The PNAC is new and exciting if you just got into following politics, for the rest of us it is pretty boring.

I can't believe I created this thread only 5 months ago. I've come along way since then. Anyhow, I'm bumping the thread because their deadline has passed, and none of their predictions came true. The site also went offline a few months ago, which only fuels CT speculation that they were shut down by the men in black.