2/3 of Americans Believe in Conspiracy Theories

[warmonger1981]

Dog years btw. Well said Andy.

[AAFitz]

BBS, all those Nor Do's are you going to make you hard.


--Andy

Nor do
Nor do
My friend said the horse...Nor do.

[_sabotage_]

BBS, all those Nor Do's are you going to make you hard.


--Andy

Well, like a typical conspiracy theorist, he ignored a valid point about his "6 warnings to Bush" thing while releasing an unrelated smoke screen. He lasted about 3 exchanges, so...





He's still just as nutty as viceroy, premio, and the other creationists, who continue to ignore the relevant literature, but hey, ya can't save 'em all.

So you know 9/11 very very well. He only had 6 months to prevent 9/11 from the first report he read.

You make a valid point, I grant that 6 months is a short period of time. But I also would like to again point out that the original chart says that Bush having advanced knowledge of 9/11 is a conspiracy theory, yet, even if there were conflicting reports, he still clearly had advanced knowledge, whether he believed it or not.

But you seem to be sinking to name calling instead of basing your retorts on fact. So, below is a nice video for you to use in your decimation of my theory. You do promote the inclusion of counter evidence, please lead by example, and I will be glad to follow.

[BigBallinStalin]

BBS, all those Nor Do's are you going to make you hard.


--Andy

Well, like a typical conspiracy theorist, he ignored a valid point about his "6 warnings to Bush" thing while releasing an unrelated smoke screen. He lasted about 3 exchanges, so...





He's still just as nutty as viceroy, premio, and the other creationists, who continue to ignore the relevant literature, but hey, ya can't save 'em all.

So you know 9/11 very very well. He only had 6 months to prevent 9/11 from the first report he read.

You make a valid point, I grant that 6 months is a short period of time. But I also would like to again point out that the original chart says that Bush having advanced knowledge of 9/11 is a conspiracy theory, yet, even if there were conflicting reports, he still clearly had advanced knowledge, whether he believed it or not.

But you seem to be sinking to name calling instead of basing your retorts on fact. So, below is a nice video for you to use in your decimation of my theory. You do promote the inclusion of counter evidence, please lead by example, and I will be glad to follow.

1. You created a smoke screen in order to ignore my criticism. (recall the "nor do... nor do... nor do... nor do.." rampage).

2. The underlined shows that you don't understand my criticism.

3. When you drop straw man fallacies like, "Interesting ideas you have there. That we should ignore the past, present and future of the event and focus on something that we can't prove. Usually when all the evidence points away from a conclusion, we tend to look at the direction it points, but in this case, it's such a small thing really, why bother?"

Then, I'll simply use #3 and #1 to justify comparing you to viceroy and those others.


I'm just sayin that the alleged intelligence Bush received may only be a fraction of other reports he received which made contradictory claims. The CT usually will omit those latter reports, write about the ones that sort of sound like 9-11, and then conclude, "AH-HA! HE KNEW!" which is total bullshit. Just wondering if that's what you've been doing, and how your sources deal with this problem.

[Funkyterrance]

I'm just sayin that the alleged intelligence Bush received may only be a fraction of other reports he received which made contradictory claims.

Important detail here.

[2dimes]

Can we discuss a Conspiracy from this decade?

[BigBallinStalin]

Can we discuss a Conspiracy from this decade?

Did you hear the one about Andy Dufresne? He really did murder his wife.

[Funkyterrance]

Can we discuss a Conspiracy from this decade?

Did you hear the one about Andy Dufresne? He really did murder his wife.

Have you got amnesia? We're in 2013 bro.

[Metsfanmax]

I'm just sayin that the alleged intelligence Bush received may only be a fraction of other reports he received which made contradictory claims.

To make this discussion more interesting, does anyone here actually have information one way or the other on the other intelligence reports?

[BigBallinStalin]

I'm just sayin that the alleged intelligence Bush received may only be a fraction of other reports he received which made contradictory claims.

