I just read Vidda Crochetta's Viewpoint [“What lf?,” The Commons, Sept. 15] about the possibility that the World Trade Center attacks were an internal demolition job.
It was the first in-depth article I had read on this topic and I found it fascinating. I am aware that this belief is shared by some individuals. Various people with whom I have spoken have expressed this opinion when the World Trade Center tragedy has come up in conversation.
However, the article raises more questions than it answers for me. I find myself both intrigued and horrified by the idea.
My first thought was, can this be proved, or are we just spinning our wheels again? And who would be willing to take on the momentous task of proving it? This would far exceed the complexity of the conspiracy theories surrounding President Kennedy's assassination - and we are still not any closer to the truth of that than we were 47 years ago.
Has there been any public television coverage of this theory which I may have missed? I wouldn't necessarily expect to see it on commercial television, but if the theory has any validity at all, I would have expected a show with the integrity of ||Frontline|| to have explored this idea.
Is this a theory that is just too frightening to consider and nobody wants to touch it? If there is such overwhelming evidence for collusion by corporations and government, why isn't someone exposing it in the public media? Why isn't it a cover story on Time or Newsweek? This would be great material for a Hollywood movie.
Maybe the answers to these questions should be obvious but I feel that there has to be some type of mainstream coverage of this idea, or people will just not buy it.
But the primary concern I have, one that is not addressed in the article, is this: if the author's demolition theory is true, then the attacks on the buildings by the planes would have to have been orchestrated as a diversion to cover up the fact that the World Trade Center was actually imploding from the inside from explosives. Was it just a tragic coincidence that the planes were attacking the buildings at the same time? I don't think so.
It seems that the author is suggesting that, at the very high levels of government, the U.S. was in collusion with al-Qaida. Although I am sure it would not take much for us to have convinced al-Qaida to destroy the World Trade Center, it really is a huge stretch of the imagination (for me anyway) to believe that our government and corporations would seek out this cooperation to arrange such an attack, all for the purposes of destroying government records, corporate greed, and God knows what else. It just seems highly improbable.
And how would the simultaneous attacks on the Pentagon and the jetliner in Pennsylvania be explained? Why weren't the attacks just limited to the World Trade Center? Was this again just part of a massive diversion to lead people away from any possible conspiracy theory?
Finally, I would like to see what the public reaction would be if this theory was advanced by more political moderates. I don't know how much credence people will give to the author's opinions because, as he already stated, his theory will be considered to be that of another of those left-wing kooks.
Has anyone ever done a research survey concerning what percentage of the American public actually believes the WTC collapse was a conspiracy?
If so, I'd really like to see the results of such a survey. Why do we hardly ever hear anything at all about this? Is it because the whole concept is just too ridiculous, or would it be too painful for relatives of the survivors to handle?
My final thought - if it was a collusion, it will probably never be provable. And I would need a lot more convincing to believe it.
If we still have doubts about what really happened to President Kennedy, how would we ever get to the bottom of this? So should we waste our time and energy debating this idea or instead devote our efforts towards issues where we can make a difference?
As we've seen from the Wall Street debacle, the obscene activities of corporations and our government are way beyond the control of the average citizen or voter. Would an investigation (even if proven to be correct) really change anything?