Well, put as succinctly as possible, I don't particularly agree with you (though that's not to say I entirely disagree either). However, I don't really have any interest in discussing politics on Videosift. For the meantime at least, I merely wish to combat the superfluity of fallacious empirical claims made by the 9/11 fantasists and would-be historical revisionists who seem to have found something of a safe-haven here.

Firstly, initially, you claimed (and linked to a selective quotation on a hard-left blog to support the claim) that the CIA has clearly and straightforwardly given up both the tracking of and, more generally, the hunt for Osama bin Laden. I merely pointed out that that claim is simply false.

Secondly, you now seem to be suggesting one should arbitrarily disbelieve the parts of the article that contradict said claim whilst continuing to believe those parts that, when orphaned, seem to support it.

Thirdly, you're committing the begging the question fallacy by presupposing the truth of (and also my acceptance of) said claim. In actuality, the question of whether or not the CIA has simply given up on such activities is precisely the point at issue.

Fourthly, regardless, none of this seems to constitute compelling evidence that 9/11 was a conspiracy.

Fifthly, yes, thank you, I have.

Well, if you'd actually bothered to read the article itself (as opposed to a selective quotation on a hard-left blog), you'd have probably seen the following:

The realignment reflects a view that Al Qaeda is no longer as hierarchical as it once was, intelligence officials said, and a growing concern about Qaeda-inspired groups that have begun carrying out attacks independent of Mr. bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Agency officials said that tracking Mr. bin Laden and his deputies remained a high priority, and that the decision to disband the unit was not a sign that the effort had slackened. Instead, the officials said, it reflects a belief that the agency can better deal with high-level threats by focusing on regional trends rather than on specific organizations or individuals.

Well, I can tell you what it doesn't say: It doesn't say that the intelligence services are any less devoted to tracking him or that they no longer consider him an important target; it doesn't say that 9/11 was a conspiracy, either.

There have been some thoughtful points made in the last four posts and they deserve a considered reply. Perhaps I'll get round to that at a later date. For now though, I'll just address your two-part question, Constitutional_Patriot.

Firstly, yes, I think it's perfectly reasonable for the FBI to have gathered as much evidence as possible in the immediate aftermath of the event (and I suspect the conspiracy theorists would be amongst the first to cry foul had they done anything else). Secondly, as far as I'm aware, there were only three security tapes capturing anything of the impact sequestered at that time. A few frames from the Pentagon tape were released immediately, but the rest of the footage remained confidential as it might have been needed during the Moussaoui trial. Since his conviction though, all three have been released.

I didn't claim that the fact that I mentioned the evidence shows that a Flight 77 hit the Pentagon; I claimed that the existence of that evidence shows that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon. Either way however, you're attempting to shift the burden of proof. It's not my responsibility to show that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon. It's your responsibility to prove that it was a cruise missile. Also, you claim that the engine wreckage wasn't recovered; well, have a look at the following photographs: A, B, C, and D.

I see you're trying to frame things as though you've become unbearably frustrated with my supposed inability to comprehend your theory and have given up on the discussion. Clearly though, that's not what's actually happened; for one thing, so far, you've supplied me with only the most elusive fragments of your entire hypothesis, so I could hardly have been expected to understand the whole thing. In reality, the reason you've fled is because every piece of alleged evidence you've presented has either straightforwardly been shown to be utterly wrong or clearly exposed as deceptive; every piece of counterevidence has been completely ignored by yourself so as not to interfere with your ongoing fantasy.

Quite how your theory is realistically compatible with your belief that Flight 77 didn't hit the Pentagon would make for an interesting discussion, I'm sure. Well, either way, if you ever come across anything remotely resembling compelling evidence for your claims, be sure to let me know.

Oh yes, the "incessant chatter." How shallow, trite and superficial we must be for engaging in it. Unlike your sophisticated self, of course, who simply chooses one and a half issues to pick over.

I'm not entirely certain what you're trying to communicate with your second point, but I was merely pointing out that the original poster seemingly held two mutually contradictory conspiratorial beliefs simultaneously. (Those being "The government ignored the warnings!" and "The government destroyed the buildings themselves!")

I have no real interest in critiquing the actual content of the Project for a New American Century Report itself. It could well be utterly ludicrous (and given who wrote it, that would hardly come as a surprise). What I was saying, however, is that one contributor had completely the wrong impression of its nature. Also, you seem to be claiming that the sentence "[T]he process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event--like a new Pearl Harbor" means "[T]he process of transformation... is likely to be far too long a one, therefore we need to engineer a catastrophic and catalyzing event--like a new Pearl Harbor." Clearly though, there's no reason to think that it means any such thing. Further, given that the kinds of satellites, missile defense systems etc. in question are practically useless for fighting a non-lateral "war on terror", 9/11 could hardly be considered an effective tool in securing them.

I'm not certain whether the above post has moved down the thread due to some kind of error or whether it's been resubmitted. Either way, I address it in the two posts above.

