[JWsleep]

Sorry, Daseal, but I spend a lot of time defending myself and my liberal beliefs against my more conservative friends and relatives, and they are always running at me with this "loony left" label. So when my fellow anti-bush folk, like yourself, even bring this sort of thing up, it pushes my buttons.

A conspiricy of this magnitude is, well, off the chart implausible. Just consider the number of poeple that have to be in on it. And consider how sophisticated it must be. Do you really think such a thing could go on in our government? I don't mean because of their noble character or anything, I just mean, do you really think they could do this, logistically and strategically?

Here's another hypothesis: on September 11th, al Queda opertatives, under opertational orders from Kahlid Sheik Mohammed, hijacked 4 planes, crashed 2 of them into the WTC, one into the pentagon, and the other crashed in PA when the people on board resisted. They did this to further the worldwide aims of their organization: to rid the middle east of non-muslims, to assert sharia law throughout the region, and to overcome what they see as the enemies of Islam. This includes many current Arab regeims that are seen as pro-Western: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan. Morocco, etc. The hijakings served to stirke at the American enemy in his homeland, to destabilize the world situation, particularly with regard to the middle east, and to generate support for al Queda through publicity. There is considerable evidence for this hypothesis, and it must be ruled out before alternatives are embraced.

Bringing this rival conspiricay view into the conversation serves to discredit those who even consider it. I mean that. If you are not already talking to those who are SO anti-Bush, anti-Military, anti-Globalization, etc. that they've departed from the conversation already, people are just going to label you a nut, and ignore what you are saying from now on, even if your later comments make sense. Do you really want to undermine yourself (not to mention your allies against Bush, like myself) in this way? From a dialectic point of view, from a political point of view, and from a stragtegic point of view, bringing this hypothesis into the debate is an error. I am in no way endorsing censorship; rather, I am arguing that, if a hypothesis is so outlandish that it is irrational to support it, you will appear irrational, and thus irrelvant to future debate, if you intoroduce it into the conversation.

Finally, imagine that the standard hypothesis is true. Then bringing the rival view up is very troubling, because it deflects the proper moral blame from the real criminals. It's a little like saying "hey, maybe Hitler didn't kill the jews." This is very different, Gmanc, from bringing up Tupac or the Moon stuff. It is WAY more morally loaded, in part because of the horrific results of this act, and in part because it risks deflecting blame (and perhaps even aiding the casue of) the terrorists who did this. It's not like speculating if Suge really did in Tupac; it's a different kind of thing. Given that this is a skins site, I bet we all have friends, family, maybe even ourselves, who were in downtown DC that day; maybe we even lost people (both That Guy and Skinsfan have already said they had people at risk). Those planes were aimed at us. One of the longest days of my life was waiting to hear from my sister, who was working downtown that day. It's not idle specualtion to wonder if maybe al Queda didn't do it; it's not even interesting, I think. It's morally suspect, given the circumstances, and politcally damaging.

PS Despite that, I'm not angry angry that the issue was raised. I love debating these topics, because I think that's how wisdom is generated, and MAN, do we need some wisdom at this point in history. I just think it's important to consider the consequences of bringing this idea up, because the stakes are VERY high.