I support an alternative conspiracy theory.

[dougolat]

17. Thank you, I'm sympathetic. And to continue with the Tonkin anology...

it's a lot like acknowledging the nefarious intent of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution but still denying the bad intentions displayed in the precipitating Incident.
We have a clear statement if intent from PNAC on June 3, 1997, followed by "Rebuilding America's Defenses" and "Present Dangers" in 2000, and backed up by 10 official letters and 4 statements, the signers of which were and are in positions to help "make it so", and affirmed by Gen. Wesley Clark in 2003, that there was the intention to "take down" 7 nations in 5 years. One can refer to the chart at www.publiceye.org/pnac.chart/pnac.html
Now, after 9/11, a "Christian" nation might have impressed the world by "forgiving your enemy" and "turning the other cheek" and a nation under the rule of law might have investigated the crime, but what actually happened might best be described as a "war-machine run amok." Let's not forget the complicity of the "owned" media, either, serving neither the public interest nor the cause of truth and honesty.
This "war machine run amok" meme can be seen elsewhere and more currently, such as in Ukraine, where Nuland and Kagan (PNAC) morphed an effort to prosecute a truly corrupt elected leader into a violently divisive coup. This, in former Soviet Union countries, where our promise that NATO would not expand "one inch" has morphed into "every last inch." Cold War manipulation, provocation, and betrayal, more than two decades out of date.
The world faces impending disasters galore and we're busy "killing millions and harming billions to steal trillions" - it's diabolically tragic!

So, we've got the dangerous war-machine that Eisenhower warned us about (they cooked up and approved Northwoods, the Bay of Pigs, and our involvement in Viet Nam on his watch) and a host of bad-actors eager to take the reins, going into the 2000 election. They steal the election, take power, and spend the next half year installing "their" people in crucial positions. They also scuttle Clinton's anti-terrorist efforts and re-schedule multiple recurring war games to all occur simultaneously in early September. Then comes our day of "Shock and Awe" and the Official Conspiracy Theory.
What can I say? There is simply no part of it that does not qualify as the very model of "Unsupported and Illogical", from the supposed Saudi hi-jackers with CIA expedited passports, thru the unproven plane-boarding, and the preposterous take-over scenarios, and the hinkey phone calls (to which Rebekah Roth has recently pointed out yet more failings), etc,etc.
OK, I've got to stop, lest I go on all day and night, steaming with indignation- but honestly how can anyone deny the importance of the war-games? The regular scramble jets and people scattered to the west and Europe, yet no pause in the ordinary lower level training missions in recognition of that unusual circumstance? The radar distractions, insertions, interruptions, and irregularities? The extra, pretend hijackings, some even live flights? The key anti-terrorism personnel off in Monterrey? The fill-in people, unfamiliar with their roles, procedures, and expected contacts? The communication interruptions and confusion ("...or is this real-world?&quot ? Who the frack can dismiss all that?
Another biggie, the towers' structural failure of the cores: Those fires could have gone on for a decade and the bulk of the structural steel would still have FULL STRENGTH! Partial damage to the top 1.4% (by weight- tower 1) can cause the rest to fail? Really? Two of the strongest buildings ever erected, there's virtually nothing that could be done from the top that could make the lower third or so of those cores to fail like we saw/see, up to and including such over-kill (for the rest of the building) as dropping aircraft carriers on them, so their failure indicates something more, probably causing the lingering hot-spots; and denials of the myriad reports, recordings, and indications of explosions, as well as the wildly inflated estimates of their required loudness, are pointedly obfuscatory and largely merit-less (sorry, team, no ceegar).
Let's skip the rest of the failures of the OCT, for a moment, and consider our eager "world domination gang"; they've got their wished for pearl harbor, wrapped with a bow that says Muslim, what do they do with it? Time to push for war-powers and the Patriot Act (a ready PNAC package, that)and get started on the Middle East disruption. There will be opposition, so that calls for deploying some super-secret, illegal, military anthrax with a crude Muslim label: never mind that the story won't hold water in the long term, it's first impressions that matter here, and you never get a second chance to make a first impression. The war powers authorization that got passed was more sold as a bargaining chip to use in negotiations than a go-ahead for Wild-West vigilantism, but it worked.
So, no, I don't require belief in any pet theory, but those who defend the craziest theory of all, I must assume, are speaking from ignorance, connivance, or blind faith like the creationists, and to ignore all the incriminating indications of intention behind it all is yet more of the same.
Need I remind you of what Karl Rove said?
"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality, and when you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will = we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out....and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do!"