You're being dishonest again. You know full well I'm not criticising you because you "don't like" my comment. I'm criticising you because you took one fragment of one sentence completely out of context in order to make it appear to mean something that it does not. In other words, you deceitfully and intentionally misrepresented it. Previously, I'd assumed that you'd merely been haplessly misled by the conspiracy theorists. You've now clearly shown, however, that you're perfectly willing to lie and deceive of your own volition. Further, I notice you've gone rather quiet on the issue on 9/11.

Constitutional_Patriot:

Your last post is extremely disheartening for three prominent reasons:

1. It betrays even further your complete ignorance of even the most fundamental issues surrounding 9/11.
2. It demonstrates that you've been lied to by conspiracy theorists and have simply accepted those lies without question; with even a limited quantity of your own research, you would have disembogued yourself of some of these falsehoods.
3. It shows that you're willing to simply ignore evidence that refutes your theories.

I suspect the reason you find it unusual that none of the World Trade Center towers' cores survived is that you're not a structural engineer. To appeal to one's own personal and laymen's incredulity hardly makes for a compelling argument. Further, I'm not sure what basis you have for your claim that "none of the experts" can agree about the collapse of World Trade Center 7. The official report is still being drawn up, so we don't know whether there's a consensus.

Please realize that the official account of the fate of Flight 77 simply does not claim that the entire plane vaporized. I know that the conspiracy theorists have led you to believe that is does, but they have lied to you. There is overwhelming evidence that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon. This includes (but isn't limited to) dozens of pieces of eyewitness testimony, numberless pieces of recovered debris (including engine wreckage), recovered and functional flight data recorders and the DNA identification of all but one of the passengers. This is the third time that I've referred you to this evidence. You must be straightforwardly and intentionally ignoring it. The engines did leave a rather distinct mark -- they were instrumental in creating the seventy-five foot wide hole in the building. There is absolutely no evidence of a cruise missile. If an amateur pilot with little experience can recreate Hanjour's Pentagon strike in a professional simulator with a consistency level of three successes in three attempts, it's fairly clear that the manoeuvre was nothing like the complex array of aerobatics you've been to led believe it was. Hanjour was a commercially licensed and instrument rated pilot. The chief flight instructor at Hanjour's flight school doesn't seem to foster any of your doubts:

Despite Hanjour's poor reviews, he did have some ability as a pilot, said Bernard of Freeway Airport. "There's no doubt in my mind that once that [hijacked jet] got going, he could have pointed that plane at a building and hit it," he said.

There's no reason to think that the scattering of light debris is incompatible with Flight 93 having been intentionally crashed. If you were to dump a pile of papers and other light materials in the middle of a field, it might not come as an enormous surprise if sometime later they had been scattered -- especially if you'd dumped them there at over five-hundred miles per hour in what basically amounts to a relatively fragile pressurised tube. As I've already pointed out, the flight data recorders and the cockpit voice recorders were recovered. None of the resultant data supports the claim that the plane was shot down. It all supports the conclusion that the plane was intentionally crashed by the hijackers due to a passenger revolt.

Lastly, you seem to be equally ignorant as the nature of the Project for a New American Century Report. It says nothing about "wanting" a new Pearl Harbor. It has nothing to do with pretexts for war, the Patriot Act or, for that, with any civil matters. It pushes for increased military technology spending -- missile defence systems, etc. -- in order to preserve American military prominence.

Well, now I can see that you willfully and intentionally post dishonest and misleading quotations. So, you're deceitful and a liar as well as startlingly ignorant.

Precisely. I've witnessed him making those kinds of conspiratorial claims on a number of occasions now.

Well, this video focuses on the allegations of "missed warnings" and of Pentagon staff apparently lying to cover up their mistakes in dealing with the hijackings. Both of these allegations, of course, are completely incompatible with your claims of bogus plane crashes, thermite and controlled demolitions. So, it seems slightly odd to see you espousing an investigation into them. It appears that even your own fantastical beliefs are internally contradictory.

For what it's worth, (speaking very technically) I agree with you; a conspiracy may exist. It's enormously unlikely and there's nothing in the way of compelling evidence to support the idea, but it's at least possible -- just as it's at least possible that the Earth is really flat and that we're all being lied to as part of some vast and multilateral act of perfidy. None of this, however, renders either flat-earthism or 9/11 conspiracy theories even faintly rational.

Further, there's nothing wrong with my reading comprehension. In your second post in this thread, you straightforwardly claimed that Gross denies the existence of any molten material and also that the video doesn't specifically refer to steel. Both of these claims are simply false. Moreover, there's nothing to suggest that Gross was unaware of the existence of molten materials at the site; there's nothing to suggest he was unaware of intense heat at the site either. Something he does claim to be unaware of is the supposed thermographic images which show temperatures compatible with molten steel. There's a good reason for this -- the images in question show no such thing. Incidentally, given that the NIST report explicitly mentions the molten material and concludes that it's probably aluminum, it's perfectly clear that they're well aware of it.