9/11 conspiracy theories

Re: 9/11: Real or fake?

This is not a debate. Sorry. I have read the conspiracy theories because of threads posted on here and can't believe some of what I have seen.

I stood on my roof and watched the whole thing. Within 5 to 10 minutes of the first plane hitting, I was standing on my roof watching the building burn. I had as clear a view of the buildings as anyone can have. I live extremely close to where they were and had nothing impeding the view. We (several of my neighbors) weren't quite sure if it was terrorism. At that point it could have been an accident, but we were discussing it, when all of a sudden we saw the second plane come in very low out of the south, very slowly for a jet. I can still hear one of my neighbors yelling, "oh no! on no! on no!" right before the plane hit the building. It's ingrained in my memory. We stood up there and watched for however long it was until the two towers collapsed. We have the best view you can imagine of lower Manhattan, and we saw the thousands of people streaming over the bridge to try to get the hell out of Manhattan. The sight of each building collapsing is ingrained in my head, too. I cried that day.

The wind was blowing right at us and we got blanketed with debris. I couldn't even step outside my apartment for more than half a day because you couldn't see 10 feet ahead of you and the air was unbreathable. There was no phone service, and my cell phone worked maybe once out of every 40 times I tried to dial someone.

I know more people than I can even count who died. A few I knew well, a few just in passing. There was nothing fake about how they died. The firehouse less than two blocks from where I live lost several men. I got to know the guys there because of this. I had never even given much thought to what they did before that day.

I have never felt that uncertain in my life. It felt like armagedon to me; no exaggeration. I live near a natural sort of landmark/meeting area with enough space, so there was a vigil right outside where I live every day for a month. I have never seen New York like that. People genuinely felt connected -- even if they felt sad and devastated. It's amazing that it took something horrific to spur such a feeling of brotherhood. I got to know so many neighbors I had never bothered to get to know in the months after 9/11 and found out what great people they are.

When I finally got past my depression -- and I was more down than I have ever been -- I decided I was going to do everything I personally could to pitch in. I am not that kind of person usually, and a lot of people wanting to "volunteer" were useless or just not needed because they couldn't be utilized well. You can't imagine what that site looked like and just how difficult it was clearing it--while a lot of the emergency crew felt a frantic obligation to look for bodies (in most cases body parts) at the same time they were clearing to sight to wipe away the memory. They were able to put me to use, and there I was several days a week, on a schedule that a friend got me onto, wearing a hard hat and a filter over my mouth, and the whole time I felt like it was my personal obligation to clear the site as quickly as possible. If I wasn't needed on site, I was serving food with the Red Cross volunteers. I still have some of my closest friends from "bonding" at the site of the most horrific thing I have ever personally witnessed.

From talking to others, I don't think some people who don't live around here can grasp the gravity of what happened. Those buildings were huge. When you stepped outside my building, they were the first thing you saw. They dominated the area. The site encompasses more area than a lot of people can imagine. And the general pall the whole thing put over New York for about a year is unlike everything I have ever experienced.

People who want to turn everything into a conspiracy or think of things like this as abstract events (like some kind of CGI effect that was staged) will believe whatever it is they have bouncing around in their heads. It's not "real" to them. I am not going to be able to convince them otherwise. But I watched that plane hit that building with my own eyes and I watched three buildings crumble. I saw the fires. I personally saw the devastating effect it had on various people from different walks of life. And in the aftermath, I got to know every inch of that grotesque site in a way that people who never got in can't imagine. There was nothing fake or staged about what happened. I can't even debate it. There is no earthy reason anyone would stage something like that and logistically there is no way possible it could have been staged with some unknown motive being kept hidden. There are just too many people who would have had to have been in on the "plot" and the whole world isn't evil and that close-mouthed.

I'm stopping by the firehouse tonight and giving to the widows and orphans fund for the future. I really don't even give a shit if they just use it for beer money. They deserve it. Not that I needed the reminder, but every time I see the word conspiracy associated with what happened, I feel obligated to do right by SOMEONE who was affected by something that was very REAL, just so they know people haven't forgotten.

 

Re: 9/11: Real or fake?

George Bush is a dolt. But 9/11 is NOT the fault of anyone but a bunch of horrific bastards who committed mass murder on a grand scale. What pisses me off most is when people try to Monday Morning Quarterback this. I'm sorry, but we are constantly under threat, and there isn't some Big Brother infrastructure that can thwart every plot and make us safe all the time. Every time a piece of intelligence of any sort comes in -- and at that time, no one imagined something like 9/11, so they had no idea how seriously to take it compared to the millions of other threats prior to then that had never resulted in mass murder and a national tragedy -- we can't suddenly ground every flight to retool jets or lock down every port or declare martial law and try to put a bubble over the country to keep everyone safe. They deal with so much BS and generally have no idea how credible anything is.

Pointing fingers at anyone but the people who perpetrated mass murder, puts the focus in the wrong place. People can criticize George Bush all they want, as far as I am concerned, for his performance AFTER 9/11. But 9/11 was not his -- or anyone else's -- fault, other than a bunch of murderers who did something we really couldn't have conceived of until that day--regardless of some obscure intelligence memo that someone wants to point to after the fact.