To make this discussion more interesting, does anyone here actually have information one way or the other on the other intelligence reports?

I don't. I mention it because it effectively beat down the CT argument in The Day of Deceit. Supposedly, sabotage should know this, which is why I ask--but if I had to guess, he doesn't know.

[_sabotage_]

Sorry, I guess you missed my post on page three showing the conflicting info, it's source and that Bush choose to follow it:

Re: 2/3 of Americans Believe in Conspiracy Theories

Postby _sabotage_ on Sat Feb 09, 2013 8:41 am
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opini ... .html?_r=0

This is the official reason Bush ignored the 6 warnings of an imminent attack.

But some in the administration considered the warning to be just bluster. An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat. Intelligence officials, these sources said, protested that the idea of Bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist, conspiring with Mr. Hussein, an Iraqi secularist, was ridiculous, but the neoconservatives’ suspicions were nevertheless carrying the day.

The DoD provided them with the alternate theory. The DoD also happened to change plane interception protocol after Bush was warned of imminent terrorist attacks using planes. While the warnings were coming in June, Rumsfeld changed the protocol on June 1, 2001 and changed it back on September 12, 2001.

So in the last 40 years, there have been 103 days where intercepting a plane went from automatic, to only with the authorization of Rumsfeld. The changed policy was put in after warnings of a pending attack by plane and removed the day after the attack.

The fact that both the conflicting evidence and the actions taken by those who argued against the evidence all lead to 9/11 isn't by itself utterly damning.

But when you consider that the Pentagon had 85 cameras trained on it and none of them show a plane, and that there was no evidence of a plane at the Pentagon, the damage didn't match a plane and Rumsfeld couldn't be found until after the attacks, and that the missile defense system at the Pentagon would react to any unfriendly target, including a civilian plane, it starts to show a pattern. The pattern points towards a need for an investigation.

One point which might interest BBS, is that after the Day of Deceit, all key players in the US military were fired, and yet all key players in the failure of 9/11 were promoted.

Do people who fail get promoted, or those who succeed?

[BigBallinStalin]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/the-bush-white-house-was-deaf-to-9-11-warnings.html?_r=0

This is the official reason Bush ignored the 6 warnings of an imminent attack.

But some in the administration considered the warning to be just bluster. An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat. Intelligence officials, these sources said, protested that the idea of Bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist, conspiring with Mr. Hussein, an Iraqi secularist, was ridiculous, but the neoconservatives’ suspicions were nevertheless carrying the day.

So back to my point about omitting relevant intelligence.

President Bush was told more than a month before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that supporters of Osama bin Laden planned an attack within the United States with explosives and wanted to hijack airplanes, a government official said Friday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/10/us/au ... all&src=pm

Wow, which group doesn't want to hijack airplanes? Which group doesn't want to use explosives? Big deal. Many other reports like this come in.

Here's a possible smoking gun:

The Bush administration receives a tip-off from the NSA, which has intercepted a conversation between bin Laden and the key members of the imminent 9-11 attack. They revealed their means, the schedule, everything, yet the Bush administration failed to act.

See? If you had something which confirmed the above, then that would be much more convincing. But we don't. The 9-11 Commission did a terrible job of interviewing the representatives of the NSA and their role in this.


Let's continue with your source:

the administration’s reaction to what Mr. Bush was told in the weeks before that infamous briefing reflected significantly more negligence than has been disclosed.

Yeah, negligence. Government is incompetent, so I'm not surprised. But, that story is not as exciting as saying, "Bush knew about the 9-11 attack and him and/or his neocon friends let it happen!"

By May 1, the Central Intelligence Agency told the White House of a report that “a group presently in the United States” was planning a terrorist operation.

