It’s a bit shocking to me when I see people online putting 9/11 conspiracies in the same box as “MAGA” conspiracies (for lack of a better term, sorry).
For reference, I was 24 in 2001 living in central NJ. Even without social media or fake news websites or what cable news has become today, I have vivid memories of people having the firm belief that there was something up with the attack on 9/11. Was this just my social circle?
Jet fuel melting steel beams was one of the more fringe and unfounded (and quickly debunked) ideas but the rest of everything on that day was questionable. Tower seven falling, the missing plane debris at the pentagon and central PA, the military / president not responding to known threats, if a person with limited flight time could hit a tower, the fact that Bush attacked a country that had nothing to do with the event, and so much more are still, I thought, reasonable questions - especially when looked at together.
This is not about rehashing each theory. Or maybe it is? Have I missed that everything has been debunked?
I mean, I still believe 9/11 was an inside job or at least high level officials, including Bush, were aware it was going to happen and did nothing to stop it. I thought this was still a common opinion of most or many Americans over the age of forty.
“Conspiracy” covers a lot of area.
There’s people that think explosives were planted because “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams” and they’ve always been ridiculed.
There are people that look at facts that the different intelligence agencies had all the information to put it together, but due to Dick Cheney requiring each agency only report to him, he was the only one that saw every piece of the puzzle and would have known enough to stop it. GW didn’t even know enough, because Cheney was the only one talking directly to GW.
So some people have always thought Cheney (whether on his own or not) allowed 9/11 to happen to justify the wars he started under Regean and HW to continue indefinitely.
There’s people who claim Israel funded and caused it, when there isn’t really any evidence.
There’s people who claim Israeli spies were caught celebrating… But that was undocumented immigrants celebrating they got the day off work.
https://www.thejc.com/news/world/who-were-the-dancing-israelis-of-9-11-c7f9b960
That’s how conspiracy theories spread.
They took a kernal.of truth and build on it till it becomes something completely out of control.
Immediately after 9/11 everyone had questions and that’s 100% normal, I think that’s what you’re remembering.
It’s not the same as insisiting an unfounded conspiracy theory was true based on spurious evidence.
Thank you for the most thoughtful and direct answer.