Who Benefits?

One of the wilder stories circulating about Sept 11 (and one that has attracted something of a cult following amongst conspiracy buffs) is that it was carried out by 19 fanatical Arab hijackers, masterminded by an evil genius named Osama bin Laden, with no apparent motivation other than that they “hate our freedoms.”

Never a group of people to be bothered by facts, the perpetrators of this cartoon fantasy have constructed an elaborately woven web of delusions and unsubstantiated hearsay in order to promote this garbage across the Internet and the media to the extent that a number of otherwise rational people have actually fallen under its spell.

Normally I don't even bother debunking this kind of junk, but the effect that this paranoid myth is beginning to have requires a little rational analysis, in order to consign it to the same rubbish bin as all such silly conspiracy theories.

These crackpots even contend that the extremist Bush regime was caught unawares by the attacks, had no hand in organizing them and actually would have stopped them if it had been able. Blindly ignoring the stand down of the U.S. Air Force, the insider trading on airline stocks (linked to the CIA), the complicit behavior of Bush on the morning of the attacks, the controlled demolition of the WTC, the firing of a missile into the Pentagon and a host of other documented proofs that the Bush regime was behind the attacks, the conspiracy theorists stick doggedly to a silly story about 19 Arab hijackers somehow managing to commandeer four planes simultaneously and fly them around U.S. airspace for nearly two hours, crashing them into important buildings, without the U.S. intelligence services having any idea that it was coming, and without the Air Force knowing what to do.

-- Gerard Holmgren

http://proliberty.com/observer/20030811.htm

If this were any other crime, you'd have secured the crime scene and gone over every shred of it, piece by piece, photographing each item in place, carefully removing and analyzing it and carefully preserving the chain of custody.

You'd have made a list of persons who might have benefitted from the crime.
That boils down to love or money.
Usually, money.
Contrary to the Lennon-McCartney theory on it, money can, indeed, buy you love.

In an arson, the first person you look at is the owner -- especially if he's about to collect on a hefty insurance policy. In a homicide, you check to see if there was a life insurance policy and who the beneficiary is.
That's not Sherlock Holmesian stuff.
That's elementary, my dear Watson.

You'd compile a list of the victims, too, and determine who might have had a reason to kill any of one them. Yes, there are people who would kill a whole building full of innocent people just to "get" one guy, just as there are nations that would bomb a country full of innocent people just to "get" one alleged "bad guy."

You make a list of who had a motive.
Then you'd make a list of who had the means and compare those two.
You'd second-string anyone who didn't have both motive and means.
Then you'd make a list of who had the opportunity and compare/contrast that list, too.

At the end, you'd have a pretty good list of suspects.

Most of the physical evidence has been -- rather hurriedly -- destroyed, something that might get your average detective busted back to foot patrol if he'd let it happen.
But there's still a LOT of witness testimony, photographic evidence and circumstantial evidence (which can be VERY good evidence even though it gets a bum rap on TV) and some trace evidence that has been scientifically analyzed.

If you want to know the truth, follow the evidence.
Even if you don't like where it goes.

If you're one of those who's inclined to "honor" the dead, I suggest the best way to "honor" them is to find out who murdered them and then prosecute the bastards.

If you're not willing to do that, the rest is just fluff.


sj