So what's this all about? Some of the 9-11 operatives were inside US before the attack?? Well, this is the case presented in The Looming Tower. The event is exemplary of bureaucratic infighting. The CIA targetted someone on the inside who they wished to flip, but the FBI wanted to arrest two members of the soon-to-be 9-11 attack. The head director of the CIA had more political clout, got his way, and bungled it. The two members who the FBI could've arrested before the attack disappeared.

That's just how it is sometimes. Public officials are as self-interested as you and I, and here's one outcome of that. It's not as exciting a story as the conspiracy theorists', but hey that's how it goes.

That is, unless it was read in conjunction with the daily briefs preceding Aug. 6, the ones the Bush administration would not release. While those documents are still not public, I have read excerpts from many of them, along with other recently declassified records, and come to an inescapable conclusion: "Bush administration acted negligently."

So, aside from the weak conclusion, what other reports was the Bush administration receiving? Gee, could they have suggested that other groups other than Al-Qaeda were plotting something in the US? Who knows--we are limited by this article, and I doubt Kurt Eichenwald did all he could to provide us the FULL picture of all intelligence reports received by the Bush administration.

And the C.I.A. repeated the warnings in the briefs that followed. Operatives connected to Bin Laden, one reported on June 29, expected the planned near-term attacks to have “dramatic consequences,” including major casualties. On July 1, the brief stated that the operation had been delayed, but “will occur soon.”

"Will occur soon." --dated June 29.

Gee, that's useful. Then what do you do as president? I couldn't imagine much could be done--since other bureaucracies are charged with that responsibility (NSA, CIA, and FBI--to name the main three).


Here's the conclusion of that article, which doesn't maintain sabotage's position:

Could the 9/11 attack have been stopped, had the Bush team reacted with urgency to the warnings contained in all of those daily briefs? We can’t ever know. And that may be the most agonizing reality of all.

Maybe "we can't ever know," but give the FOIA 30 years, and maybe we'll get something interesting. Until then, claims that the neocons in the Bush Adminstration created 9-11 or purposefully allowed it to happen are unfounded.

The DoD provided them with the alternate theory. The DoD also happened to change plane interception protocol after Bush was warned of imminent terrorist attacks using planes. While the warnings were coming in June, Rumsfeld changed the protocol on July 1, 2001 and changed it back on September 12, 2001.

So in the last 40 years, there have been 83 days where intercepting a plane went from automatic, to only with the authorization of Rumsfeld. The changed policy was put in after warnings of a pending attack by plane and removed the day after the attack.

This isn't confirmed by the NY Times article...

[_sabotage_]

This is confirmed here:
emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/3610_01a.pdf

to get a copy of the directive.

Or you can read about it here:

Mounting Evidence: Why We Need a New Investigation Into 9/11
By Paul W Rea Phd, Paul W. Rea

Or you can watch the video I posted above and hear pilots, flight controllers and military personnel discuss the significance.

[BigBallinStalin]

How about a proper citation? With page numbers, or perhaps a chapter?

[_sabotage_]

Why should I feed you the evidence piece by piece when there are so many well reputed sources cited by the video or some of the books mentioned?

Watch the movie.

[GeneralRisk]

[BigBallinStalin]

Why should I feed you the evidence piece by piece when there are so many well reputed sources cited by the video or some of the books mentioned?

Watch the movie.

Ah, so in other words, you have no idea.


There's two problems with documentaries.
(1) Unable to verify their claims.
(2) Confirmation bias/selective perception. These are triggered when watching a documentary and cannot be controlled for because of #1.


Why does #1 matter? (An issue which you ignore)
Documentaries are effective at appealing to your emotion while easily omitting relevant information. That's just how they are. It's much more difficult to bullshit someone with a book--because one must use citations.

That's why I don't take documentaries seriously. It's very easy to distort the facts with them.

Due to these problems, documentaries are unreliable--for providing hard-hitting, actual evidence. They're slightly worse than news articles, but it depends on the context. As far as speculation goes, documentaries are the worst.

[AAFitz]

Why should I feed you the evidence piece by piece when there are so many well reputed sources cited by the video or some of the books mentioned?

Watch the movie.

Ah, so in other words, you have no idea.


There's two problems with documentaries.
(1) Unable to verify their claims.
(2) Confirmation bias/selective perception. These are triggered when watching a documentary and cannot be controlled for because of #1.


Why does #1 matter? (An issue which you ignore)
Documentaries are effective at appealing to your emotion while easily omitting relevant information. That's just how they are. It's much more difficult to bullshit someone with a book--because one must use citations.

That's why I don't take documentaries seriously. It's very easy to distort the facts with them.

Due to these problems, documentaries are unreliable--for providing hard-hitting, actual evidence. They're slightly worse than news articles, but it depends on the context. As far as speculation goes, documentaries are the worst.

Questioning the documentaries is responsible. Certainly not all of them are correct, and not many are unbiased. However, that does not taint ALL of the information they suggest. If you have not researched counter information from some other reliable source, and are just assuming the docu info is wrong, because it must be, because its a docu....you are no more enlightened than any docu watcher.

You cant argue the facts of a situation, simply because you dont trust the source, because some of the information in the documentaries, just happened to be presented in a documentary. That doesnt make it right or wrong, but just there.

Youre main argument seems to be that the information is all wrong ONLY because it was in a documentary, and have not given one iota of useful argument against it, based on anything more solid than that, except your belief that it must be wrong.

Honestly, the conspiracy crazies seem less biased than you at this point.

Present some of the info that is reliable. That would actually be useful, helpful, and be worthy of an actual conversation.

[BigBallinStalin]

Right, dude. I ask for a citation, and get nothing but a long-ass youtube video.

I'm surprised you haven't been consistent with your stance by arguing in favor of PhatScotty whenever he posts a Glenn Beck or >20 minute youtube video... Talk about bias, lol!

[AndyDufresne]

Right, dude. I ask for a citation, and get nothing but a long-ass youtube video.

I'm surprised you haven't been consistent with your stance by arguing in favor of PhatScotty whenever he posts a Glenn Beck or >20 minute youtube video... Talk about bias, lol!

BBS, you want facts? Facts? I'll give you facts? How about these motherfacting facts.




--Andy

[BigBallinStalin]

What was that, ANDY?! SOME KIND OF JOKE!?

WE WANT THE FACTS, MAN! THE FACTS!

[_sabotage_]

So basically you have just justified why I shouldn't read the book you recommended.

If I need to take you through a series of impossible acts and deal with you saying how they are all possible one by one, this is going to be a long thread. So let's just stick with the Pentagon.

I have provided you with the stand down order on intercepting planes, I have provided you with sources to analyze it if you are too lazy to read it yourself. You have chosen to ignore it.

You have chosen to ignore that the missile batteries of both the White House and Pentagon inexplicably failed. How about the fact that a Boeing 757 was making military like maneuvers with an amateur at the controls, disappeared into a 5m hole that had 86 cameras on it, only one of which shows anything and what is shown is not a plane.

"The speed, the maneuverability, the way that he turned, we all thought in the radar room, all of us experienced air traffic controllers, that that was a military plane," O'Brien said.

From that pilots instructor:

"His English was horrible, and his mechanical skills were even worse. It was like he had hardly even ever driven a car. I'm still to this day amazed that he could have flown into the Pentagon. He could not fly at all."

Besides the fact that it is physically impossible to fly a so fast so low to the ground. In an affidavit, John Lear, a pilot holding world records and who happens to be the son of the inventor of LearJet, goes over this aspect in better detail if you are interested.

[AndyDufresne]

They said it couldn't be done. They said it was impossible. But we proved them wrong. We showed them what could be done, that day.


--Andy

[_sabotage_]

What laws of physics were broken that day Andy?

[AndyDufresne]

I think the topic just needed a motivational speech, as if we just beat the state champs.


--Andy